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... which is also the name of my third favorite breakfast cereal...

What other option did the team have but to white flag the present and invest in the future? Take one last shot at a pennant with Betts in RF and Ryan Weber as the #3 starter? That feels counterintuitive...

Oh it’s not a softball lob. The idea of watching great players lose was the business model of the Cubs for decades..

B-R is better for a lot of things, but when it comes to comparing advanced stats, it fails in comparison to Fangraphs. Badly...

Why not? His history in Tampa is not really applicable...

If this was Exploding Kittens, know what card I’d be playing? The “Nope”...

I hope the Sox bring him back just so they can cut him again...

In fact, he lost money. Since he paid all those minor leaguers...

Nope...

Oh I wouldn't go so far as to say winning a Cy Young Awards makes a pitcher a great player. It means he had a good season. But let's get real. Eric Gagne has one. As does Mark Davis, Pat Hentgen, Rick Porcello, Dallas Keuchel, RA Dickey, Brandon Webb. Are these really great players?

But would you rather watch them lose with great players or win without great players?

And you expect that pace to hold up for 162 games?

And as much as we would all like Devers to settle for a Seager contract, I would think the age difference alone is going to put him in a different tax bracket...

A nice three-game losing streak might reduce those odds...

Agreed. And his $25-27mill AAV won't impede his ability to put food on the table...

The bulk of which came prior to 2016...

In fact, this off season is one where I am glad not to be GM. (Like that was a tough bullet for me to dodge.) The free agent the Sox need the most to really get back into contention quickly is Trevor Bauer. There might be a Perfect Storm brewing to make this possible with 1) per MLB Network talking heads on High Heat, there will be fewer teams actually spending money, a list that does not include the Red Sox, 2) the Sox are in desperate need of SP 3) the Sox have been very public about achieving their tax reset, which should be the green light to spend again, and 4) Bauer's personal hate-hate relationship with the Yankees' Gerrit Cole (which, at best, is a tie breaker in his decision-making process, if it enters at all.) But the problem is, Bauer is very likely looking for a deal in the neighborhood or what David Price had, if not more. His goal might even to be a bigger contract than Cole, just because. This is a major step to putting the Sox right back in this type of mess we have today, especially since, so far, Bauer has simply not been as good of a pitcher as even Price was at the same ages. Bauer is still certainly a very, very good pitcher. But even Price had a much, much better track record (31.1 fWAR, 1 Cy Young award) entering free agency than Bauer (19.3 fWAR and counting)...

If you were on that other website, I had numerous rants about the Sandoval contract. Now, granted, they guy I wanted them to get as a stopgap 3B (the late Luis Valbuena) did not turn into that much better of a player. But at least he stunk at a discount rate...

He might be looking, but he is not likely to be getting one from anyone. (Now, Ronald Acuna, he will be getting one of those.) Age aside, Devers simply is not as good as Betts. B-R lists his most similar batter by age as Ryan Zimmerman, but obviously he won't be looking for a Zimmerman deal (~8 years $114mill), as it was so long ago it's not fiscally relevant. But an 8 year $200-220mill contract does seem right if he signs it by age 27. He'll very likely go for more than Bogaerts...

Depends on what they get back. As Bloom has a tendency to take a bad contract in order to up the return, there could be a fit with Kevin Kiermaier (2 yrs $25.8mill) in order to get Trevor Richards and Shane Baz, or, more likely one of, Shane McClanahan or Joe Ryan or Brent Honeywell. This deal works for Boston as the get one MLB pitcher (Ricjards) who is clearly being underutilized in Tampa, one minor league pitcher (your choice - each has pros and cons) and a short term replacement for Bradley. Tampa also deals from two positions of depth in pitching and CF, where they still have Manny Margot and Randy Arozarena, and saves a bundle of money. It's a win-win. All of these deal result in a minor overpay on BTV. If it's Baz, Tampa is overpaying. Boston is slightly overpaying with any of the other....

I would guess Vazquez is not with the Sox next season. They're going to have to make a few trades to prevent repeating exactly what Dombrowski did, and they do not have much in the way of trade bait. But Vazquez was apparently a somewhat sought-after player last month, so there should still be sufficient interest. I suppose Downs is another potential trade piece, since he was clearly not Plan A in the Betts trade. Possible he as only acquired to be a potential deal piece to get an arm when the Sox (mistakenly?) decided against Graterol?

Verdugo?

But then Lewis did not do it in his first 9 hits...

He's very readable. Ask any hitter...

No. It's worse than I projected in that way. (If I did predict, I would have thought Sale never signs an extension here and tests the market.) But the Sox not being able to afford Mookie and having no pitching coming up through the minors (or very little talent all around) was really why so many people were talking about the inevitable "cliff" that you lampooned them for in your own avatar until recently. When, you know, we fell off it...