15M AAV for Giolito? Bailey would have to work a lot of magic to make that close to palpable.
5M max reclamation project I can maybe stomach.
5M max reclamation project I can maybe stomach.
I'm still on team Jorge Polanco. Much better baseball player than Drury, imo.On the 2B question, is there a better target than Drury out there or is he plan A? (I don't see Kim as realistic)
Giolito's a good get at a decent price. Seems like the Sox really like guys with extreme extension, and Giolito certainly seems fixable to me.
View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1735295691881074862?s=46&t=7XazH1NKZP26a4WUZikbkQ
Red Sox representatives "have met or will soon meet with Yamamoto in California to make their pitch," according to The Globe. Sox are in on a ton of pitchers but are focused on the outcome of the Yamamoto sweepstakes first & foremost. Seattle rebuffed a Sox approach on starters.
Interesting how tight-lipped the Sox are.. Meanwhile, teams like the Mets openly broadcast to everyone they have met with him..."have met or will soon meet with Yamamoto in California to make their pitch," according to The Globe.
Hopefully that is a good signInteresting how tight-lipped the Sox are.. Meanwhile, teams like the Mets openly broadcast to everyone they have met with him...
I like Yamamoto as much as anyone, but there's only one of him and if you're holding your breath for mid-20s free agent starters we're just never going to use money on pitching, which seems like a waste.A player you are about to give a contract well past their prime that does not have a chance to break 4 WAR more than once over the length of their contract, handcuffing you with salary obligation and a roster spot while trying to make the appearance of trying.
You are right Sale extension was a better idea at the time.
If they go out fishing for a #1 starter and come back with only Giolito, this offseason is an abject failure. He produced a 5.21 FIP and allowed 41 HRs last year.I'm still on team Jorge Polanco. Much better baseball player than Drury, imo.
Giolito's a good get at a decent price. Seems like the Sox really like guys with extreme extension, and Giolito certainly seems fixable to me.
Absolutely right. If the Mariners could unload Robbie Ray in ideal where they apart with Gilbert or Kirby, that would be a huge win for them -- and might allow them to sign SnellAgreed. Teams like the Brewers and Seattle are at an advantage to wait. Likewise with most free agent starters.
Agreed. Again, decisions haven't been made yet and the season doesn't start tomorrow, but imagine this same level of activity under Chaim instead of Breslow. This thread would be 4 times longer and full of all of us asking ownership to sell the team and the baseball ops team to be gutted.If they go out fishing for a #1 starter and come back with only Giolito, this offseason is an abject failure. He produced a 5.21 FIP and allowed 41 HRs last year.
Been all over this for months. He has made the most sense from the start of the offseason. They’ll be aggressive there if they don’t land Yamamoto.
Boras represents both Snell and Montgomery. I'll be stunned if they sign with the same teamI’m not so sure 30mm/yr will be the landing number. This is such a unique situation. I’m thinking it could push 14+ years with multiple opt outs.
Yes I agree, he's the lower tier.If they go out fishing for a #1 starter and come back with only Giolito, this offseason is an abject failure. He produced a 5.21 FIP and allowed 41 HRs last year.
Better at what? He's been a worse hitter the past two years and he's a butcher defensively with less positional versatility. I'll give you baserunning I guess?I'm still on team Jorge Polanco. Much better baseball player than Drury, imo.
Mets are in media competition with the NYY and others for the NY sports-entertainment dollar.Interesting how tight-lipped the Sox are.. Meanwhile, teams like the Mets openly broadcast to everyone they have met with him...
Or you have an ace for the next couple of years and an injured albatross for most of the rest. Would the White Sox be loving life with their long term ace if they had signed Chris Sale to a 10 year deal when he was 25? I get that it's the way the baseball business is run these days, so you have no choice but to take risks that are almost certain not to pan out. But let's not pretend that it's a guarantee that any pitcher is going to be good for a decade.It’s Yamamoto or bust for me. Give the guy $400 million and have an ace for the next decade. Finding a true #1 without giving up stud prospects is very difficult to find. Breslow can round out the roster on a more budget-friendly basis after that.
I was about to say that @SouthernBoSox has been on this train for a while now.Been all over this for months. He has made the most sense from the start of the offseason. They’ll be aggressive there if they don’t land Yamamoto.
I would say the most interesting thing from this quote is Boras' mouthpiece saying Montgomery might get $160M, implying current offers are below that. 6/150 for Montgomery seems like a perfectly cromulent deal for the Sox.
Now that we are already almost out of the Price / Sale situation that supposedly doomed the franchise, it’s time to do it again. Nobody better complain when they can’t resign Roman Anthony in 2029 though!Or you have an ace for the next couple of years and an injured albatross for most of the rest. Would the White Sox be loving life with their long term ace if they had signed Chris Sale to a 10 year deal when he was 25? I get that it's the way the baseball business is run these days, so you have no choice but to take risks that are almost certain not to pan out. But let's not pretend that it's a guarantee that any pitcher is going to be good for a decade.
There’s always risk. But if you are going to pay a ton of money for a starter, might as well take the young option about to enter his prime. Now if we can land Imanaga at a relative bargain compared to YY, that might be the better route.Or you have an ace for the next couple of years and an injured albatross for most of the rest. Would the White Sox be loving life with their long term ace if they had signed Chris Sale to a 10 year deal when he was 25? I get that it's the way the baseball business is run these days, so you have no choice but to take risks that are almost certain not to pan out. But let's not pretend that it's a guarantee that any pitcher is going to be good for a decade.
I dunno. This seems like a false paradigm. Remember Punto! If you have a good farm (as the Sox are developing), you can weather some contracts that get bad, and when needed dump them in trades where you take on some of the out-going salary. There are creative ways out, especially if you're a rich organization.Now that we are already almost out of the Price / Sale situation that supposedly doomed the franchise, it’s time to do it again. Nobody better complain when they can’t resign Roman Anthony in 2029 though!
His fastball is his best pitch and it’s plus plus.My main concern with Imanaga is he becomes middling like Kikuchi due to a relative lack of velocity. But the baseline of control seems to be better
So, more like Greg Maddux? I'll take thatMy main concern with Imanaga is he becomes middling like Kikuchi due to a relative lack of velocity. But the baseline of control seems to be better
They have identical 119 wRC+ marks the last two years. Polanco had twice the walk rate Drury did in 2023.Better at what? He's been a worse hitter the past two years and he's a butcher defensively with less positional versatility. I'll give you baserunning I guess?
So at 92-95 its shape is that good? Interesting.His fastball is his best pitch and it’s plus plus.
The fastball isn’t the concern with him, it’s if they can mitigate his potential home run problems.
He is an outlier in that regard. You’d have to feel comfortable it’s fixable to give him big dollars.
Yea, the underlying stuff is really healthy. But again, they have to think they can figure out the reason behind the homers.So at 92-95 its shape is that good? Interesting.
The reason is he threw the highest percentage fastballs in Japan last season and threw everything over the plate. It's a good fastball, but still can't throw it like 60% of the time. When he comes here, a team will certainly change his pitch mix.Yea, the underlying stuff is really healthy. But again, they have to think they can figure out the reason behind the homers.
Just the passing thought of a Sox starter not walking the first batter every inning is making me drool.Sorry if this has been posted in the thread, but FanGraphs does a pretty good take on Imanaga. Or at least a deeper dive than I've seen elsewhere, in their top 50 FA write up heading into the off-season. This is a lot of where I get my assertion that I think he's likely a pretty good bet to be an SP 3/4 in the big leagues, and sums up what a lot of folks have been saying about him..
While the home run rate is obviously worrying, as noted his control has been excellent. Even if the home run rate isn't grand, so long as he's keeping guys off the basepaths, it should still make him a pretty good starter. Probably pretty similar in value to Senga, maybe not quite as good, and he should at the minimum eat up a large chunk of innings with "pretty good" pitching performance, which is something the team desperately needs.
"...With so many teams hunting for pitching, someone is going to take a shot on him as a mid-rotation arm.
Player Notes
Imanaga presents MLB clubs with the skill set of an ultra-stable no. 4 or 5 starter thanks largely to his exceptional command. He walked just 4% of opposing hitters in 2023, his third straight season with a BB% below than 6%. Imanaga has enjoyed a gradual velocity increase since entering pro ball in 2016, culminating in a strong 2023 walk year that saw him set a personal record for average fastball velo across an entire season (92 mph), as well as strikeout rate (29%) and xFIP (2.38) in his 148 IP. His fastballs play up a bit due to Imanaga’s command and his low release, which is mostly created by his powerful, flexible lower body and drop-and-drive style of delivery. His low-80s slider is his finishing secondary pitch; it has plus two-plane wipe and, like the rest of his repertoire, is aided by Imanaga’s ability to locate. His stuff is otherwise pretty pedestrian. His low-70s curveball may be too slow to play in MLB and his changeup is reliant upon location much more than stuff, though of course Imanaga’s command of it is exceptional — that pitch barely ever finishes in a vulnerable spot.
Imanaga has been slightly homer-prone in Japan, with a 8.3% HR/FB rate across the last three seasons combined; the NPB average is only 6%, half the MLB rate. Any pitcher who works at the top of the zone as often as Imanaga does is likely to have a high fly ball rate, but Imanaga’s 58% FB% (the NPB average is 45%) is astronomical and points to some risk that he gets shelled by stronger MLB hitters. Perhaps I’m underrating the impact Imanaga’s command will have on his overall performance, but I think most of his value will be in the volume of innings he works rather than his pound-for-pound impact, and he strikes me as the sort of talent who gets shifted into a long relief role during October crunch time. – EL"
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/2024-top-50-mlb-free-agents/
They had the 12th fewest walks allowed as a team staff, above average.Just the passing thought of a Sox starter not walking the first batter every inning is making me drool.
I know this wasn't REALLY the case but boy did the Sox seem to always be giving up free passes.
It's not like they don't analyze pitch outcome data in Japan.The reason is he threw the highest percentage fastballs in Japan last season and threw everything over the plate. It's a good fastball, but still can't throw it like 60% of the time. When he comes here, a team will certainly change his pitch mix.
I don't completely disagree, however we need to keep in mind that the market price for these FA pitchers is still TBD. If the Sox take two no matter the cost there could be future concerns as to extending these highly talented rookies who are waiting in the wings. We would love to follow the Atlanta model of locking up all of our young talent and if these guys are as hoped, we should. That said we're likely to need a closer next season and if there isn't an in house solution, that wouldn't be cheap and if one of the two FA pitchers doesn't work out you may well be looking outside of the organization again to fill that need. Sale comes off the books next season as does Jansen and Martin, but some of that cash might need to be allocated in the same way next season if things don't go as planned.I dunno. This seems like a false paradigm. Remember Punto! If you have a good farm (as the Sox are developing), you can weather some contracts that get bad, and when needed dump them in trades where you take on some of the out-going salary. There are creative ways out, especially if you're a rich organization.
The Sox can and SHOULD sign TWO FA pitchers. If not Yamamoto and (Wacha/Stroman), than Imanaga and Montgomery.
In 2025 we may just have three highly talented position player rookies joining the team - an influx of youth reminiscent of Lynn/Rice or Betts/Bogie ...those will be high level players for CHEAP. And the MLB starting pitching is terrible, with no blazing pitching prospects on the farm. And the team needs a jump start back into contention and the perception that they are trying to build a MLB winner.
If ever there was a time to overpay a bit for pitching it's now. It won't doom the future.
Yeah... I knew perception here didn't match up with reality.They had the 12th fewest walks allowed as a team staff, above average.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/majors/2023-standard-pitching.shtml
I would actually love to see Houck pushed into some closing duties next year if Jansen is out at all or if he's pitched two days in a row and needs a third day close game closed out and he's unavailable.I don't completely disagree, however we need to keep in mind that the market price for these FA pitchers is still TBD. If the Sox take two no matter the cost there could be future concerns as to extending these highly talented rookies who are waiting in the wings. We would love to follow the Atlanta model of locking up all of our young talent and if these guys are as hoped, we should. That said we're likely to need a closer next season and if there isn't an in house solution, that wouldn't be cheap and if one of the two FA pitchers doesn't work out you may well be looking outside of the organization again to fill that need. Sale comes off the books next season as does Jansen and Martin, but some of that cash might need to be allocated in the same way next season if things don't go as planned.
I'd just settle for anyone that is a combination of "healthy enough" and "moderately decent enough" to pitch more than 165 innings since that has only happened twice in the last 3 seasons (Eovaldi in 2021 and Pivetta in 2022).Just the passing thought of a Sox starter not walking the first batter every inning is making me drool.
I know this wasn't REALLY the case but boy did the Sox seem to always be giving up free passes.
+1!!!I would actually love to see Houck pushed into some closing duties next year if Jansen is out at all or if he's pitched two days in a row and needs a third day close game closed out and he's unavailable.
The main concern with Imanaga is pretty clear: his HR/9 innings in the NPB is (as far as I can tell) the worst ever for a Japanese starter attempting to move to the majors. This is important because a dramatic increase in home run rate when Japanese pitchers come to the States is basically a statistical guarantee, since, unless I’ve missed someone, there isn’t a single example where this didn’t happen. So yes, he could be like Kikuchi, whose HR rate more than doubled in America. But that that would also mean he’d be like Ohtani, Tanaka, Darvish, Senga and Maeda because all their HR rates more than doubled as well. Heck, Ohtani’s HR rate tripled and Tanaka’s was more than 4 times higher in the majors.My main concern with Imanaga is he becomes middling like Kikuchi due to a relative lack of velocity. But the baseline of control seems to be better
It's a legitimate concern and one that you would have to be confident in your scouting and dev program can A)identify the reason why and B)CorrectThe main concern with Imanaga is pretty clear: his HR/9 innings in the NPB is (as far as I can tell) the worst ever for a Japanese starter attempting to move to the majors. This is important because a dramatic increase in home run rate when Japanese pitchers come to the States is basically a statistical guarantee, since, unless I’ve missed someone, there isn’t a single example where this didn’t happen. So yes, he could be like Kikuchi, whose HR rate more than doubled in America. But that that would also mean he’d be like Ohtani, Tanaka, Darvish, Senga and Maeda because all their HR rates more than doubled as well. Heck, Ohtani’s HR rate tripled and Tanaka’s was more than 4 times higher in the majors.
Whats different about Imanaga? All those other guys had elite home rates in Japan. Heck, his NPB career rate of 1.0 per 9 innings is literally ten times Yamamoto’s career NPB rate (.1) and 5 times Darvish’s (.2). The worst rate among these guys also happens to be the worst starter of the group: Kikuchi. His rate in the NPB was .7 per 9 innings; it went up to 1.6 in the majors.
So the big question is what happens if, as we should all expect, Imanaga comes to the States and falls into this same pattern, something that seems like a virtual certainty based on the experience of other Japanese imports? He becomes an expensive starting pitcher in his 30s with a HR/9 above 2 per game. That sounds a lot like a more expensive version of 2023 Lance Lynn (ERA of 5.73 / FIP of 5.53).
Yeah, no thank you. And to be clear, I say this despite the fact that as a Japanese speaker and a previous long term resident of Japan I’d love to have another Japanese player on this team….
That sounds super risky when dealing with a contract of this size.It's a legitimate concern and one that you would have to be confident in your scouting and dev program can A)identify the reason why and B)Correct
Honestly, any team willing to take on that challenge for $100 million is probably guilty of hubris. I mean, Jesus, we aren’t talking about an incentivized one-year-deal. The guy can’t do the one thing that has been the hallmark characteristic of pitchers who successfully transfer from Japan to the US (limit home runs).It's a legitimate concern and one that you would have to be confident in your scouting and dev program can A)identify the reason why and B)Correct
They are going to sign for a delta somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000,000. No one is comparing themHonestly, any team willing to take on that challenge for $100 million is probably guilty of hubris. I mean, Jesus, we aren’t talking about an incentivized one-year-deal. The guy can’t do the one thing that has been the hallmark characteristic of pitchers who successfully transfer from Japan to the US (limit home runs).
It’s funny to see Imanaga compared to Yamamoto, because they couldn’t be more different. I mean, if you compare Yamamoto to all the other pitchers who have attempted to transition to the states he’s the best ever at limiting home runs: his rate is an astounding .1 per innings. As much as any other factor, this is what makes him the most attractive free agent Japanese starter ever. I mean, who the hell cares if his HR rate doubles (which it most certainly will).
And yet for some reason (well, I think we know the reason) Imanaga, Yamamoto’s statistical opposite in this regard, is seen as a good alternate for those who fail to sign YY. To be clear, he isn’t. Betting on Yamamoto is like predicting warm weather in Hawaii. Imanaga is like doing the same in Alaska.
Yeah, I think the bigger thing is that people are starting to realize that Yamamoto to Boston isn't happening, pretty much regardless of what Boston offers him in terms of dollars, because other teams can come close enough and offer more in terms of appeal if there is any consideration beyond $1 more.They are going to sign for a delta somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000,000. No one is comparing them
The biggest draw when it comes to the Dodgers is probably going to be the championship-quality nature of their roster.So Imagine that you are Yamamoto, weighing your options. And lets say you are down to the sox, the mfy, the dodgers and the mets. I have to imagine that while money plays a large part, all these teams are going to be close(ish). Let's take that out of the equation.
The mfy have the big city to offer, along with the big stage, the championships blah blah blah...
The mets? I don't know what they have to offer that the mfy don't other than maybe more money? I think I'd be most surprised if he chooses the mets.
The dodgers have Shohei, a very clear willingness to spend a lot (as do the mets, but like I said maybe remove this from the equation), a shorter trip home, and well, all the goodness that goes with living in southern California. I lived there for a while in my 20's and it was a lot of fun.
The Sox? They have his old teammate in Yoshida (I don't know how friendly they were but I hope very), a very pitching oriented CBO, the small town feel of Boston?
I'm sure I'm oversimplifying this. I hate when oddsmakers place odds on these things but I think I would put my money on LA.