moonslav59

I think all teams know the risk. They will move on to someone else, if the bidding gets too crazy. There are a lot of good options, this winter.

Maybe we ruin all our good pitchers by making them pitch in AAA.

No. I got your point from the start. It has nothing to do with enthusiasm. We disagreed and still do. It does not change the fact that the Bogey extension was a good deal for the Sox. $20M x 3 did not keep us from signing Betts, and even if it did, the Sale contract did by more. (I was one of the few who liked the Sale contract, then, so I'm not going to flip and cry about it, now.) The Nate contract plus what we offered Betts would have gotten it done, too. Where does it stop? Every deal sucked, because it wasn't Betts? Not agreeing with your point does not mean I am overlooking it. One can think we should have signed Betts first, but still think the Bogey deal was great. If I had to choose one deal to give up to keep Betts, the Bogey one might be last.

Snell & ERod to the Sox. Not bad, but not my faves. I'd rather have Gray & Monty.

They should have extended Betts before Sale, Bogey and Nate. To me, Bogey was #2 with Nate close behind. We ended up with Bogey until his prime years ended. It was a great deal for the team. Sale, Nate, JD and others have nothing to do with the judging of the deal. 11.9 fWAR in 3 years, including the 40% season of 2020 for $60M - minus the 2020 pro-ration. Great deal. To say you "don't think it was bad" is not what I would call it.

If I had to predict: Ohtani to SFG Yamamoto to NYM Nola to PHI Snell to NYY Kershaw to LAD Bauer to TOR Gray to BAL Montgomery to BOS ERod to CHC Imanaga to SEA Lugo or Flaherty to Sox Am I leaving out a big spender? (Feels like I am.)

The Sale deal does not make the Bogey deal look any worse. It makes it look better. I've already said I wish we signed Bogey for more and longer with no opt out, but we got an All Star SS for $20M x 3. There is no way that is a bad deal or even just a decent one. It was great. Sure, I'd rather have given Sale's money to Bogey and Betts, but the Bogey deal was a great one for us.

$55M/2 or $75M/3 minimum.

Yes, my bad. Bogey was going to be a FA after the 2019 season. How is getting Bogey at $20M x 3 a bad contract? Just because we wish it was longer and with no opt out doesn't make it a bad deal.

Bauer will e signed and for big money.

On Bogey... I did not say other deals were worse or better. The Bogey extension at $20M a year that gave us another year of control was a steal. Yes, I wish there was no opt out and it was for $22M a year x 6, but the one we signed him to was a great one.

Yes, JD was a huge success. The fact that by year 5, we were ready to move on does not change his record. He was hardly ever hurt. That alone if a big plus for a Sox player. 5 years: 637 games out of 708. .889 OPS (135 OPS+) 650 PA line: .292 32 105 .526 SLG- 13th in MLB from '18-'22 13th best OPS 19th best wRC+ 31st ISO Man, you guys are tough! .363 OBP- 27th in MLB '18-'22

Certainly possible.

Some of the earlier trades/signings in 2022: 11/15 Rizzo NYY Martin Perez TEX Joc Peterson SFG 11/16 Teoscar traded to SEA 11/23 Joely Rodriguez BOS 12/2 Kolten Wong traded to SEA 12/4 Clevinger signed by CWS 12/5 Kershaw LAD Gibson BAL 12/6 Haniger SFG 12/7 Heywood LAD Verlander NYM 12/8 Martin BOS T Turner PHI 12/9 Bogey SDP W Contreras STL Heaney TEX Robertson NYM Strahm PHI 12/10 Nimmo NYM

I said a top two tier SP, not two top tier pitchers.

All three of those opt out contracts worked out well for the Sox. JD was a huge success. We got another year of control for Bogey at $20M- a steal. JT was worth the contract + buyout. The one that did not work out too well was Price.

If he was given $70M, this winter, it's hard to imagine him not signing a top two tier SP'er, but who knows? With $50M, he'd probably sign two from Flaherty, Lugo & Wacha.

Ohtani might be the first FA SP'er/DH signed. Yama, Nola, Snell and Bauer are probably the next tier. I doubt any one team gets 2 from this group of 5, so that's 5 big spending teams with a top SP'er in the fold. (NYM, NYY, PHI and maybe SFG and BOS?) Kershaw to LAD. Maybe LAD signs Kershaw and a top 5. If BOS is not in on one of those top 5, I hope they get 2 from the the next two tiers (1 from the 2nd and 1 from the 3rd is probably the best we can hope for.): Monty Gray ERod Imanaga Giolito Stroman Lugo Flaherty Wacha Clevinger

True, but there is a long list of good to very good SP'ers on the market: Ohtani Yama Nola Snell Bauer Kershaw Monty Gray ERod Imanaga Giolito Stroman Lugo Flaherty Wacha Clevinger Shots in the dark... Maeda Lorenzen Mahle Montas Severino Ryu Lynn Miley

Agreed. There will still be some big spenders leftover, after Ohtani, Yamo, Nola and Snell sign. Monty might get $168/6 ($28M x 6) or even $182/7 ($26M x 7.) Gray might get $100M/4 ($25M x 4) or $115M/5 ($23M x 5) I'd do any of these and grit my teeth.

Not uncommon for the big ticket, flashy guys.

I have to admit, the 25 year old thing has me hooked. I think we'll go a safer route. Best case scenario, I think we might sign ... Montgomery (MLBTR projects $150M/6) Gray ($90M/4) I think they will like the two seperate length deals. My guess is, we may sign just one of these two and then someone like Seth Lugo ($42M/3), Wacha ($36M/3), Clevinger ($26M/2) or Flaherty ($40M/3) I doubt we go for 3: Gray, Lugo & Wacha for about $170M, total.

No. I said MLBTR projected $225M/9, not me.

I'd much prefer quality to quantity, and hopefully Brez can make that happen, but we have a lot of pitchers with various levels of promise that might impress, next summer. Most are lower down on the soxprospects rankings list, but 25 of the top 60 are pitchers (12 from #25 to #41.) 7. Perales A+ (to AA/AAA?) 8. Wikelman AA (to AAA?) 13. Drohan AAA 15. Walter AAA/MLB 25. Monegro A+ (to AA?) 26. E R-C A+ 27. Mata MLB (out of options) 28. Dobbins AA 29. Guerrero AAA 30. Bastardo AA 31. Fernandez AAA 32. Hoppe AA (may have a better chance at AAA than Troye) 36. Rogers A+ (to AA?) 38. Gambrell AAA (to MLB?) 39. Troye AA (to AAA?) 41. Paez A+ 46. I Coffey AA 49. Penrod AA 50. Bell A+ 53. Zeferjahn AAA 54. Cepeda A+ 55. Sena A+ 59. Duffy A+ 60. Song AA Recent grads: '21: Whitlock & Houck '22: Crawford, Winckowski, Bello '23: Kelly, Bernardino, Murphy, Jacques, Robertson NR AAA: Van Belle, Santos, Politi, Booser, German AA: Liu, Denlinger, Webb A+ de la Rosa, Dean, Wu-Yelland The updated winter rankings are due in early December.

It might be the biggest gamble contract in MLB history, whoever signs him.