The Dave Dombrowski Overreaction Might Be Commencing
The Red Sox have been talking about adding power all winter. The Yankees just traded for Giancarlo Stanton. Dave Dombrowski is unlikely to just let that move go unchallenged, so the Red Sox are probably more likely than ever to outbid everyone for J.D. Martinez. And the wheels to make that happen might be starting to turn.
The Boston #RedSox have let several teams know that CF Jackie Bradley is available in their pursuit of a power bat. #Cubs
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 11, 2017
When the Jose Abreu rumors kicked up a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about how swapping Bradley for a slugger might make the team different but not necessarily better. And while Martinez is better than Abreu, the same principle applies here.
Unless the Red Sox get a great return for Bradley, swapping him out for whatever you can get for him in order to sign Martinez would be more rearranging the deck chairs than a massive upgrade. And it would cost a lot of money, since Bradley will make about $6 million in arbitration, and Martinez will cost north of $25 million per year to sign as a free agent. Martinez is better than Bradley, but he’s not $19 million per year better than Bradley.
Now, maybe there’s a big market for Bradley’s services, and Dombrowski is going to pull off a great trade that brings back a low-cost quality young first baseman or starting pitcher. There are scenarios where trading Bradley could make sense. But it feels more likely that the Red Sox would be selling low for the primary purpose of creating a spot in the outfield so they can justify overpaying Martinez. And if that really is the plan, this probably isn’t something Red Sox fans should be rooting for.
Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.
J.D. Martin strikes again.
This is becoming an epidemic.
It’s been like this for multiple years actually
I had the same reaction. If they’re going to sell on JBJ to put Martinez in left field (instead of at DH where he belongs) that is a huge mistake.
They must think Benintendi can play center, and have a profound lack of faith in Bradley’s streaky tendencies at the plate.
Dombrowski is normally really savvy with his trades, so maybe he thinks he can use JBJ and the last of his prospects to swing more than just Abreu…like, a complicated trade that involves Abreu and Ozuna or a pitcher. But no, that doesn’t seem likely either.
“They must think Benintendi can play center“
I believe this is the biggest factor. Their ballpark isn’t suited for having a guy like AB in LF instead of a slower, slugger type.
I think you have it somewhat backwards. Fenway Park is ideally suited to minimize the negative impact of a weak-fielding slugger in LF, but that doesn’t make it poorly suited to having a good fielder there.
Boston still plays half of its games on the road, and a good fielder in left in Fenway will still save some runs, especially if his game is predicated on quality routes and a good arm (as opposed to when the team placed Carl Crawford out there and his athletic range went fairly to waste).
Was Fenway not suited for Carl Yastrzemski? Rhetorical question, of course…
A little charity would be nice. The idea that better defense is always better than worse defense is so painfully obvious, that it need not be stated. What I meant was a slugger with equivalent overall value to AB (ballpark independent) is a more valuable LF to the Red Sox than AB due to the unique aspects of Fenway Park.
He knows that both Benintendi and Betts can *easily* slide into center, while also covering for JD’s lack of range.
Which is why JBJ has less value to him than to an org without multiple starting caliber CFs, and he views flipping JBJ for a similarly valuable player as an opportunity to upgrade his roster.
We know Betts can, but you need a second center fielder to hang out in RF if you play half your games at Fenway.
Benintendi is a little bit more of a guess; he hasn’t been great out there when he’s played there, but maybe he would turn into a stellar defender with more reps.
Let’s see what “similarly valuable” player he comes up with, but there aren’t a ton of 3-win players with team control just hanging around. I suppose we shouldn’t doubt Dombrowski until he actually makes the move. And Dombrowski should probably invest in a new left fielder too, one who can actually field.
A) 270 innings over 185 career games is so meaningless a sample as to be actively misleading. He has consistently rated as an above average CF by evaluators, and should be viewed as one absent any statistical evidence to the contrary.
B) Being a good baseball player is significantly more important than being a good fielder…especially when you have two CF caliber defenders manning the other OF spots, and a pitching staff that excels at inducing Ks, GBs and IFFBs. Even *without* his bad defense being mitigated by his park and teammates, JD Martinez is significantly more valuable, as an outfielder than Bradley.
C) Jose Abreu, for example, has been significantly better than Bradley in 3 of the last 4 seasons, offers 2 years of team control, and significantly upgrades either DH or 1B, with zero concerns about whether not playing the field might impact his offensive production.
By this point, Dombrowski has thoroughly earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to trading. Not just in terms of their being successful, but in consistently outperforming the hand-wringing prognostications of the FG hive mind (whom I love and appreciate!).
I generally agree that Dombrowski makes really good trades, and there is no point in criticizing a trade that doesn’t happen yet.
However…
A) There is no hard evidence either way that Benintendi is going to be a net positive in center field, just that we think he can do it. There is nothing wrong with taking a chance with that, but it is not at all a sure thing.
B) JD Martinez is significantly more valuable than JBJ, but he’s going to cost something like six times as much. Besides, almost no one thinks signing JD Martinez is a bad thing, the only debate is whether he’s good to play the field or not.
I cannot think of a better player for the DH slot–meaning the biggest divergence between hitting and fielding value–than JD Martinez. You are basically not losing any value by sticking him at DH, which you can’t say for any number of other players.
Most importantly, you don’t have to trade JBJ to sign JD Martinez. I don’t know why everyone seems to think that is necessary.
C) Don’t get me started on the “3 out of 4 years” thing. There is a reason why Abreu is projected for less value next year, and that is because he’s older and plays a less valuable position on the defensive spectrum. And he costs more and has less team control.
The issue with your argument, of course, is that the DH penalty has been empirically proven to exist for some players.
Unless you know that a player’s offense is unaffected by not playing the field (as we do for, say, Jose Abreu), you cannot assume that their offensive production will not be affected by switching to the DH.
That’s not up for debate, either. It just is.
And then, of course, we have to remember that roster construction does not take place in a vacuum.
For example, we know that, since defense is a counting stat, an individual bad OF defender can be covered for with a pitching staff that gets lots of pop ups, Ks and grounders (just like the impact of great OF defense is mitigated by that defender being too catastrophically awful offensively to stay in the lineup for extended periods each season.)
Which, incidentally, is part of why Steamer prefers Bradley to Abreu next season: It can’t account for the fact that Bradley will fall out of the lineup for the multiple stretches each season when his offense falls apart.
Then there’s the effect of improving two lineup spots, rather than one, 4 times a game.
I’ve never been a big fan of Dombrowski but haven’t really had a problem with the way he has run the Red Sox since he took over. He tends to pay sticker price for things as opposed to trying to find bargains, and he isn’t the most creative baseball executive. Those aren’t the worst qualities though. But selling low on Jackie Bradley would be a massive mistake. I am really hoping this is just Dombrowski trying to gain some leverage in some other negotiation, because I would be surprised if a Bradley trade actually netted them something good in return.
Martingale put an #Cubs at end of his tweet…what is he thinking, something JBJ for Schwarber-esque?
I’m not a Cubs or Red Sox fan but I feel like the Cubs would have to add to that, JBJ is proven, Schwarber not so much, is there a significant difference in controllable years?
Yet SO many of us arw. All year we Marvel at what Jackie does in center field, and then we see some home runs and “think of let’s just get those instead”
Hypothetically couldn’t the Red Sox trade JBJ in a deal towards Abreu from the CWS then sign JD Martinez for LF? They also still have Rusney Castillo who hasn’t had much of a shot at the big leagues since he was signed but just put up a .314/.350/.507 triple slash last year at AAA with 15 hrs and 14 sbs in only 347 ABs. They have options here.
so the red sox would swap players who are each projected for ~3 wins next year, then pay market price for JD? why not just keep bradley in center and then sign someone for first?
Because the options for first are pretty much limited ATM. If you want to grossly overpay for someone like Hosmer he’s available. Or maybe go after Matt Adams?
You could always sign Todd Frazier or Mouse to play third and move Devers to 1st or vice versa.
Considering there’s been quite a few wright-ups about Devers possibly making a jump to first due to poor fielding at third it definitely should be seen as an option. In which case the options for third do look a little better. Moustakas is probably the best corner infielder available via FA.
santana, hosmer, a slew of cheaper options including morrison/duda/alonso etc. Plus as another commenter stated, you can move devers over and go after moose/frazier.
I believe there is some luxury tax considerations keeping Castillo in Pawtucket and off the 40 man roster
Spotrac shows the Rusney contract as being a buried salary that counts against the payroll currently.
I think there is some loophole where his salary doesn’t count against the luxury tax as long as he is off the 40 man. Has to do with it being grandfathered from the previous CBA. No way he sees the light of a day in the Fenway clubhouse.
Yes, Castillo’s contract doesn’t count for luxury tax as long as he’s not on the 40-man. The Red Sox DFA’d Allen Craig for the same reason.
The team could only do that because Castillo and Craig are low service-team players who can’t refuse the minor league assignment.
Players with at least 5 years of service time can refuse a minor league assignment, so this move doesn’t work for players like Sandoval and Ramirez. Those players can be released, but the remaining contract still counts for the luxury tax calculation.
The problem with Rusney is that his contract, which is significant, isn’t counting towards the Luxury Tax because he isn’t on the 40 man, by doing what you are suggesting they take 6 mil off the books while paying JD 25 mil/y Abreu 17ish/ plus whatever Rusney contract is. That’s a lot of dough suddenly.
Okay, but there isn’t yet any evidence that Dombrowski is “selling low” on JBJ. Indeed, there is just as much evidence that he is going to “sell high” on JBJ.
I know it’s not really what you meant, but I’m not sure JBJ can be sold high right now, given his 100 point drop in OPS in 2017.
If I’m honest, level headed trades made by reasonable men are rarely fun. I’m hoping this is a sign of something just bonkers dumb happening at the Winter Meetings. That’s always entertaining.
bonkers dumb is the best kind of dumb!
It’s going to be really funny when DD trades JBJ and Eduardo for Schwarber just so he can sign JD Martinez at higher cost and worse aggregate value than just signing Carlos Santana and not trading JBJ.
Theo has to make this trade. The Cubs need at least three or four more utility players.
Here’s where I’d disagree. The Red Sox can make the playoffs with their current team, including Bradley.
The question, though, is can they make/win the WS with their current team?
Yeah, it’s only two series but they’ve flamed out two years in a row in the playoffs. And Bradley has been part of that flameout, putting up a .472 OPS, striking out in 50% of his PAs, and drawing 0 walks. And you can say that’s a small sample size but Bradley has been awful in Sept/Oct during his career (.611 OPS). So there may be something going on there. And Baseball Reference shows he has a career .646 OPS against what they classify as power pitchers (which is what you tend to face in the playoffs).
So trading Bradley and signing Martinez may be rearranging deck chairs during the regular season. But it’s possible that it will increase their chances of being successful in the playoffs. Which is what they should be focused on.
I’m with you on the issue of “rearranging the deck chairs”, but not with the rest of your assessment.
First, Boston didn’t “flame out” in the postseason, which would imply that the flame was burning as when they entered the playoffs. If you closely followed the team last year, you saw a classic case of a team with superb talent that never got its “groove” going. The team was also somewhat limping along by the time the playoffs came around, and it made sense that it fell over a short series to a team that was firing nicely.
Citing anything about Bradley’s career is pretty useless, because that includes everything he did before he CLEARLY became a different hitter (akin to citing Jose Bautista or even JD Martinez or any number of hitters who had major breakouts) and doesn’t much control for his streakiness over a relative small sample size (if his streaks are random, all it takes is for them to have happened twice at random in the same calendar month and suddenly it looks like that month is the cause of his struggles).
Maybe 7 games over the past two years says something about Boston, but I’d venture it’s much more likely that the team just hasn’t been “on” over the course of a very small handful of games.
lol nobody buys hitting for the post season they buy arms for the post season
Don’t see a problem here. They can sign Martinez and trade JBJ for something that’s not so available in free agency.
Like an excellent defensive center fielder with a league-average bat?
Jeez, I don’t know, maybe they want Andrew Benintendi in center for the long-haul and don’t feel the need to acquire one?
I’d say a 107 OPS+ over the past three years is at least a tier better than “league average”. There is also clearly room for more if he can just make his slumps be less awful, as opposed to a consistently solid hitter seeking to elevate his consistent hitting.
Wait, do people think JBJ is a league average bat? Am I the only one who sees his 1 1/2 good offensive seasons as the fluke instead of the 2 bad ones?
As soon as the Stanton trade happen, the “Dombrowski overreaction” is what I’ve been most excited for…mainly to then read about it here at Fangraphs; a preemptive article to it? Well it looks like I’m getting everything I want this holiday season.
Maybe the Red Sox front office just isn’t actually very good.
Dave, this reminds me of an old article you wrote where people want low-OBP teams to get higher-OBP players, and low-SLG teams to get high-SLG players.
https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/mark-trumbo-and-the-relative-value-of-obp-and-slg/
The Red Sox weren’t amazing at OBP, but they were far better at getting on base last year than they were hitting for power.
Now J.D. Martinez doesn’t QUITE fit the argument because he hits for both power and gets on base well, but it harkens back to the idea that teams lacking power think they need to go and acquire power.
The Red Sox should really be considering someone like Carlos Santana
The Dombrowski Overreaction is probably my favorite Robert Ludlum novel.
And my favorite episode of the Big Bang Theory.
Dombrowski is too smart to make an expensive lateral move with JBJ. There is no doubt he’s going to want to make a splash, and he likely wants some power, but we’ve seen nothing from him thus far to indicate dangerous impulsiveness.
Or he’ll just trade Bradley for Abreu AND sign Martinez, upgrading both first and the OF while significantly deepening their lineup.
Dombrowski isn’t a min-maxer, but he’s an excellent GM.
I said the same thing. It makes the most sense overall. They upgrade at two positions offensively, and IDK if the defensive difference will be hug with the other OF options they have to move to CF
That would be a lateral move and one improvement move (but one that wouldn’t be as good as perceived given weaknesses of the player involved) at a HUGE addition to team salaries. More money to these players means less available for others. Which basically prevents the team from getting better.
MLB teams ALWAYS have the option of improving by throwing money at more players. The goal is to improve efficiently.
I think it’s pretty clear, based on the last 25 years, that Dombrowski cares a hell of a lot more about improving than he does “improving efficiently,” as defined by Dave.
And, if anyone’s been paying attention to the Cubs, Astros and Indians, replacing Bradley with Martinez and Moreland/Hanley with Abreu is not a lateral move relative to keeping Bradley and replacing Moreland/Hanley with Martinez.
Even before you account for the effects of Martinez’s hypothetical transition to DH on his offense…lineup depth matters.
Great hitters stack, but they don’t make up for bad hitters…just like great fielders make up for bad ones, but don’t stack.
The lateral move of Bradley for Abreu not only costs more in salary, but it also comes with giving up a year of team control. Bradley has 3 more years of team control, but Abreu only has 2.
agree with Jimmy, DAVE CAMERON is a fraud. Dude makes money off of bull. One of the biggest supporters of the juiced ball theory yet he won’t answer ONE simple question… Is Mike Trout really that great seeing their is a “juiced ball.” How come it only benefits people he sees fit. Don’t expect a answer from anybody… lol
haha totally
Where’s Serbian to French to Vietnamese when you need him?
So apparently Dombrowski says that he never shopped JBJ. Okay???
https://twitter.com/PeteAbe/status/940339775638302721