Mookie only ever said he didn’t regret turning their offer down. He never said what the offer was or confirmed that it was $300M. Those numbers were added in later. And are we still pretending that wasn’t a lowball to begin with?
JWH and Bloom in Light of Mookie's Comments
- Thread starter Shaky Walton
- Start date
He wanted free agency. That means he wanted the most money and/or to decided what was best for Mookie. It’s fair. He earned it.
Why do some Sox fans think he cares about them? Why can’t Mookie be full crap? Why can’t the Sox front office be full of crap?
Mookie said that were talking. Going back and forth. Maybe a $295 offer was on the table and he thought (his agent anyways) there was more on the open market. We'll never really know....just speculate this till the day we die. I'm over it.
I believe Mookie much more than I will ever believe Henry and his spin machine.
IMO, the mistake was trading Mookie when they did and not waiting, especially since the offer they took wasn’t exactly a grand slam offer. If they wait, COVID happens and then who knows.
Every fan should be at least somewhat sore about losing Mookie. A team that charges out the ass for everything shouldn’t be losing homegrown superstars over money
IMO, the mistake was trading Mookie when they did and not waiting, especially since the offer they took wasn’t exactly a grand slam offer. If they wait, COVID happens and then who knows.
Every fan should be at least somewhat sore about losing Mookie. A team that charges out the ass for everything shouldn’t be losing homegrown superstars over money
This guy gets it.
Best home-grown positional player since at least Yaz. You can't let him go unless you receive at least a Soto-type offer. And Betts plays Gold Glove-level defense (at multiple positions too). And runs fast.
Also doesn't really play gold glove level outfield anymore. Last year he was great, 2023 and 2021 he was around average.
He was the runner up to Duvall in 2021.
“Late bloomer” fits
But maybe Defender of the Fenway Realm is better
More than money at stake… international draft pool money for one.
Soto type return is ridiculous. Age, age, age, control, control, control. Apples and oranges.
Lol no, we have lost big time so far. Mookie has been worth 20-22 WAR in 3.5 seasons, and his 2023 is on pace to be pretty historic. Don't think Verdugo/Wong are going to get us remotely close to that.
I don't think it's very complicated. The front office liked but didn't love Mookie. They were worried about long term contracts in general, especially for guys with Mookie's profile (perhaps not an unreasonable concern).
All of the data points that have happened since the trade have continued to show Mookie is an elite HOF talent worth the long term big $ contract they were worried about. The players they traded for have been OK or flamed out.
The story has not been fully written, but to this point it has failed in spectacular fashion for the Red Sox. This is not debatable.
Well, I have read many posts on SOSH that disagree with you, good sir. The fWAR accumulated by the gentleman we have acquired is higher than what Betts put up in 2020!*, therefore the Sox have won the trade already.
(*This is an argument that conveniently ignores the “flags fly forever” mantra).
(*This is an argument that conveniently ignores the “flags fly forever” mantra).
If your post was in jest, I apologize. But no one needs to pretend we only had the option of 1 season of Mookie and had zero chance to sign him as a FA. So those "2020 only" arguments are absurd.
For the record, I was mixed on the Mookie trade. I was worried how he would age and saw the logic of getting off the Price money and the future flexibility.
But we don't need to keep pretending the deal, now with 4 more years of data points, turned out to be a good one for the Red Sox. You have to separate the decision at the time from what we now know.
It's been a massive failure any way you look at it.
He was tied for 18th in RF drs in and 24th in RF uzr in 2021. Also barely above average in oaa.
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It seems like you really don’t understand what you were responding to. He wasn’t saying that they should have got a Soto return, it was that if you trade someone like Mookie you need to receive a Soto like return to make it worth it or for it to be under consideration. Your first sentence is the definition of missing the forest through the trees
They probably would've gotten closer to a Soto-like return if they hadn't included David Price in the deal.
Or if they had traded him at the 2018 deadline when he had the same amount of control left
Isn't it more likely that Mookie liked but didn't love them? My guess is that they made him an offer, and his people made it clear that he wanted to test free agency. So the Sox, refusing to continue bidding against themselves but fearing his departure through free agency, traded him for controllable assets.
THIS IS THE ANSWER!
Betts rightfully wanted to test free agency. Was going to maximize his value. Easy.
Mookie was not going to take a discount. Mookie wasn’t so in love with Boston and his commute home.
Certainly may have been a mutual feeling. And trading him had some logic behind it for a variety of reasons.
But I think the basis for not wanting to "bid against themselves" and "fearing his departure in FA" was rooted in the fact they didn't see themselves going the extra mile to keep him. And I think that was about their internal assessment of how he would perform over the next 8-10 years.
Did they expect his age 30 season to be NL MVP, 40+ HR, 1.000+OPS, 8-9 WAR? I honestly don't think they did. We'll of course see how things go from here, but the returns so far show continued HOF level greatness to an extent I think they underestimated.
Signing players to big long term deals is risky business. Sometimes not signing them is also risky business.
Right, but why didn't the Red Sox want to pay market value and pay top dollar?
I think the front office would be more than happy right now if they had to outbid everyone for Mookie and had him on the team right now.
Unless we think he was going to get 400-500M, Mookie is turning out to be the rare massive contract that actually is worth it.
There was reason to believe at the time he was traded that he could get $400 M. It was pre-Covid and Trout had signed a $426.5 M contract the previous March.
Seems high end, but maybe, I think 400 certainly would have gotten it done. So far he has been worth 143M based on Fangraphs in less than 3 seasons.
Obviously you'd expect him to outperform a bit early on to make up for the last few years, but so far seems like even the full FA contract for Mookie is looking (perhaps unexpectedly) like a solid value. Especially for a big market team to keep a popular home grown HOF player.
These are a couple questions without snark.
Did the Trout deal look good at the time of signing?
What was the excess value after year 3?
Is it a bad deal now?
To be clear, I am not defending the front office, only explaining my understanding of what transpired.
I would only add one wrinkle to their thinking, which was how Mookie’s career arc would intersect with the franchise’s timeline for contention. They feared that Mookie would be great when they were uncompetitive and then in decline when the team was back in the mix.
I think they were less concerned with this season than (increasingly) the nine following it.
The trade was reprehensible. No big market team should ever allow a homegrown superstar to leave town due to an unwillingness to pay market value for his services.
Context matters. They sank a lot of money into Trout (2019 extension) and Pujols, and Rendon, and Upton but haven't been close to the post season since 2014. And they may have squandered the Trout/Ohtani window.
So, from the Angels POV, no, probably not a good deal.
It’s a deal they had to make… looked good at first. But not so good now. Would be worth it if they had a WS win.
Injuries to good players suck.
I don't necessarily agree with this perspective, but I have seen others on this board say that having your best homegrown player (particularly one who is headed for the inner-circle of the Hall of Fame) never wear another team's uniform is worth quite a lot. For the Angles, maybe that's worth even more than it would be for a team like the Red Sox. The Angels version of Ted Williams or Mickey Mantle prior to Trout was...Tim Salmon? Maybe in the future some other great player with a fish for a name will come along and replace him, but until that day, for a huge number of fans, Trout IS the Angels. Much more than Mookie was ever synonymous with the Red Sox.