Dude, they got extremely lucky. I'm sure every year they go looking for guys with this profile and it almost never works. They bought low on Eovaldi and he massively overdelivered. My opinion is, don't overthink this. Accept what we found here.
I don`t see them listed as free agents on Cot`s. Trevor Cahill or Anibal Sanchez either. Where is a better list at?
Pineda has another year left (https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/minnesota-twins/michael-pineda-7642/) and Miller is Arb eligible for next season (https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/arizona-diamondbacks/shelby-miller-11476/).
I looked under 2019 Free Agents. They are right there under Free Agent Pitchers, Thanx
I agree. Evo's so much better than everyone else on the market, that I think they should overpay him if necessary and anticipate letting Porcello walk in 2019. If that means they can't budget a high priced FA closer this off-season, so be it. I'd rather see them patch together the back of the pen than let a potential ace starter walk away. Guys with that kind of velo and that low a walk-rate are too hard to come by. Velocity is king in 2018. I wonder if they could front-load a 4 year deal, and give Evo and opt-out after 2. That could benefit both sides. Or pack it full of innings incentives to allay injury concerns
Both Pineda and Miller are likely to be moved at the deadline, so they were brought up as possible Eovaldi-redux acquisitions.
If he helped either of those teams advance to the WS or win it doing what he did for Boston, I'm pretty sure we'd be talking about him.
Cot's currently has the Sox at ~225 mil committed for next season with the Pearce signing:
Over the past 3 seasons, Kimbrel and Paxton have surprisingly similar WAR numbers - considering that Paxton has pitched 2-3 times the number of innings Kimbrel has, one could argue that Kimbrel is worth notably more than Paxton and was more valuable in the past 3 seasons.
If red flag injury concerns are the question, then Eovaldi is not the answer.
You sure are a bubble burster.
Yeah, and for as long as I’ve hung around here the consensus has been to keep building sensibly. But given how loaded they are now and how that’s all about to go away with the core hitting the market, I think they have to consider extreme GFIN mode. Eovaldi is a high risk to hurt his arm eventually but not so much in 2019. Would you accept that risk if it came with another title? Two more? It’s a very different question this winter versus what they’re usually trying to do.
Why would eovaldi risk be any less now than later? Isn't all that bad stuff always one pitch away.
Mathematical probability, the more he throws the more the odds go up. Also right now he seems solid.
Who are you quoting? I haven’t seen anyone express that.
You're right, it was a paraphrase, not a quote.
I just can't fathom the "extreme GFIN mode" mentality for fans of a team that just freaking won, for the luvva Pete.
I think GFIN comes from the fact that Sale, Bogaerts, JDM (probably), Porcello, and our 1B platoon are all free agents next year.
I guess it depends on whether you think the medium term is at all salvageable. If you think the Sox are going to suck in the early 2020s pretty much no matter what decisions DD makes this winter, then sure, GFIN. If you think there's a chance that some good fortune in prospect development + smart use of the FA market a la Ben 2013 + locking up at least one of the killer B's could translate to continued contention, then I don't think it's worth compromising that for a somewhat better shot at a twofer.
The general question regarding Eovaldi though is: is signing him going to hamper the Sox from retaining Sale, X, JDM, etc....
The assumption would be that if they sign Eovaldi, then they let Porcello move on. So no. Just overlapping one season to try and repeat.
Eovaldi has exceeded Porcello's career low in innings pitched just once in his career, and that was prior to his most recent Tommy John surgery. I'm not sold on the idea that letting Porcello walk next winter because they have Eovaldi is necessarily a maintenance of the status quo in terms of the team's chances of contention in 2020 and beyond.
Thank you. This is sort of a big deal. Betts the next year too and he's rebuffing extensions. JBJ in there as well. It's not greedy to want a title before our entire fucking roster leaves in the next two years. This is my point: it's an extreme window open situation followed by a complete organizational unknown. There is no "let's keep it going for 5-10 years" scenario that doesn't cost like $300m a year.
Good point. They definitely wouldn’t have all three back though in 2020. If they won another WS they could probably withstand the heat of letting Sale walk.
Well this is the "bird in the hand" scenario. I would guess they can splurge on a couple guys, since the upside of all these FAs is that if you don't keep them, you presumably have money to spend, but it's pretty murky. Really, when in any of our lives (I'm old) have the Sox had such a clear championship level roster? 2004? Sure, but Pedro was done after that. The '07+ window was probably as good as we've ever had at a really top team that you could see winning it all a few times. Or at least the best window since '75-80 when they probably should have taken a couple titles. The Sox quite often have a playoff-level team but, you know, so do the Rockies.
That's my guess too. If he continues struggling to stay healthy, the out-years of whatever contract he gets are not going to be pretty. Porcello seems like a guy who can take the ball every fifth day until about 2025.
I have a hard time seeing that future for Rick, at least in Fenway. He had a decent bounce back in 2018, but he lost more than 1.0 mph on his fastball last year and his home run problems didn't go away.
I don't know if you're naive, but I saw his season very differently. He was injured and babied a lot down the stretch. The Sox were able to win games without him because the rest of the team was splendid and they faced some teams who were much less so. I have easily as much faith in Eovaldi's elbow as in Sale's shoulder.
Personally I am bullish on a (slightly cheaper?!?) Porcello going forward. Rotations need stability and his contributions are pretty solid (3.1 bWAR this year) to boot. Then you look at his postseason value and he's kind of a gamer. As long as you don't regard him or pay him as an ace, guys like Porcello are really useful. They enable you to take some risks on sexier alternatives, knowing his 200 innings are pretty set.
Shields was really solid up through age 33, then the wheels came off.
Another way to look at this is that Shields’ wheels came off (at age 34) when his fastball velocity averaged what Porcello’s did last season (90.5-91 mph).
Agree with this.
This is how I see it as well. Unless they get 4 or 5 breakouts from the minors (include Johnson, Lin and Swihart types in that group) there’s just not enough cheap talent to plug into 2020 to make a run that year affordable. Go for it in 2019, then plan to retool around Benintendi and Devers for 2021 and 2022. Part of that retooling may include auctioning off Betts’ last year of arbitration, if he continues rebuffing offers, to bring back controllable top tier talent.
It's probably going to be a quiet offseason from beginning to end. The only needs are a couple bullpen arms and maybe a starter, but without much money to spend. The real action is going to be in New York, Philly, and Chicago.
I understood the "quiet" comments to be in reference to the Sox specifically, not the league at large. The Red Sox are in a position where their needs are few and specific, and they don't have the capital to make a big splash on a luxury item such as one of the top-flight pitchers rumored to be available in trade. Their off-season is very likely to be quiet.
Sorry, that was unclear of me. I meant that because of a high number of players changing teams league-wide, the Sox might be better off answering some long-term pitching questions in this market than next year's. Basically, they need to acquire/re-sign three starters in the next 365 days (or so).
