Use the shift key. This is the second time I've had to tell you this. We are not a chatroom.
I’m not familiar with this lingo. Turnaround specialists are definitely a thing, but what you call a “peacetime CEO,” I would call a “bad CEO.” Every business, no matter how strong its position, needs to anticipate emerging challenges and develop strategies to address them. The necessity of this trade is a black mark on DD’s tenure relative to his predecessor.
Right? So it’s ok for the Twins to sneak one over and Boston just needs to take it? I’d like someone to respond to these takes with something along the lines of “so are you saying you are for removing reviewing medicals and all teams need to take eachother at their word?”
People that think they traded Betts to get under the CBT are delusion. They traded him because they knew he was leaving. Price and the CBT are taking advantage of the situation.
That narrative seems to driven mostly by national people that have relationships with the players’ agent, and local radio hosts on the the station that competes with the teams’ rights holder.
So if our payroll was $185 you think we’d still have made this trade? Who’s delusional now?
Yes, clearly they would have. They didn't think Betts was re-signing, they wanted to get something for him.
No. Because if their payroll was $185 they would have $22 million to spend on pitching to take one last run with Betts in his walk year. They didn’t have that option.
I know, right? If you're not going to make a push to win 115 regular season games, why even own a team?
I wanted to shoot this down but he's a 4 time all star so far. If he's an all star 4 more times that would be 8 total. I don't think the measure of being an all star X times is meaningful as a measure of how good he really was. But If you look at who gets in, being a 6 time all star is pretty much a minimum for correlating with usually making it. He would make his case much stronger if he had either postseason heroics or a big counting stat (3,000 hits, 500 HR's) too.
Let me turn it around...if Betts was in year 1 of a 3 year, 54 million dollar extension, would they have traded him or found some other way to get under the threshold?
One of the reasons not to risk signing Betts to a maga deal is precisely because of the CBT’s penalties that make dead money a much bigger problem than it used to be.
It's been mentioned a little but I think the experience with Drew Pomeranz especialy sensitized the Red Sox to this issue. Yes, Bloom was in TB at the time but most of the rest of baseball ops is the same and our ownership is the same. Preller lied about Pomeranz's condition and the Sox complained but ultimately went along with it. If there was *any* team in MLB who you should not have expected to get away with overselling the state of a player's medical reports to, it was the Red Sox. After giving in the last time, on Pomeranz, there was likely no way they were willing to do so again.
Jeezus. In a lengthy list of questionable if not dumb assertions, this might be the dumbest. Of the 18 seasons Henry has owned the team, they’ve won 90 or more games 12 times. They’ve made the playoffs 10 times. Won the division - the one the Yankees play in - 5 times. By championships won during their time as owners, they’ve been the best team. By almost any measure they’ve been one of the top 3-4. In no reasonable way can a rational person say this ownership group has been as bad as they’ve been good.
I too have been devoted since '75. I am incredibly sad about losing Mookie but I refuse to second guess an ownership group that has made my impossible dream come true not once, but 4 times. We have been incredibly blessed.
Oh, I get it and I'm grateful. But they've also made some incredibly horrid decisions as well. Their success does not absolve them of that.
I actually think they did it because they had no interest in Betts at his asking price. If the payroll were $185 million, they wouldn’t have had to staple Price to him and got a much better return, though.
I don't think the media is shitting on anyone. Mookie Betts, the AL MVP, is gone from that team. So is David Price, who was very good as the No. 2 starter. So is Rick Porcello, who led the team in innings pitched. And Chris Sale, who is great when healthy, is a giant health concern.
I’m not saying this team isn’t worse than 2018. What I’m saying is that many of the things written assume that we are going to be awful and the only thing stopping the Sox from a last place finish in the East is that the Orioles aren’t trying.
Why would it be highly unlikely the Red Sox leaked Graterol’s medicals? They are the ones in possession of them and they are the only ones benefiting from having to replace him in the deal.
It was a preposterous suggestion then and remains one now. Is there a scintilla of evidence to support this nonsense? They wanted Graterol, his medicals were concerning, they backed out. Why is this so hard for people to accept?
Wasn't it well known that Graterol had Tommy John surgery and that he also had some arm/shoulder problems after that? The Twins were planning to use him out of the pen. Why would the Red Sox need to leak anything? Maybe they just realized they made a mistake with the trade construction and that was their way out of it.
Right, because using leverage to your advantage is preposterous. Gotcha.
Perhaps in a different era, but AS voting/selection is a farce. That doesn't detract from Mookie's overall performance, but one could argue that Mookie got in last season based on previous years. That said, your still probably right, but I think the numbers are going to have to be there as well. Longevity and big numbers, especially in this era of inflated offensive stats.
I'll take 7 last place finishes if the 8th year is a Championship. I get very little pleasure with the team finishing 2nd or 3rd. Maybe a bit more losing in a WS, although that last one was pretty painful. As were the two before it.
I was starting to like this deal more. The return seemed better with Downs and Wong. I understood the need for a re-set and the consequences of being over the tax line. It sucked hard to lose Mookie but you have to take an overall, long view.
If the Sox fraudulently agreed to a trade with the intention of backing out of it to exact additional leverage, the commissioner's office would punish them severely. To the point that they would have been far worse off from a draft pick perspective than simply exceeding the 3rd CBT threshold. And, yes, a major league ready starting pitcher is more valuable than a couple of hitting prospects.
The atmosphere is charged heading into the MLB labor negotiations at the end of the 2021 season and the word 'collusion' is being freely thrown around - there is no way the Red Sox organization is going to publicly admit that cutting payroll was a reason to make this deal.
You mean the Nationals who had never been to a World Series, let alone won one in franchise history? And Anthony Rendon, the guy who engaged in multiple extension negotiations even during the 2019 season (as late as September per WaPo), and wasn't necessarily dead set on testing free agency? No, I doubt they regret it at all.
