Hitch

Feels that way, with an infield prospect involved too, I would imagine. Got to get that starting pitching somehow.

All fair. But I think the Dodgers are just as special a case as the Rays are. They have a conveyor belt of talent coming off that farm, and then usually invest smartly to amplify that talent. The Dodgers and Rays for different and similar reasons are the best run clubs in MLB. Models to learn from and emulate. Baseball is different now. It's not like it was 25 years ago when the Yankees (or any big market team) could outspend everyone and blow them away, winning WS after WS. Spending means little without a very well run organisation, with analytics levelling the playing field. The Mets and Padres have been going crazy with their spending, both failed. The Yankees have been at the top of the spending lists forever, can't win it all. I wonder if Henry was simply thinking, 'I am not paying out these massive contracts when our farm/development isn't up to scratch to supplement them.' (I accept this is me totally guessing and I could be way off). I think he hoped Bloom was the guy that would start bringing that to the fore. But for all the things Chaim did which I thought was good, he seemed paralysed on times with indecision around major moves. The last two trade deadlines being exhibit A and B. To further my theory, if Henry does believe all the above, you need someone with similar philosophy that is not afraid to back him/herself. Bres certainly fits so far. We should be acting like a big market team (and none of this forgives the Betts mistake), but personally, I think we also need(ed) to get A LOT better as an organization from top to bottom, among other things in terms of scouting and development and not being afraid to make big moves. There are shoots of hope in the last year, or two at least.

Yeah I remember your reaction to Mookie. Fair to say that's when it broke for you? I've been impressed with Breslow so far. I like his decisiveness, willingness to use the trade option and apparent courage to make big moves. Henry, proof will be in the pudding I guess. He's a billionaire through being smart. I understand why he's looking at the Rays and thinking why the f*** am I spending all this extra money? And this isn't a new thing after courting Beane. But that doesn't give him a pass for some of the bad decisions in recent history.

This is why a lot of owners tend to stay away from the media. Werner clearly run his mouth without thinking, nore likely wanting to signify that they were going to shake things up. Now that quote is being used by every baseball writer in America.

No, I get that. It wasn't a criticism of how people spend their time, I was more just thinking out loud.

Definitely not. As I've been at pains to point out when making counter arguments - I totally get why there's an almost constant negative slant on every dissection of our moves. It'll likely take a while before any sort of trust is won back. If at all.

That's.... interesting.

Obviously impossible to know, but we forget these guys aren't robots. Divorce and being forced to moving your life to a new place - two of the more destabilising and stressful events of your life. Trying to predict what Gio will give us is a massive waste of time.

Perfect.

Yeah, no chance we make a trade for a 1 year starter. I don't believe for a second we're tanking this year, but we've clearly got more than one eye on year 2 and 3. As an aside, I cannot believe people are complaining about the Gio contract structure. I mean, I can, but dear God. This fan base is not in a good place ha!

Well that sounds less appealing than what I'd read on Twitter (where I picked up on the rumour). Some of the larger fan accounts were posting about it and it started trending, however, one noted that this guy had called something else right, too. If that's bull, then yeah sounds even less likely to be true.

A very, very small step above.

This is a rumour born on reddit so take with the most ginormous amount of salt (but from an account that called something similar recently) that says Snell to Sox is almost done and will be announced this week.

There's zero point us trading for 1 year of Burnes.

It's reported here that Betts didn't regret turning down £300m https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/mookie-betts-says-he-doesnt-regret-turning-down-300-million-offer-from-red-sox/ Also reported in there is the £200m offer Betts got during his second year in which his production had fallen off - the one his mother told him not to take. £200m for a 2nd year guy is the kind of contracts AA gets lauded for down in Atlanta. I'm not sure it's fair to say Betts didn't get fair offers. That said, they have lowballed several stars, so the suspicion is warranted.

Your second sentence is what I believe will happen. I am aware I may be spectacularly off the mark with recent history to back this up, but it's what I'm pretty sure of nonetheless.

You don't get many billionaires that are nice people, too. The worry if they sold was - who buys? That's a wack of cash, and we've see how s*** some other owners are. The Premier League in England has seen teams bought up by gulf regimes looking to sports wash. It sucks.

Well, feel free to use your words to clear up why you responded to Bells post about how cheap they are with a point about how we'll only have to pay half if he does as well as they expect. The insinuation seems pretty clear, no? Unsettling? No, why would I? He was getting projected for a 4 year deal. I didn't particularly want him at all, but if he's here, I'm sure glad it's only a 2 year deal, max. If he pitches well enough to opt out, great.

So you're calling them cheap for the possibility of the opt out and only paying half his contract, but also think he's not very good/a risk? You can't have it both ways when looking to attack management over his deal.

Liverpool are NOT serious contenders for this guy. It's clickbait shite. Liverpool operate financially within their incomings. FSG are not taking money from the Sox to put in Liverpool. The mount of disinformation and rubbish people are using to back up POV is out of control at the moment.

This is where I think everything is viewed through the annoyance of past behaviour by ownership. That was a good deal for me. We don't really know what we have with him right now, so I think a short term contract was the best bet. Not a criticism, again, totally understand why most things are being viewed with suspicion.

What were the details of the incentive based contract for Yamamoto? I don't know if I missed it or if the holiday alcohol is stripping my memory but I don't know the details of that.

I like Monty, I just think his contract is going to get stupid expensive. If we can get him at even a slight overpay, all good by me. I just don't think it's going to be a reasonable contract. If it is we should definitely be involved.

Sonny Gray maybe. E-Rod was never coming back here for other reasons. I don't particularly crave either Montgomerie or Snell to be honest. I very much hope our next starting pitching upgrade is through trade.

Yeah, I totally get that. As I've mentioned in other posts, there's certainly enough past behaviour to be pissed about, but I'm cautiously optimistic we'll be a lot happier in a month.