Free Agent Fantasy Impact: Jason Bay
After proving he can hit against American League pitching, Jason Bay is all set to get paid after a solid fantasy season.
Bay hit .267/.384/.537 with a career high 36 homers and 119 RBI. He also chipped in 100 runs and even provided owners with 13 steals in his first full season with Boston. Many of his fantasy owners may not have been happy with the drop in batting average, at the expense of five extra home runs. I don’t think they minded too much, but when you are counting on a guy to hit .280, you’d always like him to do so.
Because he’s turned in two good offensive seasons in a row, he will be seeking a nice payday before he steps back on the field in 2010. The Red Sox have been rumored to be willing to go as high as $15 million a year, but R.J. Anderson already analyzed why their history does not support that rumor. The Mets, Cardinals, Angels, Giants, Braves and possibly the Yankees will be in the market for a big time left fielder.
The Mets are going to make the strongest push towards Matt Holliday, as will the Cardinals and Bay’s former employers in Boston. The Giants may not be willing to spend the big bucks, but could make Bay feel wanted if they focus on him from the start. The Yankees aren’t likely to go big again this offseason, but Bay’s value could slip into the range where they almost have to get involved.
Where Bay ends up this offseason will be huge for his value. If he stays with a great team like the Red Sox who will surround him with talent, his RBI and run production should remain at a steady rate. If he decides to follow the money to a team that may be of a lesser quality (Giants, Mets), he may feel forced to do things all by his lonesome and his game could suffer because of it.
In Boston, I doubt any of his old mates will be complaining if he leaves. If he goes out of town, chances are Boston will fill his spot with another big bat. The Red Sox lineup always seems to produce, so their players have nothing to worry about. His new teammates will enjoy his presence in their lineup, and he will boost their runs and RBI.
Bay may not be the best overall player in the league, but he is a big bat for fantasy owners, especially in OBP leagues. No matter where he goes, he will hit home runs and drive in runs, but a return to Fenway would be best for his fantasy value.
Zach is the creator and co-author of RotoGraphs' Roto Riteup series, and RotoGraphs' second-longest tenured writer. You can follow him on twitter.
Up side: I bought this nice little netbook for my wife and we both love it. We got the diamond black version and both of us love the charcoal color of the hand rest. The built-in microphone, webcam and speakers make chatting on Skype an easy, enjoyable experience. For me, 3 USB ports is much better than 2 because I always have a USB mouse and USB flash drive hooked up. Great portability for making presentations. We use the netbook on the desk most of the time (not on the lap), but it doesn’t overheat like some other computers do. The 10″ screen, to me, is significantly better/larger than the 8.9″ screen. I don’t have large hands but I find the 85% keyboard usable (but not so much for the 8.9″ versions). The hinge for changing the angle of the screen is surprisingly sturdy. The 802.11g Wi Fi is very fast. Firefox runs well and smooth despite taking up 200-300 MB of RAM sometimes. Although I have not used the first Aspire One, the AOD150 seems to be an improvement over the first edition.
Down side: the keyboard does feel a little flimsy. It’s a netbook, so obviously it doesn’t have an internal DVD/CD drive. But since that I’ve put it on a wireless router network, I have been able to share the DVD/CD drives on my desktop computer and run CDs and DVDs on the Aspire One remotely. The screen is glossy and so it does create reflections depending on the angle. For indoor viewing I don’t have a problem with the glossiness. The trackpad, however, is not the most responsiveand so we use a mouse instead.
Comparison to the Lenovo S10: I seriously considered the Lenovo S10 netbook because they have very similar specs. Both have 10″ screens, 160 GB HD, 1 GB RAM. But the Aspire One AOD150 has 3 USB ports and a 6-cell battery. We have not test-driven the battery enough to say anything, but a 6-cell battery should outperform a 3-cell battery (Lenovo S10).
Trivial: I also bought the Crucial 2GB 667 Mhz for $24 but have not installed it because so far the machine is running sufficiently well with 1GB RAM and that changing components on the computer may void the warranty. So maybe I’ll install it after the warranty has expired.
Overall: Excellent little computer for $350 that contains almost everything that you need (except for internal drive). Acer has done a great job in creating a netbook that is both functional and portable at the same time.