mvp 78

Yay.

The definition of a strawman argument. WTH? Henry is a benefit to this team. He has opened his checkbook in the past and he'll probably do it again at some point.

It's a Monday morning and moon spent the weekend fighting with Old Red. He just needs some fresh air.

Why couldn't they afford Jansen? They went over the luxury tax.

Mutual options are very rarely picked up. No reason the Sox grab that one.

Paying Pham $12M is dumb as hell.

Why are the Sox "so far away" from a WS title? Didn't they get to the ALCS last year? Don't they have an owner that can outspend the majority of teams?

In reverse order: Hamilton (44 SoxProspects ranking) Jimenez (39) Drohan (28) Meidroth (46) Ravelo (53) Abreu (26) Mejicano (UR) Encarnacion (51) Cottam (UR) Ward (18) Koss (38) Kavadas (22) Valdez (14) Anthony (10) Rodriguez Cruz (25) Hickey (20) Gonzalez (13) Perales (15) Lugo (17) Walter (8) Jordan (16) Murphy (12) Bonaci (19) Romero (7) Yorke (5) Paulino (9) Bleis (3) Mata (6) Mayer (1) Rafaela (4) Why didn't he include Brooks Brannon? He ends up including a lot of lesser named guys because he excludes anyone on the BOS roster or who has ever been called up. Seems like he did a lot of box score scouting more than anything. Really likes catchers? Here's SoxProspects scouting report on Mejicano, a guy I don't remember hearing about before: Stocky catcher’s frame. Athletic for a catcher. Starts square with a wide base and utilizes a leg lift timing device. Aggressive approach; will expand the zone. Bat drags through the zone and struggles with velocity. Hit well in limited duty in the FCL in 2021. Has been about average in throwing out attempted base stealers. Began 2022 as a backup in Salem but saw more time in the second half of the season after the promotion of Nathan Hickey. Potential minor league depth catcher.

Why would they go over in 2022, just to get under in 2023?

And just a few years prior, he made over 20. Maybe rep made a big difference? IDK.

I wonder if they go up there looking for a specific pitch on the first pitch. If they see that pitch, they'll swing away. If they don't see it, they take it. Maybe sometimes they just want to take a few pitches to see how the ball is coming out of the pitcher's hand? Just because the ball ends up down the middle of the plate doesn't necessarily mean that the hitter knew that specific pitch was coming or was ready for it. It's very frustrating though. I remember Mookie doing it all the time and NESN talking about him taking so many first pitches. Well, it worked out pretty good for him in 2018 I guess.

He doesn't seem like the type of owner to turtle and reduce payroll because of one losing season. Maybe the best clue is to look at their response to the 2014 season.

I think that sounds about right. I'm not entirely sure about #3 though. They were just in the ALCS. They always talk about being competitive. The fact that the team flat out blew chunks must have come as a little bit of a surprise to them.

What is the goal of owning the Red Sox: yearly net income or the long term appreciation of the asset to sell off someday? Is it some combination of both? We don't have real access to their all in budget, so it's hard to say what they think about a year like 2022. Maybe Henry is pissed? Maybe the Sox made enough and they aren't worried?

The Mr Softee truck is there to give them flu shots, right?

At some point, Henry figured out that we're all good little piggies and we're all just going to slop up whatever the Red Sox give us year in and year out because we were raised this way.

Because so many under 30 starting pitchers make it to free agency...

This ownership group has done so much at this point just for PR (Tito's on pills, Popeye's Chicken scandal, etc.) that it's hard to believe anything they say at this point.

The goal isn't "cheap and slam dunk," but find a guy better than year 2 of the James Paxton Experience IMO. I don't think they'll pick up the full 2 year/26M Paxton deal, but stranger things have happened. I really doubt Paxton will take the 4M player option he has on his end if the Sox decline.

And I don't think that offer even placated fans. Fans in Boston are too smaht to fall for that kind of ********.

If it's "just" a one year contract, does it matter?

This is what I said above: Guys that could work out if they signed and depending on the contract: Rodon Nola deGrom Bassitt Kershaw Morton I'm not sure what "reasonable cost" has to do with anything as this is a Free Agent market we are talking about. Slam Dunk + Reasonable Cost really isn't a thing, right?

Back to the original point: there was a guy on the Sox once who used to take the first pitch all the time and it was maddening. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/mookie-betts-605141?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb In this case, the stats back up the idea that in 2018, Mookie Betts swung at less than 10% of the 1st pitch of an at bat. It was frustrating sometimes, but he was also having the greatest year of his career. This year, Mookie has swung at 30%.

Aren't they going to be over the luxury tax threshold anyway?

Your post was: "Under Henry, there is a long history of making an offer to a star who is nearing free agency, and then not budging or barely budging from that first offer. Here's a list of a bunch of guys:" It's hard to read anything else from that post.