FREE AGENTS, QUALIFYING OFFERS & PED's

STEVEN DREW

Steven Drew seems to have gotten himself into a little bit of a mess. 

He is the number one shortstop 'free agent' available and he appears not to be having much luck securing a contract.

Could it be the 'qualifying offer' the Red Sox made him ?

Let's take the St.Louis Cardinals as a example. They needed a shortstop and elected to sign Jhonny Peralta, a player tainted by PED's over Steven Drew. Why ?

The Cardinals are a very successful team that won the same number of games as the Red Sox last season. They have a fantastic minor league farm system that they put a 'high value' on. In other words, the Cardinals do not want to part with number one draft choices.

The negative publicity that came with the Peralta signing far outweighed giving up a first rounder to the Red Sox if they would have signed Steven Drew.

The deal itself is similar to what Drew could have gotten from St.Louis. Peralta also has a bigger downside than Drew. His glove is not as good as Drew's, he is older and due to suspension he missed 50 games last year.

Cardinals GM John Mozeliak knows that if Peralta comes to St.Louis and 'keeps his nose clean' all will be forgotten by Cards fans.He also knows that despite investigations and test results PED use still exists in MLB.

Earlier this week pitchers Brad Ziegler and David Aardsma had negative comments about how a admitted PED user like Peralta could receive such a rich contract.

What do they want the owners to do ? If the owners refuse to sign players that have a PED history they will be accused by the union of 'collusion' ! Obviously the owners cannot get together against a set of specific players.

The signing of Peralta has more to do with draft choices and less to do with PED's. Please note that the Red Sox last year signed five big 'free agents' and all were players who were not made 'qualifying offers'.

Now where does this leave the Red Sox ?

Well if you enjoyed glimpses of Xander Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley Jr. last year, so did Ben Cherington. These players are number one draft choices.

So if the Red Sox do sign a 'free agent' that was made a 'qualifying offer', look for it to be Steven Drew or Mike Napoli, members of last years team.

Draft choices are just to important for the Red Sox to give up.