benhogan said:
This is EXACTLY why Ben and crew should get the axe this off season. Those 4 head scratching moves. Bad results on the field and a worse clubhouse now. Consistently bad decision making
Never mind the 10 other crappy deals they have made over the last couple of years that have failed. In no particular order:
1. Cespedes/Wilson for Porcelllo
2. Porcello's extension
3. Lackey for Kelly/Craig.
4. Masterson signing
5. Castillo signing/missing on Abreau
6. re-signing Napoli to 2 years
7. signing Drew/moving X
8. Mujica signing
9. Breslow signing
10. Pierzynski signing
I probably missed a couple.
Miley trade was OK, extension was nothing great. Koji 2 yr deal was OK. Hannigan for WMB is probably the best deal they've made in the last few seasons, that is pathetic and makes them the most inept front office in baseball two years running. Ruben Amaro has done less damage by sitting there and sucking his thumb.
The revisionist history here is ridiculous.
Lester WAS a bad gamble. I'm not sure there is a reliever in the game that isn't a bad gamble over four years. There certainly aren't many of them, and a 30 year old who has been a good one for three years isn't it.
Hanley Ramirez came to the Sox and told them he would take less money to sign with them and was willing to change positions to come back. There isn't a team in the universe that has the budget and doesn't do that deal. Not the Sox. Not the Yankees. Not the Dodgers. Not the Cubs. Not anyone.
We knew Sandoval was overpaid when he signed, but the options were what, exactly? Chase Headley hasn't been good. Will Middlebrooks just got sent back to the minors. Hanley Ramirez would almost certainly have been a disaster defensively.
Cespedes and Wilson for Porcello was a good deal. This is the worst kind of hindsight. The absolute worst. To claim this was a bad deal, you have to believe that the worst half season in Porcello's career was somehow predictable. It wasn't, especially when you consider that his FIP and particularly the xFIP show that his sub par performance has been exacerbated by bad luck.
Meanwhile, Porcello's extension hasn't even kicked in yet. There's as good a chance that we'll look back on that as an excellent deal as a bad one, probably more so.
Lackey for Craig and Kelly, I dunno, could go either way. Even if Craig doesn't ever do anything but cost money, Kelly isn't a free agent until 2019. If he becomes nothing but a useful reliever in that time, it will more than make up for the third of a season of Lackey last year when Lackey was bad and the Sox weren't going anywhere, and this year where Lackey is slightly below average so far.
Masterson was terrible, but the team needed someone to pitch in the bigs until Rodriguez or Owens were ready. That's the result of trading RLDR and Webster for Miley which, despite my objections, has turned out pretty well. Were there better options than Masterson? Yeah, probably.
Castillo isn't even a year into a contract that will keep him here until at least 2019. Don't you think it's a bit early to be judging things? And you realize that you are simultaneously blaming a man for taking a risk on a Cuban player and for not taking the same risk on a different Cuban player?
The two year deal for Napoli was fine. We knew there was a chance his hip could blow up so we can't get too bitchy when something else makes his performance fall off the table. It was a two year deal, we got one good year and one bad one, it happens.
The Drew signing and moving X is the most revisionist thing going on here. Bogaerts wasn't moved to third because they signed Drew. Bogaerts was moved to third, and they signed Drew because Middlebrooks got hurt.
The Breslow and Mujica deals were small deals for relievers and sometimes those go bad. That's why they get signed to small deals.
Pierzynski was signed because they needed someone who was willing to take a very short deal to serve as a stopgap until Vazquez was ready. That limited the options. There were probably better options, but Pierzynski hit better before he came here, and after he left here.