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Writings on baseball by Matt Barnard and Dan Stein.
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1.20.2003
Before I get to anything else, I’d like to thank Derek Zumsteg from Baseball Prospectus for writing to us here. As guys who are just starting out in baseball writing, it’s quite a thrill to get an acknowledgment from the top. Additionally, one of my favorite sites, theprospectreport.com, has finished their top 10 lists for each organization (this was a little while ago) and has today released their top 100 list for all of baseball. An inexact science to be sure, but it's worth taking a look at. Dave Nilsson's back I've always liked Dave Nilsson, and I like this signing. However, I'm a bit curious about the money involved. Ordinarily, in a case like this I would assume that the reason we've heard no figure is because it's totally insignificant. Here I'm not so sure. Nilsson seemed to really want to stay in Australia (he did leave following an excellent season, when he would've made a ton of money from a major league team), so I'd think that the Red Sox would have to be offering him some pretty decent compensation to get him to leave. Of course, there's also the possibility that he wanted another crack at American baseball...but we have no idea. Assuming this is a low cost signing, there's not a whole lot of downside. Sure, the Red Sox have other guys who do what Nilsson does and aren't great defensively...but this isn't preventing them from addressing any other areas that need improvement. It seems very possible to me that Nilsson is merely your backup first baseman/catcher/DH/left fielder (I have no idea what positions he's been playing in Australia, so I'm just basing that on his MLB career), and he's a guy who has had some great success in the major leagues. If you're a contender like the Red Sox, don't you want to have players who have proven themselves? Of course he's been gone for four seasons now and he's that far removed from facing the competition he once did and likely won't be quite the same player he was in 1999 (at age 29) now at 33. But look at that last season in the bigs! .309/.400/.554 in 404 plate appearances. The guy can (could?) hit. So assuming this is a low-cost signing, great job by Theo Epstein in bringing in a guy who could conceivably be a big help to his team...I don't see much risk involved here. And of course, as a Yankee fan, it's a damn shame. - |