Red sox and Devers discussing a 7 year deal?

chrisfont9

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They're surprisingly tough to find. I've got to run but I'll look for one in a few hours. I remember reading it some months ago, and the consensus was that the penalties were less burdensome than the last CBA, but it would help to do a sharp side-by-side comparison.
https://www.mlb.com/glossary/transactions/competitive-balance-tax

Clubs that are $40 million or more above the threshold shall have their highest selection in the next Rule 4 Draft moved back 10 places unless the pick falls in the top six. In that case, the team will have its second-highest selection moved back 10 places instead.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I think what the Sox need to do is spend bigger on top line pitching. They have very little depth there organizationally. Organize a team to get to the playoffs where pitching then makes a bigger difference. In the postseason 30% of your pitching probably will not see many quality innings. The most successful teams going forward will do this.

The Sox will be doing a disservice if the resign X and Devers to big money and go bargain hunting on the pitching side. The issue is there isn’t a ton to be had on the market pitching wise so you may need to take a bigger risk than you may want there. Part of that risk may be letting X and/or Devers walk, in part because they have a high degree of risk on their long term contracts as well. Devers was one of the worst hitters in baseball the second half of last season. Unfortunately there are no easy answers out there right now. I don’t envy Bloom’s position. You almost have to build for the long term and hope for the best short term.
Is spending big on pitching really necessary though? Just taking the two teams in the World Series right now and the starters they're using, they each have one elite-level salary in the rotation (20M+ AAV: Verlander, Wheeler), one pitcher with a mid-level free agent salary (10-20M AAV: McCullers, Nola), and the rest are pre-free agency/arb-eligible at best (sub-10M AAV: Valdez, Garcia, Urquidy, Suarez, Falter).

The Sox currently have an elite salary (Sale) and a handful of pre-free agency/arb-eligible guys (Pivetta, Whitlock, Bello). The mid-level free agent salary (10-20M AAV) guys are out there. They could re-sign Eovaldi and/or Wacha for that kind of money, just to throw out an example. That would put them on par with what the Astros and Phillies have done to get where they are.

Obviously, that they're not getting elite level performance from their elite salaried pitcher is a big problem, arguably their biggest. I'm not sure throwing big money after the problem is necessarily the best solution, at least not this winter with the current market. What they need is for their elitely paid pitcher to pitch like an elite pitcher, and for one or more of their cheaper options to make a leap. I know that's boring and perhaps futile, but I don't think spending money is going to be any more effective in the short term.
 

AlNipper49

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Is spending big on pitching really necessary though? Just taking the two teams in the World Series right now and the starters they're using, they each have one elite-level salary in the rotation (20M+ AAV: Verlander, Wheeler), one pitcher with a mid-level free agent salary (10-20M AAV: McCullers, Nola), and the rest are pre-free agency/arb-eligible at best (sub-10M AAV: Valdez, Garcia, Urquidy, Suarez, Falter).

The Sox currently have an elite salary (Sale) and a handful of pre-free agency/arb-eligible guys (Pivetta, Whitlock, Bello). The mid-level free agent salary (10-20M AAV) guys are out there. They could re-sign Eovaldi and/or Wacha for that kind of money, just to throw out an example. That would put them on par with what the Astros and Phillies have done to get where they are.

Obviously, that they're not getting elite level performance from their elite salaried pitcher is a big problem, arguably their biggest. I'm not sure throwing big money after the problem is necessarily the best solution, at least not this winter with the current market. What they need is for their elitely paid pitcher to pitch like an elite pitcher, and for one or more of their cheaper options to make a leap. I know that's boring and perhaps futile, but I don't think spending money is going to be any more effective in the short term.
I know Houston better. The difference with them and the Sox and Houston is that Houston had more immediate help from the minors. As far as I can tell they have mostly filler and a few lottery / AAAA types at the top levels.

They’re doing pretty well filling out the fielding and hitting side in the minors. I presume they’re going to have to spend on the pitching side to mitigate that.

who knows. I thought that Wheeler would be a bust when the Phillies signed him. That, to me, was a pretty big risk and it’s seemingly laid off for them.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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I don’t know if they need to spend, but they had the second worst pitching staff in the AL. So…they have to improve it somehow.

look at the Astros rotation, is there any Sox starter who would crack their top 5?
 

jon abbey

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If the right guy comes along, sure, spend big on a SP. The Mariners really nailed this, making their own opportunity by trading for Luis Castillo and then signing him to a 5/21m deal. But if the right guy isn't there, don't force it by spending on whoever seems kinda OK.
Ironically, the Mariners a good example there too, giving Robbie Ray 5/115 after a career year.
 

mikcou

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Red Sox revenue in 2021 was $479 million, 5th highest in MLB. Dodgers we’re first at $565 million.
https://www.totalsportal.com/list/mlb-teams-with-highest-revenue/
While seemingly directionally correct, Id take these numbers with a grain of salt; teams are generally not obligated in any manner to disclose revenue so it is likely done by a similar method (they dont say exactly what they did) to what I did upthread by taking net payment/receipt of revenue sharing and backing into a top line number as there is a clear formula that is known (I had used 2019 numbers so was going to be lower in fact $480M is almost exactly what you would get if you backed out my NESN estimate and applied a ~20% growth rate consistent with the league).

But, revenue sharing does not accurately capture regional sport network money and Atlanta, which does have public audited financials through a segment of Liberty Media, disclosed annual revenue over $100M higher ($568M in public financials; $443M on that site). Id tend to take the segment information that is audited and almost certainly captures all revenue streams as a better gauge.

Edit: The variance between the two is relatively comparable with the revenue reported for 2020 with zero gates ($175M). That tends to give some credence to the idea that a lot of it is RSN money. The extra in the difference ($50M) seems reasonably consistent with a short year national media money.
 
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joe dokes

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I don’t know if they need to spend, but they had the second worst pitching staff in the AL. So…they have to improve it somehow.
Right. They definitely need to improve the pitching. The jury remains out as to the extent that spending=improvement. Especially with relief pitching.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Getting back to Devers, and X to some extent, what do people think of reports that Arenado is opting into his remaining 5/$144M with StL? That’s a good but not great AAV. Age has to be a factor there, but he’s been consistently excellent and healthy. He‘s coming off one of his best years. He’s so good defensively that I would think there’d be teams willing to offer him 6 or 7 years. Yet he’s staying put.
 

grimshaw

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Getting back to Devers, and X to some extent, what do people think of reports that Arenado is opting into his remaining 5/$144M with StL? That’s a good but not great AAV. Age has to be a factor there, but he’s been consistently excellent and healthy. He‘s coming off one of his best years. He’s so good defensively that I would think there’d be teams willing to offer him 6 or 7 years. Yet he’s staying put.
Maybe he loves it so much in St.Louis that it's not worth the small risk he doesn't find a fit he likes. He's probably in pure bliss to go from one of the worst run organizations to one of the best so why mess with it.

I bet he could get at least 5/175 though. He really is the perfect player.
 
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OCD SS

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Maybe he loves it so much in St.Louis that it's not worth the small risk he doesn't find a fit he likes. He's probably in pure bliss to go from one of the worst run organizations to one of the best so why mess with it.

I bet he could get at least 5/175 though. He really is the perfect player.
Going into his age 32 - 36 seasons? I think that the number of teams who would bet against traditional aging curves is a lot smaller now… and those teams that would are probably a lot less fun to play for (and he recently left one of them).
 

grimshaw

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Going into his age 32 - 36 seasons? I think that the number of teams who would bet against traditional aging curves is a lot smaller now… and those teams that would are probably a lot less fun to play for (and he recently left one of them).
Because of his defense I think his decline won't be precipitous since that makes up a very large part of his value, and 36 isn't ancient.

With the caveat that this is written on the back of a napkin - in 5 of his last 6 seasons (excluding COVID) he's basically been a 6 win player "earning" between 47 and 56 mill per fangraphs. Based on 8.25 mill per win he'd need to earn about 21 fWAR or about 4.2 per year. He'd get there if he declined an average of a half win per year down from 6. Almost every big contract is an overpay on paper, but I don't think that would be one of the more glaring ones.

It's just a rough guess. I could be way off.