Masterson DFA'ed

[Adrian's Dome]

 
 
 
You didn't even make it 12 hours. You could have waited forever, as this post is chock full of worthless.
 
ETA: Thank god Masterson is gone. Nice guy who will be pitching in Nashua for an independent league team this time next year. 

 
So is this post.
 
My main issue with the Masterson signing was that he was terrible last year and there wasn't much behind the idea of him bouncing back other than "well, he was good two years ago, so...maybe?" and that 9.5 million would've been much more wisely allocated elsewhere, like in the bullpen. Yeah, it was only a 1 year contract, but when the team is backed right up against the wall of the luxury tax and other areas could still use addressing, that's significant.

 

[jscola85]

The big issue with the Masterson signing wasn't that they picked him up off the scrapheap, it's that they did so and guaranteed him $9.5M.  Similar back-end pieces like Gavin Floyd, Aaron Harang, Kyle Kendrick, Colby Lewis, Kris Medlen, and Ryan Vogelsong all went for ~$4-5M contracts.  They spent 2x what was necessary to sign him, and I think that huge investment also led them to hang onto him first in the rotation and then later the bullpen longer than he deserved.
 
Reclamation projects fail more often than they succeed.  They could've spent $4-5M on an equivalent guy like Floyd or Vogelsong and then used the $4M to sign any number of bullpen arms to shore up that part of the roster further.  Or hell, they could've signed a couple of guys like Roberto Hernandez or Chris Young for effectively nothing and let them duke it out in ST for the 5th starter role.

 

[kieckeredinthehead]

The big issue with the Masterson signing wasn't that they picked him up off the scrapheap, it's that they did so and guaranteed him $9.5M.  Similar back-end pieces like Gavin Floyd, Aaron Harang, Kyle Kendrick, Colby Lewis, Kris Medlen, and Ryan Vogelsong all went for ~$4-5M contracts.  They spent 2x what was necessary to sign him, and I think that huge investment also led them to hang onto him first in the rotation and then later the bullpen longer than he deserved.
 
Reclamation projects fail more often than they succeed.  They could've spent $4-5M on an equivalent guy like Floyd or Vogelsong and then used the $4M to sign any number of bullpen arms to shore up that part of the roster further.  Or hell, they could've signed a couple of guys like Roberto Hernandez or Chris Young for effectively nothing and let them duke it out in ST for the 5th starter role.

 
It would certainly be interesting to see what other offers Masterson got. In the absence of that, we could compare the FanGraphs crowd-sourced free agent contract expectations. Masterson was expected to get a 1-2 year deal with $9m AAV. Harang, Floyd and Vogelsong were expected to get 1 year, ~$5-7 million deals. Floyd got 1/$4 and hasn't thrown a pitch all year; Harang got 1/$5, Vogelsong got 1/$4, and both have been decent back of the rotation guys (FIPs about 0.5 lower than Masterson). Those would have been better signings, but they all got in line with what was predicted in the offseason. I guess Masterson had a higher upside and that's why he was predicted to be, and ended up being, more expensive. 

 

[RedOctober3829]

Released.
 

Pete Abraham ‏@PeteAbe  52s53 seconds ago
#RedSox officially release RHP Justin Masterson
 

 

 

[BoredViewer]

Nice parting gift for a guy that apparently suffered some kind of career-ending injury... last year.

 

[KillerBs]

Nice parting gift for a guy that apparently suffered some kind of career-ending injury... last year.

Yes. He earned over 30 percent of his career earnings this year.