While the talking heads at ESPN fawn over Theo's genius, lets take an objective look at the Victor Martinez trade. First of all, let's take a look at what Victor Martinez is going to do for the Sox.
Martinez has had a reputation as one of the best hitting catchers in baseball for years now. Its well deserved to. He consistently is at, or near the top of the leaderboards in wOBA, EQA, and just about any other stat you can think of. His career EQA of .292 is incredibly valuable when you consider the fact that he plays catcher. However, he's an awful catcher and has slowly been making a transition to first base. A transition that figures to be completed in Boston with Varitek having a surprisingly solid year. Obviously, that takes away Martinez's value. Although as a catcher, his wOBA this year (.365) ranks third in baseball. However, among first baseman it ranks right in the middle of the pack at 15th. He had an off year in 2008 which we'll give him a mulligan on (would've been near the bottom of baseball) but in 2007 his wOBA was .372 which ranked 11th. Its tough to say how he is defensively at first because of the limited time he has spent there.
So, what we have is an above average first baseman that appears to be hitting his decline at 31 years of age. He figures to be a solid improvement over Mike Lowell. He's not the same ridiculously valuable bat at first that he is at catcher. However, he is still an average to above average hitter who will offer the team a win or two down the stretch this year for the team. Please don't go crazy though. He's not Adrian Gonzalez, he's not even the best first baseman traded at the deadline, that honor belongs to Nick Johnson.
Boston didn't just steal him from Mark Shapiro and the Indians either. They gave up some very valuable pieces to their future. Justin Masterson is a sinker ball specialist who figures to be a middle of the rotation starter one day and had become a key piece of Boston's bullpen this year. No comparisons are perfect but if I had to, I'd compare him to Alfredo Aceves. Nick Hagadone is much farther away from the major leagues but has some big potential. He's a 23 year old lefty who has worked his way back from Tommy John surgery and put up some excellent numbers with his fastball-slider combination. He's spent time both in the rotation and the bullpen. Hagadone is a risk/reward guy. The best comparison I can think of is Andrew Brackman or Dellin Bettances if they were left-handed and had the stats to back up the high hopes people have for them. The final guy, Price I don't know much about and seems to be more of a throw in. He's very far away from the ML's and is struggling right now.
Most sane people on the interwebs are calling this trade a win-win. Boston may need that extra win or two that Martinez can provide to push them into the postseason. Cleveland also got a nice haul in prospects. Its always tough to judge these trades so soon but it doesn't seems like either team really ripped the other one of. Theo certainly didn't get Martinez for nothing and he's not the massive upgrade that some people up in Bristol are making it out to be. However, it was probably a good trade to make. Thoughts?
Monday, August 3, 2009
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15 Comments:
What about the Fenway factor? How many hitters have we seen that were good someplace else but as soon as they played in Fenway became great? If it wasn't for Fenway Jim Rice wouldn't be anywhere near the HOF. Wade Boggs, while a HOF'er no matter where he played, was one of the greatest hitters of our generation because he constantly slapped balls off that stupid wall.
I agree with Anon that the Green Monster will inflate his stats a little....but at the same time as long as the Red Sox didnt get Gonzales or Halladay I dont think it was that great of a boost for the team. It definately gave them more depth and a little more pop in the line-up, but no more than maybe a +1 or 2 game difference. I think the Cardinals improved the most offensively with the addition of Holliday and DeRosa to that lineup. But you know ESPN...too busy blowing Theo to give credit where credit is due.
-G
You guys do know all the move has to do is make them one game better than the Yanks down the stretch, that's really all the matters. Personally, I think it does.
Sure the Green Monster will inflate his states, but isn't that an ingredient that the Red Sox have always used, hitters that match up well with the monster? Let's not kid ourselves as fans, yesterday proved that the move is already paying off for them.
Red Sox dominate at home anyway. We'll see what the impact is on the road.
I don't know how big of an impact he will make but my gut is telling me not to get too worried about it.
If the Sox had gotten Felix Hernandez, Andrian Gonzalez or Roy Halladay I think I would be more worried. But the VMart trade doesn't faze me.
They talk about the versatility of Martinez in Boston but I think its just media hype to make it seem like the deal is much bigger then what it was. Victor is not a starting Catcher anymore. He started 51 games at C and 45 at 1st for Cleveland. So if that trend continues that means the Red Sox are moving Youk back and forth between 1st and 3rd. Varitek will not see time at DH bc of Big Juicer and I think it will cause them to dip defensively as a team with a guy not as good as Youk there and with Youk going back and forth he is more likely to commit errors or so one would think.
I really don't think VMart will have the impact Bay did for them.
why is there always some team looking to help them out. last year it was pittsburgh with Bay, this year its martinez. and i believe the price for jason bay last year, when it came to the yankees , was higher than what they gave up thus cashman got nady instead.
Because the only people that want to see the Yankees win are the Yankees and their fans
Im sure if there was any foul play going on with trades or something it would be getting looked at. And after getting Tex, CC and AJ are you going to complain about not getting Bay? The Yankees got Nady for nothing practically, Tabata was the only guy worth keeping but he has/had major off the field issues that got him in trouble twice with the Yankees, it was time to move on (Jackson and Tabata is what it would have taken to get Bay).
And after the moving of Cliff Lee you would have to be ignorant to not see them moving VMart and it was known for a long time the Sox were after him, its not like the Indians went "oh we traded Lee now lets give Victor to the Sox."
The fact of the matter remains that the Sox improved their roster significantly before the trade deadline and the Yanks did not. Okay, so we made our big signings during the winter, but you might have thought that a first-placed team would have made a move to improve areas of weakness, notably the back-end of our starting rotation. What happens if CC or AJ get injured or Joba runs out of innings? Can anyone see us making the playoffs with Mitre and Igawa in the rotation? I know every team tries to screw the Yanks when it comes to trades but we should have tried harder to sign either Washburn or Bannister.
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but yesterday not with standing V-Mart's stats have been horrible for a few months now.
boston kept their best prospects and so did the yankees at the deadline. the young players will play important roles in the future for both rivals. yanks need to keep their good young players because boston will -they could have easily put a huge package together for halladay. yanks need to keep hughes, joba,ajax, montero, for the future and then scour the international scene and sign future riveras and posadas with the stein's big bucks. i think we have an edge on the international scene as yanks are more willing to spend the big bucks on those young players.
This will ultimately have no impact on the race. The Red Sox fate lies mostly in their pitching staff, which frankly, I don't think is that good.
When Martinez plays, he's replacing one of the following: Lowell, Ortiz, Youkilis. Or if he's catching, he replaces Varitek, where Martinez is a worse game caller and worse defensive catcher.
This move is a net "no impact" move, and it definitely doesn't put the Red Sox ahead of the Yankees as a team.
The fates of both the Yankees and the Red Sox will lie with their pitching.
V-MART is going to replace Varitek for years to come.
Anon- no he will not replace Varitek for years to come, not by a long shot. His numbers are barely Varitek worthy when he's at catcher (this season, Martinez is batting .265 when he catches, with just 4 HRs and a .736 OPS in 200 at bats). Basically, when he catches, he sucks at the plate.
To top that off, he's a poor catcher to begin with. He's a defensive liability and I don't think he's a very good pitch caller either.
So basically if you have him catch, you lose most of his skill as a hitter, plus you have the defensive liability.
If you play him at first, you're taking a decent hitter out of the lineup (Lowell, Youkilis, or Ortiz).
Again, it's a net neutral change for their team.
He's now 30, and I don't think he'll magically become a great catcher, so no, he will not "replace Varitek for years to come."
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