Hot Stove 2010: How much to pay Bay?

Jason Bay has been waiting a long time for his big payday, and after an excellent 2009 season, he’s all set to cash in. I don’t blame the guy – how many chances does a guy have in his life to sign a contract worth $50-60M or more? Sports Illustrated has reported that Jason Bay has turned down a Red Sox offer of 4 years and “close to” $60M, and gone to free agency. Keep in mind that this report is from Jon Heyman, who Scott Boras routinely uses to achieve his ends; in this case, it seems he wants to drive up the market expectation for left fielders and his client Matt Holliday in particular. In Hot Stove double-talk, “close to” could mean anything, so I wouldn’t read too much into this. I, for one, certainly hope that the Red Sox will NOT go past this offer to Bay. Here’s why.

Links: Varitek exercises option, Bay, and Hot Stove chatter

As expected, catcher Jason Varitek has chosen to exercise his $3M player option to stay with the Red Sox in 2010. My guess is that the front office will keep him on as the backup catcher until he starts hitting (er, whatever that was) like he did in the second half of 2009. The Sox have already announced that they plan to make Victor Martinez the “full-time” catcher next year, which basically means he’ll be catching a lot more than 50% of games, as he has done for the last few years. Let’s hope his body and hitting hold up under the extra workload.

All the comparisons have been between Jason Bay and Matt Holliday, but Dave Cameron touts Mike Cameron (no relation) as a better free agent signing. Preview: it is about the defense, but even if you discount the UZR numbers 50%, it still works out in Cameron’s favor. Bay is likely to sign for as much as 5/85, while Cameron may get 1/10. R.J. Anderson confirms what I said about the rumor that the Sox had an offer of 4/60 on the table for Bay, that it’s probably just a Scott Boras lie.

Hot Stove 2010: Sox bring back Victor Martinez, Wakefield

With the initial GM meetings underway and time running out to re-sign potential free agents, the Sox have announced that they have exercised the $7.1M option on C/1B Victor Martinez. We fully expect that Martinez will stick around and be a major contributor this season, a contract year.

They have also announced a two-year contract with longtime Sox starter Tim Wakefield worth $5M plus roughly $2M more in incentives. I think Wake was already a bargain at $4M/year, so this is icing on the cake for the Red Sox.

Earlier this week, the Sox declined the $6M option on shortstop Alex Gonzalez as well as the $5M option on Jason Varitek.

2010 Hot Stove: The case against Bay

Look, I love Jason Bay as a human being. And I appreciate all that he’s done for the Red Sox since arriving in Boston a season and a half ago. But he’s just not the guy for the Red Sox to sign this offseason – he’s coming off a career year and a half, and he plays defense roughly like a bump on a log. To think that he may sign a deal on par with or even bigger than Matt Holliday this offseason just boggles my mind.

Links: Sox to meet with Beckett, Hazen staying, AFL update

The Red Sox plan to meet with Josh Beckett to discuss his future with Boston. This is a contract year, and I wouldn’t mind seeing him locked up for a 2-3 more seasons.

Despite interviewing with the San Diego Padres and their new GM Jed Hoyer, director of player development Mike Hazen has decided to stay with Boston. That’s despite the fact that Hazen was a player in the Padres’ system at one time; that’s an encouragement.

Dustin Richardson has been selected to the AFL All-Star team. After his star dimmed a bit over the last year or so, the lefty looked impressive with the Sox this year and is throwing harder than ever. Casey Kelly and Jose Iglesias are splitting time at shortstop, and Kelly hopes to decide soon – offense or defense?

Post-2009: Roster locks and losses

We’ve covered our impending free agents here. Now we need to step back and see what the team looks like, sans those guys we’re gonna let walk. Then we can examine our strengths and weaknesses and formulate a plan for the offseason. Let’s take a look at what the Red Sox have already in-house, and what players could be gone:

Post-2009: Potential free agents

The best way for me to get my mind off the fact that the Red Sox are no longer in the hunt while the Yankees are is to get thinking on the 2010 season before the corpse of 2009 gets too cold. It’s good to know that Epstein sees this team’s core as having one more year left to contend; could that mean we’ll have a bit more of a “win now” approach this offseason?

Bring ‘em back?

First we should address the expiring contracts. The Red Sox need to decide whether they want to re-sign these players or let them go to free agency. Then we can examine what to do about any holes.

2009 Projections: How did we do?

Now that the regular season is over, we can take a look back and compare our expectations with what we really saw. Here are the predictions I made on this blog before this season, and how it all turned out. Back in January I predicted that we would score about 835 runs, allow 729 runs and end up with a 92-70 record, winning the wild card. We got the wild card, but actually ended up with 95 wins, mainly due to the unexpected struggles of the Rays. Going into a bit more detail:

Looking ahead at Joe Mauer

Joe Mauer is having a season for the ages as a catcher. It’s ridiculous how good he’s been – and if this analysis can be believed, he could be worth some $170M+ when he comes up for free agency at the end of next year. Would the Sox invest that kind of money in Mauer, even if he couldn’t remain a catcher for the whole length of the contract?

7/20/09 Injuries and contingencies

Hallelujah, Jed Lowrie is back! Lowrie appears to be healthy, but as the Sox are wont to do, they will bring him along cautiously, and platoon him with Nick Green for a while. Along with that move, Julio Lugo has been DFA’d to make room on the roster. Whether he is released or traded, the Red Sox will be eating the rest of his contract. Give Theo some credit for admitting his mistake in signing Lugo to an inflated 4-year deal.