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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.
Here are my early projections for this year’s team! I use a weighted three-year projection which incorporates regression, batted ball data and historical rate statistics. I have not made any adjustments for age or playing time as of yet. More details on my methodology at my other site, FantasyScope Baseball Blog.
My new and improved projections for 2010 are already nearing beta status. Without further comment, projections for some key free agent left fielders (ZiPS added for comparison where available, denoted by -Z):
Clay Buchholz turned in a pretty good outing in his first start of 2009. Despite striking out just three batters, he showcased the stuff that has all of baseball asking for him at this year’s trade deadline. He used his fastball to good effect, and that changeup was quite effective; the curve, not so much. I think it’s pretty clear he belongs up here, so I fully expect Brad Penny to be dealt at the deadline.
With B.J. Upton sitting, I expected the Sox to win at least two of these games. After a very promising start to the opening series of 2009, the Red Sox quickly fell into some trouble against Tampa’s starting pitching. Take out James Shield’s start, and Scott Kazmir and Matt Garza had a combined ERA of 1.38 over 13 IP against Boston.
Now that the pitchers and catchers are around, there’s a ton of material for news stories. The problem is that so little of it is newsworthy. I’ve gone through and filtered it for you, so you can save your time for more important things:
You guys might have seen my previous post where I calculated runs scored and runs allowed and came up with a prediction for 2009. Well, I’ve re-calculated the numbers using an updated pitching rotation (including Brad Penny and John Smoltz) and my FantasyScope projections. And our updated projection looks like this…
Well, in case you missed it, it is now official – Mark Teixeira will be a New York Yankee for the next eight years. Just when I was beginning to think it was possible for us to win. GM Brian Cashman played this one close to the vest, and swooped in to land their third major free agent prize in two weeks. The Red Sox were standing firm on their offer of 8 years, $168M, and New York trumped them with a $180M offer over the same term. Teixeira’s new deal comes with full no-trade protection.
