Red Sox 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, Hitch said:

Okay, but let's not get tied up on the labeling. The point which I have to keep making is that they aren't going to want to put themselves in a position where making bad decisions puts them in the red.

Breggie signs. Duran is traded.  Bit short on the bullpen for my liking however. I would think there will be other trades yet mind, and also Breggie will be asked to defer some.

C'mon, they aren't going into the red. The distributions to shareholders would just be less than in previous years.

And if they took a loss in one year, what's the big deal anyway? How many businesses take a financial loss in one year and shrug it off? 

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, Old Red said:

I’ve missed so many points on here I’ve been told I’ve got sent to the bench several times.

[Old Red]

14 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

This FA class wasn't good. I kinda get it if they didn't spend. 

If they overspend on Bregman, we'll regret it 3-4 years from now. 

The Red Sox still could use Flintstone’s, or Alonso’s bat though, and yes even Raffy’s. As for Bregman it’s dammed if you do, and dammed if you don’t.

[Old Red]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

😃👍👍👍.

[drewski6]

59 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Uh, do we have to go back and start auditing posts from the '22 season now? 

Let's roll the tape

[drewski6]

47 minutes ago, Old Red said:

I agree. I don’t think anyone is asking the Red Sox to go to the Mets, or Dodgers level.

I'm not not asking them too though

But like Moon says and its important, cant spend to spend.

But me personally, Im okay with payrolls ballooning and certain years and shrinking in others.

Like Ive said in the past, if I was a GM and had a budget of 1b/5 yrs , I dont think I would allocate it evenly. Try to save some, but I mean, dont save it all for years 4,5 and get sacked after 3, haha.  

[drewski6]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

LOL, nope. This isn't true either. 

Im not

[drewski6]

Im not upset we signed Yoshida. I see his contract as underwater but Im not over here boo-hoo'ing that theres a better use of the money.  He doesnt seem like a bad person, and Id rather him have the money that JH has paid him than JH.

I dont blame Yoshida, and I honestly dont think the tax line is as important as people here think.  Im not an avoid underwater contracts at all costs kind of guy. Im sure most WS winners have an underwater contract or a contract that will one day underwater

If you never take a risk that goes sideways, you arent taking enough risks. Im not upset we took the risk. 

[Bellhorn04]

4 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Im not upset we signed Yoshida. I see his contract as underwater but Im not over here boo-hoo'ing that theres a better use of the money.  He doesnt seem like a bad person, and Id rather him have the money that JH has paid him than JH.

I dont blame Yoshida, and I honestly dont think the tax line is as important as people here think.  Im not an avoid underwater contracts at all costs kind of guy. Im sure most WS winners have an underwater contract or a contract that will one day underwater

If you never take a risk that goes sideways, you arent taking enough risks. Im not upset we took the risk. 

I wouldn't say I'm upset, but I do think it was a terrible signing for that money.  It was a lot of money for a DH with only moderate power.

[drewski6]

14 minutes ago, Old Red said:

The Red Sox still could use Flintstone’s, or Alonso’s bat though, and yes even Raffy’s. As for Bregman it’s dammed if you do, and dammed if you don’t.

Im not a doctor with his medicals in front of me.  If he looks like a healthy 32, we are damned if we dont (IMO)

If his body show signs of breaking down, thats a damned both ways thing. 

If we sign Bregman to 5, and hes healthy (and the RS are generally healhty) for the first 3, nobody is going to regret it. WEll, Im not.

What I would regret is if yr 1, bregman gets hurt, yr 2 crochet gets hurt and maybe one other injury so the year is lost, yr 3 bregman starts showing serious decline

Because then we've got 0 playoff contributions out of him.

But if we make the ALCS and lose in yr 1 (with Bregman contributing), win it all in yr 2 (with bregman contributing), fall short in yr 3 but a good year (with bregman contributing) - you dont lose on the deal, even if you pay him 30m in yrs 4/5 and he regresses there

Its kinda high risk / high reward 

[drewski6]

Just now, Bellhorn04 said:

I wouldn't say I'm upset, but I do think it was a terrible signing for that money.  It was a lot of money for a DH with only moderate power.

Yeah , also we werent in the room

To me, I would consider the lead-up , was there someone who we really liked for more money , but wouldnt pony up and fell back to yoshida because he was cheaper and we were willing to overlook red flags...Because I would rather get the guy we wanted for 22m then the red flags guy for 17m.  Or did we love the player we thought yoshida would be, take a risk, and flop.  To me the latter would be more excusable, but then I have questions like "had you ever seen him throw?" but aside from that - this kind of stuff matters to me.

[mvp 78]

25 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Let's roll the tape

If you go through the Realistic View 3 thread from 2022, a certain poster was still holding out hope for turn arounds from nearly every offensive player in the middle of June. At the beginning of July, the same poster said the '22 squad was almost as good as the '21 squad and that they just needed a similar trade deadline to get them over the hump. 

I spent most of the previous offseason posting that the team needed a fire sale and to deal off all the expiring contracts. Nobody liked that. Red Sox would be in a better place today if they had done that considering the return they got for Vaz. They ended up punting on that deadline and punting on the '23-'24 seasons anyway. 

[mvp 78]

16 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I wouldn't say I'm upset, but I do think it was a terrible signing for that money.  It was a lot of money for a DH with only moderate power.

Bad signing and if he's truly as much of a problem for the roster as people say he is, just DFA. 

[drewski6]

57 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

This could be nearly every response to anyone's posts these days. We're all just talking past each other. 

welcome to the internet

[mvp 78]

15 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

welcome to the internet

[drewski6]

11 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

If you go through the Realistic View 3 thread from 2022, a certain poster was still holding out hope for turn arounds from nearly every offensive player in the middle of June. At the beginning of July, the same poster said the '22 squad was almost as good as the '21 squad and that they just needed a similar trade deadline to get them over the hump. 

I spent most of the previous offseason posting that the team needed a fire sale and to deal off all the expiring contracts. Nobody liked that. Red Sox would be in a better place today if they had done that considering the return they got for Vaz. They ended up punting on that deadline and punting on the '23-'24 seasons anyway. 

So many things run through my mind, as I read this, and only some of them are on point.

"If you go through the Realistic View 3 thread from 2022"

Drew: I didnt do HW at Bentley, not gonna do it for you (sorry, no offense).

"certain poster"

Drew: I see you as a leader 'round these parts, and Ive been wondering if I should "certain poster" when Im talking about someone specifically. If I say "certain poster" and something negative follows, Im talking about JoeBrady 100% of the time.  But sometimes other people think Im talking about them or referencing them. And Im not 100% if I should disguise my JoeBrady dislike for civility purposes or  if that makes me a mealy-mouthed twerp and I should instead just say who I am talking about as opposed to codifying  

"At the beginning of July, the same poster said the '22 squad was almost as good as the '21 squad and that they just needed a similar trade deadline to get them over the hump."

Drew: Now im in the way back machine, remembering Moonslav going back and forth with this one other poster in the BDC days for 10+ pages over who said what and what was a miquote, and "sullying my good name" but my thoughts on that kind of stuff is nobody really keeps score, and most posters just respond to the post based on the four corners of the post and its not like we're battling over reputation points or something. Every time Im about to write a "how dare you say I said that, I never said that:....I pause and realize the only person who cares about me being misquoted is me

"I spent most of the previous offseason posting that the team needed a fire sale and to deal off all the expiring contracts. Nobody liked that."

Agreed 100%. Im a pick a freaking direction guy.  I wasnt here, but I remember talking with my uncle about it when we were hanging on a fam trip in Fl. Right around this time. And I was like buy or sell, but I think Id rather sell, but plz dont do both. I think 2022 was the year that we fell apart like right after the deadline, and I remember thinking, if we were going to fall apart why couldnt it have been 3 weeks ago (cuz then we prob would have sold).  But we were like hanging on, and it looks like the wheels were coming off (leading to the deadline), and I was leaning sell, then the wheels came off completely like right after the deadline and Im like darn! Thats kind of worse case scenario. I think that was 2022.

[drewski6]

If you have long shot playoff hopes, but still some hopes (lets say 20% likely), its better to go on 10 day losing streak right before the deadline then right after.  So you dont waste chips on a rental, jsut to be out of it 10 days later, or miss your window to move an expiring contract in a dead year

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

So many things run through my mind

Feel free to waste some brain cells today and go find the thread. 

Dalbec's numbers down in May? Don't worry, they could bounce back! 

You know it was a cursed season when there was a stork post on nearly every page. 😮‍💨

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, drewski6 said:

If you have long shot playoff hopes, but still some hopes (lets say 20% likely), its better to go on 10 day losing streak right before the deadline then right after.  So you dont waste chips on a rental, jsut to be out of it 10 days later, or miss your window to move an expiring contract in a dead year

From what I remember, Bloom was ready to deal JD and others after the CV trade, but ownership put the kibosh on it as they didn't want to upset the fanbase. 

[Bellhorn04]

17 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

From what I remember, Bloom was ready to deal JD and others after the CV trade, but ownership put the kibosh on it as they didn't want to upset the fanbase. 

Seems like we've had 4 disappointing/confusing trade deadlines in a row.

[Hitch]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

This FA class wasn't good. I kinda get it if they didn't spend. 

If they overspend on Bregman, we'll regret it 3-4 years from now. 

Agreed on both counts. But that will fire up the 'they're cheap' shouts.

[Hitch]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

C'mon, they aren't going into the red. The distributions to shareholders would just be less than in previous years.

And if they took a loss in one year, what's the big deal anyway? How many businesses take a financial loss in one year and shrug it off? 

One year absolutely. I think businesses should do this occasionally. They do it with Liverpool every now and then. But with the length of contracts FA's are looking for, one year overspends are difficult if we're going up to the revenue level, in say, this year. 

[mvp 78]

10 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Seems like we've had 4 disappointing/confusing trade deadlines in a row.

This one was the worst because there was so much noise about a Joe Ryan deal getting done. 🙃

[mvp 78]

11 minutes ago, Hitch said:

Agreed on both counts. But that will fire up the 'they're cheap' shouts.

People already call them cheap. What will change? How does it affect JH? He doesn't directly interact with the fanbase anymore. So is signing Breggie just a PR move? If so, isn't that everything that some have been worried about. 

[JoeBrady]

13 hours ago, Duran Is The Man said:

i may be wrong but it appears that the Dodgers also excel in evaluating free agents

You are certainly not wrong, but part of that comes from paying top dollar on long contracts.  That said, a few of those guys have under-performed, such as Conforto, Teoscar, Snell (so far).

[Hitch]

25 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

People already call them cheap. What will change? How does it affect JH? He doesn't directly interact with the fanbase anymore. So is signing Breggie just a PR move? If so, isn't that everything that some have been worried about. 

I don't think it will effect JH at all. Just making the observation. I don't think they make moves based off the opinion of the fanbase. I mean, we know they don't going off the way they've traded away stars/let FA's go. 

[JoeBrady]

3 hours ago, Hitch said:

While they should spend a bit more than they are doing (which I'm very confident they will), part of the reason the ticket prices are so high is because they have the 26th biggest park in the MLB with no scope to expand.

That's a key part of the equation.  I always said that part of DD's genius (and Preller as well to a lesser degree) was convincing ownership to spend more.  The Phillies draw a million more than they did before DD.  I'm going to round that off to $100M+ in revenue.  That pays for a lot of payroll.

But, for better or worse, that won't happen in Boston.  We're talking about maybe 250k more fans.  That won't motivate more spending.  We should spend more, but the market doesn't force us to spend more.

[JoeBrady]

3 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

What if Roman is a guy that is never an MVP level/All Star starting OFer?

Like I said in my post, some guys will under-perform and other guys will over-perform.

[mvp 78]

22 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

You are certainly not wrong, but part of that comes from paying top dollar on long contracts.  That said, a few of those guys have under-performed, such as Conforto, Teoscar, Snell (so far).

Aside from his WS starts, I think the Dodgers are happy enough with Snell's '25. 

[mvp 78]

16 minutes ago, Hitch said:

I don't think it will effect JH at all. Just making the observation. I don't think they make moves based off the opinion of the fanbase. I mean, we know they don't going off the way they've traded away stars/let FA's go. 

They were pressured into signing Devers and regretted it the morning after which is why he was dealt.