sk7326

Yes they can ... they might not want to (Sale in particular) ... team doesn't have the most expensive everything for nothin

Nothing easier to replace than a 24 year old top ten player

5th in all of baseball by bWAR, 8th in fWAR. Down-ish offensive year ... best outfielder by a Secretariat-esque margin. It's a really good year - enough to be on the AL MVP podium ...

The Red Sox are a mint - 3rd in the league in revenue - all of this is a choice. There is no cap - and given this team's resources we should not be okay with the team acting like there is one. This is not a justification for management being stupid - but letting prime players walk - actual good investments - out of some sense of a cap which doesn't exist.

This is largely true - except for one problem here. USUALLY, when you make the decision to "go all out to sign superstars" - you are talking about FAs, which usually means 30 year olds and the like. The decision is almost always enough early value to justify a contract with decline in it. If you develop well - like the Sox have - and you have a 24 year old MVP-level performer - things are different ... a 10-year deal is not super smart - but there is no reason not to go all out to try to sign a kid who is young enough that you will be getting almost all prime years in the contract.

You have to be realistic on some level - we're asking Betts to never put himself on the open market ever - which is wildly unrealistic. It would run counter to anybody's wish in any part of their career. If he's going to give up his free agency, then he has to be paid up front for it. Now how much of a raise should be get on his arb figures - because any such contract would require one. So let's say 3/75 for the arb years ... and then 3/100 for the free agency years - and that gets you to $185M (I did not do the math seriously in the 200). It's a deal which can manage risk for both parties. I don't worry about Betts' last 4 years as much either - but I don't see why he'd ever want to give them up, especially given he'll probably be able to get a ton from somebody by then. As I have noted - I have zero interest in the luxury tax hit. There are ways to control for that - and if that is going to drive Judge Smails, er, ownership's thinking ... after monetizing every square inch of the Nation - he is in the wrong business. It's a budgetary choice (he is eating well either way).

Oh sure - but then again, Bradley is 8th in the majors in DRS - which is pretty good ... Lorenzo Cain territory, but other guys have had better seasons. Betts by any metric has been the dominant defensive outfielder in the league.

Salaries rise a lot faster than locking 10/275 would do.

A 6 year, 200 million deal that gobbles up his arb years is sensible for both sides - buys some of his free agency, gives him a ton of security and huge raises in his arb years ... and gets him back into FA by age 30 where he can probably secure another monster contract.

To be fair - it was charming when Manny did it. There is stuff to tighten up. Better fixing that stuff than the bat being afraid of breaking stuff.

A down year that has him 5th in the world in bWAR.

The Red Sox have a Top 5 CF playing to Bradley's left right now. It will be hard to find a RF as good as Betts defensively, but it is possible to find a quality bat there.

This is fair - and the Red Sox also have a probable Top 5 center fielder playing directly to Bradley's left. He has always been a movable commodity for that reason - quality starting CFs are hard to find and the Red Sox have two.

He is a rookie who was in AA this time a year ago ... it is amazing how easy it is to forget this. He hasn't broken out yet - waaaaahhh ... of course he has work to do. He has had a good rookie season. It's not as good as his callup last season - but plenty good to say "he could be a keeper"

Price signing = fine. Going rate for a top FA pitcher. He has struggled in some harder to predict ways. His history and mechanics said Lester-durable more than a future injury. Counting on Pablo = what else could you do? Especially not wanting to block Devers Moreland = I don't think he thought Moreland would replace Papi. But that between Ramirez, and the young guys there would be enough there. And Moreland would be Mitch Moreland (which is to say - not special, but okay filler) The only really tough move to defend was perhaps the Kimbrel trade - only because of the fungibility of closers.

The point about Sandoval was interesting - and one I certainly thought made sense in the "Pro" section of signing him. Sandoval always had pull power (see his 3 HR WS game) - but largely had a high contact, spray the ball approach. He was like an impatient Wade Boggs, who could just spray the monster with line drives. Alas ...

It helped for them to stink a couple of years in a row - but they also traded everything not nailed down until they had players they thought would be on the next great team. Sox will have the luxury of having good players under contract for a long time - which ones is up to them of course.

That seems to run counter to the new John Henry - I think it is a moot point ultimately. If Dombrowski came back to Henry with - say, Mike Trout for Groome, Devers and stuff ... then this question becomes more interesting. After all, every deal Dombrowski has made has been totally reasonable - I did not agree with all of them (Kimbrel most so) ... but they were reasonable assessments.

IF you are committed to not paying Betts - for instance - the time to trade him is with 1 or 2 full years of control left ... (like how the Orioles really should have dealt Machado before the deadline). Then you can get a legitimate haul - with some near big league ready stuff. But yeah it would be a step back. There are luxury tax limits - but they are largely self-enforcing. Maybe 15% tax is tractable (and this is marginal tax of course) - and 30% is not. But that is ownership's call - too often this is discussed like this is an NFL cap - even if it is more punitive now than it was in the last CBA. I do not blame ownership for wanting to pay less tax. But I also do not blame me for expecting a large revenue franchise to throw its weight around.

There are sufficient finances - if there are not, it is by choice ... those guys under contract for their peak years also become potentially useful trade chips - and probably the actual best way to re-stock the farm if that becomes a real issue

I think that is largely true - although I am also sure he was doing what his owner told him. "I can get Kimbrel for a couple of blocked prospects" "I can get the top starter on the trade market for an 18 year old" ... "I can land a Top 5 pitcher with another year of control" ... It is a bit why the story of Henry telling Dombrowski "Don't do that!" seems far fetched to me ... first, that Henry is that actively plugged in on Sam Travis, second that he has not empowered Dombrowski more or less completely. Dombrowski did not trade those guys because there was no trade to be had. The Sox have traded and graduated a lot of their inventory - how they fill the gaps in is on them. We know Dombrowski can do that too - but it's really on ownership to make that a priority.

Hosmer will probably be the cheapest - and there is a sense of untapped upside there

if we cannot survive past a window where our best players are 25-28 years old - that is a deep indictment of ownership

Bogaerts looks like this past week he is squaring up the ball much better - results have been slow - but more hard contact.

The word "rebuilding" is about setting customer expectations. If a team is going to go young - they are going to lose - a lot. But there is purpose there - especially if the kids have some talent. I don't think the Sox get to that point - at all. 1. Betts, Bogaerts, Benintendi, Devers will all be 28 or younger. Yes, extensions for Betts and Bogaerts will be expensive (and yes that decision is fair game). But really it is a matter of the payroll and tax Henry wants to carry. This team can probably work with 2 years - reset as a pattern. They might not want to do that - but that is because of ownership's priorities. 2. While the Red Sox could slip in 2020 for some of the reasons cited above - there is almost no chance that Betts or Bogaerts, under contract for 4-5 years would not be a pretty darn tradeable contract (Betts in particular). 3. The prospect inventory is not great right now - that is a challenge for the development guys. Teams cannot push chips around in the amateur market like they used to (ironically this hurts Tampa much more than Boston) ... but do the Red Sox have the scouts and development guys to find those sorts of 2-sport kids and whatnot who blossom and such. This part worries me also. 4. The window of opportunity for this team is 3 years for sure - but it could be longer. It depends on whether ownership wants to choose to do it - and pay the freight. The team is chock full of young, good players - with more than enough financial wherewithall to keep. It is always tempting to treat the tax as a hard cap - because ownership might ... instead of questioning that premise.