As we enter 2010 the Red Sox have made large strides to lock up the core of their young players through their arbitration and early free agency years. That raises the question why the Red Sox have apparently made no attempts to start talks to extend him through arbitration starting next season.
Obviously from the title I think the first reason is his agent. Scott Boras as of 2005 had a league average winning percentage in arbitration according to this
THT article by Dave Studman. So there isn't a reason to think he will be tougher to handle in front of an arbitrator. As usual though it will be tough to address his free agency years with Boras who stands strong for getting his clients to free agency as soon as possible.
Perhaps we think Elsbury will be different, but there is a reason he signed with Boras and it won't be easy. We all know Theo Epstein likes to avoid arbitration, but will he want to lock up Ellsbury and can he? While we make a lot of comments here about Ellsbury's defense and inability to walk it's pretty sure the Red Sox think Ellsbury can be the 3.4 WAR player from 2008 again.
March 18, 2010
Troy Patterson
