moonslav59

Okay, he'll be 32 until October 7th. I'll call it 32. I actually think he'll be fine from 33-35 or 36, too and maybe decent for a few years more.

The "big deal" was about no reset and still having Price's contract on the books as we seek to extend Betts or replace him, so yes, all about "after this season".

I wonder, if people use an injury excuse to take out a pitcher, they will have to go on the IL. I can see some teams milking this rule.

Exactly! Preposterous theory. Like Sox brass did not know the serious backlash from trading Betts was coming. Bloom did a magical job maximizing the return. He did better with the redo. I know trading Price leaves a hole, but he was entering his last 3 years, aging quickly and had not been all that reliable for the last 3 years. I know people disagree with my monetary value placed on Price (thinking he's worth maybe $10-12M a year x 3 on the open market), but even if you think he will be worth $16M x 3 for 3 years, we broke even while adding budget space. I think we more than broke even just on the Price part of the whole deal. Getting Downs & Wong over Graterol seems like a stroke of genius. The big risk is Verdugo, but I trust Bloom's ability to correctly evaluate opposing team talent. He's a whiz at it. I wish I could recite all the winning deals he made with TB, but I'm sure it would be eye opening. Let's give Bloom some time and not expect instant success and 100% pluses on his deals. This first big one is a doozy, and he will likely live or die by the results of just this one deal, but I hope not. We gave up too quickly on Ben. I hope we learned from that.

We'll probably be best served doing both: Acquire a 5th starter now and make a deadline trade, assuming we are in the race. Usually, the best deals available, in terms of not having to send a nice package back in return, are the ones that involve modest to highly paid pitchers, where the team is looking to dump salary. A JBJ for a SP'er at the deadline seems less likely, since salary dump teams that are out of it won't want JBJ. I guess we could do two deals or a 3-way trade. To me, it might make best sense, assuming there is a trade partner at this late point in the spring, willing to trade us a SP'er for JBJ plus someone else (Chavis? Dalbec? Walden?) or again find a 3 way deal. We may have to pay part of JBJ's salary and pick up a pitcher with a salary that is more than JBJ's. We will need to leave enough budget space for a deadline deal that keeps us under the tax. It could be a fine line to walk, financially, but without trading JBJ (or DFA'ing him early in the season), I think the budget space left will be too small to allow us to get higher impact pitchers.

It makes a lot of sense to finally get a RH'd back-up/platoon type bat in our OF, so JD will only play there in NL parks. We may see Pillar play some vs RHPs, but that will probably happen mostly when someone is hurt or slumping. If we strategically rest Beni and JBJ (Verdugo hits L-R about the saame) only against LH'd starters, I can see Pillar starting just about every game vs righties. I think he's more than just insurance against Verdugo's health. I could see him start every game in LF or CF vs a LH'd starter and maybe get a few games in RF vs RHPs. Yes, plenty of ABs. Let's look at the splits: OPS Career/2019 vs RHPs .830/.764 Beni .783/.807 Verdugo .750/.787 JBJ .676/.681 Pillar vs LHP .785/.843 Verdugo .766/.823Pillar .696/.796 Beni .669/.640 JBJ Last year, we faced 54 LH'd starters and 108 RH'd starters. In theory, we might sit JBJ vs about 35-40 lefties, Beni 8-15 and Verdugo 2-5. Vs, RHPs, Pillar might start 5-10 games in RF. This assumes no injuries and about the same ratio of L-R starters in 2020.

I'm not sure about "soon," but likely at some point near his mid thirties. After 5 years, he'll only be 32- the same age as JD, and nobody wants him gone anytime "soon."

I don't either, and I've been one of his biggest supporters from the (horrible) start. We have serious pitching needs and may need more cap space than we have.

He needs to renounce his Jeter fandom or be traded.

Well, it's not obvious that is the purpose. We might keep Betts as $10M might be a bargain by then, if he's still producing. To me, the pay structure I suggested matches up more to him projected value by year than just paying him $32.3M x 12 years, and it helps the player. It also assumes we can find a trade partner, if he sucks by then, but then again, if we offer to pay his full contract as I mentioned we could theoretically do, then that would be an obvious skirting around paying taxes- but still not likely illegal, unless the rules change by then.

No doubt. I think it hasn't sunk in yet, for me.

Agreed, and I have him lower than Mata, but how certain are we about Casas?

True, but some sort of tax has been around since 1997, and even if it goes away, we might still be able to cut salary by Trading an aging Betts making $10M a year. If there's no tax anymore, than that's one more point in favor of locking Betts up long term.

Why should they or the union care. Front-loading a contract helps the player. The money he makes can be put to use and earn interest. As far as I know, there are no rules against it, and I do know some players get deferred payments long after they retire. That seems worse than my idea. Worse than my idea to have Pedey tear up his contract owing him $25M over the next 2 years, retire, then sign him to a $26M lifetime services contract.

I think there has only been 1 thirteen year deal.

Very risky, yes, but like I said, if he has an AVV of $32.3M ($420/13), but only get's paid $10M a year the last 3 years, we could trade him AND PAY EVERY DOLLAR to the other team. We'd save $22.3M on the lux tax budget each of his last 3 years. That $30M lost was really paid for his earlier years, when he was, in theory, underpaid.

My top rankings might look like this: 1. Downs 2. Casas 3. Mata 4. Jimenez 5. Dalbec 6. Ward 7. Groome 8. Wong

Ward should be higher than Chatham, too and probably #7 or 8. Without a true position, it's hard to value Wong.

Yes, and some context. Not too long before, Pedey signed a "hometown discount" deal, and Lester had expressed a willingness to accept a hometown discount deal. The worst part about the offer was that we did not quickly follow it up with a better offer. Okay, we offer Betts $300M/10, and he says he wants $420M/10. How can it hurt to counteroffer $330/10 or $350/10 and see what he says? Maybe he counters $390/10 or $420/12. Now, we may feel like we can come to an agreement. Now, if we think $330/10 is the most we'll ever pay, then I can see why we could decide to trade him.

What would a package of JBJ, Chavis & Duran get us, in terms of a SP'er who may be getting paid much more than JBJ, and the team wants to cut budget? Or, just JBJ and Chavis, since we may need OF depth after trading JBJ? This is assuming a try to be more competitive for 2020. Assuming a look at 2021 and beyond... What could we get for this? JBJ & Workman? JBJ, Workman & Chavis?

Song can't play for a while. Plawecki is probably over-valued, but it's hard to place value of catcher defense and handling of the staff- just like Leon.

Betts has power, too, and many players add power as they get into their mid to late 30's. Plus, my offer is not about getting value from him at ages 38-40. It's about lowering the AVV and front end loading it drastically allows us to trade him and save tens of millions on the lux tax budget.

For what it's worth here are the trade values for Sox players on the website, remember value includes salary and years of control as big factors: (Highlighted in red means I think the number is higher than actual value.) 128 Devers 89 Bogey 48 Verdugo 39 Beni 29 ERod 26 Vaz 22 Casas 22 Downs 20 Dalbec 18 Chavis 12 Mata 12 Barnes 12 Duran 11 D Hernandez 9 Jimenez 6 Lugo, JD, Taylor, Walden 5 Workman, Chatham, Ward 4 Wong, Song, Groome 3 Murphy, Perez, Decker, Houck, Plawecki, Gonzalez 2 Bonaci, Cannon, Howlett, Wilson, Arauz, Flores 1 Lopez, Chacon, Esplin, Feliz, Marcano, Rafaeta, Vaughan, Lin, Bello, Netzer, peraza, Politi, Brannen, Northcut, Zeferjahn, Diaz, Hart, Liu, Aybar, Castellanos, Crawford, Ockimey, Perales, Poyner, Ramirez 0.0 to 0.5 Hall, Reyez, Baldwin, Feltman, Moreland, JBJ, Shawarn and more -9.8 Sale -14.3 Castillo (his pay) -24.8 Pedey -29.0 Eovaldi (owed $41M)

Ok, maybe he's not worth $20M at ages 38-40. You could scale it so he's at $10M a year by then, and if he's not worth it, trade him and pay all $10M, and it still saves us $22M on the lux tax line. (The lux tax line goes to the new team, and all that counts for us is what we pay them.)

I see it this way, in real dollar value to a team like Boston, betts might be worth this much at these ages: (BTW, the trade value site had him worth 50 which is counting the $27M he makes, this year.) 28: $55M 29: $50M 30: $45M 31: $40M 32: $35M 33: $35M 34: $30M 35: $25M 36: $25M 37: $20M 38: $20M 39: $15M 40: $15M That's $420M/13. Maybe $15M will be an overpay, but $40M at age 31 might be an underpay.