Jack Flap

I think it's pretty clear that he doesn't have anything close to carte blanche, and the fact that people keep theorizing he is the one taking it upon himself to place a limit on his spending power is kind of odd. This wouldn't explain the lack of even a low to moderate cost 1-year signing, however. Adding one or more of Allen, Brach, Kelley, etc. could have bolstered the 2019 pen without burdening us in 2020 and beyond. This would have put us clearly over $246M, but I see no reason why Dave should care about that unless ownership told him to.

Hard to know what the full story is here without a full accounting of the offers both have received already...same goes for Kimbrel and the rest who are still unsigned. Presumably the top guys all have offers sitting on the table, just not the ones they were hoping for. All of the blame seems to be falling on the teams for not being willing to spend unlimited sums on these guys, but it takes two to come to an agreement.

When Sale's jersey-cutting and Hanley's dreads are making a comeback as conversation topics, you know it's been a long and boring ass winter. Ready for some baseball, please.

I don't think over-reliance on any one stat, to the exclusion of additional information and context, is ever a good idea. (Ironically, those of us who use WAR are often falsely accused of this.) I don't believe anyone is saying throw out ERA altogether, and I'm sure it will remain the first and most authoritative number most people use to judge a pitcher's effectiveness, but I don't see the problem with looking at it alongside newer metrics that seek to dig a little deeper. Anyway, if the argument is that ERA belongs above all else because it tells us how good a pitcher was at preventing runs, period, without any of that wishy-washy stuff about what could or should have happened, shouldn't its proponents be arguing to get rid of the highly subjective "earned run" aspect and use something like RA9 instead?

I liked Notin's idea of offering Kimbrel $20 million for 1 year and seeing if he bites. That would probably be the best possible outcome for this winter, though if the Sox are firm about staying under the top LT threshold (and all indications are that they are), it's a moot point.

Pretty sure if this dude can make a comeback after three positive tests, we can let Bonds and Clemens in the HOF.

It almost seems insulting to your run-of-the-mill trash heap refuse to call this "dumpster diving"...it's more like peeling off the five-year-old wad of gum that was stuck to the underside of the dumpster.

This would be my hope as well, but he's passed on some already that seemed tempting (Allen, Brach). Maybe something is cooking with Kimbrel, or maybe he's just a huge Shawn Kelley fan...we'll see.

Barring something very surprising at this point, Red Sox management seems to have chosen a very strange time to draw a line in the sand on spending, and I have a hard time believing this is something Dombrowski would decide to self-impose absent some directive from ownership to do so. Again, given the strength of the rest of the roster and the uncertainty ahead in 2020-21, it makes all the sense in the world to push all your chips to the middle now for another shot at a championship, and I can't imagine this is lost on Dombrowski or that the threat of losing ten spots in the draft is something that would seriously deter him.

"The mystery player the Red Sox talked to about an extension earlier this offseason was Xander Bogaerts, multiple sources said. The conversations never heated up or brought the sides close to a deal, but the Red Sox and Bogaerts’ agency, Scott Boras’ camp, did engage on the matter." https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/red-sox/bogaerts-talked-extension-betts-says-deals-tough-come

My preference would be to trade Leon (which would also free up $2.5 million), but the Red Sox seem to value him over Swihart at this point. They're saying all the same kind of things about Swihart that they were saying a year ago, but they didn't think he was good enough to give any appreciable playing time in 2018, and I don't know why they'd feel any differently now...

No one expected Uehara to be as brilliant as he was in 2013, but he had pitched like a stud before that and the main knock when we signed him was the question of whether he could stay healthy. Salty had his best year, but only by 1.1 bWAR up from 2012, when he hit 25 home runs with a .742 OPS. I would characterize Nava and Carp as the only real stunners who were never able to come close to their 2013 performances either before or after. A lot of fans pooh-poohed the signings of Victorino, Napoli, Drew, Gomes, etc. and then, after the season, tried to pretend they were right all along by rewriting the seasons those guys had as "career years"...when, in reality, they were solid players with established track records who performed on the higher end of what might reasonably have been expected from them. The idea that the 2013 championship only came about through dumb, blind luck, through an unforseeable confluence of career years and lucky breaks, is one that irritates me to no end. Not only is it factually false (notice how quickly we went from "everyone had career years" to maybe three guys did - our third string closer, catcher, and platoon left fielder), but it ignores how much adversity that club actually had to navigate, from the injuries to Hanrahan, Bailey, and Buchholz, to Middlebrooks completely flopping relative to expectations. It was not a team that ended up being built for long-term success (something that could fairly be said of the 2004 Red Sox also, and may soon be said about the 2018 version once its major pieces start dispersing), but that doesn't mean what happened that year isn't valid or should be discounted.

I am, too. I know Allen's 2018 was bad, but he was very consistent for the few years before that and is still younger than the Miller/Robertson/Britton/Ottavino/Soria crowd who are all getting 2-3 year deals. Seems like a gamble worth taking to me. At this point, I have to imagine either A) Dave feels confident he can work something out with Kimbrel at a reduced price, though this would go against all of his public statements on that subject; or we really are close to maxed out in payroll for next year. I've already given my thoughts on that, but until I see the finished product, I'm content to withhold judgment...

Swihart is only making $910K, Thornburg's salary isn't guaranteed until he makes the team (which presumably he will need to earn), and we still have to trade a catcher.

I get not wanting to commit to guys like Robertson and Ottavino into 2020 and 2021, but getting Cody Allen on a one-year deal sounds like great value. If we're not in on that, maybe the plan is just to roll with Barnes, Brasier, and company after all...

I think we paid an appropriate price for three years of Sale at a bargain salary...whether to extend him beyond that is a difficult dilemma, but one that needs to be approached as its own decision, independent of the trade. Letting Sale walk would be painful, but given how he's worn down in each of the last two seasons, giving him Price-type money into his late 30's seems like a scary proposition.

Oh, I definitely agree. I think we'll see him in the majors at some point in 2019, but there's no reason to rush him, and we certainly shouldn't be basing our offseason plans around any expectation of his readiness.

Not that I in any way expect Feltman to make the team out of spring training, but...not necessarily. At this point there would be no reason to add him to the 40 until they absolutely need to.

Fangraphs' rankings for the system are up (ensuring I won't be very productive this morning): https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-26-prospects-boston-red-sox/

My choice was always to sign a couple of guys from the sub-Kimbrel class (you probably could have picked two of Britton, Miller, Robertson, Kelly, Familia, Soria, and Herrera for around $50 million at one point), and maybe they still will, just with Allen+Brach or something along those lines. I don't know how low Kimbrel's price is going to drop, and re-signing him has never been my preference, but it's sounding like some team could end up getting him at a huge discount. At a certain point, it would be dumb not to jump back in. I'd be lying if I said I knew what Dombrowski is doing or what the plan is, but he's more than earned the benefit of the doubt at this point and I'm still not concerned. This time a year ago, people were freaking out because we hadn't added a big bat yet.

Dombrowski is sticking to his guns on the chances of a big relief addition... The Red Sox have already lost Joe Kelly to the Dodgers via free agency and stand to lose Craig Kimbrel in free agency as well if they don’t make a push to re-sign him in the coming weeks. However, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski downplayed the possibility of retaining Kimbrel in an interview with Bob Nightengale of USA Today. “Craig did a great job for us,” said Dombrowski. “He’s a Hall of Fame reliever, but we have not anticipated having a large expenditure for a closer.” https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2019/01/red-sox-rumors-dombrowski-large-expenditure-closer-craig-kimbrel.html

I hope so. Kind of forgot about him, tbh. Also, Houck building on his second half success from last season would be huge.

The 2018 draft class offers a lot to keep an eye on...I'm looking forward to seeing a full season of Casas, Decker, Northcut, Howlett, Durran, Cottam, Granberg, Shugart, etc. And, of course, whether Feltman can make it to Boston and contribute down the stretch.

Yeah, this is pretty much what I was going for...I'd rather have multiple high-quality guys who you can mix and match in whatever situation you need to.

It's all good, my friend. I likewise apologize if my reply was condescending.