moonslav59

Same years as Nate (4). Houck started more games than Pivetta in 2020 (3-2.)

Yes, I asked the question. I do not think small signings need a boards approval. I doubt moderate ones do, either, unless they bring the budget over what was set. I'm not sure how they do it, especially on major deals. That may indeed be a big part of the problem, and why it seems to take forever for a formal offer to even be made. What seams troubling to me, if we hear rumors of player A getting $200M/6 offers, and 2 weeks later, we hear we offered $180M/5.

I was all for keeping Betts, but it would have made for some serious juggling and payroll boosts to make it work. Yes, it was JH's choice. I agree on that.

In 2023, yes, but no so much the other 3 years. 2021: 30 GS/ 1 RP gm 2022: 33 GS/ 0 RP gm 2023: 16 GS/ 22 RP gms 2024: 26 GS/ 1 RP gm (15 days on IL) Nobody else came close to starting as many games for the Sox, since 2019. 107 Pivetta, 73 Nate, 71 Houck, 69 Crawford & Bello IP: 633 Pivetta, 431 Houck, 408 Nate, 392 Crawford, 377 Bello Pivetta leads in both areas from '22-'24, too.

Does JH and Brez really need permission for every signing? I think there is merely input on what the spending budget is and then it's not all that complicated.

Well, I thought the idea was to keep the team intact. Okay, take away Kimbrel and the contract he got and replace him with someone better at $14M. Why do you assume the budget would be higher than the $20M I added? You think trading Price + half his money would be easier without including Betts? Also, what about the need to give Bogey a bigger and longer extension, and how has he been since he left BOS? Do we keep JBJ? We can "best case scenario" this to death and create a decent team, but the costs were going through the ceiling, even with Porcello coming off the books and later, Pedey. Imagine the payroll being $18)m, which is what it was, not $200, like I suggested. Of course, it was JH's "choice" to slash & Burn, and Betts was the poster boy for that, but that roster was a tough one to keep strong without massive spending. The farm help did eventually come, but not really in time to keep us strong from 2019 to today.

The lack of an ability to trade Yoshida makes this the best option. I feel like we'd be selling low on Casas, but it's hard to guess those things. We can get way more for Casas than Yoshida. If we decide to give Anthony a FT OF role, we could trade Casas and Abreu for pitching. 1. Duran LF 2. Bregman 3B 3. Story SS 4. Devers 1B 5. Yoshida-Ref DH 6. Anthony RF 7. Campbell 2B or DHam-Grissom platoon 8. Wong-Narvaez C 9. Rafaela CF (We could also play Campbell in CF, if DHam and Grissom are doing well at 2B) Keeping Casas greatly improves the line-up but turns Yoshida into a bench waste and forces us to ...gasp, gasp, gasp...spend on pitching.

I still look at our roster and think: where are we strongest and weakest? (Hint: it's not the OF or DH.) Strongest to weakest (assuming health, which is a stretch with Story at SS) : DH: Devers, Casas, Yoshida-Ref platoon and Corner IF (except on D): Devers and Casas OF: Duran, Abreu, Rafaela, Anthony (Refsnyder/Yoshida in a pinch and maybe Campbell) MI: Story/Mayer/Romy/Rafaela/DHam at SS and Campbell/ DHam-Grissom/Rafaela/Romy at 2B SP: Crochet, Houck, Bello, Giolito, Crawford, Criswell, Priester, Fitts, Dobbins Pen: Hendriks, Chapman, Slaten, Whitlock, Winckowski, Wilson, Guerrero, Penrod, Kelly, Booser, Weissert

Is anyone disputing this? Assume we get Mookie to agree to the Dodger contract with us. Assume we don't cut the budget from $236M to $180M like we did, but just reduce to $200M, instead. 31 Price 30 Betts 22 JD 20 Bogey 17 Nate 14 Kimbrel 14 Pedey 20 Vaz, ERod, Barnes This leaves about $30M for the other 30 guys on the 40.

To me, this is more concerning than if it's all just a sham. How can they be this far off on what they think an offer needs to be to land a FA? Some of the reported offers have been so low, they look Lesteresque.

Winter is not over, yet, but... Crochet>Pivetta + pen games Jansen, Martin, Anderson, Keller ??=?? Chapman, Hendriks, Fulmer, Wilson & Whitlock O'Neill ??>?? Anthony & Campbell (more OF time by Rafaela, as he should not play SS.) McGuire/DJansen ?? >> ?? Narvaez

Last I heard, the Dodgers are far away from the number TH wants. Maybe they budge- maybe not. If they don't I don't see the Mets of Yanks making a high bid, so this auction should be winnable for the Sox.

Even if JH & Co knew they were likely to be outbid on Soto, it does not make a $700M offer non serious or a ploy. It certainly could have been just a public relations sham, or that might have been a factor in making the offer, but it doesn't mean they were 100% certain PLan A was an impossibility. The other point is, even if they thought it was close to impossible, does that mean they should not make a fair offer, anyway? I will say, this is coming from a guy who thought the final offer for Lester was just for show, so I can see where some are coming from. To me, I thought Fried was Plan B, and maybe like the Mets, the Yanks were simply not going to be outbid for him. I'm not sure what Plan C is or was. If It's Burnes or Bregman, and we get shut out again, it sure will look like this has all been taking the sham to a new level. I suppose going for quantity with some quality, like signing Flaherty, Hoffman and Santander might ease my distaste for what has been going on, it would still fall short of what I hoped for.

Also, the AAV for B & B vs Soto is what matters more than total dollars.

All true, but it would have taken some serious spending to keep all our arb-ending stars, and some were aged out by 2019-2020, anyway. It would have been very costly to replace Kimbrel, Kelly, Porcello and later, JD, ERod, Nate, Sale and others, and those weren't even the arb guys. I'm not defending JH, but the farm gave us next to zero from Devers in '17 to Houck & Duran in '20-'21. It's hard for any team to make up for that by spending more and more. Sure, in hindsight, just extend Betts & Bogey and let Sale and Nate walk, but who pitches, and at what cost? The team was headed towards a massive payroll budget, if we really tried to keep all the main pieces, guessed right on which ones to keep and replaced aging or departing players in kind. While Porcello's post Cy Young Award numbers could be easily replaced, what would it have cost? While that roster still had some top talent, it also had a ton of deadwood, very little farm infusion outlook and some big paydays coming up. This was the payroll in 2019. It looked frightening! $31M x 3 years Price (The guy sucked by then) $22M JD x 3 (He still had some good seasons, but not like 2018) $20.6M x 1 Porcello $20M/1 Betts (last arb and wanting about $30M/yr) $17M x 4 Nate (was extended) $15M Sale but was extended to $30M/yr starting in 2020 $12M Bogey (last arb $8.6M JBJ w 1 arb left, headed for a big payday & decline) $5-6M: Moreland, Pearce & Nunez (anyone want them back?) $4.3M ERod (2 arbs left) $2.9M Vav (3 year extension with modest raises) $1.6M Barnes (2 arbs and decline coming up) Note: Kimbrel & Kelly were never replaced after 2018. Holding this team together was no easy task, and one could argue, bringing all these guys back would have been a failure, too.

TOR & TBR are not getting better. The Yanks added a lot (Fried, Bellinger, D Williams) , but they also lost Soto, Holmes & Cortes. I doubt we finish in last, even if all we do is re-sign Pivetta and Jansen.

If our biggest outlay, this winter is Teoscar at about $70M/3 or $80M/4, that falls far short of the tax line, it's not even funny. It would make the $700M offer to Soto look more like part of the continuing sham.

Okay. Cohen was 22.6% over the second team ($63M more than second team) , while in 2018, JH was just 10.5% higher ($21.7M more spent) than #2.

JH spent a ton of money on 2019.

It seems like we lead the league in Bronze Medals.

I agree on Pedro, and what makes him even more remarkable is that he put up those insane numbers during a "hitting era." The top ERA+ seasons after 1935: 291 Pedro 2000 271 Maddux 1994 260 Maddux 1995 258 Gibson 1968 243 Pedro 1999 229 Gooden 1985 226 Clemens 2005 222 Clemens 1997 & Greinke 2015 219 Pedro 1997 That's 2 in the top 5 and 3 in the top 10. 218 deGrom 2018 & Verlander 2022 217 Snell 2018 Pedro also had a 211 in 2003 and 202 on 2002

Yes, and is a way, so would be #2.

Okay. It just seemed to me that you were saying/thinking that Cohen set his mind on getting Soto for "whatever it took," regardless of what he was actually worth and was prepared to pay more than his actual worth, and that having more than triple JH's $6B net worth was the final factor.

Yes, but I was asking Bell, who seems to have a different view of Cohen.

LOL, so true.