Almost Everything is Working Out for David Price with Red Sox
By Chris Ryan
Yankee Stadium
Bronx, NY- David Price had $217 million reasons to sign with the Boston Red Sox, but that was just part of his reason for signing a 7-yr deal.
Price has yet to win a World Series, and for a number of reasons that are starting to play out, he envisioned this as his best chance to do so and be on a competitive team for the length of his contract despite the fact that the Sox had finished in last place each of the past two seasons.
His rationale is incredibly important as the team looks to perhaps trade for more high level talent and sign free agents in the offseason.
Price told me that the Sox hiring of Dave Dombrowski as President of Baseball Operations was a huge factor. Dombrowski over the past week has shown an ability and willingness to leverage prospects for good big league talent in acquiring starter Drew Pomeranz, reliever Brad Ziegler and infielder Aaron Hill. You combine this with a highly regarded farm system and some of the deepest pockets in baseball and possibilities are endless.
Price also wanted to go to a place where his contract wouldn’t restrict other spending. In benching Pablo Sandoval and Rusney Castillo at the beginning of the year and relegating Clay Buchholz to the bullpen they’ve shown again the financial flexibility to overcome what may have been devastating underperformance in other organizations.
The other big piece for Price was he saw future stars in Xander Bogaerts, Mookie Betts, Jackie Bradley Jr., Christian Vazquez, Sandy Leon and others. Three of those players just went to the All-Star Game in San Diego.
Now, Price’s personal performance has been uneven, he goes for the sweep in the Bronx tonight with a 9-6 mark and a 4.34 ERA.
The first year has been traditionally problematic for high profile starters coming to Boston over the last 10 years. Josh Beckett was 16-11 with a 5.01 ERA in 2006, Daisuke Matsuzaka was 15-12 with a 4.40 ERA in 2007, John Lackey was 14-11 with a 4.40 ERA in 2010 (he was worse in ’11 at 12-12 with a 6.41 ERA) and last year Rick Porcello 9-15 with a 4.92 ERA.
Those guys will give various reasons for the adjustment difficulty.
For Porcello, he said it was more about adjusting to the line-ups of the AL East than the pressure of pitching in Boston and being rewarded a huge contract. This year he’s been one of the most important and underrated parts of the Sox success.
Moving forward though, the Sox (unlike say, the Yankees) are set up to challenge for a championship over the long term and the short term, given their resources, current talent level and high level prospects.
