moonslav59

I think I'm one of the few fans that are more about the long term. I loved Ben's approach, criticized DD's "win now" approach and was all for trading Betts and Price to reset and hasten the rebuild and rise to the top. It's my belief, and I realize it's just speculation and appear to be in a minority here, that Betts will age well. He may not be great from ages 35-39, but he won't be big drain either. My suggestion to greatly front end load the deal would give some insurance in case we need to make a Price dump-like trade with Mookie later in his career, if needed. It's not full insurance, I know, but if Betts does like I think he will the next 5-6 years, it will more than offset any drag the end of his career might place upon us.

Injuries can and do often enough to make anyone hesitant to make any deal like Betts will likely get. Most truly special players seem to age well, unless an injury causes decline or a premature end to their career. Signing Betts to a 9-12 year deal and watching him get hurt or decline sharply would be horrific and a big drag on a long period of Sox history. It's a huge gamble on just one guy, and although I did say, if we were ever going to sign a pitcher to $31M x 7 years, Price was the guy, I never felt this strongly about Price as I do about Betts. Betts is the best Sox player I have ever seen- not even close. Watching him continue his greatness for another team will hurt like hell. IMO, he will earn $420/12.

It's hard to project how any player will age. People keep talking about how smaller, quick players age poorly, and maybe that's true, but where's the evidence. Plus how many of those quick, smaller players had the twitch times Betts has- reportedly off the charts good and the power he has? He's unique, so he's hard to project. I love his attitude. His drive to excel. His ability to adjust to a new position and become the best in a matter of days not years. His 5 tool brilliance. To me, he's likely worth $60-75M a year for the next 5-6 years- maybe not free agent market-wise but actual value to a team. If he makes $35-40M a year on a long term deal, the team makes $25-50M a year for 5-6 years. That would more than make up for the back end 5-6 years, where he may be worth near to well below the $35-40M/yr. I realize this is pure conjecture, and it's just my opinion, but those 5-6 years would be worth it. I know I could be wrong. Although I knew the Price deal was too much and for too long, I thought he'd earn it the first 3-4 years- enough to offset the final 3-4 years, and if he declined too quickly, we could trade him to cut some of our losses. I was not an enthusiastic fan of the signing, but I thought it was necessary. It turns out I was wrong, even though he did help us win a ring, I was wrong. I could be wrong about Betts, too. I don't think I am. I want to watch Betts play in Boston from ages 28-37+.

News on failed Mets-Betts deal... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2020/02/details-on-mets-pursuit-of-mookie-betts.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook

How could they know? Why even have medical check-ups, if you should know everything beforehand? They got burned with Pom, and maybe they got more thorough.

Beni has one more arb after this deal, so 3 years of control. I wouldn't trade Beni. He's got a lot of upside, still and he's underpaid. We need underpaid players. The only reason I mentioned Matz & Smith , is because I heard the Mets want a CF'er and don't need D Smith. I'm not sure they need or like Chavis, but I'd change him to Dalbec if they insisted. I love Workman, but he's got one year left and may be a sell high type player. I've considered suggesting deals where they dump Familia's deal on us ($11.7M x 2 but just $10M x 2 on lux tax). He's basically cancelout JBJ's deal and give them savings next year. They get Workman to replace Familia, and we pray Familia bounces back. What sucks for us is, if he doesn't we've eaten up much of the savings from the Price deal for 2021. There's lots of moving parts, but I'm thinking some combination of JBJ, Workman, Walden, Chavis or Dalebec might get is Matz and Smith. I realize it hurts their rotation, but they have a good history of replacing SP'ers from withing their own system. We are not.

Who said they expected a perfect MRI, or that the MRI was the only evidence that surprised the Sox docs? He looked like a bigger risk than the expected, and balked at the deal.

.858 is pretty good, but point well taken. Someone else mentioned the comp to Aaron, and of course, there's only one Hammerin' Hank, but I think there are a lot of similarities. Hank won 3 GGs early on, stole over 20 bases 6 times and had power, too. His first 5 full seasons, he hit 27, 26, 44, 30 and 39 HRs (ending at age 25). Starting at age 32 he hit 44, 39, 29, 44, 38, 47, 34, 40 (465 PA at age 39), 20 (382 at age 40 .832 OPS) and 12 at age 41 (543 PAs). His OPS never dipped below.852 from age 21 to 39, when he hit .832. More amazingly, he only hit under .900 twice in that period: .895 at age 32 .852 at age 34. In no way am I trying to say Betts might duplicate Hank's career, but Hank showed it can be done. His body proportions changed over his career, but his power actually improved at age 32: 24-31: 288 HRs in 5346 PAs/4786 ABs .962 OPS 32-39: 315 HRs in 4853 PAs/4208 ABs .954 OPS First 12 years: 398 HRs .943 OPS in 7855 PAs Last 11 years: 357 HRs .909 OPS in 6086 PAs Betts is way below Hank in HRs by age 26. Betts has 31, 24, 32 and 29 his last 4 years. He has 116 HRs over the last 4 years (2762 PAs) and a .917 OPS. He will almost certainly not come close to Hank's numbers, but he may have a long career with little loss of power, if not an increase in power.

We don't have great infield depth, but Down might be up in 1-2 years. 1B: Moreland, Chavis, Dalbec, Ockimey (JD?) 2B: Peraza, Chavis, Lin, Arauz (Dalbec?) Marco (not on 40) 3B: Devers, Chavis, Dalbec (Marco not on 40) SS: Bogey, Lin, Arauz, Chatham (Marco not on 40)

Good one!

Assuming we could get Holt for $4M x 2, does even $4M prevent us from getting the 2 decent pitchers we need?

One now and one at the deadline.

Of course, the risk is great. I just don't see Betts substantially declining as quickly as many seem to think he will. He will lose value as his speed declines, but he has power and quick wrists, like Henry Aaron.

Do they still want an OF'er? (JBJ?)

I'm certainly not high on many of the players on this list, but chances are a few look good enough in ST'ing to be chosen over Houck and Mata. If healthy locks (9): Sale, ERod, Eovaldi, Perez, Workman, Barnes, Taylor, Walden, DHern Out of options (3): Hembree, Weber & Brice (will have to DFA) Assuming no or 1 DFA, that leaves 1-2 slot for... Brasier Velazquez Brewer Shawaryn Osich Mazza Hart Springs MHall Not on 40 man roster: Johnson Poyner Houck McGrath (Projected to start in AA) Reyes Mata Ward Feltman

JBJ, Workman and Chavis for Matz & Smith (maybe Marisnick- the cheater?)

Yes!

No. Even if he looks good.

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."