Yesterday, the great Brian Cartwright took a lingering glance at Yu Darvish and his Oliver projections in a cutely titled piece, Why Oliver ♥s Yu. 🙂

The projection — a 2.57 ERA and 185 innings pitched — certainly seems optimistic at first glance. The of-late struggling Daisuke Matsuzaka, bless his little heart, has forever impressed his own career into the expectations of NPB players on many baseball fans, new and old schools alike.

So Cartwright’s assumes his difficult task — as he must — with great precision. He is not content to just “blindly follow his off-the-wall forecast” as Tom Tango put it. Looking at each of the Japanese pitchers to skip the creek, Cartwright finds good reason to think — even with a dulled strikeout rate and a bumped walked rate — Darvish can still be a Top 15 pitcher in 2012.

And I think he is correct.
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According to Alex Speier, the Red Sox are unlikely to add another starting pitcher before the season begins. The Red Sox have been linked to both Edwin Jackson and Roy Oswalt in recent weeks, but neither player currently sees Boston as their landing spot. Jackson allegedly has better offers elsewhere, and it’s been widely speculated that Oswalt wants to pitch close to home next season.

Outside of Josh Beckett, Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz, the Red Sox’s last two spots in the rotation are up for grabs. With Alfredo Aceves, Andrew Miller, Daniel Bard, Vicente Padilla, Carlos Silva and Aaron Cook all vying for those slots, the Red Sox could benefit from adding an effective veteran like Jackson or Oswalt. While back injuries limited his effectiveness this past season, Oswalt still managed to put up a 2.5 WAR in just 139 innings pitched. He’s much less of a risk on a one year deal, but that’s somewhat moot if he doesn’t want to play in Boston. Jackson would also be a good fit and won’t require a lengthy financial commitment, but the Red Sox reportedly only offered $5 or $6 million on a one year deal.

The Red Sox could choose to increase their other to both players, but the team is dangerously close to surpassing the luxury tax. While the Marco Scutaro trade was supposed to clear up salary for another starting pitcher, that money might be reallocated if the Red Sox have to go to arbitration with David Ortiz, who filed for $16.5 million. The team countered with a $12.65 million contract — a small increase from Ortiz’s $12.5 salary in 2011. Unless the Red Sox are confident they can beat Ortiz in a hearing, it seems likely that he’ll receive a raise. As with most cases, the team might be better off avoiding a hearing altogether and settling with Ortiz for something around the midpoint.

While the Red Sox could certainly use another starter, their desire to stay under the luxury tax may prevent them from significantly raising their current offers to Jackson or Oswalt. Unless Jackson or Oswalt are willing to lower their asking prices, it sounds like the Red Sox might just enter spring training with their current collection of starting pitchers.

Players leave money on the table every year. It’s true! Pitchers, in particular, have been signing away free agency years at below-market prices for a while now.

Consider the most recent big signing, Yu Darvish. He most likely would have made more money had he stayed in Japan for three years and come over as a free agent. Through the arbitration process in Japan, he was due around $27 million over the next three years, and his deal with the Rangers only pays him $25 million over the same time frame. Had he continued his dominance, and come over in three years, it seems likely he would have made more than $30 million over three years. He would have had the leverage of the unrestricted free agent.

But Darvish’ plight resembled that of the arbitration-eligible pitcher here in the states. He could only talk to one team, which should sound familiar. And he probably valued some non-monetary benefits that a long-term contract offered: security and the ability to compete against the best in the world. How prevalent is this sort of give-and-take in the normal process here in the states? How many pitchers have given up free agent years at below the going rate?

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In the hot news of the weekend, Julio Lugo’s negotiations for what was probably a minor-league deal with Cleveland have broken down. Things were not always so bleak for Lugo. Lugo had some good seasons with the (then) Devil Rays in the mid-2000s, and after a 2006 in which he was traded to the Dodgers, he was in demand as a free agent middle infielder during the 2006-2007 off-season. The Red Sox were in the market for a shortstop, having let Nomar Garciparra-replacement Orlando Cabrera walk after the historic 2004 World Series victory, and coming off of generally unsatisfying one-year flings with Edgar Renteria and Alex Gonzalez. They settled on Lugo, giving him a four-year, $36 million contract prior to his age-31 season.

While the Red Sox did win another World Championship during Lugo’s first season with the team, on an individual level his tenure in Boston was quite poor. Lugo was traded to the Cardinals during the 2009 season with Boston picking up almost all of Lugo’s remaining salary. When people discuss Theo Epstein’s problems signing free agents during his time in Boston, Lugo is one of the first names that comes up (probably right after J.D. Drew, for most people). However, while it is easy to criticize a contract in hindsight, if we put ourselves back in the Red Sox’ position in 2006-2007, was that an unreasonable contract for a player like Lugo at the time? This is why Contract Retrospectives were born.

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The relief market is a hotbed for unusual activity during the off-season. This winter, the Philadelphia Phillies got the party started with its signing of Jonathan Papelbon to a four-year, $50 million contract. Since then, Philadelphia’s former closer, Ryan Madson, signed a one-year deal worth around $8 million with the Cincinnati Reds — and their former, former closer, Brad Lidge, just inked a one-year, $1 million agreement with the Washington Nationals.

In addition to that trio, Matt Capps received a $4.75 million salary to return to the Minnesota Twins, and Fernando Rodney got $2 million from the budget-conscious Tampa Bay Rays. But one of the few relievers who could not find guaranteed millions – or even a guaranteed contract – was Dan Wheeler, who signed a minor league contract with the Cleveland Indians.

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After the magic that was the 2010 postseason, the Giants and their fans can be forgiven for disappointment in Cody Ross’s 2011 performance. Ross only managed 14 home runs and a .405 slugging percentage in 121 games in San Francisco after slugging .686 with five homers in 14 games during the Giants’ run to the 2010 World Series. Everybody knew the clock would eventually strike midnight, however, and in the end the Ross the Giants ended up with was very similar to the Ross the Marlins had no problem giving away for free on a waiver claim: a very average outfielder.

Unsurprisingly, then, the market around Cody Ross collapsed as better options filled rosters throughout the winter. The 31-year-old finally found a home Monday, as Ross and the Red Sox agreed to a one-year, $3 million deal.

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The end of the 2011 season does not seem to have ended the Red Sox spell of misfortune as two-thirds of their projected everyday lineup outfield is now out with injury. It was reported earlier this offseason that rightfielder Ryan Kalish would be out until at least June as he recovers from shoulder surgery. This week came that Carl Crawford will likely miss the start of the regular season due to wrist surgery. Crawford is not expected to miss a lot of playing time, but wrist injuries can linger and sap a player’s bat control for an extended period of time. That leaves the Red Sox with exactly 3 outfielders who (a) are on the 40-man roster, (b) have played an inning in MLB, and (c) project to be healthy on opening day.

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Here are five recent — and not entirely inconsequential — moves.

Baltimore Signs Taiwanese Left-Hander Chen
The Baltimore Orioles signed Taiwanese left-hander Wei-Yin Chen to a three-year, $11.3 million deal on Tuesday, reports a large portion of the internet. Our man David Goleblahblahblah, writing for RotoGraphs, looked at Chen in some depth yesterday. The salient details: Chen is 26 years old. His strikeout rates have plummeted over his four years in the NPB (8.4, 8.0, 7.3, 5.1 K/9). His walk rates have also declined (2.6, 2.2, 2.3, 1.7). All things being equal, more strikeouts with more walks — like, with the same strikeout-to-walk ratio — is better than fewer strikeouts and fewer walks (i.e. a pitcher with a 9.0 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 is more valuable than one with a 3.0 K/9 and 1.0 BB/9). His fastball velocity has declined about 1-2 mph over that time (per Patrick Newman’s NPB Tracker). He only needs to produce, like, 2.5 wins to earn his contract. He’ll probably have a better 2012 than Brian Matusz had a 2011.

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Boston Red Sox minor league second baseman Sean Coyle is a solid minor league prospect which is actually pretty rare for a player of his stature. In fact, in three years spent Scouting the Sally, only a handful of prospects have been worthy of more than a cursory look (Jose Altuve – HOU, Leury Garcia – TEX, Wilfredo Tovar – NYM) which speaks volumes about Coyle as a baseball player. However, as kind as it may seem on the surface to compare the best second baseman in the Red Sox system to the best second baseman in baseball – organization mate Dustin Pedroia – it’s pretty unfair to both players.

Video after the jump

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Sometimes, we can just have a little fun with the numbers. And now that our Dark Overlord has been studiously typing away in that basement of his, we that play in the light can have a little more fun. Yes, he gave us Minor League leaderboards that have all sorts of delightful little snippets of knowledge — what they all mean in sum, who knows, but each is a nugget of beauty in baseball.

* Junior Lake was third-fastest player in all of the Minor Leagues by Bill James’ speed score. He even hit 17 out and showed a .175 ISO, so he’s got some tools. If only he could walk, limit the strikeouts or show some defense. The Cubs could move him to the outfield if he can’t handle the infield, but that only solves one of the problems. And let’s not forget this is the team that drafted Corey Patterson, so even center field won’t solve all of his woes.

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