Red Sox: Off Season 2024-2025

[jad]

Once a competing organization has shown itself superior, the paranoia and conspiratorial fears among RS fans seem boundless.  The standard (i.e., official) story behind Ohtani's translator may not satisify one's cynical itch, but it is INFINITELY more reasonable and credible than any of the alternatives posed by disgruntled competing fans, conspiracy-theorists, and (well, I'd rather not use the 'r' word, even though it's applicability to Boston has been proven time and time again).

[moonslav59]

I dont see paranoia or conspiracy mania going on, nor even sour grapes.

 

[Duran Is The Man]

10 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I think we're going to see a lot of stories about this. 

The Dodgers kind of broke the camel's back this weekend. 

were it not for the deferrals, their payroll this year would be $492million.

[moonslav59]

40 minutes ago, Duran Is The Man said:

were it not for the deferrals, their payroll this year would be $492million.

With 100% tax on $250M or so, right?

[moonslav59]

If MLB and the union were smart... LOL... they'd agree to a big raise for min wage (like $1.5M '27> $1.75M '28> $2.0M '29> $2.25M '30> $2.5M '31) 

Expand ML roster to 27 and 40 man roster to 42. Go to 43 in man roster in '29 and 44 man in '31.

Shorten the years before arb by 1, but add an arb year.

Establish a minimum team salary budget: $85M '27,  $95M '28, $105M in '29, $110M in '30 & $120M in '31

These would be huge giveaways to the majority of MLB players and future players. Now, the givebacks by the players.

Move towards a hard cap, but include some sort of grandfather clause for players already under contract. Keep the CBT for 2 more years, but with deferrals counted and a tax rate at 50% year 1, 100% year 2 , 150% year 3 and continue up...

2027 CBT line $250M

2028: $265M

2029: $280M

2030: Hard Cap begins at $290M, then $3000M in 2031

(These seem like high numbers, but with min wage and roster sizes increasing it is needed.)

Just a rough outline of what direction I think MLB needs to go. MLB has to give something to the players for accepting a hard cap, and I think the lower and mid-range players would jump at the changes that would greatly up their pay while restricting the mega deals.

 

[mvp 78]

We now know why the Sox changed up this winter festival. 

From the Pirates annual fest: 

As Williams was responding to the first question, one fan in attendance shouted, "Sell the team," prompting some applause from the audience. At that point, several fans started chanting, "Sell the team!"

Greg Brown, the Pirates' longtime television play-by-play announcer, asked the fans to stop the chant and to "be respectful." Another fan then asked Williams, who was seated next to Pirates general manager Ben Cherington and manager Derek Shelton, why Nutting was not in attendance.

"We know, at the end of the day, this is all passion that has turned into frustration relative to winning," Williams said, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I think the points that you are making in terms of 'Where is Bob?' That's why he has us here, we're here to execute and make sure that we win."

The Pirates went 76-86 last season en route to their fourth last-place finish in the past six seasons. They have not finished with a winning record since 2018, have not reached the playoffs since 2015 and have just three postseason appearances since 1992.

[Duran Is The Man]

9 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

With 100% tax on $250M or so, right?

not sure. i just saw the Spotrac guy mention it on X.

[mvp 78]

10 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

With 100% tax on $250M or so, right?

They only get the tax on amounts over the CBT and a supplemental surcharge above each threshold (12/45/60%). The tax is (20/30/50%) based on the number of consecutive years above the CBT. 

If the Dodgers were above for 3 years and over $301M, they'd be paying 110% on every contract above the CBT ($241M this year). 

 

[moonslav59]

When you include the tax, the amount they end up paying is so absurdly higher than the next bidder.

[Larry Cook]

Which reliever do we bring in before training camp? The back end of the bullpen still ferns very thin! 

[Bellhorn04]

2 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

Which reliever do we bring in before training camp? The back end of the bullpen still ferns very thin! 

Anybody's guess.  We really can't count on anything.

[Bellhorn04]

Last year we kept asking what starting pitcher they were going to sign besides Giolito.  And the answer was NIL. 

[Larry Cook]

2 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Last year we kept asking what starting pitcher they were going to sign besides Giolito.  And the answer was NIL. 

But this year we should have more room in the budget than last year 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

2 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Last year we kept asking what starting pitcher they were going to sign besides Giolito.  And the answer was NIL. 

Nils was better playing guitar for the E Street Band.

[FredLynn]

2 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

Which reliever do we bring in before training camp? The back end of the bullpen still ferns very thin! 

The cheapest one

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Last year we kept asking what starting pitcher they were going to sign besides Giolito.  And the answer was NIL. 

It was Criswell.

[notin]

27 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

It was Criswell.

Criswell was a lot better than I thought he’d be.  Of course, I thought he was going to be AAAwful…

[vjcsmoke]

Red Sox miss out on Tanner Scott.

Rumors they offered more than Dodgers is false.

They lowballed yet again and of course fell short of the bid.

Bullpen is still a big weakness for the Red Sox and they show no interest in spending to get good players in to shore up the weakness.

I predict we can expect another multiyear deal for a pitcher coming off TJ surgery who won't play for us until year 2. 😴

Article: Conflicting Red Sox reports on Tanner Scott make Boston look even worse

[vjcsmoke]

2 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

But this year we should have more room in the budget than last year 

We have plenty of budget room. But the ownership has mandated cheap acquisitions. You can't acquire premium free agents with lowball offers.

[Randy Red Sox]

11 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

When you include the tax, the amount they end up paying is so absurdly higher than the next bidder.

well the Sox certainly don't need to worry about that

[Randy Red Sox]

On 1/19/2025 at 9:08 AM, Bellhorn04 said:

The Dodgers really are almost literally getting away with murder these days.  How many more things can go their way?

at least the Dodgers are TRYING to to win

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Criswell was a lot better than I thought he’d be.  Of course, I thought he was going to be AAAwful…

Many viewed Houck as the 6th starter, until Gio went down. Criswell might have been viewed as the 4th starter in AAA by soxprospects.com, behind Gambrell, Van Belle and Alexander.

I do think our depth for the rotation is one of our pluses. First, we may start with a 6 man rotation, and then we have Criswell, Fitts, Priester, Dobbins and Fulmer. That's 11 guys with some promise.

Maybe we can use some of them to beef up the pen.

[notin]

On 1/19/2025 at 12:54 PM, jad said:

Once a competing organization has shown itself superior, the paranoia and conspiratorial fears among RS fans seem boundless.  The standard (i.e., official) story behind Ohtani's translator may not satisify one's cynical itch, but it is INFINITELY more reasonable and credible than any of the alternatives posed by disgruntled competing fans, conspiracy-theorists, and (well, I'd rather not use the 'r' word, even though it's applicability to Boston has been proven time and time again).

Infinitely more reasonable? Infinitely?

Right, “it wasn’t me” is such a rare thing for the guilty to cry.  So it’s obviously infinitely likely to be true.  I wonder if Tucupita Marcano tried to blame his translator as well and how much MLB laughed at that.

Some of us struggle to believe Ohtani’s money was just so accessible that anyone who knew him could easily access millions of dollars and just happen to have a gambling problem and happened to get caught immediately after Ohtani signed a record-breaking, headline-stealing contract that it would have been a huge black eye for MLB if they had to void a week later because they banned the player for life.

Although even if Ohtani did get caught betting on baseball, MLB would probably change another rule for him…

[Bellhorn04]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Infinitely more reasonable? Infinitely?

Right, “it wasn’t me” is such a rare thing for the guilty to cry.  So it’s obviously infinitely likely to be true.  I wonder if Tucupita Marcano tried to blame his translator as well and how much MLB laughed at that.

Some of us struggle to believe Ohtani’s money was just so accessible that anyone who knew him could easily access millions of dollars and just happen to have a gambling problem and happened to get caught immediately after Ohtani signed a record-breaking, headline-stealing contract that it would have been a huge black eye for MLB if they had to void a week later because they banned the player for life.

Although even if Ohtani did get caught betting on baseball, MLB would probably change another rule for him…

The thing for me  is, we never got a credible explanation for how the interpreter could make 30+ transfers of $500 K to an unidentified account without the bank looking into it.  We did hear about all these new security measures banks have in place to flag suspicious transactions for money laundering and the like.  So how could this happen?  

I'd love to know how the bank explained it to the investigators.

[mvp 78]

15 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

Which reliever do we bring in before training camp? The back end of the bullpen still ferns very thin! 

There's too many relievers available to figure out who it will be. It's going to be an underwhelming acquisition, that's for sure. 

[Hugh2]

10 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

at least the Dodgers are TRYING to to win

The Dodgers are trying to win like a cop tries to take out a bad guy by pumping em full with 567 bullets

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

19 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

There's too many relievers available to figure out who it will be. It's going to be an underwhelming acquisition, that's for sure. 

In this decade of way offseasons, Red Sox fans would just settle for being whelmed.

[mvp 78]

In the recent 310 to Left podcast, both Breslow and Crochet were both noncommittal to getting a deal done prior to Spring Training. Crochet stated that he saw this as a place he wanted to be long term and that he was excited to be here, though he wasn't a "baseball fan" growing up and has a lot of learning left to do about the franchise. It was interesting that Tom Caron asked him about getting the chance to learn from Pedro Martinez and what his experience has been working with retired guys before and his answer was "I haven't had that chance." White Sox must not really be a good organization all around. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

17 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

In the recent 310 to Left podcast, both Breslow and Crochet were both noncommittal to getting a deal done prior to Spring Training. Crochet stated that he saw this as a place he wanted to be long term and that he was excited to be here, though he wasn't a "baseball fan" growing up and has a lot of learning left to do about the franchise. It was interesting that Tom Caron asked him about getting the chance to learn from Pedro Martinez and what his experience has been working with retired guys before and his answer was "I haven't had that chance." White Sox must not really be a good organization all around. 

The White Sox blew it by not paying Wilbur Wood to come out of retirement and coach all their pitching prospects to be like him. Imagine the value of a guy to a pitching staff -- especially the bullpen -- if he can throw 300 innings per year.

Wood won 20 games and lost 20 games in the same year... for those who still care about such stats, that might seem to negate his value, but even then he was always near the top in WAR (before it was created) -- 11.8 WAR in 1971, 10.7 WAR in '72! For context, Pedro's best WAR was 11.7 in 2000...

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

The White Sox blew it by not paying Wilbur Wood to come out of retirement and coach all their pitching prospects to be like him. Imagine the value of a guy to a pitching staff -- especially the bullpen -- if he can throw 300 innings per year.

Wood win 20 games and lost 20 games in the same year... for those who still care about such stats, that might seem to negate his value, but even then he was always near the top in WAR (before it was created) -- 11.8 WAR in 1971, 10.7 WAR in '72! For context, Pedro's best WAR was 11.7 in 2000...

Wood's aggregate record from 1971-1975 was 106-89.  An average record of 21-18. 😁