Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Re-Sign Jason Bay? Now...Later....When?

The American League All-Star voting has been coming out for the past few weeks now, and there seems to only be one or two sure things for the starting line-up. One being Catcher Joe Mauer and the other being our very own Left Fielder, no not that guy, Jason Bay. According to the latest results Bay leads all outfielders by a little more than 1 million votes. Some of this may be attributed to his spectacular season or Red Sox nation stepping up to the computer and voting hard. Either way there is no doubt that come July 14Th Jason Bay will be the American League teams starting Left Fielder in St.Louis.

A much more difficult question however is whether or not Jason Bay will remain a Boston Red Sox beyond this season. Bay's current contract has him making a whopping 7.5 million dollars (insert sarcasm here). He will become a free agent after this season where he will no doubt be one of the top free agent outfielders available especially if he continues hitting like he has this season. Prior to this season the Red Sox and Bays agent exchanged figures and had brief contract discussion which ended with the Red Sox saying they needed a better read on the economy before continuing discussion and Bay saying the he was not moving from his figure, while also having a healthy respect for the Red Sox point of view. The figures that were exchanged were said to have the Red Sox sitting somewhere between 3 years 30 million and 3 years 33 million, while Bay was believed to be looking for something similar to J. D. Drew's 5 year 70 Million dollar contract. While the two sides were seemingly far apart during those discussions it appears as though the Red Sox may be warming to the idea of playing Mr. Bay in or around the range of 15 million per season. The real sticking point here will be the years in the contract. Bay is a relatively young guy at the age of 30; he may not be worth 5 or 6 years for the Red Sox who appear to be content with signing people in that 3 to 4 year range but have consistently turned the other way in negotiations when the 5Th season has been in play. See Derek Lowe, Pedro Martinez and Johnny Damon. The only person that the Red Sox have recently been willing to go those extra years was Mark Teixeira, who we all know signed for more money elsewhere. While we may never know exactly how the Red Sox value Jason Bay, the two sides have agreed to begin discussing a contract extension over the All-Star break this season while Jason is hopefully leading the American League to a victory and providing us with home field advantage in this upcoming post season.

Jason Bay is currently hitting 269 with 19 Homeruns and 69 Runs Batted In, which puts him on pace for final season totals around 269 with 47 homeruns and 147 Runs Batted In, which would be career highs in homeruns and RBI's. For my money, I would sign Bay to a 4 year 60 Million dollar contract which would put him at a 15 million dollar annual salary, and I definitely would not wait for our rivals in New York to get involved.

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