Red Sox 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread

[JoeBrady]

1 hour ago, drewski6 said:

So yes, we do spend nad we do buy.

The simplest way is just to see what our payroll is year-to-year.  It makes no difference whether we spend $250M on FAs or our own players.  That's just a matter of whether or not you are more efficient or less efficient.

It's a bit like your l/t Capex expenditures.  If your plan is to spend $10B over the next ten years, it doesn't make any difference whether you spend $1B a year, or $3B in the first year and -0- in the following two years.

[mvp 78]

 

[mvp 78]

58 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

The simplest way is just to see what our payroll is year-to-year.  It makes no difference whether we spend $250M on FAs or our own players.  That's just a matter of whether or not you are more efficient or less efficient.

It's a bit like your l/t Capex expenditures.  If your plan is to spend $10B over the next ten years, it doesn't make any difference whether you spend $1B a year, or $3B in the first year and -0- in the following two years.

Your analogy doesn't work at all. Sorry. 

[drewski6]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

The simplest way is just to see what our payroll is year-to-year.  It makes no difference whether we spend $250M on FAs or our own players.  That's just a matter of whether or not you are more efficient or less efficient.

It's a bit like your l/t Capex expenditures.  If your plan is to spend $10B over the next ten years, it doesn't make any difference whether you spend $1B a year, or $3B in the first year and -0- in the following two years.

You prefer more simple ways to determine our aggressiveness, I show how that can be misleading, and we come to different conclusions.

The Red Sox, since 2019 have not been aggressive enough.  And thats why we have more third/fourth/fifth place finishes than playoff series wins.

"It makes no difference whether we spend $250M on FAs or our own players"

I literally just showed you how/why it matters and it matters a lot.  We could have Roman and Crochet at a tax hit of under 10m.  But they will have a tax hit of 40m because we chose to extend them and buy future years.  We could have kept them at a 10m cap hit, and added 30m tax hit externally and had a better team this year.

That would have been very aggressive for 2026, but would have hurt us in 2029 onward because we would have missed our chance to extend crochet and RA at a discount.

Whether or not we think it is the right move, my point is that forget about the actual 2026 team and join my in a more conceptual conversation. The concept is that sometimes it makes sense to keep your cheap guys cheap vs extend, so you can be more aggressive in the short term.

Teams that spend/teams that trade/teams that win.  They are aggressive.  They dont say well we have this 1.8 WAR player here and I guess thats fine.  I really care more about aggressiveness than payroll.  

The Red Sox were not aggressive in 2025 and they are not aggressive in 2026.  The CBT is misleading and its higher because they bought future years for current players at a discount which raised such players 2026 CBT numbers. So in this case, the CBT is not a true reflection of how aggressive we have been. And we havent been aggressive.

Now you may think 2026 wasnt the year to get aggressive and you think that its wise to raise our 2026 CBT by extending our own (rather than keep RA/Crochet/Cedanne/Campbell cheap), you may agree with all of that, and its not unreasonable.  I may not even hard disagree.

But where I disagree is when you jump out of the concrete (2026 RS) and into the conceptual (all future RS teams forever), becaue I do believe that sometimes it makes a ton of sense to keep your cheap players cheap (even if they are awesome) becuase it allows you to cram MORE under the CBT and be more aggressive in the short term.

I can be sold that greatly increasing our CBT in 2026 by extending our own was the right move. I cannot be sold that extending your cheap players is always the right move. So for example, in 2007 we won (yay) with Pap, pedey, youk all making peanuts.  Had we extended them in 2005 , we would have raised their CBT and we may not have been able to afford JD Drew, Mike Lowell,  Beckett. Guys who cost more, and maybe werent as valuable from a WAR/$ spent as the youngsters but guys who contributed to your championship. And you were able to afford all of these guys JD, Lowell, Beckett, Pap, Youk, Pedey because you kept the latter 3 cheap.

[Hugh2]

2 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

Of course not.  But some fans blamed him for a high payroll.  One of the reasons for the high payroll is that he made prudent decisions to extend those two guys.  That makes it 'look' worse for a couple of years, but then far better thereafter.

Well some fans doesn't make it real, I could blame Garrett Crochet for the Red Sox not signing any other players because they pay him too much.  Doesn't make it true, even so....while he's paid...it's not a mammath contract by any means.  

Any time you can have a 6 WAR player taking up less than 10% of your payroll.....that's a win. 

 

[UtahSox]

23 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

You prefer more simple ways to determine our aggressiveness, I show how that can be misleading, and we come to different conclusions.

The Red Sox, since 2019 have not been aggressive enough.  And thats why we have more third/fourth/fifth place finishes than playoff series wins.

"It makes no difference whether we spend $250M on FAs or our own players"

I literally just showed you how/why it matters and it matters a lot.  We could have Roman and Crochet at a tax hit of under 10m.  But they will have a tax hit of 40m because we chose to extend them and buy future years.  We could have kept them at a 10m cap hit, and added 30m tax hit externally and had a better team this year.

That would have been very aggressive for 2026, but would have hurt us in 2029 onward because we would have missed our chance to extend crochet and RA at a discount.

Whether or not we think it is the right move, my point is that forget about the actual 2026 team and join my in a more conceptual conversation. The concept is that sometimes it makes sense to keep your cheap guys cheap vs extend, so you can be more aggressive in the short term.

Teams that spend/teams that trade/teams that win.  They are aggressive.  They dont say well we have this 1.8 WAR player here and I guess thats fine.  I really care more about aggressiveness than payroll.  

The Red Sox were not aggressive in 2025 and they are not aggressive in 2026.  The CBT is misleading and its higher because they bought future years for current players at a discount which raised such players 2026 CBT numbers. So in this case, the CBT is not a true reflection of how aggressive we have been. And we havent been aggressive.

Now you may think 2026 wasnt the year to get aggressive and you think that its wise to raise our 2026 CBT by extending our own (rather than keep RA/Crochet/Cedanne/Campbell cheap), you may agree with all of that, and its not unreasonable.  I may not even hard disagree.

But where I disagree is when you jump out of the concrete (2026 RS) and into the conceptual (all future RS teams forever), becaue I do believe that sometimes it makes a ton of sense to keep your cheap players cheap (even if they are awesome) becuase it allows you to cram MORE under the CBT and be more aggressive in the short term.

I can be sold that greatly increasing our CBT in 2026 by extending our own was the right move. I cannot be sold that extending your cheap players is always the right move. So for example, in 2007 we won (yay) with Pap, pedey, youk all making peanuts.  Had we extended them in 2005 , we would have raised their CBT and we may not have been able to afford JD Drew, Mike Lowell,  Beckett. Guys who cost more, and maybe werent as valuable from a WAR/$ spent as the youngsters but guys who contributed to your championship. And you were able to afford all of these guys JD, Lowell, Beckett, Pap, Youk, Pedey because you kept the latter 3 cheap.

This is really well said. I might offer another phrase aside from the word cheap, although cheap is the root of their goal. But everything you just described is “optics over everything”. 

[moonslav59]

18 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

...The Red Sox were not aggressive in 2025 ...

You made some great points, but I have to disagree on this.

Just because the nearly $50M spent on new pitchers ($21M/1 for Buehler) and $18M/2 for Sandoval, $11M/1 Chapman + $2M/1 for Wilson) did not all work out very well, we were aggressive. When you factor in the highly aggressive trade and extension to Crochet, it's hard to think we were being meek & mild on pitching.

The Devers extension kicked in in 2024, and dumping his salary sure fits your comment on not being agressive as that was a move backwards, despite taking on the Hicks contract (add him and the Chapman extension to the 2025 pitching ledger- mid season.) However, spending $40M on Bregman, which blows away the Sox record FA AAV and topped the Devers AAV can hardly be considered nonaggressive. On top of his deal, we extended Anthony and Campbell on the heels of the Bello/Rafaela ones from the previous season.

We are being aggressive, but just in different ways. We haven't signed a mega large and long deal since Price. The JD, Story and Masa FA signings have been our largest. That's a big change and could be viewed as being passive. I get that. 

Maybe spending $20M more in 2025 than 2024 is not "aggressive" enough, but it is a significant uptick. The end of year budget was almost $23M more than 2024. Only 6 teams had a higher AAV line than we did in 2025, and while that reflects sme future spending more than current, I thought that was a good thing. 

One of biggest gripes has been losing our young stars to a free agency and not extending them. We just locked up Crochet, Anthony, Rafaela, Bello & Campbell. That's a hge swing in philosophy and a bit of a gamble. Dare we call it "aggressive?"

[drewski6]

8 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

You made some great points, but I have to disagree on this.

Just because the nearly $50M spent on new pitchers ($21M/1 for Buehler) and $18M/2 for Sandoval, $11M/1 Chapman + $2M/1 for Wilson) did not all work out very well, we were aggressive. When you factor in the highly aggressive trade and extension to Crochet, it's hard to think we were being meek & mild on pitching.

The Devers extension kicked in in 2024, and dumping his salary sure fits your comment on not being agressive as that was a move backwards, despite taking on the Hicks contract (add him and the Chapman extension to the 2025 pitching ledger- mid season.) However, spending $40M on Bregman, which blows away the Sox record FA AAV and topped the Devers AAV can hardly be considered nonaggressive. On top of his deal, we extended Anthony and Campbell on the heels of the Bello/Rafaela ones from the previous season.

We are being aggressive, but just in different ways. We haven't signed a mega large and long deal since Price. The JD, Story and Masa FA signings have been our largest. That's a big change and could be viewed as being passive. I get that. 

Maybe spending $20M more in 2025 than 2024 is not "aggressive" enough, but it is a significant uptick. The end of year budget was almost $23M more than 2024. Only 6 teams had a higher AAV line than we did in 2025, and while that reflects sme future spending more than current, I thought that was a good thing. 

One of biggest gripes has been losing our young stars to a free agency and not extending them. We just locked up Crochet, Anthony, Rafaela, Bello & Campbell. That's a hge swing in philosophy and a bit of a gamble. Dare we call it "aggressive?"

They were aggressive in the offseason, but they should have traded for a bat at the deadline, they dumped their most expensive player....They undid it.

Aggressive means trying hard to win.  They werent trying really hard when they just accepted that they would finish up the season not replacing any of the guys who got hurt (or traded) before the deadline.

[drewski6]

14 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

You made some great points, but I have to disagree on this.

Just because the nearly $50M spent on new pitchers ($21M/1 for Buehler) and $18M/2 for Sandoval, $11M/1 Chapman + $2M/1 for Wilson) did not all work out very well, we were aggressive. When you factor in the highly aggressive trade and extension to Crochet, it's hard to think we were being meek & mild on pitching.

The Devers extension kicked in in 2024, and dumping his salary sure fits your comment on not being agressive as that was a move backwards, despite taking on the Hicks contract (add him and the Chapman extension to the 2025 pitching ledger- mid season.) However, spending $40M on Bregman, which blows away the Sox record FA AAV and topped the Devers AAV can hardly be considered nonaggressive. On top of his deal, we extended Anthony and Campbell on the heels of the Bello/Rafaela ones from the previous season.

We are being aggressive, but just in different ways. We haven't signed a mega large and long deal since Price. The JD, Story and Masa FA signings have been our largest. That's a big change and could be viewed as being passive. I get that. 

Maybe spending $20M more in 2025 than 2024 is not "aggressive" enough, but it is a significant uptick. The end of year budget was almost $23M more than 2024. Only 6 teams had a higher AAV line than we did in 2025, and while that reflects sme future spending more than current, I thought that was a good thing. 

One of biggest gripes has been losing our young stars to a free agency and not extending them. We just locked up Crochet, Anthony, Rafaela, Bello & Campbell. That's a hge swing in philosophy and a bit of a gamble. Dare we call it "aggressive?"

There is some truth that we've been more aggressive lately because Breslow is more aggressive than gun-shy Bloom.  And Ive said that I dont give Breslow enough credit for getting Crochet because I feel the deal was obvious and I laugh at people who cry about Teel.  That was a deal you make 200 out of 100 times, in my opinion, but Im not sure if Bloom makes that deal. Cuz bloom is scared money and breslow isnt scared.

So sure.

If we can combine Blooms professionalism and non-ego with Breslows aggressiveness wed prob have a very good GM.

[JoeBrady]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

Your analogy doesn't work at all. Sorry. 

Then look at it another way.  Every year, we inherit some deferred salary, and every year we defer some salary.  If our average spend is $244M, then that is what our spend is.  Trying to say JH is stingy because we deferred some salary for CBT purposes, or that he is a big spender because we inherited some deferred salaries, makes no sense.

[drewski6]

But I hard disagree that its always soooo much better to lock up your youngsters and yay im so glad we are locking up our youngsters.  We zapped Campbells trade value, and created a crunch for oursleves in 2026 when we could have kept cheap players cheap.  But we spent money on our cheap players to prevent having to spend more down the line, and now we cant afford stars in their prime.  Lets hope that a 40 yr old (ish) contreras can still hit .815 vs Alonso who would have a much better shot at clearing that hurdle.

[mvp 78]

Signing Buehler and Sandoval doesn't count as being aggressive to me. Signing a QO guy like Bregman and trading/extending Crochet does. 

I think a lot of us liked what they did LAST offseason. This offseason has left something to be desired. It's been ok so far, but they still have work to do. 

[JoeBrady]

51 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

We could have kept them at a 10m cap hit, and added 30m tax hit externally and had a better team this year.

"this year" is the key phrase.  If we sacrificed Anthony & Ceddanne 5 years from now, just so we could have a better record for the next 2-3 years, would that be better?  IMO, I prefer to lock in the young kids.  It almost always makes more sense.

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, JoeBrady said:

Then look at it another way.  Every year, we inherit some deferred salary, and every year we defer some salary.  If our average spend is $244M, then that is what our spend is.  Trying to say JH is stingy because we deferred some salary for CBT purposes, or that he is a big spender because we inherited some deferred salaries, makes no sense.

Saying we will always spend 244/yr regardless if we are good or not, regardless if we have multiple guys peaking at the same time or a long shot to compete anyways is just foolish

This is just beyond oversimplified.  Its also contradictory wiht your earlier comments.  Like whne you said something like 10b over the next 30 yrs. If you told me I had 10b to spend over 30 yrs , I wouldnt allocate it evenly. Duh.

At the poker table, you dont say I have 200 chips, and I want to last for 100 hands, so Ill use 2 chips for every hand.  No. You gamble more the stack when you have the cards.  You spend more on your team when you feel you are close.

The Red Sox in 2025 and 2026 prioritized 2030.

[drewski6]

Just now, JoeBrady said:

"this year" is the key phrase.  If we sacrificed Anthony & Ceddanne 5 years from now, just so we could have a better record for the next 2-3 years, would that be better?  IMO, I prefer to lock in the young kids.  It almost always makes more sense.

It doesnt always make more sense. It sometimes makes sense. Case by case.  Too simplistic.

Yes, very often, the better move is to keep your cheap players cheap and cram as much talent onto your team as you can in the short term.  This is called "a competitive window", and its not a novel concept.

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Then look at it another way.  Every year, we inherit some deferred salary, and every year we defer some salary.  If our average spend is $244M, then that is what our spend is.  Trying to say JH is stingy because we deferred some salary for CBT purposes, or that he is a big spender because we inherited some deferred salaries, makes no sense.

Now you are saying "it's our average spend" when yesterday it was "they spent more last season and went up to 7th highest" even though cash was still outside the top 10. 

I can say he's stingy because I saw him not want to sign Mookie Betts. I saw them not extend Xander early. I saw them extend Devers and then get gun shy and trade him once the contract kicked in. He used to allow the Sox to be a top 5 payroll team from 03-19. They are are no longer in that grouping and the results on the field have suffered for it. The Sox are a top 5 revenue earning team year in and year out. That hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is what JH wants to spend. STINGY.

🧛‍♂️

[drewski6]

3 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

"this year" is the key phrase.  If we sacrificed Anthony & Ceddanne 5 years from now, just so we could have a better record for the next 2-3 years, would that be better?  IMO, I prefer to lock in the young kids.  It almost always makes more sense.

And why would we would have to sacrifice ANthony in 5 years? Couldnt we , you know, pay him market price in 5 years?

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

The Red Sox in 2025 and 2026 prioritized 2030.

This isn't true either. Have you seen how many prospects they've traded away since Breslow came aboard? 

[mvp 78]

Just now, drewski6 said:

And why would we would have to sacrifice ANthony in 5 years? Couldnt we , you know, pay him market price in 5 years?

JH won't pay market price for anyone. Why would he change his mind in 5 years when the money will be even higher than it is now?!?!?!?

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

This isn't true either. Have you seen how many prospects they've traded away since Breslow came aboard? 

None that Im crying about.

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

JH won't pay market price for anyone. Why would he change his mind in 5 years when the money will be even higher than it is now?!?!?!?

this is more of a case for keeping cheap players cheap.  Because if you arent going to spend, you need to make the most out of your payroll.  And the most efficient is the min wagers.  So just gotta hope you get 5 prospects busting out at the same time, and you can grab a couple mid-tier FAs to fill in and maybe you have a team that can win a series in the playoffs.

WE could be the Rays.  But we'll have gaps between our playoff cores and we'll win the big one....WHen was the last time the Rays won it all? Remind me

[drewski6]

I would rather be truly competetive 3 years followed by 4 years of rebuild then in third place 7 years in a row.

[drewski6]

At least right now

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, drewski6 said:

this is more of a case for keeping cheap players cheap.  Because if you arent going to spend, you need to make the most out of your payroll.  And the most efficient is the min wagers.  So just gotta hope you get 5 prospects busting out at the same time, and you can grab a couple mid-tier FAs to fill in and maybe you have a team that can win a series in the playoffs.

WE could be the Rays.  But we'll have gaps between our playoff cores and we'll win the big one....WHen was the last time the Rays won it all? Remind me

You want 5 prospects busting out at the same time, but the guys "you aren't crying about" won't be here to bust out because they've been traded. 🤗

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, drewski6 said:

I would rather be truly competetive 3 years followed by 4 years of rebuild then in third place 7 years in a row.

I'd rather be like the Dodgers or Yankees who somehow are competitive every year. 🤔

[drewski6]

13 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

You want 5 prospects busting out at the same time, but the guys "you aren't crying about" won't be here to bust out because they've been traded. 🤗

I understand that prospects go up and down in value drastically and there is something to be said for numbers.  Roman, at one point, was like prospect #14 (I assume)

[drewski6]

14 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

I'd rather be like the Dodgers or Yankees who somehow are competitive every year. 🤔

and id rather be retired at 41.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, drewski6 said:

They were aggressive in the offseason, but they should have traded for a bat at the deadline, they dumped their most expensive player....They undid it.

Aggressive means trying hard to win.  They werent trying really hard when they just accepted that they would finish up the season not replacing any of the guys who got hurt (or traded) before the deadline.

There was a marked change from 2024 to 2025.

I admitted much was undone by the Devers dump, and pointing out the lack of deadline moves was something I neglected to mention.

So far, this winter, we have not been "aggressive" financially, despite all the extensions kicking in and adding some salary via trades for Gray & Contreras. I agree on that.

[UtahSox]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

Then look at it another way.  Every year, we inherit some deferred salary, and every year we defer some salary.  If our average spend is $244M, then that is what our spend is.  Trying to say JH is stingy because we deferred some salary for CBT purposes, or that he is a big spender because we inherited some deferred salaries, makes no sense.

Long post sorry: don’t expect any of you to read it. Just had to get my thoughts out there.

 

I work for a large local company with over 800 employees, significant revenue, and it is locally high public-facing, I am privy to participation in the board meetings. In these meetings the conversation is driven almost entirely around optics. Too often, the focus isn’t on what is actually best for the business, nor the products, but on how decisions will be perceived by customers and clients.

I see a similar dynamic with the Red Sox and their early extensions of players like Rafaela, Anthony, and Campbell. On the surface, these deals are framed as smart baseball moves—locking up young talent at a discount before they enter their prime. That part is definitely true. But there’s another layer to this that doesn’t get discussed enough: 

“the difference between spending optics, and actual cash spending.”

If the sole objective were to put the best possible product on the field within parameters of 2026-2027 regardless of financial optics, you would wait to extend these early risers. Allowing these players to prove themselves further, and take the traditional arbitration-to-free-agency route. Instead, early extensions allow the team to inflate reported AAV figures—which DOMINATES public and media narratives—while deferring real cash outlays into the future. In the present, payroll cash remains controlled, profits are maximized, and future negotiation risk is eliminated.

The result is a masterclass in optics management. The organization can legitimately point to rising AAV numbers and claim it is “spending,” even though the actual cash commitment today remains relatively modest. From a business standpoint, it’s savvy. From a competitive or fan-facing perspective, it creates the illusion of aggressive investment without the corresponding financial sacrifice. 

Example: Last season, the Red Sox had Devers and the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball in Roman Anthony—who held that ranking for a damn good reason. In August, the team extended Roman Anthony at a $16.25M AAV, yet in the upcoming season he will actually earn only $2.5M in real cash. Just months earlier, in June the team moved Devers off the books. Devers carried a $29.5M AAV, and importantly, that was also $29.5M in real cash paid this year, with the following three seasons requiring 33m real cash vs 29.5m AAV even more cash than his AAV.

By trading Devers, the team immediately improves its cash position by roughly $27M. But from an optics standpoint, it doesn’t look like cost-cutting at all. On paper, Devers’ $29.5M AAV is replaced—at least partially—by Roman Anthony’s $16.25M AAV. The public narrative becomes “we’re still spending,” even though the actual cash outlay drops dramatically.

That’s the brilliance of the strategy. Cash spending goes down, near-term profit goes up, long-term negotiation risk disappears, and AAV-based reports still show meaningful payroll commitment. From a financial and optics-management perspective, it’s genuinely clever. It allows the organization to look aggressive without actually being aggressive in real dollars. Red Sox appear to be more interested in ‘optics’ backdooring our way into 3 games in October and spinning the optics vs actually winning. 

 In that sense, the Red Sox have been extremely effective at looking like big spenders, without actually being big spenders.

[JoeBrady]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

I can say he's stingy because I saw him not want to sign Mookie Betts. I saw them not extend Xander early.

But had he extended them early, wouldn't he be accused of being stingy, just like he is now with Anthony and Ceddanne?