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Dalbec is what they call a Three True Outcome guy. He'll hit home runs. He'll walk. But he ill strike out a lot. He's basically a newer version of Mark Reynolds, which is actually not a bad thing for a guy on a rookie contract...

I actually assumed the word "beat' was in present tense and it was more of a prediction. It might as well be...

Hey you were on that other website for a while. If you were there in 2007, you might remember we had one poster who went by the moniker bigfoot14b or something close to that. Anyway, he was ripping Theo (whom he derisively called "Guitar Boy") right up through the 2007 World Series...

Didn't Brock get his 3,000th hit the same day as Yaz?

Soxprospects.com also guess he will be in AA next year, but I wouldn't be too surprised if he started the year in high A ball and worked his way up. He barely touched that level last year and who knows if they will have somethings he needs to work on progressively. Of course, if he does hit in AA ball, AAA is really not much of a developmental step any more, so that puts him on the doorstep...

My guess would be similar to Pillar. His agent should be looking to Kiermaier. THe end result will probably be somewhere in between, with possible pandemic/financial loss influences...

Well, we do know under certain conditions $365 million could retain him. Whether or not being out of Boston was one of those conditions is another matter. But if we go extremely hypothetical (based on my old commentary about transactions in the 2015-2016 offseason), and we revisit the Price/Kimbrel acquisitons. Dombrowski traded for Kimbrel and signed Price. History has shown it is cheaper to sign a closer (as they rarely demand 7 year deals) and trade for a starter. Had the Sox signed a closer that offseason and traded for a starter, would they have been off? Price was a good pitcher, but was only worth 10.6 fWAR for the Red sox from 2016-2019. Similar pitchers (whose availablity I cannot guarantee) include Chris Archer, Lance Lynn, Gio Gonzalez, and Tanner Roark. If the Sox had dealt for one of them and signed an available closer that off-season and received similar production, resetting the tax limit without Price ($31mill AAV) and without my oft-questioned extension of Eovaldi ($17mill AAV) might have made it possible to reset the tax limit after 2019. Now, if that had happened, and yeah, there can be no certainty here, but do you think it might have been possible to retain Betts? Henry's generosity does seem to be rather mercurial, and it appears that he really changes his habits based on spending the Luxury Tax payments that have no ROI. I know. A more hypothetical post is hard to see here. But it seems like too many moves were made without ever considering that Betts would be the unaffordable one. And I have not even delved into the Sale extension, which is looking more and more like Sale jumped at it knowing his own health situation. Why else would the poster boy for Underpaid Contract Extensions leap at a second one?

But do you think having Price on the books affected the ability to retain Betts? It might be more than just overlapping years.

I don't like the ideaof trading Devers. Per BTV, one might expect a package like the following teams among the lowest in team fWAR at 3B in 2020. From Atlanta - OF Drew Waters, RHP Ian Anderson, RHP Kyle Wright. It is a good return assuming they all pan out. Not sure Atlanta is that keen on including Anderson. From Milwaukee - RHP Corbin Burnes, RHP Freddy Peralta, SS/2B Luis Urias. milwaukee would undoubtedly love Devers, but would they include 2 MLB pitchers? From Washington - SS/3B Carter Kieboom, RHP Jackson Rutledge, RHRP Tanner Rainey. I think they do it, but should Boston? From Arizona - C Daulton Varsho, OF Alek Thomas, OF Krisitian Robinson. The only pitcher who fits the trade is the (very likely) Untouchable Zac Gallen. Of these 4, the Atlanta package is the one I give the most thought to...

Kevin Kiermaier is owed $36.5 mill over the next 3 years. Expect that to be Boras' jumping off point in negotiations...

Oh I think we can safely say Mazza, Springs, Hall, Covey, Kickham, and Leyer are failed dives. Especially if you consider the rest of their careers...

Gregorius is 3 for 9 lifetime with 2 HRs vs Perez. So.. yeah, probably. McCutchen is 5 for 10 lifetime. Again, yeah...

That's basically Kevin Pillar money. I'd agree to that deal as being fair for both sides. Now how does Boras price his client?

Ditto Eaton. They did hold on to Abreu, which surprised many...

Munoz gave a nice early return,but it is a bit early to consider him a success story. He was coming off a season with a .653 OPS while complaining about playing time...

I thought Cherington dropped the ball in those deadline deals as they seemed to lack any direction. As he was dealing away his rotation and effectively punting, why not get players without deals but with control. Craig was a salary dump. But why did he acquire Cespedes (who was contractually barred from receivng arbitration) and Kelly? When the deals were announced, I was assuming prospects, which would have made sense in some ways. Why take the salary dump when not getting prospects, since most times teams taking on the money do so to up the return? The acquisition of the veteran players was presumably to keep the team competitive going forward, but they did nothing to replace what was dealt away. (Although Cespedes was eventually dealt for Porcello, but I seriously doubt that was the original plan.)

Casas has 7 plate appearances in high A ball and basically lost this year. Two years would be optimistic, but not impossible. Chatham is probably a utility infielder...

Ben did a very good job building a farm. His problem was failing to move any prospects for accomplished MLB talent. Dombrowski had the opposite flaw where he moved too much...

It's been done before...

The biggest difference was at least we had some minor league talent to cover the bad contracts under Cherington (who technically did not sign Craig)...

.... alongside Mauricio Dubon. Although the “regrettable trade” with Milwaukee was actually one of his fairer deals upfront. It was just killed by an injury...

I will point out it is a bit condescending to simply call it any sort of discrimination. Your list has only 20 names and spans 111 years. This alone shows how incredibly rare it is, that the number of teenagers to make MLB opening day rosters is slightly greater the number of men who walked on the moon. Myself, I think no player should ever be promoted until they have a full season of AA ball. But teams all have their own, probably more complicated criteria...

Not saying it applies to any player (and teams deny doing it), but some players are held down for service time reasons...

It’s also only one half of the complaint. One way to survive expensive, unproductive contracts is to have a farm that supplies cheap productivity (through either promotion or trade). Dombrowski inherited one. Bloom did not...

All of which begs one incredibly obvious question...