The Expense of Epstein

It is about that time. It’s time for us to delve into the Red Sox once again, and why I am thoroughly pissed off at the mess that Theo Epstein left the Red Sox in.

Let’s get one thing straight, I am NOT aggravated with the amount of money the Red Sox are spending. Approximately 180 million dollars is more than enough to win baseball games. But when you are told that you are up against the cap and can’t sign a pitcher for between 5 and 7 million dollars without shedding some payroll first, I’m calling bullshit. Anyone else clambering for their brick or RSN Card now?

The Red Sox right now have GAPING holes in their rotation and everyday lineup. The Red Sox go into the season with 3.5 starting pitchers and without a starting shortstop. Their bullpen conversely has the chance of being damn good. But, you need horses to get to the finish line and right now the Red Sox just don’t have them.

The Scutaro trade makes little sense from the perspective of not having a bonafide shortstop waiting to assume the position. As unspectacular as Marco Scutaro was, he was exactly what the Red Sox have made a living trying to preach; Average or above average at every position.
Nick Punto- Very good, gritty player but best-served in small doses. He is a leader in the clubhouse which the Red Sox sorely needed. But in no way, no how is he a starting caliber short stop.

Mike Aviles- A year removed from being a .300 hitter in the major leagues, but yet another player that is better-suited for the super-utility role than an everyday player.

Jose Iglesias- He is my candidate for the starting shortstop position. If he can play error-free baseball, or close to it, while hitting .220 he’s worth it, with the caveat being that everyone else is producing along the same lines as their career numbers would indicate.

The problem I have is that you have created a hole instead of filling one. They didn’t fill the need of another pitcher that they are in desperate need of and have created one more hole in their roster. There are only so many players you can have that are “utility” players before you need someone that’s better manning a position.

The Red Sox will enter Ft. Myers without a SS and 1.5 pitchers short of a 5 man rotation. In all honesty, I’m not worried about the top 3 guys in the Red Sox rotation. I expect them to be healthy, productive and by and large dominant more times than not. But Daniel Bard is not a sure thing by any means. First and foremost, he probably won’t throw more than 150 innings nor should we expect him to. This is his first year as a starter and you have to handle him with kid gloves. They did it with Buchholz and Lester and there is no reason to think that they will treat Bard any differently.

So, that leaves at least 6-10 starts unaccounted for which will probably fall in the lap of Alfredo Aceves which I am in favor of. I am not in favor of making Alfredo Aceves the number 5 starter. He has the uncanny ability of throwing multiple innings for multiple days and I’d rather use an effective reliever that can pitch in all kinds of situations (mop-up, high leverage, and closing if need be) than have an OK starter once sometimes twice per week and then you can’t use them for 5 days.

This is why Roy Oswalt has the Red Sox bending over with him behind them with a Ted Bundy-looking snicker. He knows they need him, but he doesn’t necessarily want to pitch for Boston. And if I were him I wouldn’t want to either. He wants a long-term deal but is willing to take a one-year deal to re-establish value. Why would he go to a notorious hitter’s ballpark, a bear of a division and have inflated peripherals which would then reduce his value on the open-market?

My problem is not with the amount of money they have spent because they have spent more than enough money to compete/win. The problem the fact that they have not spent their money wisely falls squarely on the shoulders of the recently departed Theo Epstein.

Going into the year they have just shy of 27-million dollars on the Disabled List in John Lackey (16.25 million) and Daisuke Matsuzaka (10 million). The advantage of being a large-market team is that you can sign a player for a need at a specific time and then cut bait with them by eating salary. Now, however the front office is crying that they don’t want to spend 5-7 million because of luxury tax implications. Perhaps if they were more judicious in the way they spent their money this wouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.

How’s this for a talking point, how about instead of Lackey and Crawford in consecutive years, you take Matt Holliday and Cliff Lee? With Adrian Gonzalez clearly in Theo Epstein’s cross hairs, at the time, he needed to have a right-handed bat to compliment Gonzalez, and he signed what at the time seemed like a carbon copy of Jacoby Ellsbury that is has no discernible spot in a lineup other than 2nd and the Red Sox already have the number 1, number two hitter in the game.

Crawford (7-year 142 million)
Lackey (6-year 82.5 million) 224.5-million

*you’ll note that Lackey’s deal is now a 6 year pact because of his needing Tommy John; insurance clause in contract*

Holliday (7-year 120 million)
Lee (6-year 120 million) 240-million

For a minuscule 2.21-million more per year, for six to seven years from the beginning of the contracts, they could have had Holliday and Lee assuming they would have signed, but instead Theo Epstein signed a player that has never hit 20 home runs to play a power position in LF for a higher AAV (average annual value) than Matt Holiday a player that hits 30+ HRs per year and drives in double the amount of runs. To finish off that two year spending spree, he signed a pitcher with a history of elbow problems. But look on the bright side, he knew ahead of time that Lackey’s elbow was so bad that he was going to need surgery and carefully put in an insurance clause in the contract for financial relief *shakes head*.

I’m not willing to say that Crawford is a bust, but anyone that thinks that Carl Crawford is a 20-million dollar per year player is kidding themselves. The real reason that "compensation" is taking as long as it has is because Theo has put the Red Sox in a hole and they need some sort of bounty to call it even. Like it or not, Theo Epstein the evaluator left the Red Sox up a creek without a paddle.

Stay Tuned

Norton