THUMP! "Here's the Party Line..."

Bill Mueller on J.D.Drew

"I tell you what, he's a great player, a great individual, and a character guy. Any left-handed bat like his, the way he uses the whole field, he could have great success there. Unfortunately for us, he went somewhere else, which is his option. The market is great and he took advantage of it.

"Boston is such a great, great, great place to play. It's hard for me to say don't go to Boston because I think everybody should be able to experience playing in Boston. It's the Mecca of the game."

"You definitely have to have a certain mentality going in. The way J.D. is, he goes about business the way I do. Usually when people have that kind of personality, they do fine because they go out there and play their hearts out." (the fantastic Rob Bradford, The Eagle Tribune)

Pending a physical, it looks like J.D. Drew will be patrolling right field for the Red Sox in 2007. According to Boy Wonder GM Theo Epstein, being interviewed at this second on XM Radio. It is apparently a 5 year, $70 million deal, though there has been no confirmation as to the nature of that fifth year (guaranteed or option-based).

The word on the street is that Drew is totally a nancy in the clubhouse, and everyone from Orestes Destrade to Santa Claus is down on the guy, myself included. I know the rumors have him as being prone to "phantom injuries", but in reality there's nothing outside of rumours and "clubhouse sources" to back up these accusations. I feel that, as a loyal Red Sox fan stuck in the middle of the long, cold winter, it's time to get excited about something. Oh yea, and if Peter Gammons is a fan of this guy, I'm a fan of this guy.

Here's another way to look at the Drew deal. This is a market in which Gary Matthews (career .263/.336/.419) received $10 million over 5 years from the Angels, and Alfonso Soriano got roughly $17 million over 8 years (career .280/.325/.510). Compared to those guys, Drew (career .286/.393/.512) appears to be getting a rather reasonable *cough* deal.

The five year contract length really sticks in my craw, because I'm not certain how well Drew is going to age. Could be that three years from now Drew ends up being our left fielder, where he doesn't need as much mobility. When you think about it, this may end up as a case of overpaying, but I don't think it's serious enough to claim this deal is absolutely godawful. We needed a bat in right field, we got a bat in right field, and one of the better ones in the league.

Along the same lines, this just in: the Red Sox have also reportedly agreed to a 4 year contract worth $36 million dollars with FA shortstop Julio Lugo. This is really one of those situations that likely could have been avoided in 2005 before the Renteria fiasco, but the we needed a shortstop, and after Lugo, it was something like Chris Gomez as the next most desireable player.

With the Lugo signing, I think the likelihood of Manny being traded decreases significantly, and the possibility of signing a FA closer goes up a chunk. Assuming Manny sticks around, here's what the first 5 spots in our lineup would look like, based on last year's numbers.

Youkilis .279/.381/.429
Lugo .308/.373/.498 (in TB, not in LA)
Ortiz .287/.413/.636
Ramirez .321/.439/.619
Drew .283/.393/.498

Frankly, that's pretty good. The Sox batted .269/.351/.435 as a team last year and left more men on base than any other team in the major leagues. (Interestingly, despite the fact that they batted so terribly, they led the majors in total walks last year, clocking in at 672 for the season, 22 more than the second place team, Oakland.) A top five like the one above would make them a more well-rounded likeup, benefiting greatly from the addition of Lugo's speed on the basepaths.

Both of these reported deals are contingent on physicals, so nothing is set in stone as of the time of this posting. Still, it's nice to see the Sox actually move forward instead of spinning their wheels and trying to plug holes with bargain parts (see: Mohr, Dustin and Harris, Willie).