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We have no chance of re-signing him since Henry had mandated resetting the tax and there was no practical way to get under it without moving Betts. Unless you wanted to move Bogaerts instead, but that would have been unwise given that he clearly wanted to be in Boston. The only chance the Sox had to bring Mookie back was to trade him away, reset, and then hope he reached free agency...

No. Watching any player celebrate over beating the Yankees is sweet, regardless of the uniform...

Now what BTV cannot do is tell you whether or not a GM wants to deal or acquire any specific player. Just because a deal is equal doesn't mean either GM wants to give up or acquire those specific pieces. But I think it does at least quash some of the absolutely lopsided trade proposals that every baseball internet site has been littered with since the dawn of the Cyber Age...

They did. They actually do analysis of every trade in MLB. In the Mookie trade, the Sox received more value at the time, as Alex Verdugo alone was roughly equal to Mookie due to years of control remaining (along with, you know, Verdugo being pretty good). But what that site also made obvious was that, despite columns from the MLB.con and Boston Sprotswriter crew, the Sox were absolutely not going to get Dustin May or Gavin Lux. never mind both. Which I believe one of them suggested would be fair. From what I saw at the deadline this year, every trade I saw the analysis for was actually very close using their simulator...

Actually they have done a pretty good job fine tuning it in the 1 year plus it's been around, and a lot of actual trades that real life GMs have obviously deemed fair have been valued as being roughly equal using their system...

If Cora is waiting for anything, it's probably to see who gives him the most lucrative offer...

Jimy's bullpen management skills were simplistically brilliant. Basically, you got either Hipolito Pichardo and Rich Garces (and rarely just one of them) or you got Rheal Cormier and Tim Wakefield. The idea of having the middle relievers work in pairs to guarantee adequate rest was so simple, but it worked so well. And yet we really have not seen it since...

So no second chance at Morgan Magic? Also, cut Grady Little some slack. Yes, he left Pedro in too long in one game on a team that had a bullpen that couldn't struggled to get outs for 6 months. But Little had a .580 winning percentage in his two season with the Sox. That doesn't count for anything? That's the second highest percentage of all Sox managers since the Korean War, behind only Cora. And Little comes without Cheating Scandal Baggage...

Jimy Williams over Zombie Dick Williams?

Or animating Peter Cushing's face over that of some unknown actor to make a Star Wars prequel...

Absolutely. It does come down to what you think is the greater risk - 12 years and $400 mill for a 25/26 yo outfielder on a HOF track, of 7 years $217 mill for an excellent starting pitcher heading into his declining years (with degree of decline unknown).

Yes and while he was not as effective as in yeas past, he was hardly ineffective. WHIP is a good measure for number of people getting on base, which is the would-be deathnail of a closer. And while Uehar was clearly allowing more hitters to reach base, likely due to a combination of the stats you pointed out, he was still just as effective as many of the league-leading closers in MLB. Sure, he was no longer Chapman/Jansen. And while it would have been better if he still was, the premise that he could not close any more - which was your question - seems like the answer is "Yes, he could"...

So for the record, you are opposed to having the Sox managed by Zombie Dick Williams?

Well, then if the only/best option was he could have extended Mookie, that's exactly why I hated a lot of moves DD made - they made any extension of Mookie much less likely...

You think he would not have been able to? He still had a WHIP extremely comparable to many other save leaders that year, including Greg Holland, Cory Knebel and the MLB saves leader Alex Colome. And Fernando Rodney! Think Rodney was more capable of closing than Uehara?

THAT was my biggest hope. My fear was he would give it to someone like Pedroia or Papi who was clearly not going to last that long...

If they did that, they likely could have gotten multiple arms for what Kimbrel was making. The only real positive here is with extra money at his disposal, DD might have gone of and given some extension to a player akin to what he gave Cabrera...

And his condition is not contagious...

And also about the lack of replacements in the closer end of the prospect pipeline...

True. But a lot of that was the littany of weak pitchers not named Uehara...

Uehara could have closed in 2017. He declined a bit and was not as effective as Kiimbrel, but he was certainly still good. Kimbrel was great in 2017 and the first half of 2018, but then he just fell off a cliff and was not even closing when the won the WS. His postseason that year was questionable at best...

The contract was fine. The prosepct payment for a reliever not among the highest paid probably would have been fine too. but going overboard on both counts, especially for a specialty pitcher to fill the one bullpen role that wasactually working, felt unwise. That's why I liked the Thornburg trade at the time. The Sox did give up a lot, but for a pitcher that was not going to bog down payroll. But then Thornburg's later injury made it a moot point, which I don't fault Dombrowski for...

LOL And for the record, different Dick Williams. The former manager passed way 9 years ago. This one is his son...

And that is true. I even mentioned it earlier today. But that diesn't mean you go all in for a closer. Bullpens run 7 to 8 pitchers deep these days, and addressing a bullpen solely by trying to improve a ninth inning specialist is not necessarily the best way to go, even with the trickle down effect (of moving Koji to earlier innings). And as the objections to acquiring Kimbrel were largely the impact it had on the farm system and the overall cost and impact on team payroll, this was overkill, to be kind. A bit like fishing with dynamite, except in this case it substituting the TNT with C-4. Could the Sox have acquired other bullpen arms who were not among the highest paid in the game and without giving up farm talent (needed to maintain an economic balance on the team) that off-season? DD did try that route as well, and while he failed miserably, the reasons why were not on him. (I liked the deals that brought Thornburg and Smith to the Sox, despite neither working out.) But instead of Kimbrel, there were other relievers the Sox could have grabbed for a lot less while leaving Koji in the closer role. My observations on pitcher acquisition is teams are better off trading for starters and signing closers. Even the best closers who get the bigger contract at least only get them for shorter terms....

Ummmm.... no