When I read that team X is "open to trading" any given player, I take it to mean they'll listen if a team calls asking about him but they're not actively trying to move him. So I don't think there's any chance that Yoshida is sent out in a subsidized trade. The intent is for him to be in the lineup on Opening Day (LF or DH) and continue to be in that lineup ~90-95% of the time in 2024. BUT if a team calls up with a compelling offer, Breslow isn't going to hang up immediately.
It's disappointing because I think his OBP skills are really valuable but I'm not surprised if Breslow doesn't think as highly of him as Bloom did. Heck, everyone in baseball thought that contract was nuts.
They both had great years, but I'd lean toward Montgomery being more likely to repeat his, as well as throwing significantly more innings. They both came back from a lost 2020 to throw 157 innings in 2021, but since then Montgomery's made 50% more starts.
It was really weird how his discipline basically disappeared in the second half. It had to just be mental fatigue. A guy who walked 7 or more times per month the first three months walked 7 times in TOTAL the last three months. That boggles my mind. A walk rate under 6% by the end of the year, and he still posted a OBP of .340.
E-Rod missed most of that time with family issues rather than injury, so his recent health history is better than it seems. Montgomery is obviously a better bet to make all his starts, but is that worth paying him $160 million versus $80? It seems like he thought he was going to ride a playoff hot streak into a 7+ year deal at huge money, but teams aren't buying that he's a top of the rotation guy.
This is not the place for this. Take it to PMs. If BBM doesn't reply, move on.
Both he and Snell have deep flaws that is keeping teams away from ace level deals.
"Worth" is hard to pin down. Are the six extra 6-inning starts he made last year "worth" an extra $10m per year? Probably not by $/WAR value, no. But that assumes an infinite supply of guys that can do what he's been reliably doing for the last 3 years, when in practice it's more like 20, and probably only ~10 of those are putting up the consistency of results he has.
Hope it's true! Does seem like no one wants to lock in 9 figures for either of them. I for one kind of hate watching Snell pitch. Loves to throw 100 pitches in 5 innings. But I'd rather have him than not since the owners have enough money and it wouldn't be hard to sign him and stay under the tax.
Here's a scenario: what if everyone here is at once right and wrong and the team is both reducing payroll from last year and trying to sign Montgomery? One way to square that circle would be to get cheaper in the bullpen by dealing one or both of Jansen and Martin.
Ryne Stanek used to start and wasn’t bad. Any chance they could be thinking to use him in the rotation?
Stanek was an opener, hence the GS stat. His limit was 2.0ip. Since leaving the Rays and "converting" to a normal, non-opening reliever, he's almost exclusively 1ip/appearance.
Hey, Mister, we tolerate no common sense around this place. What’re’ya, a noob or something?
I think so, yes.
I like the idea of trading Jansen and Martin if it means signing Montgomery but I don't think you're getting anything for them without paying for some of their salary (especially Jansen's).
IMO, Montgomery won't get twice what Rodriguez got. One thing we have to remember is that while it is fun to compare players, in this case E-Rod signed early to play where he felt comfortable playing. No way to tell how much or if he would have gotten more had he waited, but I think it's something to consider in this particular off season.
What does “industry officials” even mean here?” I guess I read it as “Boras.”
At this point it seems fair to question if Boras seriously misread the market this year, considering how many of his big name guys remaining unsigned, and looking at that obviously unrealistic ask by Snell.
I think it’s possible he may have overplayed his hand. Much like the Sox offseason, it’s clearly still in the balance.
It's possible, if not likely, that the trade market for pitching is "frozen" because Montgomery and Snell are still unsigned. If there are four teams that might want to trade for Cease (for example), and three of them are also in on Montgomery and/or Snell, it would be more beneficial for the White Sox to wait until those guys sign and then pit the remaining teams against one another.
This is an interesting thought and seems like a common Boras pivot when he doesn’t find the right long-term deal. But I wonder how useful it would be with someone like Montgomery, a 31-year-old with no QO attached coming off a career year.
I’m not a big Bob guy but he also had a note about Cease in the piece that ran late last night:
Do you mean, like, they have a handshake agreement with some team and Boras is just waiting to see how much more he can get from them? This just doesn't make sense to me. Why would any team just wait around thinking, but not knowing, they could be putting $20M+ over multiple years on their books, but it isn't a done deal yet? I am sure there are offers from multiple teams, but I highly doubt that either of them have an offer that Boras has said, "Yeah, we will sign that, but give me time". Maybe I am reading your post wrong, but I just don't think any team would let Boras hold them hostage like that, and if they are, then whoever is in charge should probably be fired.
Not a handshake agreement and maybe not even a standing offer. It’s more like an understanding of where teams are and a confidence he can get an offer that is both sufficient (i.e. within the general ballpark of years/dollars that people are anticipating) and in a location the player would like to play.
We can certainly ask, but we might not get a good indication until/unless Montgomery signs first and we see what sort of deal he took as I think he likely sets the market for Snell if that happens. The idea that from what we're reading and hearing that there are just a couple of suitors ATM for either certainly seems to suggest the asking prices are too high, but all Boras needs is two teams with one that is willing to cave in.
Doesn't it just mean the obvious, they think he has much more upside? Miller wasn't that big a deal coming up, or so my Mariner friends have said, and Woo is pretty unproven. If you can't extend Cease you can still move him for a good package in 2025. It's not a huge risk.
Plus, the teams that have lost their minds in recent years are the Padres, Rangers, Phillies and Mets (and Dodgers and Yankees, in a sense). The Padres, Rangers and Mets seem to have changed course a bit, and the Dodgers really appear to have a full roster.
All true, and maybe this time Boras has walked into a perfect crapstorm of bad market conditions.
I don't know the answer to this offhand, but what was the most recent big money deal the Red Sox made with a Boras free agent client? I don't think he considers them any more than a stalking horse at this point, and not a good one at that -- since most MLB teams have taken notice of the Red Sox recent spending tendencies as well
If so, that would be 2018 and would dispel the idea that the Red Sox not being involved somehow hurts Boras's bargaining power.
