Sox Keep Spending, Sign Crawford

It seems that the Red Sox have decided to open their wallet this off-season. Just days after trading for star first baseman Adrian Gonzalez, who will reportedly require a $161 million seven-year contract extension to stay past 2011, Theo and the Trio have pulled almost that much from the till to secure free agent outfielder Carl Crawford through 2017. The move has caught many an insider by surprise.

The Red Sox shocked the baseball world, or at least the portion of it that managed to hold on to their drinks around the lobby bars of the winter meetings hotel here when the news broke in the last hour of Wednesday. Boston somehow turned $142 million into stealth money, agreeing to make Carl Crawford the second-highest paid outfielder in baseball history with hardly a moment of preparation by those outside their own suite. It was a rare “wow” moment in a Twitter-mad world.

“[Bleeping] Theo,” one GM said of Boston general manager Theo Epstein. “What a brilliant move.”

The surprise, apparently, is not that the Red Sox went after Crawford—it was widely reported that they were in talks with him a couple weeks ago—but that they continued to pursue him even after committing to the probability of spending so much money for so many years on Gonzalez. But Red Sox fans knew there was at least a chance that the team would do it. That the deal got done without any leaks was also a surprise.

The signing means the Sox probably won’t go after free agent pitcher Cliff Lee, if they ever intended to in the first place, and suggests a belief that they will get more (and better) out of Josh Beckett than they got last season. It also signals a return to their previous strategy of focusing on run production rather than run prevention, the unrealized goal of 2010. And the addition of such a high-profile outfielder puts to rest the possibility of re-signing third baseman Adrian Beltre and moving Kevin Youkilis to left field.

With the new pop in the lineup, the absence of catcher Victor Martinez won’t be so keenly felt, although I still expect the front office to address the catching situation, at least from a defensive perspective. If more championships are the team’s expectation—and the big contracts indicate so—I don’t see a platoon of Jason Varitek and Jarrod Saltalamacchia as the long-term answer behind the plate.