Did the Sox drop the ball by not signing Bay?

Written by Rob Munstis | 14 May 2009

Despite fighting off another morning hangover, the guys at Surviving Grady beat me to the punch on this one, but I still think it's worth writing.

Jason Bay is gonna get paid.

The question is: Will he get paid by the Boston Red Sox?

With the economy spiraling out of control during the MLB offseason, the Red Sox and Jason Bay could not agree on a fair market value for his serivces and both parties agreed to put the contract negotiations on hold.

Since then Jason Bay has been on fire, leading the Sox in home runs with 10 and RBI with 37 and challenging Youk for the lead in BA (.319) and OBP (.456). In just 12 games this May he already matched his April totals with 5 homers, 3 doubles, 18 RBI and 2 stolen bases.

He won't keep this pace all season, but for the record, he's on track to hit 43 homers, 35 doubles and drive 159 RBI with 500 at-bats. He's also dramatically improved him BB/K rate from his career 425/765 (.555) to a projected 120/133 (.902).

Jason Bay and his peeps know that he and Matt Holliday are the big name Free Agents for 2010... and Bay is increasing his value with every at-bat right now. We may never see the David Ortiz of 2007 again and Mike Lowell, despite his equally impressive start to 2009, is no spring chicken. The Red Sox would be wise to do whatever they can to lock Bay into a multi-year deal before the end of the season.

Problem is... the offer will need to be substantial if they hope to convince Bay that he won't do better on the open market.

Bottom Line: The Sox locked up Lester, Youkilis and Pedroia this past offseason. Josh Beckett's contract is ending soon and they may want to stash some cash for the Joe Mauer bidding war that is on the horizon... but with no major payouts planned for the 2010 offseason, it would appear that the Sox can afford to make a nice offer to Bay and keep him in Boston.