moonslav59

This from MLBTR... The financial details of the surcharge thresholds were previously known. If a team spends above $217MM in 2018, it will receive an extra 12% tax in addition to the usual 20%, 30% or 50% luxury tax. If a team spends over $237MM, it will receive an extra 42.5% or 45% surcharge tax. Beginning in 2018, there will be an extra penalty for teams in that second category, Cooper notes. A team that spends above $237MM will also have its top draft pick lowered ten spots, unless that pick is in the top six, in which case the team’s second pick will be lowered ten spots.

It's not this bad now either. All teams go through team slumps. We're busting out tonight!

Had HRam and Porcello had their 2016 seasons in 2015, Ben would still be here.

There was more to the plan than just adding Moreland. We added Sale, Thornburg and were expecting full seasons from Beni and others, as well as a return of Carson Smith. I'm not a DD fan, but let's not ignore the full picture.

If we can get a quality OF'er for less than the luxury tax on Castillo's deal, I'd be surprised.\\ That's basically what the comp should be. The problem is that once we add Castillo to the 40 man, we can't get out of counting his salary against the luxury tax until his contract ends (3 years after this season ends). We will likely reach the 50% tax bracket during his last season here. That's a $5.5M tax for just that one year. I doubt he ever makes it on our 40 man roster for that reason alone.

3.06 ERA in his last 5 starts. 0-4 in those starts. Signs of life.

It was a Sale for Papi replacement.

Yes, but near the end of the year, he said his feet felt good. Why not try? To me, it would be a sign of respect to offer him $25M. In some ways he was under payed for many years in Boston. Don't pressure him: just offer big money and say, "We want you back." (Maybe we did, and it never made the press.)

I caught a lot of grief for suggesting we try this. We could have even signed him to a guaranteed $25M/5 year deal (even if he retired after 2017) to lessen the burden on the luxury tax.

It's his biggest flaw. His so-called loyalty is killing us. Moreland was playing over his head in April and May. He had no previous qualifications to bat anywhere near 4th. At least Bogey had some previous cred.

Here are the FO major moves since Ben was squeezed out by DD after the 2015 season (Arb signings not listed): 8/31/15 Traded: de Aza for Luis Ysla (Ben still "GM") 11/6/15 Exercised Clay Buchholz option 11/13/15 Traded: Margot, Guerra, Asuaje & Allen for Kimbrel 12/2/15 Signed Chris Young ($13M/2) 12/4/15 Signed David Price ($217M/3) 12/7/15 Traded Miley & J Aro for Carson Smith & R Elias 1/27/16 Signed Bryan Mata as Int'l FA June '16 Drafted Jason Groome (12), CJ Chatham (51), S Anderson (88), Bobby Dalbec (118), M Shawaryn (148), S Nogosek (178), Robby Scott (208) and others. 7/7/16 Traded W Rijo & A Wilkerson for Aaron Hill 7/9/16 Traded Basabe (the "other one")& J Almonte for B Ziegler 7/14/16 Traded A Espinoza for Drew Pomeranz 8/1/16 Traded Pat Light for Fernando Abad 11/3/16 Exercised option on Clay Buchholz (later traded him) 12/6/16 Traded T Shaw, M Dubon & J Pennington for Tyler Thornburg 12/8/16 Selected Josh Rutledge (Rule 5) 12/20/16 Traded Buchholz for Josh Tobias FEb '17: Signed Hector Velazquez as Int'l FA June '17: Drafted Tanner Houck (24), Cole Brennen (63), B Netzer (101), J Thompson (131), Alex Scherff (161) and others 7/2/17 Traded Nick Longhi & Imeldo Diaz for Int'l signing bonus pool space July '17: Signed Daniel Flores, Danny Diaz, Antoni Flores and others as Int'l FAs 7/26/17 Traded S Anderson & G Santos for Eduardo Nunez

Some possible ideas to get this team on track: 1) DL Bogey and play Nunez at SS for 10+ days, and add Brentz to the 40 man and call him up.. 2) DL Moreland and call up Travis 3) Platoon Young with Beni as the Moreland platoon vanishes. 4) Send Vaz to AAA and call up Dan Butler (.752 OPS in AAA) 5) Replace JF 6) Change the line-up (assuming no Bogey or Moreland for the next 10 days): vs RHP 1. Nunez SS 2. Pedey 2B 3. JBJ CF 4. Betts RF 5. HRam 1B 6. Beni LF 7. Devers 3B 8. Brentz DH 9) Leon C vs LHPs 1) Nunez SS 2) Brentz or Young LF 3) Pedey 2B 4) Betts RF 5) HRam DH 6) JBJ CF 7) Travis 1B 8) Devers 3B 9) Butler C

Small sample sizes, but here are the last 28 day numbers: OPS (30+ PAs unless noted) .940 Devers (14 PAs) .903 Pedey .787 HRam .760 Lin (AAA) .723 Betts .694 Beni .626 JBJ .609 Young .599 Marrero .555 Leon .479 Holt .403 Bogey .395 Moreland .374 Vaz OPS Against (30+ PAs unless noted) .399 Abad (28 PAS) .377 Barnes .512 Sale .572 Workman .639 Price .669 Pom .718 Porcello .802 Johnson (29) .810 Kimbrel (29) .850 Hembree .918 ERod .992 Fister

The Rays have made some trades and pick-ups to strengthen their roster. They have some very good SP'ers. I would not count them out.

Now that we have Nunez, the equation has changed. While Young has been disappointing vs LHPs this year, he was a top 10 batter vs LHPs for a the previous 3 year window- a large enough sample size to think there is more hope he can regains his touch than a hope that Beni can grow, adjust or develop suddenly into a decent hitter vs LHPs. I realize Beni was OK vs lefties on the farm, but Young and Nunez have shown they can hit lefties better over a much larger sample size. Plus, as bad as Young has been vs LHPs, he's still been better than Beni this year with that split. 2014-2017 vs LHPs .834 Young .698 Nunez .525 Beni (.783 Castillo in more PAs vs LHPs than Beni) Only 23 players out of 518 MLB players have more PAs and a worse OPS vs LHPs than Beni since 2014. Yes, it would be nice to "let him develop", but we can't afford that right now. We have better hitters vs LHPs and we need to get our best batters in the line-up everyday we can.

Our guys are doomed before they even get a start. No wonder some players avoid Boston like the plague.

Well said, cp. I agree 100%. Our brush fire could become a full blown forest fire, if we don't get are act together very soon.

Well, I also want Morrland benched vs LHPs and Youngcan only platoon with one guy. If we won't DL bogey, then Nunez will allow the 2 platoons.

I'd DL Bogey and play Devers & Nunez FT.

Yes, I know. I posted it on another thread.

Small sample size. LOL!

He had okay splits. In the minors but not great. He looks way overmatched vs lefties and we can't afford to let him "adjust & develop" and see if his first -100 are a fluke.

Same with JBJ. I don't get why those early at bats are held against young players.

I'd rather reset this year. I never said it would be easy next year. The big advantage with next year would be that the big tax step would be delayed one extra year as we hit all the big arb and re-sign years. I said it would be easier to reset this year.