Mookie details Boston exit

moondog80

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I don't think Tampa is doing anything funky with the ball or sign stealing or anything like that, but I also don't have a better explanation. They're not the only organization with smart guys in the front office. Are they just getting really, really lucky? Is the fact that nobody cares in Tampa weirdly an advantage in terms of less pressure on the players and more freedom for the manager to give players time to struggle and try different things, and trade away stars for prospects?
 

BaseballJones

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Well, Bloom could have acquired pretty much any of those pitchers since he’s been here (and I guess he did with Springs!). Are the Rays just identifying the right guys, or is it more than that?
Some of it HAS to be random. I mean, Springs was pretty terrible until he went to Tampa. But then...Wacha was pretty bad until he came to Boston. So who the heck knows? They must do SOMETHING right to get the most out of their players. Again, even offensively....they don't have an impressive offensive roster at all, but somehow they manage to score about an average number of runs per game. Their whole just always seems to be greater than the sum of their parts.
 

BaseballJones

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This was essentially the Braves from 1991 to 2005.
14 Division titles. Second once. Five World Series. One WS title.
What the Braves figured out was mainly having three Hall of Fame pitchers in their starting rotation at the same time. Two of whom were home grown, and one they acquired.

I'm trying to recall any other organization that's had that, and none comes to mind.
 

tims4wins

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What the Braves figured out was mainly having three Hall of Fame pitchers in their starting rotation at the same time. Two of whom were home grown, and one they acquired.

I'm trying to recall any other organization that's had that, and none comes to mind.
The A’s with Hudson, Mulder, and Zito - but it was short-lived.
 

absintheofmalaise

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What the Braves figured out was mainly having three Hall of Fame pitchers in their starting rotation at the same time. Two of whom were home grown, and one they acquired.

I'm trying to recall any other organization that's had that, and none comes to mind.
Yeah, that sort of helps. One of those they also acquired through a trade early in his career, Smoltz. They also developed some other pretty good players and made good trades.
 

BaseballJones

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Yeah good point about Smoltz. Forgot about the fact that he was with Detroit. BUT...yeah, the key to their long term success was having the three of them pitch at HOF levels for so long together.
 

tims4wins

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None of those three were hall of famers. The Braves had THREE at the same time.
Right - point was that if those 3 guys had continued their success in Oakland, they’d all be in the HoF and Oakland would have had similar hardware over a 10-12 year period. But they all regressed for various reasons and the A’s kind of crumbled.
 

The Filthy One

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Yeah, that sort of helps. One of those they also acquired through a trade early in his career, Smoltz. They also developed some other pretty good players and made good trades.
And they benefited from being terrible in the late 80s, which allowed them to draft 1st and pick Chipper Jones, the Hall of Fame anchor for their offense for most of that run. It's never going to be as simple as just one thing that leads to a run like that. Hard to conclude anything other than that they were a very well run organization from top to bottom.
 

czar

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Bit of a driveby, so I apologize, but I will say the discussion about "who else would you flip with?" is a bit of a strawman (or false dichotomy, I can never keep arguments straight). Obviously if you say "would you rather have 4 WS titles or zero?" people are going to say 4.

For me personally, this all boils down to probabilities. If someone told me "you can have Mookie for 10 years + ~1 WS EV" or "no Mookie/team of mercenaries for 10 years + ~2 WS EV" I very well might choose the former even though 2 > 1. And that's because in the intervening 8 years I'd find it more enjoyable to follow a team I have more long-term investment in than a team of hired guns. I *loved* watching Mookie play. A YouTube clip I find myself going to occassionally is his X-pitch GS against the Jays and I still find it fun to watch.

As I've gotten older, I've found myself becoming more of a "fair weather" fan during bad seasons (like 2022). I've probably watched ~20 games this year when in ~2010 that number was probably 130-140. The last year I was really, really invested was probably 2018 -- coincidentally, a year where the team achieved great things. But in years where they aren't achieving great things... eh... I'm just not super excited to watch the JD Martinez's etc. of the world, even if I still feel more excited for an X or Devers AB or a Bello start.

At the end of the day, someone a few pages ago said that baseball is unique because it's a 162 game grind that is on night in and night out. When the team is playing well, it's easy to be invested. When the team isn't playing well... I need other reasons to get me excited about the Red Sox -- one way that has historically done that is by getting to turn on the TV and see "will they do something that makes me go "that was cool" tonight?*" And outside of a few guys on this team right now, eh.

So yes, I want the team to win. But at the end of the day, I look back fondly on the WS teams (2007 has faded from view, I'll admit), but I also think about all the random summer nights watching Nomar and Pedro and Lester and Mookie and even guys like Buchholz and Bard and etc. If I have to pay a premium and sacrifice some W% to be able to say "yeah, I got to watch Pedroia every night for 15 years" I'm OK with that.

*Note, this is why I found letting Pedro go so jarring. I understood the $$ aspects and the injury history and all of that. But man if I still watched starts in NYM and his starts in PHI because I was like "maybe I'll see something cool tonight..."
 

tims4wins

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Bit of a driveby, so I apologize, but I will say the discussion about "who else would you flip with?" is a bit of a strawman (or false dichotomy, I can never keep arguments straight). Obviously if you say "would you rather have 4 WS titles or zero?" people are going to say 4.

For me personally, this all boils down to probabilities. If someone told me "you can have Mookie for 10 years + ~1 WS EV" or "no Mookie/team of mercenaries for 10 years + ~2 WS EV" I very well might choose the former even though 2 > 1. And that's because in the intervening 8 years I'd find it more enjoyable to follow a team I have more long-term investment in than a team of hired guns. I *loved* watching Mookie play. A YouTube clip I find myself going to occassionally is his X-pitch GS against the Jays and I still find it fun to watch.

As I've gotten older, I've found myself becoming more of a "fair weather" fan during bad seasons (like 2022). I've probably watched ~20 games this year when in ~2010 that number was probably 130-140. The last year I was really, really invested was probably 2018 -- coincidentally, a year where the team achieved great things. But in years where they aren't achieving great things... eh... I'm just not super excited to watch the JD Martinez's etc. of the world, even if I still feel more excited for an X or Devers AB or a Bello start.

At the end of the day, someone a few pages ago said that baseball is unique because it's a 162 game grind that is on night in and night out. When the team is playing well, it's easy to be invested. When the team isn't playing well... I need other reasons to get me excited about the Red Sox -- one way that has historically done that is by getting to turn on the TV and see "will they do something that makes me go "that was cool" tonight?*" And outside of a few guys on this team right now, eh.

So yes, I want the team to win. But at the end of the day, I look back fondly on the WS teams (2007 has faded from view, I'll admit), but I also think about all the random summer nights watching Nomar and Pedro and Lester and Mookie and even guys like Buchholz and Bard and etc. If I have to pay a premium and sacrifice some W% to be able to say "yeah, I got to watch Pedroia every night for 15 years" I'm OK with that.

*Note, this is why I found letting Pedro go so jarring. I understood the $$ aspects and the injury history and all of that. But man if I still watched starts in NYM and his starts in PHI because I was like "maybe I'll see something cool tonight..."
Well said. The only disagreement from me personally is that I don’t ever see myself going back to the 2004-2008 days of watching 140+ games a year. Maybe that changes when I become an empty nester, who knows. But the fair weather fan comment hits close to home for me. I still pay attention at a general level, check the box scores each day, etc. But I certainly don’t watch often, nor do I care as much. It will never matter as much as it did 15-20 years ago. The four titles have made it that way. And that’s a great thing!
 

chawson

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Their pitching staff is filled with players that were freely available within the last few years, and could have been acquired by anyone. Springs, Adam, Poche, Raley, Wisler, Fairbanks, Kittredge, etc etc.

Perhaps the Sox should try to hire whomever is in charge of the Rays pitching program.
This comparison is probably closer than we think:

Top "freely available relievers" 2022:
BOS (Whitlock, Schreiber, Strahm, Sawamura, Ort, Davis, Danish, Kelly): 341.2 IP, 3.45 FIP, 42.8 GB%, 23.9 K%, 87 FIP-
TBR (Springs, Adam, Poche, Raley, Wisler, Fairbanks, Kittredge): 358.1 IP, 3.26 FIP, 37.9 GB%, 27.2 K%, 86 FIP-

Now, that excludes several clunkers in our pen (Robles, Familia, Diekman, et al.) and theirs (Yarbrough, Garza, Faucher, Mazza, et al.). But playing around with those guys is the cost of having a bullpen, whether you're playing scrap heap relievers or outbidding for free agents (Ian Kennedy, Steve Cishek, Jake McGee, Jake Diekman, Will Smith).

I think there's a difference in that our bullpen is built around home run suppression, which it's alright at (12th of 30 teams). Tampa relievers struggle in that department (22nd of 30 teams) but can strike more guys out.

Besides that, the major issue seems to be defense. The 2022 Sox pitching staff has the second-worst gap between ERA and fielding independent pitching stats in all of MLB. The Rays have the best (most favorable) gap. With Casas up and Kiké replacing Duran in center field, I expect our bullpen next year will be a lot "better" in that regard.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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As I've gotten older, I've found myself becoming more of a "fair weather" fan during bad seasons (like 2022). I've probably watched ~20 games this year when in ~2010 that number was probably 130-140.
But the fair weather fan comment hits close to home for me.
I know you're both probably not losing sleep over this, but the term fair-weather fan is a loaded one. You can still love your team but not watch all 162 games of it. You can still love your team and be angry at the way it's currently being run.

At the end of the day, you don't owe the Boston Red Sox anything (other than money for a ticket and a brew). If they displease you, it's okay to watch something else. If the team that they're fielding this year blows, watch another team that you dig. The idea of loyalty between fan and sports team is a one-way street, and it always has been. John Henry--or any owner--is not in this business to win a popularity contest. He's in it to make money. And that's cool, but he's never going to be loyal to us and do what we want him to do. That's not how business people operate.

Craig Calcaterra writes a lot about this in "Rethinking Fandom" and I encourage you to read it. I felt like I was being disloyal to the Sox if I didn't watch every game and now I'm like, "fuck it, I have better things to do" if I miss a ball game. I still love baseball more than any other sport, but there's a choice between hanging out with my family or watching the Sox bumblefuck their way through another game against the Rays, I'm going with the former every time. Baseball is entertainment, just like TV shows, movies and music; I'm not going to keep on watching "The Handmaid's Tale" if I'm not enjoying it. And that's the way I feel about the Sox this year. And with the way things are looking probably next year too.

TL;DR: it's okay to be fair weather fan. That's probably how you should be.
 

John Marzano Olympic Hero

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This comparison is probably closer than we think:

Top "freely available relievers" 2022:
BOS (Whitlock, Schreiber, Strahm, Sawamura, Ort, Davis, Danish, Kelly): 341.2 IP, 3.45 FIP, 42.8 GB%, 23.9 K%, 87 FIP-
TBR (Springs, Adam, Poche, Raley, Wisler, Fairbanks, Kittredge): 358.1 IP, 3.26 FIP, 37.9 GB%, 27.2 K%, 86 FIP-

Now, that excludes several clunkers in our pen (Robles, Familia, Diekman, et al.) and theirs (Yarbrough, Garza, Faucher, Mazza, et al.). But playing around with those guys is the cost of having a bullpen, whether you're playing scrap heap relievers or outbidding for free agents (Ian Kennedy, Steve Cishek, Jake McGee, Jake Diekman, Will Smith).

I think there's a difference in that our bullpen is built around home run suppression, which it's alright at (12th of 30 teams). Tampa relievers struggle in that department (22nd of 30 teams) but can strike more guys out.

Besides that, the major issue seems to be defense. The 2022 Sox pitching staff has the second-worst gap between ERA and fielding independent pitching stats in all of MLB. The Rays have the best (most favorable) gap. With Casas up and Kiké replacing Duran in center field, I expect our bullpen next year will be a lot "better" in that regard.
It's more than just shitty defense and not giving up homeruns. From Peter Abraham today:

"Red Sox relievers have the second-most losses in the American League (30), the second-most blown saves (27), the second-highest ERA (4.50), and the most hit batters (43)."

I hope that Bloom doesn't think that the pen is fine and it's all a bunch of bad luck.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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The Sox certainly have some relievers who have been good but they have also given a lot of innings, and many of them high leverage, to guys like Brasier, Barnes, Diekman, etc. who have not been effective. So I guess it’s a combination of identifying your best arms and using them optimally. (Of course, FIP will tell you Brasier, Davis, and Ort have been fine).
 

tims4wins

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I know you're both probably not losing sleep over this, but the term fair-weather fan is a loaded one. You can still love your team but not watch all 162 games of it. You can still love your team and be angry at the way it's currently being run.

At the end of the day, you don't owe the Boston Red Sox anything (other than money for a ticket and a brew). If they displease you, it's okay to watch something else. If the team that they're fielding this year blows, watch another team that you dig. The idea of loyalty between fan and sports team is a one-way street, and it always has been. John Henry--or any owner--is not in this business to win a popularity contest. He's in it to make money. And that's cool, but he's never going to be loyal to us and do what we want him to do. That's not how business people operate.

Craig Calcaterra writes a lot about this in "Rethinking Fandom" and I encourage you to read it. I felt like I was being disloyal to the Sox if I didn't watch every game and now I'm like, "fuck it, I have better things to do" if I miss a ball game. I still love baseball more than any other sport, but there's a choice between hanging out with my family or watching the Sox bumblefuck their way through another game against the Rays, I'm going with the former every time. Baseball is entertainment, just like TV shows, movies and music; I'm not going to keep on watching "The Handmaid's Tale" if I'm not enjoying it. And that's the way I feel about the Sox this year. And with the way things are looking probably next year too.

TL;DR: it's okay to be fair weather fan. That's probably how you should be.
Oh I completely agree with all of this. I don't take fair weather fan as a derogatory term any more. To me all it implies is that I'm not going to watch them if they suck. I still pay attention plenty.

I'm not sure how to differentiate it from my fandom of the B's and C's though. I care more deeply about the Pats and Sox than the B's and C's. Maybe as a result of the timeframe when I came into my own as a sports fan. I definitely watch B's and C's playoff games, but not many other games. More C's than B's since they seem "closer" to a title. But I pay less attention to their day to day than the Sox and Pats.
 

TapeAndPosts

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TL;DR: it's okay to be fair weather fan. That's probably how you should be.
I came to a conclusion sort of like this at one point. It was sort of a letting go.

I lived and died with the Sox more or less every game from '98 to 2010 or so. Eventually I decided it was bad for me to have so much of my happiness depend on something I completely could not control. I gave myself permission to follow the team as much as feels right, usually drifting in more when they are doing well and drifting away more when they are doing badly. Still check in this place. I think a little bit of distance helps. I am interested in what Bloom and co are building and have enough confidence they know what they are doing to think there's a plan, even if they make mistakes, which they have, and that keeps me interested in the big picture. Now we're dealing with the fact that there are a lot of other really smart teams out there who have various head starts on us; even if our team is run really well going forward, we may not beat them since they are run well too. I think we've had more than our share of good luck the last 20 years, and I'm grateful for it.

It seems like underneath a lot of this thread is many of us exploring how our fandom has evolved through the last 20ish years as we have aged. Everyone will come to their own conclusions and each of our perspectives is valid for ourselves. But I do agree, if any of us end up in a place where our Red Sox fandom is not serving us, it's okay to reevaluate it until it is.
 

BaseballJones

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That kind of happened to me after the 2007 Patriots lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl. I literally could not sleep that night, I was so distressed. Here I was, a 37 year old father of four, so put out by a loss by one of my favorite sports teams that I was torn up and unable to sleep. At that point I was like....wait a minute, this is NOT healthy. At all.

I'm still a huge fan. No idea how much time I spend on SOSH talking about sports stuff that's totally outside my control. But I no longer live and die with my favorite teams. When the Red Sox lost last year to the Astros, I was bummed, but I fell asleep easily that night and moved on pretty quickly thereafter. Same with the 2017 Pats and the 2022 Celtics.
 

chawson

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The Sox certainly have some relievers who have been good but they have also given a lot of innings, and many of them high leverage, to guys like Brasier, Barnes, Diekman, etc. who have not been effective. So I guess it’s a combination of identifying your best arms and using them optimally. (Of course, FIP will tell you Brasier, Davis, and Ort have been fine).
But Brasier mostly has been effective. At least until his string of meltdowns on August 19, 26 and 30th. He has one of the best K/BB rates among relievers and an elite chase rate. He's not an elite guy, but he's a perfectly acceptable middle-reliever. In the Dodgers' pen, he's Phil Bickford. In the Mets', he's Seth Lugo. In Houston's, he's Phil Maton. Barnes will probably be fine now that pitchers have figured out how to use sticky stuff again. (Honestly, we should be talking about this more -- it picked up again in July, corresponding with our swoon). Diekman was a mistake.

Are you saying you don't like FIP? What kind of metric do you want to use then? It seems significant that during the time Jarren Duran played center field, the gap between Red Sox pitchers' ERA and their fielding independent statistics was a whopping two times worse than the MLB-worst gap between the two this season (Colorado's 5.08 ERA vs. 4.46 FIP).

April 7-June 14: 3.57 ERA, 3.91 FIP, -0.34 E-F
June 15-Aug 26: 5.41 ERA, 4.29 FIP, 1.12 E-F -- (<-- The Jarren Duran Era)
Aug 27-Sep 14: 4.20 ERA, 4.00 FIP, 0.19 E-F

The death of the 2022 will be remembered as the injury bug, but there's a strong case to be made that the real killer was Jarren Duran.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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That’s interesting, but I am not really buying Duran as the major driver behind that- wouldn’t you want to look at who was pitching those innings during each of those periods of time? It’s not as if Duran playing CF was the only variable that changed. A lot of mediocre pitchers were getting innings during that time, hence the really high ERA to begin with.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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That kind of happened to me after the 2007 Patriots lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl. I literally could not sleep that night, I was so distressed. Here I was, a 37 year old father of four, so put out by a loss by one of my favorite sports teams that I was torn up and unable to sleep. At that point I was like....wait a minute, this is NOT healthy. At all.
Agree that it's not healthy not to be able to sleep just because one of your teams lost a game.

But is it healthy if I can't sleep because one of my teams won a championship? Asking for a friend. :cool:
 

mauidano

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That kind of happened to me after the 2007 Patriots lost to the Giants in the Super Bowl. I literally could not sleep that night, I was so distressed. Here I was, a 37 year old father of four, so put out by a loss by one of my favorite sports teams that I was torn up and unable to sleep. At that point I was like....wait a minute, this is NOT healthy. At all.

I'm still a huge fan. No idea how much time I spend on SOSH talking about sports stuff that's totally outside my control. But I no longer live and die with my favorite teams. When the Red Sox lost last year to the Astros, I was bummed, but I fell asleep easily that night and moved on pretty quickly thereafter. Same with the 2017 Pats and the 2022 Celtics.
It's all about balance. Yet you are a passionate fan and an accomplished author of a great book on the Sox! We invest emotionally in our sports passions. It's the separating from that to reality.
 

Max Power

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Have we reached the final stage of the latest Mookie rehash thread? It's where people who say they quit the team when he left realize they had already pretty much quit watching by then for any number of other reasons.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Again…. And I’m asking…. If the collective BP ERA and FIP are that good… then the situation becomes about management… and this is where Cora again looks bad to me, and I admit perhaps I'm reading into this incorrectly. But if there's that much of a discrepancy, wouldn't that suggest that HOW the bullpen ERA is managed would lead to that? I don't really know how to find this info, but the blown saves, leads given up, etc.... could point to bad matchups (which I feel Cora does) and continuing to trust his guys (Brasier), or bringing in Samamura (for instance) with runners on base- when it's clear that he's terrible with runners on base. I know it's not a provable outcome to say that if Cora used X instead of Y that he would have had a better result, but there have been countless times when he seemed to use the worst possible reliever at the worst possible moment... holding on to better relievers for another day also.
 

nvalvo

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What Boston got was roughly $50 million. Which was (again) basically the extent of what the Dodgers were willing to give up for one year of Mookie. Boston fought for a high upside prospect, but LA wouldn’t include any that weren’t a lottery ticket. And that lottery ticket didn’t win.
Uhh, in addition to the $50m, we got several years of a starting outfielder, a guy who might be our starting catcher starting next year, and an infield prospect who hasn’t panned out thus far but is still young for AAA.
 

nighthob

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They got a LF that’s an average offensive player. That was the prize. You can find those guys on the scrap heap all the time.
 

grimshaw

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They got a LF that’s an average offensive player. That was the prize. You can find those guys on the scrap heap all the time.

https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=of&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=300&type=8&season=2022&month=0&season1=2022&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&age=0&filter=&players=0&startdate=2022-01-01&enddate=2022-12-31&page=1_30

I don't see any outfielders outperforming him that are off the scrap heap - other than Adolis Garcia but he was acquired in 2020. It's a mix of highly paid free agents, high draft picks, and veterans like Michael Taylor who still make more than him. Ironically, Rob Refsnyder could have been that one guy had they cut bait with Bradley much earlier. Bloom is exceptional at finding value for modest to average production(Hernandez, Arroyo, Reese, Wacha, Schreiber, Whitlock, Pivetta, Strahm, Iglesias, Refsnyder, Renfroe, Year one Perez and Plawecki - we're talking one JBJ disaster, and a couple of disappointments like Richards, Year 2 Perez and Plawecki, and the majority of ineffective lefties none of whom had large or long deals.

And Verdugo isn't just an average offensive left fielder - he's an average player who doesn't make a lot of money (3.6 mill). Out of 249 players he is 115th in fWAR. That's a large difference. There is no doubt in my mind they will at least spend to the cap and you need some guys who may not be thrilling baseball players, but are at least average because then you can spend elsewhere or move them as assets to get better players.

Here are a list of players within half a win both above and below him who are more than doubling his salary.

Christian Yelich (23.9)
Luis Robert (8.3)
Rhys Hoskins (7.7)
Max Muncy (13.5)
JP Crawford (10.2)
Hunter Renfroe (7.7)
Ronald Acuna(12.5)
Eduardo Escobar (10)
Teoscar Hernandez (10.7)
Jean Segura (14)
Chris Taylor (15)
Javier Baez (23.3)
Seiya Suzuki (17)
Josh Donaldson (25)
Kyle Schwarber (19.8)
Kolten Wong (9)
Trey Mancini (7.8)
Brandon Crawford (16)
Jonathan Schoop (7.5)
Adam Frazier (8)
Cody Bellinger (17)
Gary Sanchez (9)

TL/DR - Kyle Schwarber is no longer an asset at his salary and production level. Alex Verdugo is.
 
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MFYankees

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What the Braves figured out was mainly having three Hall of Fame pitchers in their starting rotation at the same time. Two of whom were home grown, and one they acquired.

I'm trying to recall any other organization that's had that, and none comes to mind.
Not homegrown, but Koufax, Drysdale, and Sutton
 

BaseballJones

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Not homegrown, but Koufax, Drysdale, and Sutton
Yep. They had that for one year - 1966 - and lost in the World Series. Koufax was 30 and in his last year and Sutton was a 21 year old rookie (still he was terrific).

The Braves had Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz all basically in their primes from 1993-2002.

During that time:

Glavine: 169-83 (.671), 3.25 era, 132 era+, 1 CYA, 4 top-5 CYA finishes, 3 top-25 MVP finishes
Maddux: 178-77 (.698), 2.51 era, 171 era+, 4 CYA, 8 top-5 CYA finishes, 6 top-15 MVP finishes
Smoltz: 106-64 (.624), 3.25 era, 131 era+, 65 sv, 1 CYA, 2 top-5 CYA finishes, 1 top-10 MVP finish

And they always seemed to have a fourth starter who was, at a minimum, pretty good. For example...

1993 - Steve Avery: 18-6, 2.94 era
1998 - Denny Neagle: 16-11, 3.55 era
1999 - Kevin Millwood: 18-7, 2.68 era

Those Braves teams were amazing.
 

nighthob

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I don't see any outfielders outperforming him that are off the scrap heap
Boston literally just traded one to Milwaukee less than a year ago. He’s an average hitting OF that can only play LF, which is not a very valuable skill set.
 

grimshaw

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Boston literally just traded one to Milwaukee less than a year ago. He’s an average hitting OF that can only play LF, which is not a very valuable skill set.
A guy from the scrap heap isn't going to cost you 7.7 million dollars. The notion you can just find average left field production when you need it is false. And he is fine in right field which is not an easy position to play in Fenway. He'd probably be at least average in most other ball parks.
 
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Diamond Don Aase

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In addition to Garcia, Matt Carpenter, Brandon Drury, Oscar Gonzalez, Jose Siri, and Trayce Thompson were signed by their initial 2022 teams to minor-league contracts. Harold Ramirez and Sam Haggerty were both available on waivers within the past calendar year.

I assume the sun must have been in your eyes when looking.
 

MFYankees

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Jul 20, 2017
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Yep. They had that for one year - 1966 - and lost in the World Series. Koufax was 30 and in his last year and Sutton was a 21 year old rookie (still he was terrific).

The Braves had Glavine, Maddux, and Smoltz all basically in their primes from 1993-2002.

During that time:

Glavine: 169-83 (.671), 3.25 era, 132 era+, 1 CYA, 4 top-5 CYA finishes, 3 top-25 MVP finishes
Maddux: 178-77 (.698), 2.51 era, 171 era+, 4 CYA, 8 top-5 CYA finishes, 6 top-15 MVP finishes
Smoltz: 106-64 (.624), 3.25 era, 131 era+, 65 sv, 1 CYA, 2 top-5 CYA finishes, 1 top-10 MVP finish

And they always seemed to have a fourth starter who was, at a minimum, pretty good. For example...

1993 - Steve Avery: 18-6, 2.94 era
1998 - Denny Neagle: 16-11, 3.55 era
1999 - Kevin Millwood: 18-7, 2.68 era

Those Braves teams were amazing.
Yes, those Braves teams were amazing.
 

scottyno

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Boston literally just traded one to Milwaukee less than a year ago. He’s an average hitting OF that can only play LF, which is not a very valuable skill set.
Per fangraphs he's been worth about $45m in value to the Sox while being paid around $5m, and they get him for 3 more team controlled years. Seems pretty valuable.

In comparison the 1 year of Betts plus 2 years of Price have been worth around -$12m in value.
 

grimshaw

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In addition to Garcia, Matt Carpenter, Brandon Drury, Oscar Gonzalez, Jose Siri, and Trayce Thompson were signed by their initial 2022 teams to minor-league contracts. Harold Ramirez and Sam Haggerty were both available on waivers within the past calendar year.

I assume the sun must have been in your eyes when looking.
Matt Carpenter and Brandon Drury don't play the outfield and Oscar Gonzalez came up through the Guardians system.

Regardless, it's a lazy take that you can just find these guys and plug them in for average production. 29 other teams are trying to find those players.
 

jon abbey

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Matt Carpenter and Brandon Drury don't play the outfield and Oscar Gonzalez came up through the Guardians system.

Regardless, it's a lazy take that you can just find these guys and plug them in for average production. 29 other teams are trying to find those players.
Fully agreed with the last two sentences, but Matt Carpenter did play 106 innings in LF and RF for NY before getting hurt, with a 0 DRS so he was adequate. He hadn't played there before that in a long time, though, and I completely agree with the gist of your post.
 

Diamond Don Aase

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Matt Carpenter and Brandon Drury don't play the outfield and Oscar Gonzalez came up through the Guardians system.

Regardless, it's a lazy take that you can just find these guys and plug them in for average production. 29 other teams are trying to find those players.
Brandon Drury has played more than 965 major-league innings as a corner outfielder, almost 30% more MLB innings than Rob Refsnyder has played as a corner outfielder.

Oscar Gonzalez did come up through the Cleveland organization, became a free agent in November 2021, and signed a minor-league contract with the Guardians later that same month.

Yes, competition is greater for players when they fit within the constraints of every team’s budget. But to ignore not one or two but seven such players for the sake of argument is not only suspect but specious.
 

mikcou

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Per fangraphs he's been worth about $45m in value to the Sox while being paid around $5m, and they get him for 3 more team controlled years. Seems pretty valuable.

In comparison the 1 year of Betts plus 2 years of Price have been worth around -$12m in value.
Verdugo is a free agent after 2024; not 2025 - only two more team controlled years.
 

Deweys New Stance

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1 to 0 in Titles for Dodgers vs. Red Sox since then. I’d take that.
Yep, even 60-game empty stadium season flags fly forever.

edit: I remember all the Fox broadcasters spending the entire '20 World Series a) mocking the Sox repeatedly for trading him b) speculating about how the Dodgers were going to win multiple titles over the next several years. So I'm going to savor their latest failure for a little while longer.
 

irinmike

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What do you expect Betts to say, that he was looking for an out of Boston and took the most bucks? He knows how many people feel about him leaving, and he is the kind of guy who does not want to deal with the negativism generated by him leaving. He left because he took the money, the Red Sox let him go after making a fair offer to unload payroll with Price etc. All the man soap opera in the world generated by various media outlets and moon struck fans who just couldn't deal with one of their favorite sons departure. It is what it is, and as soon as he became a Dodger, that was it for me with Mr. Betts.
 

billy ashley

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I think the bigger point is if this is Mookie’s new normal, Sox made the right move. That said, that money needs to go to Devers.
He was almost exactly as good in 2022 as he was in 2019. I agree that they made the right (albeit painful) move trading him, but I don't think Dodger fans should worry that he's not providing value.

I do think that contract is likely to be ugly in the back half of the decade, but that's part of the deal with 12-year contracts.