The Red Sox are throwing their financial muscle around again this offseason, but can you really say that their moves thus far have inspired your confidence? I can’t.
I’m an equal-opportunity hater, if you will. My suspicions start with Daisuke Matsuzaka, peak with J.D. Drew, and touch upon Julio Lugo before finally dwindling down to an overall sense of impending disaster.
You might ask, why such angst? Theo is only doing what he’s doing because the market dictates it: with the collective bargaining agreement behind them and 6 years of security ahead, baseball’s GM’s are merely making an investment in the sport they oversee, the sport that is clearly doing better than ever from a financial perspective. Has Theo’s spending really been so gawdy when compared to that of his fellow GM’s? I wrote a piece about this on my MVN.com Devil Rays site a couple weeks ago: I won’t bore you with the details, but let it be enough to say that I’m horrified both by 1) the levels of spending I’ve seen this winter as well as by 2) the questionable players upon whom such lavishness has been bestowed.
In that sense, I suppose Theo is doing better than most of his peers. As many questions as surround J.D. Drew, I guess I hafta admit that it could be a heckuva lot worse: he ain’t Gary Matthews. As many questions as surround Julio Lugo, he ain’t Fat Albert … I mean Carlos Lee.
Now I’m not Sean (hi Sean!). I try to be guardedly optimistic when I can be. But this was a pretty bare free agent crop, in my estimation, so I have to admit to a little confusion when I see ginormous sums of money being handed out to mediocre ballplayers. I mean, honestly, I know I’m not the first to say this, but in a salary atmosphere (stratosphere?) like the current one, geez, even Manny’s contract doesn’t look so bad after all. Or in other words, if mediocre ballplayers can be considered to be worth this much, how much is a truly good player worth?
I don’t like it. There’s too much money flying around. And we’re one of the principal culprits. I have to be honest with you: I was nothing less than appalled when I learned of the amount of money we bid to acquire the rights to Matsuzaka. Christ alive, there are whole nations in the world that couldn’t afford $51m of discretionary spending. I know my state couldn’t afford it.
But maybe that’s a reality we have to face. The state of Rhode Island contains slightly more than a million residents. How many members does Red Sox Nation have? Many more than 1 million. 10m? 15m? Thanks to the electronic innovations of the last 100 years, we live at a point in time in which a sports team can be more powerful than a political entity.
Point is that we’re in an unprecedented era of wealth for Major League Baseball. How can we not be? Sakes, even the Kansas City Royals are dishing out $50m contracts. The Royals! If there’s one thing I simply do not want to hear anytime soon, it’s the preposterous claim that any MLB franchise is losing money.
But regardless of the amount of money in question, what I really dislike about our signings is the selection of players upon whom we’re bestowing this money. OK, so maybe it’s a down year for the free agent talent pool while we’re on an upswing in the salary cycle. Maybe it’s the best we can do. But I’m sorry, it still looks pretty shabby to me. How’s that line go? A pig in a tux, is what I see here.
J.D. Drew for 5 years? I fail to see the logic in behind this move. Why are we not resigning Trot Nixon at a much lower salary? Well because Nixon is aging and injury-prone, a bad combination. But hey, Drew ain’t much younger — 2 years — and is famously injury-prone, so have we really improved our situation with the extra money spent? But if you say that Trot was fading, well fine then, it didn’t even have to be Trot. It could have been anybody, so why Drew? Why a guy whose situation is eerily similar to the situation we’re trying to escape? And if Nixon was a problem being injury-prone at the age of 32, how is the much-maligned Drew going to be at 34? About the only thing to like about this move is that it guarantees Wily Mo playing time. That said, though, I look at our starting outfield and think to myself that maybe we ought to hold onto all our cards: between Drew & Manny, you know somebody is going to miss playing time, which means that our 4th outfielder had better be darn good. And that’s a problem because we need a closer, and our surplus of outfielders appears to be the only way in which we might acquire a suitable closer, inasmuch as the free agent market (to reiterate) is lacking. But if our surplus of outfielders isn’t really a surplus because we have to hedge our bets in case somebody gets injured, well, you see the dilemma. Gagne or bust? Uh huh, backing yourself into a corner, now thaaaaat’s a good business strategy for you.
Julio Lugo? I consider myself a fan: he was a very good player for the Devil Rays. But I’m sorry, I look at this deal, and all I see is another RRRedgar RRRenteria (you have to pronounce that in a Scoobie Doo voice) waiting to happen. I give this deal 3 years tops before we ship him off to, let’s say, Pittsburgh, sending a top prospect and a small mountain of cash with him to compensate our trade partner for their being so kind as to take him off our hands.
And Matsuzaka? I’m not worried that we won’t sign him. Actually, that’s the least of my many concerns. It makes no sense for anybody if Matsuzaka goes back to Japan. It’s my opinion that, as the negotiating deadline approaches, the involved parties will become very cooperative. And as a matter of fact, I happen to agree with Boras in a way: the Sox are trying to play both sides of the fence here. After all, we did bid $51m to get the rights to the guy, which tells me that the Sox must consider him to be an extraordinary pitcher. But now that they (exclusively) have his rights, they’re hemming and hawing and acting like he’s some shmuck or any other unproven rookie. Please. Stop lowballing the man, quit screwing around, and give him his payday already. But putting aside all talk of money for a few moments, have you looked at Masuzaka’s numbers in Japan ball? I mean, have you looked at them? I linked to them before, but I’ll link to them again just because I’m a nice guy. Sure the ERA’s are good, but you’d expect that: it’s a AAAA league. The control is great, which is nice to see, but what I especially note are the K, Hit, and HR rates. And those, while respectable, don’t awe me. They should. And they don’t. The guy is a mere mortal. The scouts drool over him, telling us what good stuff he has, but what does that really mean? Scouts drool over Josh Beckett too. Great arm, yeah, but can he pitch? I look at Matsuzaka’s numbers, and I think one thing: in Matsuzaka, Red Sox fans are more likely to see the second coming of Dan Haren than the are to see the second coming of Pedro Martinez or Roger Clemens. But it cost no talent to acquire him! It’s only money, right?
Right?
All in all, I’m a bit disturbed by what has happened this offseason. I’m disturbed for my Red Sox, who are spending a godawful lot of money that might not really address the team’s problems. And I’m disturbed for my Devil Rays, for whom life has become a lot harder in oh, the last month or so. I’m disturbed for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that Major League Baseball (from my point of view) seems to have been possessed with a madness that appears to be contagious. I could be wrong. Only time will tell about that, I suppose.
Wouldn’t be the first time.
