Last offseason, the Red Sox front office lost Jason Bay to free agency largely due to phantom health concerns. This year's free agency period is still young but today, according to a few media outlets, they lost free agent Victor Martinez to the Detroit Tigers. Needless to say, this is a major loss for Boston.
I was hoping this was not going to happen but saw it coming a long time ago, which is why I felt the Sox needed to get a longterm deal done with him prior to the start of last season. Still, I didn't expect the team with the second-highest payroll in baseball ($170 million payroll in 2010) to get outbid by any team (not named the New York Yankees) for V-Mart, let alone an average club like the Tigers.
This is a Red Sox team that is, after all, overpaying Daisuke Matsuzaka as well as the best DH in the game, David Ortiz, the latter by about $6 million. If you have to overpay for V-Mart, so what? Dice-K and Ortiz likely won't be around a few years into a new V-Mart contract anyway. And, owner John W. Henry just bought an international soccer team (Liverpool F.C.).
Therefore, money should not be the issue here, but that and apparently longevity was, since Detroit reportedly offered V-Mart $50 million over four years, while the Red Sox gave him a choice of $36 million over three years, or $42 million over four years. If these figures are true, Epstein has some explaining to do, as this makes the Sox organization look cheap.
He was willing to overrate J.D. ("DL") Drew and give him $70 million over five years ($15 million per year) at the age of 31. Yet V-Mart, at this same age and with much more durability (despite his thumb injury in 2010 that kept him out of 22 games), flexibility on the field and leadership skills, gets no more than three or four years? This doesn't make any sense.
This article was first published earlier today and can be read in full at Blogcritics Magazine
Showing posts with label Daisuke Matsuzaka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Daisuke Matsuzaka. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Nomar Comes Home To Boston & Other Sox News & Notes
The following post appeared at Blogcritics Magazine yesterday, May 10, 2010. It's title has been changed for this post The following is an excerpt.
The Return of Nomar Garciaparra
On Cinco de Mayo, the Red Sox brought forever Sox fan favorite Nomar Garciaparra (who is of Mexican descent) back to Fenway to throw out the ceremonial first pitch to former Sox and Georgia Tech teammate Jason Varitek before the third Sox-Angels game of the week. With wife and superstar athlete Mia Hamm on the field watching, along with good friends and ex-teammates Trot Nixon, Lou Merloni, Tim Wakefield and Brian Daubach, it was a pretty cool and nostalgic pregame celebration much like Pedro Martinez’s (surprise) pregame first pitch on Opening Night.
Good for the organization for doing that for Nomar. Now let me say this.
The Boston sports media types (Dan Shaughnessy, Steve Buckley) still think they know better than the rest of us fans, but the fact is that Nomar never wanted to stop playing baseball in Boston, no matter how frustrated and bitter at the organization he was (for trying to trade him for A-Rod and others after the 2003 season and other reasons). He was eventually traded to the Cubs in July 2004 because at the time, the Sox were playing .500 baseball and the infield needed a major makeover defensively to help out the pitching staff (enter: Orlando Cabrera, Dave Roberts and Doug Mientkiewicz). It’s as simple as that.
Though no Sox fans were comfortable seeing Nomar forced out of town at the time, they accepted the new faces that came via Sox general manager Theo Epstein’s mid-2004 trades, and watched as they helped the Sox win a historic and long overdue Red Sox championship that fall. From then on, Sox fans and the baseball world altogether saw Nomar become the Ken Griffey Jr. of the infield — in that he had Hall of Fame talent but was always getting hurt — right until the end of his career in 2009 in Oakland.
At least Griffey did enough (in the 1990s) before his string of injuries in the 2000s to get into Cooperstown. The shortstop-turned-corner-infielder, on the other hand, with his career .313 BA, 229 HR, 936 RBI and 1747 hits in not even nine relatively full seasons in 14 years of play will unfortunately not get there. But in the Red Sox Hall of Fame, he will. And that will be even more of a cause for celebration for him than throwing out a first pitch.
Recent Red Sox News
When the Red Sox, behind Daisuke Matsuzaka (1-1) beat the Angels Thursday 11-6, it was the first time since the “Impossible Dream” team of 1967 that the Sox achieved a four-game sweep against them at Fenway Park. Also a first: the whole Angels lineup taking the first 14 pitches Dice-K threw before scoring four runs in the first inning of the game.
Read more here
The Return of Nomar Garciaparra
On Cinco de Mayo, the Red Sox brought forever Sox fan favorite Nomar Garciaparra (who is of Mexican descent) back to Fenway to throw out the ceremonial first pitch to former Sox and Georgia Tech teammate Jason Varitek before the third Sox-Angels game of the week. With wife and superstar athlete Mia Hamm on the field watching, along with good friends and ex-teammates Trot Nixon, Lou Merloni, Tim Wakefield and Brian Daubach, it was a pretty cool and nostalgic pregame celebration much like Pedro Martinez’s (surprise) pregame first pitch on Opening Night.
Good for the organization for doing that for Nomar. Now let me say this.
The Boston sports media types (Dan Shaughnessy, Steve Buckley) still think they know better than the rest of us fans, but the fact is that Nomar never wanted to stop playing baseball in Boston, no matter how frustrated and bitter at the organization he was (for trying to trade him for A-Rod and others after the 2003 season and other reasons). He was eventually traded to the Cubs in July 2004 because at the time, the Sox were playing .500 baseball and the infield needed a major makeover defensively to help out the pitching staff (enter: Orlando Cabrera, Dave Roberts and Doug Mientkiewicz). It’s as simple as that.
Though no Sox fans were comfortable seeing Nomar forced out of town at the time, they accepted the new faces that came via Sox general manager Theo Epstein’s mid-2004 trades, and watched as they helped the Sox win a historic and long overdue Red Sox championship that fall. From then on, Sox fans and the baseball world altogether saw Nomar become the Ken Griffey Jr. of the infield — in that he had Hall of Fame talent but was always getting hurt — right until the end of his career in 2009 in Oakland.
At least Griffey did enough (in the 1990s) before his string of injuries in the 2000s to get into Cooperstown. The shortstop-turned-corner-infielder, on the other hand, with his career .313 BA, 229 HR, 936 RBI and 1747 hits in not even nine relatively full seasons in 14 years of play will unfortunately not get there. But in the Red Sox Hall of Fame, he will. And that will be even more of a cause for celebration for him than throwing out a first pitch.
Recent Red Sox News
When the Red Sox, behind Daisuke Matsuzaka (1-1) beat the Angels Thursday 11-6, it was the first time since the “Impossible Dream” team of 1967 that the Sox achieved a four-game sweep against them at Fenway Park. Also a first: the whole Angels lineup taking the first 14 pitches Dice-K threw before scoring four runs in the first inning of the game.
Read more here
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
BoSox, Week 4: Sox Slay Jays, Reach New Low Vs. The O's
The following is a short excerpt from my most recent weekly Boston Red Sox column, published at Blogcritics Magazine on May 3, 2010
Red Sox Record for the Week of April 26-May 2: 3-3
In my last column, I stated that the Boston Red Sox needed to go at least 4-2 to move up in the AL East standings. After starting their six-game road trip by sweeping the Toronto Blue Jays in three matchups to get back to .500 for the first time since the second game of 2010, the Boston bunch moved one game ahead of the Jays into third place April 28 and got within 5.5 games of the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays. So it looked good for the BoSox as they got ready to play Baltimore in Camden Yards. Then the unthinkable happened.
Read more here
Red Sox Record for the Week of April 26-May 2: 3-3
In my last column, I stated that the Boston Red Sox needed to go at least 4-2 to move up in the AL East standings. After starting their six-game road trip by sweeping the Toronto Blue Jays in three matchups to get back to .500 for the first time since the second game of 2010, the Boston bunch moved one game ahead of the Jays into third place April 28 and got within 5.5 games of the division-leading Tampa Bay Rays. So it looked good for the BoSox as they got ready to play Baltimore in Camden Yards. Then the unthinkable happened.
Read more here
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