Sox sign Wacha

BaseballJones

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Trying to drum up some hope and positivity about this signing...

1. It isn't that much money, all things considered.

2. From 2017-2018, he had a 3.82 era and 8.2 k/9...not bad.

3. Interestingly enough, if he can get through a couple of innings in decent shape, he has the potential to go a while. Look at his 2021 numbers versus opponents the first, second, and third times through the order:

- First: .277/.330/.477/.777
- Second: .259/.302/.446/.747
- Third: .226/.269/.339/.607

Same idea, but by pitch count:

- Pitches 1-25: .330/.380/.602/.982
- Pitches 26-50: .272/.304/.430/.734
- Pitches 51-75: .182/.235/.327/.563

So somehow get this guy through the beginning of the game, and he could do okay.

Also...last 8 games of the season (not counting playoffs): 39.1 ip, 3.20 era, .193/.234/.331/.565

So that's all....something, I guess?
 

Diamond Don Aase

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This is the new SoSH ... team makes move, posters hate ... team has rookie QB playing well and helping them win, posters say he's not doing much.

It's basically the whiner line without having to listen to the accents
Wacha’s similar pitchers list based on career-to-date results is littered with more cliff divers than ABC's Wide World of Sports. None of Scott Baker, Joey Hamilton, Bobby Jones, or Wade Miller enjoyed an effective season beyond age 30. Shelby Miller, now 31 years old, seems unlikely to bend the trend. Contemporary comparables based on opposing batter performance include Luke Farrell, Michael Rucker, and Bruce Zimmermann— no Hootie but quite a few Blowfish.

As much as we might collectively want to believe that Wacha’s weaknesses will be washed away by the Red Sox’ magical unicorn powder that worked such wonders for previous free-agent signings like Matt Andriese and Martin Perez, perhaps a dose of skepticism is merited.
 

RedOctober3829

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Wacha’s similar pitchers list based on career-to-date results is littered with more cliff divers than ABC's Wide World of Sports. None of Scott Baker, Joey Hamilton, Bobby Jones, or Wade Miller enjoyed an effective season beyond age 30. Shelby Miller, now 31 years old, seems unlikely to bend the trend. Contemporary comparables based on opposing batter performance include Luke Farrell, Michael Rucker, and Bruce Zimmermann— no Hootie but quite a few Blowfish.

As much as we might collectively want to believe that Wacha’s weaknesses will be washed away by the Red Sox’ magical unicorn powder that worked such wonders for previous free-agent signings like Matt Andriese and Martin Perez, perhaps a dose of skepticism is merited.
What do you think their expectations of Wacha are? It’s a depth signing that doesn’t impact one way or the other the ability to sign better players or get in the way of minor league talent. I don’t understand the hatrid some have. They aren’t relying on him to be a top of the rotation guy. If he can earn a spot, it keeps one of Whitlock or Houck in the pen.
 

GB5

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My guess is they saw something they liked and targeted. The Rays saw something they liked and threw $ at him. Most likely the Chaim brought the same pitching analytics that the Rays are using which is why we have overlap on Jeffery Springs, Chris Mazza and now Wacha in one calendar year
 

BringBackMo

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There is clearly something about Wacha’s underlying numbers that smart organizations like the Rays and Red Sox think is worth a small allotment of resources. Otherwise, he wouldn’t keep getting signed to these deals. It hasn’t translated to even modest big league success as yet, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t or won’t at some point.

Sharp baseball executives don’t operate with the expectation that every move they make is going to pan out. Instead, they calculate that, collectively, their moves will result in more positive than negative outcomes. Sure, you can point to Richards and Perez and Andriese and Franchy as examples of poor acquisitions by Bloom. But that ignores not only the fact that Richards and Perez pitched quite well at times (and were likely victims of the crackdown on sticky stuff) but also that other lower-tier acquisitions worked out to varying degrees, such as Pivetta, Robles, Davis, Renfroe, and Kike. If Wacha ends up being the only pitching acquisition that the Sox make this off-season, then, sure, criticize away. That would be an unacceptably risky approach. But my guess is that the team recognizes that he’s a gamble that could pay off or could crap out, and as such plans to place a number of additional bets on pitchers with something about their underlying numbers to suggest that they can be successful big leaguers. And I think we are starting to see from Bloom that a decent number of those gambles will pay off even though others will not.

Will Wacha, on a cheap one-year contract, wind up on the plus or minus side of the ledger? If Bloom is doing his job correctly, it essentially doesn’t matter.
 

Diamond Don Aase

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What do you think their expectations of Wacha are? It’s a depth signing that doesn’t impact one way or the other the ability to sign better players or get in the way of minor league talent. I don’t understand the hatrid some have. They aren’t relying on him to be a top of the rotation guy. If he can earn a spot, it keeps one of Whitlock or Houck in the pen.
I think Wacha would be most effective as a multi-inning reliever selectively deployed against lefthanded-heavy lineups but believe that the Red Sox have higher expectations. Even if Eovaldi, Pivetta, and Sale all remain healthy, Boston will still have another 900 regular-season innings that need to be covered.

Houck— who spent his 2019 Triple-A debut as a reliever— and Whitlock will both be four years removed from a starter’s regular workload, likely limiting their innings increases. Winckowski, Seabold, and Crawford could offer roster flexibility but are surrounded by uncertainty, whether it is the question of Seabold’s health or Crawford and Winckowski’s ultimate role.

Expecting Wacha’s role to be simply complementary would require Arauz to assume a prominent role in the infield, Bazardo to become a regular in the relief corps, and Crawford to consistently contribute after just 48 Triple-A innings. Non-tendering Locastro, Potts, and/or Rosario could expand the Red Sox’ options but it still seems unlikely that Wacha’s role will be simply complementary, especially given the timing of his signing.
 
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grimshaw

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What do you think their expectations of Wacha are? It’s a depth signing that doesn’t impact one way or the other the ability to sign better players or get in the way of minor league talent. I don’t understand the hatrid some have. They aren’t relying on him to be a top of the rotation guy. If he can earn a spot, it keeps one of Whitlock or Houck in the pen.
This. Someone has to be an innings eater/mop up guy who you can plug in as a swing man type. I wouldn't expect him to displace anyone. They need lots of innings from lots of pitchers.

They basically just signed their 12th or 13th pitcher first.
 

ZMart100

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Does anybody have a breakdown of Wacha's pitches? He got rid of the cutter... for what? Why did he start getting better results with what he originally thought were secondary pitches?
It looks like he increased all his other pitches- more four seam fbs, change ups and curves. He was throwing a few curves to start the season, but gave up on them in May and went back to them in August. He didn't really throw them in 2020, probably because it was his worst pitch in 2019, but had been at 10% curves in STL.
 

chawson

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Does anybody have a breakdown of Wacha's pitches? He got rid of the cutter... for what? Why did he start getting better results with what he originally thought were secondary pitches?
46793

He ditched the cutter (which hitters had handled to the tune of a .385 xwOBA against) on 8/20 in favor of the curveball (.289 xwOBA against from then on) and sinker (.279) for those last seven games, 39 IP.

That move also helped out his fastball (.447 xwOBA before 8/20, .333 afterward) and his very good changeup (.293 before, .253 after).
 

johnnywayback

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A perfectly cromulent Martin Perez replacement with a glimmer of upside coming from past history of #3 starter performance and the improved results after the change in pitch mix in August. If he's the best starter they acquire this off-season, I'd still be pretty disappointed, but I'd also be very surprised.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Alex Speier is reporting the terms of the deal: 1 year, $7M.

View: https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1464596473266454535


Basically falling between what they paid Perez last year ($5M) and what they paid Richards ($11M). They've got to replace/upgrade the 250 innings they got from those two. Wacha was better than either of them last season so it's not unreasonable to think they've now got a portion of those innings covered at a slight upgrade.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Money seems about right; Heaney, who seems like the most similar player who has signed and another guy the Sox were after, got $8.5M. Feels like they need another potential starter and reliever, at least. Most of the innings they need to replace from last year should come from increases from Sale, Whitlock, and Houck, but think you need another guy who can eat some innings if things go wrong. Danny Duffy, Drew Smyly, Dylan Bundy, Alex Cobb?
 

Pedro's Complaint

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Wacha had 1.1 fWAR in 124 IP. Seven million is about the cost of a win on the free agent market the last few years; if anything, the price is a little low. He had higher fWAR than Richards or Perez last season, for whatever that's worth.
 

Max Power

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There are certainly some pros and cons to this signing.

Pro:
1. He's a reminder of the 2013 World Series
2. Fozzy Bear will be well represented in game threads
3. He doesn't have to face the Red Sox lineup anymore

Con:
1. His name could easily be confused with bullpen coach Kevin Walker depending on your accent
2. The $7 million could have been used to give every fan at every game a free hot dog instead
3. He might just stink

Given that, I'm okay with rolling the dice on him and seeing if his improvement at the end of the year was real.
 

Diamond Don Aase

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Wacha had 1.1 fWAR in 124 IP. Seven million is about the cost of a win on the free agent market the last few years; if anything, the price is a little low. He had higher fWAR than Richards or Perez last season, for whatever that's worth.
1.1 fWAR is the realm of struggling starting pitchers whose rotation spots are regularly at risk and anonymous middle relievers whose anonymity is not.

162 pitchers had at least 1.1 fWAR in 2021, including Brad Keller, Casey Sadler, and Matt Wisler. In the past 14 months, Sadler has been waived and Wisler has been first non-tendered and then designated for assignment.

In 2022, those three pitchers will be paid less than $7 million combined.
 

Pedro's Complaint

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162 pitchers had at least 1.1 fWAR in 2021, including Brad Keller, Casey Sadler, and Matt Wisler. In the past 14 months, Sadler has been waived and Wisler has been first non-tendered and then designated for assignment.

In 2022, those three pitchers will be paid less than $7 million combined.
Why isolate 3 out of 162 pitchers?

I'm not saying Wacha is great; I'm not saying he's good. But the contract doesn't seem irrational to me. It's between what Perez (114 IP) and Richards (136 IP) got last year, and someone has to make up those innings. I'd like a front-line starter. Signing Wacha doesn't preclude getting that starter. Even if we don't, Wacha doesn't seem like bad backup for a Sale/Eo/Pivetta/Whitlock/Houck rotation.
 

Diamond Don Aase

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Why isolate 3 out of 162 pitchers?
Because most of the 162 provided more value last season than Wacha and many of the 162 provided significantly more value?

We could instead isolate Rich Hill, Aaron Loup, and Taylor Rogers but each of them provided 50% more value than Wacha despite Hill being traded mid-season for salary relief and Rogers missing more than the last two months of the season. We could also instead isolate Dietrich Enns, Martin Perez, and Noe Ramirez, none of whom were among the 162 but all of whom approximated Wacha’s 2021 value as well as Wacha approximated that provided by Hill, Loup, and Rogers.

If you would prefer to frame Wacha’s signing as paying for the floor of a middle reliever that passed through waivers unclaimed on the way to Japan and the ceiling of a 42-year-old swingman, that would seem reasonable.
 

Pedro's Complaint

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Maybe I'm missing something, @Diamond Don Aase. It looks like you're cherry picking players from a large set to prove a point, but what that point is, I don't know. If you think the free agent cost of one fWAR win is less than 7M, or if you think Wacha is a bad choice for 1/7M, I'd be interested to hear why. I don't want to hijack the thread, so I'll refrain from adding anything else.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Hopefully, there’s some strategic reason they targeted this guy and it’s not just the first guy willing to sign a one-year deal. It’s hard to figure out what they are doing this off-season….is it another year of dumpster diving and looking for deals or are they actually going to loosen the purse strings a bit?
Dumpster diving is probably the optimal way to do things.
 

Cesar Crespo

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Maybe I'm missing something, @Diamond Don Aase. It looks like you're cherry picking players from a large set to prove a point, but what that point is, I don't know. If you think the free agent cost of one fWAR win is less than 7M, or if you think Wacha is a bad choice for 1/7M, I'd be interested to hear why. I don't want to hijack the thread, so I'll refrain from adding anything else.
I can't speak for them, but just because the going rate is 1 for 7 doesn't mean it's a good deal or even an average one. It could just mean a lot of FA signings fail. Will you think the Wacha signing was good if he repeats his 2021 season and puts up 1 fWAR?

I hate the whole 1 WAR goes for $X argument because no one is actively trying to sign 1 WAR players for 7 million. Teams use farmhands for those roles.

I have no real opinion about this signing one way or another, just the 1 WAR=$x argument. So what? You don't pay players $7 mil for the expectation of 1 WAR.

edit: Player A puts up 3 WAR at $7 mil. Good deal. Player B and C put up 0 WAR each at $7 mil each. Bad. Player D puts up 1 WAR at $7 mil. Average! I don't buy that logic. Player D was bad too.
 

scottyno

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I can't speak for them, but just because the going rate is 1 for 7 doesn't mean it's a good deal or even an average one. It could just mean a lot of FA signings fail. Will you think the Wacha signing was good if he repeats his 2021 season and puts up 1 fWAR?
His fwar is based on FIP, so yeah if he puts up a FIP of 4.47 in 125 innings then it'll have been a good signing.
 

Diamond Don Aase

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I hate the whole 1 WAR goes for $X argument because no one is actively trying to sign 1 WAR players for 7 million. Teams use farmhands for those roles.

I have no real opinion about this signing one way or another, just the 1 WAR=$x argument. So what? You don't pay players $7 mil for the expectation of 1 WAR.
Crespo’s quote explains this better than I have. I would strongly prefer that the Red Sox pay a premium for a three-win player that could provide four wins than pay market rate for a one-win player that is most likely to provide one win. Wacha had 1.1 fWAR last season, a cumulative total of 1.6 fWAR since 2017— his lone three-win season, an average of 1.3 fWAR per season over his nine-year career, and is projected by Steamer for 1.2 fWAR next season. That would seem to be a one-win player that is most likely to provide one win.
 
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Rovin Romine

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Hard to know whether he'll make more of an impact than Garret Perez or Martin Richards while logging 25 games as our #5. Odds are he won't, but there may be some upside there.

Move along.

Move along.
 

DisgruntledSoxFan77

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Hard to know whether he'll make more of an impact than Garret Perez or Martin Richards while logging 25 games as our #5. Odds are he won't, but there may be some upside there.

Move along.

Move along.
I would have rather Garrett Perez or Martin Richards than Garrett Richards and Martin Perez…
 

chrisfont9

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He had a nice tip of the cap to the Fenway crowd in 2013, an all-time memory of mine because even on TV you could tell that the fans made it very clear that St. Louis was there to lose and they had better do their job if they wanted to get home safely. He also touted his changeup as having ticked up in effectiveness last year. Along with the velo increase, I mean, there's the reason he got paid. Even if you don't take the optimistic view that his last 30 innings showed some leveling up, his season-long stats would put him pretty close to what we got this year from Pivetta (FIP, WHIP and a few other stats).
https://www.mlb.com/news/michael-wacha-red-sox-deal
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Can we at least agree to refer to him as Walker? Maybe even get an auto-"correct" for him?

He's fine, for what he is. If we sign 3 Walkers and that's it, we can bitch and moan then.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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The way things are developing…. Is anyone sure that Correa and Seager won’t end up signing 1 year deals? Teams that need SS’s for 10 years at $30M per year are quickly vanishing.
Sox? No. Yankees? Unlikely. Dodgers. They’ve moved on. Astros? They’re not spending that. Tigers? Rangers? Cubs? Mets?
No. No. No and no.
Market has changed.
 

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The way things are developing…. Is anyone sure that Correa and Seager won’t end up signing 1 year deals? Teams that need SS’s for 10 years at $30M per year are quickly vanishing.
Sox? No. Yankees? Unlikely. Dodgers. They’ve moved on. Astros? They’re not spending that. Tigers? Rangers? Cubs? Mets?
No. No. No and no.
Market has changed.
I'm not so sure that Tigers, Rangers, and Cubs are no, no, and no. Mariners and Phillies too.
 

scottyno

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Not necessarily, but they’ve got Turnerx2, Lux, and Muncy to fill out the infield pretty sufficiently.
The team with an unlimited budget in win now mode is going to pass on a big name shortstop so they can play Gavin Lux who has yet to show he can hit at all at a major league level at shortstop?
 

jon abbey

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The way things are developing…. Is anyone sure that Correa and Seager won’t end up signing 1 year deals? Teams that need SS’s for 10 years at $30M per year are quickly vanishing.
Sox? No. Yankees? Unlikely. Dodgers. They’ve moved on. Astros? They’re not spending that. Tigers? Rangers? Cubs? Mets?
No. No. No and no.
Market has changed.
Dunno if they’ll quite get $300M but I will be pretty stunned if either is under $250M and Semien, Story and Baez (probably) will all end up over $100M. 8/275 for Seager to NYY is the current rumor on Twitter.
 

jon abbey

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The team with an unlimited budget in win now mode is going to pass on a big name shortstop so they can play Gavin Lux who has yet to show he can hit at all at a major league level at shortstop?
No, Trea Turner would be their SS if Seager goes elsewhere.
 

scottyno

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No, Trea Turner would be their SS if Seager goes elsewhere.
Fine, then they're going to play the guy who hasn't shown he can hit major league pitching at 2nd instead of paying another superstar caliber hitter, that isn't much better when you're trying to win every year and can afford pretty much any payroll.

Muncy turner insert big name ss here turner just makes too much sense for them, especially when both turners may be gone in a year or two
 
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Red(s)HawksFan

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The way things are developing…. Is anyone sure that Correa and Seager won’t end up signing 1 year deals? Teams that need SS’s for 10 years at $30M per year are quickly vanishing.
Sox? No. Yankees? Unlikely. Dodgers. They’ve moved on. Astros? They’re not spending that. Tigers? Rangers? Cubs? Mets?
No. No. No and no.
Market has changed.
Not a chance they end up with one-year deals. Especially with the QO attached. They may not get 10/300 because of a changing market (though I'm not convinced it's changed that much), but someone will give them multiple years and their former teams should absolutely be on the list of possibilities. These guys aren't Stephen Drew.

We should also keep in mind that it's not even December yet. Obviously there's the looming threat of a lockout because of the expiring CBA, but even in a normal year guys like this being unsigned at Thanksgiving is not a sign of anything.
 

Trlicek's Whip

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$5 million for Wacha (if we assume that’s the number) is a low-risk, high-upside signing that will provide depth for the rotation. No idea why people are grumpy about this.
File this squarely under "GM intangibles" but Chaim must still have a fundamental understanding of how TAM tracks pitching metrics and develops their flyer reclamation projects like Wacha.

All 4-5-6 depth dart throw starters being equal, a tiebreaker might be that Wacha was in the TAM system so maybe Chaim sees more potential in that 2nd half skills consolidation with FIP and velocity uptick. And he is following TAM's model of finding cheap, fixable guys.

So he was good in 30 innings in august but only if you don’t include the playoffs, and that’s why the Sox signed him? I mean, maybe, but it also seems possible that he was the first guy willing to sign a one year deal (after they were rejected by E-Rod, Heaney, and Matz).
I mean, Kyle Schwarber falls into this "figured something out in a smaller sample size" box with WAS and that ungodly June 2021. He always has glimmers, but nothing like the leveling up he did in 2021. The only difference is that the Sox traded for him midseason. But they certainly thought what he was doing was sustainable within a relatively smaller sample size (and post-injury/rust). As I suspect they do with Wacha, for less money and less commitment.

He's not an E-Rod or a Sale replacement, obviously. Even if Wacha's "next guy up" gives us better innings than Richards and Perez, or allows Wachan ripple effects to help the rest of the staff (keeping Houck or Whitlock in the pen, or unlocking Wacha's potential as a higher-velo RP) then that's a net positive. Because we didn't fill that slot ably in 2021.
 
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Petagine in a Bottle

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I think we are reading way too much into this. Every time the Sox sign a guy like this we try to reverse engineer an explanation.

The Sox wanted a starter who would accept a one-year deal, and they reportedly made a competitive offer to Heaney, who went to LA. So they moved on and found a match with Wacha. Naturally there will be overlap in these kinds of guys with Tampa, who also sign lots of pitchers to one year deals.

Since he became GM, Bloom’s FA P signings have been Perez, Richards, Andriese, McHugh, and Wacha. All one year deals. As a fan it’s not really exciting but you can probably make a case that approaching the market this way is the best way to do it.

Like, is there that much do a difference between Steven Matz and Michael Wacha?
 
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Red(s)HawksFan

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I think we are reading way too much into this. The Sox wanted a starter who would accept a one-year deal, and they reportedly made a competitive offer to Heaney, who went to LA. So they moved on and found a match with Wacha. Naturally there will be overlap in these kinds of guys with Tampa, who also sign lots of pitchers to one year deals.

Since he became GM, Bloom’s FA P signings have been Perez, Richards, Andriese, McHugh, and Wacha. All one year deals.
And do you think that's just his standard M.O. and not a result of the combination of the payroll situation he was handed (2020) and the dearth of quality starters worthy of large multi-year deals (2021)?

His first winter (2020), the team was in no position to sign anyone to a large multi-year deal (Cole, Strasburg, Wheeler, Bumgarner, Ryu, Keuchel were the biggest signings). Last winter, the market was lacking as Bauer, Odorizzi, Walker, and Minor were the only pitchers who got multi-year deals of any kind. This year, it's too early to conclude anything since only four of about a dozen pitchers likely to get multi-year offers are off the board.

I think Wacha is a depth signing, plain and simple. He's not the biggest target nor will he be the last acquisition. Certainly nothing to read into at all beyond they need pitchers and he is one.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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I think it is the right move; there’s no use giving Steven Matz 4/48 when you get Michael Wacha at 1/7. I’m fully expecting another SP to be signed- but I think it is much more likely to be Danny Duffy, Drew Smyly, or Alex Cobb than Max Scherzer or Marcus Stroman.

(As far as what Bloom’s M.O. is, hard to say at this point. Between traded and FA signings, Hernandez is the only guy they’ve acquired who had a commitment of more than a year, but of course that could be a function of where they were as a team, etc.)
 

Whoop-La White

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Wacha has been rather candid in his interviews so far, and from those it sounds like one thing the Red Sox like about him is his coachability:

"I don't know if they got too much into what they want me to do in the future. But, you know, they did express how they liked my willingness to adapt and to change and my competitiveness to make adjustments out there in the middle of the season and not just keep rolling with things that aren’t working," Wacha said. "They thought that was a good quality.
https://www.audacy.com/weei/sports/red-sox/why-the-red-sox-are-seeing-the-best-in-michael-wacha?fbclid=IwAR1JtzdRyKAB0xr3vTYpnNhTaDv9fD6_kA521VIccHiDWT8n8fVJdNWImU4

This is likely tied to his willingness to junk the cutter, but may speak to something broader about the team's effort to look for the kinds of players willing to adapt to the system.