Man what is Dan thinking for real. Orioles will Tender all 9 players

[25 Nuggets]

I think it's important for folks to realize, though, that the Sox had a ton of money to play with after jettisoning Crawford, Gonzalez, Beckett et al. Their opening day payroll was actually down about $21 mm compared to opening day of 2012, and the amount they eventually spent was about equal to their 2012 opening day payroll. So, it's not like the Sox upped their spending compared to what they expected to spend the year before, they just spent it more efficiently.

When I read about the trade doing down, I immediately thought "the Dodgers just saved the Red Sox franchise". I thought they would be World Series contenders by 2014. I was a year too late in that prediction.

The Gonzalez-Crawford-Beckett trade will go down as one of the greatest trades in baseball history. I don't care if the Dodgers did well in 2013 - the move on their part was close to idiotic. Yasiel Puig and Hanley Ramirez were the players that turned their team around.

[bobmc]

I think the Red Sox had some luck last year, but I wouldn't say they were "extremely" lucky, nor would I attribute their success solely to the free agents they acquired.

I start from the premise that the 2012 Red Sox were extremely unlucky on the injury front - 1,155 games missed, and that excludes John Lackey, who spent the entire year on the DL. So, 1,317 games missed if you include him. It also excludes Bobby Jencks, who was paid $6 mm and missed the entire season. So, 1,479 games if he's included. 609 of those were by position players, including Crawford missing all but about a month, Ellsbury missing more than half the season, Ryan Sweeney missing more than half the season, etc.

The 2013 Red Sox, by contrast, had decent (not spectacular) luck with injuries. They missed 798 games, and most of the damage was limited to the bullpen. Their position players missed 177 games, compared to 609 the year before. The only position player who missed more than 23 games was their back-up catcher, David Ross. Among their starting pitchers, Buchholz missed half the season, but other than that only Lackey missed any time, and that was just 20 games (4-5 starts). The bullpen really did get crushed with injuries (518 games missed), and it was in fact the weakest part of their team for that reason. But overall, health alone was a huge reason the Red Sox improved so much.

As to their free agent acquisitions, they scored very, very well with Napoli, Victorino, Drew and Uehara. Gomes and Ross were okay acquisitions, and Dempster did not have a good season at all (8-9, 4.57 ERA in 171 innings) for what he was paid ($13.25 mm). Overall that group was paid $61.1 mm, and produced 18.7 rWAR. That's about $3.26 mm per win, a bargain at free agent prices. So, you'd have to say they did well overall there.

I think it's important for folks to realize, though, that the Sox had a ton of money to play with after jettisoning Crawford, Gonzalez, Beckett et al. Their opening day payroll was actually down about $21 mm compared to opening day of 2012, and the amount they eventually spent was about equal to their 2012 opening day payroll. So, it's not like the Sox upped their spending compared to what they expected to spend the year before, they just spent it more efficiently.

Make no mistake, the Red Sox are going to continue to be formidable, even if (as I suspect) they don't get as much out of some of their pricey players in 2014 as they did in 2013. They have a boffo farm system that is producing very good talent (like Bogaerts). And, in 2013 they actually underperformed their Pythagorean record by three games. So, anyone who thinks they won't be a top contender in 2014 is whistling in the dark IMO.

Life with Frobby - priceless! Thanks for this! :clap3:

Bogaerts will be the bomb next year - better than Manny????? :scratchchinhmm: Dare I posit this on here? :slytf:

[Frobby]

Bogaerts will be the bomb next year - better than Manny????? :scratchchinhmm: Dare I posit this on here? :slytf:

Lord, I hope not, Bob. But I hate to say it, but it wouldn't shock me. Bogaerts will be good, it's just a question of whether Manny will continue to progress offensively.