moonslav59

That's something we can all agree on. Even if he hits .310 with 30 HRs in 475 PAs, I'd want him gone. He won't very likely repeat it in 2019. I actually said this before his decent 2016 season, "If HRam hits .300 40 110, I'd trade him after 2016, since it is likely he will not do it again."

Yes, they are. The VTek case was an exception, but he did get screwed out of a lot of money by taking Boras' advice.

We can play him this year and not let him vest. He might hit 25 HRs in 475 PAs, and we'll get something for that $22M and say good bye to next year's $22M. Just because he won't be worth $22M is not reason enough to DFA him. If he can play to the value of $5-10M, it's better to keep him and not have to pay him $22M anyways and then pray Travis does as well as he might have done.

My point is HRam is up and down. I'm not saying it's an automatic thing, but his history suggests he might still have a good year (or two) left in him over the next few years. I realize he could easily suck this year, but as long as there's a chance he can do well, I'm not going to DFA him until at least the end of ST'ing. It's not like we have ready and able prospects beating down the 40 man roster door. HRam just turned 34. Many players that age and older have had big years. HRam's recent history: 2013: 1.040 OPS (in 304 PAs) 2014: .817 2015: .717 (played injured) 2016: .866 2017: .750 (played hurt)

I haven't given up on HRam. He's been almost a total one good year/one bad year player over the last 6 years or so. Even if he wasn't getting paid $22M, I'd want a look-see in ST'ing to see how the surgery worked (or not). There's no hurry to DFA anyone, and I'd rather DFA Brentz, if we sign JD than HRam.

He was offered more, but turned it down. Then, Boras ended up getting him much less later.

...and especially since there is no QO penalty attached and his luxury tax cost is just $25M a year.

If Moreland gets hurt, HRam would be on track to vest. If an OF'er gets hurt, JD would play LF FT, and HRam would be on track to vest. If we sign JD and trade JBJ, HRam would be on track to vest. (I'd sign Duda in this scenario.)

Losing HRam's contract after 2018 and Pablo's after 2019 is about the only thing keeping "the window" open for 2-3 more years.

Certainly losing just one from Pom or Kimbrel does not meet the anybody's standard for the word "cliff". We lose Pablo & Porcello's contracts after 2019, so I doubt the "cliff" starts then either, but it will mean we will likely be entering our 3rd consecutive year over the luxury tax limit, meaning after 2020, we'll have to reset or face grave consequences. I'm not going to argue with those who see the cliff as beginning in 2020, but I think we can manage to extend it to 2021. If we get lucky and have a few prospects rise quickly and make major contributions, which I'd say is against the odds, we could avoid a real "cliff" and just have a short valley.

Remember, 2015 was at a cost of $12.5M. That's pretty close to what a 1.6 WAR is worth, so I'm not sure you can count that year as a "bad one". He's pitched 2 out of his 4 year big contract. One great (5.6 WAR) and one mediocre (2.0 WAR), which wasn't totally disastrous. While I don't agree with the value page on fangraphs, they have Porcello's value as being just over $70M over his 3 years in Boston. His actual contract cost has been about $54M over that time. David price has cost us $62M, so far, and he has given us a $47.6M in value. Kimbrel has given us $35M value at about a $26M cost (not counting the value of the prospects given). Pom has been great. He's given us about $28M in value at about $5M cost (not counting the value of Espinoza).

I don't disagree with anything said here. I'm not a homer Red Sox fan pining for JD. If he goes elsewhere, and we acquire someone else significant, I'll be happy. I'm racking my brain trying to figure out who those other teams are with 5 year offers on the table that might top the reported $125M the Sox offered. Yes, there's a chance JD accepts less than what we offer, and if he does nobody can really blame DD for losing out. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe other Sox fans are wrong. We've been wrong before, but with No Dodgers or Yankees in the mix, I just don't see AZ, TOR or SF going much higher than $100M/5... let alone $125M. I'll gladly admit I was wrong, if it turns out I'm wrong.

I think signing JD would squeeze HRam out of the option, unless there's an injury to Moreland, JD or an OF'er. I realize arb raises will be costly over the next few years and will alone eat up much of the departing players' contracts lost, but we may not need to add much to the roster, except to resign or replace Kimbrel and Pom in kind. Timetable on future Sox free agents: After 2018: $22M Ramirez $13M Kimbrel $8.5M Pomeranz $3.8M Joe Kelly After 2019: $20.5M Porcello $19M Pablo $13.5M C Sale ____ Bogaerts $6.5M Moreland ____ Thornburg ____ B Holt If we can pay all arb raises with HRam's salary, we can probably have enough to keep Pom OR Kimbrel. Losing one will not make us noncompetitive. If Henry does not mind keeping us over the second penalty level for a second year in a row, we can probably keep both and not go over the third penalty level. After 2019, losing Porcello and his contract might not be too bad. His money plus Sale's $13.5M could help us keep Sale. We may lose Bogey, but I think losing Pablo's contract can help us keep Bogey and pay the arb raises. It's after 2020 that keeping everybody and facing a third consecutive over the tax limit penalty will be the true reckoning time, IMO.

I've never assumed no other teams might out bid the Sox or have a current offer higher than ours on the table, but I just can't think of a team who fits the bill. One would think there'd be some sort of mentioning of another serious team. I think $125M/5 gets him, but if someone wants to offer $140M/6 and he takes it, I won't be heart-broken or upset with DD for not upping the offer.

I'd have rather outbid the Cubs for Lester than sign HRam and/or Pablo and said as much back then. We could have had Lester and Porcello or Scherzer & Porcello. It wasn't really the trade that was bad, it was the initial low ball offer and how we squandered the saved money that made the whole plan go sour, plus the fact that HRam & Porcello basically sucked year one and Pablo sucked all the time.

We'd lose our 2nd and 5th draft picks and $1M from our international signing pool. Not good, but not crippling either. Perhaps, we could trade some of our out of option players for pool money.

He's certainly, given us more value per dollar than Price, so far. I said I wanted Scherzer and we could have had both. The point was, once we low-balled Lester, he wasn't signing here. We got Porcello for 2 months of Lester, and therein was the "value" of the deal. The part of that deal that hurt the most was the money "saved" by not signing Lester (or Scherzer) was wasted on HRam and Pablo. The actual trades, given the context, were not bad.

He had a major injury and returned to start 29 games last year. No matter who you pick up, there is injury risk (see Price). At least Cobb would just be $12M x 4 years and not $31M x 7.

Going by MLBTR's projections, would this be a better idea than waiting out JD and signing him for $25M x 5 or 6 years? Cobb $12M x 4 Nunez $7M x 2 Duda $6M x 1 Total: $25M first year $19M second year $12M third and fourth years We then trade Holt (save $2M) and Johnson (out of options) for a better pitcher who has options remaining. We try to trade HRam and cut $5-8M off our budget and taxes. If we can't trade HRam, we go with this: 1. Bogey SS 2. Beni LF 3. Betts RF 4. HRam DH/1B or Duda DH 5. Devers 3B 6. HRam/Moreland/Duda 1B 7. JBJ CF 8. Pedey/Nunez 2B 9. Vaz (Leon/Swihart) C (Brentz/Swihart/Hernandez/Marrero/Lin/Quiroz) SP: Sale, Price, Pom, Cobb, Porcello (ERod/Wright/Velazquez) RP: Kimbrel, Smith, Kelly, Barnes, Scott, Hembree, Workman (Thornburg/Maddox/Wright/Taylor)

You're probably right, but hope springs eternal.

If that happens, maybe he'll retire like Dempster and take us off the financial hook (not likely), but if anybody can comeback from something this severe, it might be Pedey.

No doubt, and when one superficially looks at the rotation he inherited vs the one he left, it's easy to label that part of his judgement "clueless-" the low ball offer to Lester being the lowest of the lows, however, the staff was all nearing free agency and coming off "beergate." Serious mistakes and blunders were made. I'm not defending Ben's choices on starting pitchers. I hated the Masterson deal, but I liked the Miley deal. I disliked the Dempster deal, but many thought it was a good one. I hated how we treated the Lester negotiation, but once we screwed that up, I felt the trades (staff dump) we made was called for. I had hoped we'd have traded those guys for younger players, but Cespedes did bring us Porcello and Kelly is now blossoming into a quality set-up man. Craig bombed out, of course, but that was hard to know was coming. Peavy brought us Hembree. We got Marco Hernandez for Doubront. The jury still out a little bit on some of our acquired players, but the years of team control we had remaining of the starters we traded away were minimal. At the time, I argued we should have signed Scherzer over HRam & Pablo, but understood the plan to wait for the stocked free agent class of the following year. Ultimately, it's Ben's fault hardly anybody performed like they had the year before being signed or acquired (HRam, Pablo & Porcello being the most notable), but he wasn't clueless, IMO. I firmly believe he'd have made a trade or two like the Sale one but not trades like Kimbrel. He'd have spent as large as DD was allowed but maybe not on Price, which probably would have been a good thing. Maybe he doesn't sign Young or Moreland. Maybe he doesn't trade Travis Shaw (cheaper than Moreland's contract). Too many maybes to know anything, but I doubt Ben was going to just keep stock-piling prospects for the sake of it.

We can win with no more additions and a pile of "ifs" coming through all at the same time. Last year, we saw just about every returning offensive player but Vaz decline. That is not likely to occur again. I'd rather not depend on just 10 out of 15 "ifs" occurring this year. We should bee proactive and try to improve our team, on paper, so we can not have to depend on multiple "ifs". The biggest "ifs".... Price's health Porcello being up or down Pedey's health Sale's endurance Pom's trend continuing or not HRam's shoulder surgery working or not Devers sophomore slump or continued growth Is the 2017 Vaz for real? The 2017 or 2016 Bogey? The 2017 or 2016 Betts? The 2017 or 2016 JBJ? Beni greatly improve on 2017? Marco/Holt/Marrero/Lin/Quiroz hold the forst down at 2B? ERod's return during 2018? Wright/Johnson/Velazquez/Beeks as our 5th starter? The pen? -Carson Smith? -Thornburg? -Maddox? -Workman? -Barnes & Hembree? -Kelly?

LOL. Had we not spent foolishly on bad free agents and traded away about 20 prospects that had been top 20 prospects at some point, we could have acquired many of these players recently traded away for peanuts or far less than what we gave away in our recent blockbuster trades.

We'll never know who he would have acquired, but I'm certain he would have gone large for at least 1 SP'er (Price/Cueto/Grenke?) While Porcello has been largely up and down, he has given us an 8.8 WAR at a fraction of the cost of Price, Scherzer and even Lester. Ben also acquired Uehara, Badenhop, R Ross and converted Andrew Miller to a RP'er. This makes him at least not totally "clueless" with pitchers. Look, there's no doubt our rotation got way worse under Ben's watch, but I am certain he was planning on boosting the pitching the upcoming winter before he quit. He chose to try and boost the offense in 2015 knowing a bunch of pitchers were going to be on the market the following year. Yes, in hindsight, signing Scherzer instead of HRam and Pablo would have saved his job, but had Porcello and HRam had their 2017 seasons in 2016, Ben might still be here now.