Shane Old, Shane Old
'Shane Victorino' Is Hawaiian for 'Bridge Year'
And It's Dirt Dog Overload at Fenway
Victorino in 2012: .255, 11 HRs, 55 RBIs, .704 OPS ...for Napoli Money
Ben's New Plan: Pay Guys Coming Off Their Worst Career Years...
Like They're Just Coming Off Their Best Career Years
So Instead of Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez, and Cody Ross,
It's Jonny Gomes, Mike Napoli, and Shane Victorino... Hmmm
The Cheerful Cody Ross, We Hardly Knew Ye
One team guesstimated early in offseason that Victorino could be a good value buy at about $6-7 million on a one-year deal #explodingprices
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) December 4, 2012
"Shane Victorino's three-year, $39 million contract with the Boston Red Sox vaults to the top of the rankings of the worst contracts signed so far this offseason, giving him virtually the same total dollars that Angel Pagan -- a superior player -- will receive in a contract that's a year longer. The Sox have now squandered a substantial amount of the payroll flexibility they obtained over the summer when they traded Adrian Gonzalez to the Los Angeles Dodgers just to rid themselves of two awful contracts, yet they have little to show for their recent spending spree." -- Keith Law, ESPN Insider, 'Victorino's deal doomed to fail'
"Within, oh, 30 seconds of the Victorino news breaking, many executives in the Opryland Cascades lobby thought it was the silliest thing they'd ever heard. A switch-hitter traded from the Phillies to the Dodgers last summer, Victorino's splits against right-handers in 2012 were .229/.296/.333. Against lefties, he was almost 100 points higher at .323/.388/.518. Gomes, whom the Red Sox signed for two years, $10 million last month, was a platoon player in Oakland in 2012. Over the course of his 10-year career, Gomes' splits against right-handers are .223/.307/.425. Against lefties, they're .284/.382/512." -- Scott Miller, CBSSports.com
"Everything we're trying to do this offseason has sort of a short-end, long-term reason and hopefully fits into the -- I don't want to say our five-year plan because that's too far out -- but medium-term plan." -- Ben Cherington... has plans
