100% yes. The limiting factor right now isn't AAV, but contract length. I take "not trading wins later for wins now" to mean not just that they don't want to trade key prospects, but that they don't want to be paying 35 year old Jordan Montgomery $27,000,000 in 2028.
It it possible to have difference of opinion about the definition of "competitive"? Also, do you not differentiate spin from outright lies when discussing how businesses communicate with their customers?
You keep saying "we have to assume" that if X Red Sox improves, Y Oriole player will improve, but we don't. This isn't a ceterus peribus thing, we don't have to balance our scales. Consistency isn't the point, looking at possible outcomes is the point. There's a possibility where Casas struggles next year and Henderson puts up a 10 WAR season. There's a possibility where Bello's arm falls off at age 25. Assuming for "consistency's sake" gets us nowhere in terms of considering possible outcomes.
The last 3 World Series have featured teams with fewer than 90 wins. The crapshoot is realer than it's ever been. And the Red Sox strategy should be evaluated in that context.
Breslow said they were finalists, were competitive, put their best foot forward, had a positive pitch that he thought was very well received, but that ultimately there's a limit to how much you can influence a FA's choices, and that some things were just out of their control.
See above.
I promise this is a real question, and I am asking you because you managed to include both points in your post succinctly: What moves do you expect them to make to add a pitcher if, by your admission, one of Snell or Montgomery for 30 mil/year for 5-6 years is sub-optimal?
I definitely agree the optimistic case is legitimate and lean that way for some of these guys in isolation.
"I don't believe it makes a ton of sense to sacrifice future wins in favor of exclusively 2024 wins."
I heard what he said. Just like you did. I am coming to a different conclusion that there are more possibilities than 1) he is lying or 2) he is grossly incompetent. If that is trying to have it both ways in your estimation, then I think we are not going to find a common ground here.
I think you're on the right track here.
We have to move on again because we aren't going to agree here. I do think some of our difference here is your need to characterize statements as "lies" or not. IMO, in business negotiations and customer facing statements should always be viewed as spin. It appears you do not agree but to me a lie is a different category than what we are discussing here.
Because Cotillo left out about 10 other lines of context and teased the story with the one most likely to upset people.
This just isn't true. He very clearly never said they were finalists. He just answered with a bunch of vague corporate speak. He also didn't say they were competitive. He said they "thought they were competitive" which again, is clearly parsing words. You keep suggesting people watch the interview, but you may want to watch it again yourself because you are completely misrepresenting the non answers Breslow was going out of his way to give.
All of these things can happen but some of them are more likely than others and it's pretty unlikely that they all happen at the same time. Maybe I am misreading your post here but you seem to think that there's a very reasonable, even likely, probability that they all happen?
I agree. The issue I have is that it seems like a straw man. I know people open to trading top prospects for pitchers on multi-year contracts, but I don't know a single person thinking we should be selling the farm for one year rentals. I like Breslow, but that's an odd thing for him to say, given how painfully obvious it is.
He’s obviously talking about using prospects to acquire players controlled for a short amount of time.
So, when asked a fairly blunt question, he comprehensively responded in a way that was completely apart from the factual reality.
Yeah, I will say 99.99999 percent.
I wonder what changed- the team was pretty adamant early on that they planned to trade for a starter. Did they misjudge the trade market or the value of our assets? Is this posturing?
No, when asked a fairly blunt question like "Were the Red Sox finalists?", instead of an equally blunt answer like "Yes" or "No". He danced around the question and didn't answer it. It was much of the same when asked if they were competitive. So no, I don't think he's a liar, but if he thought the answer was what you seem to think it was, he could have answered much more straight forward and to use your word "bluntly", but he didn't.
This cuts both ways though. Yes, we can expect some our starters to improve but you should also expect some of them to take a step back and/or get injured. That’s taking a “probabilistic approach.” In your example, Crawford and Pivetta performed better than expected but Sale, Paxton, and Kluber did worse. You can probably throw Walter in there too as a guy who hasn’t performed to expectations yet.
If rumors are correct they have checked in with several other teams on trades for starters.
Agree... my guess is getting a 1 year guy on trade for some of our best minor league talent...i.e. trading for Burnes, Bieber, etc. They would be here for 2024 and then hit free agency, so they might exclusively be 2024.
Sure, I agree. I mean, he could also mean we’re not going to spend $50 million on Seth Lugo’s age 34-36 seasons for some sliver of a projected win better than our current fifth starter in 2024 (at the detriment of that fifth starter’s further development).
I think that is right.
Really? We’ve done the super-late FA signing several times, notably with JD Martinez (Feb 26) and Trevor Story (March 19!).
Jed Hoyer of the Cubs said in an interview yesterday that the offseason is still in the 4th or 5th inning.
I’m guessing it’s because both remaining frontline pitching free agents are looking for 6+ years and the trade market for pitching is heavy with older pitchers.
Is it working? I am very reluctant to assign any special powers to Boras. Everyone knows what he is doing, you either go along with it or not.. His only real power is his client list, and that's not his greatness, it's theirs. It sure looks like a lot of the supposed buyers are happy to hold out on him, and there is no reason to believe the price is going up. The clock is ticking on the players a lot more so than on the teams, who can find someone else.
Breslow said they were finalists, were competitive, put their best foot forward, had a positive pitch that he thought was very well received, but that ultimately there's a limit to how much you can influence a FA's choices, and that some things were just out of their control.
Which makes one wonder why they were so specific about their plans to trade for a starter in the first place.
This is a great and valid point. There is still time. We tend to have tunnel vision here and go into panic mode. Tom Werner's puking out the full throttle comment didn't help matters, and now everyone is going into PR cleanup mode. Should be a fun Winter Weeekend!
One way to read that is that they think they might be able to get someone better in 2025, IF they don't blow their cash on the wrong guy now.
No, my take is he absolutely did not say they were finalists or that they were competitive. He never said either of those things. He said a lot of words when the questions were asked, but he never said "yes, we were finalists" or "yes, we were competitive." You're free to interpret what he said however you want, but you don't get to completely make up the words he said. I'm new here, but if this is what can be expected from you, I'm going to put you on ignore and it's not necessary for you to respond. When we can't even agree on the actual words the man said, this isn't going to go anywhere.
I hope he does too.
Do you think there simply is no way at all they could have spent more money on payroll this year without harming the future? Lugo (to whom the did is extend an offer, so they must have thought he was more than a sliver of an improvement) is only one possible path they ended up passing on. They don’t get to roll that 30 mil into next year.
