Agree to disagree. I don't think there's any upside to the 4/90 offer. He wasn't going to accept it and there's a downside where he feels disrespected and doesn't want to negotiate. It seems like you basically just disagree with the term "insulting".
I think your framing the issue this way isn't really on point. In any negotiation, both parties are going to make offers the other side will not accept. That's what makes it a negotiation.
There are offers that arent going to be accepted and there are offers that are non-offers. 4/90 is the latter. Its an opening offer that is such a low anchor that most responses are just going to be "no" or probably more likely "fuck off"
The term matters though. I mean, it matters a lot. It’s incredibly likely that this was Bogaerts last big contract. I think it’s pretty obvious that he would want more than 4 years..unless the $ per year amount was just insane, which $90M is not
As the prior poster mentioned, solely looking at AAV is a really warped analysis that can only be intended to justify management's offer. Its the totality of the deal that matters. Given what they had just given Story (a guy who had been an inferior player the prior year), he was never taking less than Story.
The $ off per year question may as well be rhetorical. We all know how to do math, I don’t know what repeating the math you already did does for anyone….hence why I said that the term mattered a lot.
This isn't ebay where there's a kind of blind bid and maybe you try again later with another blind bid. There's an actual negotiation in play. (Or maybe not, but that would be an impossibly fucked-up way to handle things. Soxbay.com? Or Xander's agent says, "Nah. Can't tell you the kind of thing we're looking for. Guess again.")
I dont know why you insist on using AAV as some be all indicator of a contracts value, but it is completely 100% batshit insane. That is not how contracts are valued. To take it to absurdity, would a player rather a 1/25 over a 5/100? Absolutely not. That is why you are getting pushback. The whole query and your rationalization is insane.
Yet, I'm clearly not saying the AAV is the only factor. I'm saying the AAV the Sox opened with was close to Story's. That's point one. Just digest that without getting bent out of shape. It means the Sox's AAV valuation of Xander is not all that far off from Story's deal. It is what it is.
I'm not going into my deal experience here or in PMs. I'll just leave it that there is a material difference between 4/90 and 6/140 that you seem to be discounting heavily. To be clear 6/140 likely would not have been able to get it done, the Sox would have needed to come up a bit to get it done, but its not some sort of auto reject at that point.
Yeah, I agree with this. The only strange thing is they then went out and publicly said they wanted to resign him... and then were also below everyone else. The whole process was very strange like they wanted to try to convince fans that they though they were going to sign him, but did it in a way that wasn't believable to anyone.
I'm not equating 4/90 and 6/140. I'm saying that 4/90 at least has close to the AAV of 6/140, so the counter is going to have to work the years and do moderate lifting on the AAV. (And those aren't fallow years - I'm sure both parties knew they had value, so they're on the table.)
Ok, but this is kinda the issue right? Xander has a strong argument that he is a better baseball player than Story so opening in an offer that would be tough to negotiate to par with Story is just a dead end as realistically the valuation is going to need to be higher. I really dont know what you're arguing. I'd agree if they offered a similar deal to Story that would be a good opening offer to settle in an area of Semien's deal. Offering a bit more than what Kyle Schwarber got is just.... as Jon abbey said an offer that isnt meant to be accepted.
This all got started by my noting that a 4/90 offer is the leaked reporting from one side and even if true, it's not "insulting," nor designed to torpedo negotiations, nor the final word. And we know it wasn't because the parties continued to negotiate, right up till Xander was reportedly going to sign, and then San Diego blew everyone entirely out of the water.
Whether its insulting has never really been the point, he may have taken it that way, he may not have. Nor is the point or argument that you lead with your best offer or that they wouldn’t have gone higher. The point is they a time to have serious negotiations on an extension and wasted it. Opening offers are important and they need to be at a point where the counterparty is going to take it seriously. 4/90 is just not a serious one. Given the extension talks basically blew up immediately, its pretty clear it didn’t work.
This is the first time in our conversation you have made this point. FWIW, I think it's a valid one to an extent.
https://www.patriotledger.com/story/sports/columns/2009/01/27/jason-varitek-misread-baseball-s/40310031007/
That isn’t an example of remotely what I asked. Varitek was a FA. I’m looking for a negotiation prior to free agency where the team started with a TCV of X, the player was expecting 1.75 to 2x and somehow it lead to a deal getting done without the team materially increasing the offer. It’s probably a rhetorical question because I don’t think they exist and that is why the offer made no sense prior to 2022 and continues to make no sense. Just like the Lester 4/70 didn’t make sense at the time and doesn’t make sense 10 years later. The likelihood of success is basically zero and, at the least, becomes a PR nightmare.
Yeah I don't think you need proof to make this statement, it is just common sense.
Ah, I misread you.
Nonstarter/bad-faith offers do exist. But those aren't exactly the same thing as "opening low." It's a question of degree - and a third party observer may not really be able to discern one from the other, absent a complete failure of subsequent negotiations, or a complete failure of movement on the issues. But here, we have further negotiations and we have movement. (Or so the reporting goes.)
Bingo. From the day they signed Story I figured the Sox didn’t *really* want to bring Xander back.
The bolded is also largely what I think, and it is essentially the story that best fits the fact pattern. That said, I can’t help but think no one in the FO told Bloom and he genuinely thought they would land X with their approach. I understand this makes Bloom look like kind of a stooge, but I can’t square his statements with the outcomes and I don’t think he is sophisticated enough in his public facing comments for it to have been misdirection.
I'm not sure I buy that about the FO and Bloom. I do agree about the fact pattern. Here's how I think it played out as the Sox headed into the offseason ahead of 2022...
1) mildly but not at the going rate
I think Story is inserted in the Xander conversation too much and Devers too little.
I've always wondered if the negotiations with Lester had anything to do with his cancer diagnosis. Complete speculation on my part but as you said, it seems inexplicable otherwise.
Upset? Who knows? Maybe he'll be an OPS 120+ batter at age 34 and 35. Stranger things have happened. I wouldn't have minded rolling the dice on that for the right deal.
I have all the optimism in the world about Mayer and hope he's the best player in the world soon, but I hate the thought that the franchise was pinning its hopes on a kid that was in A ball at the time. Lars Anderson once looked like a can't miss guy, and well...
This. I like Mayer too, but man, it seems odd that a number of people (posters here, casual fans, etc.) are treating it as a foregone conclusion that Mayer is going to be a guaranteed superstar. Then again, I am sure there are still people penciling Sale in for another 150P IP 3.25 ERA this season because hope springs eternal.
I'm not sure why Mayer is still thought of so highly. In his first season, Rookie League, he played in 26 games (OK, he was drafted in June) but in 2022, he played only 91 games (66 in A, 25 in A+) and only 78 in 2023 (35 in A+, 43 in AA). He's young and he's had injuries bu in my opinion t he has not played in enough games to prove that he should have been pick #4).
Unfortunately, I'm in the same camp. I fear he got similar hype as Benintendi and may be a decent player but I'm not expecting a superstar.
Well, a decent SS is a quasi-superstar. If he has good defense (which seems to be there on an anecdotal basis) and a league average bat for 6 years. . .that's pretty valuable.
He's 20 and crushed at every level before his hitting faltered in AA ball. And that is basically due to a shoulder injury he suffered before he was called up.
Yeah, I keep saying this, he really does struggle with offspeed stuff right now, but he plays good defense and looks like he’ll be an above average offensive player (he really wrecks fastballs). And an OPS+ 110 SS that plays good D is an incredibly valuable player.
Yeah, even if he amounts to a 2013 Stephen Drew type player, you take that every day. And it's not like they have a black hole at that spot that they're counting on Mayer producing big time for them to put together a good lineup.
I honestly was okay with it. I wish they had offered a better extension that took him to 2016 a few years earlier.... but Lester was inconsistent and was apparently going to be paid like an ace after it was guaranteed he was going to FA, which IMO... he wasn't. I thought the Sox were going to go after Scherzer so I was happy to show Lester the door. Apparently I was quite wrong.
For all of the talk and spilled ink over Mayer, I certainly hope he's better than 253/333/443 with 13 homers. That's not a draft pick to hang your hat on.
