moonslav59

Of course the prospects are the ones who have not stepped up, so far, but it was Bloom & Co. who decided these prospects were better than others that were offered or may have been available. Take the JBJ trade.. It sucked from day one, but many felt the only redeeming value would come down to the two prospects doing better than their rankings suggested they might do. The jury is still out, but I've all but lost hope on both of them to do anything meaningful.

And why is this something we should rejoice about and wish our owner climbs over all others? Is the desire to win by outspending everyone else any better than the desire and greed to make as much money as possible? Both are all about these rich guys' vanity or placement in the Forbes top 500.

Again, we could say the same about 25 teams, right now, and if the all spent like Cohen or even way more than they do now, the free-for-all would not make much of a difference for the Sox. It would for the players. In isolation, only the Sox increasing their spending massively would make us Sox fans happier, but shouldn't every owner follow suit. Many team's rosters look more "illegal" than ours.

Again, I think JH can and should spend more, but it's a futile argument. I'm not defending his budget limitations by merely pointing out he has b een spending more than all but maybe 6-8 owners from 2020 to 2022. Obviously, they have chosen not to overpay for the highest ticket items, and I'm not so sure that's a bad strategy, if you look at the results of past high ticket signings, especially by the Sox. To me, the problem is he's losing out on the best second tier signings, too. I like the strategy of building up the farm as the top priority. I bought into their stated goal that we would "stay competitive" along the way, and so far, we are 1 for 3 on that front, but they have not wavered on farm building or succumbed to the temptation to trade away top prospects for the here and now. I may be in the vast minority on liking that strategy, but I'm scratching my head on even their moderate here and now moves. My biggest beef, this winter, is not the actual guys they added, I like all of the top 4 they added (Yoshida, Jansen, Turner & Martin,) but to me only 2 filled our most pressing needs (the two pen arms.) Yes, we needed offense, in in one sense Yoshida and Turner maye do better than Bogey & JD combined in 2023, but we need a SS, a RF'er not named Verdugo and a SP. We could have filled the offense need and a positional need, at the same time with one guy, but we chose DH/LF and DH/3B/1B to sign, To me, those were near last on my list of high need areas.

Cots shows the CB Tax 40-man as such: $184.9M in 2020 (adjusted) $207.6M in 2021 $241.8M in 2022 I'm not going to do the research, but how many other teams saw this number increase by 31% in the last 2 years, not counting this winter? (185>242) Several teams have, but my guess is we were top 6-8. We've only spent about $50M of the $90M we had to spend, this winter, so it remains to be seen where we end up, but we won't be increasing the player payroll from 2022. I'm pretty certain of that. My point is all the noise ab out JH being cheap. I'm not defending a rich guy like him for choosing not to spend more. I wish he would and think he should, but let's not pretend he's gone cheap in comparison to 2/3rd or more of MLB owners. He's still spending- just not in big bunches and not one the players we have come to love and want back.

We have that, now with nobody to spend it on. Even signing both Kluber and Andrus would leave over $15M on the table. Maybe we trade for a salary dump and someone more promising attached.

Maybe, he's just the next Park and will be DFA'd before he even tries on a uniform. Some of these fringe roster moves are real head scratchers. We let TWard go to Rule 5, so we can make a spot for Park, knowing he's the first to be DFA'd upon a signing. Okay, we traded Park, but we could have traded TWard, too, and without him having the need to stay on a 26 man roster, all year, one would think his trade value was worth more than his Rule 5 value.

It's like some are rejoicing in the gloom.

He might have as good a chance as any to win the 8th RP'er slot, but having an option probably means he begins the season in AAA, and so would be slotted 9th or lower, officially.

Agreed, and maybe that is a major reason why they have set some sort of formula that places value on everyone, but rarely matched market value, unless it's a unique circumstance (Yoshida's unknown market value and Story's late winter price fall.) It does not seem like they want to adjust "or fix" that formula upwards. Maybe they were willing to or actually did, but the market value gap was still to wide for signing tier one FAs. To be honest, the salaries given out, recently have been nothing short of absurd. I don't blame anyone for shifting focus to second tier FAs or even the best of tier 3, but we missed the boat on all but Jansen, Martin, Turner and maybe Joely. I'm not sure who sets up the value formula. My guess is it was not one guy. It's something the Sox have done for years, and they have let many stars leave- most were aged or had injury issues, but some real good ones were shown the door for various reasons, like tag-ons for salary dumps (AGon & Beckett with CC/ Betts with Price- to a lesser extent) and others for unique situations like Manny & Lackey. It's not just with homegrown players like Lester, Ellsbury, Betts, Beni, JBJ and now Bogey, it was also with Pedro, Damon, Beltre, AGon, Price and now Nate & JD. We've set a value and don't budge to 2 decades and maybe longer (before JH.) The idea or "system," in itself, is not necessarily a losing strategy. We have 4 rings under this plan, and a team like the Astros seems to have perfected the idea. The Astros seem to have a formula that pays more than we do, but mostly shorter term deals- like Verlander. They also had and still have a solid farm that provided seamless high level young players to slide into the roles vacated by departing mega stars like Springer and Correa, but also many key role players. This winter, they just lost the Cy Young winner, and not a single tear has been shed by the fanbase. They are just as excited about their team's chances now as last winter and 4-5 before that. It all starts with the farm, and I am happy this new management group has focused on building that up. I'm disappointed in the failure of most of the prospects we traded for not stepping up. I realize many were never expected to do great, but with the sheer volume of prospects acquired via trade, you'd expect more to at least have a role on the big club by now. Granted, the desire to "win now" as we built the farm hampered the returns, as many trades for prospects also involved taking on a vet, like Cordero w Wink & Co, Pivetta w Seabold, JBJ w Binelas & Hamilton, Ottavino w German, Verdugo w Downs & Wong. It was never really a tear-down & rebuild plan, and that slowed the growth of the farm. The best thing that happened to the farm was the covid year of 2020 and seeing Mayer fall into our lap, and the rule 5 Whitlock pick. I'm not sure our farm is near what the Astros was, and remember, they tanked a few years to get it there, but the pending influx or prospects is at a level not seen since DD had so many to trade away due to Ben's near total devotion to building up the farm and trading away very few prospects. Maybe I was overly optimistic thinking we had reached the point where more of a balance could be reached between use of the farm and the hear and now, but obviously I was wrong, unless some blockbuster trade happens in the next 2-3 months. Part of me is excited about the longer term future, but a big part of me is very disappointed in where the big club is, now. There is still time to repair some gaping holes- like SP & SS, but the FA options are all but gone, and the reluctance to trade top prospects seems still in place, and I'm not sure I disagree with that later strategy, considering our low hopes for 2023.

I think we add a SP and SS, but here is how it looks to me, with no more moves made: 1. L Yoshida LF 2. R Story SS 3. L Devers 3B 4. R Turner DH 5. L Casas 1B (R Dalbec) 6. R Kike CF 7. L Dugo/ R Refsnyder RF (platoon?) 8. R Arroyo/ L EValdez 2B (platoon?) 9. L MacGuire/ R Wong C SP1. Sale SP2. Whitlock SP3. Paxton (Houck) SP4. Bello SP5. Pivetta RP1. Jansen RP2. Martin RP3. Houck RP4. Schreiber RP5. Barnes RP6. Joely RP7. Mills RP8. Brasier/Taylor/Kelly/German/Ort/DHern/Fernandez SP/RP: Crawford/Mata/Winckowski/Walter/Seabold/Santos/Crohan Minors (ML ready/near ready): C: RHern (Cottam/C Hamilton/ S Scott) 1B: Crook/T Reed (Kavadas) 2B: Hamilton (Yorke) SS: Fitzgerald Ferguson) 3B: Koss (Lugo) LF: Duran (Abreu) CF: Rafaela (McDonogh) RF: Granberg (Jimenez) DH: (Binelas)

If we don't add a middle IF'er, what's the plan? We don't really have enough OF'ers to play Kike at 2B (Yoshida LF/ Refsnyder CF/ Verdugo RF), so it pretty much looks to me like it will be Story at SS and Arroyo at 2B. We no longer even have Downs & Park as deep depth. Our depth is David Hamilton and Enmanuel Valdez. I can't imagine is starting the season with that line-up and depth. I'd like to see us get Andrus, but we never get who I think is best. Trading for a defensive SS might be in the works, and Story goes back to 2B, and the depth looks fine.

When we add Justin Turner to the 40, who goes? If we add more players, who is next? My DFA list: 1. Ort 2. Brasier 3. DHern 4. Seabold 5. Taylor (depending on his health)

They could all afford one meg deal, at least, and still "make money." We could spend $50M more a year, but what if every team spent $30-60M more, at the same time?

When we signed Story, my 50-50 odds on Bogey staying dropped to 20-80. It fell further as the season ended, and one we started seeing the mega deals being signed, I thought maybe 10% was too high.

I've said all along, I don't think they ever valued Bogey at the "market rate" at any point on the timeline of contract talks. They certainly never valued him at what BorA$$ was asking, of he'd be here. I'd guess it might have something to do with his defense and reluctance to move off position, but it might have just been something very simple. They just did not ever place the value needed to get the job done. They might turn out to be right. It's easy to look and say, had they only offered Bogey what they maybe offered him near the end, 2-9 months earlier, he might still be here, but the market going up is what might have changed their off- not what they thought he was valued at comparatively. For argument's sake, say we could have gotten Bogey for $200M/8 back in March. The Sox must not have wanted him for that, or they thought nobody would offer than ,and he'd come back and settle for $190M/8 or lower. My guess is they didn't want him at even $190M/8. Then, when the price went up, their offer never kept pace or maybe even barely budged. I cannot say for sure, but I'm thinking the Sox would not sign him, right now, for $210M/8. That's why he's gone. They might have grossly underestimated what other GMs would spend and truthfully felt they could sign him and were not lying when they said, he was their top priority. We may never know. I could be way off.

I think saying we want to be like the Rays is hyperbole. The Rays would never spend $300M in a 9 month period. Let's face it: Henry is spending money- just not on our beloved, homegrown players. There are some owners going downright nutty with their spending, but Henry's total winter spending since the end of 2021 has been among the top 7 or 8, if I'm not mistakes. Last winter: $140M/6 Story $19M/2 Barnes extension $7M/1 Wacha $6M/1 Paxton $5M/1 R Hill $4M/1 Diekman $3M/1 Strahm $2M/1 Robles $11M more for JBJ over Renfroe (counting JBJ's buyout) $197M Total last winter This winter, so far: $105M/5 Yoshida (counting posting fee) $32M/2 Jansen $22M/2 J Turner $19M/2 Martin $2M/1 or $6M/2 Joely $180M Total, so far. We will likely have spent between $380M and $400M over the last 2 winters, combined.

I'm expecting Turner to have a very nice season... probably better than Drury and Brantley.

I'd have been okay with Drury, instead of Turner, but I'm still clinging to my mantra of us having much higher needs than DH.

One could say the same about just about every owner in MLB, even the lowest spending ones. If they all felt like Cohen, what would happen?

Unlike others, I'm not so sure Devers wants to leave Boston. It's a great hitters park for lefties, and he knows the Sox are still one of the higher spending teams in MLB, even over the last 2 years combined. Fans love him. I'm thinking Devers may have to move down by more than the Sox are willing to move up. Just a gut feeling.

So, it's like Bogey redux. Say no to $300M a few months ago, and now offer $300M, when he won't take it. Isn't that the trap the Sox fell into with Bogey? If the final offer to Lester was genuine, same with him. They could have had him for that offer, had they made it earlier.

If it's true, and we know how they set a player's value and hardly budge, then it's over, already.

I really don't want to think about it, but I'd say we get more, now, and we should know, soon, if we can meet his demands, or not.

The thing is, by next year, he just may get $400M/12, at his age.