moonslav59

I guess if you don't count 2020, then losing 60 games of Betts was worth nothing. We'd be WS champs had we gotten Graterol or Wil Myers.

Remaining Unsigned Free Agents at positions we need or could upgrade: Starting Pitchers Chris Archer (34) Kohei Arihara (30) Dylan Bundy (30) Johnny Cueto (37) Zach Davies (30) Danny Duffy (34) Nathan Eovaldi (33) Chi Chi Gonzalez (31) Zack Greinke (39) Rich Hill (43) Drew Hutchison (32) Dallas Keuchel (35) Corey Kluber (37) Chad Kuhl (30) Wade Miley (36) Mike Minor (35) Michael Pineda (34) Joe Ross (30) Aaron Sanchez (30) Anibal Sanchez (39) Michael Wacha (31) Shortstops Elvis Andrus (34) Alcides Escobar (36) Marwin Gonzalez (34) Didi Gregorius (33) Jose Iglesias (33) Andrelton Simmons (33) Dee Strange-Gordon (35) Jonathan Villar (32) Second Basemen (Story to SS) Hanser Alberto (30) Robinson Cano (40) Harold Castro (29) Willi Castro (26) Yu Chang (27) Josh Harrison (35) Cesar Hernandez (33) Rougned Odor (29) Chris Owings (31) Jean Segura (33) Andrelton Simmons (33) Josh VanMeter (28) Jonathan Villar (32) Tyler Wade (28) Center Fielders (Kike to 2B and Story to SS) Greg Allen (30) Albert Almora (29) Jackie Bradley Jr. (33) Lorenzo Cain (37) Jonathan Davis (31) Adam Duvall (34) Adam Engel (31) Guillermo Heredia (32) Odubel Herrera (31) Travis Jankowski (32) Jake Marisnick (32) Tyler Naquin (32) Rafael Ortega (32) Brett Phillips (29) Kevin Pillar (34) A.J. Pollock (35) Magneuris Sierra (27) Catchers Jorge Alfaro (30) Robinson Chirinos (38) Sandy Leon (34) Roberto Perez (34) Kevin Plawecki (32) Austin Romine (34) Gary Sanchez (30) Luis Torrens (27) LH RP Jose Alvarez (34) Anthony Banda (29) Zack Britton (35) Andrew Chafin (33) Aroldis Chapman (35) Ross Detwiler (37) Anthony Gose (32) Brad Hand (33) Jared Koenig (29) Kirk McCarty (27) T.J. McFarland (34) Jake McGee (36) Matt Moore (34) Sean Newcomb (30) Daniel Norris (30) Dillon Peters (30) Chasen Shreve (32) Will Smith (33) Justin Wilson (35) Alex Young (29) RH RP Jacob Barnes (33) Archie Bradley (30) Jhoulys Chacin (35) Steve Cishek (37) Alex Colome (34) Jharel Cotton (31) Tyler Danish (28) Tyler Duffey (32) Jeurys Familia (33) Michael Fulmer (30) Ken Giles (31) Chad Green (32) Jandel Gustave (30) Will Harris (38) Heath Hembree (34) Jeff Hoffman (30) Tommy Hunter (36) Luke Jackson (31) Ian Kennedy (38) Corey Knebel (30) Dominic Leone (31) Reyes Moronta (30) Jimmy Nelson (34) Darren O’Day (40) Scott Oberg (31) Wily Peralta (34) Luis Perdomo (30) David Phelps (36) Alex Reyes (28) Garrett Richards (35) Hansel Robles (32) Sergio Romo (40) Hirokazu Sawamura (35) Bryan Shaw (35) Joe Smith (39) Craig Stammen (39) Jackson Stephens (29) Hunter Strickland (34) Touki Toussaint (27) Luke Weaver (29) Matt Wisler (30)

I think the comment was related to the conversation directly after you said this... Sale is at his lowest value. You don’t deal him now. But Bloom seems to be a special kind of stupid, so look for a discount

If you look at just the 2022 numbers, and don't look at the names Bogaerts and JD Martinez, it's not as hard to expect a better offense in 2023. Our 1B offense was a complete disaster. I know relying on a rookie to improve upon anything is pure speculation, but I can't see Casas & Turner doing any worse than Dalbec/Cordero/Hosmer. Our 2047 PAs of a .676 OPS in the OF was pathetic. I know relying on a Japanese league player to improve upon anything is speculation, too, but we saw some god-awful performances on offense from many of last year's OF'ers. .578 JBJ in 271 .629 Kike in 402 (gotta think he can't do that badly, again) .645 Duran in 235 .672 Pham in 235 .697 Franchy in 275 Someone will get hurt, but I'm counting on better from Story and Devers and maybe close to the same offense from the catcher position. Is all this enough to offset this? .307 15 73 Bogey .274 16 63 JD with Yoshida & Turner Wanna know what the average line was for all Sox players per 682 PAs? .258 17 78 In reality, that's about what Bogey and JD gave us in 2023.

If he hits 25 in 600, Turner 15 in 500, Casas hits 25 in 550, McGuire 10 in 400, Story 8 more in 200 more PAs and Kike 4 more in 200 more PAs, we might be even or improve. the 31 Hrs in over 1200 PAs by Bogey and JD should not be hard to replace. Their RBIs, too.

Lost HRs and PAs 16 in 596 JD 15 in 631 Bogey 8 in 318 Vaz 6 in 235 Pham 3 in 290 JBJ 1 in 175 Plawecki 1 in 41 Downs 1 in 37 Almonte 0 in 128 others (5) Added: Yoshida (not known for power) Turner (13 in 532) (Expected more time from Casas 5/95, McGuire 3/108, Story 16/396, Kike 6/402 and maybe Refsnyder 6/177, Arroyo 6/300 and Wong 1/56.)

It's hard to fault him for taking Mayer over a pitcher, and some of his other non-pitcher picks seem to be rising up as the years go past, too. Bloom's Prospect pitching additions: Via trade, Rule 5 of FA Whitlock Kelly German Winckoski Seabold Kaleb Ort Taylor Broadway Luis de la Rosa Draft or IFA Rodriguez-Cruz Drohan Paez Uberstine Luis Guerrero Noah Dean Hunter Dobbins Wyatt Olds Michael Gettys

He was at his lowest value right at the time of surgery. Second lowest, was when they said he'd miss the rest of '22. He's not at the lowest, now. Why are rumors starting, now?

I'm not sure what the market value was when the offer was made. I'd guess it was close. I think $300M was fair, whether it fell slightly short of "market" or not. It was fair, IMO. If the report that he wanted $400M was true, I can see why we might not have bothered to counter with $310M/1o or $325M/11. Maybe the fault lies with never countering.

I like how our farm is shaping up. We have over 10 players that are ML ready of will be, this season. We have more that will be ready, next year or to start 2025. Going farther out is always hard to project, but we have some really promising prospects in low A and the rookie leagues.

I thought we should have gone 12 or more years with Betts. We offered a fair deal that would be viewed as ballsy by many GMs. We got 5 years of Verdugo and a top 100 prospects, despite attaching half Price. It sucks we lost Betts, but I'm not holding a grudge. I'm not sure about what offers were thrown around with Bogey or what BorA$$ insisted along the way, but I'm not so sure we made a clear "wrong choice" at any point along the way, except for that initial lowball $30M + 1 yr offer. It sucks we lost Bogey, but I'm still not sure it was the big mistake many see it as. We'll see, Devers Forevers is what needs to happen.

Hey, we have a new punching bag of blame for Christmas... politicians! MLBTR reports: The recent passing of a ’millionaires tax’ in Massachusetts has led to an increase in state income taxes in 2023 from 5% to 9% on annual income over $1MM — potentially impacting Boston’s offseason, per Alex Speier of The Boston Globe. Speier reports that agents who have been negotiating with the Red Sox are factoring in the tax when contemplating offers, stating that “it’s potentially millions of dollars in the deal.” Speier adds that Boston is now “lumped in with teams in California and New York in needing to outbid clubs in more favorable tax environments (particularly Texas and Florida, where there’s no state income tax) to present offers of equal value.” Speculatively speaking, this tax may have played a role in the Red S0x’s five-year, $90MM agreement with NPB star Masataka Yoshida, who many around the league predicted would earn significantly less.

That's because they were coaching Renfroe, Duran and Dugo in Japanese!

Thanks. Playing half is games in Fenway may help hide his substandard D, and maybe he plays some DH on the road, especially in stadiums with large left fields.

Indeed, but taking the wimpy role hasn't worked out too well either. One could view them as needing balls to get nothing for Devers, either. Not trading him and losing him for nothing is just prolonging or rescheduling the punishment.

We offered Betts a fair contract. I think they felt they were prepared to offer or had offered a fair contract to Bogey, before being blown out of the water by the Padres. (And, we wonder why players don't want to extend.) I think 2 factors may have played a role in them deciding Bogey was not "the guy" to break their long-standing guideline of setting a value and not budging much from it: 1) His defense has never been near elite- like Betts or even guys like Correa. 2) His reluctance to want to change positions to better the team. I think those two factors played into them not ever meeting the price BorA$$ would have ever accepted all along the timeline of negotiations. Maybe they felt nobody would overpay Bogey for the same reasons, and they misjudged the market or one crazy GM. Maybe, they really felt they could and would match anyone's offer, until the Padres one shocked the whole baseball world. I'm not even sure they have ever given Bogey $225M/8, even now, if they could. My guess is they felt $200M/8 would bring him back, in the end. Call them dumb, incompetent or greedy. Maybe they are all 3. But, maybe their evaluation of what his production would be worth turns out to be right. The success rate of these mega deals is probably under 50-50.

Does anyone really think JH told Bloom, "Pay these guys whatever it takes to get them to sign," and Bloom chose not to do it, and then, here's the clincher, went on to decide on his own, that he wouldn't even spend that money earmarked for Betts and Bogey on other players? There is a chance Bloom took the side of not signing them and was a reason JH decided not to sign them, but only if the idea was that he felt he could spend the money in better ways. The money was not spent elsewhere. We lost the contracts of Betts, Porcello, half-Price and other lesser ones and barely replaced half of that money in 2020. It took us all the way up to the Story signing in March of 2022 to get back to where we were in 2019, and that's not even figuring for inflation, particularly in player contract inflation. Anyway you look at it, it comes down to how JH decided to spend his money and the side effects of the "going for it now" philosophy during the DD window

They changed their philosophy on signing 30+ year old pitchers to long term deals after the Lester fiasco. I'm not as hopeful as I once was, but they have not spent the money they were prepared to spend on Bogey, and they must be feeling the rumblings from Sox Nation like never before. All I can say is they better trade him, if the don't sign him, and hopefully they do better than the Betts/Price deal.

100% disagree. Merry Christmas.

The writing was on the wall for all to see in 2019. I, too felt the window created by DD would last longer than 3 years, but when the money was shut off for DD and no prospects were traded after the summer of 2018, the die was cast. I'm really not trying to "defend" anything. I don't see it that way, although I can see why it looks that way. I liked what DD did. I like the idea of building up to a window as long as can possibly be created, but realizing some low points will fall between. I was fine with "the plan" knowing full well there would be consequences, so I don't feel I can now criticize those choices made that I agreed with, at the time. Could we have done better during this obvious rebuild? Sure, if we had a better guess rate on low and moderate signings and trades, but again, I'm not sure why it is expected any GM can strike gold under the multifaceted dire circumstances handed him. I don't blame Bloom for doing what they made him do and do what seems like a very good job building up the farm and 40 man roster depth in just 3 short years. I don't blame JH as much as many here do. Sure, I know he can spend more and think he should, but almost every fan of nearly every team feels the same way, and I don't buy into any notion that we are entitled to it, just because we pay more for ticket prices, or because JH has more money than this or that GM. Of course, it makes sense he could and should, but I think nearly every owner of every successful business should spend more on his employees. Focusing only on this one business- the Red Sox- reeks of exceptionalism from the fanbase. Sorry, I'm not buying into it on those terms. I think all owners should spend more, and that would not really help us be any better. I happen to still have a few shreds of optimism on the 2023 team. I hate seeing Bogey go, but we bounced back from Lester and a bit after Betts (2021,) and I like the moves we've made this winter- one by one. I'd have done things differently, but what else is new? I have a ton of optimism over our extended future- something I have not felt since the Ben years, and to me that is the way to try and become a consistently winning team. For all the money being thrown around by the Mets, Padres, Phillies, Yanks and maybe a couple more teams, I'm, not seeing many rings. I'm seeing rings from teams that- new the value of cycling through bad times to get to great times while building, maintain and valuing a strong and deep farm and by deep, I mean from rookie ball to AAA, so the flow of helpful prospects is set up to be as close to never-ending as possible. Let's see how they can do that while getting low draft picks for 5-6 years in a row, but that is the model I want us to follow- not Cohen's and the Mets' model.

Or, they could just keep following the path they have been taking for 20 years: spend in cycles- the next one expected any moment, now. I thought the Story signing was a clue that a ramping up was a bout to begin. This winter, we haven't come c lose to even replacing departing contracts.

They've really liked this guy for a long time. Can you give a summary on what they said about his D?

Merry Christmas!

What's the chances we sign just one from these 5: Kluber, Nate, Andrus, Segura or Fulmer? To me, Kluber & Andrus changes the outlook of the team by enough to look like a clear improvement from 2022 and maybe even 2021.

Mets now have an issue with Correa's physical and are looking to adjust the contract's guaranteed money. Deal still "likely."