2017/18 Hot Stove Thread

[harmony]

Boston Globe columnist Nick Cafardo includes quotes from Scott Boras in this week's Sunday Baseball Notes:

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2018/01/20/scott-boras-likely-won-flinch-any-time-soon-and-his-clients-know/Yov2FRA8TRSaZu18ghT4SK/story.html

[Kimmi]

Is paying JD $135M/5 not $125M/5 going to make a difference in the offer to Pom?

 

My guess is DD is not interested in a Pom extension. If Pom repeats 2017, he offers him a QO and it's win-win no matter what pom decides. If Pom struggles, then he did the right thing by no extending him now. I know it's more complicated than this, but even with all the gray area in between, extending Pom is not a no brainer.

 

No, but paying JD $125M/5 versus not signing JD at all can and will make a big difference in how they approach everything else.

 

This is not just about Pom either. It's about any player they might want to extend. It might even be the difference between the Sox being willing to pay Mookie the $10.5 mil he wants versus taking him to arbitration.

[Kimmi]

On one hand I very much like that there is a salary cap and that revenue is shared. I am utterly of the belief that sport should be as fair as possible and not come down to who has the biggest pockets. I know that's not often the case, though. So the salary cap does stop teams from just outbidding all the smaller outfits and turning it into a battle for the ring for the same few organisations every year. That said, there is obviously flaws in this approach too. As has been pointed out, I think some owners are getting away with murder and not fielding anything like the team they could and cheating everyone. I'm not sure what we should do about it, but it definitely needs looking at. 100% agree with that.

 

I really don't want baseball to go down a route where the same teams dominate year in year out. But I do agree that the system they have in place now is far from perfect, too.

 

I very much agree with this sentiment, even if the Red Sox are one of the teams that can keep up with the others. I think it's good for baseball when there's more parity and the smaller market teams can compete.

 

IMO, the league should set a minimum % of the revenue sharing that each team has to commit to payroll each year. Any owner who does not spend the minimum would be required to return that money, which could then be divided evenly between teams who have met the minimum requirement.

[Kimmi]

What if J.D. Martinez has two or three offers of $125 million? Should he wait for a bidder to up its offer?

 

Sure. IMO, that's a big if.

 

But if JD does have several offers in the same range as the Red Sox offer, then JD is in the driver's seat.

[Kimmi]

Boston Globe columnist Nick Cafardo includes quotes from Scott Boras in this week's Sunday Baseball Notes:

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2018/01/20/scott-boras-likely-won-flinch-any-time-soon-and-his-clients-know/Yov2FRA8TRSaZu18ghT4SK/story.html

 

Boras' logic in his 'studies' is flawed in many ways. I don't know where to start.

[oldtimer]

Boras' logic in his 'studies' is flawed in many ways. I don't know where to start.

 

Boras probably looks at what a client is worth based upon some sort of comparative analysis based on stats and what other players are getting paid. He then puts in a factor based on how much he thiinks a team or teams needs a player to set what he thinks the player should settle for and then he puts in a multiplier to provide negotiating room. That approach results in a continuing salary spiral in which lower financial strength are priced out, limiting the breadth of the market. Boras and the client are risking teams finding someone nearly as good for significantly less money, narrowing the market to the extent the player winds up with having to take an offer that is below what someone else might have paid.

 

Teams have to have a different perspective. They are trying to build a winning team while staying below the luxury tax limit or certainly below a situation where punishing fines are imposed. That means they need to distribute money to get good players at all positions. Teams must be doing professional risk analysis these days. Even back when I retired risk analysis was a well used corporate tool. Given that the Sox certainly have seen high risk scenarios turn out poorly in the recent past, they must want to avoid continuing into the mess they still are in. Decisions made obviously impact a team for many years. A team also does not want to overpay for the value received. If they perceive a need they will no doubt go in with a serious offer but realize the market sets the cost of the player. As some here have said, why bid against yourself. The presumption is that we have offered JD $125 mil over 5 years. That is a very strong offer and should be treated as such. I am for moving on at this point and using the money to obtain people who want to play in Boston.

[Station 13]

They can. Are you suggesting that the Sox increase their offer to JD to make him happy, even if there are no other offers?

 

DH are cornered, the last 2 big DHs (E5 and Cruz) got 60 million.

[Bellhorn04]

Boras' approach continually pisses me off. Based off of his entire career, JD should not receive a large, lucrative contract, but he will get it.

 

I anticipate a move coming.

 

Boras annoys me, but he's not the one who is responsible for the wacky economic system of baseball.

 

I think Martinez probably merits a 5 year/$125 million deal off his last 4 years of production in which he has averaged about 4 WAR.

[harmony]

Boras' logic in his 'studies' is flawed in many ways. I don't know where to start.

That's one reason every MLB front office has an analytics department to produce contrasting statistics (that might be flawed as well).

 

Still, I appreciate each side's work with advanced metrics.

[a700hitter]

Boras' approach continually pisses me off. Based off of his entire career, JD should not receive a large, lucrative contract, but he will get it.

 

I anticipate a move coming.

I am not on the JD bandwagon. I am more and more convinced that DD should make a deal with O’s DD for Machado for 2018 and then the 2019 FA class will be stocked with Machado, Harper and other. Will Donaldson be in that class and Blackmon? I’d rather have one of those guys long term.

[mvp 78]

Boras annoys me, but he's not the one who is responsible for the wacky economic system of baseball.

 

I think Martinez probably merits a 5 year/$125 million deal off his last 4 years of production in which he has averaged about 4 WAR.

Yup, it’s the owners. I don’t blame Boras for his hustle.

[notin]

Yup, it’s the owners. I don’t blame Boras for his hustle.

 

Disagree.

 

When someone points out "these players make too much," I don't get the counterargument "would you rather the money go to the owners?"

 

Absolutely!!!!

 

The owners are going to be the ones providing my entertainment during down years. How many players are going to do that?

 

Id also rather see owners buy their own stadiums instead of begging for tax money ( unless the stadium is public).

 

A free agent might help the team for a few years. Or he might hurt the team. But either way, many of them become insanely wealthy regardless of help or hindrance, and none of them will use that wealth for my (and your) entertainment. ..

[moonslav59]

No, but paying JD $125M/5 versus not signing JD at all can and will make a big difference in how they approach everything else.

 

This is not just about Pom either. It's about any player they might want to extend. It might even be the difference between the Sox being willing to pay Mookie the $10.5 mil he wants versus taking him to arbitration.

 

It's my belief that we reset the luxury tax for a reason. We are going to spend big this winter- possibly to the point where we blow by the second tax penalty limit to just below the third limit.

 

It's either JD or about the same money spent on others (LoMo & Darvish or Nunez & Arrieta?). I don't think we'll spend less, because we want to extend Pom or Kimbrel.

 

I'm thinking we might look at QO offers for both as a way to rebuild the farm while replacing these two, in kind, by signing someone else with no QOs attached next winter.

[Kimmi]

Boras probably looks at what a client is worth based upon some sort of comparative analysis based on stats and what other players are getting paid. He then puts in a factor based on how much he thiinks a team or teams needs a player to set what he thinks the player should settle for and then he puts in a multiplier to provide negotiating room. That approach results in a continuing salary spiral in which lower financial strength are priced out, limiting the breadth of the market. Boras and the client are risking teams finding someone nearly as good for significantly less money, narrowing the market to the extent the player winds up with having to take an offer that is below what someone else might have paid.

 

Teams have to have a different perspective. They are trying to build a winning team while staying below the luxury tax limit or certainly below a situation where punishing fines are imposed. That means they need to distribute money to get good players at all positions. Teams must be doing professional risk analysis these days. Even back when I retired risk analysis was a well used corporate tool. Given that the Sox certainly have seen high risk scenarios turn out poorly in the recent past, they must want to avoid continuing into the mess they still are in. Decisions made obviously impact a team for many years. A team also does not want to overpay for the value received. If they perceive a need they will no doubt go in with a serious offer but realize the market sets the cost of the player. As some here have said, why bid against yourself. The presumption is that we have offered JD $125 mil over 5 years. That is a very strong offer and should be treated as such. I am for moving on at this point and using the money to obtain people who want to play in Boston.

 

I pretty much agree oldtimer. Boras trying to state that the players who sign the big contracts provide more WAR than those that sign 2-3 year deals, well, DUH. It's all about analyzing the risk versus the reward, and the most bang for your buck. I fully admit that if JD signs with the Sox in 2 weeks for somewhere in the neighborhood of $125 mil, I'll be very excited, but right now, I'm kind of over it.

 

I just read an interesting article by Joe Posnanski about how this slow offseason might not be just a 'fluke' type thing, but the beginning of the end for those 6+ year contracts. It's been shown time and time again that those contracts rarely work out, and it's also known that a player in his early 30s is typically well in the decline phase of his career. With FOs becoming more and more analytical, they are starting to pay more and more attention to this type of thing.

 

Someone like Mookie who is looking for a big payday when he reaches free agency might not get the type of contract that he thinks he's going to get.

[Kimmi]

DH are cornered, the last 2 big DHs (E5 and Cruz) got 60 million.

 

If JD and Boras aren't careful, they might find JD ending up with a similar type contract.

[Kimmi]

That's one reason every MLB front office has an analytics department to produce contrasting statistics (that might be flawed as well).

 

Still, I appreciate each side's work with advanced metrics.

 

It's not necessarily Boras' numbers that are flawed, but his logic in reading or interpreting those numbers.

 

I don't appreciate that.

[Kimmi]

I am not on the JD bandwagon. I am more and more convinced that DD should make a deal with O’s DD for Machado for 2018 and then the 2019 FA class will be stocked with Machado, Harper and other. Will Donaldson be in that class and Blackmon? I’d rather have one of those guys long term.

 

The impression that GMs are being cautious this offseason with the intent that they will go for broke next season on Machado or Harper might be a completely wrong impression. Again, this year might be the beginning of a trend of moving away from those ludicrous contracts.

 

Just speculation, of course. But I hope that's the case!

[Kimmi]

It's my belief that we reset the luxury tax for a reason. We are going to spend big this winter- possibly to the point where we blow by the second tax penalty limit to just below the third limit.

 

It's either JD or about the same money spent on others (LoMo & Darvish or Nunez & Arrieta?). I don't think we'll spend less, because we want to extend Pom or Kimbrel.

 

I'm thinking we might look at QO offers for both as a way to rebuild the farm while replacing these two, in kind, by signing someone else with no QOs attached next winter.

 

I agree that the intent of the team is to spend big this winter on someone like JD. It's not that we'll spend less on JD because we want to extend a player, but rather that if we lose out on JD, we might want to instead look at extending a player with some of the money saved.

 

IMO, not knowing what JD is going to do is holding up the rest of the team's decisions.

[a700hitter]

The impression that GMs are being cautious this offseason with the intent that they will go for broke next season on Machado or Harper might be a completely wrong impression. Again, this year might be the beginning of a trend of moving away from those ludicrous contracts.

 

Just speculation, of course. But I hope that's the case!

I hope that is the case, because it would lower the cost of a much deeper FA class of premium hitters.

[harmony]

If JD and Boras aren't careful, they might find JD ending up with a similar type contract.

If the Red Sox are not careful they might end up with Hanley Ramirez as the full-time designated hitter

 

Which may be the better result ... or not.

[Natick to NC]

Are they really in 100 percent on JD ? I think the Machado rumor may have more legs .

[Bellhorn04]

Are they really in 100 percent on JD ? I think the Machado rumor may have more legs .

 

When was the last time we heard a good rumor about Machado?

[notin]

Are they really in 100 percent on JD ? I think the Machado rumor may have more legs .

 

That was always a dead end...

[moonslav59]

The impression that GMs are being cautious this offseason with the intent that they will go for broke next season on Machado or Harper might be a completely wrong impression. Again, this year might be the beginning of a trend of moving away from those ludicrous contracts.

 

Just speculation, of course. But I hope that's the case!

 

To me, it's more about most of the biggest spending teams resetting their luxury tax this year, and not so much about who will be free agents next winter.

 

Just taking LAD and NYY out of the big free agent sweepstakes is reason enough for a slow-to-develop or "cautious market."

[moonslav59]

I agree that the intent of the team is to spend big this winter on someone like JD. It's not that we'll spend less on JD because we want to extend a player, but rather that if we lose out on JD, we might want to instead look at extending a player with some of the money saved.

 

IMO, not knowing what JD is going to do is holding up the rest of the team's decisions.

 

He's our first option, so in that sense, he's "holding up" other signings, but IMO, it's holding up other teams' signings not ours. We won't sign Darvish, Arrieta or LoMo, unless we miss out on JD.

 

I still do not feel the JD signing delay is keeping us from extending Pom, Kimbrel of anyone else.

[moonslav59]

If the Red Sox are not careful they might end up with Hanley Ramirez as the full-time designated hitter

 

Which may be the better result ... or not.

 

We could always just sign a pitcher and Duda, if LomO goes elsewhere.

[Bellhorn04]

To me, it's more about most of the biggest spending teams resetting their luxury tax this year, and not so much about who will be free agents next winter.

 

Just taking LAD and NYY out of the big free agent sweepstakes is reason enough for a slow-to-develop or "cautious market."

 

No doubt that's a factor, but I don't think it fully explains the lack of signings at this point. This has gone past slow...it's glacial.

[moonslav59]

Are they really in 100 percent on JD ? I think the Machado rumor may have more legs .

 

Or, the threat of Machado is gamesmanship by DD to try and stress the point that we are not desperate for JD.

[moonslav59]

No doubt that's a factor, but I don't think it fully explains the lack of signings at this point. This has gone past slow...it's glacial.

 

I really think JD is the domino holding up everything else. Players and agents are waiting, in hopes the Sox miss out on JD and enter the bidding on the top secondary free agents still out there (Darvish, Arrieta, LoMo, Lynn, Cobb...).

 

The history...

 

QO signings

 

Winter 2016-2017

LAD signed 2 of 8 (Turner & Jansen)

 

Winter 2015-2016

LAD signed 1 of 14 (Kendrick)

 

Winter 2013-2014

NYY signed 4 of 13 (Beltran, Ellsbury, Kuroda & McCann)

 

 

[Natick to NC]

Just a "why not " what if " .....Can't Dave still entertain trading Mitch? Is the Hosmer to Boston really dead ? Or is this 3 d chess to Dave ? . I'm just having fun with some of these ideas ..But Wow that would throw some for a loop.I just think it's possible .