January 8, 2009

Baldelli Will Wear #5

Rocco Baldelli is now a member of the Boston Red Sox. He will wear #5, last worn by Nomar Garciaparra in July 2004.

Ian Browne, redsox.com:
Baldelli will earn a base salary of $500,000, but there are several performance incentives, many of which are built around plate appearances. For example, that salary doubles if Baldelli winds up making 350 plate appearances, which is certainly conceivable.
Browne also reports that John Smoltz has signed an offer sheet from the Red Sox, "worth a base salary of $5.5 million but including incentives that could bring the total package up to $10 million". Here is a SoSH link to a story on Smoltz's surgery.

The Red Sox may also be working to bring Mark Kotsay back to the bench.

Theo Epstein says the Red Sox have not shut the door on Jason Varitek:
There's still some unfinished business. Jason is still out there. ... And also, in the pursuit of a younger catcher. ... We have the two young guys who combined to form a pretty good platoon last year at Pawtucket in George Kottaras and Dusty Brown. And we brought in Josh Bard on a one-year deal ...

[Accepting arbitration is] always the player's decision. ... Certainly it was something we were hoping he would have accepted and then he would have been back under those terms. It's behind us now and we'll see what happens next.
Tom Tippett (of Diamond Mind Baseball fame) has been hired by the Red Sox as a director of baseball information services.

3 comments:

andy said...

Kotsay Hey is coming back to fill in the gaps i the outfield and infield. Now all we need is Peavy. With all the money saved by not signing toshara we can give peavy a good rest of career contract.

Patrick said...

Baldelli is my new favorite. I want him to win so bad already.

I can't relate to cancer (thank god), but having lyme I do know exactly what it's like to have symptoms like Rocco has. I pray that the guy has a breakout year as far as his health.

I couldn't be more pumped for next season, and I doubt the offseason is over for us yet.

laura k said...

but having lyme I do know exactly what it's like to have symptoms like Rocco has

Me too, from a different condition. It is really difficult and I can't imagine how hard he works to combat it.

I won't be praying (you know me!) but I'll be watching and hoping.