moonslav59

The guy had a whole analytics team in his head before we even called it "analytics.".

Would that be next week?

The next day or two will see a lot of trades and signings of DFA's players cut to make room for rule 5 players. Let the fun begin!

So, the team (the Dodgers) didn't really make out on the opt-out.

We may end up claiming several players DFA'd by other clubs, forcing us to DFA more than the 3-4 needed to clear space for rule 5 protectees.

I'd add Springs to your list of 3.

That pay could be raised, also. My step raise idea, by itself might create a situation where the Pirates only have 1 year players for 20 slots, saving the $700K per players reaching 2nd year status. They'd DFA or trade players as soon as they reach 1 year of service. A large percentage of players never reach arb or their arb years are the most they ever get in their careers. If they all pulled together to demand the low end pay be raise significantly, I think it would have to be done.

I thought of that, too- or create a minimum team budget with serious penalties for not spending a set amount. (Make the penalty worth more than what the cost would have been to meet the low threshold.)

VTek did not have an opt out, but he did refuse a big offer and ended up settling for way less. (The team made out.)

Very few FAs had "opt out" clauses.

He had an opt out?

...and maybe 5-6 players to protect. Who goes? Pedey? or Stock Springs Hall Brice Hart Walden Wilson

Looking at our 40 man roster hurts. Even some of our "keepers" are thought of as "trade bait" or are over-priced or close to the end of their team control. Yes, we have some promising players not on the 40 man roster, yet, but here is one way to look at the 40 man roster, as is right now (actually 36 players): 3-5* True keepers (3 or more years of team control) Devers (3) Verdugo (4) D Hernandez (5) *Dalbec (6) largely unproven (could be place in lower category) *Houck (6) largely unproven, too. 2 True Keepers with qualifications: Bogaerts (opt out could remove him from this category) Sale (overpaid due to injury?) 3-5 Keepers with just 1-2 years of team control/some qualified*(untradeable) *JD (2) overpaid *Eovaldi (2) overpaid Vazquez (2) Beni (2) Erod (1) 3 Serviceable players (3 or more years of control) Pivetta (4) Brasier (3) Taylor (5) 1 Serviceable players (1-2 years of control) Barnes (1) 3 Borderline serviceable: Chavis (5) Munoz (4) Arroyo (4) Add the 5 or 6 Rule 5 protectees, and it doesn't help all that much!

To raise the minimum wage from around $800K to $1.5M may only mean adding about $5-10M to the Sox payroll and maybe $10-15M to low payroll teams. I'd suggest a graduated pay scale based on years in the bigs. Maybe $1.5M year 1, $1.75M year 2, $2M year 3, then arbs...

But when you add them all up, it's a pretty large percentage (or way too large) of the 2020 team IP. We had 11 guys with an ERA- of above 150 and another 4 guys between 121-129. We had 17 guys over 102. We had 6 below 80 and only 9 below 90. That Zack Godley character at 28.2 IP was 6th on the team in IP'd! 28.2 Godley 25.2 Brewer (7th) 20.1 Springs (10th) 19.2 Brice (11th) 15.2 Osich (13th) 14.0 Covey (14th) 14.0 Kickham (14th) 13.1 Stock (16th) 13.1 Walden (17th) 11.0 Hart (18th) 8.2 Hall (21st) 9.2 Hembree (22nd) 7.1 Taylor (24th) 4.2 Leyer (26th) 1.0 Lin, 0.2 Plawecki & 0.1 Peraza should not be counted. Looking at this list, we had 10 of our top 18 pitchers by IP over 5.00. 202 total innings combined! The team had 524 IP total! That's almost 40% of all the Sox IP, last year.

This is a great post, and it's an area we can improve upon without major financial investments. I'm not usually one to suggest rebuilding the bottom of the roster. I normally suggest building from the top, and through attrition the other players move down slot by slot until all the deadweight players are replaced by mediocre ones- not other replacement level players (or worse). One hope with Bloom was that he could find these gems, at low costs. He's not perfect in this area, and sometimes through quantity signings, you end up with a few that stick and suffer through the trial and error process as some, like those on your list, fail miserably. Hopefully, next season's bottom feeders will be at a much higher level that we saw, this year and even some in 2019. Here are the ERA- for all 25 Sox pitchers with 20+ IP from 2019-2010: 202 Shawaryn 176 Godley 153 Springs 129 Cashner 125 Johnson 120 Josh Smith 114 Porcello 113 Velazquez 106 Eovaldi 104 Mazza 100 Weber 97 Perez, Walden & Brewer 96 Brasier 91 Sale 89 Price 88 Hembree 83 Taylor 82 D Hern & Barnes 80 Lakins 79 ERod 71 Valdez 43 Workman

Yes, and drastically increase the minimum wage.

There must be a case of someone opting out, then getting hurt or cliff-diving.

Agreed.

The theory is they were way underpaid pre-arb years, and it's "make-up time."

Exactly, although we may be able to get even better non-tendered players than those you listed to sign minor league deals.

ERod: “I want to stay in Boston as long as my career goes,” he told Alex Speier of the Boston Globe. “I want to play in Boston forever. That’s where I got to the big leagues. That’s where I got an opportunity. That’s my family. That’s a ballpark where I really love to pitch — the history, everything.” Rodriguez emphasized to Speier in their discussion, which is worth a full read, how well he is doing after a season cut off because of myocarditis and COVID-19. He expects to return to the mound next year after missing all of 2020 because of those health problems. “I’m 100 percent and I can start doing everything,” he said. “I feel fine. I feel great.”

Good one!

I could see us adding a lot more non tenders, this year, as the quality should be much better, and our bottom 20-22 on our 40 man roster is about as weak as ever.

Did you miss the "sarcasm alert?"