Let's Lay Off That Throttle
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
Not going to name names, but I can think of a recent former Sox player that has proven he almost certainly will earn the gigantic, market appropriate contract he was given. If only they pulled the trigger on that one...
Because if he once again puts up the lowest OPS+ of his career (outside of 2020 and when he was 20/21 years old), and play defense that would make Marilyn Monroe blush, he may already not be worth the $30M per year that he is getting paid?
I think he will be better than last year, and am bullish on this year's team because of it.
But Devers is not even close to what I would consider a 5-tool player, and if he is putting up a 124 OPS+ for the life of that contract, it is going to be uglier than even the Bogaerts deal.
Oh come on now, there’s a zero percent chance it’s uglier than the Bogaerts deal. Xander signed for the same length of years while already being over 30 and he’s been asked to move positions in year two of said deal. That will be an all time bad deal
Devers OPS+ by year
112
94
132
107
134
141
126
Not sure I see a reason to be alarmed. He was good last year, despite a well below his career norms .292 BABIP.
Was he overpaid? Perhaps, but not sure that’s his fault. Last year he was the same guy he’s always been.
112
94
132
107
134
141
126
Not sure I see a reason to be alarmed. He was good last year, despite a well below his career norms .292 BABIP.
Was he overpaid? Perhaps, but not sure that’s his fault. Last year he was the same guy he’s always been.
DE-5vers defense is a far cry from medicore.
He's the best guy on the team with a bat in his hand and by far, the worst guy on the team with a glove in his hand.
For the record, I am not of the mindset that it is an underwater contract already, was just trying to (probably poorly) convey what Devizier may have been thinking when they made their post.
I will say, however, that his 126 OPS+ last year was propped up by an insanely good month of July, in which he posted a 1.057 OPS. No other month was above .870. Devers has always been kind of streaky, and when he is on a good streak he is an absolute offensive monster. He does get out of sorts for stretches, though. If he can find a way to be more consistent, even if the consistency doesn't reach the absolute top end of what we have seen, he is an awesome player.
Hell, he's an awesome player anyway.
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There are countless examples in sports of how the top star sets the tone. When that guy works super hard, the culture of the team is so much better. I used to go to spring training every year, and I noticed Manny always stayed and took extra BP when others were headed out. We all know how guys like Brady, Bird, Kevin Garnett set the tone…that top level accountability and drive is huge in a locker room
Yup. I have no issue with him calling out ownership a bit, but it would be that much better if he said something like, “but it’s all of our jobs to do our part and I worked my ass off this offseason to be in great shape and I’m taking a ton of reps in the field to be a more complete player.”
There are countless examples in sports of how the top star sets the tone. When that guy works super hard, the culture of the team is so much better. I used to go to spring training every year, and I noticed Manny always stayed and took extra BP when others were headed out. We all know how guys like Brady, Bird, Kevin Garnett set the tone…that top level accountability and drive is huge in a locker room
To provide some context for what @LogansDad wrote, Devers by baseball-reference's Offensive WAR was the #15 player in the AL with 4.4, basically equal offensively to Bo Bichette and Luis Robert Jr.
How bad was the rest of his game? He drops down to 3.5 (total) WAR - #29 in the AL (not MLB, mind you, just the AL). Mostly because his defensive WAR is negative. Eyeballing it, it looks like the NL players have 32 players ahead of him per WAR. So call that about 60 players producing more value/wins, with the understanding that WAR is fuzzy. So say Devers is in the 50-70 bracket of players.
But he's going to be paid in the top 10 players in the AL, and top 15 overall. That would make some sort of sense if he was defensively passible, but he's not.
Let's not mince words about how awfully bad he sucked out there in 2023. He was by far the worst regular thirdbaseman by a mile in the AL. I'll define that as someone who starts at least 1/2 of a team's games at 3B (although you can cut that down to 1/3 and the results are still the same.) Pick a metric. Absolute or ratio. He sucked. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2023-specialpos_3b-fielding.shtml
The overall effect is that Devers single-glovedly dropped the Sox to the third worst team in the AL at 3B. The only two worse were CWS and OAK.
The next thing we need to note is that this was ongoing. He was slightly better in 2022, when Xander provided some external motivation, and they were both looking for big contracts. The result was he actually clustered with the two other worst full time 3B - Eugenio Suarez and Yandy Diaz.
But go back a year to 2021, and he's the absolute hands-down worst 3B in the AL by a country mile. https://www.baseball-reference.com/leagues/AL/2021-specialpos_3b-fielding.shtml
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There's one thing Devers can do to really earn his contract, and that's to get better at defense.
Do we hear anything about him hiring a coach or working on his defense? Not really. He may be doing those things. I hope he is, but the posted videos we've seen are of him hitting. And he cannot improve his hitting game enough to earn his contract if he plateaus or backslides on defense.
But it's VERY important that he agrees with some posters here (including myself) that the Sox need established starting pitching.
So basically, if management had gotten a decent 3rd baseman and moved him to DH instead of blowing the money on an outfielder who can’t play outfield, and now has to be a full time DH (that doesn’t hit for power), his contract is suddenly worth it?
Like I said up thread, Devers was never Brooks Robinson over there. They signed him because they needed his bat in the lineup. However, instead of constructing a roster to maximize their best hitter’s impact, and minimize his poor defense, they went and signed a much worse hitting DH.
It’s gross roster mismanagement.
Even if it did, I would chalk it up as a small sample. So many of his problems are with throws.
I share Salem Lot’s view that the roster construction is bad. Yoshi doesn’t fit, and I was hoping they’d move him so devers could play 1b and casas dh. Assuming avg 3b D in that scenario, the team would be so much better defensively…and with this pitching staff, they could use good D
No, I don't think you go 10/300 for a DH, unless the bat is truly special, because you can year to year a DH spot if you have to. Devers has a very good bat - and that might be his high water mark.
Oddly though his swing isn't really great for Fenway, at least in terms of expected HRs.
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As a PS, I also think it was reasonable for the Sox to sign Devers to play 3B given that he had shown defensive improvement in his age 25 contract year. Merely getting to passible out there (and paired with a good defensive SS) would have been acceptable. The fact that he backslid as soon as he landed his mega-contract possibly says something. I'll withhold judgement on that and see how he does this year.
I feel like this is exactly the logic the Sox FO is using. His bat is “worth” $300MM IF he’s at 3B. Meanwhile they’re whistling past the graveyard as he consistently sucks out loud at 3B…just waiting for when the light goes on and he’s a solid 3B. He’s been there for a long time - when’s it going to happen? Many of us hoped to see a positive trend last year, and he was horrendous.
The contract is a sunk cost now - it’s time to optimize the roster
You cross-posted with my PS.
I'd give him another year. It's possible he was pressing, and/or injured, and/or felt he had to compensate for the SS. Or whatever. Anyone can have a down year.
I think two years in a row is another story.
But we're otherwise agreed I think: a Devers who is adequate at 3B keeps one of the 1B/DH slots open. A Devers who is inadequate permanently plugs one of those slots with a 10/300 player, which means the club has to forgo finding value in a bat first player they develop or trade for.
The problem is they committed $410M last year to two guys who should be DH’s. Of course, there also seems to be a good amount of fans hoping they will add in a few hundred million more for Casas, too.
If he were a DH all of last year, his WAR would be around 2.5 (4.4 oWAR as 3B, -1.5 WAR for DH position, -0.4 WAR for losing 3B position). Had he been an average first baseman, it would be more like 3.3.
And one wonders if he’d hit better at DH or 1B. Supposedly he takes the errors hard
I agree. He shows flashes every season of being at least capable out there, but the overall body of work is just not good.
As for his comments, I won't go so far as to say "Shut up and color" or anything. I get the frustration. Even those of us who are excited about the team recognize that they are at least a pitcher away from being true contenders, so I get it. That said, I can't help but worry that his words are a bit disrespectful to his teammates, especially when a bunch of them are off at Trevor Story's place trying to team build and get better at defense and he seems to be nowhere to be found.
Like, he'd probably be (rightfully) pretty pissed if, say, Houck came out and said something like, "Maybe if we didn't have the worst defensive 3B in the league making thirty mil a year, our pitchers would be able to get through the 6th inning more often."
Like it or not, with the money he is making his words are going to carry weight and they are going to be parsed accordingly. And while I don't think he is WRONG, and while he has every right to say what he did, I do worry about the effect it will have on the younger players on the team.
Both Devers and Hernandez were terrible defensively last year because of their throws. They both had decent enough range and hands, but the throws were all over the place. Some of that is the coaching staff not being able to cure the yips, so Carlos Febles was fired. And some is that Casas wasn't any good at picking throws. If he can get a little better at that, it should help Devers in particular tremendously.
That's not true of my read of things. Out of his league leading 19 errors at 1B, 12 were fielding errors and 7 were throwing errors. 12 fielding errors would tie him for 4th most in the majors, but surely those other third basemen also made some throwing errors. On top of this, his statcast fielding/range is listed as the 4th percentile.
My takeaway from rewatching a bunch of Devers' errors on savant a while back is there were a lot of mental lapses, especially on balls where he's charging in. Seems like he's thinking ahead to the throw at the expense of actually fielding and transferring the ball cleanly. That tracks with his OAA, which had him at -5 coming in. He was actually positive at +1 to his right, but -3 to his left; I think it's very possible that playing a full year next to Story is going to help him with that a lot, but he really needs a mental reset or something.
The slagging of Devers for his contract is misplaced IMO, considering that by $/WAR he's been GROSSLY underpaid over the course of his career so far (career earnings of $41 million through 2023 vs value of $169.5 million per WAR value on Fangraphs).
He has every right to call out ownership for their utter lack of urgency in improving the team this offseason. He's been in the org since 2013, he's been here a long while and has every right to expect that there will be attempt made at winning.
He has every right to call out ownership for their utter lack of urgency in improving the team this offseason. He's been in the org since 2013, he's been here a long while and has every right to expect that there will be attempt made at winning.
Also, it's one thing if Devers is the only one expressing frustration or confusion about the direction of the team. But he's probably like #20 in line behind a whole cast of beat writers (and I'm not talking about Tomase or Shaughnessy), national writers, any of the GM candidates who declined prior to Breslow*, Alex Cora, Kenley Jansen, Dustin Pedroia... it's a hell of a sampling really. There's no need to zero in on whether Devers' defense justifies him saying something that's being said by plenty of others around the game, and some with presumably a fair amount of insight into what's happening behind the curtains.
*I like Breslow regardless of whether he was Plan A, B, C, or Z and believe he will have success here.
*I like Breslow regardless of whether he was Plan A, B, C, or Z and believe he will have success here.
A free agent contact pitcher like Montgomery might also want to hear that Devers is taking steps to improve his shitty defensive play.
I think we'd all like to hear that.
It’s neither here nor there, but I used Devers as an example of ownership apparently bending to public pressure and inking him to a large extension, the outcome of which looks slightly less rosy than it did last year. This is useful when considering how ownership will (or will not) respond to public pressure for a second straight offseason.
My guess is that the ultimate effect will be close to nothing. If they are going to sign Montgomery and/or Snell, it will be within their “parameters”. However, I don’t think public pressure will effective this time around.
My guess is that the ultimate effect will be close to nothing. If they are going to sign Montgomery and/or Snell, it will be within their “parameters”. However, I don’t think public pressure will effective this time around.
The only thing a free agent pitcher is going to want to hear is how much money is on the contract offer.
EDIT: Montgomery isn't even all that much a GB pitcher compared to the rest of the league anyway.
I don't know what it is you are doing here. Seriously. You've already said Devers is fat and lazy. Now you are saying a contact pitcher would have reservations about a FA offer from the Sox because of that fat and lazy 3B? Not $, not years. Not ownership being cheap. 3B defense.
Nevermind that Devers is BY FAR the best player on this team. Nevermind that he is the face of this team. Your angle is that he isn't working hard enough and that raises eyebrows amongst unsigned players?
Ownership and previous/current management are not to blame for the state of the roster. Devers. Devers is to blame with his poor defense.
What are you doing here?
There is literally nothing in Devers' 2023 that shows a real decline, all his numbers are right around the variance of chance one would expect in baseball.
His Dwar in 2022 was -0.3, in 2023 it was -0.5.
His doubles went down but his HRs went up. Total bases were 289 vs 290. He walked and struck out just a tiny bit more in 2023. He was more durable in 2023 and stole a couple more bases.
His Dwar in 2022 was -0.3, in 2023 it was -0.5.
His doubles went down but his HRs went up. Total bases were 289 vs 290. He walked and struck out just a tiny bit more in 2023. He was more durable in 2023 and stole a couple more bases.
Montgomery is a contact pitcher (as opposed to a strikeout pitcher) far more than league average. Basically, the more competent a defensive team, the better his outcomes. Plus the better spread of defenders, the better his outcomes.
And he will most certainly want to know (particularly if his contract is short term or has opt-outs) what his numbers might look like if he signs with team A instead of team B.
And to this point, he’s spent much of his career in pitchers’ parks (NYY, slightly; STL, substantially) and/or in front of plus plus defenses (TEX).
What are you doing here? Answer: you're obviously overstating and distorting my argument.
What I'm saying is that if Devers wants to show leadership and improve the club, there's a very low hanging piece of fruit he can pick. It has nothing to do with roster building or his opinion. I don't know what the man's personal character is like - if he really be fat or lazy. And I suspect you personally don't know either. But we all know his defense sucks. It's just a fact. And he can show us he's taking steps to address it.
Apart from that, yes, pitchers do consider the teams they sign with, both in terms of their overall competitiveness, and as to whether there's anything about the team (say the stadium, or the defense) that will impact their numbers and effectiveness.
To return the favor by mildly overstating your point - these guys want to win games. They don't want to go to a place where they can't get out of the 4th inning and won't see the post-season in exchange for picking up an additional 10% on their already set-for-life salaries. (Though ideally they'd get both.)
Again. His GB rate isn't that high compared to most other pitchers.
Statcast page
He's smack in the middle for GB rate. He's not a guy who is going to be badly affected by poor infield defense behind him.
To get back the the original point: there are a LOT of problems with the 2024 Red Sox as currently constructed. Rafael Devers isn't one of them. Bill James once wrote that bad teams blame all their troubles on their best players. Hopefully blaming Devers isn't a sign of a bad messageboard either.
Although TEX is rated at 104 for offense as a park, pretty close to Fenway's 106.
Correct, yeah. And also, the Rangers had the second-best fielding team in baseball last year.
All of which steers me back to this post, which looked at Montgomery's Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average (the leading indicator of ERA) last year compared with our own depth chart.
2023 SIERA
Pivetta - 3.36
Whitlock - 3.67
Winckowski - 3.84 (*used as a full-time reliever)
Murphy - 3.88 (*used as a bulk reliever, mostly)
Crawford - 3.93
Bello - 4.18
Giolito - 4.21
Montgomery - 4.23
Houck - 4.33
Montgomery is also the oldest among that group.
Again, not saying there aren't merits to signing him. Of course there are! But if it's $160-175 million, then I think there's some room for debate before we leap to condemnation, or rubber-stamp this "acrimony in the press."
While his K rate isn’t especially high by modern standards, he has a very good K/BB ratio and allows HR at a rate a tic below league average.
I think most are interested on the assumption that we’re talking the 80-120m range.
They’re like one of 6 teams mentioned as interested in JMont and all indications from the front office is they’re satisfied with SP depth. So I would say 5% chance of upgrade being priced in and 95% typical Boston-sports-inflation.
Also fangraphs has the Sox at 25% for playoffs so I’m not even sure where you got your 5% odds to begin with https://www.fangraphs.com/standings/playoff-odds
Its now Devers fault that the Sox can't manage to sign a pitcher?
We are gaslighting ourselves. Forget Stockholm Syndrome, we have Fenway Fugue State.
We are gaslighting ourselves. Forget Stockholm Syndrome, we have Fenway Fugue State.
Seriously. I cannot even fathom the hellscape this place would be if Devers walked in FA after the team failed to extend him. These threads would be 400 pages longer.
I like him as a player and remain optimistic he can improve on defense.
But it's just foolishness not to acknowledge his obvious defensive issues there.
And it's doubly foolish to think that acknowledging them somehow ties into whatever cockamamie ownership narrative people want to chicken-little over. Because there is nothing -absolutely nothing- that one can say about any individual player or the team as a whole, positive or negative, pro or con, that won't get them clucking amongst themselves about "gaslighting" and the like.
I didnt say anything about playoff odds; only that Vegas is taking into account the possibilities that teams will add or subtract before the season starts. As to playoff odds, 5% seems low; FG 25% seems high absent a significant move being made. I suspect if we get to opening day and the sox havent added significantly to the pitching staff, well see the totals declining to around the 76-78 we saw before last season and theyll probably be +700 or higher playoff odds.
There are serious issues with the current roster and a lot would need to break correctly for them to still be in it in late August.
This.
And while we have no idea if he’s lazy, he is clearly not in the best of shape. Call me old school, but that bothers me, not just bc he makes insane money but bc he’s a professional athlete.