Sox owners want to be under cap in '20

JokersWildJIMED

Blinded by Borges
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Oct 7, 2004
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According to a link from the article you posted, the Sox made $84 million in profit from 2018. https://www.forbes.com/mlb-valuations/list/#tab:overall

I imagine quite a lot of that was from a WS run. I wouldn't be all that shocked if the team lost money this year but I doubt it was very much.

This article could be dated, but it suggests a playoff run is worth $20-50 million. http://thefieldsofgreen.com/2014/10/02/how-much-value-does-a-postseason-appearance-hold-for-mlb-franchises/

Using that article, the Sox made 47.5 million in the playoffs last year. Add inflation and all that and it probably goes up to $60-65 million. I really wouldn't be surprised if the Redsox lost money this year because they didn't make the playoffs.

edit: Last year, the Redsox PLAYERS divided a $32 million pool from the playoffs. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/25/how-much-money-the-2019-world-series-champions-will-earn.html
I doubt the $84M includes profit from their 80% interest in NESN. Games on NESN have basically turned into mega commercials, with promos after every batter (sometimes in feels like after every pitch), so not including NESN is highly deceptive.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Would you be all that surprised if the 2019 revenue was $80m+ less than the 2018 revenue?

If you just go by the Forbes article, it's not hard to envision a scenario where the Redsox lost money in 2019. How accurate Forbes is, I don't know. One thing I do know is that making the playoffs is worth a lot of money to everyone involved.

Even if they didn't lose money, their profit margin shrunk a lot.
It would not surprise me if profit dropped by that amount comparing apples to apples.
 

Plympton91

bubble burster
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Oct 19, 2008
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An unrealized capital gain isn't
Doing some QnD calculator work, a purchase price of $380 million, a present value of about $3.2 billion, 16 years equates to an annual IRR of over 14%, or an estimated $44 million in untaxed gains in the current year, and rising going forward.
The environment for capital gains may change dramatically in 2021, along with the rest of the nation’s stock of wealth.
 

Plympton91

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Oct 19, 2008
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Whatever the numbers are, John Henry has never changed the way he wants to run the team. He’s perfectly happy to spend up to the luxury tax cap in order to field a winner, and he will go over that cap if it sufficiently raises the probability of winning. But he’s not interested in spending for the sake of spending or in unnecessarily contributing to the profits of other teams that tank seasons in order to pocket revenue sharing. He’s been all anyone could ask for in an owner.

Reading between those lines, Henry, like me, doesn’t believe the Red Sox have a high probability of winning next season and so doesn’t want to send good money after bad again The bottom line is that their starting pitching staff is right now is in shambles, but will cost about $85 million and counting. You have a good #3 in Rodriguez. Other than that, you have Sale and Price dealing with serious injury issues, Sale coming off a terrible season for him even before he broke down for the third consecutive year, Price missed significant time for the 2nd time in 3 years, Eocaldi was neither healthy nor effective, and there’s one spot currently unfilled with not a single legitimate cheap internal option on the table. So, without blowing through all the luxury tax levels again or wishcasting full health and peak effectiveness from all three of Sale, Price, and Eocaldi, they still wouldn’t be as good as the Yankees.
 

jon abbey

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interesting opinion piece that condemns baseball ownerships' recent trend.

https://tht.fangraphs.com/dave-dombrowski-teardown/
I thought this piece was pretty ill-conceived and executed, with some deeply fundamental flaws. First of all, comparing team-building in 1998 and 2020 is ludicrous, there have been multiple CBAs since then and so many other changes in the game that trying to draw the parallel IMO is silly. Secondly, the part that is missing in so many articles like this is the simple fact that spending money on big deals rarely ends up helping the team overall. It's a complicated topic, but so many articles seem to degenerate to "owners spending more money on payroll is better for everyone" and 1) that's really not true and 2) there are other ways for an owner to spend money to help the team besides payroll.
 

sean1562

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Sep 17, 2011
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yea and the big issue isnt that he refused to slash payroll but that he went on to sign Eovaldi to a 4 year deal and give Sale a 30 million dollar a year extension. The Xander deal does look great though so he does deserve credit for that
 

Harry Hooper

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Was the writer suggesting he did those deals without Henry’s authorization? Because ... I don’t believe that.
He also suggested any Betts trade would be a cost-cutting move. That seems unlikely to be a driving factor.
 

Plympton91

bubble burster
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Oct 19, 2008
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Was the writer suggesting he did those deals without Henry’s authorization? Because ... I don’t believe that.
Henry must have signed off, but at some point you have to trust your baseball experts and not be a meddling owner. We always say around here that you shouldn’t apply ex-post reasoning, but there’s a limit to that when you’re the ultimate decision maker. Part of your job is to make the decisions that turn out to be right.
 

OCD SS

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Henry must have signed off, but at some point you have to trust your baseball experts and not be a meddling owner. We always say around here that you shouldn’t apply ex-post reasoning, but there’s a limit to that when you’re the ultimate decision maker. Part of your job is to make the decisions that turn out to be right.
The problem with that reasoning is that the action chain is entirely based on cost. Eovaldi & Sale would still be costing the same amount with Mookie's payday coming due. Are they really depending on playoff revenue to such an extent that if the team doesn't make the playoffs then the bottom drops out of the budget? That seems like exceedingly bad planning. JWH is entitled to change his mind, but this seems out of character, so I wonder if there are other factors involved in the about face.

My best guess is either that Mookie has let them know he hates Boston and is not returning under almost any circumstances, or something has happened that is leading this ownership group to consider selling the team.
 

Minneapolis Millers

Wants you to please think of the Twins fans!
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Jul 15, 2005
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So, according to that article, we're supposed to believe that JWH explicitly told DD to cut payroll soon after the World Series, DD said no, didn't get fired then, instead re-signed Eo and Pearce and extended Sale, didn't get fired then, went into the season, and 5 months later got fired for refusing to carry out JWH's "unsavory" order from 10 months earlier? I'm still not sure why DD was canned in-season, but that article doesn't do much to clarify.
 

Savin Hillbilly

loves the secret sauce
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Jul 10, 2007
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The wrong side of the bridge....
So, according to that article, we're supposed to believe that JWH explicitly told DD to cut payroll soon after the World Series, DD said no, didn't get fired then, instead re-signed Eo and Pearce and extended Sale, didn't get fired then, went into the season, and 5 months later got fired for refusing to carry out JWH's "unsavory" order from 10 months earlier? I'm still not sure why DD was canned in-season, but that article doesn't do much to clarify.
Well, remember, the team had just had its greatest season in over a century. The optics of firing DD for failing to cut payroll in that context would have been pretty bad. It made more sense as the team staggered to the end of a disappointing year. It could be that after the Eovaldi and Sale signings JWH told DD, in so many words, "you better hope this works." And it didn't.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Jul 15, 2005
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Well, remember, the team had just had its greatest season in over a century. The optics of firing DD for failing to cut payroll in that context would have been pretty bad. It made more sense as the team staggered to the end of a disappointing year. It could be that after the Eovaldi and Sale signings JWH told DD, in so many words, "you better hope this works." And it didn't.
Yes, I get that. But if the owner tells you to cut payroll and not add, then I have hard time buying the DD insubordination slant. He could have simply not resigned EO and Pearce. Sign some other cheaper replacements. And extending Sale was done without ownership’s approval? Not likely.
 

EvilEmpire

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Apr 9, 2007
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I don't buy outright insubordination. But I agree with the idea that DD pushed for some deals, had some opposition, got his way, and paid the price when they didn't work out.
 

Manramsclan

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Jul 14, 2005
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Henry wrote, “You might actually be right for once in that I don’t plan what I’m going to say before answering media questions in a live media event.

"Your main point seems to be that I accidentally disclosed a secret plan but unlike you, I am honest about Sox issues."
I love Henry for writing this to CHB and I also believe him. I think overall the charge for Chaim Bloom is to use payroll more efficiently which is not something Dombrowski did.
 

nattysez

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Sep 30, 2010
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Sox ownership is so scared to death of losing NESN viewership and ticket sales that they will lie to the fans rather than admit when the team is taking a step back. They did it during the "bridge year" during Theo's tenure and they're doing it again.
 

Martin and Woods

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Dec 8, 2017
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It's a mighty fine line trying to communicate your strategy to your fans without communicating it to your competition. Honestly, I wish he would be a bit more Belichickian with his responses. "We'll do what we think is in the best interests of the team." I've been absolutely thrilled with the Sox' overall success during his tenure; he's earned the right to run it without first telling me what he plans to do.

Or, what Lose said.
 

snowmanny

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Dec 8, 2005
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Or they changed their minds about the plans.

Frankly, this ownership can say or do anything they want to in my book. 4 titles (FOUR TITLES!!) buys them a whole lot of slack

Right. They've changed directions/philosophies over and over. They would never sign a Carl Crawford to a mega-contract. Until they did. Lester was too old and risky until maybe he wasn't. And thirty seconds later Porcello and Price were definitely OK. They signed Sale and Eovaldi in the same calendar year they announced a salary cut. Bobby Valentine?

Whatever. They make some odd moves for sure but somehow they will figure it out and I expect(!) a title this decade.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Mar 11, 2007
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Isn't the best general strategy in anything to have a strategy but be open minded and flexible to alter that strategy completely if there is some new information or evidence that may suggest a change in strategy would help you to get to your desired outcome more efficiently?
I could care less if they're changing strategies- I just want them to figure out how to win. And as discussed here numerous times...... what is a good strategy one day (market inefficiency) can turn into dogma the next day. "Taking pitches" seemed like such a great idea until suddenly every pitcher realized they could float a stress free pitch right down the middle and already have one strike on any batter... until of course some smart hitters realized that pitchers were throwing meatballs their first pitch and could exploit "swinging away"....
 

scottyno

late Bloomer
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Dec 7, 2008
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If they're trying to generate more of a market for some combination of Price, Eovaldi, and JBJ (hopefully not Betts), then the worst way to do that would be to tell the rest of baseball that someone has to be traded. He should be saying the same thing with regard to payroll whether it's true or not.
 

Savin Hillbilly

loves the secret sauce
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Jul 10, 2007
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The wrong side of the bridge....
Isn't the best general strategy in anything to have a strategy but be open minded and flexible to alter that strategy completely if there is some new information or evidence that may suggest a change in strategy would help you to get to your desired outcome more efficiently?
I could care less if they're changing strategies- I just want them to figure out how to win. And as discussed here numerous times...... what is a good strategy one day (market inefficiency) can turn into dogma the next day. "Taking pitches" seemed like such a great idea until suddenly every pitcher realized they could float a stress free pitch right down the middle and already have one strike on any batter... until of course some smart hitters realized that pitchers were throwing meatballs their first pitch and could exploit "swinging away"....
File under "hobgoblin of little minds." I agree--as long as they really are being flexible and opportunistic, and not just flailing. And I think this ownership's track record earns them the benefit of the doubt on that.
 

high cheese

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Nov 5, 2001
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With a rudderless ship will come a rudderless team. Too bad. Lots of talent but no effort to improve the team. No excitement - and no way to provide it - going into spring training. I don’t expect much this season. Same owners delivered 3 last place teams wrapped around the 2013 ring. Don’t think it’ll go that far but 3rd might as well be last. Poor Chaim had no idea.
 

JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
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I'm honestly starting to wonder if Henry's email was a sign that it is dawning on ownership that the Red Sox are far from the odds-on favorites to resign Mookie, so why not go for it one more time in 2020 and reset the payroll next offseason if Mookie goes elsewhere and JBJ and maybe JDM depart as well?