moonslav59

It couldn't be they though all those pitchers were the best players available. This was a strategy. Or as GW would say, "a stradgedy."

He was great almost all the time. Saying clutch is not sustainable is not counter to calling him great and fearing him as a pitcher. Man, that granny vs Detroit was the balls, though, right?

I can't see how hitting the same as you normally do is clutch, but a 1.000 OPS hitter would get way more clutch hits than a .600 hitter, if they all followed their norms- which is something not to be expected. The argument that these hitters are facing better pitching in the playoffs does not hold much water, to me. I'm not saying what Papi did was totally random. Random shuffling would create samples like his, but what I'm saying is that just because a hitter did what Papi did in a scattered and short sample size, does not make it a repeatable skill.

Earp... that's a good one.

RISP in a 12-0 game is not clutch. "Late & Close" and High Leverage are better defining "clutch" stats. I can't find Papi's Late & Close playoff numbers, but I expect they were significantly better than .930, but that still does not prove clutch is a sustainable skill. Even setting up a random numbers generator for a .930 hitter would generate some 395 PA samples sizes that are great, okay and bad.

If you roll the dice, not every sample size will come out to be exactly the mean. BTW, here are Papi's numbers: .931 Career OPS .870 Late & Close .943 High Leverage Now, of course he had way more clutch hits in the playoffs than his career OPS would suggest he have, but the sample size is small and scattered. Playoffs: .947 in 369 PAs It looked like Papi was "regressing back to the norm" starting in 2008. He his .243 in 115 playoff PAs after 2007. (He did have 6 HRs and 19RBI). It's hard to prove he had a skill that was repeatable, just because he did it so many times.

I think the $1.75M was the ML contract assuming they added him by the opt out date he agreed to extend due to injury. That contract may be pro-rated (1 month minor league- 5 months ML rate). It does look like it is left off the totals, but remember many of these 26th man on the roster players are close to being interchangeable. Adding Santana at $1.75M to replace someone making $580 to $800K is not adding $1.75M to the tax budget. It may only add $1M, not counting the pro-ration.

He will likely make less AVV but add years.

My bad. I wrote "2 of 3" but was thinking his first. Yes, he should make $7-11M- year 2.

If we have $35 to $55M to spend, this winter, I don't see how we can't replace ERod & Ottavino in kind. If we sign these 4 key free agents SP SP/RP Solid Set-up man Utility man/1B we should not have to skimp with any signing. We could spend $25M on a SP, $11M on another, $8M on a RP'er and $6M on utility and be $12M over the tax line and $8M under the second penalty line. More likely, we spend $20M SP, $10M on P, $5M RP and $5M on utility bringing us to $2M over the line. We'd be able to spend more at the deadline. The other factor working against Bloom's normal Rays strategy of signing quantity (inexpensive) over quality (expensive), is the roster squeeze the Rule 5 players will force on the 40man roster construction choices. I think we sign only 3-5 FAs to ML deals. This seriously hints at quality vs quantity.

Exactly. We have new people at the helm and in the system. Let's give them some slack. I hope we keep doing well with non-pitchers.

I can't argue with this.

More likely, we find someone making $6-9M and pay the pro-rated $2-3M, leaving enough room for a cheap 1B and maybe even a RP'er.

Agreed, but maybe KC picks up $2M and gives us Carlos Santana, too.

I'm no expert on arbs, but first year arbs are notoriously very lowball. Maybe $7-8M?

Pro-rated to 1/3 a season is $4.3M (minus the guy's salary he replaces on the 26 man roster). We have $4.5M space.

Agreed. I'd say these are our biggest needs: #1. SP 1 or 2 (Sale?) #2. SP 3 or 4 (FA) #3. Solid Set Up RP'er (Houck/Bazardo/Valdez?) #4. LH'd hitting Utility who can play 1B well or a 1B/OF type- maybe just a 1Bman- (FA)

I thought he'd play some 2B, too, but his metrics showed he was a very good defensive CF'er. He seems to have stepped up his D in CF the more he plays there. I never thoguth we'd bring JBJ back with those demands, so I guess I saw Arroyo at 2B as more likely to stick than Cordero playing FT OF.

Stunning!

Where did all the "bring back JBJ" fans go?

Robo UMPs is step one.

Nobody believed me when I said this last winter. It was all about Kike playing 2B. I wasn't 100% right, as I saw a Cordero-Renfroe platoon (in LF, no less!) with Kike in CF and Verdugo in RF.

Maybe he meant with the Sox, so it's 2 for Theo and letting the farm value slip from its peak between 2003 to 2006.

There are a lot of pitchers out there that would not put us over the tax line. Only 1/3 of their salary counts on the tax line. To get a real good one, we may need to give up more than Bloom is willing to give. Guys like Danny Duffy or Jon Gray might be SP'ers that could help, but with the risk they may not.

Although looking at the 2022 budget does not belong on this thread, the ASB always seems to lead to talk of issues like this, since there is not much else to talk about. Lux Tax budget for 2022: $Millions 25.6 Sale 22.0 JD (may opt out) 20.0 Bogey 17.0 Eovaldi 16.0 Price (last year payment to LAD) 8.50 Richards (team option) May not keep 9.38 Barnes 7.00 E Hernandez 6.75 Vazquez (team option) 5.50 Perez (team option) 3.25 Andriese (team option) Probably won't keep 1.50 Sawamura ARBS ~5.5 Devers (2 of 3) ~4.0 Renfroe (3 of 4) ~3.0 Verdugo (1 of 3) ~2.5 Pivetta (1 of 3) ~2.1 Arroyo (1 of 3) ~1.7 Plawecki (4 of 4) May let go ~1.5 Taylor (1 of 4) ~1.2 Brasier (2 of 3) ~1.0 Cordero (2 of 3) ~2.3 Other 40 man roster players ~16.0 Player Benefits $172M Estimate (with JD, Perez, Vaz, but no Richards, Andriese and Plawecki) That leaves about $38M to reach the tax line and $58M to stay under the second tax line. No ERod, Ottavino, Richards, Marwin, Andriese, Santana, Plawecki, Workman, Rios and Brice. 2022 Projected 26 Man Roster (40 man Roster in Red) Sale Eovaldi __FA____ Pivetta Whitlock Perez Seabold Mata Bello Winckoski Groome Ward Barnes __FA____ Sawamura Taylor __FA_______ D Hernandez Houck Valdez Bazardo Ort Vazquez Wong Dalbec __FA_____ (utility) Arroyo Downs Bogaerts Devers H Potts Verdugo Cordero E Hernandez Duran Rosario Jimenez Renfroe JD Martinez Bubble 40 man (must replace someone above) F German Rule 5 AScherff Rule 5 AJ Politi Rule 5 K Cottam Rule 5 K Crawford Rule 5 T Reed Rule 5 D Feltman Rule 5 T Dearden Rule 5 J Schreiber Rule 5 M Wilson J Arauz M Chavis