Boston sure has kept busy this winter, eh? The Sox have signed Adrian Beltre to a one-year, $9 million deal with a player option.I can only imagine playing at Fenway Park and donning the fabled and famed home whites of the Boston nine will instantly jolt Beltre back to the perennial 40-homer threat he seemed to be developing into years ago, although this does feel like a bit of an overpay for a guy who posted a sub-.700 OPS last year and has only been above .800 once in the last five seasons (.802 in 2007). Additionally, Beltre--whose best OBP in the last five years was .328--doesn't seem to fit in with Boston's emphasis on working the count and taking a walk.
Still, according to Chris at iYankees, Beltre was the top defensive third baseman in the AL last year, and his glovework made him a 2.4 WAR player. Add in the fact that the Red Sox seem to be interested in improving Mariners-style via pitching and defense, and the signing makes more sense.
Ultimately, that the Sox were able to get a player like Beltre to take over for the hobbled Mike Lowell without tying up a roster spot for more than a year will probably end up being a nice move, especially since you have to figure Beltre's a near-lock to get his OPS out of Melky territory by playing 81 home games on a Little League field.
As far as I know, they still have and are still paying Lowell as well, no? I guess this means Lowell get traded or sits on the bench. It also moves Youkilis over to first full time, which means Victor Martinez -- who played half his games at first last year -- moves to catcher full time?? He certainly can't DH, they already have one of those. And V-Mart is, by all accounts, a dreadful catcher.
ReplyDeleteThey do still have Lowell, although this move would seemingly ensure that Boston will be paying him to play for someone else in 2010, unless the Sox don't mind paying $12.5M for Lowell to sit on the bench.
ReplyDeleteThis move doesn't scare me one bit. The further speculation about how they may try to trade Lowell to the Mets for Luis Castillo is even more exciting!!!
ReplyDeleteBeltre has played 12 seasons in the big leagues to a line of .270/.325/.453/.779. However, 2004 was so much better than the rest of his career that that line becomes .264/.318/.435/.753 when it is removed. If you play 12 seasons and have one year that adds 26 points to your career OPS, that is the definition of outlier. His second best year (OPS wise) was 182 points lower. That was also the only season since 2000 that he managed higher than a .330 OBP. His glove is very solid, but I still think WAR is weighted too heavily on the defensive side
ReplyDeleteI don't see how a Lowell/Castillo swap makes any sense though. Where would he play on the Sox? They have a pretty darn good second baseman in Pedroia, and Castillo once played 2 games at shortstop in rookie ball back in 1994. After that, every professional inning he has played has been at second base.
If they manage to dump Lowell on someone else (and figure to pay about 75% or more of his salary), they would be paying at least $18M to have Lowell and Julio Lugo play for other teams in 2010. The fact that they can do that should end any discussion involving Sox fans whining about the Yankees payroll. We can afford to eat our mistakes. So can you. That's the advantage of being big market clubs.