The Red Sox signed Chris Capuano to a one-year, $2.25 million contract. Some thoughts:
1. If you told the Red Sox they could have either Capuano or Ryan Dempster for the $500,000 minimum for the 2014 season, I am positive the team would take Capuano. So they already are getting benefits from Dempster’s decision to sit out 2014 for personal reasons.
Dempster was due $13.25 million. Capuano is due $2.25 million. Thus, Boston has a net savings of $11 million, yet a better option.
Capuano provides starting pitching depth, which is valuable because there is some physical uncertainty with Clay Buchholz and Jake Peavy and some volatility still with Felix Doubront. Yes, Boston likes its young possibilities with Brandon Workman, Allen Webster and a few others. But Capuano, 35, gives them a veteran to send out first.
And Boston also thinks Capuano could be valuable in the pen, joining Craig Breslow and Andrew Miller to potentially attack teams such as the Yankees late with three southpaw relief options. Capuano held lefties to a .566 OPS last year while with the Dodgers, and has not yielded a homer to a lefty in the last 125 at-bats, dating to Sept. 14, 2012, when he gave up a long ball to St. Louis’ Matt Carpenter.
2. The Red Sox continue to show discipline. They know they were blessed to trade out of the long-term deals of Adrian Gonzalez and, particularly, Carl Crawford.
In response, last offseason, they chose to address their many issues by handing out short-term deals, nothing longer than the three years they bestowed upon Shane Victorino. It resulted in a championship and flexibility.
That championship has emboldened Boston not to flinch and to stick with the plan this offseason. The Red Sox gave a two-year contract to retain Mike Napoli and for reliever Edward Mujica, and one-year deals to Grady Sizemore, A.J. Pierzynski and now Capuano.
They again did not tie themselves up with long-term deals or by signing a player from another team with a qualifying offer, so the Red Sox retain their own first-round pick, No. 27 overall. Plus, the Yankees’ signing of the qualified Jacoby Ellsbury gives Boston the 32nd overall pick as compensation. And the Red Sox still might get another compensation pick in the thirties should the qualified Stephen Drew sign elsewhere.
And that would enable Boston to deepen a farm system already viewed as among the best. In fact, the strength of the system is one of the main elements that has kept the Red Sox from needing to act boldly in free agency. They could let Ellsbury go because they believe Jackie Bradley Jr. is ready to play center field. They could hold firm on what they are willing to do with Drew because they have Xander Bogaerts at short and Will Middlebrooks at third.
And even if some of this does not work out, Boston has the goodwill from the championship last year, so it is not feeling compelled to over-react. Yet, the combination of a strong farm system, money to spend and a proactive front office means you can already see the Red Sox being a force in the July trade market, capable of having the dollars and prospects necessary to get what ever they need.
3. What will be interesting is how far the Red Sox will be willing to go to retain Jon Lester. Their ace has indicated he is willing to take a hometown discount to stay. But that still is not going to be three years or fewer. He is a durable, championship-tested, 30-year-old lefty.
It would seem Boston would have to go at least five years to keep him out of free agency after this season, perhaps even six or seven. Homer Bailey, while younger, is a far less accomplished pitcher than Lester, and he just received a six-year, $105 million deal from the Reds. It seems as if Lester should get, at minimum, a six-year, $120 million extension to stay.
Boston will feel some pressure to get it done. And not only because Lester is homegrown and a championship hero. But because Peavy and John Lackey are older pitchers with options for 2015, Buchholz is fragile and while the Red Sox like their young-and-coming pitching prospects, they are still prospects. Lester projects as an instrumental stabilizing rotation force for Boston moving forward.