Quick Quiz: Who's more valuable, Jason Bay or Mike Cameron?

Dave Cameron says it's Mike Cameron, even considering the age difference, and he makes his case well ...

Yet Bay is going to get a three to five year deal for something in the neighborhood of $15 million per season, while Cameron is probably going to have to settle for a one year deal for around the $10 million he made last year.

That’s nutty. If you think Cameron’s on the verge of collapse (he’s shown no signs of it) and you don’t trust defensive metrics (in this case, the conclusions are pretty obviously true), then you think that they’re similarly valuable. In reality, the odds are pretty good that Cameron is going to outperform Bay next season, just as he’s done in most every season recently, and he’s going to do it for far less money.

If you want a right-handed hitting outfielder this winter, and you don’t want to pony up for Matt Holliday, Jason Bay is not the alternative. Call Mike Cameron instead.

I'll bet the Red Sox are beside themselves trying to come up with an alternative to investing $60 million in Jason Bay, whose value will only decline over the next three to five years. However, Bay's defense might not be an issue a year from now, as David Ortiz's contract expires after next season and the Sox might well need a new designated hitter.

In other words, whatever happens, I'll be fairly surprised if Jason Bay is Boston's every-day left fielder in 2012.

It's also not clear that Cameron would be a good fit with the Red Sox. There's nothing wrong with having two center fielders in the outfield; a run saved in left field is pretty important, too. But I wonder if great defense is worth less to the Red Sox than to other teams, given the small amount of real estate between the shortstop and the Green Monster. Otherwise, in the absence of Bay I would suggest that if Cameron's right, the Red Sox would know it and go after Cameron.

As it is, I suspect that Cameron is right, at the very least, about this: Cameron will have to "settle" for "only" $10 million (at best) next year. Because just about every team that has more than $10 million to spend already has a center fielder, and very few teams (if any) are creative enough to spend big money for center-field defense and play it in left (or right) field.