Trades?

[moonslav59]

Eovaldi's 2018 salary was $2 million.

 

“Bloated” for the Rays!

[notin]

If they trade bad Vlad at age 25 -- like some in the media are speculating -- it's gotta be a full rebuild.

 

Even if he looks like he'll morph into Prince (not a good) Fielder before he turns 30...

 

I doubt they trade Vlad. Now that other legacy infielder whose name rhymes with a famous Star Wars bounty hunter? I could see him getting moved…

[Maxbialystock]

I have to be honest and say I'm skeptical of most trades, and here's why.

 

Story, Yoshida, Giolito, Sale, and maybe even Whitlock (with his new contract) were questionable investments. But right now, without those players, the Sox are in the hunt for the postseason. Indeed, the loss of starters Sale, Giolito, and Whitlock has resulted in the best Sox rotation in a long time.

 

Five years ago the 2019 Sox had the highest payroll in MLB and were loaded with talent: Mookie, Devers, JDM, Bogey, Vazquez, Leon, JBJ, Beni, Moreland, Holt, ERod, Workman, Sale, Price, Eovaldi, Porcello, et al. They won 84 games and did not make it to the postseason. In the latter half of the 2019 season DD was going to John Henry and telling him, "boss, I know we have the highest payroll in Baseball, but I need a bunch more money to keep Mookie and replace Sale and Price in the rotation while continuing to pay them."

 

Now here we are five years later, Devers is the only player left from the 2019 Sox, and the Sox are relying heavily on a bunch of no-names who are doing better than the 2019 Sox.

[mvp 78]

I doubt they trade Vlad. Now that other legacy infielder whose name rhymes with a famous Star Wars bounty hunter? I could see him getting moved…

 

I can't believe the signed IG-88.

[notin]

I can't believe the signed IG-88.

 

Needed more fWAR from their assassin role…

[notin]

I have to be honest and say I'm skeptical of most trades, and here's why.

 

Story, Yoshida, Giolito, Sale, and maybe even Whitlock (with his new contract) were questionable investments. But right now, without those players, the Sox are in the hunt for the postseason. Indeed, the loss of starters Sale, Giolito, and Whitlock has resulted in the best Sox rotation in a long time.

 

Five years ago the 2019 Sox had the highest payroll in MLB and were loaded with talent: Mookie, Devers, JDM, Bogey, Vazquez, Leon, JBJ, Beni, Moreland, Holt, ERod, Workman, Sale, Price, Eovaldi, Porcello, et al. They won 84 games and did not make it to the postseason. In the latter half of the 2019 season DD was going to John Henry and telling him, "boss, I know we have the highest payroll in Baseball, but I need a bunch more money to keep Mookie and replace Sale and Price in the rotation while continuing to pay them."

 

Now here we are five years later, Devers is the only player left from the 2019 Sox, and the Sox are relying heavily on a bunch of no-names who are doing better than the 2019 Sox.

 

 

Both teams had the same record (43-37) at the 80 game point. But with this team, that record is a pleasant surprise, while in 2019 it was an abject disappointment…

[mvp 78]

Needed more fWAR from their assassin role…

 

Dengar has amounted a lot of fWAR over the years, but he's really past his prime at this point.

[moonslav59]

Now here we are five years later, Devers is the only player left from the 2019 Sox, and the Sox are relying heavily on a bunch of no-names who are doing better than the 2019 Sox.

 

Perhaps more amazing is that Dalbec is second in 40 man roster seniority.

 

He was drafted in 2016, a couple years after Devers was an Int’l signing.

 

Pivetta is 3rd.

[Maxbialystock]

Both teams had the same record (43-37) at the 80 game point. But with this team, that record is a pleasant surprise, while in 2019 it was an abject disappointment…

 

Absolutely fair statement. I think my point is still valid. High-priced players aren't necessarily terrible, but they do carry risks.

[mvp 78]

Perhaps more amazing is that Dalbec is second in 40 man roster seniority.

 

He was drafted in 2016, a couple years after Devers was an Int’l signing.

 

Pivetta is 3rd.

 

And yet you want to get rid of Pivetta AND Dalbec. Interesting.....

[moonslav59]

And yet you want to get rid of Pivetta AND Dalbec. Interesting.....

 

Dalbec, yes, along with 95% of this site.

 

On Pivetta, if we are to be sellers, yes, I’d trade all of our FAsbto be forvgg to he best return possible.

 

It looks less and less likely as we get closer to the deadline.

 

BTW, you ignored my posts about extending Pivetta, which I still would like to see done, at a reasonable cost.

[Maxbialystock]

Both teams had the same record (43-37) at the 80 game point. But with this team, that record is a pleasant surprise, while in 2019 it was an abject disappointment…

 

I like "abject disappointment" because I think it describes how John Henry felt. It could explain why he soured on DD and the notion that, to keep Mookie and replace Price and Sale, the Sox payroll, then the highest in MLB, would need to get a lot bigger.

Edited June 28, 2024 by Maxbialystock

[Bellhorn04]

I like "abject disappointment" because I think it describes how John Henry felt. It could explain why he soured on DD and the notion that, to keep Mookie and replace Price and Sale, the Sox payroll, then the highest in MLB, would need to get a lot bigger.

 

If Henry soured on DD because of one disappointing season out of 4, that would make him the most mercurial owner in history next to maybe George Steinbrenner at his worst.

[notin]

If Henry soured on DD because of one disappointing season out of 4, that would make him the most mercurial owner in history next to maybe George Steinbrenner at his worst.

 

 

Ok. That settles it. ..

[Maxbialystock]

If Henry soured on DD because of one disappointing season out of 4, that would make him the most mercurial owner in history next to maybe George Steinbrenner at his worst.

 

Please reread what I wrote.

 

2019 was a disappointment, but the real grabber was that the very expensive 2019 Sox with the biggest payroll in MLB were going to need a large infusion of cash. First and foremost, Betts was about to be a free agent and the Dodgers were willing to provide a very competitive package. Second, Price and Sale had long and expensive contracts but were no longer viable starters. Price's cumulative WAR after 2019 was 1.2. Sale's (not including this season) was 2.7. So, in addition to paying them for several more years, John Henry would need to give DD a bunch more money to replace them in the rotation.

[Bellhorn04]

Please reread what I wrote.

 

2019 was a disappointment, but the real grabber was that the very expensive 2019 Sox with the biggest payroll in MLB were going to need a large infusion of cash. First and foremost, Betts was about to be a free agent and the Dodgers were willing to provide a very competitive package. Second, Price and Sale had long and expensive contracts but were no longer viable starters. Price's cumulative WAR after 2019 was 1.2. Sale's (not including this season) was 2.7. So, in addition to paying them for several more years, John Henry would need to give DD a bunch more money to replace them in the rotation.

 

None of that alters the fact that it was only one disappointing season. Plus you're chucking stuff in there that wasn't even known at the time, like how Price and Sale were going to perform in the future. Betts wasn't a free agent until after 2020, and nobody knew exactly how interested the Dodgers were in him until we traded him.

 

So you're not really arguing in good faith.

[notin]

None of that alters the fact that it was only one disappointing season. Plus you're chucking stuff in there that wasn't even known at the time, like how Price and Sale were going to perform in the future. Betts wasn't a free agent until after 2020, and nobody knew exactly how interested the Dodgers were in him until we traded him.

 

So you're not really arguing in good faith.

 

 

I think Henry looked at more than just W-L records.

 

The Sox were falling in the standings, had the largest payroll in MLB history, had $300mill tied up in 3 oft-injured pitchers, had little time left on the deals for Betts and Bogaerts. Do you really think “one bad season” encompasses that? And I probably left out other factors and don’t know about even more…

[Bellhorn04]

I think Henry looked at more than just W-L records.

 

The Sox were falling in the standings, had the largest payroll in MLB history, had $300mill tied up in 3 oft-injured pitchers, had little time left on the deals for Betts and Bogaerts. Do you really think “one bad season” encompasses that? And I probably left out other factors and don’t know about even more…

 

"Falling in the standings" - sure, let's make it sound more dramatic than it really was. It was one bad season, no more, no less. And not as bad as some other Red Sox seasons Henry has been witnessing.

 

DD had inked Bogaerts to an extension through 2022, so that's wrong too.

[notin]

"Falling in the standings" - sure, let's make it sound more dramatic than it really was. It was one bad season, no more, no less. And not as bad as some other Red Sox seasons Henry has been witnessing.

 

DD had inked Bogaerts to an extension through 2022, so that's wrong too.

 

True he snuck the Bogaerts thing in. And you ignored everything else.

 

You keep insisting it was one bad season. But in the set of 93, 93, 108, and 84, which number is the outlier?

 

The Sox did drop 24 games in the standings, which is a fact. But it also coincided with the vast improvements made in 2018 and 2019 with the other teams in the division.

[Bellhorn04]

True he snuck the Bogaerts thing in. And you ignored everything else.

 

You keep insisting it was one bad season. But in the set of 93, 93, 108, and 84, which number is the outlier?

 

The Sox did drop 24 games in the standings, which is a fact. But it also coincided with the vast improvements made in 2018 and 2019 with the other teams in the division.

 

"Snuck the Bogaerts thing in"? I'm not even sure what you're talking about.

 

I think it's pretty sad that you're trying to discredit what was a pretty good run. And 2021 wasn't bad either, with a lot of holdovers from 2019.

Edited June 28, 2024 by Bellhorn04

[dgalehouse]

Dombrowski made one mistake in 2019. That was to neglect the bullpen. That, coupled with injury and underperformance from the rotation , sunk the season. The starting lineup was very good. You should not omit that the Sox were coming off of three straight division titles, something they have not done before or since. Dombrowski had a great run.

[notin]

"Snuck the Bogaerts thing in"? I'm not even sure what you're talking about.

 

I think it's pretty sad that you're trying to discredit what was a pretty good run. And 2021 wasn't bad either, with a lot of holdovers from 2019.[/QUOTe]

 

You're missing the point. Not sure if I'm not being clear or you're deliberately ignoring it or both.

 

I'll take you one further - an 84 win season isn't a failure. It felt like one after 2018, absolutely. But 84 wins is a passing grade in my book.

 

But what did Dombrowski build? His teams won 93, 93, 108 and 84. The tendency, because they were all pennants, is to lump the first 3 in together. But the 108 win season is a clear outlier, not the 84 win season. And his other 3 seasons averaged 87 wins. (Slightly unfair math, yes). So the Sox were a team that was winning 87-93 wins, but doing so with the highest payroll in MLB. Not to mention the future commitments did not look so great, especially with $300mill commited to Price, Sale, and Eovaldi with nothing committed to Mookie. That money to those pitchers produced 14.4 fWAR (and counting) over 11 individual seasons (including Sale in 2024). I think this overall picture was simply not how Henry pictured running this team. With that much money dedicated for less than stellar results, Especially while competing with Tampa, who was nearly as good but for less than a quarter of the cost.

 

I mean, if you ran a business, would you decide spending 4 times as much for the same results was a good practice?

 

Not to mention, with Tampa and New York and Toronto all clearly getting better back then, was this 87-93 win team going to be good enough? And if not, what do you do? Spend even more? They were already number one in spending, and the results might not have been as good as they’re needed to be…

Edited June 28, 2024 by notin

[Bellhorn04]

You're missing the point. Not sure if I'm not being clear or you're deliberately ignoring it or both.

 

I'll take you one further - an 84 win season isn't a failure. It felt like one after 2018, absolutely. But 84 wins is a passing grade in my book.

 

But what did Dombrowski build? His teams won 93, 93, 108 and 84. The tendency, because they were all pennants, is to lump the first 3 in together. But the 108 win season is a clear outlier, not the 84 win season. And his other 3 seasons averaged 87 wins. (Slightly unfair math, yes).

 

Not just unfair math, but wrong math. The average of 93+93+84 is 90. Which is the same number of wins the 2023 World Series champs had, BTW, and more than the 2021 champs, so it's not really a bad number.

 

Meanwhile, throwing out the 108 season as an "outlier" is ludicrous. We're talking about 1 of a population of 4.

 

Shall we throw out 2013 from Cherington's resume while we're at it?

 

You're abusing math and logic.

[notin]

Not just unfair math, but wrong math. The average of 93+93+84 is 90. Which is the same number of wins the 2023 World Series champs had, BTW, and more than the 2021 champs, so it's not really a bad number.

 

Meanwhile, throwing out the 108 season as an "outlier" is ludicrous. We're talking about 1 of a population of 4.

 

Shall we throw out 2013 from Cherington's resume while we're at it?

 

You're abusing math and logic.

 

I think most people think of 2013 as a clear outlier in the Cherington years, which are most often described as “three last place finishes in 4 years,” are they not? If nothing else, that marginalizes his one title.

 

The entire point was Henry clearly didn’t like paying the top dollar for a 90 win team. And the East was getting better, and his expensive Sox team probably wasn’t as good as the 2018 team lead us to believe. And that was a big part of why DD was dismissed. And not solely because of 2019.

 

He wanted a cheaper winner, which he didn’t think he would get from DD, whose history of success is supported with large financial commitments, even in Miami.

 

Or we could ignore all that and go with your theory, which was what again?

 

Yes I did my math wrong. But if you include 2018, the standard deviation for his 4 years was 10 wins, which is a large variance and why it looks like the outlier over 2019. The standard deviation without 2018 is only 5.15.

 

The point is his run was less stable than many want to believe, especially for that money. 90 wins was good enough for a WSC in 2023. But in 2021, 90 wins puts you fifth in the AL East, the division we need to get out of to get into the playoffs…

Edited June 28, 2024 by notin

[moonslav59]

Dombrowski made one mistake in 2019. That was to neglect the bullpen. That, coupled with injury and underperformance from the rotation , sunk the season. The starting lineup was very good. You should not omit that the Sox were coming off of three straight division titles, something they have not done before or since. Dombrowski had a great run.

 

I’m not so sure DD is fully to blame for not replacing Kimbrel and Kelly. I think the tightening on new spending began before DD left. Hell, DD almost traded Betts at the 2019 deadline. Does anyone think he wanted to do that any more or less than Bloom did?

 

That 2019 team still looked good on paper, but some extensions were about to kick in, arb raises accumulating and a farm that gave DD just Devers in 2017 and nothing on the horizon to temper the high-priced players need to fill out the 26 and 40 man roster in coming years. Not signing any RPers for 2019 was a clear sign of major changes coming.

 

IMO, JH looked at the state of the farm, the cost it would take to keep everybody or replace in kind via FAs was just going to get way too costly. I think that was the crux of the spat between JH and DD, along with some personal style issues.

 

The writing was on the wall, all along. The only realistic way we could have kept competing was to keep spending more and more, and I’m not just talking Betts. We lost more after K & K. Although Porcello had declined after his Cy Young, we lost him and others.

 

Although not known at the time, we were to see major injuries to Sale, Price, ERod and lesser injuries to Nate and others. Plus, Pedey was still on the books.

[Maxbialystock]

I’m not so sure DD is fully to blame for not replacing Kimbrel and Kelly. I think the tightening on new spending began before DD left. Hell, DD almost traded Betts at the 2019 deadline. Does anyone think he wanted to do that any more or less than Bloom did?

 

That 2019 team still looked good on paper, but some extensions were about to kick in, arb raises accumulating and a farm that gave DD just Devers in 2017 and nothing on the horizon to temper the high-priced players need to fill out the 26 and 40 man roster in coming years. Not signing any RPers for 2019 was a clear sign of major changes coming.

 

IMO, JH looked at the state of the farm, the cost it would take to keep everybody or replace in kind via FAs was just going to get way too costly. I think that was the crux of the spat between JH and DD, along with some personal style issues.

 

The writing was on the wall, all along. The only realistic way we could have kept competing was to keep spending more and more, and I’m not just talking Betts. We lost more after K & K. Although Porcello had declined after his Cy Young, we lost him and others.

 

Although not known at the time, we were to see major injuries to Sale, Price, ERod and lesser injuries to Nate and others. Plus, Pedey was still on the books.

 

Finally you agree with me. I've been saying that for a month--that DD was about to break the bank at monte carlo--and that's why JH dumped him.

 

And that's also why right now JH is delighted that his basically no-name roster is in the hunt for the postseason. I'm sure he's still pissed about paying $17M to Sale while he is pitching brilliantly for the Braves, also the wasted Story contract, ditto the Yoshida contract, and the stupid $36M for Giolito for one season (and we won't know until next year whether he is "good" for that season).

Edited June 28, 2024 by Maxbialystock

[notin]

Dombrowski made one mistake in 2019. That was to neglect the bullpen. That, coupled with injury and underperformance from the rotation , sunk the season. The starting lineup was very good. You should not omit that the Sox were coming off of three straight division titles, something they have not done before or since. Dombrowski had a great run.

 

The bullpen actually pitched better in 2019, considering they were needed for about 100 more innings.

 

The big problem with the 2019 Sox was the rotation, with Sale, Price, Porcello and Eovaldi all pitching much worse than they did in the previous season for various reasons…

[dgalehouse]

The bullpen actually pitched better in 2019, considering they were needed for about 100 more innings.

 

The big problem with the 2019 Sox was the rotation, with Sale, Price, Porcello and Eovaldi all pitching much worse than they did in the previous season for various reasons…

 

Bottom line. The bullpen blew a lot of leads. That is a fact.

[dgalehouse]

The bullpen actually pitched better in 2019, considering they were needed for about 100 more innings.

 

The big problem with the 2019 Sox was the rotation, with Sale, Price, Porcello and Eovaldi all pitching much worse than they did in the previous season for various reasons…

 

Sox relief pitching: 2018- 46 saves. 20 blown saves. 2019: 33 saves. 31 blown saves. From a plus 26 to a plus 2. As usual, I will supply the facts. You will supply the spin and the " context" (aka excuses)

[notin]

Sox relief pitching: 2018- 46 saves. 20 blown saves. 2019: 33 saves. 31 blown saves. From a plus 26 to a plus 2. As usual, I will supply the facts. You will supply the spin and the " context" (aka excuses)

 

 

A few more facts,

 

2019 bullpen: 665 IP, 4.14 FIP/4.40 ERA, 10.5K/9, 5.6 fWAR

2018 bullpen: 561 IP, 3.90 FIP/3.72 ERA, 9.6K/9, 4.1 fWAR

 

“Spin” is looking at saves and blown saves and pretending it measures bullpen performance…