mvp 78

Per this thread, the originator of "decimated" is the horrible Red Sox hater Keith Law.

Damnit, Larry!

Yeah, the conversation is a little easier when the player starts aging... maybe.

https://www.overthemonster.com/2012/10/23/3542450/revisiting-the-marco-scutaro-trade I still feel like they should have shed salary elsewhere, but they ended up winning it all in 2013 after getting rid of Scutaro in 2012.

If I'm the Marlins, I'm asking for Bleis, Bello and Rafaela. If I'm the Sox, why am I inclined to move Bello at all? Bello 9/1 - end of season (2 NYY, TOR, BAL, CIN, TEX): 31.1 IP 31 K 12 BB 365 BABIP 2.59 ERA 2.70 FIP 3.51 xFIP At age 23 with 6 years of control.

And it was a really dumb move by Ben the Boob, moving a $6M 2.8 fWAR guy. He's lucky that Ross had decent year, but his career fell apart after that.

When DD left, the farm was bottom 5 in the league I believe. Whether it was decimated or not is up for interpretation and I'm not sure where that discussion started anyway.

He also doesn't have to play SS for the entire deal. They can move him to 3b, LF, or somewhere else if Mayer is ready.

Turner is a great player. He's a guy who would be fun to watch. I'm not sure ownership is ready to drop a ton of money on one guy just yet. If they signed him, would they extend Raffy?

And McGuire outperformed Vaz too.

They sucked enough to get the fanbase upset, but not enough to get another top pick like Mayer. If you're going to suck, you go all out. That's why I was all in on trading JD, Vaz, Eovaldi and others in the offseason or early on in the year.

Story was 6/140. I think Bogey is at least 6/150. Would he take it? I wouldn't pay him 6/180 though. I think he's closer to 25AAV IMO. If another team wants to go to 30AAV, he can go elsewhere unless it's like a shorter 4 year deal.

Mancini is fine, but that 710 OPS from 2022 should come at a big discount.

Fire Sam Kennedy!

Wacha has never been paid more than 7M, which is what he got this year. Again, he was a 1.1 fWAR guy in 2021 and a 1.5 fWAR guy in 2022. I don't see where this huge pay increase is coming from. I'm not sure he did anything this year that is going to get GM's to start a bidding war on him. At I tried to back my argument up with last year's free agent signings. You're just looking into your magic 8 ball and foretelling what Wacha is thinking right now, something none of us could possibly know.

If they bring in a guy, it'll be a corner OF that gets time at DH, not a DH that gets some time at corner OF. I'd rather they rotate DH among platoon bench bats and spend the money elsewhere. DESIGNATED HITTERS J.D. Martinez (35 years old, 3.5 WAR) Michael Brantley (36, 3.5) Trey Mancini (31, 2.1) -- Mutual option Matt Carpenter (37, 2.0) Andrew McCutchen (36, 1.8) Nelson Cruz (41, 1.4) Daniel Vogelbach (30, 0.8) -- Club option Charlie Blackmon (36, 0.6) -- Player option Jake Lamb (32, -0.1) Jed Lowrie (39, -0.3) Alex Dickerson (33, -0.3) Justin Upton (35, -0.4)

I'm not going to quibble on Wacha getting an extra year, but I think it would reduce the contract to 2/20 most likely. Even your 28/2 offer is a much better value than just giving him the QO. I just don't think the QO makes sense. Hill pitches better than $5M, but he's the oldest player in MLB. That's going to reduce his contract as his body is going to give out at some point and it's going to be quick.

The Opening Day roster doesn't look horrible on paper. C Vazquez 1B Moreland 2B Peraza SS Bogey 3B Devers RF Verdugo CF Pillar LF Benitendi Where it really went awry was the pitching (29th starter fWAR, 26th pen fWAR): Sale - out for the year TJS and not replaced ERod - out for the year COVID and not replaced Eovaldi - pitched fine Perez - pitched fine 5th Starter - Weber or bullpen game 3 out of 5 games were set up to be a s*** show on 8/1/20. There wasn't a good fallback plan. The upper minors depth was weak and the only guy that had a decent ceiling was Houck, but he wasn't added until the end of the year. Mazza/Brewer/Weber/Godley/Triggs/Kickham were what they were, spot starters that were forced into regular roles that encompassed 60% of every game played. It was an embarrassment. Even when Houck showed up, it really only made up for 3 starts that Eovaldi lost to injury. When that's the rotation, it's going to be very hard on the bullpen, which included retreads like Covey/Osich/Stock and a bunch of AAA/DFA guys at the bottom of the 40 man roster. Workman and Hembree were traded. Aside from Brasier, Barnes, Walden and Taylor, what's left over doesn't look like the 2018 pen. Walden and Taylor both fell off dramatically for various reasons. Barnes and Brasier both had 4.00 FIP years that were what they were.

Rich Hill was just paid 1/5. Wacha was just paid 1/7. Why would you think they'd get much larger AAV contracts than what they got last year? Hill 2021 1.7 fWAR 2022 1.8 fWAR Wacha 2021 1.1 fWAR 2022 1.5 fWAR Kluber got 8M last year after 1.4 fWAR in half a season. Most guys that got 10-12+ were coming off years above 2 fWAR (Wood, Matz, Cobb). The only outlier is Kikuchi which might have been the worst contract signed last offseason. My estimation seems fairly reasonable.

The big changes from 2021 to 2022 were the bullpen got way worse, the starters got injured, Raffy was injured and struggled after coming back, Kiké was injured, 1b was a black hole for the whole year, JBJ never hit and JD had his worst full season OPS since 2013. I think if we were told that scenario going into 2022, we would have expected .500 at best. It was bleak.

I was answering your first question that stated: "I'm not sure what Wach's previous highest contract has to do with a QO offer."

It means his market value is so much lower than 18M that it's silly to give him the QO. You could get Hill + Wacha for 18M combined instead of giving Wacha the 18M QO.

It's too early for me to put on my Sisyphus Halloween costume.

If Billy Beane accepts the job, how is the trajectory of the Red Sox changed? Does he listen to Pedro and sign David Ortiz? Does he sign Bill Mueller? Keith Foulke? Kevin Pillar? It has been tumultuous, but I can't say I'd do a do-over with that one.

Wacha's largest contract ever was $7M AAV. I don't think this year deserved an $11M raise. Eovaldi is probably a 12.5AAV guy IMO.