December 24, 2009

Bay Watch

The Red Sox may be interested in Jason Bay again, thanks to the Yankees:

Radio station WEEI in Boston reported Wednesday night that the Sox have had “internal discussions” about resuming negotiations that essentially ended after Bay rejected their four-year, $60 million offer, and the ballclub in turn signed pitcher John Lackey and outfielder Mike Cameron last week.

Red Sox brass had indicated after those signings that it wouldn’t pursue Bay, largely because Boston’s payroll was too close to Major League Baseball’s $170 million luxury-tax threshold.

However, the ballclub may have been influenced by the Yankees’ trade for Javier Vazquez on Tuesday. A Sox insider said Boston fans responded “as only Sox fans can,” by screaming to the various talk shows about the need for the Sox to return fire on the Yankees.

Whether it was public pressure or the ballclub’s feeling that the Vazquez trade was an answer to the Sox signing of Lackey, Sox brass apparently fears that it needs another big bat to compete with the Yankees next season.

I wonder, however, if they’re doing this to put pressure on the Mets to sign Bay, taking him off the table to quiet the fan base. The Red Sox seem immune to that kind of fan pressure. After losing Teixeira before the 2008 season to the Yankees, they didn’t go out and sign another big bat just to sign one. I find it difficult to believe the Boston front office would sign Bay if he doesn’t fit into the club and his contract doesn’t make sense to the team.

4 thoughts on “Bay Watch

  1. dch

    Regarding the Mets and Bay-they are the Mets which means that if there is a way to screw this up-they will find it.

    ReplyReply
  2. edb

    I don’t see Cameron or Ellsbury or Drew as a fourth outfielder. So I can see only one way that going back to Bay makes sense: as a precursor to doing the much-rumored Ellsbury + Buchholz for Gonzalez deal with the Padres.

    ReplyReply
  3. NBarnes

    What I’m seeing here is that, rather than the Sox brass wanting Bay more now than a week ago, idiot Sox callers to idiot Sox radio shows somehow think that the Vasquez trade means that Boston needs an aging, terrible-defensive outfielder for too many years and too much money, when they already have three outfielders.

    I can’t imagine that the Sox actual FO thinks that they need Bay to go with Cameron, Ellsbury, and Drew. And neither does any Sox fan with an IQ above room temperature.

    ReplyReply
  4. ptodd

    The thinking is that Bay may only have one serious offer by a team he is reluctant to commit to (the mets). If so, Bay might be had for significantly less than the 4 yrs 60 million they offered him, and might be willing to take less years and dollars if he has an opt out he can exercise after 1-2 years when the market improves, and folks come to their sense that the HR and RBI is more valuable than the CW currently says it is relative to the walk.

    Bays defense is not all that important as Fenways LF covers up a multitude of sins (even if UZR hammers LF’ers at Fenway due to the wall, FB’s plus minus is more kind by not counting balls off the wall as catchable). Cameron is good defensively, but look at his performance against RHP. He would be much better suited to a platoon roll with Drew and/or Ellsbury.

    ReplyReply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *