Bellhorn04

As far as what Mookie is now on record as saying, he has said: 1) An offer was made that he declined. 2) The offer was not the $300 mill that's been reported, with the clear implication that it was less than that.

He's having a month for the ages.

One useful benchmark is that an average WAR for a full-time player is about 2.

Right. And the stat WAA - Wins Above Average - is also available on Baseball-Reference. Kluber's 2023 WAA is -1.4.

I think you may be correct, the revolving door approach probably does cause some of the issues.

It's a modest improvement made to look better by the junk that came before it.

That would be a story indeed.

You know what I'm saying. It's not a good sign that Yoshida is now a guy that is "in the mix" rather than a guy penciled into the lineup every day as you would expect for a guy being paid that much money solely because of his offense.

It solidifies the premise that Betts was absolutely open to staying with the Red Sox, and they just didn't show him enough money.

Abreu has 19 MLB PA's. It does say a lot that Yoshida is losing AB's to him.

If we've reached the point that Yoshida is competing with Abreu for at-bats, it doesn't say much for how the team is feeling about him right now.

Here's a story that came out back in June/22. This is from the interview with Bradford. https://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/2370791 It's been more than two years since the Boston Red Sox traded outfielder Mookie Betts to the Los Angeles Dodgers in a blockbuster deal, and the 29-year-old is finally ready to clear some things up about why the trade happened. "They had things they needed to take care of," Betts told WEEI's Rob Bradford. "They were in a situation where they had to do what's best for them. You can't really be mad at somebody for having to do what's best for them, especially when you have to do what's best for you. There's definitely no hatred there. Chaim (Bloom) did a great job kind of talking and being upfront and honest and made the whole process smooth. It sucks, but that's part of it." Betts added: "There was an offer that was put out there, and we just declined, and we felt, I just wanted to get my value, man. That's all. Just like any person that lives, they want to get their value, what they're worth. That's pretty much all that that it was. Just the numbers didn't align, which is normal. It's all normal things. We just had to go our separate ways. Just like anything else, there was a lot of talk where I didn't want to stay, or this, that, and the other. That's false. It's just business. It is what it is. There's nothing you can do about it now, though."

Yes, Yoshida's status as a starter has become a shaky proposition.

We're better fielders than the Red Sox.

He also only had a single pinch hitting appearance the last 2 games.

Nobody roots for the bottom line. OTOH everybody knows the bottom line matters.

That's contradictory. We're talking about personal financial impact. If the Red Sox lose money or the value of the team goes down, Henry's share of the asset goes down in value. That's personal financial impact. The fact that he doesn't need the money is a whole different thing, if that's what you're getting at. If Henry was personally unaffected by Betts's contract, why wouldn't he have just offered Mookie $400 million? What did it matter to him what the amount was?

But it's "Henry's money" in the same sense as it is for any majority shareholder of a company. He does have a strong vested interest in all the decisions that affect the team's bottom line and net worth.

I put most of it on Bloom for assembling a hodgepodge of a roster. And things like starting the season without a shortstop.

When you're the Yankees or the Red Sox you don't have the luxury of completely tearing down and rebuilding.

If anyone in the Red Sox media asked him the question we'd know about it, one way or the other. I think what Bradford asked him was if the Red Sox had offered him the same as the Dodgers did if he would have taken it.

I guess it just didn't bother him that much.

I'd say the Red Sox have been more in a bad light about this than Mookie has.

Some day someone has to explain how a slumping player can come out of a slump if you bench them when they're slumping.

This may have been the first time he was specifically asked about what the Red Sox offered.