Rosenthal: Sox Almost Traded Turner, Were In On Verlander
- Thread starter TheYellowDart5
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Yep, trying to walk the "somewhat honest" line never really plays well -- especially when it's received second-hand, through tweets or asking players what they thought of what the GM said
I agree with pretty much all of this. I don't know if I would use dehumanizing to describe Bloom but I understand what you are getting at.
He's undoubtedly bad at press conferences/in front of a microphone, which is very surprising because he seems well-spoken, although as Red Sox fans we may have been spoiled by Theo back in the day. He does seem to put his foot in his mouth a lot (or commit unforced errors if you will). The fact that he voluntarily brought up Mookie Betts at that fan summit where he got mercilessly booed was one of the bigger miscalculations I've seen for that particular forum. The recent "underdog" line and his further explanation seemed like it was meant to galvanize the team but it just came off awkward and kind of off-putting.
I think he's tried to explain his plan before but he doesn't seem to communicate it effectively. I think part of that is due to the fact that it is more complicated than just "buying" and "selling", but regardless, I think it's something that would help with his approval rating with Sox fans.
I don’t see why it’s that confusing. It would effectively downgrade Turner’s spot to Duvall (moving Yoshida to DH) while adding another young pitcher to the pile. Presumably another Boston prospect was heading out too.
But that makes a ton of sense for a team with a great offense and not enough starting pitching.
The issue then was that Lou Gorman couldn't be bothered to listen to his own people who would have told him to keep Bagwell and offer Cooper instead (who it's been reported over the years the Astros likely would have ultimately accepted).
What you're trying to do in a complex, multivariable negotation like the trade deadline is clarify the scenarios you have so that you can choose amongst them.
So, imagine one assistant GM is assembling the answer to the question "if we fully sell, what would we be able to do trade-wise and what would resulting roster and minors look like?" so that you know what happens if you press that button. Someone different is trying to figure out the answer to the question "if we went all-chips-in-to-win, what would we be able to do trade-wise and what resulting roster and minors look like" so that you have the best informed choice to make between them (or, as it turned out, the in-between scenario).
That is to say---they may well not have intended todo both, but there's reasons to explore both
So, imagine one assistant GM is assembling the answer to the question "if we fully sell, what would we be able to do trade-wise and what would resulting roster and minors look like?" so that you know what happens if you press that button. Someone different is trying to figure out the answer to the question "if we went all-chips-in-to-win, what would we be able to do trade-wise and what resulting roster and minors look like" so that you have the best informed choice to make between them (or, as it turned out, the in-between scenario).
That is to say---they may well not have intended todo both, but there's reasons to explore both
This is a rabbit hole, but Bagwell's entire team hit 31 HR that year, with a slash line of 241/322/326. 10 guys in the league hit double digit HR (old friend Rico Brogna won the HR crown with 21).
Gorman shouldn't have needed someone to tell him that trading the guy who hit 333/422/457 was a bad idea, even if he only had 4 HR.
We might be on the same side here, but what Bloom is trying to do isn't complicated at all. I think that most people get what he's trying to do, but for some reason he's using a ton of words to make it sound like he's attempting brain surgery in a dark basement.
What it gets down to is that Bloom's ideas of running a front office are no different than practically every other General Manager/President of Baseball OPs since Branch Rickey.
1. He wants to build a low-cost, contending team through his minor league system. This is his north star, but like I said, it's not terribly original and I'm not sure if it can be done today.
2. When it comes to the trade deadline, he seems to want to go for it a bit but at the same time stay true to his original blueprint mentioned above. This is a very thin needle to thread and last season he bombed it and the jury is obviously out on this season.
Basically I think that Bloom makes his job far more difficult than it needs to be because he's neither all in or all out, unless it's absolutely obvious that the Red Sox are in the driver's seat (2021). But that doesn't take a lot of smarts to see that your team is 20+ games over .500 and it's obligatory that you add someone. Where it gets difficult are seasons like this year and last year where the Sox could go on a run and make the postseason, but it's not guaranteed. His plan is his plan is his plan, but at some point you have to be able to deviate from it. You can come back to it whenever you like, but trading a prospect that's sitting in the 20-15 range for a league-average starter is not going to destroy the house that he's trying to build.
I've said this a million times, but prospects turn to suspects really, really quickly if you keep them even a month too long. Get what you can, help the major league team, and replace that dude next draft. Not all transactions are Bagwell for Andersen.
Lou Gorman had never heard of park effects. The Beehive was a notoriously terrible hitter's park.
Verlander had a full no-trade and both HOU and LAD wanted him, the level of BOS’s interest there really didn’t matter. Verlander’s first choice was HOU, Crane really wanted him back, even the Dodgers’ interest level probably didn’t matter much in the end.
Right. Which is insane. It's not like he didn't grasp the full impact of pitch framing or was reluctant to use the shift, or wasn't tuned into spin rate. 17 year old me in 1989 might not have appreciated the full impact of his walk rate, but given access to nothing more than the basic counting and slash line stats for the league would have known something was up with the power numbers.
Apologies for the hijack.
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100%. Somehow Verlander ended back where he wanted in the first place. And Houston got him back at a severely reduced rate. It’s kinda crazy when you think about it.
I think it's worth keeping in mind that teams in a similar position to the Sox also kept their options open at the deadline and wound up choosing to stand pat. It seems like the desirable players were too expensive and there wasn't a huge market for passable players on short-term deals if you wanted to sell.
The fact that Eduardo Rodriguez blocked the trade to the Dodgers and no other team jumped in to try to pick him up says a lot. I don't think teams were willing to spend a lot on guys on short-term deals (or who have opt-outs coming up).
Other fanbases were also concerned with their teams' lack of moves:
I'm sure everyone's already aware that MFY fans are beside themselves about their inaction at the deadline. Jomboy didn't mince words asking Boone about the Yankees' lack of moves, but Boone pretty strongly defended the FO's approach (as you'd expect).
Giants fans were disappointed by the team standing pat when they could potentially challenge the Dodgers for first place (those same fans were also upset that the Giants didn't get Correa or Judge this off-season), but Grant Brisbee and Tim Kawakami agreed with standing pat because mortgaging the future for the guys who were available didn't make sense.
The fact that Eduardo Rodriguez blocked the trade to the Dodgers and no other team jumped in to try to pick him up says a lot. I don't think teams were willing to spend a lot on guys on short-term deals (or who have opt-outs coming up).
Other fanbases were also concerned with their teams' lack of moves:
I'm sure everyone's already aware that MFY fans are beside themselves about their inaction at the deadline. Jomboy didn't mince words asking Boone about the Yankees' lack of moves, but Boone pretty strongly defended the FO's approach (as you'd expect).
Giants fans were disappointed by the team standing pat when they could potentially challenge the Dodgers for first place (those same fans were also upset that the Giants didn't get Correa or Judge this off-season), but Grant Brisbee and Tim Kawakami agreed with standing pat because mortgaging the future for the guys who were available didn't make sense.
It certainly has to do with his current condition (and it's also why if I was forced to bet, I doubt that any club out there has him on their top 30 list of prospects to trade for / see him as valuable as BTV, etc, etc.) Who knows, I could be wrong and GMs could have been on the phone begging Bloom for him.
But the bigger things for me are 1) he's so far away that I find it really tough to pin that much on him and 2) there are a lot of players we have that play CF and could reasonably move to a corner that we have "ahead" of him, at least in terms of their development.
There is a lot of talk about "the window" and in many ways rightly so. But I think that in many ways the window is closer to open than a lot of people realize. I thought personally that we were looking more at 2025-2030, as recently as the start of the off-season. For me a lot changed with the Devers extension because I think that showed some "urgency" in competing in 2023 and 2024 when I didn't think there would be really any emphasis on that.
However, to the season, Bello, Casas (well, I didn't think he'd be THIS bad defensively, but even there it's looked better recently) and Yoshida have all been what I thought they were capable of. Jansen has provided exactly what I thought he would and Martin has been excellent (and I thought he'd be fine as a set up man on a "meh" team, I didn't expect this). In no ways did I expect over the course of the season (let alone 2/3 of it) Jarren Duran to be a 2.5 bWAR player, Connor Wong to be a 1.8 bWAR player, and Kutter Crawford to be a 1.9 bWAR player.
The reason I bring this all I up is that I spent a good chunk of the off-season and a good part of the "pre deadline" hoping we'd make a move to get a top half of the rotation starter with term. Someone that you felt really good about being a solid #3 with #2 upside type of pitcher right out of the gate. I didn't think it had to be an "ace" but a stabilizing presence that didn't have the "error bars" associated with young players or those coming off injuries. In no particular order I advocated for Kodai Senga, Chris Bassitt, Nate Eovaldi, Jameson Taillon and when all those failed, Michael Wacha. I was also begging for it all trade deadline - and once someone starts a 2024 off-season thread, I'll start begging for it then too.
The guys I was advocating moving top prospects (ex Mayer) for are better than some of the guys mentioned above and not as good (now) as others - and the only one of those mentioned above I'd move top prospects for is Senga. Yes, we can go get a guy like that this off season too, but 1) that wastes THIS season and 2) free agency is never a guarantee that they're going to take your offer.
If the team goes out and signs one of (my order of preference) Yamamoto, Nola, Urias, Montgomery, Stroman, Giolito, Flaherty or Snell, my list of "untouchable" prospects would grow. But with your agreed to caveat of NOBODY is off the table in the right deal (as in sure I'd trade Mayer for Strider or Kirby, but there is no way Atlanta or Seattle would; obviously I'd trade Perales for Austin Riley but Atlanta clearly would not, etc)...
Totally off the table:
1) Mayer
2) Anthony
3) Rafaela (Who by the way is now above his career number with a 5.8% bb rate; has a 154 wRC+ and should have been in Boston weeks ago, while we moved either Arroyo because he is a bad MLB baseball player or moved Duvall or Verdugo to get something better than Duvall would fetch, but I digress...)
Off the table unless it's a 2/3 SP (or better) with term:
4) Gonzalez
5) Perales
6) Teel - but he can't be moved anyway.
Has to be a 2/3 SP with term or at minimum a really good corner OF/MI option with term:
7) Bleis
8) Yorke
One thing I'll note - I do think that Bleis and Yorke are objectively "better" prospects than Gonzalez, Perales and Teel, but again, we have so much "OF talent" and so much "MI talent" that I think they would be easier to part with than the only two guys in our system that look like they realistically even have top half of the rotation potential AND are at advanced levels of the minors.
That's really it. Generally speaking, there are other deals I generally wouldn't do (move guys in the top 20 for a non closer relief pitcher; move guys in the top 15 for a one year rental; etc) but I think it's a really interesting question and it got overlooked.
I have a top 205 prospect list & they're all untradeable in that order (except the 2 guys they already traded - list needs updating).
But top 10 I have...
1) Mayer
2) Anthony
3) Bleis
4) Perales
5) Rafaela
6) Monegro (irrationally high)
7) Teel
8) Yorke
9) Wikelman
10) Romero
Pretty sure Yoeilin Cespedes is moving into the top 10 in my next update, though.
But top 10 I have...
1) Mayer
2) Anthony
3) Bleis
4) Perales
5) Rafaela
6) Monegro (irrationally high)
7) Teel
8) Yorke
9) Wikelman
10) Romero
Pretty sure Yoeilin Cespedes is moving into the top 10 in my next update, though.
The issue with Bleis is that he’s hurt. It’s a lost year. Not great, but at his age it’s something he can afford.
But there was tremendous helium under him at this point last year, and some incredibly lofty comps. Unlikely he hits those, but you wanna get him healthy and see what next year’s like for him. If he has a bad 2024 and seems like a totally different guy his trade value wouldn’t have dropped that much anyway as a 20-year-old former top prospect, and we’ll likely be in a better position to contend (and use him as a trade chip) anyway.
I’m sure teams like the Cards or Tigers brought him up for Flaherty or Lorenzen, but it doesn’t make any sense to move him. I’m not sure I would have traded him for Cease, and I definitely wouldn’t have for those older pitchers.
Adding Verlander and moving Turner probably would have made the team better since they could have moved Yoshida to DH and either stayed with Duvall and/or given Rafaela a shot.
Bloom is basically Duquette with better hair and no trace of sarcasm in front of the mic.
All that said, and as someone who thinks chemistry and its effects on winning is generally hooey - moving Turner would have been a major bummer for me.
Bloom is basically Duquette with better hair and no trace of sarcasm in front of the mic.
All that said, and as someone who thinks chemistry and its effects on winning is generally hooey - moving Turner would have been a major bummer for me.
The Sox will sign pitching. The MiLB is probably the deepest it’s ever been in my lifetime for position players. We have some decent pitching prospects, but nothing like on the hitting side.
Which I agree with. Pitching is more risky. Eschew the cost control on the pitching side. Let the other organizations take those risks. If we can fill 1-2 positions (including backups) and a RP every year then that gives an amazing amount of flexibility to a team that is more than willing to spend money.
Which I agree with. Pitching is more risky. Eschew the cost control on the pitching side. Let the other organizations take those risks. If we can fill 1-2 positions (including backups) and a RP every year then that gives an amazing amount of flexibility to a team that is more than willing to spend money.
Signing Verlander would have been an absolutely bizarre move from Chaim.
I know that they’re always on the lookout for value in all forms, but Verlander is a move to push you over the hump to try and win a World Series, not a move you make to make your terrible rotation look less terrible for a year or two.
Chaim and the roster are clearly in a transitory phase. I’ve been pretty supportive of the long term vision of building through the draft and they’re keeping the big league club afloat, but the last two trade deadlines have absolutely left me scratching my head.
Sell Paxton and Turner. Especially Paxton, who’s value will probably never be higher. Sell JD last year. These last two deadlines are the definition of half measures. If you’re building the farm system, ship the vets that have no future with the club.
I would rather see the long term vision continuing to be executed than watch them scratch and claw a flawed team into a wild card slot.
I know that they’re always on the lookout for value in all forms, but Verlander is a move to push you over the hump to try and win a World Series, not a move you make to make your terrible rotation look less terrible for a year or two.
Chaim and the roster are clearly in a transitory phase. I’ve been pretty supportive of the long term vision of building through the draft and they’re keeping the big league club afloat, but the last two trade deadlines have absolutely left me scratching my head.
Sell Paxton and Turner. Especially Paxton, who’s value will probably never be higher. Sell JD last year. These last two deadlines are the definition of half measures. If you’re building the farm system, ship the vets that have no future with the club.
I would rather see the long term vision continuing to be executed than watch them scratch and claw a flawed team into a wild card slot.
They are going to be under the tax, and any 2 year commitment to an elite pitcher is a good one. 2 years for just cash; I’m sure that was the allure.
Verlander is 40 and hasn’t been great this year. It’s possible it’s related to the change in scenery in NY, but it’s also equally as likely that he’s 40 with a million pitches on the odometer.
There is such a thing as a bad investment. Committing to Verlander to play on this team for the next 1.5-2.5 years while they’re so significantly behind the other truly good teams in the AL would be a bad investment.
Yeah, people just seem to be ignoring the dramatic decline in Verlander’s stuff and performance this year. 2.5 more years of him is somewhat risky. Regardless, the idea that the Sox would gladly hand over top prospects and assume a fair amount of money doesn’t seem consistent with how they’ve operated the past few years. Heck, they let Eovaldi go over a relatively minimal amount of “just cash”.
He’s got like a 1.40 ERA in his last 7 starts and a WHIP of 1.14 on the season. He would’ve been our clear ace. It’s all moot now but I suspect he’ll be pretty effective the next 2 years.
I think the Verlander discussion is a perfect example of what Chaim said about this season when he said "We're not there right now." A team like Houston is a team that might see itself as being a player away from winning a World Series, where the Sox are more of a team that might be a player away from a playoff berth. How much of a commitment are you willing to make in $$$, years or prospects when you assess where you are and where you feel you can go.
Verlander is great and one of my favorite pitchers of my generation but, yeah, I wouldn't have wanted to make that commitment. Would rather keep the prospects and throw money at someone like Yamamoto who is obviously unproven in MLB but also much younger and would fit this team's window better. Both former Mets SPs went to teams that made more sense than the Sox.
We're supposed to trust a 40 year old is going to maintain elite levels for two more years? For all the hand wringing over Sale around here, I'm shocked there's much support for Verlander through age 41-42. If he was a two month rental, I can see the attraction (he definitely would be the "ace" right now). Committing to him beyond that is not something that makes a ton of sense for the team as it's currently set up, even at the discounted price the Mets made him available for.
Wouldn't a competent GM at least entertain any and all trades? Even if it was to assess the market? This seems like a classic "I irrationally hate Bloom so I'm going to shit on him no matter what he does" comment.
I think you're reading far too much into the word "entertain" and leaning far too much into the binary rhetoric of trade deadlines. Once it became apparent that the Mets were dumping Verlander, "entertain" could mean, "If NY was going to subsidize his entire salary and accept only Dalbec in return, I'd have done it." It probably does *not* mean, "I offered Yorke and Bleis, they wanted Mayer, Rafaela and Anthony."
For the 799th time, they didn't "let Eovaldi go". They made him a competitive offer and he turned it down.
My point is that they could have signed him for a few more dollars of “just cash”. This idea that the Sox may have been interested in Verlander for “just cash” doesn’t jive with the way they’ve operated for the last few years. “Just cash” makes it seem as if millions of dollars is nothing or of no consequence to the org and how they do things.
I've never heard that.... for all we know Eovaldi really wnted to go to TX, which it appears is exactly the case.
He supposedly went back to the Sox to see if their original offer still stood, but they had moved on.
but that’s not really the point I was trying to make, that move has been litigated to death.
it’s about the idea that “just cash”, no matter how much, is no biggie.
Well... one final thing to remember is that Eovaldi had never really been completely healthy and finished '22 not looking like he'd be able to be very good going forward. I absolutely do not hold that against Bloom (same with Wacha)
We will never know what actually happened but I am way more inclined to believe the actual offer was much closer to “Yorke and Bleis” than “Dalbec and you pay all of his salary”.
Rosenthal is a very respected reporter, i highly doubt he would put that line in the column unless the offers were at least somewhat serious.
I'm glad the tires were kicked, but you can't have Sale and Verlander on this team and also trying to bring in another #1 type in terms of contract. With those two you have ~60mm locked up in extremely, extremely high risk arms.
I think it's $22 million for Verlander with the Mets subsidy. You're not going to get a decent starter for much cheaper than that these days. I would have been happy to see him (and his family) here. Verlander might have pulled the team over the line this year and would give another option to what should be a pretty good team next year.
I don't see how anyone can watch this year's team and say they're not competing. They're not odds-on favorites to win the World Series, but they're over .500, have a good run differential, and play well against the good teams. No playoff contender is looking at the schedule and is happy to see the Red Sox coming up on it.
This is 100% where I am. No way in hell I would have been happy giving serious prospects for this stage of Verlander. I also want Yamamoto with nearly every fiber of my fandom.
I'm sure Chaim's phone rang and he answered it. Why shouldn't he listen? I'm also sure that the Met's want as many teams interested as possible so they have multiple bidders. And do we know exactly who said that Chaim was entertaining the idea. The fact that he may have taken a call, doesn't necessarily mean that he had entertained what might have been proposed.
Let's not forget that Verlander had a say in all of this. If you're him which team is looking like the better choice.
This is pretty paranoid honestly. I am sure that every team even close to the playoffs ASKED about Verlander but Rosenthal didn’t mention any of them.
This was also a post-mortem of the trade deadline…what motive would Rosenthal have to lie? Or what motive would someone have to lie to Rosenthal about this? Verlander got traded to the Astros, the Mets got a good prospect out of it. The Mets are happy, the Astros are happy. This isn’t a scenario of an agent or team leaking something to Jon Heyman to drive up the price or to try and change the narrative.
Chaim probably made a decent offer for Verlander. Maybe he offered Yorke or something similar. In the end, it doesn’t matter and the Astros made a better offer (and Verlander probably wanted to go there anyway).
I just don’t get the rush to claim that it’s likely the Sox offered a couple of hot dogs or the Mets called and Chaim immediately hung up. As I said earlier, Rosenthal is a pro’s pro and there’s no reason for anyone to leak lies about the Sox and possibly trading for Verlander
I don't know if this is the case but it makes way, way more sense than some random other team or the Mets leaking that the Red Sox "entertained" trading for Verlander
Wow, you read WAY more into that than was written. I never accused or intimated that Rostenthal was was lying or was lied to. How often do we hear at the trade deadline that certain teams are "in on" or "entertaining" talks about different players? These are words used to garner interest and discussion from people who are in the business of garnering interest and discussion. We're 3 days post deadline and the homepage I use is still a revolving door of these types of stories. Every GM or President of Baseball Ops was on the phone "entertaining" offers.
I don't think it's confusing at all. The team is good enough to make the playoffs and a front line starter who can eat innings could be the difference in them making the postseason. If he could acquire a guy like Verlander for something like Yorke/Blaze, he'd probably do it, but when the cost got prohibitive (Bleis/Yorke or more), he walked away. The Mets got a very good return for Verlander, IMO, a price a team like Houston could pay because they're trying to win now. It's not a price the Red Sox could afford to match/exceed given the timeline Chaim has been pretty consistently building towards. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't entertain trade offers for a guy who could've helped this season and next at a position they need help.
What does Verlander get you for that money though? A wild card play-in victory instead of missing the playoffs altogether?
I’m not a Chaim hater by any means, but this team has more holes than just “starter” and they’re a long ways away from being a true contender.
By the time Boston’s next wave of young guys are ready, Verlander is probably retired. His timeline does not at all match up with the organizational timeline of 3-4 years away.
Getting through the wild card round and taking a shot at a best of 5 against one of the division winners sounds pretty good. It's better than missing the playoffs altogether and much, much better than finishing under .500 and not having any good games to watch in August and September.
What do you consider a true contender and what are those holes? The Rays just lost their best starter. The Orioles' rotation is full of nobodies and they barely have a better run differential than the Red Sox. The Astros and Rangers are good teams, but they're not 110-win juggernauts.
The Red Sox were in the ALCS less than 2 years ago. They currently have a winning record. If Chaim adds a starter and figures out the logjam in the outfield, they'll be good next year, too. I don't know where this 3-4 years away stuff comes from. That's a really long time in baseball and we have only the slightest idea of who may be on the team then. Even the best teams have a ton of churn in 4 years.
I can't help but notice that most of the posters who are most down on the team have a football related avatar. It seems watching 20 years of the Patriots messed with their idea of what a good professional sports team is. There's a lot of distance between favorites to win the championship and lousy non-contender.