vjcsmoke

It's been a terrible start for Chaim Bloom. If we lose Devers and Bogaerts as well we'll have gone a thousand percent backwards, chased out all the premium talent from Boston and replaced it with subpar performers. This season alone Bloom subtracts Hunter Renfroe and adds Trevor Story for 140m and JBJ each sporting a sub .600 OPS. It's a bit soon. But not a lot of positive impact from Bloom's wheeling and dealing so far. We shed salary, we shipped out top end talent, we get back, what exactly, a 10-17 team that looks like it has no shot of competing for the division title or even making the playoffs?

The Japanese are weird about their interviews of celebrities. They seem to enjoy funny stuff and joking around. So I wouldn't take too much out of it. It probably came down to money and who seemed the most interested. I don't know if the Red Sox showed sufficient interest in Suzuki or offered him and his agent the money they wanted to sign here. I guess we'll never know now but the price tag is not out of line with the quality of player we would have gotten.

The point is that the Red Sox needed to replace a 30 home run bat. They had the chance to sign Suzuki at 5/85, who is mashing big league pitching right now, and instead chose to sign Trevor Story. If you really want to compare, let me check their stats: JBJ through 19 games is putting up a .486 OPS which is in line with his numbers last year of .497 with Milwaukee. He's a negative presence when he gets to the plate. Hunter Renfrow is at .617 OPS through 18 games. He may be struggling compared to his standards but he's significantly better than JBJ and has a chance to bounce back. Meanwhile our 140m dollar IF Trevor Story clocks in at a dazzling .601 OPS through 15 games now. Suzuki still at 1.024 OPS through 19 games with the Cubs, he also has more runs, homeruns, and RBIs than both JBJ and Story have combined between the two of them. So we traded away Hunter Renfrow and paid 55m dollars MORE than Suzuki to get worse offensively at two spots in the batting lineup. OK. Does Bloom still sound as smart as you thought he was? Prospects are just that, an immaterial asset until they can contribute to the big club. When they turn into something, let us know.

To sum up the Red Sox had a big choice in the offseason. They chose to trade Hunter Renfrow for Jackie Bradley Junior. So it was obvious we needed a replacement for Renfrow. We also let Kyle Schwarber go. Instead of going after 27 year old japanese phenom OF Seiya Suzuki who signed a 5 year/85m deal with the Cubs the Red Sox spent nearly double the money to sign 29 year old IF Trevor Story to a 6 year 140m dollar contract. How are they doing so far? 18 games in, Seiya Suzuki is who we thought he was - batting .333 with 4 homeruns, a .458 obp, a .632 SLG, and over 1.09 OPS. In other words he's a star slugging outfielder. Oh but how has Trevor Story fared for the Red Sox, surely he has justified costing nearly double the money to play a position where we already have Xander Bogaerts? 14 games in, Trevor Story is batting .236, with 0 homeruns, a .311 OBP, .309 SLG, and .621 OPS. In other words we paid double the money and got 60% the production out of Trevor Story. Meanwhile, you remember that Hunter Renfrow flip for JBJ? How is he doing this year? Oh kind of as expected: 18 games in Jackie Bradley Jr is batting .173, with 0 homeruns, a .273 OBP, and .250 SLG, with a whopping .521 OPS. That's right, our two big acquisitions of the offseason are putting up OPS of .621 and .521 respectively. That's not just mediocre or below par, that's downright terrible. These two moves alone make Bloom look like a fool. Especially considering what we missed out on in the free agent market. The Trevor Story signing looks to be a blunder on par or worse than Pablo Sandoval, considering the contract length and amount 6/140 vs 5/95 and the additional opportunity cost on missing out on Suzuki. I don't know about you but GM's have been fired for lesser mistakes. Chaim Bloom should be in the hot seat. And until he fixes his mistakes, the Red Sox will have to live with them for a long time to come.

Ok the splits are interesting. But yeah the Sox not going after Suzuki when paying him would cost HALF of what it cost to sign Trevor Story's 140m. Well it's worrisome because it signals to me that Bloom thinks the outfield is fine and perhaps is even planning on letting Bogaerts walk and use Story as his replacement. That's a very expensive anticipatory move and the opportunity cost we missed out on was signing a potential stud outfielder/pitcher.

This was a huge miss by the Red Sox. Suzuki could be the next Ohtani and all we had to do was match 5/70. Instead reports are we could go after the likes of washed up 33 yo Justin Upton who projects to a sub 700 OPS in 2022, OOF. He's so bad he was designated for assignment and of course will clear waivers cos nobody else wants his salary. Red Sox OF looking shaky right now, not gonna lie. Especially with the black hole known as Jackie Bradley Jr., projected to a .655 OPS, manning one of the starting 9 batting spots. I really have ZERO idea why we traded back for him? Red Sox need a corner outfielder. Surely Bloom can swing a decent deal before the season starts?

Red Sox take a big net loss in the short term. Bloom must be convinced that the prospects we got back make up for losing Renfroe... OR Red Sox were already looking to upgrade on Renfroe with a free agent OF or winning the Suzuki sweepstakes, that's the only way this move makes sense to me. Not only is JBJ a net negative when you consider his offense, his paid salary is higher than Renfroe's over the next 2 years.

Why the hell do we want to trade for Myers? We just dumped Price's half of Price's salary whom was owed 3/90m and that came at the cost of Mookie Betts. Now we WANT to pick up Myer's 3/90m for prospects? Scratching my head here as taking on Myer's undesireable contract will just return us to cap hell. Not to mention he's just a mediocre player on a bad salary. Chaim Bloom trying to run the Sox into the ground? I'll tell you what, I'll give you our best player Mookie Betts, and you take 45m of Price's contract in exchange for Verdugo and a couple of unproven prospects. I'll tell you what, I'll eat 45m of your albatross contract in Myers, in exchange for some unproven prospects. So net result: Mookie Betts traded for a handful of unproven prospects and a seriously injured outfielder in Verdugo. Red Sox still in the luxury tax. These moves makes no sense unless the Padres eat a LOT more than half of Myer's contract.

Trout got 12 year / $426,500,000 deal. That is a bank breaker right there. There's no reason to expect Betts to want anything less than 35m per year. However he does have a couple arb years. So we might ask him to take less for 2019/2020 but bump up his pay to the expected 35m aav for the remainder. So... 20/25 + 35x10. The originally estimated 395m by the OP seems in line with the expected price tag of a superstar position player. I certainly don't expect anything less than 350m. But who knows, Sale was gotten for an unexpectedly low price. Maybe the Sox offer a 10 year contract instead to lower the total value to 325m with an opt out after 5 years?

The extension deal is reportedly 5 years/145m dollars. That's only 29m per year. A super reasonable deal for an ace pitcher. I was expecting around 200m. Looks like Sale took a bit of a hometown discount. We are really in great shape with our Ace locked up for the next 5 years! This is really a great deal for the team. Go Sox!!!

Would trading Devers be worth adding such a high quality pitcher? I know it's tough to trade a position player but Devers is far from established but he is viewed as the future of the 3rd base position for now.

What metric do you use to come to that conclusion? Over the past 3 seasons, comparing dWar he is comparable to both Vaquez and Leon, while having a significantly higher OWar: Vazquez dWar .3, .3, .2 oWar -.2, 1.4, -.4 Leon dWar .8, 1.3, .9 oWar 2.5, 0, -.9 Grandal dWar .7, 1.2, .6 oWar 2.7, 1.7, 3.5

It's now rumored that Noah Syndergaard could be on the trading block. He has the stuff and all the peripheral stats... when healthy. Should Dombrowski make a move to add one more starting pitcher via trade, who is still arb eligible and under control until 2021, or do we throw a bunch of money at Eovaldi?

Let's talk about free agency. Can the Red Sox afford to add any impact free agents. I just read an article suggesting we go after Yasmani Grandal for say a 3/39 deal. https://www.overthemonster.com/2018/11/26/18107109/red-sox-free-agent-target-yasmani-grandal-vazquez-swihart-leon He would definitely be an upgrade at the catcher position, but with the Red Sox payroll figure hanging around the 149m mark, can we actually afford to make such a move?

Devers for Machado and Britton are fine as long as Machado agrees to an extension. We only have 113m on the cap next season. We can afford to pay Machado and Sale is on a 1m team option while Betts is still on Arbitration dollars.

Yes Devers has had a sophomore slump. But it's way too early to give up on him. I feel that he will eventually rebound to rookie year form. And that gives you an .800+ OPS hitter at 3rd base. That being said, if Manny Machado is on the table, yes I'd give up Devers and his long term control in exchange for a 3rd baseman/SS who is everything you hope that Devers would become but is already there. Not to mention that Machado is only 25 years old so there are plenty of good years to be had from him. My only concern is that Machado is a free agent at the end of the year. So I would not give up Devers plus X prospects for Machado unless he is willing to sign an extension. If we get to keep Machado the trade is worth it, if it's just 1 year of Machado on the roster, than it's not.

So apparently David Price has been diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. But he's still gonna pitch against the Blue Jays. *shrugs* Well David, if you clicked on less porn, and worked on your arm more, maybe you wouldn't be in this pickle?!

Is David Price washed up? I was hoping he would eventually rebound like John Lackey did. But he owns a 5.11 ERA through 7 starts and now got the hook for a numb hand? What is going on here? Imagine if we had just kept Lester and paid him the money instead of making him an insulting contract offer and watch him leave town. If we had Lester, we would never have signed Price to that ridiculous contract.

Well do you think we could get a top 3 type starter in return for JBJ or would we strictly be looking at prospects coming back?

Spanking the Yankees and beating them in a series. There's no sweeter feeling! Pinstripe fans must be in meltdown mode right about now. Haha!

I feel like we could have gotten a real ransom for JBJ last season. Not sure how good a return we would get this year. His OPS dropped to sub .700. That's not a playable player even with the PLUS-PLUS defense that he gives. If he picks it up and gets to around a .750 OPS then we have a commodity that we can move if we need to. But what would we even trade him for? What is the Red Sox biggest position of need now when everything is pretty much rosey for us right now?

I know it's a small sample size but 10-2 to start the season? That's amazing! I thought we would be improved, but I didn't think we were going to be -this- good!! Less than 10% of the season gone, I know but that's on pace for 134 wins. Which is INSANE!! I'm just going to say at this rate, which is unsustainable, this is still definitely a 95+ win team. I feel like 95 wins should be enough to win the division this year. There are going to be some ups and downs, but whatever we have going on... it's working and I'm Loving It!!!

The Red Sox finally got their man! I'm ok with the opt out clause. After 2 years, the market will be different, new players will become available, and even farm prospects might become legit big league options. All in all, not too shabby 5 years 110 for an aav of 22m. And JD gets paid more richly up front. Win-Win for both sides. I'm satisfied with the look of the Red Sox offense for 2018. Now what do we do about our relief situation?

I feel like it is more likely that today's MLB baseball is juiced to increase the homerun rate. Ever since the steroid era of baseball so many athletes were disgraced I don't think anybody would risk getting caught 'juicing' anymore.

Well when the Red Sox signed JD Drew it worked out pretty well for us. And when the Red Sox signed Victor Martinez he played great in Boston as well. Add it all up and signing free agent JD Martinez should be a guaranteed awesome signing for us!!