sk7326

This is a fair take. If I had an issue with the trade it is more with "all the circumstances leading up to that point". That said, is the franchise in better shape from the trade than keeping Betts and then living with compensation? Hard to say in 2023, but ex ante - when the trade was made of course it did. Really the big issue with the trade was that Downs - a top 100 prospect who was expected to have a pretty high floor - was a total washout for the Red Sox. Whether the missed season due to the pandemic was the cause or not - his career splits between the two are truly jarring. Getting two solid starters out of the deal - even with that as the ceiling, would have been a good result for a fire sale.

Indeed - and I certainly would not expect the Soto return. I even acknowledged the difference is circumstances. But again, trading a superstar and getting no All Star potential in return stings and I am totally okay with some resentment of the front office on that front. There is a large range between what the Nationals got for Soto and the meh the Sox got for Betts and wishing for spot in between the two is perfectly reasonable.

1. The team traded a Top 10 player and got no All-Star ceiling out of it. So from a baseball perspective it was a bad trade. Knowing in 2022 that the San Diego Padres traded multiple Top 100 prospects to the Nationals for Juan Soto makes this harder to swallow, even with the extra control that Soto has. 2. That said, if you rejigger the notion of the trade to "The David Price salary dump featuring Mookie Betts", then the baseball trade at the time was okay. Jeter Downs was seen as a high floor prospect (whoopsie) and Verdugo was arguably the Sox' best player in that forsaken 2020 miniseason. 3. Honestly, the big problems the Sox have been more before the FA picture loomed. They and Betts and Bogaerts never got close on extensions. When Betts only had one year of control left, it did take away some of Boston's leverage. From what was reported, there were not a ton of buyers, though again we don't know exactly what ownership was looking for and whatnot. Were there more teams in the position of - say, Minnesota (101-61 in 2019) who might have been willing to trade for Betts knowing they were only getting the 1-year? I don't know. 4. The real Monday Morning Quarterback play is to wonder whether Boston should have dealt Betts at the 2019 trade deadline. I totally get why they didn't and largely support it - there was a wildcard chase after all. However, if the Red Sox really knew the state of play contractually, looked at the jumble of teams they had to fight off to get a wild card spot, and the alarming state of their 2019 pitchihg staff ... it would have taken stones, but that would have been the time to get the sort of bidding war that would have gotten some All-Star sort of ceiling. While I think there were plenty of extenuating circumstances, the top level story of the Betts trade is what it is - and fans have every right to be bummed out about it. The team simply did not get the organizational jolt you'd expect by dealing a player of that caliber.

Kiley McDaniel, ESPN, Top 100 https://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/35490487/top-100-mlb-prospects-list-2023-kiley-mcdaniel 7. Marcelo Mayer 37. Triston Casas 95. Miguel Bleis Ceddane Rafaela is in the just missed list.

Not exactly. He is a fine 2B prospect - but it was when he moved to CF that you started getting those 70-80 defense scout ratings. The thing with his approach is that he seems to track like a Nomar or Vlad - where he is up there to swing, but he is very good at getting the barrel of the bat on pitches. He just needs to work on chasing less. And of course he is tiny - though he clearly is generating good leverage. That said, .278/.330/.500 as a 21 year old in AA plus elite CF defense is a very very encouraging prospect. Absolutely worth being excited.

AFL success is nice - but not worth overthinking. These dudes have played a whole season and are often exhausted.

https://theathletic.com/4132943/2023/01/30/top-100-mlb-prospects-2023-keith-law/ The Athletic rolling out Law's prospect material - from the top 100 11. Marcelo Mayer 37. Ceddane Rafaela 40. Triston Casas 72. Miguel Bleis

Of all the decisions the management made, that was the one where you felt like they were ducking lightning bolts as they made the deal. The Price deal blew up in their face, but there was nothing in his past that indicated the medical issues. (or the other stuff)

I was ambivalent about Bogaerts. The 11 years I don't really care - again, it's spreading money to make the luxury tax numbers more favorable. But with Bogaerts it is unlikely that he'll recover all that value.

It's a good deal. As other teams have shown, the extra long terms of these deals make the deals more luxury-tax friendly ... Devers has a good chance to generate that value with a few years to spare.

Andrus would cost nothing so he is probably the best option. Of the trade options, the best is likely Rojas. Crawford is expensive, and you are betting that 2022 was the fluke and not 2021 (where he was a legit MVP candidate)

The Giants are not that team, but Brandon Crawford had a huge dropoff from 2021. Miguel Rojas would be the guy to target.

If he does, it's because ownership asked him to. But moreover, the industry is using extra long deals to circumvent the luxury tax and Red Sox ownership has to get wise to that.

good pickup for yanks though durability has been a major concern through his career

Good 40 minutes of Speier with Law talking about the Sox inner workings and some higher level roster view ... I too have the Rafaela pom poms out. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-are-the-red-sox-doing-alex-speier-tries-to-explain/id1499877854?i=1000590177351

A slugging pct over .500 in the NPB - how it translates is questionable. I am hopeful, but it looks more like Fukudome than Matsui on paper. I will be the happiest person to be proven wrong.

It's not a terrible AAV - but it all comes down to whether he hits the ball hard. The rest of the toolset looks unremarkable. The strike zone command thing is dependent on pitchers actually caring about whether you swing the bat or not.

Realistically, bringing both Eovaldi and Wacha back would be good ideas. I mean they are also both injury risks, but there is some actual known upside there. It's a speculative rotation, but at least one where the positive side of the coin is considerable Sale will be good assuming he doesn't tear his rotator cuff doing jumping jacks Bello has real promise Eovaldi has been one of the better starters in baseball when he has been healthy Wacha was good enough for Boston to miss him badly when he was out Whitlock was never really in a position to start for real. There is some risk that he's really just a great relieve, but he pounds the strike zone which usually is a good sign Pivetta is an innings eater

This. When you get to a certain $$ level, those are ownership calls. Extending Sale, letting Bogaerts walk - those are ownership calls.

I guess for Bogaerts, the locking in of those pre-arb raises was worth it.

It does. At the same time, while it helps sign players - for teams there is a side benefit where they can decide fresh whether they want to pay for the player's non-prime years. It complicates things for the team, but you do get a fresh look at things. With Bogaerts, it never should have gotten to the hostage taking stage anyway.

1.5 Ownership should not have been as grimly determined to make the "David Price salary dump featuring Mookie Betts"

dislocated finger from scrolling 4chan comments

I know a couple of people who were victims of the 38 studios grift.

Worth noting (on the starting front) that Eovaldi does look like someone whose market is being jammed by the QO. He could still be an option. That Jose Quintana deal made me sigh wistfully. I've accepted that Sale is going to strain his UCL again going out to fetch the newspaper.