The chips fell where many thought they would.
So, after the rollercoaster ride that was the Soto negotiations, where do you land?
So, after the rollercoaster ride that was the Soto negotiations, where do you land?
How do you feel about the Red Sox offer to Soto?
- Thread starter Sausage in Section 17
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They seem to have put in a good faith effort to get Soto, when one of the owners of the other teams promised to do whatever it took to get him. Looks like Cohen is not a liar.
Believe if Boston pivots and spends a whole bunch on pitching and other improvements, we'll have no reason to complain. If they don't complain away.
Believe if Boston pivots and spends a whole bunch on pitching and other improvements, we'll have no reason to complain. If they don't complain away.
I thought they put forth a genuine effort to get him. When the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, and Sox are all bidding on the same guy, the price goes crazy.
If someone said last year the Sox bid 700 million dollars on Juan Soto and finished third, I’d have called you insane.
If someone said last year the Sox bid 700 million dollars on Juan Soto and finished third, I’d have called you insane.
I don't get the question as phrased. I would have voted for both "the offer was about right" and "no the financial and roster risks." The question was whether the Sox should have increased their offer. I don't think they should have because the offer was about right and any increase would be risky.
If you're offering somebody a contract that would have broken records across pro sports in terms of present day value, what else can you really do? ICohen has deeper pockets and extra motivation to win the deal. Tip your hat and move on to your real needs which are pitching and RH power.
I was real hard on ownership last year for a lack of effort to improve the team. This time in this situation, they deserve no criticism. The people that are calling them cheap and such are being absolutely ridiculous.
I was real hard on ownership last year for a lack of effort to improve the team. This time in this situation, they deserve no criticism. The people that are calling them cheap and such are being absolutely ridiculous.
If people are grading the*reported* offer without knowing what they were *capable* of paying its feels like they already had the answer. A dollar amount and term of contract are just two bits of information.
If a dollar amount is all you needed to see that the Sox are trying, that right there is the answer to why they would go to "all the trouble" of getting involved. There is value is showing your fans you tried.
If a dollar amount is all you needed to see that the Sox are trying, that right there is the answer to why they would go to "all the trouble" of getting involved. There is value is showing your fans you tried.
I think if they went to 15/$700m that's a solid offer. My problem isn't with the offer but that, thus far, they only step up to the plate when it's a unicorn free agent that quickly prices them out or already has a predetermined destination.
I don't think it is any of those options. I think the team was caught flat footed because they didn't understand the market and are detached from Boras and the agents class. I think they missed out on the tempo and eventually got caught with everything happening very quickly and beyond what they were prepared for. I think they made a snap decision of trying to slow a train already moving out of the station more than holding a certain number.
Now ownership is spinning out and about to make some poor decisions because once again they don't understand the market and are detached from the agent class.
Now ownership is spinning out and about to make some poor decisions because once again they don't understand the market and are detached from the agent class.
I'm so glad I've learned to just not respond to certain posters on here any longer. Very freeing.
I went with "it feels about right" just because I think they made an absolute good faith effort to sign the player.
Had they offered him a literal 20yr, $1b contract, Cohen would have simply gone 20yrs, $1.1b. $21.3b is a much bigger number than $6b and $12B (Cohen's net worth vs Henry's vs FSRedbird).
It's why I applauded their public request to ask Boras for a meeting with a number (which I doubt they ever got). And I don't blame Soto or Boras for that, to be clear. IF the Mets, Sox and Yanks were all destinations he'd consider, Cohen was always going to offer the most.
Had they offered him a literal 20yr, $1b contract, Cohen would have simply gone 20yrs, $1.1b. $21.3b is a much bigger number than $6b and $12B (Cohen's net worth vs Henry's vs FSRedbird).
It's why I applauded their public request to ask Boras for a meeting with a number (which I doubt they ever got). And I don't blame Soto or Boras for that, to be clear. IF the Mets, Sox and Yanks were all destinations he'd consider, Cohen was always going to offer the most.
From our poll a week ago in the "how much is too much" thread, 32% said either $800m or no limit; the rest would have stopped at $700 or lower. So I guess to answer your question, after 354 votes in that poll, two thirds of us would be satisfied by their effort.
For reference, there are almost 1200 members and guests online, so 354 votes is a very representative sample.
For reference, there are almost 1200 members and guests online, so 354 votes is a very representative sample.
I'm not sure I'm following, are you saying that we need to know the balance sheet of the Red Sox before having an opinion on the team's offer for any player? Because I don't expect that anytime soon.
I assume there are exactly 0 fans that will be buying tickets this season based on the Sox being involved in the Soto bidding. This seems like a basic supply/demand scenario where the Sox don't value Soto the same as the Mets. It's fair to criticize their overall spending, individual valuations of players, inability to read the market, etc. It doesn't make sense to me to think that the team is intentionally making massive unsuccessful contract offers in hopes of appeasing fans. No is going to be happy if the team doesn't improve the talent on team this offseason.
EDIT: I think the Sox should have increased their offer, I would have gone up to$800 but it is what it is.
What do we know about how they approached Soto? Guessing, the team knew his contract would approach or exceed 600 million. What neither they nor their competition knew up front was how much the contract would exceed that number. Going in, they likely had an upper limit on what they were comfortable spending. Expend a significant effort - until reaching the upper limit. That is a reasonable approach. We have speculation that the upper limit for them was 700 million. I can't fault a team for saying they are out at their limit.
What matters most now is what they do on the pivot away. What are reasonable player resources to expend? What contracts (and contract sizes) are they willing to take on relative to individual players? What extensions will they attempt to negotiate? Are they willing to overpay monetarily and or with player assets?
(And given we are fans, how will we view overpays?)
What matters most now is what they do on the pivot away. What are reasonable player resources to expend? What contracts (and contract sizes) are they willing to take on relative to individual players? What extensions will they attempt to negotiate? Are they willing to overpay monetarily and or with player assets?
(And given we are fans, how will we view overpays?)
I know we won't get the Sox financials (unfortunately).
My point is that its silly to characterize their interest when we don't know what they were capable of paying and how they could build around Soto.
That said, people here seem pretty happy with their attempt so I would argue that even if they never thought they would win the auction, they did indeed get value out of it. People are acting as if this team is back.
This chart confirms nothing but that the bottom two athletes were/are underpaid.
Thanks, I didn't think they would.
Boras (and FSRedbird) knew that Cohen would just keep bidding up like a 10 year old saying "infinity plus 1" over and over. So Theo wanted to know if there was a number at which Boras wouldn't go back to the Mets. Predictably, and totally understandably, there was not.
I have no qualms with people hating their off-seasons the past several years, we all know I do. I have no real qualms with people being skeptical this year. But in this one instance, I think they did absolutely everything they could to sign Soto. The also made the smart move to "walk away" once it became clear that they weren't getting that meeting. $6.3B is an unfathomable amount of money, and it's also nowhere close to $21.3B.
I voted “about right” on the assumption that published reports are substantially correct.
I don’t think a team should devote more than 20% or its payroll to a single player, and I think $250M is a reasonable near-term expectation for total payroll. So $50M/year feels like about the right place to top out.
I don’t think a team should devote more than 20% or its payroll to a single player, and I think $250M is a reasonable near-term expectation for total payroll. So $50M/year feels like about the right place to top out.
I get where you are coming from, but to me, the issue of the division of profits between players and owners is a fight had in the forum of the CBA. If the players ratify that agreement, I guess we as fans should have faith that they think they're getting a fair deal in the larger, current context. So that's ONE area.
The other, known area, that you never seem to acknowledge or reckon with, is the spending cap/limitations, loss of pool money, and all the other ways that do exist to curb or penalize teams from spending too much. This is where I start to not understand the "greedy owners" argument. Some seem to believe that there will be unfettered economic growth, increase of salaries, and that the spiraling economic inequality in society at large, and in baseball will somehow settle down quietly. I dunno. If baseball is worried about competitive balance (and they absolutely should be), then teams like the Dodgers and Mets should be forced to face some tangible discomfort, in some way that effects competition, of choosing to defer contracts into the the far future, or paying middling to below average, aging superstars high premiums forever, just so you could get them to join your team once.
A fair competitive environment should limit and penalize teams that attempt to use a financial advantage other teams don't possess. All the leagues try to do this to a degree, and I think MLB has upped the ante over the years with things like reducing pool money/draft picks. They should address the deferral thing, too, IMO.
Fair enough. I am not about to get into the CBA as it is out of my depth.
Multiple teams were prepared to pay Juan Soto at least $700mm over a 10-15 year period and there were more interested teams below that. Yet we are getting lots of posts about the dollar amount like its insane or off market. And they continue to escalate.
At what point do people start to wonder how much money is there to be spent?
Back to this deal, if the Sox could effectively double their payroll (assuming this includes all penalties)and still earn a decent return, my answer to the question is different than - they really only have about 10-15% of excess payroll to allocate. The resources available are absolutely relevant here, at least to me.
Or make a terrible move that involves spending a decent amount of money. In other words, hope there's no Jose Offerman deal waiting in the wings.
I really just don't know what the Sox were trying to accomplish here. They must have known were never going to beat the two NY teams in terms of dollars, so they threw out a decent bid that was not ever going to be the most. FWIW I think the Dodgers and Jays did the same thing - they knew Soto wasn't coming to them, but engaged in negotiations on the remote chance that Soto just loved them so much that he was willing to leave money on the table (spoiler: he wasn't).
Moreover, I am not even sure why they pursued him in the first place, for a whole bunch of reasons that have been thrown out here. "Glut of OF already". "Not 5 tool". "Way too expensive". "Contract will age poorly". "Rather pivot (word of the offseason so far) towards the team's real needs". "Money could be spent better". They already opted out of paying generational talent (the Scottish Trade), so it seems bizarre that no, this time they were actually all in on a generational talent (with all the aforementioned caveats) and by golly they're going to compete with the big boys for him when those resources could be spent better elsewhere. FWIW, while the Yankees and Mets were going after Soto I would have preferred the Sox go straight to Fried and make their interest known.
So cynically, I can't help but feel like this was an attempt to drum up some interest and show that they're really trying without having to actually deliver on results. Even more cynically, I don't think that money earmarked for Soto is going to be spent elsewhere, i.e. the Sox did not walk into the offseason looking to hand out $700 million in contracts. Soto was an exception that wasn't even going to happen anyway. I can easily see them not adding much more to payroll (we got Chapman! We spent $10 million! We're trying!) , playing the young stars and hoping that they do well enough that no one cares about the payroll this season. And maybe that works! But... it might also not.
Moreover, I am not even sure why they pursued him in the first place, for a whole bunch of reasons that have been thrown out here. "Glut of OF already". "Not 5 tool". "Way too expensive". "Contract will age poorly". "Rather pivot (word of the offseason so far) towards the team's real needs". "Money could be spent better". They already opted out of paying generational talent (the Scottish Trade), so it seems bizarre that no, this time they were actually all in on a generational talent (with all the aforementioned caveats) and by golly they're going to compete with the big boys for him when those resources could be spent better elsewhere. FWIW, while the Yankees and Mets were going after Soto I would have preferred the Sox go straight to Fried and make their interest known.
So cynically, I can't help but feel like this was an attempt to drum up some interest and show that they're really trying without having to actually deliver on results. Even more cynically, I don't think that money earmarked for Soto is going to be spent elsewhere, i.e. the Sox did not walk into the offseason looking to hand out $700 million in contracts. Soto was an exception that wasn't even going to happen anyway. I can easily see them not adding much more to payroll (we got Chapman! We spent $10 million! We're trying!) , playing the young stars and hoping that they do well enough that no one cares about the payroll this season. And maybe that works! But... it might also not.
You miss all the shots you don't take?
If Soto had a genuine yearning to play in Boston because he was a Sox fan when he was a kid, Papi, Manny were his heroes, he loves the ambiance whatever - there's a reasonable chance he would have taken the Sox offer if it was close to what the NY teams were offering. There's always a chance you aren't just being used to drive the market up. If you stop taking those chances, you won't sign any elite players.
WRT the bolded the Sox were not close and I don't think they ever intended to get close. Second, the whole "he was a Sox fan" was wildly overvalued. He talks to Papi (they may even be neighbors)... at that point what does it matter whether he plays for the Sox? He's already a friend with Papi, I am sure Papi pumped up Boston but at the same time... I just don't think that means as much to professionals as it does to fans. Maybe once in a blue moon, but generally no. And almost definitely not $65 million worth.
And again, I would have preferred that they submitted their non-winning offer then gone off to do other things like prioritize Fried or work on a trade. It was never realistic they were going to get Soto, just like it was never realistic they were going to get Ohtani or YY. So again, those "shots they are taking" are really designed to juice the fanbase since they aren't very good shots.
So you don't know how you feel about their offer unless you can know (and you can't) what profit margin the Sox ownership will be taking in over the next 15 years (something they also can't know), independent of the competitive risks such a large offer implicitly contains?
Well, the Sox have no reason to not go out and get Burnes, Fried, and Bregman (and move him to 2B) given their bid on Soto. /s
What if the Sox could have comfortably topped the Mets offer without really sacrificing roster flexibility? Would that change people's response? I think it might.
Back to the question, its silly. How do we feel about something where we only have a very limited amount of information? Its a talk radio takefest.
I'm good with what they offered. At some point enough is enough and he was always going to end up with the Mets because they had no apparent ceiling.
And why is it that you think they weren't already doing other things while the Soto sweepstakes were ongoing? I keep reading these implications that the Sox doing (or rumored to be doing) one thing means they're ignoring or abandoning other avenues in the process. Fried (and Burnes and any other top pitcher not named Snell) hasn't signed somewhere else yet nor have any significant trades been made, at least of the "the Sox should have got that guy" variety. There is zero reason to believe they've been distracted by Soto in the least, let alone cost themselves opportunities as a result. Nearly the whole damn market was waiting for the Soto shoe to drop.
So...what if we knew things that we never have, and never will? What if the Tooth Fairy actually existed? This lack of knowledge has never stopped these sorts of discussions before. It's like, almost why this board exists.
Maybe it's a silly question, but it did generate a 95% response that said the Sox shouldn't have gone any higher. That tells ME something.
It tells me the board has a strong bias and relies on little actual information to formulate conclusions. Beyond that the value is debatable.
We as fans are free to manage our expectations and protect against disappointment as suits us. But if they hadn’t tried to sign him (an effort that included offering what would have been by far the largest contract in the history of the sport if accepted), people would rightly be killing them for it.
So what are they working on?
No one would have killed them for not pursuing Soto. As I mentioned in my last post, there were serious caveats to pursuing him. They did this to themselves, as I believe, to look good to the fans. And frankly it has been a massive mission accomplished.
OK. And your bias (formulated with little information) appears to be that unless the Sox ownership is willing to behave financially like Steve Cohen, and sign up to lose money just so the team can win the offseason, that they are a bunch of profiteering jerks who show no commitment to winning.
That's ...one take in the hot take-fest. Supported by, what, exactly? Your gut?
I have no bias. I am trying to stick to facts.
The team has not competed in the premium tier of the FA market until now and it just so happens to involve another party who was likely to outbid them. Maybe their interest was legit but given their approach to payroll its also fair to wonder if it was for show.
We are judging a transaction based on a single price point without understanding capacity. Would we be cool with a player that consistently produces at 60% of their ability/potential? Would we support a manager or coach who doesn't go all out to win? Yet as you note ~95% are cool with the Soto outcome without knowing what sort of powder ownership has to spend.
Maybe that's correct but we are reaching a conclusion based on the tip of an iceberg. I want to see the rest before I can make a judgement - and I know we aren't likely to get that information. But that just means that the whole exercise is subject to one's leanings.
Its kind of meaningless except to say this board appears to be against premium salaries and is happy with the Sox not getting Soto at his level.
Reports today say Fried is going to decide this week and the interested parties are the Yankees, Red Sox, and Jays. If that's the case, then they've been working on an offer to him, or else he couldn't make a decision. But no matter how much you want it, Breslow will not be reporting on all of his activities each day to the public.
I am not going to give them credit for anything concerning money until they spend some. They are in the top 5 teams in terms of Scrooge index on the bad side. Their 2023 revenues were $557 million, their 2024 payroll was $224 million. 6 teams generate revenue > $500 million. The MFY, Dodgers, Astros, and Braves were in the playoffs, the Sox and the Cubs were not. At a certain point embracing mediocrity is going to hurt the brand. If this keeps up are they going to be on Apple Friday night baseball or ESPN Sunday night baseball? Who wants to see the fighting Coras who may be 8 games below .500 next September?
Any good organization has a Plan A, B, C, D, etc. I expect that the Red Sox management has those in place and may be developing more contingency plans based on each of those.
Even the A's and Rockies have an approach towards what their doing for free agency. No team works on one thing in a vacuum.
Yeah, it's a meaningless question until we see where they spend the $50m/year they earmarked for Soto. If they let the Yankees bully them on Fried and say they're not interested in the rest of the top of the market, fuck them. If they put that money back into the roster, it would feel pretty good. Have to be willing to go above their top 'smart' valuation for SOMEONE.
Call me crazy but i just feel like this guy is going to be good but not great on the Mets. His numbers are certainly going to slide a bit without Judge.
As for the Red Sox i had no thought that he would ever become a Red Sox, so there is no shock or disappointment for me with him not signing here.
As for the Red Sox i had no thought that he would ever become a Red Sox, so there is no shock or disappointment for me with him not signing here.
Although it is weird to have to tell someone this, I don't think Breslow owes it to me or you to tell me or you or anyone what he is up to. That said, you and everyone else don't know what they are up to either. You might think he is working on Plans A-Z to improve the team. I think the Sox are probably striking out in FA and are enjoying the cover of a bunch of people believing they are hard at work to make changes.
And for the record, I strongly suspect that Fried ends up with the Yankees.
Again, you don't know their plans any better than I do. Maybe they have plans! Maybe they have contingency plans! Maybe they are secretly sitting on the Fried signing and a trade for Skenes! Or... maybe they are going to kick the tires on some reclamation projects and call it a day. Personally, I think that last item is closer to the truth since I seriously doubt they are adding substantial payroll this year and instead it is going to be letting the kids play and taking a flier on some pitchers with injury history.