At the trade deadline of the 2009 season, the Boston Red Sox sent young right handed pitcher Justin Masterson and minor league pitchers Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price to the Cleveland Indians for All-Star catcher Victor Martinez. The discussion of the trade understandably revolved around Martinez but Masterson, who was pretty good with Boston, is off to a 5-0 start this year while V-Mart is now with the Detroit Tigers. So who ended up getting the better end of this deal?
Victor Martinez played out 2009 and then all of 2010 with the Red Sox. He absolutely tore it up in 56 games with Boston in 2009, hitting .336 with 8 HRs and 41 RBIs but it was all for naught as the arch rival New York Yankees won the World Series after Boston lost the ALDS to the Angels. Martinez went only 2-11 in the series, his only postseason appearance with Boston. In 2010, V-Mart was limited to 127 games due to injury but hit .302 with 20 bombs. However, after the 2010 season, Martinez signed a 4 year- $50 million deal with Detroit thus ending his Red Sox tenure. Though the Indians picked up the tab for 2009, the Sox payed Victor $7.7 million for 2010.
Nick Hagadone and Bryan Price both spent 2010 with the class AA Akron Aeros and are
back on Akron’s roster this season. Hagadone is a 6’5″ lefty who throws about 93-94 mph. He was a Pac-10 All-Star with the Washington Huskies in 2007. He was a first round pick back in 2007 and is 25 years old. This season, he has yet to allow an earned run in 13.2 innings out of the bullpen.
Price has had a bit less success this year. He’s got a 5.73 ERA in 6 games, all out of the bullpen. Price went to Rice University where he wasn’t particularly successful but he impressed scouts and was drafted in the first round in 2008. He’s a 24 year old righty who can run it up there as high as 95 mph.
Masterson was clearly the key part of this deal for Cleveland. In 2009, he was an abysmal 1-7 after going to the Indians but that was on a team that lost 97 games and he allowed less than a hit per inning, though he walked too many. In 2010, Masterson, who is 26 and had made only 15 career starts before the trade, was 6-13 with a 4.70 ERA. In 2011, however, Masterson has seemed to figure it out. He’s off to a 5-0 start with 2.18 ERA and a 2 to 1 strikeout to walk ratio. He’s been pitching to contact a little bit more and its been working great for him so far. Of course, the Indians have been playing out of their minds so far this year, above their talent level in the opinion of some (Me) but Masterson is throwing great.
Of equal importance is the salary of the players involved in the trade. As I said before, the Red Sox payed the $7.7 mill that V-Mart was owed in 2010 but the Indians paid him $5.9 million the year before. By contrast, Justin Masterson has made $427,000 total as a member of the Indians. For a small market team this is a big deal.
For Boston, the trade produced a year and a half of great performance from one of the best players in the game at a cost of a little less than $8 million.
The Indians netted two hit or miss pitching prospects in their mid twenties with decent potential and one guy who could be the anchor to their rotation for years to come at a cost of about $500,000. Masterson’s great start to the season is not a fluke, he’s a legitimate talent and is poised to have a big year. He’s young, he’s cheap and he’s good. Also of note, the Indians got some real good talent for Martinez, a guy who was the best player on an awful team in 2009 and certainly would have walked from Cleveland the way he bolted from Boston after the 2010 season. A 1st round compensation pick would have been a small prize compared to Masterson and company.
Overall grades:
Boston: B. Yeah they got great production from V-Mart but they didn’t win anything and he didn’t really help them fill any seats, they sell out every game anyway. His injury last season got them a few weeks of Kevin Cash behind the plate and a 3rd place finish.
Cleveland: B+. They shed a ton of salary and got a good young pitcher in return. Not for nothing but the Red Sox are in last place, 5 games out of 1st in the AL East and Cleveland is 4.5 games up on the rest of the AL Central as of May 1.
Stat of the Day: Derek Jeter has now gone 308 plate appearances since his last home run, including the postseason.
-Max Frankel
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