For the next time someone cries poverty on behalf of our billionaires
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1. It’s a fact. Your choice is to accept it or continue to not accept a fact.
2. Every team has a garbage innings eater in blowouts. They actually need a guy like that. Accept it. You don’t want to use good relievers in spots like that. You don’t even want to break in a potentially good mL pitcher in that spot.
You never get more angry front office defenders than when you question the billionaires. How dare we look at payroll vs. revenue!
Who the F is defending billionaires???? Holy crap… “strawman” is too fire retardant for you
You're the one calling it unacceptable, so why don't you point us in the direction of an acceptable MLB pitching staff with no mediocre arms so we can have a clear model to emulate?
So the Sox use Bernardino in a blowout? Suddenly he’s unavailable the next day if it’s close.
If it’s back to back blowouts (rare)- you can toss your innings water out there again. It’s actually kinda important to have a guy like him
No, he’s st
He’ll get back to you as soon as he completes the trades for Gerritt Cole and Juan Soto. He finally found a buyer for Bobby Dalbec
This is going to blow y’all’s minds.
There was a practice in the first half of the twentieth century that a player could call for a “courtesy runner.” Not a pinch runner, but a replacement player who would just come in and run the bases after a hit or walk. The original player could then take his place on the field for defensive purposes.
Really.
Anyway, this was rare enough that it happened a handful of times per year. But our man Durst got into the record book thanks to this quirky practice. Retrosheet tells the story:
Durst got thrown out at home and the Browns lost to the A’s.
There was a practice in the first half of the twentieth century that a player could call for a “courtesy runner.” Not a pinch runner, but a replacement player who would just come in and run the bases after a hit or walk. The original player could then take his place on the field for defensive purposes.
Really.
Anyway, this was rare enough that it happened a handful of times per year. But our man Durst got into the record book thanks to this quirky practice. Retrosheet tells the story:
Durst got thrown out at home and the Browns lost to the A’s.
You're describing a guy that's stretched out. Why do we have to have a bad one? Who are these perfectly cromulent pitchers on the NYY? PHI? LAD? And before you say Ryan Yarbrough he has an ERA under 4 and I watched him carve up the Sox a few days ago.
Anyway, the larger point is if we're going to seriously make a run, the bullpen needs an upgrade. I hope they're willing to spend some of that revenue to do it.
NYY: Dennis Santana (they also have options if you prefer bad FIP to bad ERA)
PHI: Jose Ruiz
LAD: Yohan Ramirez and, yes, Yarbrough. You do realize carving up this year's Red Sox does not mean a LHP is good?
Your larger point is exactly correct, the bullpen does need an upgrade. And Anderson's slot isn't the one that needs upgrading. The bullpen problem lies in Horn taking up space while barely pitching at all, and Weissert/Bernie sucking since May.
PHI: Jose Ruiz
LAD: Yohan Ramirez and, yes, Yarbrough. You do realize carving up this year's Red Sox does not mean a LHP is good?
Your larger point is exactly correct, the bullpen does need an upgrade. And Anderson's slot isn't the one that needs upgrading. The bullpen problem lies in Horn taking up space while barely pitching at all, and Weissert/Bernie sucking since May.
I used to work for the Red Sox in '88 and '89. Security. Came with the fantastic fringe benefit of seeing games and occasionally getting to stand guard at the locker rooms and meet baseball players and announcers (and how I learned that Bob Uecker was as nice as his public persona). I got paid jack shit, but add in the free games and it was oh so worth it. (Oh, and yes, working security is why I despised Boggs and Clemens, they were just shitty human beings. But our patron saint, on the other hand, was a wonderful human being, he always tipped me for helping him cart everyone else's baggage on the return from a road trip.)
Dennis Santana is on the Pirates. The Yankees gave him a shot and he failed. Jose Ruiz has pitched all of 29 innings. Yohan Ramirez has positive fWAR. Also all of these guys are under 30. I can't speak for each team's plans but I imagine there's upside they're chasing. Anderson is 36 and hasn't been a productive major leaguer since 2019.
And yes, ideally Bernie becomes the long guy since he clearly has lost something and Anderson is replaced on the roster via trade.
I'm embarrassed to be posting in this thread, not sure why it wasn't locked days ago, but NY released Santana in early June.
But your overarching point of course is correct, NY has half a bullpen filled with retreads.
Genuine question since I've never seen a thread get locked: why would it get locked? There's no false information here and my post was not a troll. I've since been told people discussed these numbers (on the 41st page) on another thread but as I've said while they might be estimates they're in the ballpark. Bad title?
Threads get locked for many different reasons. If you haven't noticed, that's just because we're that good.
I have mostly stopped modding on the main board but since you asked, the title is bad but also I am personally so sick of simplistic statements about spending on players equalling commitment to winning from ownership. It's not a healthy place to start a discussion, it's a fairly complex topic.
For instance, one part of this that people never think of is that anyone you add without options hurts your roster flexibility, so if someone is both healthy and starts sucking, you are kind of screwed (hello DJ LeMahieu).
There was a chart I saw in the last week (on Twitter?) that listed every player in MLB who made over a certain amount ($15M? $20M?) and what their WAR was currently, pretty illiuminating but unfortunately I didn't save it and I can't find it again now.
If you didnt notice that 2 (and then 3) of their 3 best relievers were out over the last 6 games, then maybe now you notice and you can add that to your analysis.
I have beeched a lot about the team's recent fiscal restraint, but with the extensions for Bello and Rafaela and now Cora, and knowing they also made an extension offer to Casas, it's probably time to stop complaining. There are a lot of indicators that the team is in fact quite willing to spend, and they're trying to balance that with being smart.
Thanks. And I don't disagree. It was meant more for going forward I think we should expect ownership not to pinch pennies. We'll see what happens.Threads get locked for many different reasons. If you haven't noticed, that's just because we're that good.
I have mostly stopped modding on the main board but since you asked, the title is bad but also I am personally so sick of simplistic statements about spending on players equalling commitment to winning from ownership. It's not a healthy place to start a discussion, it's a fairly complex topic.
For instance, one part of this that people never think of is that anyone you add without options hurts your roster flexibility, so if someone is both healthy and starts sucking, you are kind of screwed (hello DJ LeMahieu).
There was a chart I saw in the last week (on Twitter?) that listed every player in MLB who made over a certain amount ($15M? $20M?) and what their WAR was currently, pretty illiuminating but unfortunately I didn't save it and I can't find it again now.
At
I will (take the wild swings that include world championships). The Sox had plenty of teams with winning percentages in the 70s, 80's, 90's, etc., but all you had in September was watching whether Boggs, Nomar, Carney, Mueller would win the batting title.
Re payroll-winning correlation, I'm copying these numbers from the similarly beloved Let's Lay off the Throttle thread:
Payroll ranking of teams with best regular season W-L record:
2023: 10
2022: 1
2021: 9
2020: 1
2019: 8
2018: 1
2017: 1
2016: 5
2015: 12
2014: 6
Avg. 5.4
Payroll ranking of World Series champs:
2023: 4
2022: 8
2021: 10
2020: 1
2019: 7
2018: 1
2017: 17
2016: 5
2015: 13
2014: 7
Avg. 7.3
If the correlation was totally neutral, the average should be 15.5. ((1+30)/2).
Payroll ranking of teams with best regular season W-L record:
2023: 10
2022: 1
2021: 9
2020: 1
2019: 8
2018: 1
2017: 1
2016: 5
2015: 12
2014: 6
Avg. 5.4
Payroll ranking of World Series champs:
2023: 4
2022: 8
2021: 10
2020: 1
2019: 7
2018: 1
2017: 17
2016: 5
2015: 13
2014: 7
Avg. 7.3
If the correlation was totally neutral, the average should be 15.5. ((1+30)/2).
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Sample size aside this makes it pretty obvious that spending is strongly correlated with winning, albeit less so with winning championships.
Obviously spending just for the sake of spending isn't going to be effective but Red Sox fans of all people should understand how important spending can be. Red Sox don't break the curse without spending an insane amount on Manny ($291,916,376 adjusted for inflation).
These days I don't think $300 million for 8 years of the best righthanded hitter in baseball is insane. In fact it's probably not enough to sign him.
+1 to the first part of this my friend. It’s still hard to wrap my head around why people who like baseball spend their time and energy on threads like this oneThreads get locked for many different reasons. If you haven't noticed, that's just because we're that good.
I have mostly stopped modding on the main board but since you asked, the title is bad but also I am personally so sick of simplistic statements about spending on players equalling commitment to winning from ownership. It's not a healthy place to start a discussion, it's a fairly complex topic.
For instance, one part of this that people never think of is that anyone you add without options hurts your roster flexibility, so if someone is both healthy and starts sucking, you are kind of screwed (hello DJ LeMahieu).
There was a chart I saw in the last week (on Twitter?) that listed every player in MLB who made over a certain amount ($15M? $20M?) and what their WAR was currently, pretty illiuminating but unfortunately I didn't save it and I can't find it again now.
just making sure everone's keeping track of who posts what..lol..11pm post, bad idea. back to baseball. great win last night.
Yeah, you gotta love that Manny represents the paragon of big fat contracts that were worth every penny and then some!
I find it harder to wrap my head around the people that think we should be the Rays. We don't have to be. I'm not saying we need to be a top-5 spending team by tomorrow but we should expect to be going forward based on our revenue. It's not like the Rangers were the smartest-spending team and look where it got them in 2023.
Who the fuck thinks the Sox should be the Rays? Good at assessing and acquiring talent like the Rays have been? Yes, absolutely (that's why they hired Bloom). Spend-thrifty and low budget like the Rays? Absolutely not.
Any more strawmen?
Fair point, Soto is going to get much more. Then again revenue has also increased significantly.
You answered your own question. I thought Bloom was fine fwiw but am happy with the start of the Breslow era.
Lotta people saw this thread and immediately did exactly the thing I accused them of--defending our low payroll. When the point was to A) put numbers out there I hadn't seen before (that might be ballpark estimates but pass the smell check in terms of highest and lowest revenue teams) and B) say that going forward ("For the next time") I expect this team to spend and I don't want to hear excuses about how spending isn't correlated with winning (sure thing).
It goes without saying we should spend smart lol.
This is bullshit. Questioning your declaration of having expectations to have a top five payroll is not necessarily a defense of any sort. Perhaps the part that "goes without saying" should have been said with examples of what smart spending looks like and times when it might be best to spend smart. The team should be responsible in how they choose to allocate payroll as what is spent in any particular season may well effect not only the amounts spent in subsequent seasons but there are also draft and international bonus pool money considerations. .
If you see someone calling bullshit on something you've posted as bullying then I guess I'm guilty. Here's the thing in trying to figure out your stance on all of this. Up thread I make points about my opinions on spending as have others and you seem to agree with much of it yet for some reason in the next breath you about face and continue wanting to die on the "top five payroll" hill.
In the "near future-when the window is likely open for World Series contention" there will likely be more than just a few guys in the starting lineup who won't be making all that much money. Do we spend up just for the sake of spending up to satisfy your desire? Do we overspend on FAs to round out the team if the market doesn't present a particularly good crop of players in positions of need? This blanket statement of expectations to be in the top five payroll is being made in a vacuum and it just doesn't work that way.
The title was definitely a clickbait strawman hot take that sounds regurgitated from a bad sports radio personality.
They were a poorly sourced and not well defined set of numbers. Which was pointed out rather quickly.
The insistence that money must be spent to the max possible every year or the owners are not trying to win is also intellectually lazy and ignores the implications in future team spending and talent acquisition that would have under current league rules.
Sorry I’ll make a better title next time. The straw man arguments against my supposed straw man argument have really kept it afloat though
As I’ve addressed several times do you disagree with the top-5 and bottom-5 teams by revenue? If not, the overarching point holds.
I’ve yet to argue we should spend for the sake of spending but please keep putting words in my mouth.
Yes. We disagree with the numbers. Forbes is not a reliable reporter of anything, and the one number of theirs that we DO know the real numbers of are off by a significant enough factor that makes the whole report basically useless.
I did answer your question and your response is exactly what I was talking about. It's not as black and white as you are projecting it to be.
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