Red Sox fifth in "The Scrooge Index"

johnlos

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All will be forgiven if they spend going forward now that the window is officially open. Sure, sure we should spend wisely, but the thing is you generally get what you pay for and teams that spend more win more games.

And yes I do think we were a playoff team this year if they spent like the Royals (lol) or DBacks did this past offseason (we were 28th in offseason spending). You can argue that might not be worth it, but man it was a frustrating season anchoring to .500. Link to the article.
9059790598
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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They aren't members here but I suspect RedBird would love that stat. If I were one of their investors I would be aiming for top of that list - the Sox can surely beat out the A's & Rays. They don't even have a home anymore.
 

Philip Jeff Frye

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Third in revenue, tenth in payroll if I've counted right. I wonder when they announce the ticket price increases for this coming season?
 

johnlos

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Hey the Tigers made it to the ALDS! I think Henry is on the right track!
I posted something like this before (which I promise is not a troll--I really do think Red Sox fans deserve to see their team spend the vast amounts of money we give them) and a lot of people argued that spending didn't even correlate with winning in 2023. Seeing LAD, NYY, and NYM as 3 of the remaining 4 in 2024 will hopefully avoid that crowd this time.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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I posted something like this before (which I promise is not a troll--I really do think Red Sox fans deserve to see their team spend the vast amounts of money we give them) and a lot of people argued that spending didn't even correlate with winning in 2023. Seeing LAD, NYY, and NYM as 3 of the remaining 4 in 2024 will hopefully avoid that crowd this time.
Unfortunately Henry can spend whatever he wants. I hope they spend more- by signing more of their homegrown talent to long term deals. Don’t make dumb big signings just to satisfy another side of the fan base that may prevent them from signing that home grown talent.
I just don’t want another “whoops we goofed with Sale so we can’t sign Mookie…. Sorry”! Situation. Whether that was truly the financial situation or not…. And whether Henry has enough to just spend himself out of bad situations is all part of the conversation. They seem to have some payroll cap. It’s lower than it should be IMO but I have zero input on that. I want Breslow to operate as optimally under that cap as possible and not make dumb trade deadline deals. So far I’m not convinced he can. And I’m less convinced that Henry will spend as a top five revenue team.
 

benhogan

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Unfortunately Henry can spend whatever he wants. I hope they spend more- by signing more of their homegrown talent to long term deals. Don’t make dumb big signings just to satisfy another side of the fan base that may prevent them from signing that home grown talent.
I just don’t want another “whoops we goofed with Sale so we can’t sign Mookie…. Sorry”! Situation. Whether that was truly the financial situation or not…. And whether Henry has enough to just spend himself out of bad situations is all part of the conversation. They seem to have some payroll cap. It’s lower than it should be IMO but I have zero input on that. I want Breslow to operate as optimally under that cap as possible and not make dumb trade deadline deals. So far I’m not convinced he can. And I’m less convinced that Henry will spend as a top five revenue team.
This pretty much nails it, right down to the Breslow comment (& I was optimistic about Craig's work at the trade deadline).
Fool me once...
 

soxhop411

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Are we sure THESE revenue figures are accurate? Prior ones were questionable.
Nope
To answer this question, theScore employed Sportico's team revenues for 2023, the most recently completed year, to understand clubs' cash-generating capability.

Sportico says some, but not all, of its revenue data has been verified. At the very least, it puts us in the ballpark of understanding how much direct baseball revenues are created by clubs
We then used 2024 player payroll data from Spotrac, including estimated luxury-tax payments, and compared the figures. Front offices sign most player contracts with only projections of revenue, so even if this isn't a perfect calculation to use prior revenue against current payroll, again, it gets us in the ballpark.

There are other costs associated with owning a team, of course, but by isolating player payroll versus team revenues, we can understand the commitment level of ownership groups
 

DeadlySplitter

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There's certainly an argument to be made that the window is not open yet. In fact it could take until 2027 at this rate - who on the farm is going to significantly help on the pitching side before then?
 

snowmanny

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There's certainly an argument to be made that the window is not open yet. In fact it could take until 2027 at this rate - who on the farm is going to significantly help on the pitching side before then?
If you have a lot of relatively cheap and relatively good home-grown talent up and down your lineup you can spend some of that vast revenue on (yeah maybe overpriced but they should be spending the money somewhere) pitching. In my mind, that should be the plan. That's how the young position players here and coming up soon help on the pitching side.
 

Harry Hooper

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Wait what? Again? When?
Yes, I don't think there's anything newer than Kennedy on Oct. 1st:

“I can’t tell you overall where ticket prices will be for 2025,” Kennedy said. “I can tell that you if you looked where we were in 2023 to 2024, now that the ‘24 season is over, on average, overall, the ticket price increase was 1.7% for this year, for 2024. I can’t tell you where we’re going to be for 2025 until after the season because prices change throughout the course of the year.”
 

johnlos

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Unfortunately Henry can spend whatever he wants. I hope they spend more- by signing more of their homegrown talent to long term deals. Don’t make dumb big signings just to satisfy another side of the fan base that may prevent them from signing that home grown talent.
I just don’t want another “whoops we goofed with Sale so we can’t sign Mookie…. Sorry”! Situation. Whether that was truly the financial situation or not…. And whether Henry has enough to just spend himself out of bad situations is all part of the conversation. They seem to have some payroll cap. It’s lower than it should be IMO but I have zero input on that. I want Breslow to operate as optimally under that cap as possible and not make dumb trade deadline deals. So far I’m not convinced he can. And I’m less convinced that Henry will spend as a top five revenue team.
Yeah like clearly I don't want another Crawford or Sandoval. Those even seemed questionable at the time. But you'll see me advocating for signing Imanaga last winter (I think teams way overthought that one...his stats were comparable to Yamamoto in Japan with more Ks actually and he cost less than half the price and years commitment). Teoscar was definitely on our radar too and could have really used him. The fact is some signings will bust and some won't...but like the Rangers showed last year and the Dodgers this year you gotta take the bad with the good. And Henry can certainly afford it so I want to spread the message that we expect it.
 
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DeadlySplitter

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If you have a lot of relatively cheap and relatively good home-grown talent up and down your lineup you can spend some of that vast revenue on (yeah maybe overpriced but they should be spending the money somewhere) pitching. In my mind, that should be the plan. That's how the young position players here and coming up soon help on the pitching side.
Just offering a contrasting argument to the opening post - it has really hit home for me lately how bad the pitching depth still is.

They need to trade their position player surplus for pitching, but they're struggling to find a match out there
 

johnlos

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There's certainly an argument to be made that the window is not open yet. In fact it could take until 2027 at this rate - who on the farm is going to significantly help on the pitching side before then?
Breslow already acquired a stable of young arms last offseason and will almost certainly trade for more with our OF depth. Why wait? The Orioles were better last year when they were all young hitters and questionable arms (instead of this year after they paid to add a few elite arms and things fell apart because...baseball).
 

mikcou

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That jumped out to me as well. How?
Doesn't take much. National media deals plus revenue sharing guarantees $200M+ a year before any local TV rights or the team selling a single ticket or advertising deal. Local revenue of ~200M gets them there (net of revenue share which is ~50% of local revenue).
 

TheDogMan

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Going into the year we all suspected something along these lines. While not happy about it many of us begrudgingly accepted this with the hope the Sox were one year away. Duran, Abreu and Houck really should have pushed the timeline up a year with a couple more additions. There was very little to lead any of us to believe leaps of the magnitude those players made were to be expected. This should be the year the Sox really do go "full throttle". The Yankees, Dodgers, Orioles etc. Will be formidable but the Sox should be able to compete on an equal level with best teams.
 

chawson

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Dave Dombrowski didn’t spend very much in his first offseason with the Phillies either. (Re-signed Realmuto and that’s about it.)

I get the frustration, but Ohtani and Yamamoto aside, there are no players in last year’s FA class who would have moved the needle in 2024 — once you factor the loss in production from the players they would have blocked or banished to the bullpen.

Teoscar would have been good here, sure — but how much does the season we imagine him having had in a Sox uniform forestall O’Neill’s excellent year? or Duran’s breakout? Or Abreu’s breakout? or Yoshida’s excellent summer? In most cases, the production would largely be duplicative with what we actually got. And Abreu wouldn’t be the trade chip/future building block that he is.

A similar dynamic plays out with Montgomery~Houck, I think, but YMMV.

The Red Sox are in a phenomenal place this offseason partly (not wholly) because of their restraint from making multi-year commitments to free agents in recent years. Imagine the conversations we’d be having on this board right now if we’d re-signed Bogaerts (a 1.2 bWAR player in 2024) to a 7/$175~ million deal two winters ago.
 

YTF

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The Red Sox are in a phenomenal place this offseason partly (not wholly) because of their restraint from making multi-year commitments to free agents in recent years. Imagine the conversations we’d be having on this board right now if we’d re-signed Bogaerts (a 1.2 bWAR player in 2024) to a 7/$175~ million deal two winters ago.
I've previously mentioned this in other threads and would like to repeat here. I largely agree with what you've written here and would like to add that Breslow's restraint concerning moving young, rostered players or prospects at any point during the past season also served the team well. Not only is the team best positioned to deal young assests than they have been in recent memory, but keeping everyone onboard through this past season has really given the players an opportunity demonstrate to the Sox and the rest of the league of their capabilities and possible potential.
 

rodderick

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Dave Dombrowski didn’t spend very much in his first offseason with the Phillies either. (Re-signed Realmuto and that’s about it.)

I get the frustration, but Ohtani and Yamamoto aside, there are no players in last year’s FA class who would have moved the needle in 2024 — once you factor the loss in production from the players they would have blocked or banished to the bullpen.

Teoscar would have been good here, sure — but how much does the season we imagine him having had in a Sox uniform forestall O’Neill’s excellent year? or Duran’s breakout? Or Abreu’s breakout? or Yoshida’s excellent summer? In most cases, the production would largely be duplicative with what we actually got. And Abreu wouldn’t be the trade chip/future building block that he is.

A similar dynamic plays out with Montgomery~Houck, I think, but YMMV.

The Red Sox are in a phenomenal place this offseason partly (not wholly) because of their restraint from making multi-year commitments to free agents in recent years. Imagine the conversations we’d be having on this board right now if we’d re-signed Bogaerts (a 1.2 bWAR player in 2024) to a 7/$175~ million deal two winters ago.
I'd honestly take that deal (and Bogaerts 6.6 fWAR since 2023) in place of signing Trevor Story to 6/140. Wouldn't alter their financial flexibility at all. It's not like they have zero albatrosses on the books.
 

Jim Ed Rice in HOF

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I just did the math on this and my tickets in the bleachers look to be going up 2.6%. Lowest two tiers remain flat, other tiers up between $1 and $3. I would expect the non-STH pricing to go up in the same increments that people see if they compare those two charts - until the Sox undercut the STH by doing those family pack deals.
 

Jimbodandy

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Just offering a contrasting argument to the opening post - it has really hit home for me lately how bad the pitching depth still is.

They need to trade their position player surplus for pitching, but they're struggling to find a match out there
I don't know why we keep saying the bolded.

Trading position player prospect depth is one way to acquire the pitching that we desperately need, not the only way. You can actually go sign it instead. The guy who just won game 2 was signed last offseason. Gerrit Cole was a signing too.
 

DeadlySplitter

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Because it is possible FSG is capping this team at 225M / is unilaterally saying no to any huge FA signings for pitchers over 30... so that is the only other feasible way.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Because it is possible FSG is capping this team at 225M / is unilaterally saying no to any huge FA signings for pitchers over 30... so that is the only other feasible way.
I'd prefer it if they just signed one of Snell, Fried or Burns but yeah, recent history pretty much shows that they won't. So who do you trade?
Duran- probably hit his peak. Probably would fetch the most return. Centerfield defense would improve (not saying he's bad out there) by putting in Rafaela there full time. Offense big drop off (even though I think Rafaela will improve to around a consistent .750 OPS guy). Rafaela would "balance" the lineup more if Duran was dealt.

Abreu- GG caliber RHH. Can't hit lefties. Or maybe can but hasn't really had a chance to yet. Likely would need to be paired with another good prospect, though second tier type, to bring something of equal value as Duran. Could be replaced by Anthony who looks to be a more complete hitter. But we know Abreu is good. Anthony still never played a ML game.

Rafaela- would be harder to get a good SP for him. Likely would need to add a higher tier prospect to get someone and that someone would likely still be on a lesser rung of SP's than the guys who Duran or Abreu could bring back.

Grissom- value is very low but I could see him paired with Abreu. Campbell could take his spot?

Casas- juggling around for his replacement wouldn't be too hard. He could probably bring a better return than anyone not named Duran, but he's a possible, with high liklihood of hitting that, middle of the order 35HR threat with great OBP.

ML "sweeteners"- Valdez, Hamilton

Mayer- value is high but not as high as Teel, Duran, Casas, etc... would pretty much put him as a similar value as Casas. Injuries may be chronic. Blocked by Story, although we know the story on Story. There's some SS depth behind Mayer. Rafaela could be that if needed. Campbell there?

I don't really have to strain hard to see how all of these guys with their injury history can all exist on the same roster, but it would definitely be one without O'Neill and Yoshida both
 

greenmountains

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All will be forgiven if they spend going forward now that the window is officially open. Sure, sure we should spend wisely, but the thing is you generally get what you pay for and teams that spend more win more games.

And yes I do think we were a playoff team this year if they spent like the Royals (lol) or DBacks did this past offseason (we were 28th in offseason spending). You can argue that might not be worth it, but man it was a frustrating season anchoring to .500. Link to the article.
View attachment 90597View attachment 90598
Another way to look at this in real Net Dollars - Revenue less Payroll

#1 Yankees - $344 million in net Revenue over Payroll
#2 Red Sox - $333 million net
#3 Cubs - $306 million net
#4 Astros - $279 million net
#5 Brave - $227 million net

I know there are a lot of other expenses...but all things being equal, ownership is putting more than $100m more in it's pocket than the Braves (#5) to the Mets.
 

nvalvo

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Casas- juggling around for his replacement wouldn't be too hard. He could probably bring a better return than anyone not named Duran, but he's a possible, with high liklihood of hitting that, middle of the order 35HR threat with great OBP.
I don't think this is true. But I'm not, like, sure it's true. If it is, and a team would accept him as the centerpiece for a legit ace, I'd be for exploring that.

One of the things limiting a non-extended Casas' value is that HR are really well compensated in arbitration, so good-SLG, bad-defense players tend to be expensive relative to their on-field value.

I'd say that our position-player trade value hierarchy is something like the following, sequenced by shot-from-hip estimations of how much I think players will be worth on the field in FA $/WAR minus how much I think they'll earn — the dollar amounts are there to provide a touch of structure, so guys between 75–50 are ranked relative to one another and bounded by those limits:

$75m surplus value
Anthony
Duran
Campbell
$50m surplus value
Mayer
Abreu
Teel
Casas
$25m surplus value
Grissom
Hamilton
Devers
Montgomery
Wong
Arias
Bleis
Cespedes
$10m surplus value
Rafaela
Gonzalez
Romero
Meidroth
Sogard
Valdez
$0 surplus value
-$10m surplus value

Yoshida
-$25m surplus value
Story
-$50m surplus value

So to be clear, I'm saying that we have an astronomical amount of position-player surplus value in the org, which makes sense as we have a good group of pre-FA MLB and miLB position players and only three FA contracts, the biggest of which is modestly above water.
 

johnlos

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Another way to look at this in real Net Dollars - Revenue less Payroll

#1 Yankees - $344 million in net Revenue over Payroll
#2 Red Sox - $333 million net
#3 Cubs - $306 million net
#4 Astros - $279 million net
#5 Brave - $227 million net

I know there are a lot of other expenses...but all things being equal, ownership is putting more than $100m more in it's pocket than the Braves (#5) to the Mets.
100%. So even if the revenue numbers are kind of off--and people made a big stink in a previous thread about the estimated revenues--we're looking at management not investing what the fans are putting into the team.
 

BaseballJones

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I don't think there's any question that Henry, et al, are using Red Sox profits to help fund some of their other sports enterprises. I don't have accounting evidence for this, of course, but I'd be stunned if it wasn't true.
 

johnlos

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I get the frustration, but Ohtani and Yamamoto aside, there are no players in last year’s FA class who would have moved the needle in 2024 — once you factor the loss in production from the players they would have blocked or banished to the bullpen.
Shota Imanaga would like a word. We never seemed interested in Montgomery--I don't think he's Breslow's type. Good point about DD though, and as I said in the OP, my point is the window is *clearly* open now so I hope management spends like it (even if we can expect some will inevitable go to waste).

The Red Sox are in a phenomenal place this offseason partly (not wholly) because of their restraint from making multi-year commitments to free agents in recent years. Imagine the conversations we’d be having on this board right now if we’d re-signed Bogaerts (a 1.2 bWAR player in 2024) to a 7/$175~ million deal two winters ago.
I think very few people in here were upset the Red Sox didn't sign Bogaerts for the money he commanded, so that's a bit of a strawman. We're also looking at a year later when the playoff window seemed more likely.
 

Jimbodandy

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I don't think there's any question that Henry, et al, are using Red Sox profits to help fund some of their other sports enterprises. I don't have accounting evidence for this, of course, but I'd be stunned if it wasn't true.
Does it matter if they're using it to pay Liverpool salaries or diving into big piles of cash like Scrooge McDuck?
 

Salem's Lot

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I don't think there's any question that Henry, et al, are using Red Sox profits to help fund some of their other sports enterprises. I don't have accounting evidence for this, of course, but I'd be stunned if it wasn't true.
Look at the construction that they’re doing around the ballpark. That cost isn’t coming out of Liverpool or Pittsburgh, and they still have to pay Jerry Cardinale his juice every quarter.
 

chawson

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Shota Imanaga would like a word.
I would have liked Imanaga but I don't think he substantially improves the 2024 Red Sox over what they got.

Imanaga - 29 GS, 173 IP, 2.91 ERA, 3.0 fWAR
Criswell, Fitts, Whitlock, Paxton - 29 GS, 135 IP, 3.07 ERA, 2.2 fWAR

Signing Imanaga would also have pushed someone to the pen. Maybe that's Whitlock and he ends up staying healthy? Or maybe that's Houck and we aren't in the position of viewing him as a major asset moving forward.

I think very few people in here were upset the Red Sox didn't sign Bogaerts for the money he commanded, so that's a bit of a strawman. We're also looking at a year later when the playoff window seemed more likely.
7/$175 isn't what Bogaerts commanded, ultimately. It's (roughly) the contract offer that most of this board surmised he would have signed if offered before he hit free agency (and after Story was already in the fold).
 

simplicio

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In defense of wanting Imanaga, those extra 40 innings he produced over that group might have gone a long way in keeping the pen from imploding.
 

Sox Pride

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In defense of wanting Imanaga, those extra 40 innings he produced over that group might have gone a long way in keeping the pen from imploding.
True - but there was also this Giolito fellow we were hoping would eat some of those innings at a high quality.
There's no guarantee that if we sign Imanaga that he doesn't break his arm as well.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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simplicio

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Weird, other reports that the Sox didn’t offer him a deal.

https://www.boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2024/08/23/jordan-montgomery-scott-boras-red-sox-quotes/

And still others that say he didn’t want to play in Boston because he didn’t see them as contenders.

https://www.si.com/mlb/red-sox/postseason-star-reportedly-didnt-want-to-sign-with-red-sox-for-disappointing-reason

Who knows? Or cares, at this point.
I think it was that they didn't extend him an official offer cause he wasn't really listening at 4 years and/or Boston.
 

Harry Hooper

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It cannot be dismissed that Heyman may be part of a "Boras reputation recovery" effort with this item.


Edited for clarity.