As
a team with the fifth worse ERA in baseball last season, a combined starter
4.39 ERA, and a rotation sporting no ace, the Red Sox needed major
improvements. The team found their answer.
The
Red Sox have signed pitcher David Price to a seven-year, $217 million contract.
The Red Sox have solved their ace problem.
David
Price is one of the best starting pitchers in the game. He has earned one CY
Young award and finished second in two other races. He has a career 3.09 ERA,
averages 216 strikeouts a season and 227 innings. Price won 19 games in 2010,
20 in 2012 and 18 last season between Detroit and Toronto. Price also has no
injury history in his throwing arm.
Price
is the surest thing the Red Sox could get of an ace, but I still have my
worries and doubts.
Price
is thirty years old, the traditional benchmark for decline in a baseball
player. He also has 1,441 professional innings on his throwing arm, a scary
amount to have on a thirty year old pitcher that the team just gave $31 million
annually. Most pitchers decline rapidly in their thirties, just look at C.C.
Sabathia, Justin Verlander and Barry Zito.
Handing
out a contract of this length and money is scary. Even though Price has all the
numbers, credentials and accolades of a proven ace, the terms still scare me.
Price just has too many innings on his arm to feel 100% confident.
I
am also worried about the clubhouse. I know everyone says that money will brush
all tension under the rug, but I still think it is a problem to have David
Ortiz, Hanley Ramirez, and David Price all in the same locker room with John Farrell
as the manager. No disrespect to John Farrell’s character or anything about him
to that sort, but the man does not seem like the best guy to bring together all
of these egos and make them a winning bunch. There are too many egos working
together and I think they will all collide at some point.
I
love David Price as a pitcher, and he ranks in my top five pitchers currently
in baseball. I love his success and have said in the past that I want him in
Boston. But the terms of the contract just scare me to death.
The
best case scenario is that he opts out after his third year and then signs
elsewhere, but I highly doubt that Price would opt out of a $31 million
guaranteed contract at the age of 33.
Once
opening day comes around, I am sure fans, including myself, will forget all
about the price tag. If Price pitches well, finds himself in CY Young
contention, and brings the Red Sox back to the post-season, I bet I will find
myself at rest about the contract. But for now, I can’t help but imagine all of
the bad things that will happen to David Price. It just fits the Red Sox woes.
