I would say 2021 surrounded by three last place finishes is not yet being “consistently competitive.” We’ll see how it goes this year; I’m rooting for them.
They have had an odd last dozen years. Five playoff teams and six last place teams.
McAdam: “Full Throttle” may mean business as usual
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They have had an odd last dozen years. Five playoff teams and six last place teams.
Why do you keep pretending to confuse people discussing the nuts and bolts of assembling a team with whether they want that team to be competetive?
I say "pretending" because I don't think you're dumb enough to actually confuse those two things.
So I'm curious - why do you keep doing it?
Oh if you are going a dozen years back, I'll take the 2 trophies and live with the rest!
If you look at the consistently competitive teams, are any of them NOT the product of top farm systems? Seems like teams can put together a good year or three, but to hang in there every year is more about that overall depth. The Sox have had their moments producing players, but the vaunted 2015-17 class was only good for a bit. Mookie, Bogey and Edro remain solid, while Swihart, Bradley, Benintendi, Shaw and others were too inconsistent to sustain a long run like the Dodgers have had, or the Braves are having. Even Porcello, a total home-run transaction/extension (acquired at age 26!!), ran hot and cold for entire seasons. Anyway, I hope they don't overreact to the inconsistency and sell out the development for short-term success, because it'll just lead to more feast and famine.
I was really going back four years, and the comment about the past dozen was an aside. I like the two titles as well.
Yes a team can be pretty consistently competitive with a consistently productive farm system. Can the Red Sox do that? I don’t know.
Not arguing.
2019: 84-78 Loaded team?
2021: 92-70 without Betts
2022: 78-84 with Xander
2023: 78-84 without Betts and Xander
Why is the 2019 team considered a world beater? They were not and faced real obstacles, most notably Betts leaving for Trout money and major issues with SP.
I think without the terrible injury luck, the team potentially makes the playoff the past two years. I would like to believe Bloom preferred to tank, sell everything not bolted down and rapidly rebuild.
The 2024 Red Sox need a SP1 and SP2 that can be penciled in for 170+ above average innings. Same as the last 4 years.
More to the point, can they do it *without* one? Can anyone right now? Even the Dodgers would say they are mostly propped up by their development pipeline. If the answer is no, then that's priority 1.
Hopefully, Bello becomes a solid #1/2 and a couple others are able to fit at the back of the rotation. Sale will be gone, and I think the Sox will open the check book in free agency and/or maybe make some deadline moves over the next couple seasons that create more options. I believe the Red Sox would have gone hard after YY if the above line up had arrived. I wanted them to go for YY and thought they would. But, once that went out the window, I just look at what we have and what we need and don't see any easy way out of the current mess. And by mess, I mean the next season, maybe two. We have money coming off the books & young cheap talent about to hit the majors, which should allow for some spending on the rotation. No doubt they will begin working on creating a better balanced farm system. As for SP2 above, I think Masa is a candidate to be moved.
Here's a list of the Yankees' top homegrown position players by fWAR since 2013:
1. Aaron Judge, 41.8
2. Brett Gardner, 20.2
3. Gary Sanchez, 12.9
4. Miguel Andujar, 2.3
5. Anthony Volpe, 1.9
Yup, that's literally it. Pretty garbage farm system, huh?
Now here's a list of the MLB teams that have won more games than the New York Yankees over the same time period:
1. Los Angeles Dodgers
Yup, that's literally it. Pretty competitive team, huh?
You don't need "cost controlled talent" to win in MLB. You need talent. It does not matter where that talent comes from or what it costs.
I have been waiting for the Yankees to crash and burn since 2009, when I was assured that the "bad contracts" given to Arod, Mark Teixiera, CC Sabathia, and AJ Burnett would cripple the team for years to come (not to mention now Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, and, probably, Jordan Montgomery). It hasn't happened. The Yankees have remained competitive (and won more games than the Red Sox) because Brian Cashman understands that one of the all-time favorite cliches of baseball message boarding -- that building through the farm system is "the most efficient way to win" -- isn't true at all. Building through the farm system is the cheapest way to win, but the most efficient way to win is to simply pay good baseball players a fair market rate for their services.
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Everything but one piece of this post is wrong. Impressive and concise.
Mind you the only difference from this system and the Red Sox current system is Teel and Mayer vs whoever you would picked instead. So unless you think Mayer and Teel are the difference from an amazing system and a terrible system, strike one.
In terms of depth, that line up is stacked and the rotation is six deep. Unless you truly believe in the value of middle relievers as the gluie that brings championship teams together, strike two.
That team last year would have been 91-93 wins, so strike three.
As for expensive, it is still not a tax payer last year. It is not a tax payer this year. And it would have over 30 million to spend next year. So your second strike out.
The rest of it falls apart hilaiously after that besides the declining players, which is true. However those declining players are still better than the shit that was on the Sox currently that aren't on that team.
But I love how concise your bad take is. 9 strikes in four sentences. That is like the perfect inning of bad takes.
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@jonabbey has the data, but the Yankees have also used their farm system to their advantage in trades.
How about the last 5-6 years, when Houston, Tampa and Atlanta have made very powerful statements about the importance of developing players, in addition to the Dodgers? How about Texas and Arizona, the latest kids on the block? We don't even need to add in Baltimore to the discussion yet. Your extending it to 2013, when the best AL team other than the Sox was the Tigers, kind of waters down the point.
Exactly. The team would be nowhere and waiting for the inevitable decline of the expensive players.
I am not involved in the thread imagining alternative timelines and different outcomes than our reality.
I am amongst the group pointing out that the Sox ownership has pulled off the neat trick of getting some fans to buy into their budget and discipline - something that really only benefits FSG.
The problem with this team isn't the front office - its the people who use those roles as a parlor trick for what's really going on. Just being relevant is likely the efficient frontier for this club economically. That doesn't do much for me as a fan.
Isn’t that a big part of the problem- that the Bloom era Sox didn’t bother making any trades? A few years ago, Gammons was hyping up Brandon Walter every chance he got- yet he is still with the Sox, with minimal value. Same goes with Drohan (lost at least for a bit), and Meidroth. The lack of trades, in either direction, seems to have hampered the team in the last few years- they held on to everything.
Of course they have! That's what you should do, instead of just holding on to every single prospect in your system for five years while you're too afraid to make any moves at the MLB level because your "competitive window hasn't opened yet."
Including Texas in this group is not quite the same thing, Evan Carter was great down the stretch and they got a good contribution from Josh Jung, but that's a pretty far cry from LA, Houston, Atlanta, et al. Mostly they were successful because they spent a ton of money on Seager, Semien, Eovaldi and others, plus Adolis Garcia and Jonah Heim who were cheap acquisitions but not actually home-grown Rangers.
And Bloom was moved along because they might have thought he wouldn’t move prospects. But who did they have to move? Casas and Bello. They are hopefully core players.
I do hope they can find a trade partner in the next month that moves some prospects for MLB upgrades.
Texas is the model I’d love for the Sox. They have talent in the system, bought 2 very good hitters who serve as the foundation of their lineup, and splurged on pitching. Obviously, they got burned by DeGrom and I don’t think anyone really agreed with that contract but they’ve been very aggressive and it paid off. They’ve alway found diamonds in the rough in guys like Adolis Garcia.
It’s a very tough model to compete with an I think they’ll be in the playoff hunt for a long time because of it. It’s a great combination of controllable young talent and established MLB production.
Lol, seriously? Adding more data doesn't "water down" anything; it makes your conclusions more meaningful.
Leclerc too, right? Duran and Sborz as minor league poachings from other teams? These are the types of pickups people like to scoff at Bloom over, but in fact are important building blocks. Texas brought in a lot of guys all over the roster, with just three big FA acquisitions. They could be adding Wyatt Langford. I wouldn't compare them, as you say, to Houston or Atlanta just yet but you can see the same formula.
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The ‘22 edition had a horrific bullpen, its execrable construction evident from preseason. By the time mid-May rolled around, they had blown the most holds and saves in the game, and I don’t believe second place was terribly close.
Last year’s rotation was built on the flimsiest hopes for health imaginable. It wasn’t so much bad luck as bad bets on unlikely production.
If, as you say, he wanted to sell everything that wasn’t nailed down, why did he do just about the opposite? Perhaps I’m misreading you but Bloom nibbled at the deadline more than Daisuke in the 5th inning — we are still getting reports about reasonably available pieces that would have set the organization on a better footing.
Great. Then tell me what team has the highest strikeout percentage going back to 1955. Because all data is super relevant.
Also nice edit. I guess you don't think it's worth talking about Houston or Atlanta and what their system says.
Huh? Are you trying to same 90+ win team of homegrown talent with rings is equally as not entertaining as below .500 team of misfit toys? Are you watching the Sox regardless of how bad they are or only if they are going to win?
The other two thing I see the Bloomers saying which make absolutely no sense is
1) Crying about the declining athletes contracts in the future. Man I would hate to be in a position where I may be last in the division 3 out of 4 years 8 years from now instead of enduring it now (soon to 4 out of 5)? Is sucking now with no hope of a future better than having an entertaining team now but possibly being this bad in six to eight years?
2) Hyping up the farm but saying the world where we kept home grown players sucks. There is so much crazy about this it is hard to break down. Besides the fact the farm in Sam Kennedy / Bloom less alternative future is most likely about the same as the farm now, why do you care if you don't want to watch homegrown players? Are you into misspent money or FSG making a shit ton of money? It is not like you like homegrown players, you literally just shit on watching Mookie's prime years in Fenway. It is also not like the Red Sox used the money they saved on anything of real value. Are you just a fan of your team having BA's five best farm systems? I really don't understand what is enjoyable to you.
I would have hoped Bloom wanted to sell everything. Seems pretty clear the owners wanted him to thread the needle of competing for playoffs, restock system and reset payroll structure. It worked in 2021 and failed spectacularly the last two years.
They are also run by an ex-MLB pitcher who went to an Ivy League college. So we’re basically halfway there already!
View: https://twitter.com/chriscotillo/status/1741488098956005377?s=46&t=7XazH1NKZP26a4WUZikbkQ
Cross-posting this as the payroll structures we've been looking at since the Betts trade seem to be becoming policy (at least according to rumor). It's not a suprise that agents are wondering why the Sox aren't acting like the Red Sox.
Cross-posting this as the payroll structures we've been looking at since the Betts trade seem to be becoming policy (at least according to rumor). It's not a suprise that agents are wondering why the Sox aren't acting like the Red Sox.
Anything the agents say during the offseason has to be taken with a pretty large nugget of salt. They are servicing their clients, not the truth; that's literally their oath. If the Sox made a ballpark-offer for Yamamoto, but aren't willing to give the Boras boys the same number, that's not a limited budget. That's a picky approach to who you'll pay big bucks for. Like yeah, we will exceed the LT for this guy but that's it? Wouldn't surprise me.
Is there any FA's that require that much money? Snell/Montgomery I guess? But I don't want to splurge for one of them at those years - rather save the year and money and go for Sasaki with a no-brainer offer.
Moving my post from the rumors thread
This source is an agent full stop. This isnt even the first time Chis and masslive wrote an article this week alone that essentially said the sox are cheap. shortly thereafter the sox signed a pitcher
And I highly doubt Craig would have taken this job of if these “financial shackles” were true. IMO the sox would have promoted internally if that was the case.
the media in Boston is beyond toxic
Did the Red Sox make a ballpark offer for Yamamoto though? If that’s been reported, I missed it.
Would it be reasonable to think that they may have and that it wasn't reported?
They traded a generational player for salary relief and are finishing in last place in their division more frequently than they are competitive recently. They deserve all the criticism they get for their recent management of the team. There is no stability in baseball ops and the on field product has absolutely sucked. The media is reporting to what the team has become nothing more nothing less. The media in this case is not the issue, the Red Sox are.
Breslow more or less admitted it without admitting it when asked yesterday about Yamamoto. His quote was something like "we have gone after guys but we can't control whether they take our money." It sounded like he was hinting there. Given the reporting, I'd guess that they went in ready to play -- and if they hadn't, there is no reason why people kept saying they were in the convo. Whether they were in the $275m range and therefore out, I dunno, but even that would be a sign that they aren't just cheaping out of everything.
Agents use the media to push narratives that help their client draw interest from as many teams as possible. This "report" has nothing to do with past trades; it's clickbait and nothing more, and should be treated as such.
What does this have to do with the tweets or two being discussed. Those werent opinion pieces. They reported "sources." Its fair or interesting or pethaps informative to wonder who is making the claim.
Truly incredible. In the last 48 hours, we signed a two-time downballot CYA starter who's not yet 30, and traded one of the most disliked players in modern Red Sox times for a young, exciting second baseman, and here we are right back on this shit!
Sale was one of the most disliked players in modern Red Sox times? I submit Carl Crawford, Julio Lugo or David Price for that distinction. Post playing champ in the hated category by Red Sox faithful has to be G38
The pitcher you are acknowledging is a reclamation project. They also traded a player with significant warts for another with lots of questions about fit.
The reality is that this ownership group doesn't compete for top end baseball talent. They shop for discounts. We don't know the reason why they won't play in that market but selling the Giolito or Grissom acquisitions as proof FSG is serious about winning is silly. Real contenders aren't selling the Moneyball approach because it probably doesn't work anymore but we seem to be expected to keep lapping it up at the FSG table.
Has anyone looked at FSGs actual resources versus Cohen or Guggenheim? They simply may not be able to play in these markets anymore.
A two time downballot CYA....with a 5.27 FIP last year. He's nowhere near a slam dunk signing. I hope he does great, but this isn't indicative of ownership changing direction from the last couple years. He's a reclamation project and that's fine, I guess.
It’s business a usual for some Sox fans. Rip apart anything and everything. Wait until Sale or Paxton has some positive injury luck. Wacha and Eovaldi can’t make it a full season healthy but those guys they should keep.
In my almost 20 years on this board, Sale is right up there as a great player being shit on every chance available. But don’t worry… Story and Yoshida will pick up the slack as whipping boys.
For crying out loud, Breslow is having an acceptable offseason with time left and people are bitching about having a better GM. One that would have signed Yamamoto, traded for Soto and vaulted the Sox back to glory.
What's truly incredible is the fact that every single word here is either a lie or completely disingenuous.
I understand this argument, and it may have some relevance over the past several years. But just focusing on this current offseason, and leaving YY aside, what 'top-end talent' should they have acquired to make you change your opinion?
And this is consistent with every World Series we've won this century. Mitch Moreland, Steve Pearce, Eduardo Nuñez, Nate Eovaldi, Ryan Brasier, Joe Kelly, Koji Uehara, Jake Peavy, Shane Victorino, Mike Napoli, Jonny Gomes, Jarrod Saltalamacchia, Mike Carp, Mike Lowell, Curt Leskanic, Bronson Arroyo, Mark Bellhorn, Bill Mueller, Orlando Cabrera, and David Ortiz were all, in some sense, discounts or reclamation projects when we acquired them.
People are asking for evidence of ownership not being willing to spend?
We can agree to disagree about Devers so let's leave that player aside but what evidence is there that FSG will ever compete for the best players without some sort of discount in terms of years or money (e.g. pillow contract) or some other hook?