Chances are that if you care enough to read this blog, you already know the particulars of the Red Sox-Dodgers megatrade. You probably know who went where, along with how much money, and you know that it was the biggest salary transfer in MLB history. Chances are, you’ve even read a number of editorials or assessments of the trade.
Fortunately, here at the Boston Sports Lab, we’re not bound by the conventions or code of the journalist tribe. I don’t have to hedge my bets, speak diplomatically, or use vapid platitudes. In what follows, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about the big-money-hallelujah purge, as well as exactly how you should feel about it.
So here are the bones: The Red Sox sent west Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Nick Punto, in exchange for Dodgers 1B James Loney and minor leaguers Rubby de la Rosa, Allen Webster, Jerry Sands, and Ivan de Jesus. Los Angeles will pay roughly $260 million of the $270 million remaining on those deals. Loney’s expiring contract (I’m going to make this basketball terminology happen in baseball) will take over first base with the big league club for the remainder of the season, de Jesus is already with Pawtucket, Webster will likely head to AA Portland, and de la Rosa and Sands, both of whom were on L.A.’s 40-man roster, will join the Sox in the offseason as PTBNL, because they were claimed off waivers by other teams. I’ll discuss those eastbound players later on.
The most important thing to know about this trade is that it’s awesome. There’s a simple basis for drawing that conclusion: the 2012 Red Sox, as constituted, were bad, and they weren’t going to get any better without a drastic overhaul. The team had virtually no financial flexibility, and with hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in aging, underperforming players, they were going nowhere fast over the next several years. We were unable to go after even mid-range free agents last winter, the Hiroki Kurodas of the world who can make a big impact at a reasonable price and plug gaps in a roster. That’s another simple rule of thumb: having lots of money to spend is good. The Sox had transformed into a gimpy golem of bad contracts and no-can-do personalities, and even though golems are the bee's knees in Jewish folklore, I imagine (in my head) that they move ploddingly and with little verve or grace.
Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett had legitimately (but not literally) unmovable contracts. They are due money well over their market values as the two age into their 30s, and it’s rare to see that type of player change teams. ANY scenario in which another organization is willing to assume those contacts is a big coup for the Sox. In order for the Dodgers to do so, the Red Sox had to give them what they really wanted -- Adrian Gonzalez. He’s a premium bat and hard to replace, but he’s also being paid at or close to his value and has struggled this year, so his contract is hardly a bargain. To be honest, I’ve grown very fond of Gonzalez and I’m going to miss him, but this is for the best. Most of all, remember that the only way we could unburden ourselves from the albatross contracts of Beckett and Crawford was to give up A-Gon as well. The reason this wasn’t necessarily a bad deal for the Dodgers (although it may look that way in a few years), is that all three of these “stars” are worth more in L.A. than they are in Boston (I put “stars” in quotations to backhandedly show my disdain). Gonzalez, as a Mexican-American from southern California, is a P.R. gem for the Dodgers and makes that lineup rock solid. Beckett should benefit heavily from playing in the pitcher career rehabilitation spa that is the N.L. West. And Crawford, once he recovers from surgery, should have a better chance to succeed in a less critical media market and with fans who don’t already resent him (for sucking). That’s important to keep in mind -- even if we see those three players go on to play well for the Dodgers, that doesn’t mean they would have played as well in Boston. This is still a good deal for the Sox. As fans, we’ve been conditioned to expect to be the ones acquiring big name players rather than giving them away. Let me tell you that this move makes a ton of baseball sense. This isn’t the Sox throwing in the towel. This is the Sox putting a dirty towel in the laundry hamper and getting a nice, clean towel that just came out of the dryer and feels like a warm blanket.
In fact, this is a good deal even if were purely a salary dump, with no prospects coming back to Boston. The salary relief from the deal isn’t exactly priceless, because it’s worth about $260 million, but it sure feels cathartic. I’m happy to report, though, that the Sox were able to obtain a few good players in return. The position players, de Jesus and Sands, have both put up excellent numbers in the minors but struggled a bit in brief major league appearances. They profile as bench/utility players. Even if they never make it past AAA, it’s no great loss, and maybe they’ll surprise us by becoming regular major league contributors. Regardless, the most important pieces from the Dodgers are the two pitchers, de la Rosa and Webster.
Rubby de la Rosa is a 23 year-old right hander with modest size and a big arm. He consistently throws his fastball in the mid-to-high 90s to go along with a decent slider/changeup combo. His command can be spotty but the fastball is a true plus plus pitch. If de la Rosa can sharpen up his command, cut down on walks, and improve his secondary offerings, he could end up as a #2 starter. At worst, he can probably be a shutdown reliever. After logging 60.2 big league innings last year and showing he has the stuff to get major leaguers out, he underwent TJ surgery and just recently returned to game action. His fastball is already back to the high 90s. I’m also going to insist on calling him “Rubby,” even though his name is pronounced “Ruby.” “Rubby” is distinguishing and mildly funny, and I suggest you follow my lead on this.
I have even higher hopes for Allen Webster, who looks like he has the makings of a #2 or #3 starter. He has a low-to-mid 90s fastball with powerful sinking action, and he gets a huge number of ground balls with it. His slider, curveball, and changeup can all be plus at times, and he throws all four pitches with plus control. If all goes well, we could see Webster in the Boston rotation as early as late next year. He’s been compared to Derek Lowe on account of his sinker, and it’s probably fair to hope he’ll put up solid numbers and solidify the rotation.
The inclusion of these last two prospects in the deal indicates that the Red Sox front office is (re)committing itself to home-grown pitching, without which it’s hard to contend these days. Outside of last year’s first round pick, Matt Barnes, the Sox had little in the way of pitching prospects down on the farm. Replenishing that pipeline has to be a priority. It’s probably unrealistic to think the Sox will start spouting out excellent starting pitchers the way the Rays have over the past five years (and, let’s face it, what the Rays have done is unprecedented and absolutely remarkable), but the Red Sox really don’t have to. They can afford to trade for or go buy a certain amount of pitching, but the minor league system has to be the foundation of the rebuilding process. #3 pitchers are nothing to scoff at. They’re really important.
This blockbuster trade has two great benefits for the Sox -- it provides a huge amount of financial flexibility going forward, and it give the front office a chance to rebrand the team’s identity. I’m not going to get into whether the Sox’s star players had attitude problems, ate fried chicken, or participated in a mid-season mutiny. It’s been done, and I frankly don’t really care. I appreciate the Boston sports media for their passion, but the insatiable appetite for controversy is probably detrimental to player performance, and journalists get a pass for inciting problems instead of just reporting them.
For the first time in years, I’m excited by the possibilities for this franchise. I’d love to see us move forward with exciting, home-grown players. As Pittsburgh, Washington, and Baltimore have demonstrated this year, a young, hungry team can rise up to be more than the sum of its parts; the 2012 Red Sox have emphatically shown that big-name, overcompensated stars can be spectacularly less than the sum of theirs. Will Middlebrooks can be a cornerstone. We can expect solid contributions from Lavarnway and Iglesias. Pedroia and Lester are already there, and we’ll have to see what happens with Ellsbury over the next 15 months. Stay tuned in 2013 and 2014 for the heirs to the kingdom -- Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Matt Barnes. And just for kicks, some more exciting names to track: Bryce Brentz, Henry Owens, Garin Cecchini, Blake Swihart, Deven Marrero, and Drake Britton.
This trade is just the starting point for the team’s make-over, and Cherington et al will have to follow this up with more smart moves, but I have high hopes for what’s to come.
Fortunately, here at the Boston Sports Lab, we’re not bound by the conventions or code of the journalist tribe. I don’t have to hedge my bets, speak diplomatically, or use vapid platitudes. In what follows, I’m going to tell you everything you need to know about the big-money-hallelujah purge, as well as exactly how you should feel about it.
So here are the bones: The Red Sox sent west Adrian Gonzalez, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett, and Nick Punto, in exchange for Dodgers 1B James Loney and minor leaguers Rubby de la Rosa, Allen Webster, Jerry Sands, and Ivan de Jesus. Los Angeles will pay roughly $260 million of the $270 million remaining on those deals. Loney’s expiring contract (I’m going to make this basketball terminology happen in baseball) will take over first base with the big league club for the remainder of the season, de Jesus is already with Pawtucket, Webster will likely head to AA Portland, and de la Rosa and Sands, both of whom were on L.A.’s 40-man roster, will join the Sox in the offseason as PTBNL, because they were claimed off waivers by other teams. I’ll discuss those eastbound players later on.
The most important thing to know about this trade is that it’s awesome. There’s a simple basis for drawing that conclusion: the 2012 Red Sox, as constituted, were bad, and they weren’t going to get any better without a drastic overhaul. The team had virtually no financial flexibility, and with hundreds of millions of dollars tied up in aging, underperforming players, they were going nowhere fast over the next several years. We were unable to go after even mid-range free agents last winter, the Hiroki Kurodas of the world who can make a big impact at a reasonable price and plug gaps in a roster. That’s another simple rule of thumb: having lots of money to spend is good. The Sox had transformed into a gimpy golem of bad contracts and no-can-do personalities, and even though golems are the bee's knees in Jewish folklore, I imagine (in my head) that they move ploddingly and with little verve or grace.
Carl Crawford and Josh Beckett had legitimately (but not literally) unmovable contracts. They are due money well over their market values as the two age into their 30s, and it’s rare to see that type of player change teams. ANY scenario in which another organization is willing to assume those contacts is a big coup for the Sox. In order for the Dodgers to do so, the Red Sox had to give them what they really wanted -- Adrian Gonzalez. He’s a premium bat and hard to replace, but he’s also being paid at or close to his value and has struggled this year, so his contract is hardly a bargain. To be honest, I’ve grown very fond of Gonzalez and I’m going to miss him, but this is for the best. Most of all, remember that the only way we could unburden ourselves from the albatross contracts of Beckett and Crawford was to give up A-Gon as well. The reason this wasn’t necessarily a bad deal for the Dodgers (although it may look that way in a few years), is that all three of these “stars” are worth more in L.A. than they are in Boston (I put “stars” in quotations to backhandedly show my disdain). Gonzalez, as a Mexican-American from southern California, is a P.R. gem for the Dodgers and makes that lineup rock solid. Beckett should benefit heavily from playing in the pitcher career rehabilitation spa that is the N.L. West. And Crawford, once he recovers from surgery, should have a better chance to succeed in a less critical media market and with fans who don’t already resent him (for sucking). That’s important to keep in mind -- even if we see those three players go on to play well for the Dodgers, that doesn’t mean they would have played as well in Boston. This is still a good deal for the Sox. As fans, we’ve been conditioned to expect to be the ones acquiring big name players rather than giving them away. Let me tell you that this move makes a ton of baseball sense. This isn’t the Sox throwing in the towel. This is the Sox putting a dirty towel in the laundry hamper and getting a nice, clean towel that just came out of the dryer and feels like a warm blanket.
In fact, this is a good deal even if were purely a salary dump, with no prospects coming back to Boston. The salary relief from the deal isn’t exactly priceless, because it’s worth about $260 million, but it sure feels cathartic. I’m happy to report, though, that the Sox were able to obtain a few good players in return. The position players, de Jesus and Sands, have both put up excellent numbers in the minors but struggled a bit in brief major league appearances. They profile as bench/utility players. Even if they never make it past AAA, it’s no great loss, and maybe they’ll surprise us by becoming regular major league contributors. Regardless, the most important pieces from the Dodgers are the two pitchers, de la Rosa and Webster.
Rubby de la Rosa is a 23 year-old right hander with modest size and a big arm. He consistently throws his fastball in the mid-to-high 90s to go along with a decent slider/changeup combo. His command can be spotty but the fastball is a true plus plus pitch. If de la Rosa can sharpen up his command, cut down on walks, and improve his secondary offerings, he could end up as a #2 starter. At worst, he can probably be a shutdown reliever. After logging 60.2 big league innings last year and showing he has the stuff to get major leaguers out, he underwent TJ surgery and just recently returned to game action. His fastball is already back to the high 90s. I’m also going to insist on calling him “Rubby,” even though his name is pronounced “Ruby.” “Rubby” is distinguishing and mildly funny, and I suggest you follow my lead on this.
I have even higher hopes for Allen Webster, who looks like he has the makings of a #2 or #3 starter. He has a low-to-mid 90s fastball with powerful sinking action, and he gets a huge number of ground balls with it. His slider, curveball, and changeup can all be plus at times, and he throws all four pitches with plus control. If all goes well, we could see Webster in the Boston rotation as early as late next year. He’s been compared to Derek Lowe on account of his sinker, and it’s probably fair to hope he’ll put up solid numbers and solidify the rotation.
The inclusion of these last two prospects in the deal indicates that the Red Sox front office is (re)committing itself to home-grown pitching, without which it’s hard to contend these days. Outside of last year’s first round pick, Matt Barnes, the Sox had little in the way of pitching prospects down on the farm. Replenishing that pipeline has to be a priority. It’s probably unrealistic to think the Sox will start spouting out excellent starting pitchers the way the Rays have over the past five years (and, let’s face it, what the Rays have done is unprecedented and absolutely remarkable), but the Red Sox really don’t have to. They can afford to trade for or go buy a certain amount of pitching, but the minor league system has to be the foundation of the rebuilding process. #3 pitchers are nothing to scoff at. They’re really important.
This blockbuster trade has two great benefits for the Sox -- it provides a huge amount of financial flexibility going forward, and it give the front office a chance to rebrand the team’s identity. I’m not going to get into whether the Sox’s star players had attitude problems, ate fried chicken, or participated in a mid-season mutiny. It’s been done, and I frankly don’t really care. I appreciate the Boston sports media for their passion, but the insatiable appetite for controversy is probably detrimental to player performance, and journalists get a pass for inciting problems instead of just reporting them.
For the first time in years, I’m excited by the possibilities for this franchise. I’d love to see us move forward with exciting, home-grown players. As Pittsburgh, Washington, and Baltimore have demonstrated this year, a young, hungry team can rise up to be more than the sum of its parts; the 2012 Red Sox have emphatically shown that big-name, overcompensated stars can be spectacularly less than the sum of theirs. Will Middlebrooks can be a cornerstone. We can expect solid contributions from Lavarnway and Iglesias. Pedroia and Lester are already there, and we’ll have to see what happens with Ellsbury over the next 15 months. Stay tuned in 2013 and 2014 for the heirs to the kingdom -- Xander Bogaerts, Jackie Bradley Jr., and Matt Barnes. And just for kicks, some more exciting names to track: Bryce Brentz, Henry Owens, Garin Cecchini, Blake Swihart, Deven Marrero, and Drake Britton.
This trade is just the starting point for the team’s make-over, and Cherington et al will have to follow this up with more smart moves, but I have high hopes for what’s to come.
