Tagged: Ben Cherington
The Red Sox Rob Peter to Pay Paul
The Red Sox have been among the most active teams in baseball at the 2012 Winter Meetings, filling roster spots all over the diamond with medium to high-priced editions. After dumping the contracts of Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett and Carl Crawford on the Dodgers this past August, Boston general manager Ben Cherington came to Nashville with money to burn. He wasted little time this offseason handing out rather generous contracts to back-up catcher David Ross and outfielder Jonny Gomes before the Thanksgiving turkey was even on the table and now it appears to be more of the same with the signings of catcher/1st baseman/DH Mike Napoli and outfielder Shane Victorino. Boston now has a glutton of decent but not great catching options, an overload of outfield/DH type, and a serious lack of pitching at the big league level. And the worst part of all for Red Sox fans? None of these moves will help Boston make the playoffs. Hell, this roster probably isn’t any better than the one Cherington tore apart at the 2012 trade deadline.
Jonny Gomes for $10 Million? Really?
A year ago Jonny Gomes was making a cool million bucks to form a rather effective left field/DH platoon in Oakland where he hit .262/.377/.491 with 18 homers and 47 RBI while playing in just 99 games. At this point you might be asking yourself, “Hey, why did Jonny Gomes only play in 99 games? That on-base percentage is sky-high and would have ranked 8th in baseball if Gomes got more at bats. And his power is pretty decent too.” Boston general manager Ben Cherington may have been asking himself that very same question when he picked up the phone yesterday, dialed up Gomes’ agent and offered a 2 year/$10 million dollar deal.
LA Goes All-In; Boston Blows It Up
The Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Dodgers are on the verge of completing one of the biggest blockbuster trades in baseball history, one which will alter the balance of baseball on each coastline. Boston appears to be shipping it’s three highest paid players, Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, and Carl Crawford plus Nick Punto in exchange for one player currently on the Dodgers roster (James Loney) and a package of prospects. Let’s take a look at the motives and the haul of players that both teams will be receiving.
TheCutoffMan 