Red Sox sign David Price

williams_482

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1) What the fuck? You don't give a guy a record setting deal and then call it a bargain unless that dude turns around and racks up 6-7 fWAR seasons. So until he does that you can't really pat yourself on the back over it.

2) What about the Greinke deal makes the Price deal look more appealing? Is it the 7th year of what will probably be a broken down starter or that you held on to a draft pick?

Both deals are terrible and once the high of signing an ace clears you'll all see that. I gotta say it's been weird as hell reading through this sploogefest considering our bread and butter is LOLing at the Yankees every time they dole out their ridiculous 7 year deals.
I don't think this is particularly fair.

We have a rather limited understanding of how Price will age and how the market will change over the next seven years, but using typical baseline assumptions this deal actually looks pretty good. Sure there is plenty of risk involved with any long term contract, especially a "record setting" one given to a pitcher, and yes David Price is "only" a 5 to 5.5 win player instead of a 6-7 win player, but that's still very good and the market for baseball players has been exploding for at least a decade now.

You don't have to like it, but there are reasons to be happy about this deal beyond blind, fanboyish optimism and an irrational obsession with "aces."
 

Snodgrass'Muff

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Both deals are terrible and once the high of signing an ace clears you'll all see that. I gotta say it's been weird as hell reading through this sploogefest considering our bread and butter is LOLing at the Yankees every time they dole out their ridiculous 7 year deals.
While I agree with you that calling this deal a bargain is silly, jumping to calling it terrible is just the other side of the coin.

Besides, there aren't that many people calling it a bargain. Seems that most people fall somewhere between acknowledging it as necessary while shrugging it off as "not my money" and thinking it could end up as being a fair contract for the production he will offer overall.

The market has changed. This is what a free agent ace costs now. People didn't want to hear it when Porcello signed for 20, and they don't want to hear it now but that's where the market is. The Sox had a big need for an ace and chose money over prospects for filling it. Personally, I think that was the better option, costly as it was.

I imagine, however, that it won't take long for another pitcher to top this deal. Two or three seasons at most.
 

Montana Fan

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Rem, in one of the main board DD projection threads someone posted that the value of the Sox #1 pick was $25-30 million. I have no idea if that's really the case but the D-Backs had the next pick.

So they gave up $206m plus a first round pick for 6 years of Grienke. The Sox gave up $217m for 7 years of Price. The dollar value seems to favor the Sox' deal to me but like you say, the results are what will determine who got the best value. For the time being please allow the rest of us to rationalize that our signing was a better value than their signing.
 

Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
2) What about the Greinke deal makes the Price deal look more appealing? Is it the 7th year of what will probably be a broken down starter or that you held on to a draft pick?
How about the fact that we're paying Price through his age 36 year while the Dbacks are paying Greinke through his age 37 year, and we're paying Price $3M less per year, and we're not losing a pick? Granted, there's the opt-out to balance against that, but I think you can still make a pretty good case that the Sox are getting the better deal.
 

esfr

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Calling the deal terrible is akin to saying "salaries for MLB players are outrageous" - may be true, many if not most agree they are, but that type of absolutism is irrelevant to the analysis of the deal. They chose to pay market - nothing indicates anything to the contrary, recently or otherwise. And yes, market includes committing to pay a guy for at least 1 and more likely 2 years more than he will likely okay to the level of the contract. That IS market. If the player proves to be worthy of those last 2 years then, well, we got a bargain, anything else is market.

Perfect for me would have the opt-out after year 4, but I am certain the sides danced around that Mayberry pole for a while and didn't like the price of that option as much as the price after 3.
 

terrisus

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As with others, ESPECIALLY after the Greinke deal - not only with the price (plus draft cost), but with him now being off the market, and the Dodgers and Giants (and others, of course) still looking for Starting Pitching, I'm VERY happy that we got Price when we did, and avoided the mess that is to follow as the other teams scramble for the left-overs.

And for people saying about paying Price $20 million (or whatever) more than we needed to, what would the situation be like if we have played hardball, Price had held off, Greinke had signed (even if it was for a lower amount with Price still on the market/not having signed for what he signed for), and Price is now the remaining premiere pitcher left, between all of those teams?
 

In my lifetime

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With the Greinke salary numbers, it looks like the RS played this one correctly. They went in with their best offers to Greinke and Price, and basically forced the issue. They asked for an answer from Price or they would move on to Greinke. Now Greinke ends up getting more per year and the teams that needed an ace and didn't get one are forced to drop down to the next level which should save them some money. However, the next level is better than the RS next level, but really not what the RS needed. They needed and ace and they got one. From a team perspective, I hate option and I am sure the RS don't like it either, but that was probably what clinched the deal for Price. Very little downside for him and a lot of upside if salaries explode or he exceeds expectations. The free agent market is rarely a good place to go for top of the line talent if a team is trying to be efficient with its money. However in this case, the RS have no in-house alternative and unless they wanted to leverage the future by giving up a boatload of talent, an Ace wasn't walking through the door this season.

The RS were in desperate need for an Ace and a top flight reliever. They checked both those boxes, while not completely blowing up their farm system or completely breaking the bank. Neither were bargains but top flight talent rarely are bargains. The only significant issue that remains is HRam's ability to play 1B. If he is capable at 1B, the RS become one of the favorites to win the WS.

Well done, let the baseball season begin (I am not a Pat fan ---- football season is over for me already).
 

moondog80

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Both deals are terrible and once the high of signing an ace clears you'll all see that. I gotta say it's been weird as hell reading through this sploogefest considering our bread and butter is LOLing at the Yankees every time they dole out their ridiculous 7 year deals.

Unless you are lucky/good enough to develop 5 Mike Trouts at the same time, you can't both have a high payroll and avoid big FA deals (all of which have a high likelihood of being terrible). Yes, Sabathia sucks now for NY, but at least he had a few good seasons with them, and if they could get his money back, all it would enable them to do is sign someone else who is just as likely to sputter out at the end his deal.
 

soxhop411

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There is also this right after

Conversations with Price’s agent stopped during Thanksgiving, then picked up again immediately afterward. The Red Sox weren’t thrilled about giving Price the ability to opt-out after three years, but if the opt-out is a separator and that’s what the pitcher wanted, the club was willing to provide it.
 

mikeford

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Unless you are lucky/good enough to develop 5 Mike Trouts at the same time, you can't both have a high payroll and avoid big FA deals (all of which have a high likelihood of being terrible). Yes, Sabathia sucks now for NY, but at least he had a few good seasons with them, and if they could get his money back, all it would enable them to do is sign someone else who is just as likely to sputter out at the end his deal.
CC is also a much different case from David Price because he is a huge man and then it also turned out he was an alcoholic. Neither of those things make him a bad person or anything but they definitely make his long term deal look a lot worse in hindsight.
 

Van Everyman

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Again, this whole discussion of whether the option benefits the team or the player misses that fundamental point. It benefits the player a ton. John Henry knows that.
If Price pitches his ass off, the Sox wins another World Series and then he opts out after 3 years to sign a $230M deal with the Yankees, I won't be complaining. As disappointed as I'd be to lose him, is a much, much worse deal than what we'd have given him. There are worse things than 3 years/~$90M for an ace in his price.
 

Drek717

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CC is also a much different case from David Price because he is a huge man and then it also turned out he was an alcoholic. Neither of those things make him a bad person or anything but they definitely make his long term deal look a lot worse in hindsight.
He also was instrumental in the MFY winning the 2009 World Series. If we had the benefit of foresight and knew that David Price would 1. be an elite pitcher for four seasons 2. win at least one World Series in those four season and 3. be a shell of his former self and grossly overpaid for the last three seasons would anyone here actually pass?
 

DavidTai

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If we had the benefit of foresight and Price won his championship and opted out, then became a shell of his former self -after- signing the new contract, I would pray we had the foresight to let him walk instead of to resign him to a new contract the way the Yankees did Sabitha. Signing that -second- contract was what hurts more, not the original deal.

But that's not actually a good example of if Price could pitch into his late 30s. He -could-. I just wouldn't want to gamble on it without the benefit of foresight, same way I wouldn't have been terribly comfortable with doing the same on most pitchers past the mid-30s.

Sabitha had a hell of a lot more mileage on his body before that, and David Price doesn't strike me as the sort who'd age poorly the way Sabitha did.
 

moondog80

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I feel like mentioning CC distracted from my main point: there is virtually no way to take advantage of the capacity for a large payroll other than signing "bad" free agent deals.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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Both deals are terrible and once the high of signing an ace clears you'll all see that. I gotta say it's been weird as hell reading through this sploogefest considering our bread and butter is LOLing at the Yankees every time they dole out their ridiculous 7 year deals.
I too have found it weird that there hasn't been more discussion about the RS's / Henry's change in strategy w.r.t. team building.

Not saying that there isn't logic to acquiring the cream of the crop talent. However, it certainly was an abrupt change in direction.

No matter how well Price pitches, there's going to be at least one or two years where he's not worth the money and the Sox will be hard-pressed to compete in those years with that much "dead money" (to borrow a phrase). Hopefully, the Sox will have one or two WS wins to make it all worthwhile.

Words cannot describe how happy I am that the Red Sox have avoided the situation the Dodgers now find themselves in. Not only is that a pretty big drop from Price and Greinke to the rest of the FA starting pitching pool, but it gives DDski the luxury of going to Nashville and playing the Godfather role as teams come to him looking for something.
How can the Dodgers possibly be in a bad situation - after all, doesn't his opt-out simply mean that they really had a 3 year / $76M deal and now they've been relieved of the 3 year / $71M deal on the back end . . . ?
 

terrisus

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How can the Dodgers possibly be in a bad situation - after all, doesn't his opt-out simply mean that they really had a 3 year / $76M deal and now they've been relieved of the 3 year / $71M deal on the back end . . . ?
Alright, so "now they've been relieved of the 3 year / $71M deal on the back end."
So what are they going to do now?
 
Aug 22, 2014
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1) What the fuck? You don't give a guy a record setting deal and then call it a bargain unless that dude turns around and racks up 6-7 fWAR seasons. So until he does that you can't really pat yourself on the back over it.

2) What about the Greinke deal makes the Price deal look more appealing? Is it the 7th year of what will probably be a broken down starter or that you held on to a draft pick?

Both deals are terrible and once the high of signing an ace clears you'll all see that. I gotta say it's been weird as hell reading through this sploogefest considering our bread and butter is LOLing at the Yankees every time they dole out their ridiculous 7 year deals.
isn't it time we stop laughing at a team that keeps finishing ahead of us without a significantly bigger payroll?
 

Marciano490

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I usually avoid Tomase's writing like the plague but there is some really decent anecdotes in this piece :

The men met for dinner in a private room off the main restaurant. Price sported jeans and a backwards baseball cap. The Red Sox contingent – owner John Henry, CEO Tom Werner, presidents Dave Dombrowski and Sam Kennedy, general manager Mike Hazen, VP Frank Wren, and managerJohn Farrell – wore suits. Kennedy, a former Trinity College standout who's very much a jeans and backwards hat kind of guy, immediately tore off his tie.

Hazen presented a gift: an official program with Price on the cover in a Red Sox uniform. Price smiled politely. Hazen told him to turn it over.
On the back was a preening picture of Astro, Price's beloved six-year-old French bulldog. This wasn't just cheesy, it was a gallon of queso. And it was perfect.
"David gets this huge smile," McKinnis said, "and it set the tone for the rest of the evening."

"I didn't think we were ever really strident," Henry told WEEI.com after the press conference. "The media made a big deal out of that one comment. But I would say this: wasn't there a famous New Englander who said, 'Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds?'"
That would be noted transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson, who argued for the coexistence of science and spirituality 150 years before scouting and analytics began battling for baseball's soul. Emerson's point was straightforward – we should never stagnate in our thinking.

http://www.weei.com/sports/boston/baseball/red-sox/john-tomase/2015/12/05/how-deal-was-done-inside-red-sox-pursuit-david
It's a foolish consistency, John. Foolish consistency.
 

nvalvo

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It has been less recently.
Really, it has been less in 2015, when the Yankees "only" have a higher payroll by about $25-30m. But that's a product of the Sox raising payroll sharply over recent years and NY reigning it in somewhat. Next year could also be close, as Boston seems to be exceeding the CBT threshold and I have no idea what NY is doing.

But it's more that the difference feels less significant, as
  1. The expensive players on the Yankees have come to seem more like millstones than advantages (even A-Rod's rejuvenated season only notched 3 WAR, and that's hardly great ROI), and
  2. The Dodgers have leapfrogged everyone.
 

Byrdbrain

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You are a bit low, over that span the EE has outspent the Sox by just over $69M on average. The lowest difference is $47M in 2010 and the high was $99M in 2009. Year end numbers aren't up for 2015 but starting numbers were closer at just a bit over $30M difference. I assume the year end numbers will be a bit higher as the Sox shed some payroll in Nap and Victorino.
 

terrisus

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You are a bit low, over that span the EE has outspent the Sox by just over $69M on average. The lowest difference is $47M in 2010 and the high was $99M in 2009. Year end numbers aren't up for 2015 but starting numbers were closer at just a bit over $30M difference. I assume the year end numbers will be a bit higher as the Sox shed some payroll in Nap and Victorino.
Thanks for double-checking that.

So, yeah, that average difference is basically the cost of Price + Greinke.
If that counts as "without a significantly bigger payroll," then that's quite the laugh.
 

jimbobim

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MUST READ from Speier. So many awesome and informative nuggets.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/12/05/price/9fixJHvzvF2OJVPLqd2TVP/story.html

Henry (who also owns the Globe) and Kennedy outlined the long-term financial resources available to the team — sufficient to field lineups with perennial World Series ambitions — while Henry spoke to his yearning to have Price anchor more title runs.
What the pitcher heard that evening made an impression.
“The moment that dinner was over,” said McKinnis, “David and I hopped in a car to go home. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘Well, that made me want to be a Red Sox.’ ”

Another rising young talent, Blake Swihart, was often viewed by teams with ace-caliber pitchers to trade as a secondary piece in a deal rather than a primary one.

Solving the pitching problem threatened to open up gaping holes on the major league roster, sacrificing a star to gain one.

Director of pitching analysis Brian Bannister examined the pitch mixes and deliveries of potentially available pitchers and compared them to pitchers who sustained dominance into their 30s in an effort to identify the available pitchers who represented the best age-defying bets.

■ Director of major league operations Zack Scott and the Sox’ analytics team led a study comparing the cost of trading for an ace (which required affixing a dollar figure to prospects and making performance projections) to signing one, delivering a memo to Dombrowski and Hazen toward the end of the World Series that Dombrowski then presented to the owners a couple of days later.

And a lot more... Well worth everyones time..

For anyone who doesn't pay for the Globe....

[St. Louis] was the direction we were going in. They were being quite aggressive with us. They were anxious to move forward,” said McKinnis. “It had nothing to do with liking or disliking the Red Sox. It was more just the courtship by the Cardinals.”

On Tuesday, Casey Close, the representative for Greinke, informed the Sox that the righthander wanted to know if the Sox planned to make a formal offer.
Not yet. Dombrowski demonstrated what one team official characterized as “tunnel vision,” wanting to see if he could bring Plan A to a successful resolution before pivoting if necessary to Plan B.

And so, on Tuesday morning the Red Sox upped their bid to $210 million. As McKinnis and Price discussed the offer, they saw a finish line.

“In my talks with David, we were like, ‘What are we waiting on?’ ” said McKinnis. “We love Dave Dombrowski. We want to be in the AL East. Let’s go.’”

The deal could be done, McKinnis said, for $217 million over seven years, the largest guarantee ever for a pitcher, surpassing Kershaw’s seven-year, $215 million deal.

Dombrowski received authorization from the owners to hit the mark. A few minutes before 5 p.m., the Red Sox president of baseball operations looped back to McKinnis and hung up. Deal done. And a new precedent set.

Werner dispatched his jet to Las Vegas to pick up Price on Thursday night, making the final arrangements through McKinnis.

“I spoke to Bo and said, ‘I’m going to handle some catering. What can I get David?’ David said, ‘I want two In-N-Out cheeseburgers with onions, fries, and a chocolate milkshake,’ ” Werner recalled.

“It cost me a lot of money to find somebody in Las Vegas to go to an In-N-Out and pick up two cheeseburgers. But I figured we’ve spent more than $200 million, what’s another $100 on a couple of cheeseburgers?”
 
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absintheofmalaise

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When I first started writing the article on the Price signing I included Sabathia in with A-Rod in the "they opted out" group. Upon doing more research I discovered that he did not opt out back in 2011. Hours before the deadline, he and the Yankees agreed on an extension for one year that paid him $25m through 2016, with a team option for 2017 for $30m. It includes a $5m buy-out if the Yankees don't pick up the option year based on the condition of his shoulder. I don't know how that play into the various arguments in here, but thought y'all ought to know.

More links:
ESPN
SI
 

Average Reds

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The CC example points out the flawed premise behind the "opt-out is a benefit for the Sox" crowd. Because if Price performs really well for the first three years, there is significant pressure on the team to negotiate ahead of the opt-out to keep from losing an ace.

Opt-outs place the team into a corner where, at the point of the opt-out, they find themselves with either a huge hole in their rotation, a huge financial albatross on their roster or a very risky, very expensive, mid-30s pitcher with an extension.

And let me be clear: I am very glad they signed Price. I just cannot stand the gibberish being tossed around claiming that the opt-out is anything other than future trouble for for the Sox.
 

Van Everyman

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I understand your point, AR. I just think it isn't so cut and dried. Plus, I fail to see why anyone would actually prefer Price $217M/7y guaranteed to when he's 37 to ~$90M/3y during his early 30s seasons.

Is this really materially different than what we saw with Revis' $32M/2y deal with the Pats? Yes the option for Revis to effectively opt out created "significant pressure" on the Pats in year 2 but again, it seems to have worked out ok in that the team got a prime year for an elite athlete at an affordable price.
 

RIrooter09

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The Revis situation was completely different. It was the Patriots choice to decline the option, not Revis's.
 

Average Reds

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I understand your point, AR. I just think it isn't so cut and dried. Plus, I fail to see why anyone would actually prefer Price $217M/7y guaranteed to when he's 37 to ~$90M/3y during his early 30s seasons.

Is this really materially different than what we saw with Revis' $32M/2y deal with the Pats? Yes the option for Revis to effectively opt out created "significant pressure" on the Pats in year 2 but again, it seems to have worked out ok in that the team got a prime year for an elite athlete at an affordable price.
Are you under the mistaken impression that we didn't just give Price a $217 million/7 year contract guaranteed to when he is 37?
 

smastroyin

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I'm cross-posting this from the other thread.

I want to add a moderation note that the discussion about the opt out has really reached saturation and I am going to start (when I have time) moving all future posts discussing the opt-out to last year's thread (which has already been necro'd anyway). I realize we don't have a lot to talk about since DD says he is largely done, but you can only watch the dog chase its tail for so long.

That said, here is my take on why this discussion continues.

I think matter is largely rhetorical at this point. If people don't understand that they are arguing nonsense then I don't think the discussion is worth having.

In my mind,the pro Opt-out position is based on the underlying assumption that you needed to give David Price something of value in addition to a 7 year $217 million contract to get him to sign. For the sake of argument, let's say that there are then three ways to add this value.

Option 1: Add in the opt-out after three years clause. Let's say this has a a day zero value of $15 million just for argument sake.
Option 2: Give David Price a $15 million signing bonus
Option 3: Give David Price an additional $4, $5, $5, $6 million in the final four years of the contract

You could also add an eighth year or something but for the sake of simplicity and not getting lost in the weeds I don't want to have an argument about how to price that eighth year nevermind if it is a vesting option/buyout situation.

The "pro" opt-out side is making the case that Option 1 is best for the Red Sox. There is also the idea that players overvalue their freedom of choice and price the opt-out irrationally high (therefore meaning you would need to bump Options 2 and 3 to give equivalent perceived value). I'm not sure that is the case but I think you could make the argument.

Beyond that, it is clear to literally anyone who can think through basic math or negotiating that the opt-out gives value to the player, not the team. If someone is arguing that a 7/217 with opt-out is a better contract for the Boston Red Sox than a 7/217 without one, then I don't know what to say, because it is obviously wrong. Even if you have so little trust in the team to make the right decision in year 4 (vis a vis trade vs keep) so you want Price to make the decision for them, they still have the opportunity to make the "bad" decision of renegotiating the contract so that Price doesn't opt-out, or re-signing him after he does.
 
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Yelling At Clouds

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Good article, thanks for posting. This part stuck out to me, as I imagined it stuck out to many:


Another rising young talent, Blake Swihart, was often viewed by teams with ace-caliber pitchers to trade as a secondary piece in a deal rather than a primary one.
Solving the pitching problem threatened to open up gaping holes on the major league roster, sacrificing a star to gain one.
Among other things, this suggests to me that Kimbrel really was the best they could get for Margot and Guerra.
 

dhappy42

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... it is clear to literally anyone who can think through basic math or negotiating that the opt-out gives value to the player, not the team.
That is fundamentally false. A player-option can have value to both the player and the team. Not necessarily the same value, obviously, but option clauses are not a zero-sum game. How much value to the player and team, positive or negative, depends on performance and financial assumptions. This is easy to illustrate with extreme-end examples. For example, if the Red Sox assume 5 WAR/year from Price in years 1-2-3 and 0 WAR/year from Price in years 4-5-6-7, then the player option provides positive value to the team and to Price. In the other hand, if Price is hit by a bus tomorrow and contributes 0 WAR/year in years 1-2-3 and 0 WAR/year in years 4-5-6-7, then it's hugely negative for the Sox while providing positive value to Price. The reality, of course, is somewhere in between and depends on performance and risk assumptions, as well as other factors such as inflation.
 

smastroyin

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Again, it's not that I disagree, though I do. It's that the discussion is a dog chasing its tail, and is rather boring, and frankly you are not acquitting yourself as a thoughtful person, rather as someone who endlessly repeats the same points.

There is a thread in the mlb forum to discuss the effects of opt-outs on contracts. I will be moving all future discussion to that thread if it takes over this one again. We have had a few days to let the ramifications of David Price's actual contract breathe, and I think it is time to move on from beating this particular dead horse on the Red Sox board. If the other moderators disagreed with me I think they would have let me know by now. I hope that's clear to dhappy and to everyone else.
 

Rasputin

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MUST READ from Speier. So many awesome and informative nuggets.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/12/05/price/9fixJHvzvF2OJVPLqd2TVP/story.html

Henry (who also owns the Globe) and Kennedy outlined the long-term financial resources available to the team — sufficient to field lineups with perennial World Series ambitions — while Henry spoke to his yearning to have Price anchor more title runs.
What the pitcher heard that evening made an impression.
“The moment that dinner was over,” said McKinnis, “David and I hopped in a car to go home. The first words out of his mouth were, ‘Well, that made me want to be a Red Sox.’ ”
Anyone else find it interesting that the Yankees weren't mentioned at all? Not on Price's initial list of teams, not in a list that talked to him. Not anywhere.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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terrisus

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He said a while ago that the no-facial-hair policy was a deal-breaker. Apparently he was serious.

Found the link: http://www.cbssports.com/mlb/eye-on-baseball/21736556/david-price-wouldnt-play-for-the-yankees-due-to-facial-hair-rule
If that had any part at all in his decision, or in the choices that he explored*, then good - that "rule" has always been a joke.
Pump yourself full of whatever drugs you want, go out and party at nightclubs, etc. - just make sure you're clean-shaven.


*I doubt that it was too much of a factor. But, you know.
 

snowmanny

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Anyone else find it interesting that the Yankees weren't mentioned at all? Not on Price's initial list of teams, not in a list that talked to him. Not anywhere.
I think that is the strangest part of this whole negotiation. For years it seemed obvious that anytime a premier free agent pitcher hit the market the Red Sox would have no chance because the Yankees could always use another pitcher and would always outbid them. Mussina, Contreras, Sabathia, whoever.
The only chance Boston would have would be in atypical situations, like a trade and extension (Pedro, Schilling, Beckett) or the Matsuzaka posting.
There have been eight million "they've never outbid the Yankees!" posts. But Pineda, Severino, Tanaka, Sabathia and Eovaldi must be sufficient.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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22,611
Maine
The absence of the Yankees in the entire process is another overlooked factor as far as the "what changed" question in terms of why the Sox chose Price and now to hand out the biggest FA pitching contract in team/league history. For practically every other potential FA signing since the dawn of free agency, there has been the specter of the Yankees swooping in. We saw it with Mussina, we saw it with Teixeira, and others. That has more or less forced the Red Sox to explore alternative ways to bring in talent either by trade or by going after "second tier" guys instead. For once, the Yankees are dead silent in the free agent game, and suddenly the Sox are big players.

I don't think it is a significant factor but I have to think it played into things maybe 4-5%.
 

keninten

New Member
Nov 24, 2005
588
Tennessee
That is fundamentally false. A player-option can have value to both the player and the team. Not necessarily the same value, obviously, but option clauses are not a zero-sum game. How much value to the player and team, positive or negative, depends on performance and financial assumptions. This is easy to illustrate with extreme-end examples. For example, if the Red Sox assume 5 WAR/year from Price in years 1-2-3 and 0 WAR/year from Price in years 4-5-6-7, then the player option provides positive value to the team and to Price. In the other hand, if Price is hit by a bus tomorrow and contributes 0 WAR/year in years 1-2-3 and 0 WAR/year in years 4-5-6-7, then it's hugely negative for the Sox while providing positive value to Price. The reality, of course, is somewhere in between and depends on performance and risk assumptions, as well as other factors such as inflation.
This thread is getting ridiculous because it is based on so much speculation of what can or might happen. To say Price will benefit from dying or a career threatening injury is over the top. It did make me laugh.