FanPost

Collecting Assets and My Money

Hi there, my name is J. . . not Tim Naehring. I’m new to this whole writing thing and a new member of the OTM community. I was essentially brainwashed from a young ago to love the Red Sox by my father, which used to be a death sentence in many ways growing up literally on the RSN/Evil empire border. Obviously, things have changed quite a bit since 2003 (The-Manager-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named aside) and the ride has been a complete pleasure. It is somewhat strange hearing my father complain for 45 minutes about how we insulted Jon Lester with our initial contract offer then follow that up by saying that he never thought he’d see one championship, never mind three, so anything from here on out is gravy.

I am not in the same position. Now I live a little closer to Boston and can take public transportation to games if I feel like getting to know 25 of my new best friends a little bit more intimately on the Green line. I really enjoy going to playoff baseball games. Let me rephrase that, I really enjoy completely demolishing my finances every year around October. $9 beer is a little more palatable when I’m watching Wil Myers miss a fly-ball from the Bud Deck. In the midst of attending two of my least favorite games ever in ALCS game 1 and halfway through game 2, I sent this text from my RF Field Box seat to my friend’s RF Field Box seat:

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Obviously, things changed pretty quickly.

Needless to say, I’d like to blow my budget a little bit more in future Octobers and that is why I’m here. I’d like to try my hand (hands?) at writing and what better time than now as the Red Sox have raised the white flag for this year and are aiming somewhat surprisingly at next year. Let’s analyze how my money can be transferred to being John Henry and Co. money. Let’s talk about those 2014 Red Sox for a minute.

No One Knows the Plan. . . And That’s OK

Let’s be honest, nobody knows what the Red Sox are going to look like next year in terms of players. In fact, how many players are you willing to bet your first born will be in a Sox uniform next year? I have two, Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz. That’s it! Two players! Who else could you possibly add to that list? Out of a list of Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr, Christian Vazquez, Will Middlebrooks, Yoenis Cespedes, Allen Craig, Mookie Betts, or any of the 10 pitchers under the age of 26 that are under extended team control would you not make available for Giancarlo Stanton or Tulo? Let’s be realistic. Our front office is bananas (in a traditional sense) and is willing to make virtually anyone available for the right price. Between Nomar, Nick Punto, and Jon Lester, I think we should all admit that we have limited ideas of who the Red Sox are willing to trade and absolutely NO IDEA who they are going to deal for. I only suggest Stanton and Tulo because, really, no one knows who is going to be available at the right price, not even Ben Cherington.

That brings us to asset collection. Between prospects and young MLB talent, the Red Sox have about 20-25 somewhat valuable trading chips ranging from lottery ticket add-on to the #29th most valuable trade asset in the game according to Dave Cameron of Fangraphs. If we would make a quick SWOT analysis of the Red Sox, we could come to a few different conclusions. In addition to those trade chips I just mentioned, the Red Sox have a ton of money available to them for next year with so much payroll coming off the books. According to Baseball Prospectus, it looks like they have somewhere in the neighborhood of $75M to spend on new contracts this coming offseason. The weaknesses are pretty well stated; we gave away ALLLL THE PITCHERSSSS essentially at the deadline and now are dealing with the JV starting rotation. It’s not that the JV team is terrible, they just got promoted to the main stage and we don’t know if they are going to be amazing, pee their pants bad or somewhere in between. Put your money on somewhere in between.

The opportunities concerning free agents are pitching, expensive pitching, even more expensive pitching, and Hanley Ramirez. Also, I hear that there is an intriguing pitcher that Oakland probably can’t afford to resign (we’re not signing him but I am more than happy to eat my words along with Turkey this coming Thanksgiving). The Red Sox tried to address their offense at the deadline and we’ll have 53 games to see if it’s somewhat fixed or not. Hopefully we’re just one affordable bat and an improving Xander Bogaerts away from having a decent offense again. If our pitchers hit the fan the rest of the year, there is room this offseason to get something (Jim Shields?) in the way of free agents. However, our largest threat may perhaps be the Blue Jays and Yankees opening up their respective purses and jumping on the Lester or Scherzer bandwagon. Only time will tell.

With all this said, if you’re at the edge of the bridge and considering jumping, don’t. If I cannot convince you by player personnel, Ben Cherington’s brain, or the millions of dollars that will be spent this off-season, let me convince you with this: As much as I want to give my money to John Henry next October, he probably wants to receive that money even more than I want to give it to him. Let’s trust that a man that is worth $1.6B according to Forbes will find a way to get my October money at some point in the near future.