We’d all love the Atlanta model but that model is nearly impossible to replicate. They signed Acuna for $100K and he turned into an MVP while signing one of the most team-friendly long term deals in sports history. And then Albies did the same along with Harris.
This.
Kennedy and Werner talk like they live in Red Sox days of Christmas Past. They aren't stupid so I can only assume they think I am, which is a form of stupid as well I guess.
Didn't Werner say the exact opposite of this?
What if they believe that those players are not enough. If them plus Snell/Montgomery plus another FA or two still won't make the team competitive this year?
This is a problem created by ownership. They wanted the last guy to thread the needle. Kind of looked okay in 2021 but it was a big request and it absolutely blew up in their face. The last guy had almost impossible orders, couldn’t get it done and was canned. Deservedly so but a scapegoat at the same time.
100%
No, he's saying that there's not a hardline budget, and its up to the GM/CBO to determine how to use resources to build the team.
Not so much that payroll would be lower, more that whatever the baseline they have for spending is flexible, but only for players that are elite or bordering on it.
It's not silly at all actually. I've said this from the beginning: the Red Sox were very interested in Yamamoto as was the rest of the league because why wouldn't you be? When it got down to the money part, their version of a competitive offer did not match what YY was looking for so YY eliminated them from consideration. The teams that warranted further consideration from YY's camp(SF, LAD, NYY, NYM) got 2nd visits. It's not some "conspiracy" as much as you want to characterize people who want to be critical of what the front office/ownership has been doing.
While I agree with this totally, it's not like Breslow can "fire" the roster or the minor leagues and start from scratch.
This is not a particularly hard circle to square.
Nice work here! Not sure if you saw but I did something similar a day or two ago but just looking at how likely a top prospect (I defined as 55 FV / top 50ish) was to make the majors. But yeah similar conclusion, position player prospects tend to be safer than I had generally assumed. I’m interested to see the success rates looking back further.
Then they’ll have to acquire even more next year? This is a perpetual thought when you just never add to your team at the major league level.
You seem to be doggedly clinging to this narrative that money is the only determining factor in any of these negotiations, in all situations, for any player, and that it's the Red Sox inability to pay more than anyone else. Maybe that's your worldview — in which case, good for you — but it certainly doesn't seem like the case with Yamamoto, to give one example.
You're spot on here. They can't wait to see if the top prospects hit before starting to commit more money to the major league team. Montgomery would be a nice long-term building block for the rotation and strengthen a big area of weakness without dipping into the prospect pool.
I never said that money was the only determining factor in where a player goes. But it is one of the biggest factors and even you can't deny that. The Red Sox are no longer a team that a player is willing to take comparable or less money because of a chance to win. Therefore, you are going to have to overpay for a player to come here. In the YY situation, it is a very unique situation because the player has never lived in this country before and wanted to learn and get to know the organizations involved. That is not the norm. When a player hits free agency, money and comfortability with the organization(chances at winning, direction of the team, and a bunch of other things) are usually the two biggest factors.
It's crazy to me that they seem to be saying (and posters here are argeeing) that they can't really compete until the youngsters are ready to contribute, so there's no point in committing to players for more than a year or two in the meantime. Are Giolito and O'Neill going to be around when Mayer and Teel come up to the majors? What's the point of acquiring them if they're not?
Yes. I don't know how this is even debatable. If they're both great, the team is going to win a bunch of games. Who cares if that doesn't mean they're going to repeat that performance for the Red Sox the following year? The 2018 team won 108 games and rolled to the World Series. Basically the same roster came back the next year and won 84 games. Past results are no guarantee of future performance, especially on a baseball field.
Exactly, and if that happens they'll pay Giolito, and Breslow will get votes for executive of the year for getting him and O'Neil, and they will be set up just fine.
The alternative is to bring them in on some other pretext (e.g. trade or Giolito's pillow deal) and hope they connect with the place. Boston is an acquired taste, but for people with sophisticated palates, they will know. Then the playing field is level at worst.
In 2025, assuming no trades are made, the Sox will control:
Traded Luis Urías to the Seattle Mariners. Received Isaiah Campbell.
I’m not sure how you can type that list out and come to any conclusion other than the Red Sox are in a dire straight starting pitching wise. I mean, Brandon Walter? Stop.
But part of Bloom's approach was to not give high draft picks or big international bonuses to pitchers. He got Whitlock in a great rule 5 pick, and Winckowski in a trade, but has added little if any starting pitching to the minor league system with four drafts* and four international signing periods. The highest-ranked pitching prospect on Sox Prospects who entered the system on Bloom's watch is No. 20, is Yordany Monegro, who Sox Prospects describes as "Potential up-and-down, multi-inning relief arm. Ceiling of a back-end starter."
The other problem I see is that even if they did, young pitchers tend to have their innings capped. How many guys do we have controlled for 2025 who we can pencil in for 150+ IP, health permitting? Doesn’t seem like a lot of guys.
I don't get what you are saying here. Fitts doesn't project to be a major league starter right now. Wikelman have a small chance to become a back end starter. Winckowski isn't looking like he would break into a competitive rotation. Having piles of back of the end rotation talent and middle relievers isn't going get this team out of the pit they are in. These guys also wouldn't amount to much as trading chips.
Outside of Bello, this list comes with a ton of risk. Young pitchers inherently carry more injury risk and Crawford and Houck have never started a full season at the major league level. Wink is essentially a full time reliever at this point. Wikelman and Fitts are decent enough prospects but neither one have even made it out of AA. I’m as hopeful in that group as anyone but I don’t think hope is an acceptable plan.
There's this thing called the motte and bailey fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
Your list of pitchers outside of Bello are a bunch of back end of the rotation guys at best. In the short term, they need to sign or trade for somebody who can slot in above Bello and Giolito to have a chance to be competitive now and also use Breslow's strengths to identify, draft, and develop pitchers at a much better rate than they have been so they can have a better chance of having a homegrown ace or two.
See above.
No the hope is over the course of the 2025 season they are able to trade parts they don't see part of the team going forward for ML or ML ready starters to pop into the rotation and once you have a firm idea of what couple free agent pieces would put us over the top in being competitive.
To quote you, do you have anything that proves that?
I think part of it with Giolito is it gives Breslow and Miller a chance to prove their plan. If whey can revamp Giolito into a Cy Young candidate there is a very good chance other free agents will see this as a great system to work in. With O'Neill he is a placeholder and if things work out he can be traded at the deadline for controllable assets or extended if that's the direction they want to go.
Yes.* Myself and others have had those discussions elsewhere before on the site. We have a dedicated pitching thread you're welcome to contribute to, particularly if you want to opine on the upside/ability/reasonable projections for the pitchers we have on staff.
RR responded to a post with transactions showing they were attempting to add pitchers. It was a good response. It wasn’t a judgement or opinion that all way grand.
Nope. I said that there is a real fear of going into 2025 with 2 starters. You listed two starters and a bunch of swing men/relievers as a rebuttal and then said I was changing my argument. The Red Sox system is completely devoid of starters. They do not need to be in a position where they need to acquire 3 starters going into the 2025 season.
Apparently because people are pushing an argument, which is that they want the Sox to sign a high quality starting pitcher via free agency. Which is not a bad idea, depending on the details. . .(which could make it a very bad idea indeed.)
So nothing. You are literally pegging a guy who didn't even start in college and has no third pitch as a future middle of the rotation starter, and your proof is you discussed it somewhere else? If you don't care about projections, what are you using to evaluate prospects? Rankings are just a collection of projections. If you are using stats, we can show their MLB projections from the numbers.
Believe what you want Tom. I can't make you read the discussions people have already had about the starting pitching.
This is what RR posted. He also followed it up by saying it wasn’t great.
There's not enough angst about the pitching staff in 2024 that we now have to preemptively worry about the rotation in 2025? There are going to be dozens of transactions between now and then. Let's see where they are after the QO decisions following the World Series before even penciling in a rotation then.
My lord.
The state of SP in the farm system isn’t good but Fitts is now highly ranked in it. He “might” have figured something out and maybe Breslow can add to it.
The Red Sox are currently(according to Cots) $46.5 million below the first luxury tax threshold. In 2025, they have $124.4 million before that mark and in 2026 they have $146.9 million to play with. Signing Montgomery is in no way going to prevent them signing whoever they want to in the next 2 years.
