Bellhorn04

Personally I would rather keep both Price and Eovaldi. But I'd certainly rather see one of them go than Betts or JDM.

The Red Sox FO doesn't need a trade simulator...they need a trade stimulator.

The Red Sox have stated that it's a "goal, but not a mandate" to get the payroll below $208 million for luxury tax purposes for 2020. $208 million is the "first tax threshold" for 2020. If they can get below that number, they will not only avoid paying luxury tax for the first time in 3 years, their tax rate for 2021 will be re-set to the lowest rates. According to Cot's Contracts, which is as far as I can tell the most accurate, comprehensive and easy to understand of all the payroll trackers, the Red Sox 2020 payroll for tax purposes currently sits at $218,367. This includes estimates for all arbitration salaries, plus the other stuff that has to be added in, including player benefits of about $15 million. So the daunting task assigned to Chaim Bloom and the rest of baseball ops and bean-counters is to somehow shave about $10.5 million of payroll. They could actually achieve this in one simple stroke by removing Jackie Bradley Jr., whose arbitration estimate is $11.5 million. But of course there are other things to be considered, such as who would replace JBJ, who will replace Rick Porcello in the rotation etc. Other prime candidates to be removed from payroll: Mookie Betts - $27.5 million arbitration estimate JD Martinez - $22 million AAV David Price - $31 million AAV (but the Red Sox would almost certainly have to pay at least half of it if they trade him) Nathan Eovaldi $17 million AAV

If/when they trade Price it's because they're dead serious about cutting payroll. Hopefully we can get away with just trading Price or Eovaldi and Bradley.

Then of course there's Waiting for Godot. Now that was a tedious wait.

Cole has refuted the California bias thing. He also has family in the NY area. Maybe it's just part of the ploy to drive up the price. But maybe he just wants the most ridiculous contract any pitcher has every received, and it looks like he will get it and by a good margin.

This might be the perfect season to not contend, sad as it may be. Especially if the Yankees sign Cole as it appears they are going to do their utmost to do.

It feels kind of like the eerie calm before the storm. What will the big news be? Betts traded, JD traded, Bradley traded, Price traded, Eovaldi traded? It seems like at least one of those things has to happen fairly soon, otherwise everything stays in limbo.

"The waiting is the hardest part." - Tom Petty

It all depends on what we mean by a bad position. I think most of us feel that Bloom can get us back into a good position within a year or two if he's as shrewd as we hope.

But I think you've also argued elsewhere that we could trade Betts and still be competitive (90 wins or more) next year.

It was somewhere in between those two extremes LOL

That's about minus 50 million, which I think matches what the trade simulator says.

Drawing a line between Kopech and Eovaldi is kind of dicey. Kopech has thrown 14 MLB innings and had TJS surgery and is still something of an unknown quantity. The trade the Pirates made for Archer was just flat-out idiotic.

By the same stupid logic, we had E-Rod go 19-6 last year and how far did we go? Think, period.

JD's numbers are impressive regardless.

But you're just the man to do it.

JDM actually has a higher OPS and OPS+ in a Boston uniform than Papi did. That's pretty impressive...

The problem is you have, for example, Sizemore and Sandoval in the same basket. Both were flops, but one was insignificant and one was a disaster.

And how have those teams done in comparison to the ones who haven't? My postseason standings thread clearly shows it's the higher spending teams who have been more successful.

The thing is, the Red Sox have absorbed all those free agent busts and succeeded despite them. The busts have engendered endless moaning and groaning, of course, but that just comes with the territory. Is John Henry impoverished because of all the money wasted on Pablo, Hanley and Rusney? All you can really say is that the money could have been spent better, which is Thanks Captain Obvious stuff.

I said many, not most. The Sox have been employing this strategy in a big way since the day they signed Manny. So about 20 years. There were others before that, certainly, going back to Mike Torrez, but the sums of money were relatively small compared to the last 20 years. And Torrez was actually pretty good, other than that one pitch...

I guess Marisnick won't be playing for us in 2020 after all. The Mets just traded for him.

And he is arguably the best. You could probably make a case for Friedman, but Theo has him on rings, 3 to zip.

I believe Theo Epstein himself said way back when that if you have a success rate of 50% on your free agent picks, you're doing great - words to that effect anyway. Theo has always made use of free agency and always been realistic about it.