Blatantly disregarding my advice, the Red Sox have signed Marco Scutaro to a two year contract (plus a mutual option year).  Dollar amounts have yet to be disclosed, but I’d ballpark it at around $8 million per year, with a team $8MM/player $4MM option for the third year.

Scutaro (Venezuelan, not Italian) has been analyzed here in several posts, but now that this is apparently a done deal, let’s take a quick look at the pros and cons.

Pros:

• He was the 3rd most productive shortstop in the American League last year.
• Just about average defensively (I consider this a pro, given Boston’s luck at the SS position in recent years).
• Plate discipline has steadily improved with age.
• Difficult to strike out, 1 K every 9 plate appearances.
• Hit .322/.405/.429 on the road last year.
• Career .290/.321/.400 hitter at Fenway Park.
• Similar effectiveness versus LHPs and RHPs.

Cons:

• Age.  34-year-old shortstops, like catchers, are ticking time bombs.  Offensively and defensively, he’s a solid bet to be worse than he was in 2009.
• Track record. His only decent year was last year, a contract year at age 33.  This will likely be his last significant contract. Not much incentive there.  Before last season, his career numbers were not unlike Julio Lugo’s at the time of his signing.
• Durability.  He hit .211/.310/.282 after September 1st last year, a big red flag for someone his age who is not used to logging in 140-150 games as a starter.
• Scutaro is a Type A free agent, which means the Sox will lose their original 1st round draft pick to Toronto, who also gets an additional compensation pick between the 1st and 2nd rounds.
• Playing SS in the indoor tennis court known at the Rogers Centre is quite different than doing it in Fenway Park.  As a well-paid free agent, he inherits the bulls-eye worn by Lugo and Edgar Renteria, and will not be given much leeway from the blohards and drunks in the stands.

The fact that this is only a 2-year guarantee softens my distaste a bit, since our top SS prospect will probably need at least two years before he is ready for the major leagues.

At best, Scutaro might have a year somewhat close to what he was last year: competent in the field and pretty good at the plate.  At worst, he’ll be the subject of a mid-season trade in 2011 where the Sox end up paying 100% of his contract in exchange for a 28-year-old AAA first baseman and a 2-liter bottle of Mister Pib.

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