I understand Fenway fits his swing better, but money aside ...he gets to call one of the nicest cities in the US home for a long time....and no more cold and miserable Aprils/Mays....
Assuming that they had to meet or exceed $280. Sure.I don’t understand the anger towards the Red Sox over letting Bogaerts go. Is there anyone here that would be happy if the Red Sox matched or topped the Padres 11/280 offer?
Agree, they won the World Series, followed it up with a disappointing season which was primarily a result of Sale, Price, and Eovaldi getting hurt - and then completely panicked and changed course. Now, we’ve got a better (albeit not among the best) farm club, but far less talent at the big league level. Yay?I'm not sure I buy this point about holes. In the 2019 season the core of the lineup was 28, 26, 22, 24, 29 and 26 (Vazquez, X, Devers, Benny, JBJ, Mookie). JD was only 31, for that matter. Seemed to me that we had several years to replenish the farm system and make smart mid-tier signings while that core matured. If DD wasn't the guy to do that, I get it. But we broke up that core by choice, for the most part. Most of the current holes are of our own making, not because of terrible moves by DD.
This is my issue (and what the posters who stick up for Bloom no matter what never seem to address).This team was on top of the world four years ago, and now look at the state of things.
Bemoan the Padres offering dumb money all you want in a market that's more cash flush than anyone expected, but 6/160 is not a serious offer. It just isn't. If that's the best that ownership would do for a franchise shortstop who has been a dependable, durable rock in the lineup for nearly a decade, then this team isn't serious about competing at a higher level. It's also such a total misread of the market that it makes me question Bloom's basic competency in this stuff. I know the Rays were never involved in free agency when he was in charge there, but he does know that it exists, right? And that other teams can make offers too?
The answer to this question is forever in flux, since it is a factor of two shifting elements, the market price and the LT threshold. The former is spiking now, so I'd be pretty nervous about paying top dollar unless I think the latter is going to fix the problem before long. The companion philosophical piece, or subset of the one you were raising, is whether you are better off with 25 above-average guys than a less balanced roster featuring an elite or two and a couple soft spots. I tend to think the former is a better bet, but the latter sells more fake jerseys.Philosophical question: If it’s a given that there is always at least one team that will overpay an elite free agent, is it ever a good idea to top that team’s offer?
Look I get the reporter/source relationship, but we have no idea of the source or when this discussion took place. Also it's odd for a writer to use the word "suggested" if this were an absolute.Can this finally shut the door on the 'he was always going to free agency' crap? I mean, the guy already showed he was willing to sign before free agency with his first contract, and lo and behold there were a series of opportunities to do it again and they shit themselves.
Respectfully, that's not the point. Two things can be true at the same time: 1) the Padres' offer was insane and 2) Bloom's offer of 6/$162 was unserious.I don’t understand the anger towards the Red Sox over letting Bogaerts go. Is there anyone here that would be happy if the Red Sox matched or topped the Padres 11/280 offer?
Let's see what those guys cost this year...I'm not sure I buy this point about holes. In the 2019 season the core of the lineup was 28, 26, 22, 24, 29 and 26 (Vazquez, X, Devers, Benny, JBJ, Mookie). JD was only 31, for that matter. Seemed to me that we had several years to replenish the farm system and make smart mid-tier signings while that core matured. If DD wasn't the guy to do that, I get it. But we broke up that core by choice, for the most part. Most of the current holes are of our own making, not because of terrible moves by DD.
Oh thanks, I thought it happened after he did his first extension.X has been with Boras since at least 2015.
I mean, they had time to read the new market, which went way beyond the old one that they expected. I'm sure they knew what they were doing and just had no interest in going there. Not sure that's incompetence as much as a philosophical divide between the Padres' "fuck it, I'll be long gone, give him 11 years" approach and their own. It's kind of like negotiating with a crazy person, you either let them drag you into their space or you walk. They walked.Here are some key points from the Globe article referenced. It sounds like utter incompetence in reading the market on Bogaerts. At the end, the Red Sox weren't even in it. Completely brutal.
"The team drastically misread the market for Bogaerts repeatedly, right up to the end. Entering the Winter Meetings, baseball officials were divided over what a Bogaerts contract might eventually look like, with some speculating he might secure a six-year deal in the $150 million range and others envisioning a seven-year deal that could sneak past $200 million. Yet the spending frenzy that unfolded in San Diego — an 11-year, $300 million deal for Trea Turner and the Phillies in which the Padres had missed out with an even bigger offer; a nine-year, $360 million agreement between Aaron Judge and the Yankees in which the Padres had likewise emerged as a late bidder — suggested that $200 million represented a likely floor for where the Bogaerts market would go."
"According to a major league source, the Red Sox made a six-year offer with an average annual value of roughly $27 million — a higher AAV than the Padres ($25.5 million). Still, even with some belief in Bogaerts’s camp that the Sox would raise their offer, the gap in the number of guaranteed seasons was so enormous that the separation between the offers was decisive. The Red Sox weren’t even in the picture at the end. Along with the Padres, three to four other teams saw Bogaerts being worth at least $200 million. So far behind were the Sox that Bogaerts told a friend he had “zero choice” but to eliminate what was long his team of choice and have agent Scott Boras negotiate with the others."
As I and other have speculated and are now proven correct on, X was unhappy with the 4/90 offer in spring training. He would have been open to the final offer the Sox made had it have been offered in the spring, but it was not. X would have been open to negotiating during the year, but the Red Sox never reached out until after the season.
"But the Sox offered Bogaerts just one additional year and $30 million to pass on the right to opt out, essentially, a commitment of four years and $90 million. Bogaerts was stunned. The Sox had just signed Trevor Story — a player whose performance had not matched that of Bogaerts — to a six-year, $140 million deal. Bogaerts, a source suggested, would have been open to a new deal that was in the range of what Story received. The five-year, $151 million agreement that Astros star Jose Altuve landed in his extension several years earlier likewise represented a framework that Bogaerts would have welcomed. But the Sox’ offer was a non-starter. Bogaerts left spring training with a disappointed realization that the season might be his last with the Sox. Bogaerts initially suggested he didn’t want to negotiate a new deal in-season but softened that stance in May. Boras likewise said he would be open to calls. But the Red Sox never attempted another contractual outreach during the season."
Speier and Abraham take the FO to task on the topic of trading their soon-to-be-FA's.
"It also was puzzling that the Red Sox promised Bogaerts that he would not be traded but did not attempt to capitalize on that gesture by attempting to negotiate in-season.
Why not just trade Bogaerts if their valuation offered no path to an extension? The team’s trade of Jon Lester at the 2014 deadline, though painful, netted Yoenis Cespedes, who in turn allowed the team to acquire Rick Porcello in the offseason. Even if a trade of Bogaerts was not deemed acceptable, the Red Sox erred when they did not shed players at the trade deadline — J.D. Martinez, for instance — who would have allowed them to duck under the luxury-tax threshold. The team was 52-52 and mired in last place at the time.
Such a move would have given the Sox greater compensation (a pick between the second and third rounds) once Bogaerts left, while diminishing the penalties for signing other top free agents who received qualifying offers."
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/08/sports/xander-bogaerts-padres-red-sox/?s_campaign=bostonglobesports:socialflow:twitter
At least speaking for myself, the anger is more over the failure to offer something like 5/150 or 6/160 during this past season.I don’t understand the anger towards the Red Sox over letting Bogaerts go. Is there anyone here that would be happy if the Red Sox matched or topped the Padres 11/280 offer?
OK, but that "unserious" offer was exactly where the board said it would draw the line -- quoting from that thread: "As of this edit (11/3), we have 18 contract offers for Bogaerts at an average length of 5.78 years, an average total value of 158.83mm and an average AAV of 27.47mm." And from what I've read, the team was pretty clear that they were willing to nudge it up a bit. I wager that if the poll question had been, "Would you do 7 years, $189 million?" the answer would have been a closely divided no.Respectfully, that's not the point. Two things can be true at the same time: 1) the Padres' offer was insane and 2) Bloom's offer of 6/$162 was unserious.
Did this happen?Look I get the reporter/source relationship, but we have no idea of the source or when this discussion took place. Also it's odd for a writer to use the word "suggested" if this were an absolute.
That's literally the thing people saying Boras clients never do actually happening... with Xander... the guy people are still insisting was always going to free agency.In 2019, one year from free agency, Bogaerts — then 26 — pushed Boras to get a deal done with the Red Sox. The result was a below-market, six-year, $120 million offer that proved a relative bargain, as Bogaerts spent 2019-22 as arguably the most productive offensive shortstop in baseball.
By "this year" do you mean 2022? Because 5 of those 7 batters were on the team, of course. And Benny's 8.5M is the same as Kike's 8M, so that's wash.Let's see what those guys cost this year...
Vaz $7m (1.6 fWAR)
X $20m (6.1 fWAR)
Devers $11.2m (4.9 fWAR)
Benny $8.5m (2.7 fWAR)
JBJ $12m (-0.1 fWAR)
Mookie $30.4m (6.6 fWAR)
JD $22m (1 fWAR)
Plus...
Price $32m (0.1 fWAR)
Sale $25.6m (0.2 fWAR)
Eovaldi $17m (1.0 fWAR)
That's $185.7m for 10 players who earned a total of 24 fWAR...with almost no Major League ready cost controlled talent. Where are you getting the other 16 guys to fill out a roster that gets you to a successful team? Where are you getting the playable depth when injuries happen?
Even if you go to $270m like the Dodgers did this year, that gives you $85m to fill those spots, including literally an entire pitching staff. Continuing what the Red Sox were doing and being successful this past season would have been literally impossible.
I think this is it. They mismanaged the time frame when they had exclusive negotiating rights with him for an extension. But when free agency blew up, it was like, absolutely NO WAY are we going to go anywhere NEAR 11 years, $280 million. And rightfully so, IMO.I mean, they had time to read the new market, which went way beyond the old one that they expected. I'm sure they knew what they were doing and just had no interest in going there. Not sure that's incompetence as much as a philosophical divide between the Padres' "fuck it, I'll be long gone, give him 11 years" approach and their own. It's kind of like negotiating with a crazy person, you either let them drag you into their space or you walk. They walked.
I think they just don't see him as a shortstop, which makes sense and has a lot of supporting evidence. If he's a 115-120 wRC+ 2B/3B/LF in two years, they probably see that they have a lot of other in-house options who can do that.I’m looping back around to incompetency reading this article, although I get the feeling the hidden truth of they didn’t really want him ever might still be there.
Yeah and if that poll question was, "Would you do 7/200", just like one or two out of all those who responded would have said yes. Everyone else would have said no way.OK, but that "unserious" offer was exactly where the board said it would draw the line -- quoting from that thread: "As of this edit (11/3), we have 18 contract offers for Bogaerts at an average length of 5.78 years, an average total value of 158.83mm and an average AAV of 27.47mm." And from what I've read, the team was pretty clear that they were willing to nudge it up a bit. I wager that if the poll question had been, "Would you do 7 years, $189 million?" the answer would have been a closely divided no.
I really agree here, and it's not a new feeling. Almost all of Bloom's decisions are highly defensible, in a vacuum. But they just haven't come together into a cogent plan, at least not to my eyes. I feel like the current sox team is like many of my fantasy teams that come out of auction drafts: I get obsessed with value, make sure not to overpay for anyone, and then don't have the best player at any single position and produce a mediocre result. That's hyperbole, obviously, but, I don't know how else to express this feeling that the whole is unsatisfying even though each piece makes sense to me in isolation.In my opinion it is relatively apparent that the Red Sox did not have the intention of resigning Bogaerts because of the farm system and projected overall market. I also believe that this is a highly defensible position.
Yes...I posted all of those players' salary & fWAR from 2022, proving that keeping the band together was an entirely unsustainable model & trying to do so would be a disaster. You can purposefully not mention pitching, but the Red Sox still need to...have pitchers. Trading Betts was the way the Red Sox were able to jettison even half of Price's contract. What is your solution for jettisoning it without Mookie?By "this year" do you mean 2022? Because 5 of those 7 batters were on the team, of course. And Benny's 8.5M is the same as Kike's 8M, so that's wash.
I purposefully only wrote about batters, Price needed to be jettisoned, and I don't believe the point about "holes" was in reference to the staff anyway.
I don't see those salaries commitments as supporting why we had to break up the 2018 core. Outside of Mookie, not much really changed.
Great job Bloom.
Bloom inherited 27 year 0ld Mookie Betts, 27 year old Bogaerts, and 25 year old Benintendi. He turned them into Verdugo, Downs, Wong, Franchy Cordero, Winckowski, Grant Gambrell, De La Rosa, Valdez and a 4th round comp pick while still having to pay the luxury tax for a last place finish.
Great job Bloom.
I can understand that, but I doubt Bogaerts would have accepted that last year. I think Boras was taking him to free agency no matter what. That was the whole point of the opt-outs in his last contract.At least speaking for myself, the anger is more over the failure to offer something like 5/150 or 6/160 during this past season.
Only 3, maybe 4 of those guys were much above average. 28 and 29 are not young these days and DD didn't draft anyone who is ready to break in to replace them. if you don't have guys ready to go that you drafted 3-5 years ago you're going to be filling in holes or paying average players. Sometimes those guys have good years and you win, but they also suck often.I'm not sure I buy this point about holes. In the 2019 season the core of the lineup was 28, 26, 22, 24, 29 and 26 (Vazquez, X, Devers, Benny, JBJ, Mookie). JD was only 31, for that matter. Seemed to me that we had several years to replenish the farm system and make smart mid-tier signings while that core matured. If DD wasn't the guy to do that, I get it. But we broke up that core by choice, for the most part. Most of the current holes are of our own making, not because of terrible moves by DD.
If he wasn't a great guy and a clubhouse cornerstone, they probably would have traded him six months ago and moved on without a second thought.I think they just don't see him as a shortstop, which makes sense and has a lot of supporting evidence. If he's a 115-120 wRC+ 2B/3B/LF in two years, they probably see that they have a lot of other in-house options who can do that.
Well said and beautiful handle, just gorgeous, the best.I really agree here, and it's not a new feeling. Almost all of Bloom's decisions are highly defensible, in a vacuum. But they just haven't come together into a cogent plan, at least not to my eyes. I feel like the current sox team is like many of my fantasy teams that come out of auction drafts: I get obsessed with value, make sure not to overpay for anyone, and then don't have the best player at any single position and produce a mediocre result. That's hyperbole, obviously, but, I don't know how else to express this feeling that the whole is unsatisfying even though each piece makes sense to me in isolation.
View: https://twitter.com/Mike_Dyer13/status/1600725775883567105?s=20&t=Wzzetu5PZG8BBLQB8i6f7ABloom inherited 27 year 0ld Mookie Betts, 27 year old Bogaerts, and 25 year old Benintendi. He turned them into Verdugo, Downs, Wong, Franchy Cordero, Winckowski, Grant Gambrell, De La Rosa, Valdez and a 4th round comp pick while still having to pay the luxury tax for a last place finish.
You be the judge.
Especially considering part of the rationale for trading Betts was to free up money to pay Bogaerts and Devers when the time came.Bloom inherited 27 year 0ld Mookie Betts, 27 year old Bogaerts, and 25 year old Benintendi. He turned them into Verdugo, Downs, Wong, Franchy Cordero, Winckowski, Grant Gambrell, De La Rosa, Valdez and a 4th round comp pick while still having to pay the luxury tax for a last place finish.
You be the judge.
That's pretty depressing.Bloom inherited 27 year 0ld Mookie Betts, 27 year old Bogaerts, and 25 year old Benintendi. He turned them into Verdugo, Downs, Wong, Franchy Cordero, Winckowski, Grant Gambrell, De La Rosa, Valdez and a 4th round comp pick while still having to pay the luxury tax for a last place finish.
You be the judge.
He squeezed out the last few bargain Bogaerts years, got out from under the Price contract, and cut bait with Benintendi who is looking for his fourth team and hit 5 HRs last year, the same number JD Martinez hit in the last two weeks of the season. This isn't fantasy baseball, these guys don't exist in a vacuum nor are they frozen in 2018.Bloom inherited 27 year 0ld Mookie Betts, 27 year old Bogaerts, and 25 year old Benintendi. He turned them into Verdugo, Downs, Wong, Franchy Cordero, Winckowski, Grant Gambrell, De La Rosa, Valdez and a 4th round comp pick while still having to pay the luxury tax for a last place finish.
You be the judge.
I said that it would have made sense to move on without DD, so I wasn't suggesting to "just keep going" with his model. However, I responded to a post that said the holes in our lineup were a direct effect of him. I don't see that. Needless to say the Sox weren't going to roll with the same 6-7 guys from 2018 to 2023. That's not how baseball works anymore. But to me many of our holes are due to decisions Bloom (and ownership) has made post-DD. We had a strong core in their 20s and now we don't. We have a bunch of mid-tier guys and hope that some prospects will save us.Yes...I posted all of those players' salary & fWAR from 2022, proving that keeping the band together was an entirely unsustainable model & trying to do so would be a disaster. You can purposefully not mention pitching, but the Red Sox still need to...have pitchers. Trading Betts was the way the Red Sox were able to jettison even half of Price's contract. What is your solution for jettisoning it without Mookie?
The post is more directed to my frustration with people thinking that if we just kept going with Dombrowski's model things would somehow magically be ok now rather than a direct response to your post.
Hey, I appreciate that- all good. This whole thing is frustrating, and certainly the deal is quite a bit higher than anyone would really want to go. I do think the organization needs to rethink their approach and how they handled this from the get go. The 4/90 offer from ST was absurd and it really seemed to put the teams best player (and perhaps rest of the team) into a bad place going into the seasons. It was an unforced error, that they didn’t really address it until the season ended is disappointing. Too little, too late.Speier's name on this piece gives it credibility. I said rather pointedly earlier that it was absurd to conclude that the Sox had misread Xander's market rather than that they had simply set a price and stuck to it. This piece, if it is accurate, makes clear that I was wrong. Even more, if this piece turns out to be accurate, it will mark the first time that I am having some concerns about Bloom and the front office. I'm not ready to run him out of town, but I will allow that I may have been giving him too much credit.
Edit: Tagging @Petagine in a Bottle because I directed my comments at him. Mea culpa.
Bloom trolling the media with that bottle of wine is going to be his Pitino "fellowship of the miserable" and " the negativity in this town stinks" moment of utter tone-deafness that will linger years and years after his regime has collapsed. People are pessimistic because you're running the team like a clown.View: https://twitter.com/Mike_Dyer13/status/1600725775883567105?s=20&t=Wzzetu5PZG8BBLQB8i6f7A
Were you gonna plagiarize the whole thing for us? Do you have any thoughts of your own on this matter? Or do you, is that your thing, you come into a message board, read some obscure tweet and then pretend - you pawn it off as your own, as your own idea just to impress some girls, embarrass my friend?
*This is meant to be in jest i promise, lot of heat flying in this thread right now!
This is totally fair but why offer the 4/90 then the 6/160 and ever expect he might take either at the time? Both offers are absurdly low in their context. They would have been better off not offering anything if they were this firm with their evaluation.I think they just don't see him as a shortstop, which makes sense and has a lot of supporting evidence. If he's a 115-120 wRC+ 2B/3B/LF in two years, they probably see that they have a lot of other in-house options who can do that.
That deal included an opt-out after the 2022 season, giving Bogaerts the opportunity to walk away from the final three years and $60 million for a more lucrative contract. The Sox and Bogaerts spoke of their desire to extend the relationship of a player who signed his first professional contract with the team in 2009, and met to discuss a potential extension in spring training this year.
But the Sox offered Bogaerts just one additional year and $30 million to pass on the right to opt out, essentially, a commitment of four years and $90 million. Bogaerts was stunned. The Sox had just signed Trevor Story — a player whose performance had not matched that of Bogaerts — to a six-year, $140 million deal.
Bogaerts, a source suggested, would have been open to a new deal that was in the range of what Story received. The five-year, $151 million agreement that Astros star Jose Altuve landed in his extension several years earlier likewise represented a framework that Bogaerts would have welcomed.
The holes NEEDED to be created, though. In large part because the Red Sox were on the hook for huge amounts of money to Price/Sale/Eovaldi & had no Major League ready minor league talent.I said that it would have made sense to move on without DD, so I wasn't suggesting to "just keep going" with his model. However, I responded to a post that said the holes in our lineup were a direct effect of him. I don't see that. Needless to say the Sox weren't going to roll with the same 6-7 guys from 2018 to 2023. That's not how baseball works anymore. But to me many of our holes are due to decisions Bloom (and ownership) has made post-DD. We had a strong core in their 20s and now we don't. We have a bunch of mid-tier guys and hope that some prospects will save us.
Right back at you handsome.Well said and beautiful handle, just gorgeous, the best.
The cogent plan is to make the farm system into an absolute force while giving the team a shot at the playoffs. Until the farm is absolutely overflowing with top prospects, we don't go over the top. This requires some patience and understanding of longer term vision, which is a bit of a tough sell with the media histrionics. So it is a bit of a tightrope PR walk that Bloom is doing a relatively good job with, I would say, and was fully prepared for the Pete Abe DS nonsense, which is as predictable as a toddler wanting its bottle.
Meh, I'm not feeling it. If Mayer had played in September last year and was about to be our everyday SS, then fine. But he's so far away. Not only won't he be in Boston for a while, but then he'll almost certainly need a year or 2 to start performing at a really strong level (just like X and Devers). And this all assumes that he won't flame out, which happens all the time.So one thing that makes this palatable for me (though I still don't like it) is that they have Mayer. I know he's still a couple of years away. But he's an Uber-elite prospect that plays shortstop. He may not ever make it. Possible. But he may end being a superstar too. X already is a star and if Mayer gets to where X is, it'll be a huge win. BUT...in years past they haven't even had decent guys in the pipeline to come up and replace departing stars. Finally they've got someone who looks like he could be a superstar himself. Just need to plug the gap for a couple of years and then open the door to this kid, who looks like he could be special.
(trying to talk myself into being ok with Xander no longer being on the team)
Remember a year ago when we all thought his time at SS was just about over? No?This is just infuriating from the piece. I have been assuming the entire time that this was all part of a plan, that there wasn't just a backup to X leaving, but that that was the expected outcome and that Bloom had something exciting in his back pocket to follow. Apparently not.
If the market was 11/280, then NOBODY had a pulse on the market because by all accounts nobody else was close to San Diego’s offer. They blew everyone out of the water.Did the Sox really offer 6/160 and then go leak to the media that they were going to sign X to that yesterday afternoon? Absolutely wild if that's the case and couple that with Speier piece of them being shell-shocked last night, it points to them not have a pulse on the market.
With reporting that ownership came involved and upped their offer, what was it before 6/160?
Not speaking for anyone else, but I'm angry they let it get to this point. Give him a reasonable offer in spring training, and maybe he stays. An offer of 4/90 was not a realistic offer.I don’t understand the anger towards the Red Sox over letting Bogaerts go. Is there anyone here that would be happy if the Red Sox matched or topped the Padres 11/280 offer?
that's literally saying nothing "would be open" does not mean would sign..... and who would that source be, Only one I can think would be Boras....Bogaerts, a source suggested, would have been open to a new deal that was in the range of what Story received.
View: https://twitter.com/ESPNStatsInfo/status/1600725203797114881Bogaerts' deal is the longest contract ever signed at age 30 or older.
My impression of things is that they felt they were still in the running with the 6/160 (and were willing to go higher), not that they thought it would get done at 6/160. Then the Padres came out of nowhere and way over the top with their offer and that's what left them shell-shocked.Did the Sox really offer 6/160 and then go leak to the media that they were going to sign X to that yesterday afternoon? Absolutely wild if that's the case and couple that with Speier piece of them being shell-shocked last night, it points to them not have a pulse on the market.
With reporting that ownership came involved and upped their offer, what was it before 6/160?