Red Sox sign Ranger Suarez. 5 years $130 Million

[moonslav59]

39 minutes ago, Old Red said:

How many times can you fit the word BOTCH in a post, 

Equal to your "GO FISH" comment.

[moonslav59]

Word is the Sox are shopping Hicks, and some are interested in Bello & Sandoval.

Common denominator? All have AAVs around $9M or more.

That leads me to think money limits are in place and maybe that affected the Breggie offer. Maybe the Ranger signing was made with the idea that budget cuts would be made afterwards, to help pay for him. Maybe it's to make room for a signing or two- like E Suarez or a couple RP'ers. Word is we are looking for catching help, too. (Source: MLBTR)

[JoeBrady]

12 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Maybe it's to make room for a signing or two- like E Suarez or a couple RP'ers.

That's my guess.  I think that, if we were only interested in capping payroll, we wouldn't signed Suarez.  Suarez is the guy you sign when you think you can go far.

[moonslav59]

18 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

That's my guess.  I think that, if we were only interested in capping payroll, we wouldn't signed Suarez.  Suarez is the guy you sign when you think you can go far.

I'm wondering if the price for E Suarez is so low, he is what is holding up trades being made.

We are a better team with E Suarez than without him.

I think we are better with ESuarez + Duran than Donovan minus Duran or Paredes minus Abreu.

I do not think JH wants us over line 3. That might be why we hung firm on the Breggie deferments.

 

[moonslav59]

Looking at the winter as a whole, I do think spending most of our resources on 3 pitchers (Suarez, Gray & Oviedo) and a 1Bman (Contreras) looks misplaced, each move by itself looks okay to really good, to me.

That doesn't mean I'm happy with the results, if this is it. I'm not.

I had our biggest needs in this order:

1. Big bat with power (preferably RH'd)

T2. 2B/3B

T2. #2 SP'er (closer to a #1 than a #3.)

Suarez certainly fills the 2nd need. Gray might have covered the same need. Oviedo filled none of the top 3 needs and maybe not even a top 6 or 7 need, especially when you factor in we added a solid #2 and a solid #3.

While extra pitching does mitigate the other needs to some extent, we still need a 2B/3Bman.

One could say Contreras almost filled the big bat need, so maybe the extra pitching can make up for that shortcoming, but that 3B/2B need is still glarin

[JoeBrady]

3 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I had our biggest needs in this order:

1. Big bat with power (preferably RH'd)

T2. 2B/3B

T2. #2 SP'er (closer to a #1 than a #3.)

That's reasonable.  But there are a fair amount of us that would've ranked that #2 SP, big bat, then 2B/3B.  What we've done so far works well for that population.  So long as we get the 2B/3B, then the difference between the two POVs will be negligible.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

That's reasonable.  But there are a fair amount of us that would've ranked that #2 SP, big bat, then 2B/3B.  What we've done so far works well for that population.  So long as we get the 2B/3B, then the difference between the two POVs will be negligible.

Agreed, and when you figure we will add a decent 3B/2Bman, we came very close to filling all 3 highest need areas and slam dunked saturated the SP'er area.

SP# check, double check

2B/3B assume we check

Power RHB nearly checked with Contreras. (If the 2B/3Bman can give us some pop or decent offense, we could say all boxes were addressed.)

[UtahSox]

18 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm wondering if the price for E Suarez is so low, he is what is holding up trades being made.

We are a better team with E Suarez than without him.

I think we are better with ESuarez + Duran than Donovan minus Duran or Paredes minus Abreu.

I do not think JH wants us over line 3. That might be why we hung firm on the Breggie deferments.

 

I’ll go the other way, use a supposition but not give Breslow the benefit of the doubt that you do almost every time. I wonder if Suarez like really wants to be in Boston. Why? The ballpark fits his swing perfectly, he gets to join a team that’s gonna be a winner, oh, and it’s the Boston Red Sox. Everybody wants to play for the Boston Red Sox.

He’s willing to take a discount, except Beta Breslow is still is holding his feet to the fire on the no trade clause. And Suarez doesn’t want to give a discount only to be shipped off for relief pitching in July that Breslow thinks he can unlock. Like May or Hicks last year..

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, UtahSox said:

I’ll go the other way, use a supposition but not give Breslow the benefit of the doubt that you do almost every time. I wonder if Suarez like really wants to be in Boston. Why? The ballpark fits his swing perfectly, he gets to join a team that’s gonna be a winner, oh, and it’s the Boston Red Sox. Everybody wants to play for the Boston Red Sox.

He’s willing to take a discount, except Beta Breslow is still is holding his feet to the fire on the no trade clause. And Suarez doesn’t want to give a discount only to be shipped off for relief pitching in July that Breslow thinks he can unlock. Like May or Hicks last year..

Saying there is not enough facts known to say Brez was at fault of not in not giving him the benefit of doubt. It is holding off assigning blame until such facts are known, if they ever are.

I have agreed he is a very poor communicator. I agreed that at best he looked "funny" in the way he called the Cubs bluff that turned out to not be a bluff.

I agree Breggie wanted to play for us, and we wanted him with us. I suggested Brez mistakenly spent the money he could have used on Bregman on Suarez,  Sonny Gray & Contreras to get both Suarez and Bregman, with some left over for another key addition.

I have said the Sale trade backfired, but it's hard for me to roast Brez, when I liked the trade at the time. If that is always giving Brez the benefit of doubt, then I guess I'm guilty under your criteria.

How about the posters that view everything he does in a negative light? When he trades for Crochet, they say that was a no-brainer. The extension, too, right after they say JH won't allow large and long contracts. (They said that before the Suarez signing, too.) Why not call them out?

I try to be balanced and fair. Not that you are not trying to be fair. I don't thin it's fair to bash Brez, if the facts turn out to be we never could have signed him due to either the NTC, the deferments or the top dollar amount that was allowed to be given. It's not taking Brez's side. If he could have offered what it took to get him but chose not to, fine- blame away.

I thought the offer we gave Bregman was a gross overpay to begin with and I prefer the Suarez signing 100%. If you view that opinion as being a giving Brez the benefit of the doubt, then I'll have to firmly disagree with your opinion.

I wish we had Bregman not Gray. The money is not equal, so I'm not sure that was a choice.

I'd rather have Gray and Contreras than Bregman, and I know that was possible, because it happened. Their AAV is much higher than Bregman's but their years of control are 1 (Gray) and 3 (Contreras.)

I think Brez went too heavy on pitching and too light on batting, but I never saw Bregman as the "big bat" we needed. I see Contreras as about equal to Breggie's offense. I'm usually all about adding top SP'ers, but I did not see this winter as the monet we needed to add two. I'm critical of that choice. If we end up getting some slouch to play 3B or 2B, I will be very vocal against the choices Brez has made, this winter. I do think we are better than 2025, but like Fred and others, I had much higher hopes than just getting a little better.

[notin]

1 hour ago, UtahSox said:

I’ll go the other way, use a supposition but not give Breslow the benefit of the doubt that you do almost every time. I wonder if Suarez like really wants to be in Boston. Why? The ballpark fits his swing perfectly, he gets to join a team that’s gonna be a winner, oh, and it’s the Boston Red Sox. Everybody wants to play for the Boston Red Sox.

He’s willing to take a discount, except Beta Breslow is still is holding his feet to the fire on the no trade clause. And Suarez doesn’t want to give a discount only to be shipped off for relief pitching in July that Breslow thinks he can unlock. Like May or Hicks last year..

So now Suarez is holding out for a no trade clause?  He was traded last July; not sure it’s a priority…

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, UtahSox said:

Suarez doesn’t want to give a discount only to be shipped off for relief pitching in July that Breslow thinks he can unlock.

On a s/t contract like this, I'm betting Suarez is looking for money, and maybe a WS ring, more than stability.  I think his stability days are over.

And I doubt Breslow is trading him for a RP and eating salary.

[notin]

12 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

On a s/t contract like this, I'm betting Suarez is looking for money, and maybe a WS ring, more than stability.  I think his stability days are over.

And I doubt Breslow is trading him for a RP and eating salary.

Why would Breslow trade Suarez for relief pitching in July?  That’s neither a buy move nor a seller move, unless the Sox are overloaded with offense but need bullpen help, and found another team with the reverse problem.  In which case, get some RP now instead of Suarez and avoid that whole problem…

[JoeBrady]

10 minutes ago, notin said:

Why would Breslow trade Suarez for relief pitching in July?

He's not.  If we hit a hard injury, and are out of it, and Suarez starts off great, maybe.  But it would almost certainly never happen.

[UtahSox]

59 minutes ago, notin said:

Why would Breslow trade Suarez for relief pitching in July?  That’s neither a buy move nor a seller move, unless the Sox are overloaded with offense but need bullpen help, and found another team with the reverse problem.  In which case, get some RP now instead of Suarez and avoid that whole problem…

I’m being facetious…. Cuz we just need to stop messing around to save a couple million and end up losing him too.

[moonslav59]

51 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

He's not.  If we hit a hard injury, and are out of it, and Suarez starts off great, maybe.  But it would almost certainly never happen.

We'd likely be looking to trade shorter term players like Sandoval, Gray or two year guys like Chapman & Whitlock. 3 year guys like Duran would likely be next.

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, UtahSox said:

I’m being facetious…. Cuz we just need to stop messing around to save a couple million and end up losing him too.

Maybe it was understood that when we signed Suarez, Brez was expected to dump some salary (like one from Bello, Sandoval or Duran- all about $8-9M AAV.) 

Maybe the dumps are not to pay for Suarez, but to help pay for E Suarez or adding the $9M cost of Paredes.

That third tax line might be set in stone. Like it or not.

[UtahSox]

20 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Maybe it was understood that when we signed Suarez, Brez was expected to dump some salary (like one from Bello, Sandoval or Duran- all about $8-9M AAV.) 

Maybe the dumps are not to pay for Suarez, but to help pay for E Suarez or adding the $9M cost of Paredes.

That third tax line might be set in stone. Like it or not.

Ok but sign him and then work on getting under 3rd tax line. Otherwise we risk losing him, and then we will be stuck upgrading and salary dumping via trade. 

[moonslav59]

Just now, UtahSox said:

Ok but sign him and then work on getting under 3rd tax line. Otherwise we risk losing him, and then we will be stuck upgrading and salary dumping via trade. 

Signing E Suarez or trading for Paredes will likely have to mean finding a way to cut some salaries. Including Bello, Sandoval or Duran in a trade for Paredes keeps us under line 3.

Signing Suarez to over $19M AAV would likely mean we have to trade 2 from that list or find cuts elsewhere. I admit my talk of dumping Masa and or Hicks is far-fetched and even combined may not save $8-9M in AAV, as we will need to pay much of it.

There is some variances on how much bellow line 3 we are, but maybe it's just $4M, and that is probably needed to pay for bonuses or deadline additions. It might be safe to say any additions we make going forward has to be offset by equal salary done away with.

[notin]

37 minutes ago, UtahSox said:

I’m being facetious…. Cuz we just need to stop messing around to save a couple million and end up losing him too.

My response didn’t seem facetious to you?  You thought that was serious?