The 2019 team was not trending up in talent. The pitching was a mess, very expensive and trending down. Minors were bare. Finances were stretched and penalties were looming.
Sam Kennedy thanks you for your blind obedience PP. Seriously do you work for FSG? This is pretty easy to rip apart
And a ton of homegrown players (Betts, Xander, Ben10, JBJ, Devers) were soon due big raises in the near future. Betts wanted Trout money and could potentially leave for nothing.
Betts wanted Mike Trout money is a weird strawman. Besides Betts being the best player in baseball at the time, he didn't sign for Mike Trout money. Sure you can say he wanted Mike Trout money in the sense I would want Mike Trout money but to say there was no way to reason with him is ridiculous as he took a contract that right now looks extremely team friendly from another team. He is literally going to be 18th-20th AAV next year. What you meant to say was the Red Sox were not going to pay for an MVP even if you could tell the contract would trend in pretty affordable range.
That team was going nowhere and keeping it together wasn’t going solve the problem of sinking in the standings. The rest of the AL East was set up to get better.
So they could have maybe possibly become the disaster that it is today? But without that damn likable MVP, making watching the dogshit team somewhat watchable? Hate to find any joy in watching baseball. Ruins the patience.
The Sox with Betts right now are a last place team. No depth at SP and hoping for Sale to stay healthy. Add to that no Mayer and a lesser minor league system.
Yes losing pathetically and getting your teeth kicked in year over year does help your draft position I give you that. That said, I am not sure a team with Mookie is a last place team. First off, if you aren't getting rid of Mookie for the Dodgers table scraps, you aren't bringing Bloom to the tank the team in the Process 2: Electric Bugaloo. So instead of the worst GM in baseball lets say they get a league average GM. A league average GM ias going to stay the course and not through bad money at mediocre talent over and over again for "financial flexibility".
Lets say the Red Sox grab Mookie on his old contract instead of trading him and instead of bringing in Story they keep Xander on the contract he has. That means that they don't get Yoshida, Verdugo, Story, or Wong. Also lets say Whitlock and Pivetta never get grabbed. Casas, Bello, Duran, and Houck are all on the team because they are all in the system pre Mookie trade. So they keep ERod, Xander, Betts, and Benintendi at their contracts today and fill with everyone in the system before Betts is traded.
Still the 2023 team looks like:
Benintendi LF
Duran CF
Mookie RF
Devers 3B
Bogaerts SS
FA 2B
Casas 1B
FA C
FA DH
Dalbec
Rafaela
Chang
FA
FA
ERod
Bello
Houck
Crawford
Sale
Matt Barnes
Darwin Hernandez
Chris Murphy
FA
FA
FA
FA
FA
So even with all that, you would have more than 45 million in cap space to fill out the roster and stay under the tax. 45
million*. Lets say the guys that left need additional 1 AAV to stay in Boston to be generous, that is more than 40 million. I added Barnes back because we paid him to play for the Marlins.
By the way Perales, Mata, and Winkleman are still in the system as is Noah Song. So even if Generic "keep the train running" GM doesn't touch anything, the pitching depth in about the same (though I doubt it doesn't get better). So yes the system doesn't have Mayer, Abreu, or Teel (Yorke and Anthony could easily be here or not) but otherwise it is probably not terribly different. Rafaela is still in the system.
*(There was a bit of rounding up to make the easier to digest. Competitive Cap is 26 man payroll through the year + 40 man minor players + bonus pool for 0-3 year players + Benefits which is around 16.5 million when you deep dive it is closer to 50 million)
I mean this blows your whole argument out of the water. That might need be a WS winning team depending on who you pick up but it is a shit ton better than where we are at. That was Bloom's mortal sin, overpaying mediocre talent trying to hit big. He lost almost every trade he was apart minus the Pivetta trade. He had a couple of cute pick ups like Whitlock. In the end in baseball three dimes are always less than a quarter.