I would vehemently dispute that as midlevel, especially when it's only one year.
I mean the top level now is $325 million.
Midlevel would be more like a Kevin Gausman deal IMHO.
It's certainly not black and white.
I think the main point with the Sox is that $10 million was the MOST they signed a starting pitcher for in the years 2020-2023.
Some people think Devers is fat too, though. These are guys with big bodies no matter what they do.
You made me look up Vlad's season log, and he's not really doing much different than he did the last 2 years. 2021 is looking like a big outlier.
Yeah, I'm not really disagreeing. I'm just guessing that if he hooked up with a good hitting coach he might do better.
There's no room for him with the Sox.
Attendance has been picking up recently if I'm not mistaken.
Have to remember that a lot of those tickets are purchased a long time in advance, which is one reason the team's play doesn't always line up with ticket sales.
DD's approach is pretty simple: go for the prime cuts and pay them whatever you have to.
I would argue it's been a pretty successful approach over the years.
Starting pitchers just get less and less reliable and durable all the time.
Also let's not forget that DD left us Bello, Crawford and Houck.
It's one of the things that makes baseball unique. In other sports development seems a lot faster and more linear.
Being able to pitch or hit a baseball successfully at the MLB level are extremely advanced and variable skills.
But you have to wonder if they will remain risk averse, maybe forever, on signing pitchers who have reached the age of 30 to big contracts.
Hell, even big deals for 25 year old pitchers can be risky, as Yamamoto's injury would indicate.