There are a lot of opinions on the various rumors and it got me to thinking about what my preferred path forward would be with regard to the rotation. With names like Strasburg and Zimmermann floating around, and James Shields still on the market with rumors of him being willing to take a 4 year deal out there, Ben has quite a few options if he wants to act now. He has also built a very solid stable of starting pitchers and can wait until they get into the season to explore upgrade options if it is necessary.
Acting now means parting with resources. With Shields is just more money, but it's more money over the cap meaning a larger tax hit this year and less wiggle room to get back under the threshold next year. They have a ton of contracts coming off the books in Victorino, Napoli, Porcello, Masterson, Mujica, and Breslow, and have the option to part ways with Buchholz if he has another awful season. They could, potentially, shed up to roughly 70 million if they wanted to. They will very likely retain some of those players, but there is room to fit Shields, even at 20 million or so, in the long term.
The other cost for acting now is prospects and names like Zimmermann and Strasburg will cost of a lot of them. Both would be difficult to lock up before free agency, and even if they could extend them would be looking at enormous contracts so the cost in prospects has to be weighed with the understanding that it's either a small amount of control they are getting back or that you've just shipped valuable cost controlled assets out for the right to pay someone market rate anyway. Having an exclusive window to work out an extension has some value, though, whether that's before the trade is made official or just the ability to negotiate for a year or two while you control the player, but in the end acquiring one of those two will cost several high upside low cost young players and possibly a boatload of cash anyway.
Then there's the option to wait and see what they have. This is probably the safest route, but does carry some risk. If Buchholz is who we saw last year, Kelly can't handle a full workload, and Masterson is permanently messed up from his injury last year, they could be in a bunch of trouble and might end up paying more in season to fix the problem than they would have by acting now. It's also possible that Porcello and Miley take steps forward and Buchholz looks more like his 2010 self than the 2014 train wreck we winced at for 5 months last year and there's no pressing need to add another starter.
So what is the best path forward? Well, since all of the various pitching threads seem to be focusing in on specific players and rumors as they pop up, how about a broader look the general approach from here? I'm curious what sosh is thinking right now and figured taking a snapshot as the winter is starting to wind down might be interesting, especially if we want to look back in 6 months to see how much things have changed.
My vote goes to the wait and see approach. While names like Strasburg and Zimmermann are enticing as hell, the prospect cost is going to be high and at the end of the day, I think I'd rather they give the current rotation a chance and if the need is clearly there in July, address it then. Otherwise, next winter's market will have plenty of options to pick from.
Acting now means parting with resources. With Shields is just more money, but it's more money over the cap meaning a larger tax hit this year and less wiggle room to get back under the threshold next year. They have a ton of contracts coming off the books in Victorino, Napoli, Porcello, Masterson, Mujica, and Breslow, and have the option to part ways with Buchholz if he has another awful season. They could, potentially, shed up to roughly 70 million if they wanted to. They will very likely retain some of those players, but there is room to fit Shields, even at 20 million or so, in the long term.
The other cost for acting now is prospects and names like Zimmermann and Strasburg will cost of a lot of them. Both would be difficult to lock up before free agency, and even if they could extend them would be looking at enormous contracts so the cost in prospects has to be weighed with the understanding that it's either a small amount of control they are getting back or that you've just shipped valuable cost controlled assets out for the right to pay someone market rate anyway. Having an exclusive window to work out an extension has some value, though, whether that's before the trade is made official or just the ability to negotiate for a year or two while you control the player, but in the end acquiring one of those two will cost several high upside low cost young players and possibly a boatload of cash anyway.
Then there's the option to wait and see what they have. This is probably the safest route, but does carry some risk. If Buchholz is who we saw last year, Kelly can't handle a full workload, and Masterson is permanently messed up from his injury last year, they could be in a bunch of trouble and might end up paying more in season to fix the problem than they would have by acting now. It's also possible that Porcello and Miley take steps forward and Buchholz looks more like his 2010 self than the 2014 train wreck we winced at for 5 months last year and there's no pressing need to add another starter.
So what is the best path forward? Well, since all of the various pitching threads seem to be focusing in on specific players and rumors as they pop up, how about a broader look the general approach from here? I'm curious what sosh is thinking right now and figured taking a snapshot as the winter is starting to wind down might be interesting, especially if we want to look back in 6 months to see how much things have changed.
My vote goes to the wait and see approach. While names like Strasburg and Zimmermann are enticing as hell, the prospect cost is going to be high and at the end of the day, I think I'd rather they give the current rotation a chance and if the need is clearly there in July, address it then. Otherwise, next winter's market will have plenty of options to pick from.
