moonslav59

I'm not sure any GM could have gotten Bogey to sign for $160M/6, unless it was 3 years ago.

Good points. The best moves made by Bloom: FA $7 x 2 Kike (maybe the $10 x 1 Kike extension) $3.1M x 1 Renfroe $7M x 1 Wacha $5M x 1 Hill $3M x 1 Strahm Rule 5 Whitlock Trades: Pivetta & Seabold for Workman & Hembree Ottavino & German for cash McGuire for Diekman Springs for Sam Travis Waivers: Scheiber Arroyo Minor League FA Refsnyder Kelly No major signings have worked well, so far. His biggest signings before this winter: $140M/6 Story $10M/1 Richards $14M/2 Kike $10M/2 Paxton $8M/2 Diekman (Traded for McGuire) $7M/1 Wacha $6M/1 Perez These are all the deals over $5M. Extension: $18.75M/2 Barnes $18.75M/4 Whitlock

Thay have Hamilton and RHern for AAA. Scott in AA might be close to AAA, and Hickey might be promoted to AA, this season.

It does seem like an outlier year, but maybe we were right about him having the potential to be decent, but we just missed on the timing. Maybe the Rangers have better coaches or some other player helped him with an adjustment that made a big difference.

Indeed. They got Springs for a reason, then gave up a year too soon. Once could say the same about Martin Perez.

Yes, I think they know which catchers handle pitchers better, and which pitchers it doesn't seem to matter as much who catches them. My guess is, some pitchers do voice a preference, especially if they keep getting paired with a catcher they don't seem to be in sinc with as easily as they feel they do with the second catcher. It's obvious some pitchers are given just one catcher almost exclusively, and it's almost always the one known for defense or CERA-related intangibles. I'm guessing one reason we traded for McGuire, is that they think he's good with the staff. I'm not sure how they view Wong. There was a lot of talk, when we got him, that he may not stick at the catcher position. Soxprospects.com writes this about him, "Moves well behind the plate, and has improved his receiving and framing skills to the point where he is considered solid with both... Has been able to develop a good rapport with pitchers and become someone they like throwing to and have confidence in. Potential solid-average defender." If they view both catchers somewhat equally on defense, then maybe they can start the season with a platoon, and see if certain pitchers and catchers work better together. They did not have much time with the staff, last season, and most of our starters are gone or were on the IL to end last season, anyway. Here are some tiny sample sizes- hardly worth mentioning at all: CERA Bello 8.82 w Vaz (16.1 IP) 3.20 w Wong (25.1) 2.87 w McGuire (15.2) Whitlock '22 7.20 McGuire (5 IP) 3.42 Vaz (52.2) 2.89 Plawecki (18.2) 0.00 Wong (2.0) Pivetta OPS Against Bello .592 w McGuire (67) .775 w Wong (118) 1.027 w Vaz (83) n/a w Plawecki Whitlock 1.000 w McGuire (21) .670 w Vaz (215) .473 w Plawecki (68) .143 2 Wong (7) Pivetta .907 Plawecki (73) .840 w McQuire (186) .754 w Wong (58) .692 w Vaz (456)

Unless a pitcher has a strong preference for a certain catcher, and it seems hard to think they would, as of right now, since they hardly know either one of them, maybe starting the season on a L-R platoon could work for a while. If a certain pitchers voices a preference, then we start moving away from the L-R thing.

I think we'd all take back the Springs & Mazza for RHern trade.

BorA$$ opens up a bit on Correa negotiations... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2023/01/scott-boras-discusses-carlos-correas-free-agency-saga.html Note related to Story: Officials with both clubs have noted that HIPAA privacy protections prevent them from revealing many specifics about player health.

Now, with Alfaro added to the catcher mix, it looks like Hamilton & RHern will just be minor league depth with little chance of making the 40 man roster, at least until Alfaro's dates to be added are up. Down the road a bit, 23 year old Nathan Hickey shows some promise, if he can stick at catcher. Gotta love his .415 OBP at A-/A+, last year. He's projected to start at Greenville and has Stephen Scott ahead of him at Portland.

That does seem to be the norm, but maybe since no Sox catcher really had built up a relationship with any of our SP'ers, it might be helpful to let pitchers work with both, for a while. Maybe, it becomes apparent a pitcher prefers one over the other and you move that way, but we could start with some mixing and matching. The platoon splits on offense could be a significant boost to the offense. The samples are small but... McGuire: 114 OPS+ v R 46 OPS+ v L Wong AAA .967 OPS v L .798 OPS v R

Yes, and Alfaro doesn't need to be added to the 40 before April.

$2M is more than McGuire makes.

Or Wong 2 months to prove he deserves the 2 slot.

So this was the type of catcher they had in mind, when they said they wanted to add a catcher?

It seems when teams are in bargain hunter mode, they end up settling on these types of contracts more often than not. One could probably make a strong case that even the "healthy" large and long contracts have not fared too well, either.

Indeed. I'm not trying to sugar coat the Story signing. My point was only that the amount we signed him for was less than he probably would have gotten as the injury risk was factored in. I like to think of it this way, but nobody else has to: he was probably worth close to $140M/5 had there been no hint of the elbow injury. If he missed a year, paying him $140M/6 pretty much cover the missed year. I'm not saying a healthy Story was worth $140M/5, but I do think a healthy Story was worth more than $140M/6. Yes, I suggested we sign Baez, Suzuki among others. At least Baez is still healthy. Suzuki may still earn his pay. Here is how the FA SS signings did last winter: $32.5M x 10 Seager (.772 OPS) 4.5 fWAR $25.0M x 7 Semien (.733 OPS) 4.2 fWAR at 2B $23.3M x 6 Story (.737 OPS) 2.3 fWAR at 2B $23.3M x 6 Baez (.671 OPS) 2.0 fWAR $35M x 1 Correa (.834 OPS) 4.4 fWAR

I get that, but I do feel better knowing we got more well-regarded IFSs than most other teams. We've done pretty well, recently, after dipping a little bit and suffering through the penalties we incurred under Ben's regime. 2004: Doubront 2005: Y Navarro 2006: Dice-K, Okajima 2007: Roman Mendez 2008: Tazawa, W Cuevas 2009: Bogaerts, Montas, Iggy 2010: J Aro 2011: Margot, T-W Lin 2012: Basabe, J Guerra, G Bautista 2013: Devers, DHern 2014: Moncada, Espinoza, R Castillo, Ed Bazardo 2015: B Mata 2016: H Velazquez (Penalty Phase) 2017: Bello, Rafaela, E Quiroz, G Jimenez 2018: Wikelman, Paulino, Bonaci, J Encarnacion, A Bastardo, M Mejicano 2019: L Perales, J Salazar, J Garcia, J Chacon 2021: Bleis, J Paez, L Ravelo, Sawamura, E Polanco, A Mejias 2022: F De Leon, F Encarnacion, J Garcia

Even if he came back and looked great in September, I doubt he'd get $94M/4 on the open market, next winter. My point was about what healthy Story would have gotten, last winter and this winter, and that the higher than norm injury risk lessened what he would have gotten..

I would not bet on Story earning the contract in his last 4 years. I'm doubtful he even earns 4/6th of the $140 over the last 4 years ($94M/4.) Our best hope is probably he can come close to earning $90M/4.

Yes, that is basically what I said. BTW, yes, he did get what others got, last year. He got exactly what Baez got. My point was, I think he'd gotten more had there been no health concerns. Do you disagree? I guess how much more might be up for a wide open debate.

I think RHern has way better offensive potential. If he's as bad on D as you think he is, then I stand corrected.

In today’s market, a healthy Story would likely get $140M/5. That’s not to say he’s worth what he got.

Is he better than the top 2-3 we had signed before him?

There was a good reason to be in that mode starting in 2019, but I had hopes we'd be moving more towards "quality" by now. On the FA front, there is a moving trends towards quality, if size of contracts are a sign. FA signings: 2019: 68/4 Nate 6.25 Pearce 2020: (2 contracts at $10M or more, but none from Bloom.) 145/5 Sale (signed in 2019- preBloom) 60/3 Bogey (signed in 2019- preBloom) 6.5 Perez 4.2 Pillar 2.9 Peraza 1.5 Lucroy 850K Osich 2021 (2 contracts at barely $10M) 14/2 Kike 10 Richards (9 Ottavino via trade) 5.0 Perez 3.1 Renfroe 3.0 Marwin 3/2 Sawamura 2.1 Andreise 1.0 Santana 870K Brice 2022 (2 contracts at more than $10M) 140/6 Story 19/2 Barnes (extended) 8/2 Diekman (traded away) 7.0 Wacha 6.0 Paxton 5.0 Hill 3.0 Strahm 2.3 Robles 2023 (6 contracts at more than $10M) 90/5 Yoshida (+15 posting fee) 32/2 Jansen 22/2 Turner 18/2 Martin 10.0 Kike (signed in 2021) 10.0 Kluber (w 11 option for '24) 2.0 J Rodriguez