moonslav59

No doubt, we needed and still need a bat like Devers in our line-up, and the whole "will he earn is his keep?" argument has merit. There is a limit. Is his bat worth $40M a year? $50M? Look what Vladdy just got. That being said, almost any value rating service had the Devers contract as being under water. In a vacuum, one could say, getting anything plus back makes it a good trade, if you view it just in this light. I don't see it this way, but there is some logic in including the financial aspect of the trade in the final grade. Two things need to happen to turn this trade into a break even or plus: 1) We need to spend the money saved. 2) We need to spend the money much more wisely than we have in recent years. There is no evidence to think we can or will do even one of the above things, so I get the anger and angst shown by many, here. I'm tired of hoping for even #1 and being continually disappointed, until this past winter. #2 has been a constant issue with us and almost all of our biggest signings have been failures or gross failure.

"The hitting got a boost..." Do you even listen to yourself? What planet are you on?

I have to think Refsnyder will DH vs LHPs, so Anthony can play RF vs LHPs, instead of sitting out- not growing and learning on the fly. I might DH Duran vs most RHPs, so Anthony can play LF near FT. Maybe Anthony will DH a few games, himself. Once Bregman returns, we could see some infielders cycling through the DH role, especially if Story, Mayer & Campbell have been hitting well between now and Breg's return. If everyone is healthy and hitting well, we could still have a logjam, but it will be less pronounced with the DH slot open for overfill. (Then, there is Yoshida's return to consider.)

I think most managers attempt to do this to various degrees and success. I can see how a manager might sour, if he's repaid by said player loafing or dogging it.

I gotta think Anthony was wondering about still being in AAA, because the DH slot was not open for him, Duran and others who might open a roster slot for him. Toro and Romy were probably happy they got their chance to play and prove they deserve to continue playing.

Duran is certainly worth $8M. On the FA market, I think Brez would pay him double or triple that, if we didn't already have an OG logjam. Hell, he's worth $14-16M as a FT DH and 4th/5th OF'er. I have suggested Campbell to the OF to make way for Bregman's return to 3B and Mayer moving to a FT SS or 2B position. That would certainly mean a trade, and I also think we might end up being surprised that it won't be Duran or Abreu, but Rafaela, instead. I love Rafaela, but there are a few reasons to trade him and not Duran or Abreu. He costs more, contractually (long term.) Campbell may best be used in CF, but I do think he could learn to play LF, over time. Rafaela might be the one RHB in the OF, but Campbell bats RH'd, too and Rafaela's bat is so weak, the L-R hardly matters, as Duran and Abreu vs LHPs is not all that worse than Rafaela's vs L or R. Both Duran and Abreu blow Rafaela away vs RHPs, who start about 70% of all games. Abreu plays awesome RF defense and Duran offers a great plus with his base running skills. Rafaela would make for a great super sub, but on the expensive side as his contract cost rises in coming years. Then, we will have Arias & Jh Garcia knocking on the door, pretty soon and maybe Romero, Bleis and Cespedes, too- some a bit farther down the road.

I do wonder about the specifics of the whole Devers-Cora-Brez position change talks and non talks. If Brez wanted Devers to play 1B, but Cora avoided even talking to Devers about it, there is a major problem with the chain of command, and/or the expectation that orders be followed with fidelity. Not knowing what was said or asked makes it hard to judge the problem or even if there is a problem or not. At this point, I'm not sure it matters, except to cure our curiosity, but obviously the whole Devers situation reached the breaking point with upper management and maybe Cora, too. We may never know. I doubt Cora ever says anything bad about Devers, whether he believes it or not. My own opinion is that Cora went out of his way to defend Devers and protect him from criticism about changing positions. He may have even chosen not to ask him to play 1B out of respect for his position of not wanting to work on learning a new position in season (or ever.) I feel like Devers did not repay Cora's respect by playing hard and trying to be the best role model to all the incoming younger players he could be. He dogged it, seemed to become more of a loner than before and caused Cora more grief than he deserved, in light of his "walking on eggshells" treatment of Devers, this year.

Bregman is known for offering meaningful advice that players have credited him for helping them improve. He also went and learned Spanish, so he could talk to the many Hispanic players on his team. People make mistakes. I know I have. I'm glad those around me forgave me and allowed me to show I can change and do more good things, while still making new mistakes. I certainly want Bregman back.

I keep hearing how the opt out clauses in the Bregman signing somehow makes the spending effort put forth by Brez and JH, null and void. The guy has $40M on the table for 2026 and 2027. That's not chump change, and it also gives the Sox an incentive to try and restructure it to a more guaranteed control situation for both sides. I think there were doubts about Bregman's recent decline on offense. I think he answered those doubts a little bit, although maybe injury risk is higher, now. In short, we can probably sign Bregman to more years and a lower AAV than $40M- maybe $35M x 3 years, or $32.5M x 4-5 years. If we spend up to the line,in theory, we could sign Cease (solid #2 SP), Helsley (Closer) and Naylor (1B-LHB) Maybe we trade some blocked prospects for another solid SPer. (Arias or Romero plus Bleis or Jh Garcia. Maybe add Cespedes, Tibbs or a pitching prospect to upgrade the return.)

My initial gut reaction was this was a punt on 2025, and I still think it will be very difficult to overcome the hole in our line-up, but we do have a lot of young talent that could gives us a big boost. We have some very good talent on the IL that will start trickling back onto the 26 over the next few weeks and months. We have quite a few players who have not quite met expectations, so far, but with about 60% of the season remaining, still have time to right their ships. We've finally seemed to find a reliable top 3 SP'ers in Crochet, Bello & Dobbins and the guys we expected to be our #2 and #3 are or will be in the mix to come closer to our preseason expectations: Buehler, Houck and maybe Crawford & Sandoval in a month or two. (I don't have faith in Gio, but he could surprise us.) Maybe Hicks and Harrison do better than Paxton, Luis Garcia and Lucas Sims gave us in 2024. I'm not sure Yoshida gives us anything good, this year, at DH, but even if he doesn't the DH slot allows us to free up at least one logjam, going forward. We've been winning without Bregman, so maybe we can count on his bat replacing Devers'. Thanks for getting me back on a more optimistic path.

Good point. I think this goes beyond the different position issues, the dogging it, the lack of team comradery and less "smiling." The little and bigger things started adding up to the point where trading him made more sense than keeping him. The $31M for a forever DH was a major factor, too, IMO.

Soxprospects,com projects Tibbs to be ranked 6-8 on their rankings list. They mentioned how the Sox were interested in him, last summer, and how he was taken right after Montgomery. Several reports mention the high upside potential of K Harrison and the low level pitching prospect, J Bello.

Well, that's what we are paying. Every team as sunken costs, just not as much as we do. The Astros have done fine with 3-5 of their best SP'ers out, almost continuously for several years in a row.

I don't disagree, except we wont be "fine" for the rest of 2025, in terms of putting a winning team on the field. I was happy, when we traded Nomar, and told my family, the trade could help us win a ring. I don't feel our team got better on the field, with this trade. We may have gotten better once Harrison and Tibbs make a mark, but that may be 1-3 years from now. Once again, eyes will be on our winter spending and how well we do spending. Our track record on big spending has not been good, since DD, the Bregman signing as a possible exception.

It took me 17 paragraphs to say this. I agree, but would add that management is not blameless in this debacle, as well. The lack of effective communication has been an issue for so long, that it not being fixed lands in JH's lap.

Spotrac has us 18th, and I think it is up to date, because I think we were higher, before the Devers trade. When you look at the massive amount of money that comes off the books, this winter and more if options and opt outs all or mostly come out on the side of players leaving our budget. There are so many options (mutual vs team- buy outs or not) and opt outs that it's almost impossible to come up with a solid number. Even coming up with a range is difficult. If the plan is to spend up to the tax line, this coming winter, it's safe to say our GM will have a boatload of money to spend. Spending wisely is another issue, altogether. I'll try to break it all down, later. I don't feel up to it, now. Cots has us $76M under the tax line, next year. I think that is counting Bregman staying.

Casas had already proven he was the worst defensive 1Bman in MLB. Nobody was even close. HIS only slot was DH- not Devers! At least try Devers at 1B. If he's better, he plays all or mostly 1B, and rests at DH, some games. If he's about the same on D (ugh!) then pair-share DH and 1B between Casas and Devers and maybe it helps keep them both healthier and engaged. If he's worse (almost impossible,) the Casas stays at 1B and Devers is the forvers DH. I'm not seeing why this had to be such a big area of contention, except that Devers felt offended by the request. Bregman was clearly the much better 3Bman, and we had Campbell, Story and Mayer available at middle infield, so a big NO on Bregman at 2B. The Bregman signing made us a much better team on O, on D and with the Lefty-righty unbalance issue. The biggest conflict should have been, and was on this chat site, where does Yoshida fit- not how can we soothe Devers' ego? How can we walk on eggshells?

While I agree, they should have involved talking to Devers about possible moves before signing Bregman. They should have mentioned 1B and DH, not one at the exclusion of the other. That being said, a GM should be permitted to believe his players will play where they are asked to play, especially if it is for an obvious improvement for the team. (The GM should also expect his manager to ask the player to do what is best for the team.) I'm not sure what was said and what was not said, asked or told. Nobody know for sure. I've wanted Devers to try 1B over the winter for several years. Who knows, maybe he'd have ended up liking it. At least we'd find that out, while getting an idea, if he could be any good at it. (Being better than Casas was a low bar to meet or pass.) We failed to do that, for whatever reason, and apparent promises made by Bloom did not help. This is a business and baseball is the job Devers chose to do. Things change all the time. I bought my Honda at a dealership that gave me free oil changes for life. 4 years later, they sold the dealership to someone who kept the same business name. The new ownership group refused to honor the previous agreement. Did it suck for me? Yes. Was I pissed? yes, Did I get over it and understand that's how business works? Yes. No doubt, Bloom, Brez and others made some serious mistakes- both commissions and omissions. They lacked foresight and candor, and it's not a one and done thing- it's been ongoing, but that does not take a player totally off the hook. A player has a duty to do what is asked of him, and in this case, I feel it was a very clear ask for the betterment of the team. Bregman fell into our laps, and I'm not going to bash Brez for jumping at the chance to get him, and thinking he could find a way to make it work. (There was the poorer option of playing Bregman at 2B as a last resort, IMO.) I never expected the reaction we got from Devers. The fact that he viewed himself as a good defender was not really surprising, but he was wrong- bigtime wrong. I realize it's not always easy for someone to be a DH, but it's not rocket science, and when he said "I can't be asked to learn every position" or something like that, it was absurd. I don't see DH as having to learn new skills. It's just learning what to do with yourself between ABs. Asking him to learn to play 1B was one new position that has been a very common move in baseball history (3B to 1B.) It's too bad it went down this way. I'm not sure which single person is most to blame. I'm not even one to put much stock in assigning blame, especially total blame to one person, and hindsight balme games have always bugged me, but certainly somebody did something wrong. here, and I see it as multiple people doing several things wrong, over time. I'm not sure we will ever come close to agreeing on who is most to blame, and maybe nobody has over 50% of the blame, since so many hands are involved. In many ways, this is worse than Betts, because with him, it seemed to be all about JH not wanting to go all in, and Betts saying he wanted to test the market. I assigned no blame to DD or Cora. This one has too many people involved with some share of blame and wrong-doing.

I'm not saying we will do it, or that we will be successful even if we actually do it. We did try, this year. We spent more than we lost, for the first time in a while. The Bregman deal was a big change from even the Story and Yoshida deals, despite the opt out aspect. Buehler's deal was worth Kluber + Richards. Gio's, the year before was a failure, but it was a step up attempt. We have failed on our biggest contracts. I've been saying that for years. We failed with paying Devers $31M x 10, too. We didn't get any better, and no we dumped him. I'm not defending our management by calling attention to the role Devers played in this debacle. I'm not letting anyone off the hook. This sucks, and I'm not "happy" criticizing Devers (nor management.)

You know it went beyond that, and that was a minor sign or symptom of a larger issue. It was one instance of not hustling, either. I liked Devers, a lot. I wasn't happy with him not agreeing to do what was best for the team, but I've also pointed out that it looks like his manager never asked him to do so. I never felt any hint of any attitude issues, before this year. I cut him some slack for a few months, and wondered about statements lost in translation and cultural differences. I wanted Devers "forevers," and I still wish we could have made that happen, even at $31M a year for a forever DH. His bat is not easily replaced, and while we can try to justify the trade by saying no forever DH is worth $31M x 10, that does no ease the gut punch of losing his bat in our line-up. I have no idea if JH will send the "money saved." We've been burned by these hopes, too many time to expect he will. Even if he does, it doesn't help 2025. It's just mid June, and we may have been starting a nice run at something special, and we punted on 3rd down at the 40 yard line, early in the 3rd quarter of a close game. It makes very little to no sense, unless you can totally decouple from the fact that we dumped our best player just as we started making a move. To try to look at any bright side takes a decoupling. No DH is worth $31M x 10. Add to that him being a poor role model, this year and having so many bigtime rookies joining the clubhouse, this season. Add to that the Yoshida is only a DH aspect to our roster. Add to that some reports that say Harrison has a ton of upside as a SP'er, going forward and Tibbs being a fine looking prospect that won't bitch about playing 1B. The biggest "add to that" is going to be what our winter spending budget will be- not just this winter, but going forward. If JH goes back to being a miser, I doubt our kids can carry us to a ring or even a WS appearance without some serious expensive additions and or an emptying of the farm beyond the big 3. I'm tired of waiting. I'm not happy this went down. I'm not blaming just Brez, Cora, JH & Co. Devers has to bear part of the blame, too. We can disagree on how much goes to who, but Devers deserves some criticism.

It's going to come down to how much we spend, this winter, and if we have another big trade or two up our sleeves. Replacing Buehler, Gio and Hendriks contract value, in kind, looks easy. Replacing Devers, Bregman & Chapman, in kind, will not be easy but at an AAV of almost $75M for these three's current contracts is not impossible. The big bummer, to me, is the apparent giving up on 2025. It's obvious this was not part of some long term plan. Why sign Bregman to one year, if we are punting and looking longer term? Our management team is flying by the seat of their pants with no clear goal in sight, except some vague "build for the future, while trying to fool the fanbase about our chances today."

So, that makes it not worthy of mention? It's not like he's offered $15M for the option year. He just may take it. If he walks, there is another big chunk of change added to the pot- "MAYBE!" We may also extend him to a different deal without opt outs. I get the negativity, today. I'm not happy either. I called this a 3rd down punt. It's a waste of one year of Crochet & Bregman, and it shortens the window on the front end while barely bumping up the back-end window.

Add 2025: sign Bregman to the highest AAV in Sox history.

Not even this? Fldg % .988 Abreu .985 Duran

Yes, they should have moved Devers to 1B, right away, or at least a pair share of 1B/DH w Casas. They made a mistake. That doesn't give Devers the right to pout and be selfish. When Casas got hurt, the best thing for the team was for Devers to play 1B. Bottom line: the player did not want to "Learn how to play every position." The player was traded. Plenty of blame to go around, including Devers, Cora and Brez...and all the way up to JH.