Red Sox 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread

[mvp 78]

34 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

The teams that care about are the teams who can spend enough to care about it.  The Oakland A’s obviously don’t give a hoot but I bet you they would if the number was more in line with their revenue.

i suppose the A’s aren’t best example but you know what I mean.  
 

by the time you’re around the LT why would t it matter? If cash spent matters the gen ever dollar you spend over is taxed handsomely and unlike other payroll/bonuses/deferral’s you can’t pay that in another year. 
 

making money is #1 winning games has a pretty big effect on that too.  Handcuffing your spending in future years and losing draft capital is directly effecting that 

Yes, if making money is #1 then the cash spend is the most important number, thank you!!!

[JoeBrady]

32 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Yes HR can be blinding, and why not? They go up on the scoreboard right then, and there.

HRs are more fun, but OBP is more closely correlated to scoring than HRs.  They both count, but OBP counts more.

[Hugh2]

35 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Not overvalued to me, but just another one the RED Sox didn’t get. The Red Sox met with him not once, but twice, so I think there was more than a little interest. I think the Red Sox had their sights, and money set on Bregman though, and didn’t want to have two long term contracts, so only offered 3 years.

I don’t think there sights set on Bregman had anything to do with it.  The Sox had their number and they don’t budge, they think they’re the smartest guys in the room but more often end up being the guy without a girl to dance with.

[Hugh2]

10 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Yes, if making money is #1 then the cash spend is the most important number, thank you!!!

And once you hit that LT your cash spent goes up exponentially.  Of course cash spend is paramount but I don’t think a team with revenues as high as the Sox say “whoaaa, if we sign Pete Alonso we are going into the red” 

teams that do dabble around the LT we see year after year set themselves up to go under and reset.  Even the Dodgers have reset.  

[mvp 78]

11 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Or conversely, for GAAP purposes, the LAD could defer everyone's salary until 1/1/27, and show operating income of like $700M?  Last time I did this, we had to match our expenses to the period in which the income was earned.  And real recently, we still accrued salary expense from the first January payroll.

The payroll expenses for LAD will be 250Mish. You wouldn't accrue an MLB player's salary based on CBT if they are paid with different terms. 

[UtahSox]

20 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

HRs are more fun, but OBP is more closely correlated to scoring than HRs.  They both count, but OBP counts more.

My argument would be did you watch the 2025 postseason? Home runs have value. And it goes up in October. 

[Old Red]

24 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

I don’t think there sights set on Bregman had anything to do with it.  The Sox had their number and they don’t budge, they think they’re the smartest guys in the room but more often end up being the guy without a girl to dance with.

I agree with the dance part.

[JoeBrady]

11 minutes ago, UtahSox said:

My argument would be did you watch the 2025 postseason? Home runs have value. And it goes up in October. 

I believe I already did this analysis.  And the team with the higher OBP percentage, relative to their opponent, won more series than the team that out-homered their opponent.

[drewski6]

34 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

I don’t think there sights set on Bregman had anything to do with it.  The Sox had their number and they don’t budge, they think they’re the smartest guys in the room but more often end up being the guy without a girl to dance with.

I dont think I agree here.  I think they would have went higher on Alonso had Bregman signed first. Maybe not enough to get him, but they had multiple meetings with him and there was interest and they couldnt have thought their offer was competitive. I think they max'd at a number that wouldnt take em out of the Bregman running.

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, JoeBrady said:

I believe I already did this analysis.  And the team with the higher OBP percentage, relative to their opponent, won more series than the team that out-homered their opponent.

link?

[JoeBrady]

9 minutes ago, Old Red said:

they think they’re the smartest guys in the room but more often end up being the guy without a girl to dance with.

That the smartest guy in the room doesn't go home with the prettiest girl, is not unusual in HS.

[JoeBrady]

2 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

link?

It's my own analysis, so it's I can link to.  But it shouldn't take long to replicate.  But first I need to see which mound of snow my car is under.

[JoeBrady]

1 hour ago, drewski6 said:

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

I believe I already did this analysis.  And the team with the higher OBP percentage, relative to their opponent, won more series than the team that out-homered their opponent.

link?

1=winning team had both more HRs and higher OBP.
2-winning team had more HRs
3-winning team had higher OBP
World Series		2
ALCS		3
NLCS		1
AL Division Series		1
AL Division Series		1
NL Division Series		3
NL Division Series
Wild Card Series		3
Wild Card Series		1
Wild Card Series		1
Wild Card Series		1

[Old Red]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

That the smartest guy in the room doesn't go home with the prettiest girl, is not unusual in HS.

What about Yale?

[Hugh2]

1 hour ago, UtahSox said:

My argument would be did you watch the 2025 postseason? Home runs have value. And it goes up in October. 

No one is saying they don’t have value. Just that they’re overvalued by some people.

exhibit A.  The desire to sign Eugenenio Saurez

[Hugh2]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

That the smartest guy in the room doesn't go home with the prettiest girl, is not unusual in HS.

Are you seriously trying to combine my analogies and get all serious with them?

Edit:  I’m not trying to sound brash, I’ll play along.

ok but in pro sports the prettiest girl dances with the guy who hands out the biggest contract

[moonslav59]

5 hours ago, drewski6 said:

We played 38 for Gray and Contreras, Bregman would have costed 175 and a NTC

Yes this team has always been willing to give out 1 yr deals, even at inflated AAV to avoid commitments. 

Unfortunately, very good players who are south of 33 require commitments, and so we switch up to these YES CHEAPER options.

Ive never argued against the need to go large and long on the right players. I thought Alonso fit the need, until we got Contreras, of course. To me, Suarez just barely meets the requirement of "large" or "long" and some players make 3-4 times what he got and 2-4+ years more, but it was a significant signing.

I'm not happy with just one year deals, but Contreras has 2 years plus a team option for year 3, so you missed that.

We have locked up 4 young players for long term, when we used to have zero to one, at any given time. That is a positive shift in one area. I'm with you on hoping we start paying what it takes to get the best of the best, which normally means large and long.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, drewski6 said:

I dont think I agree here.  I think they would have went higher on Alonso had Bregman signed first. Maybe not enough to get him, but they had multiple meetings with him and there was interest and they couldnt have thought their offer was competitive. I think they max'd at a number that wouldnt take em out of the Bregman running.

That could very well be true, and also the next step. They felt they made a competitive offer to Breggie, and for once, I agree that they did, and when they were outbid and beat by a no trade clause, they knew they were not taken out of the Suarez bidding, since it was lower.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, Hugh2 said:

Are you seriously trying to combine my analogies and get all serious with them?

I'm never serious about anything.  It just reminded me of the Married with Children when they go to their HS reunion and Al is making fun of the math geeks, and the math geeks are sitting with the hottest girls in the room.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, Hugh2 said:

ok but in pro sports the prettiest girl dances with the guy who hands out the biggest contract

But is the prettiest girl at the dance the same one you want to marry (as long as we're going down the analogy hole)?  In a RW example, almost everyone will say that Alonso will out-perform Contreras over the next two years.  But a fair amount of people would expect Contreras to have a similar WAR/$$$ value, and most people won't like the final three years of Alonso's deal.

[Hugh2]

16 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

But is the prettiest girl at the dance the same one you want to marry (as long as we're going down the analogy hole)?  In a RW example, almost everyone will say that Alonso will out-perform Contreras over the next two years.  But a fair amount of people would expect Contreras to have a similar WAR/$$$ value, and most people won't like the final three years of Alonso's deal.

I’m not comparing Contreras to Alonso here.  I just don’t think the offers the Sox made to Bregman and Alonso weren’t mutually exclusive.  

in other words, I don’t believe that the Sox offer to Alonso changes if Bregman signs before him.  
 

more often than not, the Sox place a value on a guy and they don’t budge.  For better or worse. They’ve probably avoided a lot of bad contracts with that philosophy, but they’ve also missed out on a ton of premium players over the last several years.  Hence the dance reference.

[Larry Cook]

Barring any unknown injuries (aka cutter from last season) this team is already a 90 win team from the improvement in the rotation exceeding any and all losses throughout the entire roster. 
 

two things to consider: 

1.) health, always a wild card and we have banana boy story at shortstop. And with 13 arms on the team, the law of averages says 2-3 have will miss significant time! 
2.) Mayer, Anthony, narveaz and Wong should all see improvements on the 2025 numbers. 
3.) rotation depth.  Criswell, Fitts are gone. Early and Tolle will be ready at some point if anybody gets hurt.  And cutter says he is healthy for the start of 2026! 

[JoeBrady]

37 minutes ago, Hugh2 said:

I don’t believe that the Sox offer to Alonso changes if Bregman signs before him.  
 

more often than not, the Sox place a value on a guy and they don’t budge.

I agree and I agree.  I don't they'd have beaten the O's offer at that price regardless of Bregman.  And I think you have to have a number not to exceed.  If you think a player is not worth one penny more than $165M/5, you can't go to $175M/5.  If that's your thought process, then your not-to-exceed price should be $175M.

When you buy a house, it is the same deal.  You're going to miss out on some properties.  But other opportunities will present themselves.  Or maybe you'll call their bluff and you'll be right.

[drewski6]

4 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

1=winning team had both more HRs and higher OBP.
2-winning team had more HRs
3-winning team had higher OBP
World Series		2
ALCS		3
NLCS		1
AL Division Series		1
AL Division Series		1
NL Division Series		3
NL Division Series
Wild Card Series		3
Wild Card Series		1
Wild Card Series		1
Wild Card Series		1

Oh well that settles it.

[drewski6]

59 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

I agree and I agree.  I don't they'd have beaten the O's offer at that price regardless of Bregman.  And I think you have to have a number not to exceed.  If you think a player is not worth one penny more than $165M/5, you can't go to $175M/5.  If that's your thought process, then your not-to-exceed price should be $175M.

When you buy a house, it is the same deal.  You're going to miss out on some properties.  But other opportunities will present themselves.  Or maybe you'll call their bluff and you'll be right.

1. Nobody wants your bad real estate advice or your boring analogies

2. You guys are getting straight clowned, by 1945 strolls out of bed and clowns all of you Old Red. Your story would be cute if it happened, but it didnt.  By literally all accounts (take that moon) , Breslow was screaming "youre bluffing" at Bregman while Breg walked out the door laughing. This is Alex Speiers account, AJ Pierzynskis account, Buster Olneys account, that the red sox were confident their offer would prevail.  It wasnt that they had drawn a line at something like $164,386,409.93 and not one penny further.  Would be cute. Not what happened.  They were super confident that Bregman was bluffing and when told them that they were about to lose out, they were like double-down, make the offer worse, more deferred. Hes bluffffffing.  Bregman walked out the door, and Breslow looked at the dude sitting next to him and said "he's bluffing, right? right?"

Now you wanna convince me , Hugh, that the silly offer to Alonso wasnt to stay within an amount where they could still get breg on top? You wanna convince me that the offer stood on its own? Okay, you prob did.  THe problem with that, is that I now believe its even more evidence that Clownvis has no feel for the market. Point 1: See bregman (hes bluffffffingggg). Point 2: this offer to alonso, what was it 100m? Cmon.  Thats foolishness.  And maybe Breslow is foolish enough to think it had a prayer.  But lets get one thing straight, the league is not filled with all these "well, thats what I thought he was worth" offers. Some , sure.  But its not like GMs are running around making low ball offers because thats what THEY think the player is worth. The league would be chaotic if that was true.  GMs make offers they think will get accepted, and maybe Breslow is this far out to lunch. Maybe thats why we couldnt sign a free agent batter. But thats just more noob GM'ing by your noob GM. More stiffness from the king of stiff.

BTW , I watched the bregman / cubs press conference, and I coulda swore I heard Breslow in the background yelling "hes blufffinnnngggggg"

[JoeBrady]

53 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Oh well that settles it.

Glad to be of assistance.  The research is easy.  Trying to model what will win is key.

[JoeBrady]

43 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

2. You guys are getting straight clowned, by 1945 strolls out of bed and clowns all of you Old Red.

When you wake up, you'll need to translate that to English.

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

I agree and I agree.  I don't they'd have beaten the O's offer at that price regardless of Bregman.  And I think you have to have a number not to exceed.  If you think a player is not worth one penny more than $165M/5, you can't go to $175M/5.  If that's your thought process, then your not-to-exceed price should be $175M.

When you buy a house, it is the same deal.  You're going to miss out on some properties.  But other opportunities will present themselves.  Or maybe you'll call their bluff and you'll be right.

I was gonna respond to both statements, too and agree.

I don't think we budge much, but we may have on Alonso, if Breggie signed first. We certainly came closer to Breggie than Alonso, so it would have been a massive budge to get Pete.

This begs a question, did we offer Suarez more, the minute Breggie signed with the Cubs?

[moonslav59]

34 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

When you wake up, you'll need to translate that to English.

LOL.

I was almost on the floor.

I gotta ask this, let's assume all accounts were right: Brez thought the Cubs were bluffing and they weren't. Id that botching it? I counts as "misreading the room," for sure, but you don't botch anything if you walk away as the loser of a bid, if you made the best offer you were able to make.

Sure, you may look silly as Breggie is snickering under his breathe and calling you a clown to his friends, but Brez was not the one that overpaid, gave a no trade clause to insure he's stuck with the guy and deferred less money than he could have to get Breggie. No, that would be the winner of the negotiations- the Cubs.

Won't Breggie look so good as a Cubby?

I'm glad we got Suarez. If Brez was baffled by the apparent bluff that wasnt a bluff, negotiations are a lot like poker. (Sorry for the lame apology, as I know Drew hates those.) He called the bluff while holding a decent hand (offer) and the other guy drew an inside straight. That doesn't automatically make Brez a clown. It's not like he was holding jack high on nothing in his hand.

[mvp 78]

14 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

1=winning team had both more HRs and higher OBP.
2-winning team had more HRs
3-winning team had higher OBP
World Series		2
ALCS		3
NLCS		1
AL Division Series		1
AL Division Series		1
NL Division Series		3
NL Division Series
Wild Card Series		3
Wild Card Series		1
Wild Card Series		1
Wild Card Series		1

How many years is this for? Is this postseason stats only?