Even with a full outfield, Red Sox still interested in Bay
If Jason Bay wants to return to Boston, the Red Sox should sign him.
The Boston Red Sox signed Mike Cameron earlier this offseason to play left-field, Jason Bay‘s old position. The team has Jacoby Ellsbury anchoring center-field, J.D. Drew holding down the fort in right-field, and Jeremy Hermida riding the bench as the fourth outfielder. But, though they have four capable outfielders, they are still monitoring Bay’s situation.
As it stands now, his situation is not a good one. The Red Sox offered him a 4-year deal worth $60 million during the regular season and he turned it down, a decision that is looking worse by the day. He wants a five-year deal, and no one wants to give him one. The New York Mets flirted with the idea of answering his demands, but have not made him an offer he deems respectable. The San Francisco Giants had preliminary interest at the beginning of the offseason, as did the Seattle Mariners and a few other teams, but interest soon waned as front office’s showed reluctance in offering the 31-year old such a lengthy and expensive deal.
Boston may have given up on Bay too quickly, jumping out of the gate with the Cameron signing. Now, if they are to bring him back, some shuffling would need to be done and the contract would have to be heavily back-loaded in order for Boston to remain under the luxury tax.
Who would go to make room? The Red Sox could move Cameron to center-field and trade Ellsbury, whom the Chicago Cubs will reportedly ask about in the coming weeks, but that doesn’t seem like a very good trade-off. I believe Boston needs Bay and Bay needs Boston, but if management’s thinking is to trade Ellsbury in order to sign Bay, then bringing him back would not be worth it. Why would Boston remove Ellsbury, 26, who hit .301, scored 94 runs, and swiped 70 bases, and replace him with Cameron, 36, who is a career .250-hitter and strikes out far too much?
Unless they trade Cameron, making his stay very temporary, a return doesn’t seem conceivable. Cameron may hit 60 homers over the next two seasons, dent the Monster for 40 doubles per, and bat a surprisingly efficient .280 for Boston, but passing up on Bay would undoubtedly be regrettable.
General Manager Theo Epstein could have something up his sleeve that doesn’t involve a trade of Ellsbury. (One plausible scenario: trade Hermida for relief help and move Cameron into the fourth outfielder spot.) If this is so, I would be shocked if Bay wasn’t with the Red Sox next year. Players have their demands. Third baseman Adrian Beltre wants $10-15 million annually over 3-4 years. Johnny Damon, a Scott Boras client, managed to price himself out of New York (imagine that) by demanding an annual salary of $13 million over three-to-four years. But, in Bay’s case, he has to know when to stop asking for a fifth year, and learn to take four for $60 million.
How do you turn down $60 million offered by a team that is familiar to you and plays in a hitter’s park? Because you want $75-80 million. Baseball is a business, but there are times when a dose of reality is necessary. This is why Bay’s agent, in the past few weeks, has gone “back to the Red Sox in an effort to keep his client in a ballpark where he was not only happy but where he put up big numbers,” according to the Boston Globe’s Nick Cafardo.
The Red Sox should listen to Joe Urbon, Bay’s representative. Bay has a 4-year, $65 million offer on the table from the Mets, but they play in a pitcher’s park, and they haven’t been in contact with him of late, frustrated by his lack of an answer. The Red Sox, in need of offense, should re-sign Bay if given the opportunity, and use Cameron against lefhanded pitchers and to give Bay, Ellsbury, and Drew a rest periodically.
In an interview on WEEI Radio, Peter Gammons said, “Jason Bay would rather play in Beirut than Queens.” So, that crosses the Mets off the list. The only other option? Boston, the team he enjoyed playing for, the team he excelled with over a year and a half span. He needs the Red Sox, and there is no question they need him.
I don’t think he is going back to Boston anyway, but what I think was going on is that his chosen destination was Seattle, he is from Vancouver originally and lives in Seattle in the offseason, but he blew it holding out for the 5th year, and Seattle turned the page.
For Boston to bring back Bay they not only would have to move Ellisburry to clear CF, but realistically they would also have to move JD Drew to clear money. I forget what Drew has coming this year, I’m sure you know, I think it is something like $12-$15M, which is on the high side, as Red Sox fans are aware of, but if they agreed to eat like $4M then suddenly he becomes an attractive 1 year option for a contender, or a pretender, and the kind of trade that can actually demand a healthy return.
So why would they get rid of Ellisburry for Cameron?
Because Boston isn’t looking at it that way.
I think what they are looking to do is clear room for Reddick.
Bringing in Cameron on a 2 year deal just means they want to make sure that the kid wins the job the right way instead of having it handed to him, and thenin 2011 Cameron is basically veteran insurance on a 1 year deal.
Reddick has the potential to be a 5 tool player, where Ellisburry is nothing more than a white Juan Pierre, with the exception being that Ellisburry is probably a better rapper than Juan Pierre, and if you saw the Marlins World Series celebration where Juan Pierre took the microphone and broke out into his nonsensical rap you know what I mean.
Reddick has all of the speed that Ellisburry has, except he is a big guy who actually has power potential. There really is a reason why Francona kept giving him ABs in August in really big games.
That reason is because he is a left handed hitter who has the ability of turning on an inside fastball.
Now he only had 2 HRs in 59 ABs, so that isn’t a big enough sample, but I look to one AB in particular that I think demonstrates it.
It was the extra inning game in the Bronx that the Yankees won when A-Rod beat Tazawaa, and it was right after JD Drew made his catch to keep the game alive, and Reddick had an AB that can best be described as a Major League AB, where they kept trying to go inside and outside on him, and whenever they tried to bust him in and he kept fouling them off, and on one pitch he turned on it and put it in the upper deck only a few feet foul.
They worked him away after that.
A left handed hitter who can take away the inner half with men on base sets up all kinds of opportunities and options for a manager who wants to aggressively use the running game.
Ellisburry is what he is, and that is all he is going to be. He is a starter, sure, he is a leadoff hitter, sure, but what you see is what you get, and if you have surplus at the position, like they do, you deal him, because while limited, he is more than capable, and you can get a handsome return on him, because he is affordable and under control for a few years more.
I think all this Jason Bay talk is a smokescreen that the Red Sox are using so they don’t appear as if they are intent on trading Ellisburry. It allows them to more present it as that they are looking to trade him in the right deal, but I think even if they do trade Ellisburry they do not sign Bay unless they can move Drew, and whatever they have to eat on Drew, let’s say $5M, then Bay would also haveto agree to backload that same amount so it is equal value for the Red Sox.
Also, if I am Bay, as bad as the Met’s appear, it is a better option than the Red Sox, at least for him. Going back to the Red Sox represents a complete surrendering of all leverage for him and that isn’t the kind of position you want to be in with a front office that has demonstrated that they will not hesitate to use that leverage, like thy did with Bronson Oroyyo.
If I am Jason Bay, I got to be thinking that if I go back to Boston now, there is a good chance that at some point they stick it to me and banish me to KC, Pitt, or Cin for the rest of my career.
I think he would either sign the Met deal or even ask Seattle for a 3 year deal before he would do that.
I totally blanked on Reddick. Yeah, I could see that. He slid after a while, but his first four, five weeks were really impressive. I remember that AB. He had a great eye at the plate, and just a high Baseball IQ. I definitely could see them paving the way for him in 2011.
As you know, I am a big Ellsbury fan, and not only because he’s from my home-state. I cringe at the possibility that a potential Bay signing could mean Cameron moves to center and Ellsbury moves to San Diego for A-Gon. Sure, their power numbers would skyrocket, but they would lose all the speed they have. And speed is such a big factor.
By not wanting to offer Bay want he wants tells me that Boston doesn’t really want him longterm. They clearly don’t see eye-to-eye, and the management may want to just go with a Cameron-Reddick future.
You are right, he screwed up with Seattle by asking for a fifth year. I don’t think he will go to the Mets, but if he doesn’t land in Boston, he will probably have to take less years and less money to play in Seattle, which, as you say, may be his preferred and best option.
Yet, the possibility of having to settle for a three-year deal despite being close to home could force him to take the Mets offer and play in the stadium where home-runs go to die. Personally, I would be shocked if he went to the Mets with an offer (any offer) by the Mariners on the table.
That is the whole point of his endless hesitation with the Mets, it isn’t so much that he wants to go back to Boston, I think he is waiting to see if Seattle will even revisit the possibility even if it is for a lowball offer.
The thing about it, he could have had Seattle match the Boston offer from the jump, and if he had that opportunity now he would take it, but the agent overplayed his hand and tried to use the Mets to get the extra year out of Seattle, and Seattle told his agent to go to hell.
Whatever is going on, it has to play out within 7 days or less, if not before Friday, because there are allot of rumblings in the NY media that Omar Minaya is getting played, so he can’t leave the offer out there forever, and they are going to pull the offer at some point soon, so unless the agent can put together a fall back option quickly, Bay just has to take the Mets money, because he just can’t risk getting shutout, and all of the sudden it is January 15 and he doesn’t know where he is going.
http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4779416
That answers that.
I would think what happened is that Omar Minaya called the agent on Monday morning and said we will give you the vesting option for the 5th year but that the offer gets pulled at 5 pm Tuesday if it isn’t agreed to, and Bay just had to take the money.
In the end he would have been better off just going to Seattle on a 4 year $60+ deal, and I am sure that he had a chance to do so, and the reason it happened the way it did is because he has an agent that really didn’t care what the client wanted, and instead the agent only wanted to maximize his commission.
Using the Mets to leverage the Mariners is a good strategy only if you are willing to play there in the event that Seattle refuses to match, but it is a bad strategy if you know that you don’t want to play there at all.
The agent clearly overplayed his hand.
This signing, plus Derosa going to the Giants then means that Holiday is going to have to sign the offer that St. Louis has in front of him, and sign it fast, and that Johnny Damon now has nowhere to go, and that he will likely sign with the Yankees for 1 year at his previous salary of $13M.
Yeah, Bay went for the money (he can make up to $80 million). I don’t know how he will fare in that big ballpark. Remember, Wright only hit 8 homers last season. He will help the Mets and give Wright some protection, but he should have gone elsewhere.
You are right, the Mariners would have been a much better option. After all, as you pointed out, he’s from those parts.
Personally, I am shocked he went to the Mets. There is pressure in Boston, but New York is a whole new beast, especially for a hitter who strikes out a lot.
The options are dwindling for both Holliday and Damon. Holliday, unless the Red Sox swoop in and blow him away, should take any offer St. Louis gives him. That’s a great situation for him. Why not hit with Pujols for the next five, six years. To me, that’s a no-brainer.
For Damon, his lone option appears New York. Another place he could have fit was San Fran, but they nabbed Derosa. Settling for $13 million from a World Series champ shouldn’t be too difficult to accept. Yet, who knows? Boras is his agent, after all.
Bay signing with the Mets would have been a surprise two weeks ago, but now, no it isn’t a surprise, because it was what he had to do, because his agent painted him into a corner.
Holiday is going back to St. Louis, period. Boston makes no sense, not anymore.
I still think that Boston is going to trade Ellisburry, probably along with a starting pitcher, for a different starting pitcher, a 2 for 1 with an upgrade for what you are getting back.
The Cubs need a CF, maybe they can get former #1 pick and Notre Dame WR Jeff Samardja. SD isn’t moving Adrian Gonzales, and they sure aren’t moving him for just Ellisburry, and I don’t see Boston trading young pitching in a deal for a hitter, so you can forget about that.
If Ellsburry is still on the roster in a month, I think they just take the best deal they can get for pitching prospects, because I think Reddick is equal to Ellisburry right now, with a greater upside, and he is also a lefty hitter.
Johnny Damon will have to settle for a 1 year deal if he wants to avoid a salary cut, and the Yankees will give it to him so he isn’t totally disgruntled, and he will take it because the only other options he will have is signing a long term deal at a salary cut for a bottom feeder, and spending the rest of his career in baseball oblivion.
One remote possibility is that if Damon is still around and the Rangers clear up their ownership situation, that they make a 2 year offer, but I think he goes back to the Yankees in 3 weeks for the same $13M he was making last year.
Yeah, you are right. They were his only real option. It just appeared that he didn’t want to go to New York, which made his decision a shocking one to me.
Holliday is going back to the Cardinals. That’s a no-brainer.
My guess is that Ellsbury is going to remain with the team. He has meant so much to the Red Sox. He is proven. Reddick is not.
Texas could get into the mix for Damon (good suggestion), but I find it hard to believe that he would leave New York.