'Invisible' Ellsbury

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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terrynever said:
Yanks tried an old tried and true formula. Hit Boston where it hurts. Take away one of its best players. In hindsight, they should have waited for one of their kids to develop. Boston made the same mistake when it signed Hanley for roughly the same amount of money. I guess the temptation to empty the wallet is too great for baseball executives. I can only hope the Yankees have learned their lesson following the Ellsbury signing.
 
Hanley and Ellsbury are pretty much the same age. Hanley doesn't look like a good signing now, but he got 4/88. Ellsbury got 7/152. Substantial difference there. Ellsbury is a far better defensive player so that makes up some of the difference, but by and large if he hits in the future like he did this year that's a horrible contract.
 
Ellsbury was signed as a 30 year old coming off a 113 OPS+ season. His first two seasons in NY have produced 110 and 88 OPS+, right along the trend of general decline. The real outlier of his career is 2011, with the 146 OPS+ and the crazy HR totals. Since then he's never reached anywhere near such production.
 

jon abbey

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I wasn't a fan of any of those post-2013 FA signings (McCann/Beltran), but this was always pretty clearly the worst. Their attempt at getting undet $189M really messed them up and this awful albatross deal is the worst of the results. It seems like the overarching macro decision making by Cashman and his bosses has gotten a lot better since then, but this one is almost certainly going to haunt them for a while. 
 

mt8thsw9th

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Smiling Joe Hesketh said:
 
Hanley and Ellsbury are pretty much the same age. Hanley doesn't look like a good signing now, but he got 4/88. Ellsbury got 7/152. Substantial difference there. Ellsbury is a far better defensive player so that makes up some of the difference, but by and large if he hits in the future like he did this year that's a horrible contract.
 
Ellsbury was signed as a 30 year old coming off a 113 OPS+ season. His first two seasons in NY have produced 110 and 88 OPS+, right along the trend of general decline. The real outlier of his career is 2011, with the 146 OPS+ and the crazy HR totals. Since then he's never reached anywhere near such production.
 
First off, I wouldn't touch the Hanley/Ellsbury comp, but three years remaining of Hanley is a steal compared to Ellsbury. Hanley can at least be DH'ed; Ellsbury is trending toward worthless as you can't rotate him in at DH like they were able to with Damon. 
 
Ellsbury's career is basically a mix of hype and 2011. His OPS+ leading up to that season was 93, and since that year is 102 (and trending downward). The Yankees would have been much better off letting the Red Sox sign Ellsbury to some stupid contract like they did, which basically amounted to drawing a line with Cano and being cutesy with the "savings".
 

RIrooter09

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I'm sure Plympton will chime in anytime now and admit that he was wrong about the Ellsbury signing.
 

nvalvo

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mt8thsw9th said:
 
First off, I wouldn't touch the Hanley/Ellsbury comp, but three years remaining of Hanley is a steal compared to Ellsbury. Hanley can at least be DH'ed; Ellsbury is trending toward worthless as you can't rotate him in at DH like they were able to with Damon. 
 
Ellsbury's career is basically a mix of hype and 2011. His OPS+ leading up to that season was 93, and since that year is 102 (and trending downward). The Yankees would have been much better off letting the Red Sox sign Ellsbury to some stupid contract like they did, which basically amounted to drawing a line with Cano and being cutesy with the "savings".
 
I don't think the Sox were all that interested. P91 doesn't work in the front office. 
 

mt8thsw9th

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RIrooter09 said:
I'm sure Plympton will chime in anytime now and admit that he was wrong about the Ellsbury signing.
He still has six years to be right.

The "following" thread doesn't seem to be bumped very often with Ellsbury's name anymore.
 

Plympton91

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RIrooter09 said:
I'm sure Plympton will chime in anytime now and admit that he was wrong about the Ellsbury signing.
In a year the Yankees are headed to the playoffs and the Red Sox were eliminated the weekend after the all-star break? After the Red Sox spent $210 million on Ric Porcello, Pablo Sandpval, and Allen Craig? You folks really want to go down that road?

Ellsbury had a bad year, granted not Jackie Bradley 2014 all time worst performance in the history of starting outfielders bad, or Allen Craig's largest ever salary for the Pawtucket Red Sox bad, but bad enough. Yet, he can earn his entire salary by going 3-4 with a HR on Tuesday night.

That's what the Yankees pay for -- the ability to take over a postseason game.

The Red Sox have some good tee times though, I'm sure.
 

Plympton91

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mt8thsw9th said:
He still has six years to be right.

The "following" thread doesn't seem to be bumped very often with Ellsbury's name anymore.
I was already right. If anyone actually read the perfectly statistically based arguments I put forward and the reason I was willing to take the risk being the dead on balls accurate prediction that Jackie Bradley wasn't major league ready in 2014. A nagging leg injury in year 2 doesn't really cause me any concern about my projections for Year 3.
 

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Plympton91 said:
In a year the Yankees are headed to the playoffs and the Red Sox were eliminated the weekend after the all-star break? After the Red Sox spent $210 million on Ric Porcello, Pablo Sandpval, and Allen Craig? You folks really want to go down that road?

Ellsbury had a bad year, granted not Jackie Bradley 2014 all time worst performance in the history of starting outfielders bad, or Allen Craig's largest ever salary for the Pawtucket Red Sox bad, but bad enough. Yet, he can earn his entire salary by going 3-4 with a HR on Tuesday night.

That's what the Yankees pay for -- the ability to take over a postseason game.

The Red Sox have some good tee times though, I'm sure.
 
 
 

rembrat

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Has Plympy been made aware of JBJ's 2015? Why am I reading about 2014 in 2015? 
 

Plympton91

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rembrat said:
Has Plympy been made aware of JBJ's 2015? Why am I reading about 2014 in 2015? 
Because unlike many people here, I'm not willing to punt multiple seasons, and as Ben Cherington's unemployment check indicates, neither is John Henry.

It's great that Bradley had 5 weeks out of the past 156 where he looked capable of hitting major league pitching, but the Red Sox still sucked in 2014 and 2015, in large part because he sucked for all but those 5 weeks.

Put another way, If the object of letting Ellsbury (and Lester) walk away was to improve the team and it's payroll flexibility, then they've failed miserably. The team still isn't as good as it was at the end of 2013 (largely on the pitching deficiency) and they have no payroll flexibility anyway because there's $260 million invested in 3 players who probably shouldn't even be penciled in as starters in 2016, and another $30 million invested in a 4th who probably shouldn't even start for Pawtucket. So yeah, I'd trade Porcello, Panda, Ramirez, and Craig for Ellsbury and Lester. In a heartbeat. And I'm still giving them a pass on whether 28 year old Rusney Castillo and his $72 million commitment can show himself to be anything more than an expensive version of Damon Buford, as he shakes off the rust of inactivity. But if you have me a choice of him or Ellsbury for 2016, I'd take Ells. Ultimately, given that they have no problem giving out potentially albatross contracts, They signed the wrong players. Anyone should be able to see that.

Meanwhile, the Yankees make plans for playing baseball in October, and SOSH gears up for the all important Arizona Fall League championship.
 

lexrageorge

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The Yankees made the playoffs in spite of Ellsbury, not because of him. 
 
JBJ's OPS in 2015 was 0.836.  Ellsbury's was 0.673.  Ellsbury will be 32 next year; do you really think he'll exceed his career 0.770 OPS?  JBJ is a better fielder, and likely needs to hit for an OPS in the 0.700-0.750 to be better than Ellsbury.  Given that JBJ will be 26 next year and had precious few MiLB bats prior this disastrous 2014, an OPS in the low 700's is not exactly an outlandish prediction.  As for Ellsbury's base stealing, the Sox have more than adequately replaced that with Mookie Betts.  
 
The Craig argument is ridiculous.  They got him in a trade as a potential bounce back player, and got a decent pitcher to boot who could solve their closer problem next season.  Craig's failings are completely independent of the Ellsbury decision, and the money is essentially a rounding error for this organization (and doesn't even figure into luxury tax implications).  
 
As for Castillo, the dollars aren't all that unreasonable.  It is admittedly unclear if his August performance was the result of his working out the rust or his inordinately high BABIP, or if his September struggles were due to his hitting the wall or having an unsustainable low BABIP.  But he's a better option going forward than either Shane Victorino or Daniel Nava was going to be, so maybe we just need accept his solid defense and try to shore up the lineup in other places, much like the Yankees did with Stephen Drew and his 0.201 batting average. 
 
Sandoval/Ramirez/Porcello:  Win NYY's and P91.  No argument there, especially the Ramirez fiasco.  It's a big reason that Dave Dombrowski and Mike Hazen will be running the show going forward.  But replacing either of the first two w/ Ellsbury does not improve the win totals of the 2015 Red Sox, never mind make them a playoff team.  As for Lester, he would be an improvement over Porcello.  However, even his presence does not make the 2015 Sox a playoff team.  And the team does have money and assets to fix the pitching problem for 2016, which they may not have had had they been paying Lester instead of Porcello.  Yes, I do wish the Sox had the draft pick instead of picking up an outfielder who made it no secret from the beginning that he had no intention of playing for Boston after 2016, or the draft pick for Porcello had he pitched like a $20M/yr player this season.  Again, I'm hoping the source of those decisions has since been moved aside. 
 

Plympton91

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Those are perfectly reasonable arguments in isolation that spreadsheet analysis of baseball as a series of independent events would likely confirm.

Craig's salary in isolation isn't a killer, but Craig, Mujica and Castillo basically covers Ellsbury. They've fallen into Charley Finleys trap of paying a lot for mediocre talents and for some reason view the performance risk of getting negative on field value for $40 million as a better trade off than the performance risk of getting $110 million of value for $150 million. When Jacoby Ellsbury has a bad season, he's still an average center fielder, when Allen Craig has a bad season he $gets $10 million to play for Pawtucket.

But baseball is played on a field, by humans, not in computer simulations. So we'll just have to agree to disagree on how much synergy is created by stability, instead of constantly going in search of greener pastures or spreadsheet projections.

JBJ's 5 weeks of great play this season could be an indication that he'll settle in as a solid low 700s contributor, or the other 151 weeks of the past 3 years might be more representative. We'll just have to see. Either way, there are 3 outfield slots, and gaping holes that this team could fill by trading surplus outfielder talent if it ever arose.
 

jon abbey

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Ellsbury has missed 50 games this year, has stopped stealing bases almost entirely in recent months, and is an adequate but far from spectacular defender.

Combine his bloated contract with his declining skills and his fragile health and I'm guessing there are few contracts as untradeable in all of MLB.
 

Van Everyman

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Allen Craig is not signed to a 7 year contract in a position the team needs him to succeed in to compete.

JBJ certainly didn't help the team in 2014 but arguing "the Red Sox still sucked in 2014 and 2015, in large part because he sucked" is simply not true. If you want to blame their performance this year on Hanley, have at it. But JBJ? I mean, he didn't even reach 100 ABs until midsummer and they weren't even planning on him being a factor this season w Mookie in center.

Also, while it def. hurt that Castillo wasn't ready in the first half, lumping him in with the likes of Mujica as "mediocre talent" is a reach. Toolsney may be raw, he may not reach his potential but it is way too early to banish that bat and arm to the annals of mediocrity.
 

Plympton91

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Van Everyman said:
Also, while it def. hurt that Castillo wasn't ready in the first half, lumping him in with the likes of Mujica as "mediocre talent" is a reach. Toolsney may be raw, he may not reach his potential but it is way too early to banish that bat and arm to the annals of mediocrity.
No argument from me that Castillo has all the tools and could advance from his current status as a more expensive Damon Buford. But he's 28 with no track record and yet they invested $72 million. So, they were willing to risk getting nothing for $72 million instead of paying twice as much for a much, much better chance of getting at least something.

That's a legitimate strategy. And flushing 2014 down the toilet with certainty in order to maybe be better in 2016 is also legitimate. It's just not the way I'd balance risks and rewards. That's all.

Bottom line is the Yankees still got a 93 OPS out of Ellsbury and have his much greater potential still on the field for the playoffs. As Jackie Bradley showed in 2014, Yankee fans could have gotten much much worse from CF this year. And, then maybe the Twins or Angels sneak past them.
 

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Plympton91 said:
Those are perfectly reasonable arguments in isolation that spreadsheet analysis of baseball as a series of independent events would likely confirm.

But baseball is played on a field, by humans, not in computer simulations. So we'll just have to agree to disagree on how much synergy is created by stability, instead of constantly going in search of greener pastures or spreadsheet projections.
 
 
This is an argument for never letting any "homegrown" player go. That seems silly. You can't keep the 2013 team forever so you may as well use some spreadsheets and projections to decide which players are better bets to perform.
And I must have missed Ellsbury being a great leader or someone that really influenced his fellow humans to play better. In fact, I remember some grumblings that suggested the opposite.
 
 
 
 
JBJ's 5 weeks of great play this season could be an indication that he'll settle in as a solid low 700s contributor, or the other 151 weeks of the past 3 years might be more representative.
 Except he hit in the minors for half of 2013 and half of 2015, so it's more like 80 weeks when he wasn't hitting, even if we include the winter when no games were happening. But I'm sure you would just move the goalposts and say the minors don't count or something.
 

LuckyBen

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Plympton91 said:
Bottom line is the Yankees still got a 93 OPS out of Ellsbury and have his much greater potential still on the field for the playoffs. As Jackie Bradley showed in 2014, Yankee fans could have gotten much much worse from CF this year. And, then maybe the Twins or Angels sneak past them.
So Gardner in CF could be much much worse than Ellsbury? While you are referring to all the money the Red Sox are wasting on bloated contracts, why don't you do the same for the Yankees? Chances are good they could of used that money on a power bat instead of signing a redundant piece like Ellsbury.
 

lexrageorge

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After going 23-109 in September, Ellsbury's OPS has gone down by nearly 40 points throughout the month.  His last home run was August 30th.  And he's had 4 stolen bases all month.  There's nothing in those projections that would make me confident that he'll be the answer during the playoffs.  But along with his 86 OPS+, facts tend to be stubborn things. 
 

mt8thsw9th

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lexrageorge said:
After going 23-109 in September, Ellsbury's OPS has gone down by nearly 40 points throughout the month.  His last home run was August 30th.  And he's had 4 stolen bases all month.  There's nothing in those projections that would make me confident that he'll be the answer during the playoffs.  But along with his 86 OPS+, facts tend to be stubborn things. 
Yeah, but he's in the playoffs so it's a good signing.
 

Plympton91

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mt8thsw9th said:
Yeah, but he's in the playoffs so it's a good signing.
 
Even if they weren't, why would you judge a signing by one year?  Didn't John Lackey teach us that is the wrong way to do things?  Anybody who isn't ready to write off Sandoval and Ramirez and Porcello have to make the same argument, don't they?  That one bad year doesn't make a bad contract?  
 
And, I already won this debate in 2014.  The whole of the argument was that the Red Sox didn't have a good enough outfield to compete, Ellsbury was the only one available to fill that spot, and that a) Jackie Bradley wasn't ready and b) even if he was ready they had no depth to cover an injury anywhere else.   I was right then, and I'm right now.
 
The Red Sox could have had Ellsbury, Lester, and Miller.   Instead, they chose to have Sandoval, Ramirez, Porcello, Castillo, and Craig.   In 2014 and 2015, those decisions were disastrous.   Maybe they'll be better in 2016 because they've got some really good young players on the offensive side of the baseball.   Of course, they still need a pitching staff that isn't comprised of arsonists in order to make any hay out of all that offensive talent.
 
 
 
P'tucket said:
Hey, he's only here because you guys let him stay.
 
Once again, I drop into a thread to learn something and get his garbage instead.  Charlie Brown, Lucy, footballs, etc.
 
You need to read the thread.  Someone else decided to gratuitously attack me out of nowhere.  It's not me who can't let this go, it's the rest of you.  But, I'm not going to let falsehoods stand.
 

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Plympton91 said:
 
Even if they weren't, why would you judge a signing by one year?  Didn't John Lackey teach us that is the wrong way to do things?  Anybody who isn't ready to write off Sandoval and Ramirez and Porcello have to make the same argument, don't they?  That one bad year doesn't make a bad contract?  
 
And, I already won this debate in 2014.  The whole of the argument was that the Red Sox didn't have a good enough outfield to compete, Ellsbury was the only one available to fill that spot, and that a) Jackie Bradley wasn't ready and b) even if he was ready they had no depth to cover an injury anywhere else.   I was right then, and I'm right now.
 
 
The first bolded (by me) sentence and the entire second paragraph seem contradictory to me. You can't judge a signing by one year, and yet you are using the first year of Ellsbury's contract to insist that you were right. I, and I feel most others here, disagree, as the prevailing wisdom at the time was that he would not be worth the entirety of his contract and it would become quite the albatross by the end. The fact that it's already looking that way, two years into the deal, would seem to reinforce the idea that it was not a good signing.
 
Look, I understand your thought process on this (I think). 
1) You felt that going into 2014, the Red Sox did not have the outfielders to be a competitive team and were putting all their eggs in one basket by relying on JBJ and Grady Sizemore
2) You felt that the best way to fix this problem was to sign Ellsbury
3) You believe that even if the Ellsbury signing ends up being a poor one in the long-term, the fact that it keeps them competitive on a yearly basis, and avoids the "punting" of a year as you put it, is worth it. 
4) Subsequent arguments that this signing is currently and will likely continue to be an albatross are met with remarks of "well, the money they've saved by not signing Ellsbury was wasted anyway on Porcello/Sandoval/fill in the blank"
 
On point 1, I agree with you. On point 2 and 3 I don't, because I think you shouldn't sign contracts that you feel going in, as most of us did, are going to be pretty bad contracts by the end for the sole purpose of remaining competitive on a yearly basis, as that isn't a sustainable model for building a team. And as to point 4, just because they didn't spend their money as well as they could have doesn't really mean that the solution to that was to not spend their money as well as they could have. 
 
Of course, it's also entirely possible that I don't understand your thought process and subsequently mischaracterized your argument. If so, my bad.
 

Plympton91

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Mr Jums said:
 
The first bolded (by me) sentence and the entire second paragraph seem contradictory to me. You can't judge a signing by one year, and yet you are using the first year of Ellsbury's contract to insist that you were right. I, and I feel most others here, disagree, as the prevailing wisdom at the time was that he would not be worth the entirety of his contract and it would become quite the albatross by the end. The fact that it's already looking that way, two years into the deal, would seem to reinforce the idea that it was not a good signing.
 
Look, I understand your thought process on this (I think). 
1) You felt that going into 2014, the Red Sox did not have the outfielders to be a competitive team and were putting all their eggs in one basket by relying on JBJ and Grady Sizemore
2) You felt that the best way to fix this problem was to sign Ellsbury
3) You believe that even if the Ellsbury signing ends up being a poor one in the long-term, the fact that it keeps them competitive on a yearly basis, and avoids the "punting" of a year as you put it, is worth it. 
4) Subsequent arguments that this signing is currently and will likely continue to be an albatross are met with remarks of "well, the money they've saved by not signing Ellsbury was wasted anyway on Porcello/Sandoval/fill in the blank"
 
On point 1, I agree with you. On point 2 and 3 I don't, because I think you shouldn't sign contracts that you feel going in, as most of us did, are going to be pretty bad contracts by the end for the sole purpose of remaining competitive on a yearly basis, as that isn't a sustainable model for building a team. And as to point 4, just because they didn't spend their money as well as they could have doesn't really mean that the solution to that was to not spend their money as well as they could have. 
 
Of course, it's also entirely possible that I don't understand your thought process and subsequently mischaracterized your argument. If so, my bad.
 
That's fairly close to my reasoning.  I am never willing to punt the current season, and the Red Sox, while not the Yankees, don't have to choose between the short-term and the long-term in the dichotomous ways that people are making it out to be.  If Ellsbury isn't very good in 2018 and 2019, the Red Sox "$100 million player development machine" should be able to overcome that -- they had Bradley, Margot, and Betts -- it just wasn't ready to do so in 2014 and shouldn't have been asked to do so.  
 
It is also why signing one of Ramirez or Sandoval -- but not both -- to play 3B this offseason wouldn't have met with the same derision I'm heaping on the decision to sign them both.  They needed a 3B this year, lacking one in the system.  If you sign one and they end up disasters in the out years of the contract, you hope you've got a minimum salary player ready 3 years from now -- Devers, Moncada -- that isn't there for 2015.   
 

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Plympton91 said:
 
If Ellsbury isn't very good in 2018 and 2019, the Red Sox "$100 million player development machine" should be able to overcome that -- they had Bradley, Margot, and Betts -- it just wasn't ready to do so in 2014 and shouldn't have been asked to do so.  
 
 
 
What about if he isn't very good in 2015, 2016 or 2017 as well?  He was pretty bad this year and he showed once again that he can't stay on the field.  He's probably an average defensive player at best and he's not going to get better with age.  Not having him around allowed the Sox to transition Betts to CF and he's already a much better player for a fraction of the cost.  I know that you'll never back off from your position on this issue but that doesn't mean you won any debate.
 
The Pablo and Hanley signings don't look good right now but that has nothing to do with whether it would've been a smart decision to give Ellsbury $150m the year before.  I don't understand why you continue to connect to the two.  Ellsbury wouldn't have made a difference in the standings in either year and he'd be a huge liability for 5 more years.  That's all that matters.
 

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I almost never agree with ghoff, but every word of that is dead on. I would give anything for p91 to be working in the Sox front office and making actual decisions.
 

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It hurts my feelings that you almost never agree with me.  But at least we're finally on the same page about something.
 

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The wrong side of the bridge....
Ellsbury is Clay Buchholz's position player twin: talented, fragile, exhilarating to watch when he's on, but too inconsistent to lean on as a key puzzle piece. The difference is that Ellsbury gambled and hit the lottery, and Buchholz went for the sure, short money. Ellsbury sure looks like the smarter one now. If I'm Scott Boras I use that comparison anytime I want to persuade a player to reject an FA buyout extension offer. (And I hope my client isn't smart enough to ask what kind of deal Buchholz would have gotten last winter.)
 

Plympton91

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glennhoffmania said:
 
  Ellsbury wouldn't have made a difference in the standings in either year
 
This is analysis that assumes baseball games are played in computer simulators, the performance of each individual player is a statistically independent, and all other personnel decisions would have played out exactly the same under the alternative scenario.
 
If Ellsbury is around in 2014, maybe JBJ doesn't get thrown to the wolves and instead has a solid first half in Pawtucket, allow the still self-confident player to have a decent second half filling in for the injured Victorino.  In that scenario, the Red Sox remain close enough to the wild card race that they do not trade Lester for Cespedes (thus not subsequently acquiring and signing Porcello for $80 million) nor do they trade John Lackey for Allen Craig (saving $30 million wasted dollars).  And then even if Lester ultimately leaves anyway the Red Sox would not have signed both Hanley and Pablo instead (because LF would not have been open), and you have Lackey instead of Porcello for 2015.  
 

RIrooter09

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The Red Sox were 11 games out of the second wild card spot on the day Lester was traded.  Are you stating that Ellsbury was the difference between that team being in the race and not?
 

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RIrooter09 said:
The Red Sox were 11 games out of the second wild card spot on the day Lester was traded.  Are you stating that Ellsbury was the difference between that team being in the race and not?
By even going down this shitty wormhole full of shitty shit you are justifying his shitty shitness. Personally, I was a big fan of the Carl Crawford contract because it allowed them to make that trade where they traded him away for nothing and it led to a World Series.
 

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Plympton91 said:
 
This is analysis that assumes baseball games are played in computer simulators, the performance of each individual player is a statistically independent, and all other personnel decisions would have played out exactly the same under the alternative scenario.
 
If Ellsbury is around in 2014, maybe JBJ doesn't get thrown to the wolves and instead has a solid first half in Pawtucket, allow the still self-confident player to have a decent second half filling in for the injured Victorino.  In that scenario, the Red Sox remain close enough to the wild card race that they do not trade Lester for Cespedes (thus not subsequently acquiring and signing Porcello for $80 million) nor do they trade John Lackey for Allen Craig (saving $30 million wasted dollars).  And then even if Lester ultimately leaves anyway the Red Sox would not have signed both Hanley and Pablo instead (because LF would not have been open), and you have Lackey instead of Porcello for 2015.  
Computer simulators? Are you actually paraphrasing EV now? Does your trolling know no bounds?
 

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Plympton91 said:
 
This is analysis that assumes baseball games are played in computer simulators, the performance of each individual player is a statistically independent, and all other personnel decisions would have played out exactly the same under the alternative scenario.
 
If Ellsbury is around in 2014, maybe JBJ doesn't get thrown to the wolves and instead has a solid first half in Pawtucket, allow the still self-confident player to have a decent second half filling in for the injured Victorino.  In that scenario, the Red Sox remain close enough to the wild card race that they do not trade Lester for Cespedes (thus not subsequently acquiring and signing Porcello for $80 million) nor do they trade John Lackey for Allen Craig (saving $30 million wasted dollars).  And then even if Lester ultimately leaves anyway the Red Sox would not have signed both Hanley and Pablo instead (because LF would not have been open), and you have Lackey instead of Porcello for 2015.  
So basically your point is that even though Ellsbury was a below average player this year and missed about a third of the season, the ripple effect of signing him would've made the Sox a playoff team anyway despite how little he would've contributed.

I like it.
 

Plympton91

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Oct 19, 2008
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My point has been made in concrete analytical terms multiple times.  If you take WAR/$ and a reasonable post-2013 projection of Ellsbury you can get to the money the Yankees offered him.  There's no fanboyism, no irrationality, involved in that calculation.  All the rest of the arguments -- that Bradley wasn't ready and was probably hurt by being thrown into the mix too early, that the team didn't have any other options in the outfield, that Ellsbury pulled his hamstring over the summer of 2015 and it made him an average CF instead of an above average centerfielder in year 2 of a 7 year contract -- are basically just the topping on the analytics.  You all disagree.  That's fine with me.  I'm just a message board poster with a good day job.  The guy who decided to invest John Henry's money in Pablo Sandoval instead of Jacoby Ellsbury is unemployed.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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Plympton91 said:
My point has been made in concrete analytical terms multiple times.  If you take WAR/$ and a reasonable post-2013 projection of Ellsbury you can get to the money the Yankees offered him.  There's no fanboyism, no irrationality, involved in that calculation.  All the rest of the arguments -- that Bradley wasn't ready and was probably hurt by being thrown into the mix too early, that the team didn't have any other options in the outfield, that Ellsbury pulled his hamstring over the summer of 2015 and it made him an average CF instead of an above average centerfielder in year 2 of a 7 year contract -- are basically just the topping on the analytics.  You all disagree.  That's fine with me.  I'm just a message board poster with a good day job.  The guy who decided to invest John Henry's money in Pablo Sandoval instead of Jacoby Ellsbury is unemployed.
 
 

crystalline

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glennhoffmania said:
So basically your point is that even though Ellsbury was a below average player this year and missed about a third of the season, the ripple effect of signing him would've made the Sox a playoff team anyway despite how little he would've contributed.

I like it.
Look there are many things on which P91 and I disagree but he's not totally off base here.

One of the things he's saying is the Sox decided against shopping in the premium FA market where the biggest risk is overpaying at the back end, and shopped instead in the mid-range FA market where the biggest risk is that the player stinks.

And the Sox took that gamble and lost. The midrange players they got stunk. They may never improve.

I think there's a decent chance the Sox will have wasted more money on Hanley and Panda then the Yankees will have wasted on Ellsbury when all is said and done.

For the most part the high end FAs NYY have signed have worked out ok. Sabathia's first few years were good, Teixeira has been above average if not elite, ARod's first contract was not terrible on the field despite the off the field stuff.

Still I think I wouldn't have wanted the Sox to sign Ellsbury. No question though that where they chose to spend money instead was very very wrong.
 

Sprowl

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crystalline said:
One of the things he's saying is the Sox decided against shopping in the premium FA market where the biggest risk is overpaying at the back end, and shopped instead in the mid-range FA market where the biggest risk is that the player stinks.

And the Sox took that gamble and lost. The midrange players they got stunk. They may never improve.

Still I think I wouldn't have wanted the Sox to sign Ellsbury. No question though that where they chose to spend money instead was very very wrong.
Mid-market signings used to mean Victorino, Napoli and Uehara, but in retrospect they were lower-middle-market signings that worked out. Panda and Hanley were upper-middle-market signings that didn't work out, but the position player depth was pretty strong (once the veterans got cleared out of the way).
 
Hoping that one of Porcello, Miley, Masterson, Kelly or Buchholz would be the ace turned out to be the irrecoverable delusion that earned Cherington his pink slip. I wanted to break the bank for Scherzer and shed no tears over Lester. It turns out that quality starting pitching isn't so easy to come by as it seemed last year.
 
Not signing Ellsbury for the Yankee price tag was a no-brainer. Ellsbury was going to be somebody's bad investment, and I'm glad he's not ours. Likewise, the Yankees are probably happy that Cano is not theirs.
 

jon abbey

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Even more than Cano (who they have yet to replace in two years and who had a very strong second half), I think NY is probably happy they dodged the bullet of Nick Swisher, who parlayed a 3.8 bWAR in his age 31 season into a 4/56 (plus a vesting option) in CLE. Three years into that, he's had a strong first season (3.6 bWAR), two horrendous seasons (.617 OPS combined in only 661 PAs), has been exiled to ATL along with cash to sweeten the pot, and still has one year left at least.
 
Oh, and the compensatory pick from CLE in 2013? That was one Aaron Judge. 
 

jimbobim

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There a pretty good chance Ellsbury won't be in the lineup for a do or die game tomorrow because the Yanks have an identical player on the roster in Gardner with a little more pop and Ells has put up this ghastly line after the break 

AVG
220


OBP
.266


SLG
.326


OPS
592

 
The day the Red Sox signed Crawford was the day Ells was leaving. It was publicly reported after the signing was official that Boras went to Ells and said " We beat CC's deal. That was the goal right ?
 
The Yankees came to believe the Mariners were offering eight years to Ellsbury with a willingness to go to a ninth. There had been a feeling that Ellsbury would follow that money because he is from Oregon. But he appeared the latest hitter who wanted nothing to do with that huge ballpark and dubious franchise. The Yankees wouldn’t go eight or nine years, but when they indicated to Boras they would exceed Carl Crawford’s deal – seven years at $142 million – the talks gained traction on Saturday and Sunday. This was the goal, to outdo Crawford.
 
http://nypost.com/2013/12/04/how-jacoby-ellsbury-became-a-yankee/
 
As for comparing the Ellsbury outlay to Pablo and Hanley it's a pretty misleading and ignoring some significant context. Was it arrogant and ultimately dead wrong for the Sox to roll with Sizemore,Bradley, Nava, and Vic as their main OF players in lieu of spending CC money on Ellsbury? Sure. But for a team coming off a World Series win helped by finally fully healthy Ells and Pedroia and the maximum level of output from their mid tier FA's such as Vic Nap Gomes Dempster Koji ,it stretches reality to it's bounds to think the Sox were going to essentially say "Yeah let's make a CC like layout again, but this time it will work." 
 
Also 7 at 154 for one player is different than 5-90 for two players. Again context and motivation is important in that the Red Sox finished in last place entering that market and were in desperate need of offense that didn't seem readily available at 3b. Obviously the Hanley over Cespedes choice looks terrible after his monster contract year alongside Hanley being the worst position player in the league after April. Bottom line 5-90 despite being derisively declared as albatrosses during their pitiful first seasons is not as debilitating as 7 at 154. 
 

glennhoffmania

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crystalline said:
Look there are many things on which P91 and I disagree but he's not totally off base here.

One of the things he's saying is the Sox decided against shopping in the premium FA market where the biggest risk is overpaying at the back end, and shopped instead in the mid-range FA market where the biggest risk is that the player stinks.

And the Sox took that gamble and lost. The midrange players they got stunk. They may never improve.

I think there's a decent chance the Sox will have wasted more money on Hanley and Panda then the Yankees will have wasted on Ellsbury when all is said and done.

For the most part the high end FAs NYY have signed have worked out ok. Sabathia's first few years were good, Teixeira has been above average if not elite, ARod's first contract was not terrible on the field despite the off the field stuff.

Still I think I wouldn't have wanted the Sox to sign Ellsbury. No question though that where they chose to spend money instead was very very wrong.
 
People are entitled to their opinion on whether they should've signed Ellsbury.  Personally I didn't want him at all on any expensive, long-term deal, but that isn't the point.  My issue with P91's "analysis" and that this butterfly effect nonsense is total bullshit.  Ellsbury has not been worth his contract in the first two years.  He was a below average player in 2015.  He may be better next year but he also may be a very expensive and mediocre player for the next five years.  To look at what's actually happened over the first two years and still say that he was the answer to the Sox' problems by crafting a bunch of hypotheticals that may not have even been possible is beyond ludicrous.  It's nothing more than scrambling to justify a position after the fact despite all of the evidence to the contrary.
 
The Sox have been bad for two years now for a variety of reasons but passing on Ellsbury isn't one of them.  They could've built a better team without him but they failed- but they didn't fail because they didn't sign Ellsbury.  Also some people keep saying that Ben got canned because of his failure to properly allocate the Ellsbury money.  Unless new information came out that I missed, he was asked to stay on but he resigned.  And we have no idea how much involvement the ownership had with any of these decisions, including Ellsbury.
 

Average Reds

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glennhoffmania said:
 
The Sox have been bad for two years now for a variety of reasons but passing on Ellsbury isn't one of them.  They could've built a better team without him but they failed- but they didn't fail because they didn't sign Ellsbury.  Also some people keep saying that Ben got canned because of his failure to properly allocate the Ellsbury money.  Unless new information came out that I missed, he was asked to stay on but he resigned.  And we have no idea how much involvement the ownership had with any of these decisions, including Ellsbury.
 
The fact that we have anyone disputing the bolded section is beyond belief. 
 
I wanted the Sox to sign Ellsbury after the WS win, but once I learned what the Yankees were paying him I laughed it off.  Ellsbury's performance over the last two seasons has only confirmed the wisdom of letting him walk and the arguments presented here to refute that notion border on imbecilic.
 

rembrat

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I think there is something brewing between Ellsbury and Girardi. Last week Ells made it a point to tell the media that he was ready to go even though Girardi felt he needed a day off after he crashed into wall.
 
edit: Probably nothing but something just seems weird.
 

yecul

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The Red Sox made two mistakes. 1. Not signing the players I like and want to root for and 2. not making the playoffs.
 
They should not make those mistakes again. I don't see why this is so controversial.