Emotional Rescue: or How I Learned to Love the Sox After They Traded Mookie
- Thread starter absintheofmalaise
- Start date
I’m with Marbleheader. None of the prospect packages discussed blow me away. I’d rather the Sox take their chances in 2020 and collect their draft pick if Mookie walks, or trade him in July, than to punt on the 2020 season when they have a very realistic shot of being competitive.
I think you start by exploring deals for Jackie, Price and Eovaldi. Those guys are all negative value on their current contracts, so you'd have to subsidize them, but it's worth exploring. It might cost you a Eduardo Rodriguez to do it, but I still think it's better than trading Betts. The other option is trading Martinez. As good as he is, an expensive DH is probably a luxury you can't afford if you're going to commit $400M+ to your right fielder.
There are? It looks to me there are three possibilities. Price, Sale, or Eovaldi plus JBJ.
They have no manager and would be without a starting pitcher in any of these scenarios and are not going to be a contender. Might as well get something back. And in all of them they still might not get under depending on mid season issues.
Using Mookie to deal Price really looks to be the way.
I don't disagree that there are other ways for the Red Sox to get below the tax threshold than trading Mookie, but who else can they trade/dump that wouldn't require eating a significant portion of salary? Is someone taking Price or Eovaldi or Sale without a subsidy? Paying that subsidy requires moving more than one of them to get under the limit.
As painful as it is, Mookie is the easiest way to take the biggest chunk out of the payroll while also possibly getting impactful prospects in return. Sure it still doesn't get them all the way there, but it's less complex and disruptive, especially within 10 days of camp opening, than trading multiple players.
That said, I've been in the keep him and take the compensation pick camp all along. Screw the luxury tax...reset it next year. Mainly I feel that way because I didn't think anyone would pay a worthwhile price for him. Some of the proposed packages from the Dodgers come close, and are better than I would have expected, so if they're going to do it, they might as well do it.
Basically where I'm at as well. Bloom needs to set a certain level of acceptability to pull the trigger, otherwise go to battle with Mookie still here, reevaluate everything at the trading deadline, and reset next offseason.
One counter point: It's certainly possible that Price, Sale and/or Eovaldi could show up healthy and pitch well in the first half, and reestablish neutral if not positive trade value.
This.
I managed to continue through Pedro.
Betts is nothing (as far as emotional investment) in comparison.
If those three are healthy and pitching well, this team will be in no position to justify trading them at the deadline. They'll be in the thick of the division race.
Though that could re-establish trade value if they wanted to postpone the tax reset to next winter instead of now.
If they all are healthy and pitching well, I agree. That'd be a nice position to be in. But I'm not holding my breath! If any one is doing well, and the others are struggling, we could easily be looking to cut losses by the deadline and trade the more expensive guy(s) who aren't sucking at that point.
Not to pick on you, but ... people are really Ok with basically gutting the team so we can pay $400 million to keep Mookie in Boston (assuming he even wants to stay)?
The way I look at it is, if I can get over them trading Fred Lynn to Southern Cal., then everyone else has to sack up and get over this. Fred Lynn was built for Fenway, was Rookie of the year, a Gold Glover and MVP in the same year and (if Jim Ed hadn't broke his hand ) he would have been a World Champ that same year. Hopefully they learn from history and get a better return than Joe Rudi, Frank Tanana and Jim Dorsey.
I certainly wasn't advocating for that. I'm just trying to push back on the idea that the Sox trading Mookie has zero bearing on whether or not they will re-sign him next offseason.
A lot of this angst is because the Red Sox seem to lurch between different financial strategies as they move from GM to GM. Which seems weird when the owners have been selecting all the GMs. Are they focusing on developing young players, only giving extensions when they're buying out a player's prime and the player takes some discount (Bogaerts), and taking the hits when it doesn't work out? Or are they spending on guys like Eovaldi, or going back further, Price, who are way more risky, in order to try to put them over the hump? When are they following each strategy?
$35m AAV is not going to by itself "cripple" a franchise with the resources of the Red Sox. If you're the Rays or a team where you have some kind of lower limit on payroll, it would, but they would have already traded him if he wouldn't accept a below-market deal. It gives you less wiggle room to make up for bad deals elsewhere, yes, but the phrasing is too strong. The Red Sox just a few years ago got out of $258m owed to Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez.
The problem isn't paying your superstars, it's overpaying decent starters and not developing young players to fill out the roster / provide cheap production. If you don't draft and develop young players well it doesn't really matter what you're paying your veterans because you can't win and stay anywhere near the luxury tax limit if you're paying everyone (or even just a handful of big FAs) market value.
What paying Mookie does is lock in someone to play a good RF (important in Fenway) for at least the next 4-5 years and give you 150 games of good production at the top of the order. You might be able to put that money to better use if you can use it to sign a good player under-market, but it's not easy to get that value on the FA market. And some of this team's recent signings and extensions, brought to you by the same team with such great resources, were far less efficient than even a monster contract to Mookie would be.
If the Sox use the Mookie money to say, buy out Devers and sign EdRod to a reasonable extension, that seems good. But if they get under the luxury tax this year and then turn around and give out Eovaldi-like deals, we might miss him.
Corinthians 13:11 Remix
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things and I traded the SOB to the only team stupid enough to give a player half a billion dollars.
When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things and I traded the SOB to the only team stupid enough to give a player half a billion dollars.
I think the answer is that (1) this shit is harder than it looks, and (2) a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of losing franchises. I.e., there's no approach that works 100% of the time. There are few, if any, roster-building gambits of which an organization can say "we will never/always do this" and succeed, whether that's handing out big contracts, gambling on injury history or upside, letting marquee players walk*, trading prospects, etc. Good organizations have to be flexible and creative and keep making the best decision to solve that moment's problem, realizing that even in the best of cases, not all solutions will pan out and some will create new problems of their own.
In short, the Pumbaa Principle: sometimes bad things happen and there's nothing you can do about it. We've been spoiled the past 20 years, rooting for a franchise whose decisions mostly worked out, or proved relatively easy to recover from if they didn't.
*A phrase that, strictly speaking, does not apply to the Mookie situation, though it did most likely apply to Pedro, Lester, and perhaps Ellsbury.
I'm not nearly drunk enough to properly express the many conflicting emotions I have over Mookie being traded. Ultimately I think it was the shrewdest move to make from a selection of suboptimal moves, but that doesn't mean I can't mourn his departure or not regret that he'll be playing baseball in some other uniform.
But sports history has repeatedly shown that long-term mega-contracts are rarely worth the outlay, let alone one that would all but ensure perennial penalties in the form of lowered draft picks and drastically reduced pools of international signing bonus money, the very lifeblood of a successful and sustainable baseball operation (including -- gasp -- the Red Sox of the past 18 years).
Is Bill Belichick -- Jedi Grand Master and ruthless GM who would cut or trade any player a year too soon rather than a year too late -- cheap? Is Bob Kraft cheap? No?
Why is John Henry, the man who has brought 4 World Series titles to Boston in 18 years -- all while being in the top 5 in payroll dollars spent (and often 1 or 2) -- suddenly cheap? I lived through Haywood Sullivan and Buddy LeRoux, don't come at me with this.
I understand the emotional response to seeing Mookie leave, just as I understand the emotional response the Red Sox might have had if they simply said, "Mookie is a generational talent, let's back up the truck and give him whatever he wants." A large part of me would have welcomed that approach.
Mookie deserves whatever contract he signs next offseason, he's earned that right and I don't begrudge him one bit. He should be looking out for himself and doesn't owe anyone anything.
But neither do the Red Sox. Do you think the Yankees regret letting Cano walk? Same with the Cardinals and Pujols? Will the Nats regret not re-signing Harper? They just won the goddamn World Series in their first year without him, for Chrissakes.
It's all business. For the club AND the player. For all you people who are swearing off the Red Sox right now in fits of pique, you do realize that during the next offseason, Mookie will sign with whoever offers him the most money (as is his hard-earned right), don't you? Why are you so loyal to him?
If you're devastated because Mookie is gone, I feel you. You'll miss him, the summers will be a little less joyful. I get that, I'm right there with you. I have a lump in my throat as I type this.
If you're devastated because you think the Red Sox will be appreciably worse over the next 10 - 12 years without Mookie (the probable life of his next contract), and that this move indicates the Sox will suddenly be in the middle of the pack in terms of payroll spending for that duration of time, then I'd say you're wrong.
Time will tell. The sun will rise, the sun will set, and I'll have lunch. Nobody knows anything.
But sports history has repeatedly shown that long-term mega-contracts are rarely worth the outlay, let alone one that would all but ensure perennial penalties in the form of lowered draft picks and drastically reduced pools of international signing bonus money, the very lifeblood of a successful and sustainable baseball operation (including -- gasp -- the Red Sox of the past 18 years).
Is Bill Belichick -- Jedi Grand Master and ruthless GM who would cut or trade any player a year too soon rather than a year too late -- cheap? Is Bob Kraft cheap? No?
Why is John Henry, the man who has brought 4 World Series titles to Boston in 18 years -- all while being in the top 5 in payroll dollars spent (and often 1 or 2) -- suddenly cheap? I lived through Haywood Sullivan and Buddy LeRoux, don't come at me with this.
I understand the emotional response to seeing Mookie leave, just as I understand the emotional response the Red Sox might have had if they simply said, "Mookie is a generational talent, let's back up the truck and give him whatever he wants." A large part of me would have welcomed that approach.
Mookie deserves whatever contract he signs next offseason, he's earned that right and I don't begrudge him one bit. He should be looking out for himself and doesn't owe anyone anything.
But neither do the Red Sox. Do you think the Yankees regret letting Cano walk? Same with the Cardinals and Pujols? Will the Nats regret not re-signing Harper? They just won the goddamn World Series in their first year without him, for Chrissakes.
It's all business. For the club AND the player. For all you people who are swearing off the Red Sox right now in fits of pique, you do realize that during the next offseason, Mookie will sign with whoever offers him the most money (as is his hard-earned right), don't you? Why are you so loyal to him?
If you're devastated because Mookie is gone, I feel you. You'll miss him, the summers will be a little less joyful. I get that, I'm right there with you. I have a lump in my throat as I type this.
If you're devastated because you think the Red Sox will be appreciably worse over the next 10 - 12 years without Mookie (the probable life of his next contract), and that this move indicates the Sox will suddenly be in the middle of the pack in terms of payroll spending for that duration of time, then I'd say you're wrong.
Time will tell. The sun will rise, the sun will set, and I'll have lunch. Nobody knows anything.
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the question is is Mookie that generational talent that deserve the omega contract in his mid-late 30s, like a Verlander.
the analytics will always say it's very unlikely, but inevitably some player has to be the one every once in awhile, no?
the analytics will always say it's very unlikely, but inevitably some player has to be the one every once in awhile, no?
There's no loving the Sox right now. Might not be until 2021 for me.
They just paid a team we don't like to take a generational talent and a second-tier starter from us and sent us a good pitching prospect and an abuser of women back. It's a disgrace.
They just paid a team we don't like to take a generational talent and a second-tier starter from us and sent us a good pitching prospect and an abuser of women back. It's a disgrace.
Don't forget that while they were out looking for a team to take a 27-year-old MVP candidate off our hands, they thoughtfully took a moment to raise ticket prices across the park.
In the cold light of morning, I'm not angry about the Betts trade. I'm incredibly bummed out. As a fan I want to see my team have good, exciting players that win games and are fun to root for, and Mookie was a superstar that checked all of those boxes. They are a much worse team this morning without him.
What a catastrophic offseason for the Red Sox. The only good thing that happened was Jeter not getting into the Hall of Fame unanimously.
I'm out on this team.
What a catastrophic offseason for the Red Sox. The only good thing that happened was Jeter not getting into the Hall of Fame unanimously.
I'm out on this team.
I feel so similarly this morning. I am angry and sad. Angry because they traded Mookie for THIS idiot? No respect whatsoever to their female fans or to fans who give a shit about someone’s really, really questionable (at best) off field behavior. Sad because I need baseball, and the Red Sox specifically, in my life, to feel
joyous. and now I can’t. I am so disappointed in Bloom and the ownership. They’ll be hearing from me for sure, including some social media blasting.
Very well said. And I'm going to have a really good lunch and watch some highlights of Devers and Xander.
The Verdugo thread is filled with info on this guy, all of it bad. The centerpiece of the deal in getting rid of their franchise icon is a horrible human being. I would rather have received nothing in return instead of this fucking guy.
Jeez, you've had a pretty horrible last four days. :-(
They are definitely a much worse team at the moment following the trade. And a harder team to root for. I fully understand your feelings here on this. But I'm going to diverge from you on your last line. I'm not "out" on the Red Sox. So many of my favorite players for the Sox have ended up elsewhere. Same thing with the Patriots. I am super super super bummed about this trade from the standpoint that Mookie is my second favorite Red Sox player ever. But I'm not out on the Sox. I'll watch them this summer, with lower expectations, and hope that they surpass them and maybe even fight for a playoff spot. There's a lot of really fun players on the team to watch, IMO.
They got rid of the face of the team, possibly the best all-around player the franchise has ever seen, in his 20's, not far removed from a League MVP season, for a dbag with a bad back who gives all Alexs and Bradys a bad name, and a relief pitching prospect.
While at the same raising ticket prices ("premium game" low row bleachers are now $74+ fees) and signing retreads like Jose Peraza and Martin Perez, and claiming poverty while needlessly extending injury risk Chris Sale and giving a multi year contract to injury risk Nathan Eovaldi (both great pitchers while healthy and 2018 heroes, but still)
While at the same raising ticket prices ("premium game" low row bleachers are now $74+ fees) and signing retreads like Jose Peraza and Martin Perez, and claiming poverty while needlessly extending injury risk Chris Sale and giving a multi year contract to injury risk Nathan Eovaldi (both great pitchers while healthy and 2018 heroes, but still)
I personally wouldn't bet on any field player sustaining peak performance well into their 30s in the post-steroid era.
I'm sober and I wouldn't have been able to express it better.
We're at this point because this was the cost of 2018. JD Martinez's opt-in for this year was a factor. Falling in love with Eovaldi and paying him after Game Three was a factor. Chris Sale's contract extension was a factor. Biggest factor, of course, is that Mookie was going to the highest bidder... and, while it's definitively market value if someone pays it, he is looking to get overpaid, and he's good enough that he will. Looking at the high water mark that is Mike Trout, Mookie should be paid less, but he's asking for more and someone will be dumb enough to give it to him. They could have overpaid for Mookie, but it would have served as no guarantee that they would anything more the the East Coast version of the Angels.
I'm willing to give JWH and Co. a pass on this. They've earned it. This isn't the purge of Lynn, Burleson, and Fisk where there was no illusion of a plan. This was about setting the franchise up for success going forward. They've torn it down before and built a championship-caliber team. Good teams have life-cycles. The free-agency era distorts this somewhat as the higher market teams have longer windows than most. This version of the Sox is not immune to that. Time to turn the page.
Read up on Verdugo, the main player they're getting in return, in the other thread. I think you'll find you cannot root for his success.
Oh I have. As a father of a daughter who was raped in college last year (I shared this in the Kobe thread), I am extremely upset with the addition of Verdugo (I wasn't initially because I didn't know any of this, but that's changed obviously). From a baseball standpoint he is pretty decent compensation all things considered but...well...all things considered, I'm going to find it near impossible to cheer for him.
But I'm still not "out" on the Red Sox.
I am incredibly sorry and horrified about what happened to your daughter and the pain and sorrow it inflicted on all of you. We all have our moral lines in the sand, I won't judge yours.
If they came out today and announced that they're lowering single-game ticket prices for 2020 while they "reset", it would go a long way to making this feel like something other than a profit-grab for John Henry.
Very well expressed. As I said on another thread, I survived Fisk-Lynn-Burleson; I'll survive this. I always & still look forward to pitchers and catchers (a week from today!). Ownership (FOUR championships) has earned a great deal of leeway IMO, and I'm eager to see what Chaim will do over the next few years in a way I was not with DD. Well, make that the next few days - did anyone notice if they packed an inflatable manager on the equipment truck? B^)
I don't post on the main baseball threads here much anymore, but this move brought me back.
Admittedly I don't follow the Sox anywhere near as close as I used to. And, as between the hot takes I heard on 98.5 driving into work today and the smart people here saying this was the right move for the Sox, I'd be an idiot not to take a step back and acknowledge that letting Mookie go was probably the right move.
But I can't be that logical right now. What's the point of developing a player like Mookie, a super-elite player on the field and an absolute gem of a person off the field and in the community, if they are not going to try to keep him? The Red Sox are not the Rays or the Royals. They are a big market franchise with a billionaire owner who owns the cable network that broadcasts the games, and the franchise sells a shitload of really, really expensive tickets to 81 home games a year. And they draw the line on spending on Mookie? Maybe a team would have signed Mookie to a contract the Sox would have been nuts to match, who knows. But I would have rather had one more season of Mookie and then try your damdest to convince him to stay than this.
This fucking sucks.
Admittedly I don't follow the Sox anywhere near as close as I used to. And, as between the hot takes I heard on 98.5 driving into work today and the smart people here saying this was the right move for the Sox, I'd be an idiot not to take a step back and acknowledge that letting Mookie go was probably the right move.
But I can't be that logical right now. What's the point of developing a player like Mookie, a super-elite player on the field and an absolute gem of a person off the field and in the community, if they are not going to try to keep him? The Red Sox are not the Rays or the Royals. They are a big market franchise with a billionaire owner who owns the cable network that broadcasts the games, and the franchise sells a shitload of really, really expensive tickets to 81 home games a year. And they draw the line on spending on Mookie? Maybe a team would have signed Mookie to a contract the Sox would have been nuts to match, who knows. But I would have rather had one more season of Mookie and then try your damdest to convince him to stay than this.
This fucking sucks.
We traded this guy:
https://www.si.com/mlb/2018/10/27/mookie-betts-feeds-homeless-boston-red-sox
For this guy.
https://highheelsonthefield.typepad.com/all_heels_on_deck/2019/02/dodgers-after-dark-the-sexual-assaults-mlb-never-investigated-a-teams-culture-unexamined.html
Year of control blah blah blah be damned, this trade fucking sucks.
https://www.si.com/mlb/2018/10/27/mookie-betts-feeds-homeless-boston-red-sox
For this guy.
https://highheelsonthefield.typepad.com/all_heels_on_deck/2019/02/dodgers-after-dark-the-sexual-assaults-mlb-never-investigated-a-teams-culture-unexamined.html
Year of control blah blah blah be damned, this trade fucking sucks.
I watch sports to see excellence. Mookie's ABs were fun to watch. He was fun in the field, he was fun on the base paths. Is this the year, I am going to see Jarret Stidham take over for Tom Brady and some stiff in right field for the Sox? The owners of these teams are billionaires.
Well I officially feel sick.
I'm off to smash things. Like the 2020 season...wait, it appears ownership has already done that.
I'm off to smash things. Like the 2020 season...wait, it appears ownership has already done that.
I'm pretty bummed right now, but this thread is about how to move on. The reality is, a lot of this angst and sadness will lift the minute we start getting the pictures send from spring training, and reading about how Devers is in the best shape of his life. It's going to lift a little more the day of the first broadcast from ST, when I actually hear announcers and the crack of the ball off the bat. It will keep lifting as I fool myself into believing spring training stats, and wonder if Martin Perez can actually maintain a sub-4.0 ERA with his stuff and win 15 games, or Peraza can put up a .375 OBP for a full season in Fenway. Sure, I will see some highlights of Mookie in an alien uniform, and I will spiral for a bit, that's how grief works. But baseball is spring time, and spring time is renewal, rebirth, and hope. By August, the Sox might be 15 games out of first, and I will lament having to watch a team without Mookie that is going nowhere, and wonder about what could have been. Then I will go check the Minor League forums to see how BruSTAR pitched last night, swing by Fangraphs to see where Xander is in the WAR leaderboard after another 2 HR game, go to sleep, and dream a little dream...