Free agent shortstop Hanley Ramirez has agreed to terms with the Boston Red Sox on a four-year deal worth $88 million. The deal includes a vesting fifth year for $22 million.
Ramirez heads to the American League after spending his entire Major League career in the Senior Circuit with the Florida Miami Marlins and the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Dodgers offered Ramirez a qualifying offer, which he promptly turned down for an average annual value of $22 million (not quite $7 million more than he would have made on the one-year deal). The Dodgers will receive a compensatory pick in next year’s draft from the Red Sox.
Ramirez was clearly the top offensive prize in the free agent market. Last year he slashed .283/.369/.448 (very good), but he’s just a year removed from a more stellar season in which he hit .345/.402/.638 with 20 home runs and 57 RBI. Of course, those numbers were also due to a reduced number of games due to injury, a battle he’s faced throughout his entire career. The Red Sox likely do not see this as an issue, and for a team built with the offensive firepower they have, it makes sense why it wouldn’t be much of a concern.
HanRam will likely slot into the Red Sox defense at third base, replacing Will Middlebrooks. Ramirez has … let’s just say he’s had some issues defensively, and moving him to third probably won’t make him more valuable in the field. Of course, this is contingent on the Sox signing free agent Pablo Sandoval as well. Sandoval, the other marquee name with offensive prowess, is also close to signing with Boston (allegedly), and he offers better upside defensively than Hanley.
This brings up an interesting conundrum for the Crimson Stockings. Their infield – based on Sandoval signing – would be Panda, Xander Bogaerts, Pedroia and Mike Napoli. With David Ortiz firmly planted at DH, it leaves Ramirez likely to play an outfield spot, most likely left field. Therefore, there are three major questions to ask:
1. Why in the heck would you put an injury-prone infielder who is terrible defensively in front of a big green wall with the expectation that he can play the carom?
2. Do the Sox put Ramirez at short and try to sell high on Bogaerts, who has been highly regarded in the Sox organization as the future at shortstop?
3. If option #1 is most favorable, what in the world do you do with Yoenis Cespedes?
4. Of course, Cespedes has been bandied about in trade discussion (Adele says rumor has it that he hates Boston and the coaches hate him). He would likely be traded somewhere, ideally in return for pitching. This would especially make sense if Boston feels they’ve spent too much money to return Jon Lester to their starting rotation. They could trade Cespedes for an arm (or two?) and improve the rotation.
5. It’s also interesting that Boston has gone into big-spending mode, considering they dumped quantum amounts of salary in the trade that sent Adrian Gonzalez, Josh Beckett, Carl Crawford and Nick Punto (!) to the Dodgers. The logic was that they wanted to move away from the high-volume contracts they had. It made sense at the time, but now the Red Sox are moving back to this concept. And they are doing so by picking up a guy who won’t play short and may not stay healthy, and maybe a third baseman that could show up fat to Spring Training.
6. But why not? Ramirez is (probably) a steal at 4/88, and will only improve a lineup in need of some power.
Hooray for this.*
*Editor’s note: Brian is totally in favor of this move, hates the Dodgers and Red Sox.
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