Much like Newman, the Sox are not “Ready to deliver”– The 2025 Offseason News (& rumors?) Thread

Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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What is the 2025 payroll so far? This site says $144 million, more or less.
They've got ~$60-65M to play with under the first luxury tax threshold, after you factor in arbitration values for Whitlock, Crawford, Houck, Duran, etc...

There's probably room to add Burnes and (for instance) Bregman, but they might also want to go smaller on FA - make another trade or two, and try to extend some of Crochet, Houck, Abreu, Anthony, Campbell...
You've pretty much got this on point @Hank Scorpio - at least as far as money left goes relative to what Cots has following the Crochet trade. They show Boston's all in payroll (for tax purposes) to be at roughly $176.25m, which means they have roughly $64.75m left before hitting the first threshold.


Something around Arenado - Yoshida makes a lot of sense, for the Sox at least, but I’m not sure what’s in it for the Cardinals, especially if their main goal is to shed payroll. Something like Arenado & Gray for Yoshida, Crawford, and Hamilton start to look reasonable? Not sure how it looks in BTV, and then there are the issues with Grays NTC and contract- imagine he’d want that 27 option picked up which makes him 3/90 and a lot less interesting.

Imagine Cards would want more prospect capital or someone like Duran and guess Arenado probably wants a more defined role than Sox could offer, though.
Someone please try to talk me into Arenado.... He will be 34 this season...3 years left at around 90 million...he has declined considerably... and fans want to give them players like Abreu, Yoshida, etc.
Regarding Arenado, for me at least, it all depends on the ability to move Yoshida, either in this deal or in a corresponding deal to make the pieces fit more easily (and have the dollar balance out better). If the Cards asked for Duran for Arenado, we'd know because we'd all be able to hear Breslow laughing at Chaim from our houses / offices / wherever.

One thing we know about Bloom - for better or worse - is that he likes the idea of buying someone else prospects by moving a decent player for a dumb contract (Hunter Renfroe for JBJ, Hamilton and Bineals, and for some reason Bloom agreed to take on all of JBJr salary implications). I could see StL doing something like an Arenado to Boston, Yoshida, Blaze Jordan and Zanetello to StL as the salaries are somewhat similar on remaining AAV after the Arenado option kicked in (and factoring in the money Colorado is paying Arenado).

Arenado and Yoshida are both "good players" on "bad contracts" but their value is arrived at differently. Yoshida's is from being a better offensive player right now; Arenado's from being an average offensive player and above average defensive player.

I think that a scenario of Devers at DH, Arenado at 3b and Casas at 1b is a better roster configuration and therefore use of ~$20m than Devers at 3b, Casas at 1b, Yoshida at DH. That is how, I at least, think Arenado makes sense, and I prefer using the $19m on someone that is going to be a roughly 2.5 bWAR player that can really help the infield defense and have Raffy focus on just hitting than someone that is going to be a roughly 1.5bWAR player limited to the DH role.

*As to Arenado's deal, he DOES NOT have 3/$90m/$30m AAV left. There was an option tacked on to his deal at the end. He has 3/$74m/$24.6m left, of which $5m in years one and two is paid by Colorado, so he is really a 3/$64m/$21.3m player. Roughly the same as Yoshida's (about a $2.5m difference per year). There is no chance I want Arenado unless Yoshida is moved as part of the deal. But if I'm allowed (forced to) choose one of these to be on the Red Sox the next 3 seasons, I'd prefer it to be Arenado at $21.3m than Yoshida at $19m.



As to the Castillo / Flaherty / Buehler question, I think they're all pretty close overall. I think Castillo would be my pick IF you could get rid of Yoshida in the deal for him (notice the same "pre-requisite" in all my ideas for older players on high money deals is that they take back our "good player / horrible fit / bad contract" player as well. (But if you could swap Yoshida for Arenado, in essence, I'd choose Flaherty over Castillo - hope that makes sense).

As many have noted, Castillo has a NTC, but he also has team option at the end of his deal. Best guess is the acquiring team would have to pick that up in order to get him to waive his NTC. This is something pretty common in contact / trade negotiations as a way to work around said NTC.

There is no way Breslow is trading anything of significant value for Castillo straight up (so don't worry about Casas or Abreu on their own). I could see him agreeing to Abreu and Yoshida for Castillo, for instance, if the bidding on Flaherty gets higher than Henry is willing to go.
 
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chrisfont9

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Or it could be something specific about T-Mobile Park in Seattle (Like the rumored Batter's backdrop) that has all of these guys having better numbers there than on the road. Not sure what that is but I would trust Breslow and Bailey should know beforehand.
Yeah, obviously that is the concern, but a home OPS of .651 vs .671 on the road means Gilbert has been nails on the road, even without the bad batters' eye. The K/bb ratio is the only notable one.
 

radsoxfan

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Yoshida is perfectly fine. 1.4 bWAR, 112 ops+

Obviously not an all-star or anything like that, but he's better than "not very good".
Semantics I suppose, what counts as “not very good”?

He’s clearly not worth his contract and we either would have to pay someone to take him or take back another bad underwater contract in return.
 

E5 Yaz

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He’s clearly not worth his contract and we either would have to pay someone to take him or take back another bad underwater contract in return.
I keep thinking the best place to send him is Sacramento. The A's need to get their payroll over $100m, so they might be interested. He'd have to play the outfield there, but it's worth a shot for a lottery ticket or two
 

Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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Yoshida doesn't stink. He's a good hitter on a bad contract that is a horrible fit for the Boston Red Sox specifically because of the roughly 900 other players in the organization Boston has that can only hit RHP and because 800 of those 900 players are better defenders at their position than Yoshida is.

Kind of like Arenado doesn't stink. He's an average hitter and an excellent defender on a bad contract that would be a better fit for the Boston Red Sox than Yoshida, as that would allow if nothing else an additional "bWAR" added for about $2.5m and possibly more if we assume that Devers would be healthier not having to field a position and thus be available more and healthier more for that.

Using FanGraphs and simply looking at the last two years (Arenado's decline and Yoshida's time in MLB):

2023 - Yoshida was paid $19m, produced $4.9m ( -$15m); factoring in all the money Col has agreed to paid, Arenado was paid $21m and provided $21.7m (+$.75m)
2024 - Yoshida was paid $19m, produced $6.4m (-$12.5m); Arenado was paid $30m; produced $25m (-$5m).

Even if we doubled Yoshida's average value, he'd still be roughly paid $19m to produce $11m (-$8m). Arenado, with the salary changes I mentioned in an earlier post, even if we assume he loses 20% of his value from the last two years on average, would be paid roughly $21m for $19m of production (-$2m).



In summation - if for some reason someone wanted to say "Yoshida will be 2x as valuable and Arenado will be 20% less valuable" (and we just locked that in) you'd still get about $6m more in production from Arenado, and a better fitting roster. That is the reason to trade for Arenado - if you can swap Yoshida. It's also pretty much the ONLY reason to trade for Arenado.


Oh and as to the "put aside your personal feelings and assume Bloom knows that Yoshida is less valuable than Arenado", so why would StL do this - which is fair. That is where you allow them to "buy" a couple of our 30ish prospects that one assumes Bloom likes (because he placed high emphasis on them in the draft" that would be pretty highly ranked in StL's putrid system. Blaze Jordan was (in)famously the target with the money saved when Bloom took Yorke in round 1. Zanetello was Boston's 2nd round pick in 2003 but signed way overslot in terms of bonus - which is decent evidence that Bloom really liked the player, or just wanted to waste $3m for some reason.

It's basically the Renfroe for JBJr, Binelas and Hamilton deal.
 
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simplicio

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Yoshida doesn't stink. He's a good hitter on a bad contract that is a horrible fit for the Boston Red Sox specifically because of the roughly 900 other players in the organization Boston has that can only hit RHP and because 800 of those 900 players are better defenders at their position than Yoshida is.

Kind of like Arenado doesn't stink. He's an average hitter and an excellent defender on a bad contract that would be a better fit for the Boston Red Sox than Yoshida, as that would allow if nothing else an additional "bWAR" added for about $2.5m and possibly more if we assume that Devers would be healthier not having to field a position and thus be available more and healthier more for that.

Using FanGraphs and simply looking at the last two years (Arenado's decline and Yoshida's time in MLB):

2023 - Yoshida was paid $19m, produced $4.9m ( -$15m); factoring in all the money Col has agreed to paid, Arenado was paid $21m and provided $21.7m (+$.75m)
2024 - Yoshida was paid $19m, produced $6.4m (-$12.5m); Arenado was paid $30m; produced $25m (-$5m).

Even if we doubled Yoshida's average value, he'd still be roughly paid $19m to produce $11m (-$8m). Arenado, with the salary changes I mentioned in an earlier post, even if we assume he loses 20% of his value from the last two years on average, would be paid roughly $21m for $19m of production (-$2m).



In summation - if for some reason someone wanted to say "Yoshida will be 2x as valuable and Arenado will be 20% less valuable" (and we just locked that in) you'd still get about $6m more in production from Arenado, and a better fitting roster. That is the reason to trade for Arenado - if you can swap Yoshida. It's also pretty much the ONLY reason to trade for Arenado.
These calculations are off by a factor of Devers.
 

Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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These calculations are off by a factor of Devers.
The 800 and 900 thing was clearly a joke.

Genuinely curious - how so regarding the value from Fangraphs and the contracts in question? I've linked the pages where I got the information from about "value" and salary. I could be certainly off and you could very well be right, and if that is the case, I'm sincerely asking what I'm missing so as not to make the same mistake if I've made one...

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/masataka-yoshida/31837/stats?position=DH/OF
https://www.fangraphs.com/players/nolan-arenado/9777/stats?position=3B
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/arenano01.shtml
 

Sox Puppet

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Real question -- do we have any indication at all that the Sox are willing to consider Devers at 1B or DH?

If the former, you'd have thought they would try him out there during Casas's lengthy injury rehab last year instead of playing Dom Smith. If not, all the trade Casas/sign Arenado or Bregman talk seems to be a moot point.
 

simplicio

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The 800 and 900 thing was clearly a joke.

Genuinely curious - how so regarding the value from Fangraphs and the contracts in question? I've linked the pages where I got the information from about "value" and salary. I could be certainly off and you could very well be right, and if that is the case, I'm sincerely asking what I'm missing so as not to make the same mistake if I've made one...

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/masataka-yoshida/31837/stats?position=DH/OF
https://www.fangraphs.com/players/nolan-arenado/9777/stats?position=3B
https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/a/arenano01.shtml
I mean you're trying to compare value of swapping our current DH with a new 3B without subtracting the value of our current 3B.
 

RedOctober3829

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Real question -- do we have any indication at all that the Sox are willing to consider Devers at 1B or DH?

If the former, you'd have thought they would try him out there during Casas's lengthy injury rehab last year instead of playing Dom Smith. If not, all the trade Casas/sign Arenado or Bregman talk seems to be a moot point.
We don't. Breslow and Cora have shot it down publicly any chance they've had.
 

BeantownIdaho

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You've pretty much got this on point @Hank Scorpio - at least as far as money left goes relative to what Cots has following the Crochet trade. They show Boston's all in payroll (for tax purposes) to be at roughly $176.25m, which means they have roughly $64.75m left before hitting the first threshold.






Regarding Arenado, for me at least, it all depends on the ability to move Yoshida, either in this deal or in a corresponding deal to make the pieces fit more easily (and have the dollar balance out better). If the Cards asked for Duran for Arenado, we'd know because we'd all be able to hear Breslow laughing at Chaim from our houses / offices / wherever.

One thing we know about Bloom - for better or worse - is that he likes the idea of buying someone else prospects by moving a decent player for a dumb contract (Hunter Renfroe for JBJ, Hamilton and Bineals, and for some reason Bloom agreed to take on all of JBJr salary implications). I could see StL doing something like an Arenado to Boston, Yoshida, Blaze Jordan and Zanetello to StL as the salaries are somewhat similar on remaining AAV after the Arenado option kicked in (and factoring in the money Colorado is paying Arenado).

Arenado and Yoshida are both "good players" on "bad contracts" but their value is arrived at differently. Yoshida's is from being a better offensive player right now; Arenado's from being an average offensive player and above average defensive player.

I think that a scenario of Devers at DH, Arenado at 3b and Casas at 1b is a better roster configuration and therefore use of ~$20m than Devers at 3b, Casas at 1b, Yoshida at DH. That is how, I at least, think Arenado makes sense, and I prefer using the $19m on someone that is going to be a roughly 2.5 bWAR player that can really help the infield defense and have Raffy focus on just hitting than someone that is going to be a roughly 1.5bWAR player limited to the DH role.

*As to Arenado's deal, he DOES NOT have 3/$90m/$30m AAV left. There was an option tacked on to his deal at the end. He has 3/$74m/$24.6m left, of which $5m in years one and two is paid by Colorado, so he is really a 3/$64m/$21.3m player. Roughly the same as Yoshida's (about a $2.5m difference per year). There is no chance I want Arenado unless Yoshida is moved as part of the deal. But if I'm allowed (forced to) choose one of these to be on the Red Sox the next 3 seasons, I'd prefer it to be Arenado at $21.3m than Yoshida at $19m.



As to the Castillo / Flaherty / Buehler question, I think they're all pretty close overall. I think Castillo would be my pick IF you could get rid of Yoshida in the deal for him (notice the same "pre-requisite" in all my ideas for older players on high money deals is that they take back our "good player / horrible fit / bad contract" player as well. (But if you could swap Yoshida for Arenado, in essence, I'd choose Flaherty over Castillo - hope that makes sense).

As many have noted, Castillo has a NTC, but he also has team option at the end of his deal. Best guess is the acquiring team would have to pick that up in order to get him to waive his NTC. This is something pretty common in contact / trade negotiations as a way to work around said NTC.

There is no way Breslow is trading anything of significant value for Castillo straight up (so don't worry about Casas or Abreu on their own). I could see him agreeing to Abreu and Yoshida for Castillo, for instance, if the bidding on Flaherty gets higher than Henry is willing to go.
Great breakdown here of the situation. I had forgotten about the 10 million from Colorado -It's lurking in the background. To answer my original statement - I think this makes more sense now with the follow up moves. In this scenario, do you see Anthony in LF to replace Yoshida/Oneil or still pursing another RH bat for the outfield?
 

Sausage in Section 17

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Or it could be something specific about T-Mobile Park in Seattle (Like the rumored Batter's backdrop) that has all of these guys having better numbers there than on the road. Not sure what that is but I would trust Breslow and Bailey should know beforehand.
It's absolutely about T-Mobile Park. It is the #1 Pitchers park in all of MLB.

Everyone should be realistic about how these Seattle pitchers will perform once they move to half their games in Fenway. There is no way they will perform at the same levels.
 

soxhop411

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Red sox asked Boras what the "BUY NOW" price would be for Soto
View: https://twitter.com/redsoxpayroll/status/1867263385584152797
EVERYTHING HAS A price, as the old saying goes, and nobody knows that better than a billionaire -- or Scott Boras. Sometimes baseball's owners will ask Boras for a takedown price on his clients -- the ceiling bid at which the offer will land a player. During the monthlong negotiations for the slugger, Boston Red Sox owners John Henry and Tom Werner inquired about what that number might be.


Boras explained to the Red Sox owners that in the case of Soto, with his strike zone mastery and his unique ability to lift teammates with his indomitable confidence, there was no such takedown price. The final number would go as far as the bidding billionaires pushed it, and through weeks of meetings and negotiations, the owners kept piling more money into their proposals, fully inspired, wholly invested.
 

Hee Sox Choi

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How are the Sox going to win without someone who has the ability to lift teammates with their indomitable confidence?!?!
 

nvalvo

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I don't think the Trevor Story comparison is a great sales pitch. As for Yoshida, he's had a better OPS than Arenado each of the last two years. Arenado's offensive trend line makes the idea of trading for his age 34, 35, and 36 seasons pretty scary.
This has nothing to do with Arenado, but:

If we didn’t have Trevor Story, we’d be looking for someone like him: short commitment to a plus-glove RHH SS with pop.
 

Yo La Tengo

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This has nothing to do with Arenado, but:

If we didn’t have Trevor Story, we’d be looking for someone like him: short commitment to a plus-glove RHH SS with pop.
Agreed, and fingers crossed that he can play in 140+ games. That's a stretch considering the last three seasons, but here's hoping. I'm also less than enthusiastic about adding Arenado/Bregman/Similar older, expensive infielder, in that flexibility over the next three years in the infield/DH will be key as the Sox try to find spots for Devers, Story, Grissom, Mayer, Campbell, (and Yoshida) into those 4 spots. The particular plan and timeline will come into focus over the spring/summer.
 

BeantownIdaho

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Rumblings about adding Means... I like the low cost high reward guys on the right deal...adding Means and having Fulmer are good projects to have on the backburner come August.
 

LynnRice75

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He didn't think to sprinkle a little of that confidence on Judge in the playoffs?
He was likely too tired from chasing after all the balls he misplayed in right field.

If you have not seen the montage of misplays that disgruntled Yankee fans are sharing, it's an eye-opener.
Avoiding Yankee games as much as possible, I had not realized he was such a liability out there.
I am glad we have money to spend (or possibly not spend) elsewhere.
 

Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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I mean you're trying to compare value of swapping our current DH with a new 3B without subtracting the value of our current 3B.
Yes, sorry. I've mentioned this in prior posts (likely in this thread) as it's no secret I'd like to trade Yoshida. However:

Devers has been a roughly 3.5 bWAR player the past two years; Yoshida 1.4 bWAR each year; Arenado has been a 2.4 bWAR player.

My belief (nothing more than that, but not an outlandish inference) is that if moved to primarily DH, Devers would be able to produce lines more similar to JD Martinez when he was a primary DH for the Red Sox (averaged out to around 4.5 bWAR per season - and no, I'm not counting the 60 game tournament in 2020 that JDM said he didn't take seriously. If there is another global pandemic that cuts the season to 60 games when players attention is, lets say focused elsewhere, Devers would suffer in performance too, I'd bet). I'm also assuming that Devers would still get about 20-25 games at 3b since Arenado has missed around 15 games the past two years and would probably have a few days DHing, and that Devers will get similar credit for badly playing 3b in those 20 games than JDM did for badly playing LF in around 35-40 games per year since I assume 3b is weighted more highly than LF.

So, back of the envelope math, if Devers and Yoshida give 4.9 bWAR provided between 3b and DH and Devers and Arenado could provide to give a 7.9 bWAR (or a 3 bWAR increase) for roughly the same dollar outlay (call it an additional $2m), that is something that I think the Red Sox could benefit from.

*This does not take into account at all that Arenado would be moving from a neutral park to a hitters park and any offensive boost that might provide because I, admittedly, do not know if bWAR factors in Park Effects. But looking at his spray chart (from just 2023 and 2024) looks like it'd do well at Fenway Park.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/illustrator?playerId=571448&playerType=batter&name=Nolan Arenado&tabSelection=0&shape=square&shapeName=Square (Instagram)&subTitle=&chartType=sprayChart&chartName=Spray Chart&pitcherThrows=&batterStands=&plateAppearanceResults=["single","double","triple","home_run","field_out"]&pitchTypes=[]&seasonType=["R"]&pitchResults=[]&facingPlayer=[]&balls=[]&battedBallType=[]&years=[2024,2023]&strikes=[]&outs=[]&selectedGames=[]&homeTeam=[]&awayTeam=[]&vsTeam=[]&exitVelocityGT=0&exitVelocityLT=125&pitchVelocityGT=0&pitchVelocityLT=105&launchAngleGT=-90&launchAngleLT=90&perspective=catcher&venue=3



Thanks @BeantownIdaho. I seriously doubt the year tacked on for Arenado (reducing AAV) and the money from Colorado are common knowledge, so I always try to include them when talking about the player.

As to the question of LF, in my scenario (a Yoshida for Arenado swap) the Sox would be picking up a net $2.5m in AAV salary between the two players, so they'd still have plenty left to spend (I'll call it $60m for simple math). Having better balanced the line up, I'd probably advocate something that I usually hate - a player on a one year deal that you know is nothing more than a "duct tape" approach, but in this scenario, I'd do it.

My choice would be Mark Canha because he is a RHH that can play LF and 1b (ostensibly RF too, but I'd strongly doubt he'd play it well at Fenway, so I'm going to say LF and 1b). He can play LF until Anthony is ready, and if Anthony does what I think he's going to do in Spring Training - which is show that he's better already than a decent part of the Red Sox line up - he's going to be starting at 1b but Canha makes sense as a bench piece. I'll call it 1/$10m ($50m left).

I'd then use the remaining money and try for Flaherty (I'll guess 5/$125m/$25m) bringing them down to $25m and Kirby Yates (2/$25m/$12.5m) and leaves them around $12.5m below the LTT.

Duran - CF (L)
Story - SS (R)
Devers - DH (L)
Arenado - 3b (R)
Casas - 1b (L)
Canha - LF (R)
Abreu - RF (L)
Wong - C (R)
Campbell / Grissom - 2b (R)

Rafaela, Grissom / Campbell, Refsnyder, Narvaez. (Assuming Anthony starts the year as the starting LF, you'd probably put Abreu 6th, Wong 7th, Anthony 8th and Campbell 9th to start).

Crochet, Flaherty, Houck, Bello, Giolito (Crawford, Priester, Criswell, Fitts are the depth).

Yates, Chapman, Slaten, Hendricks, Crawford, other stuff.


Not for nothing, but I kind of agree with @TomRicardo I'd guess that as we sit here today, the present team is good for about 85 wins (I think he said 84-86) after adding Crochet - which is an ENORMOUS add.

With the above, I think you're talking about a 90 win team capable of contending for the division and possibly even being better than that. Added bonus - you've done it without trading anyone else of consequence AND, for the folks from Redbird, you've done it while being below $LTT 1.
 
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Bosoxman2004

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Couldn't dumping him lead to problems in acquiring another Japanese player in free agency or directly from Japan?
I don't see why it would, baseball is a business and players should understand that. Does dumping an American player make it more difficult to sign other American players? Or insert any demographic into the equation. The players should understand the business side of the equation. Theoretically, sure it could effect the decisions of any other player to sign on (Japanese or not), but dumping the contracts of players will never go away.
 

jon abbey

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If you have not seen the montage of misplays that disgruntled Yankee fans are sharing, it's an eye-opener.
Avoiding Yankee games as much as possible, I had not realized he was such a liability out there.
I am glad we have money to spend (or possibly not spend) elsewhere.
He's not really a liability defensively, although he is still just 26 and will likely become more of one. He does have bad misplays sometimes (as shown in that montage) but also he is very aggressive going after balls and keeps runners from trying for an extra base surprisingly frequently. His DRS this year was 0, precisely average.
 

EvilEmpire

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Yeah, I think a deal built around ROY SP Luis Gil who has four years of control left for one year of Kyle Tucker isn't a crap deal even if the Yankees don't include a couple of their better/best prospects. But we'll see what happens.

Edit: But of course Houston is approaching this the right way. See how desperate the Yankees are after missing out on Soto.

2nd edit: And that assumes Gil in part of the package to begin with. That article makes it sound like he isn't, but I don't think that is correct.
 
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E5 Yaz

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btw, the Soto press conference is starting in NY; so don't expect any movement on the Bregman/Burnes fronts until later
 

JodyReed13

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Go get Walker Buehler. He's had a really tough injury stretch, but he's got that indomitable confidence.

I'll pass on Bregman/Arenado. Big money for declining skills at 3B when the team is trying to improve defensively. I'd move Devers to DH once Mayer comes up. Apparently Mayer has a good arm but might be too slow for SS.
 

iddoc

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We don't. Breslow and Cora have shot it down publicly any chance they've had.
In his recent interview with Bradford, Cora said Devers would be the first to know if such a switch were in the offing. Neither Cora nor Breslow is going to tell us whether there have been private conversations in the FO to that effect.
 

jon abbey

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Yankees apparently trying to trade for Kyle Tucker - but not trying hard enough. Offering "crap".

View: https://www.twitter.com/RandyJMiller/status/1867255933484568739
I beg people to stop linking Randy Miller, talk about crap. He is the one who just had NYY out on Soto a few hundred million before they actually were.

My guess as to what’s going on here is that HOU would prefer to send Tucker to the NL/Cubs and Cashman will make his best offer once he thinks he’s not just being used to drive up the price for the Cubs.
 

Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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https://x.com/tylermilliken_/status/1867207756794753283?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet

Sorry if this has been posted elsewhere in the threads, but I haven't seen it in here. Summarized, per Olney (via Miliken's tweet), Buehler wants a multi year contract with opt outs.

Only way I'd advocate this is if there are always options for the Red Sox to "void" the opt out by adding something onto the deal. I'd be interested in Buehler on something resembling the structure of:

4yrs / $80m / $20m; opt out after 1 yr which Red Sox can void with making the remaining deal 3/$80m/~$267m AAV or some such thing. If Buehler won't take something where the Red Sox have some ability to lock the player in without him going back on the market first (which goes for literally any pitcher they're in on) then I have no interest in said deal. With Giolito I like the player and hate the contract - same thing can be said for Buehler. If you're talking about one year where the player holds all the cards (ie, if I'm good, I'm gone and if I suck / get hurt, you pay me) is something I have zero interest in the Red Sox signing.

I get that you can't "make them sign" so if Buehler insists on that structure with no provision benefiting the Red Sox, I have no interest at all, and I'd rather just see if Crawford can bring down his HR rate, followed by what Priester or Fitts can do.


*FWIW, I'm a believer that Crawford is what he is at this point. Which is a #4/#5 starter (or a really good bullpen option) on a dirt cheap deal which is very valuable. I don't discount what others think about him and what he "could" be, I just think he's a guy that from what we've seen through his age 28 season tells me he's always going to be a useful piece with an "if he could just do this..." that is replaced by an "if he could just do this (different thing the next year)..." away from being a top half starter. Again, very useful, very valuable on a cheap deal, but something they shouldn't be shy about trying to upgrade.
 

8slim

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Given all the talk about pitchers in their 30s, I did a little Baseball Reference research today.

This past season there were all of 9 pitchers over the age of 35 who made 20+ starts. 6 of those 9 had a roughly league average or better performance though, using ERA+ as the benchmark.

What was fascinating is that I looked back 20 years, to the 2004 season, and found that only 13 pitchers over the age of 35 made 20+ starts. Most that did were league average or better.

It’s notable that, at least in this blunt and crude analysis, not much has changed over time. Precious few starters are reliable past the age of 35, but those who are tend to be at least average.
 

BigSoxFan

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May 31, 2007
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Given all the talk about pitchers in their 30s, I did a little Baseball Reference research today.

This past season there were all of 9 pitchers over the age of 35 who made 20+ starts. 6 of those 9 had a roughly league average or better performance though, using ERA+ as the benchmark.

What was fascinating is that I looked back 20 years, to the 2004 season, and found that only 13 pitchers over the age of 35 made 20+ starts. Most that did were league average or better.

It’s notable that, at least in this blunt and crude analysis, not much has changed over time. Precious few starters are reliable past the age of 35, but those who are tend to be at least average.
Intetesting, thank you for this. Seems to suggest that teams won’t waste their time with older SP if they’re not delivering but if you’re there, you’re clearly the exception and not the rule.

Sox management obviously has this data and more so I think anyone hoping for Burnes (e.g., me) are going to be disappointed.
 

joe dokes

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Jul 18, 2005
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Given all the talk about pitchers in their 30s, I did a little Baseball Reference research today.

This past season there were all of 9 pitchers over the age of 35 who made 20+ starts. 6 of those 9 had a roughly league average or better performance though, using ERA+ as the benchmark.

What was fascinating is that I looked back 20 years, to the 2004 season, and found that only 13 pitchers over the age of 35 made 20+ starts. Most that did were league average or better.

It’s notable that, at least in this blunt and crude analysis, not much has changed over time. Precious few starters are reliable past the age of 35, but those who are tend to be at least average.
That's a surprisingly small number. Of course, above a certain age *only* good pitchers are still at it. If you suck at 24, you get another chance somewhere. Not so much if you suck at 34. Regardless of the cause and effect, there just aren't a lot of them.
 

nattysez

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Rumblings about adding Means... I like the low cost high reward guys on the right deal...adding Means and having Fulmer are good projects to have on the backburner come August.
Are the Sox even allowed to start the season if they don't sign a guy who is physically incapable of playing?
 

joe dokes

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Are the Sox even allowed to start the season if they don't sign a guy who is physically incapable of playing?
It does quiet some of the leather lungs demanding that "the other guy" play more, when the other guy can't play. Breslow went to Yale, dontchaknow.
 
Just to piggyback on @8slim's post, in 2024 among starters with at least 100 IP:

14 were between age 20-24 (12%)
54 were between age 25-29 (47%)
33 were between age 30-34 (33%)
9 were between age 35+ (8%)

It's also worth noting that there were 17 starters with 100+ IP at age 28 and only 6 at age 29 (10 at 30, 9 at 31, 5 at 32, 6 at 33, 8 at 34, 5 at 35)

It sure looks like there is a big dropoff after age 28, and another big dropoff in the mid(ish) 30's.

Everything I've looked at suggests that there is no such thing as a reliable starting pitcher free agent. It's basically the big league version of TINSTAAPP.

A few years back I looked at several years of recent free agency signings and how those players did over the following years in comparison to their contract magnitude. What I found is that with position players, there was at least some relationship between being a high tier FA and performing at least over the short run. With pitchers it was a total crapshoot. Some top tier FA pitchers did well, others bombed quite quickly. Some of the mid tier guys took a leap forward (Lance Lynn is one of the better recent examples), while others faded away. Being an ace or a mid/bottom tier guy was just not a good predictor of whether a pitcher would continue to perform at that level.

Oddly, the most reliable pitchers and position players at providing good performance compared to their contracts were pillow contract guys -- formerly excellent players that had recently suffered from some major setback and were forced to take a short term deal.

If you subscribe to the "gotta have an ace" philosophy, I think you basically have to either develop one or trade for one. Trying to acquire an ace via free agency is just a tremendous risk unless you can get away with it either by having a rich fanboy owner (Mets) or a team where free agents are tripping over each other to play in your market and will sign favorable contracts to do so (Dodgers).

I think the recent Red Sox strategy of signing mid tier guys and/or reclamation projects to shorter deals is actually pretty smart, but only if you are able to either trade for or develop an ace AND have some decent depth to absorb the hit if your signings don't work.

Every free agent pitcher could flame out basically right away. If he's on a one to three year deal that's probably not such a big problem, but if he's signed for 7-8 years at a high AAV then you're going to have a hard time absorbing that impact.

I'm hopeful that with Crochet on board and a more pitching focused FO, Crochet (ideally extended) can bridge the gap until the farm can provide another front end guy to replace him.
 

zenax

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Apr 12, 2023
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I don't see why it would, baseball is a business and players should understand that. Does dumping an American player make it more difficult to sign other American players? Or insert any demographic into the equation. The players should understand the business side of the equation. Theoretically, sure it could effect the decisions of any other player to sign on (Japanese or not), but dumping the contracts of players will never go away.
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5967098/2024/12/04/scouting-japan-korea-mlb-roki-sasaki/