HOT STOVE

The greatest time of the year will be coming to a close today; the baseball winter meetings. Ben Cherington has shown the new philosophy of the team going forward is to overpay for less years and it has caused a divide in the fan base. Let's take a gander at the signings so far:
DH David Ortiz 2/$26mil (escalators to turn it to $30mil)
C David Ross 2/$6.2mil
OF Jonny Gomes 2/$10mil
1B/C/DH Mike Napoli 3/$39mil
OF Shane Victorino 3/$39mil

What I love about all these deals - short term. Yes they overpaid for every single one of these guys, but the franchise is not handcuffed for the future.
[Another thing I love, Victorino turned down Cleveland's offer of a guaranteed 4th year and $5mil more to sign with Boston. He will be making more per season, but in baseball, guys tend to go for the longer contracts and the most money. This makes me love the "Flying Hawaiian" right off the bat-pun intended.]

The main point of this post is this; all the spin is that the Red Sox signed Victorino because they wanted a center fielder to play right field. But what if this deal turns out to be a part of a bigger plan for the team going into 2013 (and beyond)? There is a lot of talk going on about how the presence of Victorino now makes Jacoby Ellsbury expendable in a trade for pitching. Let's say a trade does come to fruition. Let's also say that Philadelphia doesn't sign Michael Bourn and they want a leadoff hitting center fielder. Cliff Lee is owed $75mil over the next 3 years and he was put on waivers last season (I know every team puts most every guy on waivers). I think you see where I'm going with this. Philadelphia has 3 pitchers right now who make over $20mil and Ryan Howard's contract is looking worse with each injury. Shedding Lee's salary would help the team financially and also give them a shot at re-upping Ellsbury at the end of the year, or even just take the draft pick if he walks.

So, in this hypothetical world where Boston trades Jacoby Ellsbury to Philadelphia for Cliff Lee, the rotation now looks like
1) Lee
2) Buchholz
3) Lester
4) Lackey
5) Doubront

But wait, now you have a hole to fill in right field since Victorino will be moving to center. Well, as luck would have it, on Monday Ben Cherington and John Farrell met with Josh Hamilton. What makes this even more intriguing of a story, is Farrell said in an interview that is planning to go meet with John Lackey in Texas in the next week or so. You know who also lives in Texas? That's right, Josh Hamilton. The team doesn't want to commit to long term contracts, but they are willing to overpay (as stated above). How about an overpay of 4/$112mil with an option for a 5th year? No way Texas will match that kind of offer. By signing Hamilton, you then have a line-up that could potentially look like this:

CF Victorino
2B Pedroia
RF Hamilton
1B Napoli
DH Ortiz
3B Middlebrooks
LF Gomes (vs lefties) / Nava vs righties
C Saltalamacchia / Ross
SS Iglesias

Wow. Everyone in the top 5 of the order has protection behind them. They will see pitches to hit and put up some absolutely gaudy numbers.


*I will admit, when the offseason began, I wanted no part of Hamilton because I thought it would take a 6 or 7 year pact. Now that I see that will not happen and the Ben's way of doing business, I love the idea of the former MVP in Boston more and more.