Eugenio has a 219 tOPS+ at Fenway. Loves hitting here. If Masa wasn't on the squad, he would have been a fine DH. He's a much better hitter once it gets to July 1st too (July - Sept OPS over 815).
What decline? He had two career years then seemed to level off between 115-125 wRC+ or so. I think you can expect a year or two to be up or down from there, but he's been pretty consistent. That's like saying Mookie Betts declined after his age 25 season in 2018 because he had a 10.2 fWAR and went back down to 5.8 fWAR.
I'd figure it out as I'm a very smart person. No difference between the production of their 1/10 pitchers and contracts that would be much smaller.
Schwarber 4/79 (19.75 AAV) vs Masa 5/90 (18 AAV)
Swanson 7/177 (25.3 AAV) vs Story 6/140 (23.3 AAV)
I increased payroll by 4M per year. Ooops!
It was definitely Hanley. He stated that it happened in TB early in the 2018 season and that the player was let go a few days later. It only lined up with Hanley.
Durbin would do better in the minors because he puts the ball in play more vs worse defense. That goes away vs superior defenses in MLB. It's why Braiden Ward has an OBP around .500 in AAA right now. I'd rather the better bat to ball profile of Eaton at that point.
In the past, they were worried about cost and signed sub elite talent to fill open positions (Story, Masa). That cost them more due to worse production and bad contracts than if they swung for the fences on larger contracts (Schwarber, Swanson).
Fenway played a lot smaller back then too. Once they added the 600 club/406 club/EMC club/Dell Technologies Club, the wind patterns changed and depressed the power a little bit.