Let's talk about this ballclub.
- Thread starter nvalvo
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If the sox have a period of 3 years where they're 19th or lower in payroll every year then I agree, it might be a possibility. And before 2018 they had way more terrible long term contracts than it's even possible for the sox to have, which made up most of their payroll.
Hey, that’s “Cy Young winner” Rick Porcello to you buddy!!!
No but seriously, I feel like you made the argument for me?
1) Its a one year commitment, so I’m not sure his age is all that relevant. Lots of pitchers are still good at 30, and with Bauer you wouldn’t be paying for any of those bad mid-30s years.
2) A 110 ERA+ would be like manna from heaven for an SP on this roster. We currently have one starter with an ERA+ over 82. He also has a career SIERA of 3.96. Again... we are currently starting Zack Godley and crew.
3) Two years ago Bauer had a 196 ERA+, a 2.21 ERA, and finished 6th in AL Cy Young voting. So there’s proven upside there, yeah?
4) This year he has been dominant (in only 3 starts) with two performances of 12+ Ks already and 2 ER in 19.1 IP.
5) Since the beginning of 2018, when he made mechanical changes, dude has a 3.33 ERA in 407 IP and 11 K/9.
I just don’t see the downside here — or the realistic alternative who would cost less and be reliably better. And again, if the team sucks, dump him in July 2021 and move on.
There's no such thing as a bad 1 year contract. If it doesn't work then you just move on and it doesn't hurt you at all from competing in the stacked 2022 class. If it works then he either helps you compete in a bridge year or you trade him and you essentially just bought prospects.
And he really doesn't have to be that incredible to be worth 1-30. Even in 16 17 and 19 where he was pretty good, but not great, fangraphs still had him being worth 20-25m in value each year.
Bauer is on record saying he intends to only sign 1-year deals, which is the only reason anyone is entertaining the idea of signing him for just a year.
And they were successful - and more than that, got you to help them do it.
Protip: You don't need to repost everyone's "Tweets"
We've been on the same page about this. This is basically the window to explore trading him. The best way to recover from a PR hit is to have a baseball team able to be long term competitive. That's going to take time. This team is not a drafting and development machine like it was when Theo and Cherington (when he was in charge of the farm) were here. They would have to be like a team during Steinbreinner's final seasons trying to buy their way out to maybe have a shot at a wild card. Since the Sandoval/Ramirez season they have been awful doing this and have been extremely lucky their homegrown players have performed so well while remaining cheap.
Thank god the team is unable to sell tickets to see this abomination of a pitching staff in person. The organization would be looking at some pretty serious RICO charges for fraud.
Has anyone seen John Henry lately? He's always visible when things are going well. He ought to be the same when things are historically bad.
Eh. They're in a rebuild. It's the kiss of death for ownership to say they are rebuilding because fans in this town are incapable of waiting more than a season for a good team. It's Bloom's job to communicate what's going on with the performance of the team and what their expectations are. Not sure what he can say given all the circumstances.
I'd like to hear him explain why it was so pressing to get under the threshold, and why it "had" to be done this year and cost them their best player. What he thinks about the performance of the team this year, what the future looks like, etc. Does he expect fans to come back next year?
I honestly, don't think that's being spoiled, I think that's an extremely reasonable thing to ask. As fans we're asked to spend a great deal of time and money supporting the team. When the owner blows up the team we ought to be told why that is.
Bloom is carrying out ownership's orders, so he's not the guy I'd like to hear from.
They didn't "blow up" the team. They traded away two guys - one a superstar and the other a solid pitcher - both of whom were, or were on the cusp of, making ENORMOUS dollars. They got back a guy who looks like he's gonna be a damned fine player, and a couple of pretty interesting prospects, along with mountains of financial space with which to work.
Then Sale needed TJ, Covid took down ERod and Hernandez, two of their superstars (Devers and JDM) crapped the bed, and bullpen guys who have normally been pretty good (Barnes and Workman) have been awful. That's not "blowing it up". That's one trade followed by a crap ton of bad luck and bad performances by people who have been EXCELLENT for you in the past, all happening at the same time.
A perfect storm of suck does not equal them "blowing it up".
The Red Sox of all teams could afford to pay enormous dollars.
Trading a top 5 player in the game and a very good starting pitcher for one MLB player who's nowhere near as good as the OF you traded away, plus a prospect or two at least several years away, counts as blowing it up in my book.
Others may differ. They knew full well what they were doing. Everyone knew TJ was a strong possibility for Sale, for example.
There's zero reason to throw up one's hands at this catastrophe of a season and say "Oh no, who could have possibly seen this coming?" They are not helpless bystanders, they were active architects in the dismantling of the club, and are reaping what they sowed now.
.250 winning percentage, kids. A national embarrassment. And they might dump X now. All part of the plan!
Seriously, I still would like to hear from JWH. Because damn it would be interesting.
Trading a top 5 player in the game and a very good starting pitcher for one MLB player who's nowhere near as good as the OF you traded away, plus a prospect or two at least several years away, counts as blowing it up in my book.
Others may differ. They knew full well what they were doing. Everyone knew TJ was a strong possibility for Sale, for example.
There's zero reason to throw up one's hands at this catastrophe of a season and say "Oh no, who could have possibly seen this coming?" They are not helpless bystanders, they were active architects in the dismantling of the club, and are reaping what they sowed now.
.250 winning percentage, kids. A national embarrassment. And they might dump X now. All part of the plan!
Seriously, I still would like to hear from JWH. Because damn it would be interesting.
Mookie: .305/.359/.653/1.012
Verdugo: .282/.341/.526/.867
Betts has been much better than Verdugo, to absolutely nobody's surprise. But not enough to pull this team out of the mud hole of suck.
Price opted out, and so even if they hadn't traded him, he wouldn't be pitching for them right now anyway.
So neither Betts nor Price is the reason why Boston is so frigging bad this year.
Verdugo: .282/.341/.526/.867
Betts has been much better than Verdugo, to absolutely nobody's surprise. But not enough to pull this team out of the mud hole of suck.
Price opted out, and so even if they hadn't traded him, he wouldn't be pitching for them right now anyway.
So neither Betts nor Price is the reason why Boston is so frigging bad this year.
Let's also not forget losing their star manager to a trash can scandal, which likely played a significant role in the Mookie trade. Then Sale, then COVID, then ERod.
Imagine if we had kept Mookie and were 8-16 instead of 6-18, with no Verdugo and no Downs? Now that would suck.
If a killer deal exists for X, make it. Otherwise try and put something competitive on the field for 2021 and 2022, with a mind to blow it up before the ASB in 2022 if it isn't working.
Imagine if we had kept Mookie and were 8-16 instead of 6-18, with no Verdugo and no Downs? Now that would suck.
If a killer deal exists for X, make it. Otherwise try and put something competitive on the field for 2021 and 2022, with a mind to blow it up before the ASB in 2022 if it isn't working.
Mookie already has 2.0 WAR. Verdugo has 0.7. Not enough to explain all the difference but a lot more than mere offensive rate numbers would show. (Mookie also has more PAs and plays better defense which explains the difference between them). Agreed that's not the entire reason they suck this year but every little bit helps.
Agreed with the above point that the new manager is not helping whatsoever. His constant "baseball is hard, we need to play better" statements don't exactly inspire confidence. He seems to be in over his head. Normally I'd say they should fire him but since this season's going nowhere there's no point to that. Throw him out after the season when Cora comes back.
The reason you make that trade is to also be able to afford a really good expensive player as well or allocate it around the roster, not instantly get back similar production. There is no reason to expect the money to not be spent. They just have not been spending it wisely, and that's on DD.
I'm with you Smiling Joe on this. While no one could have predicted ERod getting Covid, Sale's TJ shouldn't have surprised anyone. And while you can make a baseball case for not resigning Rick Porcello and including David Price in the Mookie trade, the three combined leaves them three starting pitchers down. What moves did they make to fill the void? They brought in Martin Perez and Collin McHugh with his bad elbow. McHugh opting out didn't help, but we don't know if he'd even be pitching right now anyway.. Expecting to go deep into the playoffs every year is entitlement, but a non-historically bad team is a reasonable expectation.
Verdugo is at 0.7, so the difference between the two is 1.3 wins. So the Sox would be 7-17 instead of 6-18. Which I'm sure would make you feel MUCH better about the team right now.
No worries about RR. He's not going to be the manager in 2021.
The more I've thought about this over the past few weeks the more I've come to the conclusion that something like this year was the inevitable result of going all out to be a contender in 2017-18.
As a thought experiment, let's imagine a scenario where all of the high-profile decisions management made since 2018 are reversed. So, they let Eovaldi walk in free agency, they don't extend Sale and let him walk over this last offseason or resign him at a lower rate, and they either extend Mookie or at minimum don't trade him (and thus don't trade Price either). And let's even say they use the money saved from Eovaldi/Sale to bolster the pitching staff a bit - maybe they sign an Andrew Miller/Zach Britton type in the bullpen in the 2018 offseason and someone like Dallas Keuchel this offseason.
Would they have been any better in 2019? No, the team would have been essentially the same. Maybe they do a little bit better with a little bit better bullpen, but not better enough to make the postseason given that they ended up 12 games out of the second wild card slot.
Would they be better this year? Yes, there's no question they would be because they'd have Mookie, they'd have a bit better of a bullpen and a bit better starting rotation. But how much better? Let's be generous and say Mookie instead of Verdugo gives them 2 extra wins. Keuchel has .7 WAR this year and Eovaldi has .2, but let's be generous and say Keuchel or whatever other pitcher(s) they signed instead of Eovaldi add on another 2 wins. And then lets say their improved bullpen gives them another 2 wins they wouldn't have had. In that extremely generous scenario, they'd currently be sitting on 12 wins instead of 6, looking at maybe squeaking into the expanded postseason but likely quickly exiting after a series or two.
Would their farm system be better? No, their farm system would be unquestionably worse because they wouldn't have Jeter Downs, who became easily their #1 prospect immediately upon the Mookie trade being finalized.
Would their future outlook be better? Not really. After this season, they'd either have to let Mookie go anyway or sign him to a massive deal, thereby hampering their ability to sign other free agents going forward (regardless of the luxury tax no team has an unlimited payroll). They'd still have Price, but it's an open question as to whether he'll even be worth half of what he's getting paid going forward given his age (he'll be 35 next year). So their pitching staff and bullpen would be a bit better in the short term, but they'd also have less financial room to improve it further, and a worse farm system and less ability/opportunity to improve it going forward. Which means they might be in the position the Angels are in now - a thoroughly mediocre team with a handful of stars but a terrible farm system and no clear prospects for dramatic improvement going forward.
Basically, anyone who thinks their post-2018 decisions are the reason the Sox are where they are now is living in a fantasy land. The reason the Sox are where they are now is because of their pre-2018 decisions to bankrupt the farm system, but without those decisions the Sox likely wouldn't have won in 2018. There is a larger discussion to be had about whether there was a better way to approach the pre-2018 years that would have created more sustainable success (certainly simply drafting better would have helped) but that's far removed from most of the criticism I am seeing in this thread and elsewhere.
As a thought experiment, let's imagine a scenario where all of the high-profile decisions management made since 2018 are reversed. So, they let Eovaldi walk in free agency, they don't extend Sale and let him walk over this last offseason or resign him at a lower rate, and they either extend Mookie or at minimum don't trade him (and thus don't trade Price either). And let's even say they use the money saved from Eovaldi/Sale to bolster the pitching staff a bit - maybe they sign an Andrew Miller/Zach Britton type in the bullpen in the 2018 offseason and someone like Dallas Keuchel this offseason.
Would they have been any better in 2019? No, the team would have been essentially the same. Maybe they do a little bit better with a little bit better bullpen, but not better enough to make the postseason given that they ended up 12 games out of the second wild card slot.
Would they be better this year? Yes, there's no question they would be because they'd have Mookie, they'd have a bit better of a bullpen and a bit better starting rotation. But how much better? Let's be generous and say Mookie instead of Verdugo gives them 2 extra wins. Keuchel has .7 WAR this year and Eovaldi has .2, but let's be generous and say Keuchel or whatever other pitcher(s) they signed instead of Eovaldi add on another 2 wins. And then lets say their improved bullpen gives them another 2 wins they wouldn't have had. In that extremely generous scenario, they'd currently be sitting on 12 wins instead of 6, looking at maybe squeaking into the expanded postseason but likely quickly exiting after a series or two.
Would their farm system be better? No, their farm system would be unquestionably worse because they wouldn't have Jeter Downs, who became easily their #1 prospect immediately upon the Mookie trade being finalized.
Would their future outlook be better? Not really. After this season, they'd either have to let Mookie go anyway or sign him to a massive deal, thereby hampering their ability to sign other free agents going forward (regardless of the luxury tax no team has an unlimited payroll). They'd still have Price, but it's an open question as to whether he'll even be worth half of what he's getting paid going forward given his age (he'll be 35 next year). So their pitching staff and bullpen would be a bit better in the short term, but they'd also have less financial room to improve it further, and a worse farm system and less ability/opportunity to improve it going forward. Which means they might be in the position the Angels are in now - a thoroughly mediocre team with a handful of stars but a terrible farm system and no clear prospects for dramatic improvement going forward.
Basically, anyone who thinks their post-2018 decisions are the reason the Sox are where they are now is living in a fantasy land. The reason the Sox are where they are now is because of their pre-2018 decisions to bankrupt the farm system, but without those decisions the Sox likely wouldn't have won in 2018. There is a larger discussion to be had about whether there was a better way to approach the pre-2018 years that would have created more sustainable success (certainly simply drafting better would have helped) but that's far removed from most of the criticism I am seeing in this thread and elsewhere.
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Whenever anyone says about the tax, "they can afford it, they don't HAVE to get under", etc. Why is it that is rarely mentioned that tax dollars are not the only penalties here. The team was beginning to incur draft penalties (and is there not some sort of international signing penalties as well?) This isn't just about $, it's about the organization as a whole, and as almost everyone has said, every team is resetting their tax because, well it is good business and better for the organization (not just the team on the field) in the long run.
Because people are lazy and that doesn’t fit their “this ownership is cheap” narrative despite the fact this ownership group consistently outspends every one.
Every single organization is actively doing their best to stay under the tax for a multitude of reasons.
Are we really re-litigating the reset of the luxury tax? If you still think this is about ownership just being cheap you've either failed to educate yourself about the real penalties beyond just the money due for the tax or you are being willfully ignorant.
Put another way....anyone would be nervous about what the back end of the Mookie contract will look like. But how about the front end? How'd you like to pay an additional 50 cents on the dollar in tax and forego your first round pick for those first 5-6 years?
Put another way....anyone would be nervous about what the back end of the Mookie contract will look like. But how about the front end? How'd you like to pay an additional 50 cents on the dollar in tax and forego your first round pick for those first 5-6 years?
This is what the Yankees did in 2016 when they they disposed of A. Chapman among others. Fortunately their farm system, after years of failure, was beginning to deliver the Judge and co. cohort. Unfortunately, when we reset this year our farm system was barren.
Dombrowski's great sin was not "stripping the farm system" because who did he really give up other than Joan Moncada? It was bad drafting and signing under his watch. Why this happened is a discussion we should be having.
I don't think this is quite a slam dunk case. Say the Sox had traded Benintendi to Cleveland, a team desperate for outfielders and short on cash, for pre-breakout Shane Bieber after 2018, maybe even a partially subsidized Edwin Encarnacion or Jason Kipnis thrown in if you think Beni for Bieber wouldn't have worked (I think it would have). Then they passed on Eovaldi and Pearce and picked up a guy like Yastrzemski, Goodwin, Avi Garcia, Tauchman, Grossman or even Maybin to plug into left.
The Sox should always look to trade good hitting for pre-breakout pitching, imo, because the former is relatively easy for us to stumble upon. Bieber's obviously a kind of best-case scenario in that alt-historical deal (Jameson Taillon would have been a similar target at the time, and he's barely pitched since). But had DD done that or something similar, with the pitching return staying healthy, I think we'd have made a playoff run last year and a better team moving forward -- though if it might not have put us in a place to re-sign Mookie to a mega-deal.
Dude - don't count me out yet.
Dombrowski was hired in August of 2015.
2016 - pick #12 Jay Groome (LHP) has been oft injured, but could still crack the starting rotation (he's 21).
2017 - pick #24 Tanner Houck (RHP) is still in the system.
2018 - pick #26 Triston Casas (1b) is still 20, our best prospect (arguably) but is not yet ready.
2019 - our best pick was a #43 SS.
It's the 2012, 2013 and 2014 drafts that are totally underwhelming (although we got some trade value out of 2014). And that is 100% Ben Cherington.
I don't disagree - I was focused in my post on addressing the moves that have come under the most scrutiny and what might have happened if they hadn't occurred. Certainly there were other, unrelated trades or signings they could have made that could have changed the picture.
The overall mistake in the 2018 offseason, it seems to me, was being complacent with the 2018 team and just assuming the "let's run it back" strategy would work. Once they arrived at this approach there was likely no chance of trading Benintendi because he seemed to be improving year-over-year and there was a risk that their short-term offense would have suffered. A point of comparison is Theo's approach after 2004, when they let Pedro and Lowe go elsewhere. The team was mediocre in 2005 and just bad in 2006, but Theo wasn't afraid to ship out or let walk members of "the 25" in those years, which ultimately paved the way for the 2007 resurgence (much better drafting and development also was a big difference in those years, of course).
One interesting question this raises is whether a clear-eyed, unsentimental Belichick-type GM would have explored trading Mookie in the 2018 offseason. At the time that would have seemed absolutely insane, but in retrospect it's pretty clear that they already more or less knew by then that they weren't going to be willing to offer Mookie something he'd be comfortable accepting and the trade market would have been even more open because even many smaller-market teams may have been willing to give up a lot for 2 years of (relatively) cost-controlled Mookie. I'd bet they would have been able to get back a Verdugo-esque replacement for Mookie and two top prospects. They would have been absolutely raked over the coals by fans and media for doing so, but a good GM will make those types of decisions regardless of anticipated fan/media reaction.
Honestly they were so good in 2018 that I think they had no choice but to bring back Eovaldi and Pearce and see if they could do it again. When you win 108 games and steamroll the best three organizations in MLB in the postseason, I feel like there is no choice in the real world but to try to do it again. They didn't need to extend Sale obviously but they'd be in the same place if they hadn't.
I would argue that a clear-eyed GM wouldn't have extended Sale. Much higher health risk, and he had already had issues starting in August 2018. Let him play out his walk year and apply that money elsewhere.
Also this is easy to say (and not wrong in a vacuum) but almost impossible to actually do in the real world, as you are seeing play out now with CLE and Lindor.
Pearce was 1/6. That was a spare change contract that didn't affect anything else they could do.
I could see their logic behind extending Eovaldi given that it was "only" 4/68. But the Sale extension was pure madness.
Completely agree with you on this one (is that the first time ever? ha). It was a totally unforced error.
they needed an ace for the early 2020s, because nobody is coming up to fill that role anytime soon, and Sale was willing to take a market deal, even a bit below. I feel like they had to roll the dice on his health.
They knew his health was a huge question mark. They shut him down for all of Aug 2018 and then he barely pitched in Sept (4 apps, 12 IP). And then he labored pretty hard in the playoffs. There was zero reason to say "We need to extend this guy at all costs."
You roll the dice, but not at $168 million. Absolute insanity.
You roll the dice, but not at $168 million. Absolute insanity.
when you have no pitching in the pipeline and he's giving you a fair deal before FA, I think you do roll the dice.
that said, the whole saga of TJ or not when it was obvious his elbow was screwy... maybe this organization just can't evaluate injuries (and risk) well.
that said, the whole saga of TJ or not when it was obvious his elbow was screwy... maybe this organization just can't evaluate injuries (and risk) well.
You're ignoring the international free agent signings of Devers and Moncada and the Chavis draft pick in the 2012-2014 period.
You know the difference is for me I don't give a shit about watching Verdugo. I could at least watch a shitty Mookie led team. This team as it is has no reason to be on television . I'm sure I'm not alone in this opinion. I watched the 90s Sox be bad with just to see what Jon Valentin Mo Vaughn and Tim Naehring would turn into.
I have a hard time seeing anyone on this team be with the next contending Red Sox team except maybe Bogaerts.
Also yea the drafts have been bad for a long time. 2012-2014 was singled out above but realistically they've been pretty bad for almost 15 years.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/draft/?team_ID=BOS&draft_type=junreg&query_type=franch_round
What a mess.
They didn't extend him at all costs, he got a below market deal for a guy who had got cy young votes 7 years in a row
While I feel like I shouldn’t bother arguing this point, and while I’m not terribly optimistic about the team’s future, we’re talking about TJS and not like a torn labrum or something. Nothing is guaranteed obviously, but plenty of pitchers have come back from this particular procedure to be at least effective if not excellent.