What Happens if Bay Doesn’t Sign?

It has been made public that the Red Sox are going to reach out to Jason Bay's agent over the next couple days to try and work out a contract for the slugging left fielder. Lucky for us he hasn't kept that blistering pace he started at the beginning of the season. But, leading the league in RBI's at the break and having 20+ HR's will all but guarantee more than 30 HRs and 110 RBIs. We couldn't have dreamed up a better person to fill the void left by one, Emmanuel Ramirez.

So let's play devil's advocate and say that he doesn't sign with Boston and maybe goes to the Yankees, maybe he doesn't that's not the point of this post. The point is to see what else could happen if we need a NEW left fielder next year with no one ready to move up to the "bigs" in our system.

Despite his struggles this year Matt Holliday is and WILL BE an option if Bay doesn't re-sign with the Red Sox. Look, this season is an aberration (much like Daisuke Matsuzaka winning 18 years) you don't have a .315 career Average by accident. Yes he played in Denver, CO which inflated his power numbers maybe turned a few doubles into HR's but he had to still hit the ball. He's a GOOD HITTER. Right now he is statistically playing in one of the worst hitters ballparks in the Mausoleum in Oakland and I for one think if he's playing in front of that large green wall for 81 games a year that it can only help him. Let's not forget he is playing on one of the worst teams in the majors and not to say it's ok but you may want to forgive him for having cruddy numbers with nobody and no one hitting behind him.

Other than Holliday I don't know anyone person they could go after, but something they could do is get a VERY good defensive player (Juan Pierre?) and try to get a "bopper" in one of the corner IF positions (see: any other trade talk blog I've written) to fill the large hole that Jason Bay WILL leave in our lineup. What I do know is that if we can't get Bay signed to a multi-year contract Theo and the Red Sox staff is going to get creative in how to make the lineup potent and still be able to produce lots of runs.

That being said, I'm fairly positive that they can get a deal worked out with J-Bay but if not they have one glaring option, and if they can't do that they are going to have to really earn their paycheck by being innovative with how they are going to create a new offense.

Stay Tuned

Ryan