Red Sox 2011 Options: 3 no brainers and a mild suprise

The Red Sox announced that they'll pick up David Ortiz' $12.5 million option for next season, as well as the option for Scott Atchison. The decision on Ortiz sounds like it was made awhile ago. It probably is an overpay, but it gives the team the team an enormous amount of flexibility next offseason, if they want to pursue a DH type such as Prince Fielder. They declined the options for Bill Hall ($9.25 million, $500,000 buyout) and Felipe Lopez. While Hall had a solid season as a super sub last year, playing every position but catcher and first base, the $9.25 million option was never really in play. It will be interesting to see if Hall can get a starting job somewhere, or if he'll decide that getting semi-regular PT all over the diamond is the way to go. Declining Lopez' option isn't a surprise either; the Red Sox picked him in late September, most likely hoping to get a compensatory draft pick out of him.

The one potential surprise in here is the Red Sox picking up Scott Atchison's option. The key thing to remember here is that the Red Sox are not necessarily expecting Atchison to be a huge contributor, but instead a solid option in the back of the bullpen. Atchison has a average strikeout rate (6.2 K/9), an average walk rate (2.85 BB/9), which unsurprisingly led to an average ERA on the season (4.50, ERA+=97, where 100 is league average). For $40,000 over the major league minimum, average is actually pretty good.

David Ortiz' Complaints

David Ortiz seems to want to have his cake and eat it too. I'm not sure if these quotes are creating a shit storm on sports talk radio up in Boston (it wouldn't surprise me, since it normally doesn't take much), but they did rub me the wrong way.

1. When asked if he'd take a pay cut to stay in Boston, Ortiz indicated that he wouldn't, saying “I don’t feel like going anywhere else but if I have to, I have no choice.” He also said that he'd already taken a pay cut five years ago, when he signed his 4 year, $52 million extension.

2. According to Rob Bradford at WEEI, Ortiz doesn't want a one year deal, because he wouldn't be "comfortable".

First off, Ortiz didn't take a pay cut in 2005. According to the irreplaceable Cot's Baseball Contracts, his salaries since joining the Red Sox before the 2003 season have been $1.25 million and $4.6 million. After the 2004 World Series victory, Ortiz agreed to a two year extension worth $5.25 million in 2005 and $6.5 million in 2006. An option year was included, but the Sox again extended him, this time for 4 years and $52 million ($12.5 million per, plus $6 million in signing bonuses) through the 2010 season. So it is a little hard to stomach him saying that he took a pay cut to stay. Sure, that first extension was a bit below market value, but the second was near the top of the pay range for full time DHs. As a point of comparison, Hafner signed a four year, $57 million extension during the 2007 season, despite the fact he was still under contract for another year and a half. Since that deal the market for full time DHs has plummeted. Adam Dunn, who is essentially a DH at this point, signed for 2 years, $20 million before the 2008 season. Hideki Matsui and Vlad Guerrero had to settle for one year, $6 million on the open market, despite the fact that Matsui was coming off of a 28 home run, 90 RBI season.

Second, I don't know how the Red Sox could possibly go with a two year deal without a pay cut. It would be an insane over pay to go with a two year, $25 million deal, considering the fact they could just take one year at $12.5 million. I know he's the face of the franchise, but left handed sluggers can go from a stud to the proverbial glue factory in a year. I've written about it with the Howard deal, along with lots of other folks who are an awful lot smarter than I am. As a side note, I love the concept of a baby albatross. Two years for $20 seems reasonable to me - Ortiz gets his $12.5 million option picked up, with $7.5 million for 2012. That $7.5 million would be about market value for an older designated hitter. In his bounce back 2010, Ortiz has been worth $11.5 million, although he was only worth $13 million in 2008 and 2009 combined. When a player's production matches his salary one year out of three I just don't know how you can possibly go ahead and sign them up for another three years at that same salary. I think the Red Sox are smart enough to realize this; I hope David Ortiz is too.

Looking ahead: Offseason Contract Decisions

The Red Sox came into this season with a whopping $161 million worth of salaries. Combined with shared expenses and other costs, this puts them well above the luxury tax threshold. Fortunately, they do have a lot of money coming off the books this season, however, many of these players are at key positions and have been the Red Sox best performers.

Mike Lowell is the only name that is sure to go. At $12.5 million this year, Lowell obviously didn't earn his salary. However, I would guess that the Red Sox knew this was a risk signing an older third baseman to a three year deal. Lowell has already announced that he will retire, a\s he doesn't enjoy being a part time player. Lowell was a key contributor in the 2007 championship, perhaps even more important than Josh Beckett was that year. Congratulations, Mike, for a nice career and for knowing when to call it quits.

The other key decisions are for David Ortiz, Victor Martinez, and Adrian Beltre. The Red Sox hold a team option for Ortiz in 2011 at $12.5 million, just under his salary of $13 million this year. In April, it seemed inconceivable that Ortiz' option would get picked up, but since his April struggles he's been one of the most consistent offensive players on the tea, with an .897 OPS, his highest since 2007 and is the second best OPS by an AL DH, behind Baltimore's Luke Scott. The nice thing about Ortiz' option is it is only a one year commitment. While a similar offensive player such as Adam Dunn might be available for approximately the same amount of money annually, it would probably take a 3 year commitment to sign any of the DH types hitting the free agent market this year. According to several sources, the Red Sox have decided to pick up Ortiz' 2011 option. However, Jon Heyman of Sports Illustrated had discussions with other executives who speculated that the Red Sox might try and work out a two year, $20 million extension with Ortiz instead. That wouldn't shock me, although I'm not sure if Ortiz would be willing to sign a two year deal. Going with a big, left handed slugger in his 30s is a risky proposition, as I showed following Ryan Howard's big extension, so I don't think the Red Sox would consider going to three years.

As an aside, the decline of the DH really has been remarkable. Six teams have DHs hitting .250 or below, including the Mariners' incredible line of .190/.266/.342. This is for a position whose only job is hitting and the Mariners managed to put players in the lineup whose contribution was 26 runs BELOW replacement level. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, replacement level is essentially how well you'd expect freely available talent, such as minor league free agents, to hit. Of course, the Mariners are not alone - the Tigers, Royals, Rays, White Sox, Angels, and Blue Jays also had their DHs produce at replacement level or worse.

The next big decision for the Red Sox is for Victor Martinez. Martinez currently has the second best OPS for a catcher in the AL and has been a big contributor on offense. Playing a premium defensive position, Martinez still is able to put up an .800 OPS and provides a lot of lineup protection against left handed pitchers (1.159 OPS vs lefties). Martinez expressed interest in signing an extension coming into this season, but also recently turned down the Red Sox two year offer. Reports say that the Sox are a little hesitant to go to a three or four year deal as they're unsure how long Martinez can stay behind the plate. Interestingly, Mike Napoli, the player who the Red Sox claimed on waivers this summer but were unable to work out a deal for, would serve a similar role. He's a switch hitting, offense first catcher who also mashes lefties. Because of his defensive struggles, Napoli seems to have lost favor with manager Mike Scioscia and could be trade bait over the winter. Napoli would be under team control for 2011 and 2012, but would be fairly expensive as he's entering his third arbitration year, as he was a super 2* player. Martinez could be looking at a three year, $40-45 million dollar deal, potentially eating up a lot of the money freed up by Lowell's expiring contract.

Adrian Beltre is also a free agent this winter, and also has been one of the most important position players for the Red Sox. According to FanGraphs's valuations, Beltre has been worth an incredible 6.9 wins for $27.7 million worth of value. He has played his usual excellent defense, saving more than 10 runs over the average third baseman for the third year in a row and the fourth time in five years. His bat has also woken up, after moving away from cavernous Safeco field for the more friendly confines of Fenway, upping his OPS from .750 in his four years as a Mariner to .935, the ninth best OPS in all of baseball. That isn't to say that Beltre will repeat his 7 win season, but he certainly looks like a star player again. While he'll never have a great batting eye, his hand eye coordination is preposterous. I've seen him hit at least two different homeruns, essentially from one knee. Scott Boras looks like a genius now for getting Beltre to sign for a one year, $10 million deal now. An awful lot of teams, particularly in the AL West, have big holes at third base and could be willing to spend lots of money to fill them.

I don't think the Red Sox will be able to keep all three of these players without extending their budget. Their salary coming into this year was an already record $168 million, $25 million than there previous high. I believe that Theo Epstein and the Red Sox were trying to "bridge the gap" to the new prospects by signing older, more expensive players to shorter term deals. I don't think the Red Sox want to be in a position where they're over the luxury tax threshold in 2011 as well, as the penalties increase with successive years over the threshold. Despite getting Lowell off the books, shedding salary will be very difficult without letting one of these three players go, as players such as Josh Beckett, Kevin Youkilis, and Daisuke Matsuzaka will all be receiving raises of $1 million or more and Papelbon will be going into arbitration for the third and final time.

Keeping Ortiz seems like a fait accompli at this point, but if I had to pick between Martinez and Beltre, I would go with Beltre. I think the two will end up with similar contracts this offseason, and Beltre has the upside to be a super star. It seems weird that a 7 win player in New York or Boston gets overlooked, but Beltre's combination of defense and hitting doesn't get enough credit. Beltre ought to be a legitimate MVP candidate and his WAR (wins above replacement) trails only Josh Hamilton in the AL.

Is Ortiz' Resurgence Sustainable?

David Ortiz has had a spectacular May so far (.351/.397/.754 with 7 HR), pushing back the questions of whether or not the Red Sox would have to cut him. In order to answer whether or not this start was sustainable, I dug into the underlying numbers a bit more. I should probably start with a fairly standard caveat about small sample sizes, particularly with the monthly data. I believe that some of these differences are striking enough to be "real", rather than an artifact due to sample size.

Looking at Ortiz' dismal April and excellent March, there were a few major changes that jumped out to me. To begin with, he cut down on his ground ball percentage from 45.7% to 20%. Ground ball rates are a nice way to look at batted ball data; unlike differentiating between a fly ball and a line drive, there is no qualitative decision when it comes to ground balls. 45% was slightly below average to begin with, but 20% would have been the lowest in the majors in 2009. Cutting down on ground balls is very advantageous for Ortiz for two reasons: first, he is incredibly slow. Last year, Baseball Prospectus "valued" his base -2.4 runs. Second, because Ortiz typically pulls the ball on the ground, the shift kills the effectiveness of ground balls. Unsurprisingly, Ortiz' batting average on ground balls is .125 this season, compared to a league wide average of .250. By eliminating ground balls, Ortiz is getting rid of nearly automatic outs. Keeping his ground ball percentage low would go a long way to maintain his resurgence; while Ortiz has never had a month with so few ground balls, Carlos Pena did only hit a grounder in 29% of his at bats last year, so it isn't unheard of.

The other aspect that Ortiz has improved in May is he is hitting for more power. After having only 7.1% of his fly balls leave the park in March and April, Ortiz currently has a home run per fly ball rate of 30% for May. While this isn't a career high, no one topped 26% in 2009 (Mark Reynolds) and you have to go back to his heyday in the mid-2000's to see any month with similar power production. At this point in his career, I think we can safely say those days are behind us. However, if Ortiz can continue to replace ground balls with fly balls, a regression in the effectiveness of the fly balls may be offset by simply hitting more fly balls. As far as the good news goes, if Ortiz continues to hit 30% ground balls, he should still approach 25 or 30 home runs. If that ground ball rate climbs back up to 40% or 50%, his average and slugging are going to plummet.

As a fun side note, Emilio Bonifacio had the fewest home runs per fly ball in 2009 (1.1%), with one . This home run was hit on opening day, when he also went 4/5 and stole 3 bases. Needless to say, it was all downhill from there.

I'm afraid that the paragraphs above constitute the good news; beyond the successful changes, there are some very scary trends. As a hitter ages, they typically have increased walk and strikeout rates. The general thinking behind this is that as bat speed slows, a hitter becomes more selective. At first glance, David Ortiz seems to confirm this. He's seen 4.57 pitches per plate appearance this year, versus a career high of4.19 coming into this season and his strikeout rates are up to 34.5%, versus a career high of 24.8% last year. Although his strikeout rate for May is lower than in March and April (37% vs 31%, although with only 63 PA in each month, we're looking at a difference of a couple strike outs), it is still higher than any single month during the 2009 season. While Ortiz has seen his strikeout rate increase, his walk rate has actually decreased both in 2010 as a whole, and during his productive May relative to April. Currently, his walk rate for 2010 is the lowest since 2002, his last year with the Twins, perhaps due to a career high in swinging at pitches outside the strike zone. Although the pitches per plate appearance are up, it does not appear to be due to any kind of improved plate discipline.

While Ortiz has been marvelous this May, I believe the underlying numbers are cause for concern. While the change in his batted ball profile make him more likely to be a valuable member of the Red Sox, I believe that his poor plate discipline will eventually catch up with him. Perhaps due to his poor start in 2009 and 2010, more pitchers have been willing to challenge him, allowing for his aggressive approach to pay off. I'm afraid that once the league recognizes the fact that he still has a substantial amount of power, we'll be back to seeing bail out swings on sliders down and away. Hopefully I'm wrong, but if Ortiz becomes unproductive again, things could get very ugly between Ortiz, the team, and the media. In fact, even though he's hitting now, Ortiz is already lashing out at the media, particularly Buster Olney, who questioned Ortiz' ability to get around on an inside fastball.