The American League East is now baseball upsmanship at its finest with New York and Boston doing their usual offseason dance of player procurement. Just enjoy the non-playing field battle.
The on-field battles between the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees have been concluded with the Red Sox arms and bats delivering a coup de grâce to the “Evil Empire” (bless you – Larry!) at the new Yankee Stadium. The Red Sox apparently showed no stadium prejudice since they executed – quite an appropriate term – a spectacular baseball humiliation at the old Yankee Stadium in 2004. Is this a trend? So far, a good century for Boston and a bad one for the Yankees.
The intrigue will now segue into the offseason where the 100 win Yankees will take to some hole plugging to close that gap and become relevant in this storied rivalry in which both teams are far more alike than different. Yes – I know Yankee fans that relevant comment is rather snarky.
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The Yankees have wasted no time in this latest skirmish with the first order of business the return of C.C. Sabathia – otherwise known as the Golden Glove of bunt fetching. Reports are the Yankees avoided paying by the pound and gave Sabathia the money out of their pocket change. But C.C. still has “game,” although not the game of a few years back. Last season Sabathia made 29 starts – two more than Chris Sale.
The Yankees went west about as far as you can go in the contiguous 48 and grabbed the talented lefty, James Paxton. The cost was prospect high, but that is one area where New York has a clear advantage over Boston. Paxton is not to be dismissed and was ranted tenth (3.9 fWAR) among the American League starters. Only Sale was ranked higher among the Red Sox.
The Red Sox have not turned to a pillar of salt the offseason with a quick strike by signing Steve Pearce to couple up with Mitch Moreland for a curtain call in 2019. Pearce is not to be confused with Manny Machado but provides enough – especially against the Yankees – to have RSN a bit giddy with anticipation of what will follow.
John Henry has given the fiscal blessing to Dave Dombrowski to pay no heed to that pesky luxury tax which could conceivably translate into some interesting offseason moves. Will the Red Sox re-sign Nathan Eovaldi who is now considered a top ten free agent? The talk is four years and $60 MM as a projection. I expect Eovaldi to be back in Boston’
Will Craig Kimbrel return after checking value and seeing if the Red Sox are willing to come close to any other suitors lining up for Kimbrel? And what about Joe Kelly? If the spending is a non-issue, could the Red Sox pry David Robertson out of the New York bullpen and plant the durable righty in the Red Sox ‘pen to set-up or close.
Conjecture will most certainly run wild especially with the Yankees having some cash to spend as the Red Sox-Yankees offseason battle has begun in earnest and will escalate. Brian Cashman has managed the pocketbook well, made astute trades, and has a nice 2018 beat down to show for it.
At this moment in time, both teams appear – at least from my view – rather equal, but that is the now and everyone in the baseball world knows neither side will rest comfortably until every free agent tire is kicked and plausible trade scenario investigated. Just sit back and enjoy the ride, the rumors, and figure out how you can pay for a trip to London?