Discussing the Red Sox options in search of their ace

November 26, 2014

by Dakota Antelman

With their offensive game made considerably better in the wake of this week’s Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez signings, the Red Sox have turned their focus to their biggest remaining weakness; pitching. Their options are plentiful but as time goes on, the once likely concept of a Jon Lester return to Boston is starting to become questionable.

Needless to say, though their chances with Lester have slightly lessened, their need for a high quality pitcher to anchor their staff has not.

If the Red Sox are to succeed next season they will need an ace. They will not find that ace within their current roster or their farm system. As a result, they will need to either acquire said ace through free agency or the trade market.

In terms of free agent options, the Red Sox are in a way lucky. There is an extremely seasoned crop of veteran pitchers searching for contract this offseason. Names like Max Scherzer and James Sheilds highlight that respectable group.

Scherzer and Sheilds both have an ERA under 3.5 and have shown that they are truly capable of shouldering major innings. Their ability to play those long games is characteristic of the kind of ace the Red Sox want. But at the same time, Scherzer’s recent Cy Young win as well as his being the two time defending AL Wins Champion gives him great leverage in forcing teams to give him much more money than they may want to give him. The same could be said for Shields who just recently proved his effectiveness in the playoffs with a dominant playoff run with the Royals.

The Red Sox are not afraid to pay big money. But at the same time they seem to have some strong misgivings about delving into either the Scherzer or the Sheilds market.

As of now, the most likely target for Boston, should they fail to sign Lester, would be a player currently under contract. Looking at the trade market, the options are even more bountiful.

Headliners include Reds pitcher, Johnny Cueto, Mariners’ Hisashi Iwakuma, and White Sox ace, Chris Sale.

Of those three, Sale is statistically superior with an ERA that is almost a full run less than Cueto’s and roughly .8 runs less than Iwakuma’s. However, with the Red Sox possibly shopping either infielder Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Bets or Yoenis Cespedes, a defensively competent White Sox team would likely be reluctant to deal its best pitcher for an unproven prospect and a one dimensional slugger.

With that in mind, the Red Sox are yet to engage in trade talks with the Reds, Mariners, or White Sox. However, the one team and therefore player the Sox have expressed great interest in is Philadelphia’s Cole Hamels.

Earlier this week, Philadelphia baseball reporter Jeff Passan said via Twitter that if the Red Sox miss out on Lester, “Boston's desire for an ace will make a Cole Hamels trade very likely.”

Hamels pitched to a 2.46 ERA last season and has logged 200+ innings in each of his last five seasons. He would work for the Sox although, in order to get him, the team would likely have to part ways with either Xander Bogaerts or Mookie Betts or both.

In the end, the Red Sox could go any one of many ways in the ever changing landscape of this year’s free agent and trade markets. But of the vast array of MLB teams looking for pitchers this offseason, the Red Sox, by virtue of their now immense depth offensively do definitely have an advantage should they go for a trade.

The opposite is true if they try to pay their way into a big money free agent deal as Boston is now just a few million dollars away from activating the luxury tax. 

All fears would be settled nonetheless, if Boston could get Jon Lester back. He is proven in the system and is coming off the best season of his career. Fans love him. His former Boston teammates love him just as much as management does. 

"Obviously we're doing everything we can to sign a top-tier pitcher, Jon Lester. And hopefully he'll come back,'' Red Sox owner John Henry said.

Lester is the Red Sox' priority, he is their favorite candidate. 

To paraphrase Wizard of Oz, the road to Lester is the yellow brick road. The roads to their secondary options are those other colors that nobody sings about. 

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Hanley Ramirez, Pablo Sandoval deals leave Red Sox overstaffed

November 24th, 2014

by Dakota Antelman

In the span of about three hours, the Boston Red Sox unloaded nearly $200 million in payroll over the next five years. In quick succession, reports surfaced confirming and suggesting deals to Hanley Ramirez and Pablo Sandoval respectively.

The two high profile free agents have been the talk of the MLB this offseason making today’s stunning news all that more groundbreaking.

Further complicating this though is the fact that should these two deals go final, the Boston Red Sox will have one of the most powerful offensive lineups in baseball.

Ramirez, who was signed to a $88 million four year deal with an option for a fifth year at $22 million salary, carries with him a history of speed and power. Nine years and three teams after making his MLB debut with the Red Sox in 2005, Ramirez has hit an average of 24 home runs per season. He has on seven occasions stolen more than 20 bases while all the while batting a solid .300 from various points in a batting order. He has made three All-Star Games and been named Rookie of the Year, NL Batting Leader, Silver Slugger at various points in his career.

During what has been a rather successful decade long demolition of MLB pitching, one of Ramirez most capable opponents has been long time Giants third basemen Pablo Sandoval.

Sandoval came to Boston on a similar $100 million five year contract that has since been all but signed. The value of whatever contract he would be given has been a hotly contested subject this offseason largely due to the flexibility Sandoval’s being a switch hitter allows him to possess.

The benefits of his manipulated batter/pitcher matchups, include 106 home runs and an assembled batting average of .276 in six professional seasons. Sandoval, like Ramirez, has made his presence felt in the Midsummer Classic, making the All-Star game twice.

After years of being compared to one another though, these two players have been united by a pair of marquee contracts and gargantuan salaries.  

But what does this mean for their playing time?

The answer is further clouded by the fact that there are many more names and positions in play here than those of Sandoval and Ramirez. Names like Yoenis Cespedes, Mike Napoli, Xander Boagaerts and Shane Victorino come to mind.

In short, last season’s last place finish obscured the fact that, at least on paper, this Red Sox team was already stacked with power hitting talent. But paper is not real life and after many of those players failed to live up to expectations the Sox were smart to try to bring in some fresh faces.

Those fresh faces, by nature of the equally fresh memory of the millions upon millions of dollars it took to get them, will likely play big roles for this Red Sox team next year. The other faces, by nature of the largely unsuccessful seasons that they worked towards last seasons could see their playing time suffer to accommodate the inclusion of Sandoval and Ramirez.  

More specifically, the left side of the infield as well as the outfield could see the most noticeable turnover. Sandoval and Ramirez’s natural positions are third base and short stop respectively.

As of now, it looks like Sandoval will ease into the third base position uncontested. Ramirez however might take quite a bit more shuffling to work into the lineup.

Firstly, one must understand that Dustin Pedroia will never leave second base. Second, Xander Bogaerts has already shown how much his game suffered when he made the switch from third base to short stop. Operating off of that previous knowledge the Red Sox ought to know that moving him out of the infield could be met with catastrophic results.

Remembering that Sandoval will likely be locked in at third base, that means that the only position in the infield available is first base which really is not available unless the Red Sox do something drastic and trade away Mike Napoli.

Napoli, who currently serves as a tried and true big bat out of the number four spot in the lineup, feels a little too beloved by Red Sox coaching to be let go.

So what does that leave for Ramirez? Outfield? Likely; yes.

While the Sox infield is stacked with fielding talent, the outfield is much more unstable. Shane Victorino dealt with immense injury trouble last season missing nearly 100 games with various hamstring calamities. To his right, the Red Sox center fielding position was in constant turnover with neither Jackie Bradly Jr. Mookie Betts nor even Brock Holt making a surefire case for why they should be tenured in the position. Though Yoenis Cespedes will not go anywhere, simply due to his bat, the Sox assuredly have room in the outfield to insert Ramirez should he be comfortable playing there.

If he is comfortable, then we will likely see at least one more player leaving Boston in the coming days and months. But that is not to say that the Red Sox could not get something in return.

As of now it looks like the Jon Lester contract roomers of last month have quieted. If they stay that way and the Red Sox do not get Lester, they will still be in dire need of an ace pitcher. To remedy that need, Boston could foreseeably trade a package deal of some of their top prospects for a top tier pitcher.

However, to date, no whispers suggesting the acquisition of a pitcher through the trade market have been hatched.

We may have to wait on that one.

Needless to say, the Red Sox blew things up Monday morning scooping up two of the MLB’s top hitters and dishing out some rather exorbitant sums of money in order to do so. But now they are left with a minor problem that begins to verge on worrisome. They are simply overstaffed. They have more big bats than they know what to do with and though that does not seem like a problem, if they smother any of those high value talents for too long they risk losing them. 

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The new look Boston Red Sox: After historic trade deadline, the details of the Red Sox future are unknown

When the trade deadline passed Thursday afternoon, it was merciful because all within Red Sox nation could finally go to sleep without worrying about waking up the next morning to the news of another huge trade. And sleep was something they needed direly due to the fact that in the 48 hours preceding the January 30th deadline, the Sox had gutted their roster and completely changed the identity of a team that less than a year ago won the World Series. 

They traded Felix Dubront on Wednesday, moved Jon Lester and Johnny Gomes to Oakland Thursday morning and dumped John Lackey on the Angles a few hours later. Before all that they had also moved Andrew Miller to Baltimore while kicking Stephan Drew over to New York in exchange for third basemen Kelly Johnson. Coming to Boston as the other half of all those trades were Oakland slugger Yoenis Cespedes, Baltimore prospect Eduardo Rodriguez, as well as Allen Craig and Joe Kelly from St Louis and Kelly Johnson from New York. 

What all those names amount to is a revamped Boston Red Sox team and a proof that the front office is willing to try again to keep the sinking ship that is the Red Sox afloat.  

Nonetheless, it is hard to look at this slew of deals and not at least be skeptical. Going into their day off during Thursday's trade deadline, the Red Sox had a win-loss record of 48 and 60 and were 10.5 games out of a playoff spot and almost surely playing the kind of baseball that deserves nothing more than a last place finish. One of the biggest reasons this was true was not the Red Sox pitching but rather, the Sox batting. From almost day one, the first two thirds of the order which boasted many of the league’s best players were simply not hitting. Aside from David Ortiz who hit 25 home runs in the first half of the year, big stars who last year slugged their way to a championship ring have been flat out terrible. Mike Napoli and Dustin Pedroia have combined for just 17 home runs and 78 RBI's while Xander Bogarts, the man tasked with bringing power and speed to the left side of the infield has hit just stolen just 2 bases and hit just 8 home runs. These deficiencies in the Sox offensive arsenal have doomed the team more than any other aspect of the game has. 

In fact, it doomed the team so much that no matter how well anybody else played, they just kept on loosing because of their offence. At the deadline, they tried to reverse that by ripping their best pitchers off their roster and trading for some serious sluggers that could bolster their roster. 

Of the some 5 players who came to Boston as a result of Thursday's trades, 3 of them are guys who make their money because of their work at the plate. Yoenis Cespedes is the most impressive of these such players. Having played for just over 2 and a half years, Yoenis is by no means a David Ortiz or Melkie Cabrara type player. What he is though is a young kid with power and a sense of humor in the locker room. 

This season, Cespedes is batting .256 with 17 home runs and 67 RBI's  and is on pace for an explosive 107 RBI season that would dwarf any and all that have preceded this one. Nonetheless, those that have have been great. Cespedes has won the All-Star weekend Home Run Derby two years in a row and has displayed power from day one hitting a home run in just his second game. For a guy who had to escape Cuba in the middle of the night, Yoenis Cespedes is a calm, happy slugger on pace for a great career. 

But beyond him the Sox now have another big bat on their payroll. After he made his debut in 2010, Allen Craig hit 11 home runs in 75 games in his sophomore season. Catching the eye of the MLB as a whole with the power that he exhibited in those games, Allen Craig was promoted to full time first basemen for the Cardinals. With considerably more playing time in his future, Craig then buckled down and managed to churn out a reputation as one of the greatest hitters with runners in scoring position. After the 2013 season in which he drove in 97 runs, Craig had upped his average with runners in scoring position to .456. That is the third highest in MLB history. 

So with all these key players now in a Red Sox uniform, it seems that Ben Cherrington has completely reworked the core of his team. As we come out of the deadline flurry, deserving of recognition is the fact that Cherrington felt no sentimental feelings towards guys like Gomes or Lackey and do what really was best for his team. At least that is what it looks like right now. 

With Cespedes and Craig in town and Lackey, Gomes and Lester out, the Sox could go in a very interesting direction come next year. 

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Jon Lester, Johnny Gomes traded to Oakland: Sox get Yoenis Cespedes in return...Lackey to Cardinals as well

It was been a story line that was long ago written. Early Thursday morning, Jon Lester was traded out of Boston because of the Red Sox' inability to pay him the money his play had demanded. On this day, midway through a season that as seen the Red Sox flirt with glory but always sink back into the doldrums of baseball's standings, they have lost the only piece of their roster that would have had any chance of dragging them into contention in the last quarter of the season. Lester is gone. 

Two days ago, John Farrell made the announcement that Jon Lester would be scratched from his scheduled start on Wednesday night in Toronto to give the team more freedom to trade him. The move was one completed out of respect allowing Lester to get a full rotations rest before any trade that would likely also result in a start the next day for whichever team he was dealt to. But what Farrell's polite move also did was strike down any final hopes within Red Sox nation that Lester would ever play another game for Boston. 

Jon Lester will become a free agent at the end of this season and after the way that he played at the end of last season, resigning him even during Spring Training was a highly financially taxing task. So the Red Sox waited, stringing their all-star along indefinitely half hoping he would play poorly enough in 2014 to allow the team to resign him at a lesser price. That did not happen. 

In 21 starts for Boston this season, Jon Lester went 10-7 losing only due to poor run support not any fault in his on the mound performance. He whipped an ERA of 2.52 in a total of 143 innings pitched solidifying his work horse qualities and providing the team with on average a 7 inning start. Jon was a true ace of aces for qualities embodied by all those statistics and those statistics were only made better by his play to start this season. To sum up, Jon Lester played perhaps the greatest season of his career and that made it seem like a deal with him in free agency this winter would be impossible. So, in order to gain the best return for such a great player, the Sox went to the trade market, dealing their longtime pitching stud to Oakland for Yoenis Cespedes. Johnny Gomes also went with Lester to Oakland clearing left field space for Cespedes to play a starting role in the position. 

But today the story was not about Cespedes coming to town. It was about Lester leaving it and the media and the fans knew that very well. 

After he was groomed well by Triple A Pawtuket, Lester came to the big club in 2006 where he started 15 games. He impressed in those game earning a decision 9 of those 15 games winning 7 of them. Lester seemed to have a future in Boston after his glamorous start to his career but soon realized he would have to overcome more than competition within the system to earn a spot in the MLB. After feeling ill, midway through a midsummer game of that 2006 season, Lester flew to a Boston medical facility where he was tested and diagnosed with a treatable form of Lymphatic Cancer. He would miss the rest of the season and the first half of the successive one while he underwent intensive chemotherapy but eventually returned to baseball better than ever. 

Though Josh Beckett captained the team to a championship in 2007, it was Lester who started and was credited with the win in the series clenching game four of that year's World Series. When Beckett left town roughly four years later it was an underrated Lester who became the ace. Starting 33 games in 2013, Jon went 15-8, tearing it up in the second half of the year and guiding Boston to their second championship with him on the roster.  

Then, as has already been profiled, Lester played complete shutdown baseball in a 2014 season that saw very few moments of glory in Boston. 

All and all, the 2014 trade deadline completely revamped and reworked the Boston Red Sox in a completely unexpected way. But though the departures of John Lackey, Johnny Gomes and Stephan Drew were definitely notable, it was the end of he Jon Lester era in Boston that stole the show. 

Through all these years of dominance, the Sox been a team that has won not because of big money contracts but rather an evolution of talent gained through trades and draft picks. The loss of Lester will hurt but as he leaves, Bostonians must remember that huge players left the team after the 2004 and 2007 championships and yet the team always found a way to charter through the fog and come out on top. Let us hope that the same can one day be said for 2013. 

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