Free agent signings have officially begun. With a couple of lower ranking free agents already signing with new teams, it’s fair to say we’re in the thick of off season baseball. If you were paying attention, you would have also noticed that one of the best free agent pitchers available this year, David Price, struck an agreement with the Boston Red Sox to the tune of a seven year, $217 million contract. This historic deal passes Clayton Kershaw’s $215 to become the new, most lucrative contract given to a pitcher. It also ties Miguel Cabrera’s highest Average Annual Value ever of $31 million per year. To state the obvious, David Price is now a rich, rich man.
That Price signed with the Red Sox shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Dave Dombrowski, the new Red Sox general manager, stated multiple times that during this off-season, elite pitchers would be a priority. By signing Price, Dombrowski achieved exactly that. The 2015 season was a terrible year to watch Red Sox pitching. The cumulative ERA of all Red Sox pitchers was 4.31. When looking at the other 29 major league baseball teams, the Red Sox were the fifth worst. By signing David Price, it will hopefully take away starts from either Rick Porcello or Joe Kelly. Also, by trading for Craig Kimbrel, even at a very high cost of multiple talented prospects, the backend of the Red Sox bullpen will be much improved. However, even with these two minor fixes, don’t mistake this as a huge win for the Red Sox.
The Red Sox offense scored 748 runs last year putting them at fourth best in the majors. Their offense wasn’t the issue in 2015. Their pitching staff, one of the worst, gave up 753 runs. It’s never a good sign when you score less than you allow. Even with the two new great pitching additions of David Price and Craig Kimbrel, I can’t help but feel that the Red Sox still don’t have enough pitching to make them serious contenders in a fairly stacked American Eastern division. With competition coming from the Toronto Blue Jays, the New York Yankees, and even the Baltimore Orioles, the Red Sox still would seem to come up short. While Dave Dombrowski says he’s done wheeling and dealing for the moment, I wouldn’t be shocked if the Red Sox added a couple more arms to their rotation or bullpen. The Red Sox are clearly a talented team, but their pitching will still fall short.
Moving on to David Price’s ridiculous contract, it’s not hard to see that the Red Sox will be biting the bullet sometime in the future. Included in Price’s record setting contract is an opt-out clause after the third year. An opt-out clause means that after three years, if Price performs like an ace and believes he could earn more in free agency, he can opt-out of his contract with the Red Sox and pursue another contract. However, if he doesn’t perform very well, he can stick with the contract already given to him by the Red Sox. In the grand scheme of things, it means the Red Sox lose either way. In one situation, Price performs well, meaning he’ll opt-out and the Red Sox will have to pay more money to retain him. The other situation is that he performs poorly and the Red Sox are stuck paying the rest of his contract even though he’s performing at a sub optimal level. This opt-out clause gives so much power to Price that this contract is a horrible investment for the Red Sox. All they can hope for is that Price gives them a World Series ring and ages well.
This signing by the Red Sox is by no means something all 29 other teams should envy. There’s plenty of money going to David Price along with plenty of power in the contract. Dave Dombrowski and Red Sox fans will most likely end up regretting this decision, but if Price leads the Red Sox to a World Series Championship, it may all be worth it.
