Taking the Cheap Way Hardly Ever Works

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

that is because we burned him out in 2004 WS run

This has been the ongoing belief, but there was more to it, than just the 2004 season and playoffs.

While 83 IP is a lot, these days for a closer then 14 IP in the playoffs, could easily be viewed as the "sole reason" for his " burning out," he was 31 in 2004 and coming off these IP totals in prior seasons:

105 in '99 (67 games)

88 in '2000 (72 g) + 2 playoff innings.

81 in '01 (72)

78 in '02 (65)

87 in '03 (72) + 5 in the playoffs for OAK.

That's a lot of innings for a late inning RP'er.

Here is his IP in playoff games in 2004. He actually had some rest between most games:

1.1 IP Oct 6

1.1 IP Oct 8 (1 day off between games)

0.1 IP Oct 12, 0.2 Oct 13 (back-to back, but just 1 IP total)

(3 days off)

2.2 Oct 17 and 1.1 on Oct 18 (back-to-back and 4 IP is a hard push), then 1 IP Oct 19

(3 days off)

1.2 Oct 23, 1.1 Oct 24 (back-to-back w more than 1 IP)

Day off

1 IP Oct 26, 1 IP Oct 27 (back-to-back)

 

[vjcsmoke]

8 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

The report is that the Sox offered 7/190 to Fried.  

So I'd say they're not completely done with big money free agents.

That's 28 million dollars less than the Yankees winning offer. They knew they were going in with a lowball offer just so they could say they tried. If the Red Sox spend more than 200m dollars on a single player this offseason I'll take it back, but right now all evidence points to them going in low knowing they will get the offer rejected just so they can say, "See we made offers on Soto and Fried, we did try really, really hard. But baseball is just too expensive a game for us!"

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, vjcsmoke said:

That's 28 million dollars less than the Yankees winning offer. They knew they were going in with a lowball offer just so they could say they tried. If the Red Sox spend more than 200m dollars on a single player this offseason I'll take it back, but right now all evidence points to them going in low knowing they will get the offer rejected just so they can say, "See we made offers on Soto and Fried, we did try really, really hard. But baseball is just too expensive a game for us!"

You certainly could be right, but out offer was fair. 

MLBTR projected $156M/6 and we went $34M/1 over that. We are not sure how close we got to a "Yes," and I'm not so sure JH & Co. were so sure our last offer would be rejected. 

As much as I've been bitching about all the outbidding, 8 years for Fried is 2 years too much. I'm fine with one extra year, which we offered. 

In another sense, I think I'd rather have 2 extra years of Fried at $27.25M x 8 than Eight straight years of signings like Buehler at $21M/1. Yes, it's $6M more a year, but he seems like more of a sure bet for 4-6 years than the continuous revolving door of injury projects.

[moonslav59]

4 hours ago, vjcsmoke said:

 If the Red Sox spend more than 200m dollars on a single player this offseason I'll take it back...

That pretty much means Bregman or Burnes, and I agree. Anything less, and it's another winter of bluster.

They could maybe come close by signing Teoscar and Hoffman, but I doubt we even do that. By getting Teoscar, we could maybe fill another need by trading Abreu or Rafaela for a catcher or more pitching. I feel like I'm going down another rabbit hole of unrealistic hopes, but hey, it's Christmas, so...

Sign Teoscar & Hoffman and trade Abreu, Wink & Sandlin for Helsley.

This could get my hopes back up, without a big splash winter signing. (The "splash" was Crochet.)

1. Duran CF

2. Teoscar LF

3. Casas 1B

4. Devers 3B

5. Campbell 2B

6. Anthony RF

7. Story SS

8. Yoshida-Ref DH

9. Wong-Narvaez C

Rafaela and DHam or Grissom Utility

SP: Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Bello, Giolito

RP: Helsley, Hoffman, Chapman, Hendriks, Slaten, Whitlock, Crawford,  Wilson

[win red sox]

5 hours ago, vjcsmoke said:

That's 28 million dollars less than the Yankees winning offer. They knew they were going in with a lowball offer just so they could say they tried. If the Red Sox spend more than 200m dollars on a single player this offseason I'll take it back, but right now all evidence points to them going in low knowing they will get the offer rejected just so they can say, "See we made offers on Soto and Fried, we did try really, really hard. But baseball is just too expensive a game for us!"

So you would want the them to go 9 years? or 30m a year on Fried.  This reaks of desperation by the Yankees.  Is there one free agent contract that you wished that the Sox would have outbid this year? They secured probably the starter with the highest ceiling, signed a relief pitcher that had  over a 14.0/k per 9 innings pitched and secured a starting pitcher that has immense upside.  There is no player that is worth 200m left, Soto was it.

Where is the position the Sox could improve the most?  Catcher is the most obvious answer to me, and then a back end relief pitcher, and maybe a right handed bat.  I still believe that Contreras and Grichuck are the obvious choice.

 

Opening day

CF. Duran

3B Devers

C. Contreras

1B Casas

LF Grichuk

DH Yoshi/Refsnyder

SS Story

2b Grissom/Hamilton

RF Rafeala

 

Around 6/1

 

CF Duran/Rafeala

LF Campbell/Rafeala

3b Devers/Rafeala

C  Contreras/Narveaz

1b Casas/Contreras

DH Grichuk/Yoshi/Refsnyder

RF Anthony/Grichuk/Refsnyder

2b Story/Hamilton

SS Mayer/Story

This assuming the Sox can find a deal of value for Abreu and Crawford and replinish the farm.  Contreras has a no trade clause but i assume that can be worked around as rumors are that the Cardinals want to move Walker to 1B. Grichuk 2024 season is underated, He had a higher Slugging percentage and On base percentage than Hernandez while having a lower babip.

 

[mvp 78]

On 12/24/2024 at 1:44 PM, notin said:

The counter argument is how good is it going expensive?  Especially on starting pitching?

My counter argument is that about 50% of FA signings just don't work out, even the expensive ones. No matter what, it's a bit of a gamble. However, the cheaper signings are low risk/low reward. 

[mvp 78]

On 12/25/2024 at 6:47 AM, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Don't forget Fulmer, another guy yet to throw a pitch in Boston, and now the latest TJ rehab reclamation rebin-again redsox retread: Jovani Moran (who Brez and Bailey can only hope to someday refer to as a Bugs Bunny Ultra-Moran).

On Fulmer, it's hard to be worried about a guy signed on a two year minor league deal.  Only upside with those moves IMO.

[mvp 78]

21 hours ago, notin said:

If Fangraphs wants me to use fWAR, they can make their page more mobile friendly.  Also, B-R, unlike Fangraphs, splits up WAR for a player who played on multiple teams in one season, like Lackey did.

And what he did for St. Louis is irrelevant.  I only counted performances for Boston for any of those pitchers.  

I don't find bref to be mobile friendly either. I think both of them do the bare minimum to be modern websites. 

[mvp 78]

12 hours ago, vjcsmoke said:

That's 28 million dollars less than the Yankees winning offer. They knew they were going in with a lowball offer just so they could say they tried. 

I don't know if they "know they are going in with a lowball offer" or if they just have a value in mind and refuse to budge on it for certain players. Soto made them get a little uncomfortable and stretch their bidding. Lots of risk with a long term Fried contract IMO. 

[mvp 78]

6 hours ago, win red sox said:

Where is the position the Sox could improve the most?  Catcher is the most obvious answer to me, and then a back end relief pitcher, and maybe a right handed bat.  I still believe that Contreras and Grichuck are the obvious choice.

I think they may trade for a Catcher.

They do need late inning relief help, but I'm worried they'll just rely on sliding Whitlock into the 7-8-9 innings with Hendriks/Champan/Slaten.

I'm not concerned about the RHB aspect. 

[Bellhorn04]

56 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

My counter argument is that about 50% of FA signings just don't work out, even the expensive ones. No matter what, it's a bit of a gamble. However, the cheaper signings are low risk/low reward. 

And if you look at how it all averages out, it costs about $8 million per 1 WAR.

[mvp 78]

54 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

And if you look at how it all averages out, it costs about $8 million per 1 WAR.

I wonder at what point they increase that $ per win. 

[notin]

3 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

My counter argument is that about 50% of FA signings just don't work out, even the expensive ones. No matter what, it's a bit of a gamble. However, the cheaper signings are low risk/low reward. 

A lot of that depends on your expectations.  The longer term contracts almost always go bad before they expire.  How many good years make it acceptable?

[notin]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

I wonder at what point they increase that $ per win. 

I imagine soon.  It’s been $8mill for a while now while FA prices have been climbing…

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

A lot of that depends on your expectations.  The longer term contracts almost always go bad before they expire.  How many good years make it acceptable?

I think eating 1/3 of a contract is fine as long as it's not greatly hindering the team's ability to sign future players and/or they won a WS in large part because of the contract. 

[Bellhorn04]

38 minutes ago, notin said:

I imagine soon.  It’s been $8mill for a while now while FA prices have been climbing…

I thought they adjusted it every year but I'm not sure about that.  It does seem to have been at about $8 million a while. 

[Nick]

On 12/24/2024 at 1:12 PM, moonslav59 said:

The deconstruction of the record-setting 2018 World Champion roster has been well documented and discussed for years. I'm going to focus on just Sox management's choices on adding pitchers to the team. Many were vain attempts at replacing some very productive pitchers, although some of which had already begun to drop off, such as Kimbrel, Kelly, Porcello, Price and ERod.

I won't get into the lack of high draft choices and top bonuses for pitchers, but that did not help the situation. Some trades, like the ones for Pivetta, Wink and hopefuls like Slaten, Fitts and Priester worked out fine or may work out that way, but others did not work out well (most deadline moves) or were okay (Ottavino.)

My focus will be on Free Agent additions starting after the Sale and Nate extensions/re-signing, both of which involved SP'ers with serious injury concerns and could be viewed as the start of the team's philosophy of spending less than top market prices, due to dependability concerns. Although many felt Sale was an overpay, to me, he clearly took less than market value had he been viewed as 100% healthy. Nate's contract was also less than his true worth, due to his injury history, but these points are debatable, and have been discussed often.

After 2018, we did not bring back Kimbrel, Pomeranz and Kelly, Pom was 6th in GS and Kimbrel and Kelly were our two best RP'ers, although a bit shaky at the end of the 2018 regular season. (Kimbrel was shaky through the playoffs, too.) We added zero pitching that winter, and put all our eggs in just bringing back Sale & Nate. (I won't go into everyday paydays like Bogey's extension.) To me, this was the beginning of the end- clear and simple. When the vaunted rotation of Sale, Price, Nate, ERod and Porcello imploded, it was not a pretty sight to see.

What did we do to improve the pitching staff situation for 2020 and onwards, even after knowing ERod & Sale were going to be out for all of 2020? Next to nothing.

2020 additions: Martin Perez at $6M w option and $500K buyout and Collin McHugh to a min wage contract. Perez was never viewed as quality. He had a career 95 ERA+ , when we signed him, including an 84 ERA+ in his previous 2 years. This was essentially a throw away deal with no past history of doing very well and no hopes for significant improvement, although he did have a 1.5 years nice stretch, the second we dumped him. Perez was the replacement for both Price & Porcello. That pretty much says it all. McHugh fit the profile of a pitcher who had some past glory, but with major injury history. He missed all of 2020 with COVID. (He never pitched more than 70 IP, afterwards.) 

2021 was the beginning of a template we have used for 4 winters in a row, counting this one. That winter, we  took on Ottavino's contract after  a 5.89 year with the Yankees in just 18 IP. It was a stab in the dark in hopes that a 35 year old pitcher could regain the glory he had over 2 good seasons he had in 2018 and 2019 and one way before in 2013. He was a trend-setter. We brought back Perez, after a ho-hum 2019 season at less money ($4.5M + the $500K buybuyout of the second year option.)out we used the following winter, after he did poorly.) We also began the one year trend by signing Garrett Richards to $10M/1 (actually $8.5M with the $1.5M. He was essentially Price's replacement, skipping a year. Pererz remained Porcello's replacement.

2022 seemed like they made a significant attempt at filling the holes left in the pitching staff since 2019, but again, we saw the same types of "cheap" choices, instead of going for tried and true quality pitchers. We had some success in 2021 and knew we were losing ERod (the 3rd starter lost from the 2018-2019 rotation.) We signed oft-injured Wacha, Hill and Paxton, along with a head-scratching Diekman & Sawamura signings for the pen. (The Strahm signing worked well.) All toal, we spent $36M on mostly 1 year deals. Paxton was known to be out for most of 2022 and was mostly a 2023 signing with hopes that he could be plugged into the late 2022 rotation at a $10M cost. He could easily be the poster boy of our 4-5 year philosophy of going cheap on flawed pitchers with histories of plus pitching. Paxton was several years removed from his decent years from 2014-2019, but even in that stretch, he missed a lot of starts. Paxton missed all of year one, and did okay year two before, you guessed it, going on the IL, when we needed him most. Wacha ($7M/1) actually worked out better than we should have expected. His "glory years" were way back in 20214-2015. His 6 prior seasons were pretty awful: 89 ERA+ while averaging about 20 starts per season. Hill was a 42 y/o going on 83 y/o pitcher, when we signed him. I don't think I need to go over his long history of injuries among spotted times of glory. Like Wacha, he did better than we should have expected. We were lucky to be able to dump Diekman's $8M/2 contract for McGuire, at the deadline. Sawamura's $3M/2 deal ended before the 2 years were up. Strahm at $3M/1 was maybe the best pitcher (or pitching deal)  signed by Bloom.

2023 was a joke, in terms of fixing the rotation and replacing Wacha and Hill. Kluber $10M/1 was it. The Paxton return was the other great, "cheap"  hope. Although Kluber had looked okay, the season before, his ERA+ was just 84 in 2022. He was 5 years removed from his real glory years, which were very significant and 5 years long. No doubt, the guy was once great, but there was no indication he'd regain that glory at age 37. It was a total punt based on faint hopes of past greatness. We did make some very serious moves to improve the pen with Jansen ($32M/2) and Martin ($18M/2..) Both worked out well for us, but even looking closely at these two signings, we can see the same philosophy at work: avoid signing the best of the best, who still had some prime years left for aging pitchers, in hopes they can eek out a couple more years of greatness or good enoughnness.  Jansen was 35 and 36. Martin was 37 and 38. Both were "cheaper," because they were older and were expected to decline. Lucky for us, they mostly did not. Diaz was signed for $102M/5 in 2023 and Hader was signed for $95M/5, last winter. I'm not saying we should have gone there, but the fact is, we purposely went cheaper to avoid spending on more dependable pitchers.

2024 broke the mold. The Giolito signing was based almost entirely on dependability, but he was still a "cheap" signing based on a piss-poor second half of his previous season and no real great history. The Hendriks signing mirrored the Paxton one, and we still have 2025 to look at, to judge how good that one was, but he never gave us 1 IP in year 1, despite an extectation of a late season arrival. Chase Anderson and Criswell were not really noteworthy signings, except that Criswell worked out well.

2025: $21M on Buehler, three years removed from his greatest season and 5 years removed from his only other 138+ IP season of excellent pitching. Another "cheaper" and shorter contract based on past glory.  Sandoval's $18M/2 deal is also from the Paxton-Hendriks mold- more about year 2 with hopes of a year 1 appearance. Sandoval has never pitched more than 150 IP and is 3 years removed from his nice 2022 season of 138 ERA+ pitching in 149 IP. In 44 GS, over the last 2 years, his ERA+ in 98. Yet another cheaper signing based on hopes of years ago decent pitching. Chapman at $11M/1 is another stab in the dark, although he has had some recent success and relatively, little injury history. His reason for being "cheap," like Jansen and Martin beforehand, is his age. He turns 37 before opening day. He's already shown he is not the pitcher he once was.

2021-2024: 1.326 WHIP and 2.4 K/BB (14.4/6.0)

2012-2020: 0.990 WHIP and 4.0 K/BB (15.2/3.8)

I'm counting Wilson as a step above a minor league signing- one also based on long-ago success.

This trend is as clear as day. Nothing changed, this winter, except the dollar amounts are higher and these guys are not 5 years removed from greatness or success, but rather 2-3 years away. Buehler and Sandoval are much younger than other stabs, but Chapman and Wilson are not.

There is certainly a lot of upside potential in these guys, but what remains is also a lot of doubt about their health (SP'ers) and or age (RP'ers,) and the common denominator over the last 5 years is going CHEAP!.

 "When the vaunted rotation of Sale, Price, Nate, ERod and Porcello imploded, it was not a pretty sight to see." You actually said this right after complaining about NOT bringing back Pomeranz?

There was NOTHING wrong with the starting rotation on paper as of 3/31/2019. I doubt you had any concerns at the time that Pomeranz was no longer with the team. I thought his acquisition was a stretch at the time of the trade.

[mvp 78]

 

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, Nick said:

 "When the vaunted rotation of Sale, Price, Nate, ERod and Porcello imploded, it was not a pretty sight to see." You actually said this right after complaining about NOT bringing back Pomeranz?

There was NOTHING wrong with the starting rotation on paper as of 3/31/2019. I doubt you had any concerns at the time that Pomeranz was no longer with the team. I thought his acquisition was a stretch at the time of the trade.

You must be confusing me with someone else. I was never concerned about losing Pom-pom. I mentioned not replacing Porcello in 2020, but not by bringing him back.

No, it wasn't a pretty sight watching our vaunted rotation implode, and I fully realize even the most durable and dependable pitchers can get hurt or have a bad year. My point is that I'd rather have more dependable looking pitchers than the kind we've been adding since 2019. Every pitcher is a question mark, but some are more than others, and to me, we've been adding too many on the wrong side of the spectrum.

Martin and Gio were the only two I can think of, who were viewed as "taking the ball every 5 days" types of pitchers. Martin's skill level was not great and Gio was somewhat removed from his better years, although he did look very good for the first half of 2023. The rest were all injury-rehab hopefuls, that we were adding to a staff that already had Sale and Nate on it as our 1-2's.

Richards, Kluber, Wacha, Hill, Paxton were the top money signings for the rotation, until Gio. These signings have led me to become biased against more of them, such as Buehler & Sandoval. It's not as bad, this year, because we also added Crochet, but even he had never pitched over 65 IP in any season, going back to college, until 2024. (I love the trade, but in this sense, there is still some doubts about his durability.)

Really, I'm fine with people who like or love those two additions. I'm hopeful they both work out, too, but I'd rather pay more for durability, even if it ends up backfiring like Gio did. I get that risk is always going to be there.

[notin]

4 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

I think eating 1/3 of a contract is fine as long as it's not greatly hindering the team's ability to sign future players and/or they won a WS in large part because of the contract. 

But even when said free agent is still producing, he often hinders the team from signing other players.  
 

I also think winning a world series “because of” some free agent is easily confused with winning a World Series while still having some free agent.  And I get why, as not all contributions are direct and plus we have our own personal failures to access parallel universes with alternate Sox rosters…

[moonslav59]

4 hours ago, notin said:

A lot of that depends on your expectations.  The longer term contracts almost always go bad before they expire.  How many good years make it acceptable?

So many large and long contracts even go bad year 1 or 2. It is frightening. Every time I advocate for signing a big name FA, I worry about the high rate of failure and pretty high rate or near total failure.

Perhaps a thread titled "Taking the Big Contract Way Hardly Works" would be more accurate than this one. I think the middle ground may be the best choice, or a mixture of all 3.

Here are the largest FA signings in MLB history that were signed more than 3 years ago:

365/10 Betts, 360/10 Trout, 341/10 Lindor, 330/13 Harper, 325/10 Seager, 325/13 Stanton, 324/9 Cole, 300/10 Machado & T Turner

280/11 Bogey, 275/10 ARod '07, 252/10 ARod '00, 245/7 Strasburg & Rendon, 240/10 Pujols & Cano (counting inflation, these two would be much higher, as with some others.)

217/7 Price, 214/9 Fielder, 201/7 Scherzer, 207/6 Greinke, 185/5 deGrom, 184/8 Heywood, 182/7 Bryant, 180/8 Teixeira, 175/7 Semien

Some from way back: 160/8 Manny, 152/8 Miggy, 141/9 Helton, 138/6 J Santana, 136/8 Soriano, 126/7 Zito, 126/7 V Wells, 121/8 M Hampton, 120/7 Giambi

[notin]

24 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

So many large and long contracts even go bad year 1 or 2. It is frightening. Every time I advocate for signing a big name FA, I worry about the high rate of failure and pretty high rate or near total failure.

Perhaps a thread titled "Taking the Big Contract Way Hardly Works" would be more accurate than this one. I think the middle ground may be the best choice, or a mixture of all 3.

Here are the largest FA signings in MLB history that were signed more than 3 years ago:

365/10 Betts, 360/10 Trout, 341/10 Lindor, 330/13 Harper, 325/10 Seager, 325/13 Stanton, 324/9 Cole, 300/10 Machado & T Turner

280/11 Bogey, 275/10 ARod '07, 252/10 ARod '00, 245/7 Strasburg & Rendon, 240/10 Pujols & Cano (counting inflation, these two would be much higher, as with some others.)

217/7 Price, 214/9 Fielder, 201/7 Scherzer, 207/6 Greinke, 185/5 deGrom, 184/8 Heywood, 182/7 Bryant, 180/8 Teixeira, 175/7 Semien

Some from way back: 160/8 Manny, 152/8 Miggy, 141/9 Helton, 138/6 J Santana, 136/8 Soriano, 126/7 Zito, 126/7 V Wells, 121/8 M Hampton, 120/7 Giambi

This is why, with rare exceptions such as Soto, I rarely want these players.  And why I railed against Dombrowski for signing Price when it made more sense to extend Betts (which I found later DD was trying to do at the time)..,

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, notin said:

This is why, with rare exceptions such as Soto, I rarely want these players.  And why I railed against Dombrowski for signing Price when it made more sense to extend Betts (which I found later DD was trying to do at the time)..,

As much as the Price signing really fizzled out, I felt that signing, at the time was very necessary.

Had we signed Scherzer, the year before (and not Pablo & HRam) we wouldn't be talking about him, like we are about Price. I realize that this highlights the hot or miss aspect of signing big name FAs, but there are times when trading for one is not really a viable option. As it turned out, we traded away many top prospects and signed Price to ensure a ring season. One can argue we'd have won without Price or Sale, but that is not a sure thing.

That Price signing did burn us in many ways. Not only did it help lower our chances at extending Betts and others, we ended up having to include him in the Betts trade, which lessened the return. I'd certainly take back the Price deal, along with Pablo, HRam and many of the contracts that came afterwards,  but sometimes, it just seems like the best way to fill a big hole. Making big trades as some side effects, too.

[notin]

29 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

As much as the Price signing really fizzled out, I felt that signing, at the time was very necessary.

Had we signed Scherzer, the year before (and not Pablo & HRam) we wouldn't be talking about him, like we are about Price. I realize that this highlights the hot or miss aspect of signing big name FAs, but there are times when trading for one is not really a viable option. As it turned out, we traded away many top prospects and signed Price to ensure a ring season. One can argue we'd have won without Price or Sale, but that is not a sure thing.

That Price signing did burn us in many ways. Not only did it help lower our chances at extending Betts and others, we ended up having to include him in the Betts trade, which lessened the return. I'd certainly take back the Price deal, along with Pablo, HRam and many of the contracts that came afterwards,  but sometimes, it just seems like the best way to fill a big hole. Making big trades as some side effects, too.

Trades can have even bigger side effects.  Right now, now matter how good Crochet is, Teel is gone and the Sox only have one catcher inside their top 25 prospects - 20yo Johanfran Garcia, who is slated to start 2025 in Greenville.  So while the Sox fill the Grand Canyon-sizes hole at catcher, Teel could be a star in Chicago long after Crochet is gone.

Of course we as fans look at prospects as treasures and prefer deals with “just money.”  Pretty sure ownership prefers deals that are “just prospects” for multiple reasons.  Many prospects dont pan out and it’s like getting the player for free.  And you get to draft new prospects every year and can only hold on to so many minor leaguers anyway. 

[vjcsmoke]

20 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

You certainly could be right, but out offer was fair. 

MLBTR projected $156M/6 and we went $34M/1 over that. We are not sure how close we got to a "Yes," and I'm not so sure JH & Co. were so sure our last offer would be rejected. 

As much as I've been bitching about all the outbidding, 8 years for Fried is 2 years too much. I'm fine with one extra year, which we offered. 

In another sense, I think I'd rather have 2 extra years of Fried at $27.25M x 8 than Eight straight years of signings like Buehler at $21M/1. Yes, it's $6M more a year, but he seems like more of a sure bet for 4-6 years than the continuous revolving door of injury projects.

This is the main problem I have with the Red Sox. They enjoy risking money on injury prone signings in the hopes the guy has a 'bounce back' instead of signing reliable proven players who carry the normal market price.

Red Sox negotiations in a nutshell:

Seller: I have this brand new state of the art high performance skateboard that I can sell you for $300. It has been used by pros who won big tournaments or at least placed in the top 4.

Red Sox: Sounds steep, what else have you got?

Seller: I have this $170 skateboard that was used by Tony Hawk once. It broke in half, we taped it back together, the axles are misaligned, and one of the wheels is missing. But with a little TLC and fixer uppering it might work out for you.

Red Sox: Now that's a Deal. We'll TAKE IT!

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, notin said:

Trades can have even bigger side effects.  Right now, now matter how good Crochet is, Teel is gone and the Sox only have one catcher inside their top 25 prospects - 20yo Johanfran Garcia, who is slated to start 2025 in Greenville.  So while the Sox fill the Grand Canyon-sizes hole at catcher, Teel could be a star in Chicago long after Crochet is gone.

Of course we as fans look at prospects as treasures and prefer deals with “just money.”  Pretty sure ownership prefers deals that are “just prospects” for multiple reasons.  Many prospects dont pan out and it’s like getting the player for free.  And you get to draft new prospects every year and can only hold on to so many minor leaguers anyway. 

The 2 years of control bothered me the most about the trade. The one year of 65+ IP since before his college days was also a concern.

I did like Teel, a lot, and I wish we traded Mayer, instead, but it's hard to value catching prospects accurately.

Montgomery might be the real prize of the trade. If we extend Crochet at a reasonable cost, I'll feel even better about this deal.

[moonslav59]

34 minutes ago, vjcsmoke said:

This is the main problem I have with the Red Sox. They enjoy risking money on injury prone signings in the hopes the guy has a 'bounce back' instead of signing reliable proven players who carry the normal market price.

Red Sox negotiations in a nutshell:

Seller: I have this brand new state of the art high performance skateboard that I can sell you for $300. It has been used by pros who won big tournaments or at least placed in the top 4.

Red Sox: Sounds steep, what else have you got?

Seller: I have this $170 skateboard that was used by Tony Hawk once. It broke in half, we taped it back together, the axles are misaligned, and one of the wheels is missing. But with a little TLC and fixer uppering it might work out for you.

Red Sox: Now that's a Deal. We'll TAKE IT!

We don't mix it up, like most top 10-12 spenders do. We are stuck in the "one year prove it" deals mode.

[moonslav59]

Although the Nate signing in 2019 was technically a FA signing, we went a pretty long stretch between JD's $110M/5 signing in 2018 and Story's signing in March of 2022 with no major new FA signings.

After Story, we have seen some moderate signings, but nothing bigger than Story's or Yoshida's.

$140M/6 Story '22

$90M/5 Yoshida '23

 

Big drop off... (just 9 deals from $10M to $89M in 4 years)

$38.5M/2 Giolito '24

$32M/2 Jansen '23

$21.7M/2 Turner '23 (opted out for $15M/1)

$21M/1 Buehler '25

$18.3M/2 Sandoval '25

$17.5M/2 Martin '23

$10.1M/1 Chapman '25

$10M/1 Kluber '23

$10M/2 Hendriks '24

 

Lower Tier:

$8M/2 Diekman '22

$7M/1 Duvall '23 and Wacha '22

$5M/1 Hill '22

[Nick]

On 12/26/2024 at 3:24 PM, moonslav59 said:

You must be confusing me with someone else. I was never concerned about losing Pom-pom. I mentioned not replacing Porcello in 2020, but not by bringing him back.

No, it wasn't a pretty sight watching our vaunted rotation implode, and I fully realize even the most durable and dependable pitchers can get hurt or have a bad year. My point is that I'd rather have more dependable looking pitchers than the kind we've been adding since 2019. Every pitcher is a question mark, but some are more than others, and to me, we've been adding too many on the wrong side of the spectrum.

Martin and Gio were the only two I can think of, who were viewed as "taking the ball every 5 days" types of pitchers. Martin's skill level was not great and Gio was somewhat removed from his better years, although he did look very good for the first half of 2023. The rest were all injury-rehab hopefuls, that we were adding to a staff that already had Sale and Nate on it as our 1-2's.

Richards, Kluber, Wacha, Hill, Paxton were the top money signings for the rotation, until Gio. These signings have led me to become biased against more of them, such as Buehler & Sandoval. It's not as bad, this year, because we also added Crochet, but even he had never pitched over 65 IP in any season, going back to college, until 2024. (I love the trade, but in this sense, there is still some doubts about his durability.)

Really, I'm fine with people who like or love those two additions. I'm hopeful they both work out, too, but I'd rather pay more for durability, even if it ends up backfiring like Gio did. I get that risk is always going to be there.

I think you and I are in same place looking down from 30,000'.

Let's look at our off season little differently thus far.

We lost Pivetta, Jansen, Martin and O'neill at total cost of $37M. 

We've added Chapman, Walker and Crochet for $34M. We've replaced 1 starter with 2, not counting Giolito who will come back from IL.

We haven't replaced our right handed bat and our bullpen payroll has been reduced, adding marginal relievers to replace Martin. 

Our luxury tax payroll has gone from $208.5M up to $210M.

On surface, it sure doesn't look like we've opened up our checkbook. 

WE BOUGHT A STARTER WITH 4 FUTURE PROSPECTS. THAT'S PRETTY MUCH BEEN IT. 

WALKER BUEHLER BASICALLY GOT PIVETTA'S QUALIFYING OFFER.

UGH, UGH, UGH.

 

[TheSplinteredSplendor]

On 12/24/2024 at 1:12 PM, moonslav59 said:

The deconstruction of the record-setting 2018 World Champion roster has been well documented and discussed for years. I'm going to focus on just Sox management's choices on adding pitchers to the team. Many were vain attempts at replacing some very productive pitchers, although some of which had already begun to drop off, such as Kimbrel, Kelly, Porcello, Price and ERod.

I won't get into the lack of high draft choices and top bonuses for pitchers, but that did not help the situation. Some trades, like the ones for Pivetta, Wink and hopefuls like Slaten, Fitts and Priester worked out fine or may work out that way, but others did not work out well (most deadline moves) or were okay (Ottavino.)

My focus will be on Free Agent additions starting after the Sale and Nate extensions/re-signing, both of which involved SP'ers with serious injury concerns and could be viewed as the start of the team's philosophy of spending less than top market prices, due to dependability concerns. Although many felt Sale was an overpay, to me, he clearly took less than market value had he been viewed as 100% healthy. Nate's contract was also less than his true worth, due to his injury history, but these points are debatable, and have been discussed often.

After 2018, we did not bring back Kimbrel, Pomeranz and Kelly, Pom was 6th in GS and Kimbrel and Kelly were our two best RP'ers, although a bit shaky at the end of the 2018 regular season. (Kimbrel was shaky through the playoffs, too.) We added zero pitching that winter, and put all our eggs in just bringing back Sale & Nate. (I won't go into everyday paydays like Bogey's extension.) To me, this was the beginning of the end- clear and simple. When the vaunted rotation of Sale, Price, Nate, ERod and Porcello imploded, it was not a pretty sight to see.

What did we do to improve the pitching staff situation for 2020 and onwards, even after knowing ERod & Sale were going to be out for all of 2020? Next to nothing.

2020 additions: Martin Perez at $6M w option and $500K buyout and Collin McHugh to a min wage contract. Perez was never viewed as quality. He had a career 95 ERA+ , when we signed him, including an 84 ERA+ in his previous 2 years. This was essentially a throw away deal with no past history of doing very well and no hopes for significant improvement, although he did have a 1.5 years nice stretch, the second we dumped him. Perez was the replacement for both Price & Porcello. That pretty much says it all. McHugh fit the profile of a pitcher who had some past glory, but with major injury history. He missed all of 2020 with COVID. (He never pitched more than 70 IP, afterwards.) 

2021 was the beginning of a template we have used for 4 winters in a row, counting this one. That winter, we  took on Ottavino's contract after  a 5.89 year with the Yankees in just 18 IP. It was a stab in the dark in hopes that a 35 year old pitcher could regain the glory he had over 2 good seasons he had in 2018 and 2019 and one way before in 2013. He was a trend-setter. We brought back Perez, after a ho-hum 2019 season at less money ($4.5M + the $500K buybuyout of the second year option.)out we used the following winter, after he did poorly.) We also began the one year trend by signing Garrett Richards to $10M/1 (actually $8.5M with the $1.5M. He was essentially Price's replacement, skipping a year. Pererz remained Porcello's replacement.

2022 seemed like they made a significant attempt at filling the holes left in the pitching staff since 2019, but again, we saw the same types of "cheap" choices, instead of going for tried and true quality pitchers. We had some success in 2021 and knew we were losing ERod (the 3rd starter lost from the 2018-2019 rotation.) We signed oft-injured Wacha, Hill and Paxton, along with a head-scratching Diekman & Sawamura signings for the pen. (The Strahm signing worked well.) All toal, we spent $36M on mostly 1 year deals. Paxton was known to be out for most of 2022 and was mostly a 2023 signing with hopes that he could be plugged into the late 2022 rotation at a $10M cost. He could easily be the poster boy of our 4-5 year philosophy of going cheap on flawed pitchers with histories of plus pitching. Paxton was several years removed from his decent years from 2014-2019, but even in that stretch, he missed a lot of starts. Paxton missed all of year one, and did okay year two before, you guessed it, going on the IL, when we needed him most. Wacha ($7M/1) actually worked out better than we should have expected. His "glory years" were way back in 20214-2015. His 6 prior seasons were pretty awful: 89 ERA+ while averaging about 20 starts per season. Hill was a 42 y/o going on 83 y/o pitcher, when we signed him. I don't think I need to go over his long history of injuries among spotted times of glory. Like Wacha, he did better than we should have expected. We were lucky to be able to dump Diekman's $8M/2 contract for McGuire, at the deadline. Sawamura's $3M/2 deal ended before the 2 years were up. Strahm at $3M/1 was maybe the best pitcher (or pitching deal)  signed by Bloom.

2023 was a joke, in terms of fixing the rotation and replacing Wacha and Hill. Kluber $10M/1 was it. The Paxton return was the other great, "cheap"  hope. Although Kluber had looked okay, the season before, his ERA+ was just 84 in 2022. He was 5 years removed from his real glory years, which were very significant and 5 years long. No doubt, the guy was once great, but there was no indication he'd regain that glory at age 37. It was a total punt based on faint hopes of past greatness. We did make some very serious moves to improve the pen with Jansen ($32M/2) and Martin ($18M/2..) Both worked out well for us, but even looking closely at these two signings, we can see the same philosophy at work: avoid signing the best of the best, who still had some prime years left for aging pitchers, in hopes they can eek out a couple more years of greatness or good enoughnness.  Jansen was 35 and 36. Martin was 37 and 38. Both were "cheaper," because they were older and were expected to decline. Lucky for us, they mostly did not. Diaz was signed for $102M/5 in 2023 and Hader was signed for $95M/5, last winter. I'm not saying we should have gone there, but the fact is, we purposely went cheaper to avoid spending on more dependable pitchers.

2024 broke the mold. The Giolito signing was based almost entirely on dependability, but he was still a "cheap" signing based on a piss-poor second half of his previous season and no real great history. The Hendriks signing mirrored the Paxton one, and we still have 2025 to look at, to judge how good that one was, but he never gave us 1 IP in year 1, despite an extectation of a late season arrival. Chase Anderson and Criswell were not really noteworthy signings, except that Criswell worked out well.

2025: $21M on Buehler, three years removed from his greatest season and 5 years removed from his only other 138+ IP season of excellent pitching. Another "cheaper" and shorter contract based on past glory.  Sandoval's $18M/2 deal is also from the Paxton-Hendriks mold- more about year 2 with hopes of a year 1 appearance. Sandoval has never pitched more than 150 IP and is 3 years removed from his nice 2022 season of 138 ERA+ pitching in 149 IP. In 44 GS, over the last 2 years, his ERA+ in 98. Yet another cheaper signing based on hopes of years ago decent pitching. Chapman at $11M/1 is another stab in the dark, although he has had some recent success and relatively, little injury history. His reason for being "cheap," like Jansen and Martin beforehand, is his age. He turns 37 before opening day. He's already shown he is not the pitcher he once was.

2021-2024: 1.326 WHIP and 2.4 K/BB (14.4/6.0)

2012-2020: 0.990 WHIP and 4.0 K/BB (15.2/3.8)

I'm counting Wilson as a step above a minor league signing- one also based on long-ago success.

This trend is as clear as day. Nothing changed, this winter, except the dollar amounts are higher and these guys are not 5 years removed from greatness or success, but rather 2-3 years away. Buehler and Sandoval are much younger than other stabs, but Chapman and Wilson are not.

There is certainly a lot of upside potential in these guys, but what remains is also a lot of doubt about their health (SP'ers) and or age (RP'ers,) and the common denominator over the last 5 years is going CHEAP!.

Forgive my ignorance, but exactly what was "record setting"?