With Jon Lester gone, the Red Sox must figure out their next move
SAN DIEGO – The Boston Red Sox are at the moment less inclined to pursue Max Scherzer the way they did Jon Lester, which is to say Scherzer is less likely to open his front door one evening and find John Henry on the porch, and now the Red Sox’s worst-to-first-to-worst-and-back-again script is in rewrite.
As the Lester outcome was being unraveled on the lobby floor Tuesday night, and as new Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon’s attempt to span that lobby turned into a creeping press conference (“We won the baseball lottery so far this year,” he said. “But now it’s up to us to put it into effect. It’s all theory right now. We’ve got to make it real, but you need pieces like this to make it real.”), Red Sox folks were upstairs, sorting out tomorrow.
If they really, really had wanted Lester for 2015 and beyond, they’d oddly taken two risks over the previous nine months:
First, they’d offered in March to extend his contract for four years and $70 million, which apparently assumed Lester loved them so much he would remain with Boston for approximately half his value.
Then, they’d traded him to Oakland, which was fine with Lester actually, except the Red Sox lost exclusivity in negotiations had they wished to make adjustments to their prior offer before free agency arrived.
They still had the big money, however, and they still presumed themselves to have Lester’s heart. While a broad and open competition for Lester would be daunting, particularly if the likes of the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees became involved and/or obsessed, they were the Red Sox. They were Jon Lester’s team.
Until they weren’t.
The defending champion San Francisco Giants strapped on their Barry Zito goggles and reportedly went seven years, $168 million. The emerging Cubs went six years, $155 million, wrote in a vesting option for another year and another $15 million, and perhaps enjoyed watching the Red Sox squirm. And the Red Sox were, at best, third, at six years, $135 million.
None of which is important going forward, certainly not as of Wednesday morning, when all that was standing between Lester and the Cubs was a physical examination, and the Red Sox still had ground to cover in that worst-to-first-to-worst-and-back-again thing.
The plan so far has Pablo Sandoval at third base and Hanley Ramirez in left field, which is, perhaps, fine. It also has Clay Buchholz at the top of the rotation, Joe Kelly, Allen Webster and Rubby De La Rosa falling in behind him, and to no one – especially not to Red Sox officials – does that look like a presentable product, much less a championship one.
Life beyond the Lester bidding looks a lot more scattered, especially if it does not include a hard run at Scherzer and the next month in a locked room with Scott Boras and something like $200 million of their own cash.
The Red Sox will engage on James Shields, but not with close to the same enthusiasm they had for Lester. No, in the moments that led to the Lester decision, when by all appearances they were to finish as runners-up to Theo Epstein and a rebuild in Chicago, the Red Sox were sizing up the trade market.
Might they pry Cole Hamels from Philadelphia? It’ll cost in players, and Ruben Amaro Jr. is in no position to lose a trade. And it’ll cost $94 million over the next four years. And he’s really the only pitcher who could stand where the Red Sox envisioned Lester, out in front of a rotation, unless Johnny Cueto could be had, or David Price, or Jordan Zimmermann.
At a time when pitching isn’t as hard to come by as in recent years, high-end pitching remains something rare. So the Red Sox could dabble in the available San Diego Padres – Andrew Cashner, Tyson Ross, Ian Kennedy, Jesse Hahn – or trade an outfielder such as Mookie Betts to Seattle for a young starter or seek Rick Porcello or Doug Fister.
The Red Sox, general manager Ben Cherington, his men, they will consider them all. The job just got tougher. The path back to the top of the AL East just got more vague.
Because none of those guys is Lester, which is no thunderbolt to the organization that raised him, that won with him, that ultimately lost him, and now must find a new way back.
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