moonslav59

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."

Merry Christmas, too you, too. Maybe the new year will be happier than we think. Merry Christmas to everyone. Dinner is almost ready. I made a sweet potato caserole for the first time. Crossing my fingers. (It's gluten and sugar free!)

In all honesty, how long did you think it would take to buck the trend of getting just Houck from the farm in a 5 year period? Even if you build the farm from bottom 5 to top 5 in 3 years, you won't start seeing results for another 1-2 years, min. Plus, we drafted HS players, mostly, so even 3 years is a stretch. I thought we could look significantly better in 2023 than it appears we have set ourselves up to be, so I'm thrilled, either. I did actually think we looked better, on paper, in March 2022 than I did in March 2021, so maybe I'll be fooled again.

I certainly expected more quality than quantity, this year- thinking we had more money to spend and less slots to fill. We may not spend that "more money" and may just match last winter's spending while losing a lot more talent than we did before last winter. 8-9 players added? I do n't get it. No spending the $80M remains to be seen, but unless we trade for salary, we'd have to buy up the best 3 FAs to spend it all.

The problem with a 5 year plan that does not include losing in most of those 5 years is how to acquire top prospects. It's not like the old days where good players fell in the draft due to "signability" issues. Once you've established a strong farm, it's a little easier not needing to focus nearly everything on adding to it, but we've only just begun to arrive at that point, and maybe they still think a while more is needed- like the full 5 years- not 3.

He might add two more LF/DHs!

True. Who in the system, now, might pass Romero? Perales? Walter? Wikelman, Anthony or some super young guy?

Well, Whitlock was acquired a couple years back and Bello just graduated. Those two alone, blow away any pair we've seen in a long time. The top pitching prospects we have now may not wow anybody, but they might be better than we've seen in a long time: 6. Mata 8. Walter 10. Perales 12. Wikelman 13. Murphy 19. Rodriguez-Cruz German, Kelly, Seabold, Drohan, Paez, Uberstine Grads: Wink, Ort & Crawford

How long should it take to complete two major aspects of a true rebuilding of the farm? 1. Acquiring high quality prospects via the draft, IFA and trades- rarely Rule 5. 2. Developing and waiting for them to mature once they reach the bigs? Did anyone really expect to start seeing 1-3 meaningful prospects called up in 2-3 years and then see that become a steady flow? Again, we saw only Houck do anything meaningful since Devers in 2017. You demand a budget slash of massive proportion and hand the GM top salaries like Sale and others like JD and Nate who were kind of up and down over the last 3 years. Was the hoax the 5 year plan or some fans' belief we could possibly reach glory in 3 years? I think you know my choice.

1) I said you CAN BLAME him for failing to project an uptick. (I doubt anyone saw Bogey getting $280M.) 2) Recognizing an elite player does mean you pay them anything and everything, and I agree it came down to what value they assigned never was what Boras demanded, which may or may not have been an acceptable market price at any time. Even if it was, the Sox never valued him that much. Right or wrong. 3) Thinking we might get Bogey at $200M/8 and saying he's a top priority may not be a lie, and nobody really knows how close we ever came to what it would have taken. If they thought they could have gotten him for ____ and they grossly underestimated, one could call that incompetence, but it still doesn't mean they'd have chosen to pay what it took. (I'm still not sure we made the wrong choice. Bogey is an elite hitter who is not an elite defender as we move away from the shift and he made it known, he does not want to change positions.) We have no idea of knowing what they wanted. IMO, they never wanted Lester at even the last offer they made him, so I do think all the talk could have been a bald face lie, but they also could really have thought they were going to get him at a price they felt he'd take and SD blew them out of the water. Incompetence? Maybe. Maybe they set a price that was what he was worth of even more, and they missed out. I'm not sure it's a mistake. Only time will tell, and the record of highest priced FAs earning their keep is not great. It's easy to scream "YOU F'd UP!" But, let's see. While I had hoped we signed Betts, I think they handled that one about as well as could be expected. $300M, at that time was a fair offer. When they knew he was going to free agency they got what appeared to be about the best they could for him. The stupid 30 year old pitcher rule was at the heart of the Lester fiasco. No argument from me on that one. What upsets me about the Bogey situation is that it doesn't appear like we are going to spend what we were prepared to offer him, whatever that was, on other higher quality players. If we trade for a solid #1/2 SP'er and sign Andrus and maybe Kluber or Fulmer, I'd be fine with the winter moves, in totality, despite hating to see Bogey go.