JWH and Bloom in Light of Mookie's Comments
- Thread starter Shaky Walton
- Start date
I think I would, mostly because my favorite era of SoSH was the "can we make Pedroia a coach and avoid the luxury tax hit" era. (Close second: The "why did Jay Payton even sign here" era.) I think rehashing that starting in 2026 would be rad.
Maybe I’m overly parsing the verbiage, but why should we necessarily infer that Mookie was referring to a 10/300m offer, as opposed to some other offer, in his quote? The articles, whether the CBS, Athletic, or ESPN articles from the time, refer to a 10/300M offer that Betts ‘reportedly’ rejected, but it’s not 100 percent clear to me from those articles that Betts was specifically asked in 2020 if he rejected a 10/300M offer.
Conversely, it is at least notable that he doesn’t say he would’ve accepted a 10/300M deal at the time. Did any reporter think to ask that? I can’t find a video of the entire presser to re-listen, but Abraham didn’t really address that nuance in his Globe article.
Conversely, it is at least notable that he doesn’t say he would’ve accepted a 10/300M deal at the time. Did any reporter think to ask that? I can’t find a video of the entire presser to re-listen, but Abraham didn’t really address that nuance in his Globe article.
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Bully for you that you don't care.
I care a lot.
Mookie is a highly unusual player. He's very likely headed to the HOF. He may have been willing to stay in Boston if he got a fair deal. That matters to me. It matters to a lot of Red Sox fans. And honestly, I think your attitude is strange. I mean I get that you don't care and that part is of course fine. Not everyone has to. But to pretend that it's unusual or hard to understand why other Red Sox fans care about losing a generational talent, I don't know, strikes me as myopic. Are you equally surprised when people vote for other candidates? To each his own but in your shoes, I would not be so surprised when others don't share your take. I think you are likely in the minority.
Oh, and the Sox are on the upswing are they? If what you mean is that they are better than last year, then you appear to be right. But they are several games above .500 and very likely headed for another season outside the playoffs. Maybe next year will be better. I hope so. But you are what your record says you are, and when Mookie Betts comes to town, is on fire at the plate, and plays for a legitimate WS contender, his claim that he would have stayed if Sox had done a fair deal, is something many Sox fans would find interesting, especially in the context of another 4th or 5th place AL East finish.
But I'm sentimental and like it when truly great Boston players stay in one uniform, like Yaz, Bergeron, Edelman and Russell and others, and unlike Orr, Brady, Fisk, Gronk and Betts, when contractual or personality issues change that result.
This is my assumption.
There is nuance in any negotiation. The fact that Mookie was “never offered” a contract for 10/300 does not mean that his agent and the Sox didn’t have conversations about the eventual parameters for a deal. And it seems pretty clear to me that the message the Sox took from those conversations was that he would not accept such an offer.
It could be that the Sox were completely mistaken about this and fucked things up. It could also be that what Mookie’s agent screwed up by taking a hard line in an early discussion, causing the Sox misread the situation and move on. Or, it could be that one (or both) parties are lying to position themselves favorably in terms of public perception.
I’ll never criticize any player for getting as much out of free agency as possible, so none of this is a shot at Mookie. I still wish he was on the Sox and will always wonder “what could have been.” I just don’t assume he’s giving us the definitive word on what happened.
You're right... it's purely contextual. The main point in favor of Betts being cagey with his words is that the interviewing sources were explicitly operating on the premise that the Red Sox did, in fact, put $300M on the table. The quote attributed to Mookie in The Athletic -- "I don't regret turning down that" -- was framed as a direct response to reporting that the latest offer was for $300M.
It's certainly possible that the questions were vaguely worded so that Betts was referring to some earlier lowball offer. Yet it's also hard to believe that Mookie was unaware that the reporters were asking about the publicly reported $300M offer.
I don’t think this is either true or fair. Everyone agrees that LA took the old deal of paying for Mookie’s productive years and then riding out the post-age 35 years of the deal where it’s going to be an albatross (and I think Boston likely would have gladly paid Mookie 12/365 if that was the toll in the pre-covid world). Boston’s deal with Devers runs through his age 36 season. Barring injury Devers should be good for the entire run of the deal. So by age there should be no wasted years on the deal.
They may be forced to move him to DH, of course, but it’s a lot easier to carry that bat only salary if the minors are churning out a steady stream of average/above average players, which in 2019 it was completely unable to do. The last fruits of the Dombrowski era are just now entering the MLB/AAA level. The first fruits of the Bloom era are now hitting the AA level. In two years we will, hopefully, give up the ghost of this conversation as we’re watching Teel and Anthony grow into good/very good players.
This may be the back-in-the-day WEEI listener mindset speaking, but when you have a young, personable guy, with an MVP already under his belt, coming up on free agency, you back up the truck. I mean, obviously you negotiate as best you can, but still.
That I would definitely do, mostly because of the log jam at DH and also because I think Betts will be better player for at least another few years.
How about protecting draft position and international pool money? Was there another plausible path to getting under the threshold and being in a position to draft Mayer?
How many of you would have extended Betts at 10/300 or 12/360 (acknowledging that perhaps it would have taken a bit more) and sacrificed all of the above, plus Mayer?
I probably would have, for all the reasons expressed eloquently in this and other threads. A supreme talent, intelligent, resilient, and adaptable. There is value in franchise icons independent of pennant probability.
I know Mookie’s comments inspired this thread, and it is fair to discuss them. But as pointed out by others, this discussion always goes off the rails here, and ripples out into other grievances, real or imagined , people have with ownership. To the point of ridiculousness at times. His trade is now somehow an indictment of the ballpark experience? As someone who has gone to several games there since the early 70’s, this is really head scratching. Do people want to back to when the park was a complete dump, and the neighborhood just as bad? Do you also miss the Times Square of , say, 1975? Are those preferable to “Disney for New Englanders”? @BaseballJones has it right. It sucks that he’s gone, but it’s also, coldly, at least understandable why he is. Lastly, I’m a little puzzled as to why he’s still trying to win the PR war. “I loved my time in Boston, but I’m a Dodger now, and glad to be one” was really all needed to say in answering the media this weekend.
They were only in a position to draft Mayer because they traded Betts, then lost Sale and Erod, and then traded a bunch of vets midseason, so no not really. And also because a 162 game normal season became a 60 game crazy season, which they had no way to predict.
I’m beyond tired of Mookie discourse.
It’s annoying that people on the board continue to bring up Mookie anytime something isn’t going well or they disagree with anything Chaim or ownership is doing.
It’s equally as annoying that Mookie has brought it up several times in the last few months. I feel like this is in large part because people are still constantly asking him why he didn’t stay in Boston.
It’s over. We had Mookie and it was awesome. He won a ring with the Sox. He has moved on to a better place and is enjoying success. I still root for Mookie, I just don’t have the pleasure of watching him play for my team anymore.
It’s annoying that people on the board continue to bring up Mookie anytime something isn’t going well or they disagree with anything Chaim or ownership is doing.
It’s equally as annoying that Mookie has brought it up several times in the last few months. I feel like this is in large part because people are still constantly asking him why he didn’t stay in Boston.
It’s over. We had Mookie and it was awesome. He won a ring with the Sox. He has moved on to a better place and is enjoying success. I still root for Mookie, I just don’t have the pleasure of watching him play for my team anymore.
It's tedious. It's not unexpected that it would flare up on his return though. I think this is the start of the end. I hope so, at least.
If this board is not a place to discuss Betts after the comments he made about not getting that $300 mm offer and his desire to stay in Boston, then the main board is really just for advanced stats and other such topics.
This discussion is NOT in reaction to something Chaim did that I don't like. It's in reaction to Betts' comments.
The thing I find tedious is the back of the hand treatment of so many topics here.
It's no wonder that so few threads get started on the main board. The "boring, I don't feel that way so it's not worth discussing" and other similar responses are enough to limit the conversation. Maybe that's what people want. Not a lot of discourse.
I was not being critical of you starting the thread, and don't disagree that the comments warrant discussion. I probably should have been more careful about the part that I find tedious. I myself posted in this thread, so that was kind of a weird drive by, by me, anyway -- so, point taken. Maybe a better way to make my point is that in one way or the other Mookie's return to Fenway was going to open the discussion back up, but now that it has been 4 years, I think and hope we're reaching some kind of closure.
The part that I find tedious is using Mookie's latest contention as a springboard to re-litigate the parts that have been discussed ad nauseum. The discussion has gone pretty far afield from the question whether the comments are believed and whether they impact anyone's thinking. It hits this point where there develops a bit of a consensus (at least among many) that it's not quite as black and white a he-said/he-said kind of thing, given the way that baseball negotiations occur, but even among those who share that view, it then becomes a Rorschack test to relitigate the same points that nobody here is going to get convinced about on either side.
True, they might have languished for years as a mediocre team because the spending penalties would have done a number on player development. Ask the Angels about what they’ve accomplished with two generational talents. Surrounded by flotsam & jetsam. If Roman Anthony turns out to be the next Mookie level talent they’re in a much better position to keep him for the entirety of his productive years because they do have an assembly line of cost controlled talent on the way. And Bloom is likely to do a better job of managing it (I know the Dombrowski defense is that most of the prospects he traded away accomplished very little, but the plethora of 5 and 6 for one deals depleted the minor league system very quickly).
1975 is before my time, but 1985? Absolutely, that area was filled with life then, dangerous as it often was.
OK. Then don’t discourse. And ignore threads about the decision to trade Betts. Problem solved.
I don’t understand why people want to police what other people want to discuss on message boards. It’s okay that you find it tiresome. It’s okay that other People don’t and want to keep taking about it.
In a split second. The chances that Mayer ever has as much WAR as Betts has had in August 2023 are astronomically low.
You know the point that never makes sense in these discussions is assuming the only thing the Sox could have done was extend him in 2019-2020. But it was already too late at that point. People saying well if they didn't extend Sale / Eovaldi -- but that's insane, the time to extend Mookie was 2015-2016. Not 2019. Like of course he's not going to come cheap after putting up one of the 10 best seasons since WW2.
No - that's not the argument. Going to baseball games in the 1990s when tickets were $10 a piece was a worse (but different) experience, sure. But you're not going to Fenway now for less than $200 unless you're not eating, not parking, and buying seats 30 rows behind the bullpen.
Awesome! This is a great deal. The other side of it is that re-re-re-re-litigation of the Mookie trade and anything it may tell us about the competence/competitiveness/cheapness of ownership and the front office will be confined to threads specifically dedicated to the topic, yes?
What is being said that hasn’t already been beaten to death over the last few years?
I’m all for conversation and I’m not trying police anyone, but the Mookie trade has been hashed over no less than 100,000 times.
100% I would.
Mookie should still be here. He’s not and it sucks.
I rarely post on the Mookie topic, and I have no interest in using it to litigate ownership, Bloom or anything else.
But he should still be here.
As a fan I wanted Mookie here for his entire career. But end of day, Mookie had all the cards and played them. He’s still a great player but he’s gone forever.
Red Sox pulled in the 3rd most revenue in baseball in 2022, behind only the Yankees and the Dodgers. They absolutely should be spending more.
It’s his first return to Fenway since the trade, he is absolutely mashing and the Dodgers are one of the best teams in baseball while the Sox are not.
It’s the most natural thing in the world to have this discussion on this of all days.
Not totally accurate that Henry has disappeared from public view and comments on the Sox. He showed up at the winter caravan and spoke…and the crowd did everything short of whistling tomatoes at his head.
my guess is..he opts out of the winter caravan this upcoming winter
my guess is..he opts out of the winter caravan this upcoming winter
The COVID excuse for Mookie's ultimate Dodgers contract is such a red herring, it's totally irrelevant. Maybe he took a little less $ before FA because of COVID, but it doesn't change the decisions the Red Sox made. And it also wasn't such a discount to alter the overall calculus.
The Red Sox FO and/or ownership made 2 big miscalculations.
1. The price for superstar players has continued to increase, to the point that 30-35M/season for 10 years is not unreasonable for top players. Far lesser players than Mookie are getting this deal, or close to it.
2. Mookie has aged (to this point) incredibly well. Still an MVP-level player 4 years later, and not on some McCutchen-esque small player decline.
Since we have the benefit of hindsight, we can appropriately roast them for their decision. It's OK to call a spade a spade, they botched it.
There is an alternate universe in which Mookie is already in decline (rather than an 8 WAR player) and they come out of this looking smart.... but unfortunately they just outsmarted themselves.
The Red Sox FO and/or ownership made 2 big miscalculations.
1. The price for superstar players has continued to increase, to the point that 30-35M/season for 10 years is not unreasonable for top players. Far lesser players than Mookie are getting this deal, or close to it.
2. Mookie has aged (to this point) incredibly well. Still an MVP-level player 4 years later, and not on some McCutchen-esque small player decline.
Since we have the benefit of hindsight, we can appropriately roast them for their decision. It's OK to call a spade a spade, they botched it.
There is an alternate universe in which Mookie is already in decline (rather than an 8 WAR player) and they come out of this looking smart.... but unfortunately they just outsmarted themselves.
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I think another point to consider is even if the Sox offered 300 million, that doesn’t mean he accepts it. 300 million becomes the starting point for his free agency, and he was very vocal that he was looking for the best offer.
I am of the belief that when the Sox made their 10/300 offer, it was done after the price was already north of $350M. So the Sox may have simply put an offer in to show they tried, or they were hoping for a massive home town discount. But of course, they were no longer the home team, having traded him away.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned here was the effect of the competitive balance tax had on the Sox decision to resign him. IIRC, the Sox were over the threshold in 2018 and 2019. If they signed Mookie in 2020, they would have incurred a 50% tax being over the threshold for a third consecutive year. So, 30 million per year would have cost them 45 million per year until they were able to get under the tax for a year. I love Mookie and wish he was never traded but that price was awful high at the time.
The CBT was absolutely a factor, and making the trade when they did allowed them to reset the tax in 2020. I think the larger factor there wasn't so much concern over the tax implications of Mookie's potential future salary as it was that the trade included Price and half of his salary coming off the 2020-2022 books.
One thing to make clear is that the tax isn't on the whole of the team's payroll, it's only on the portion that is above the threshold. So a $30M salary doesn't automatically become $45M due to the 50% tax. It's more likely only a couple million at most added to any individual salary, if you feel it necessary to view it in that light at all.
Reading this, I believe I’ve oversimplified the disappearing act. Think we are in agreement on the larger point though: when he has on occasion made an appearance, even then the outcome has been regrettable (at least from RS perspective). Bloom is not helpful here either, sadly and somewhat unexpectedly from my perspective at least .
Not for nothing, but if I wanted to encourage investment in the business I cared about and/or made a living off, $&@-ing all over the most successful ownership group in team history is an understandable, but perhaps suboptimal, choice…though perhaps triggered Devers deal so what do I know?
I picked up my 9-year-old son from his mom's house today. She lives in a two-story house in the Hollywood Hills. She divorced me and ended up with a wealthier guy. A housekeeper was looking after my son as he waited for me to arrive. I lingered in the front hall while he took a while to find his shoes and socks, which gave me some extra time to ruminate. My ex's boyfriend is quite a bit older than me, and his adult children mill around the house. The walls were adorned with items that used to be ours, but now they're theirs. I thought about what I did wrong, what she did wrong, and how, at least for now, she's doing much better than I am. She 'won' the divorce, at least so far.
However, even in the short term, I haven't had to deal with her resentment breathing down my neck, which means I have a bit more energy than I used to. I've met people I wouldn't have otherwise met. Objectively, she's doing much better, even though I am the preferred parent. There's an adage that I try to remind myself of: 'The cards are always reshuffling.' I'm on strike and not making money right now, but her older boyfriend will age much sooner than I will. I could potentially have more kids if I want to. I'm in my mid-40s, and there's a vast number of women still available—I just need one. I have freedom and flexibility. The future remains an exciting mystery.
I don't know what any of that has to do with anything.
However, even in the short term, I haven't had to deal with her resentment breathing down my neck, which means I have a bit more energy than I used to. I've met people I wouldn't have otherwise met. Objectively, she's doing much better, even though I am the preferred parent. There's an adage that I try to remind myself of: 'The cards are always reshuffling.' I'm on strike and not making money right now, but her older boyfriend will age much sooner than I will. I could potentially have more kids if I want to. I'm in my mid-40s, and there's a vast number of women still available—I just need one. I have freedom and flexibility. The future remains an exciting mystery.
I don't know what any of that has to do with anything.
They made him an offer after they had already traded him away? If at any time they offered him 10-300 there was no price to compare it to, because he was still under team control and other teams couldn't make offers. They could compare him to similar recent contracts, but not on a 1:1 ratio because they were buying out team control.