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1. It does feel premature to call it a 21st century record with 76 years still remaining this century. In 1919, the Sox had a 20th century “record” of 5 titles. Did it last? Do we ever even think of them as holding that “record?” 2. Of the 4 WS titles this century, one (2013) was built on shorter deals given to mid-tier and above players while avoiding long term deals for superstars. It’s not “going cheap” but it’s also not the alternative anyone wants, either… 3. Not every record can still be topped. For example, the Yankees hold the record for most WS titles in the 20th century. I think that’s going to stand…

If St. Louis is trading Arenado to dump his salary, why would they take back Yoshida “to match salaries”?

I think the reason is simply because it’s harder to get six reliable starters than five. This is a slight modification of the rationale Earl Weaver used for employing 4 man rotations…

Personally I think the Sox rotation is likely set, with Crochet, Houck, Giolito, Crawford, Buehler and Bello. Not to mention Fitts, Priester, Dobbins, Fulmer, and Criswell…

Agree, but would they be so crazy as to move Mitch Keller?

Fox. Lyon. All predatory animals…

Kelly is a Cub. Elias Diaz is the top backstop still on the market…

Catcher!! What young bat do you go with behind the plate? Our top prospect at the position is 20yo Johanfran Garcia, who starts 2025 in Greenville…

Trades can have even bigger side effects. Right now, now matter how good Crochet is, Teel is gone and the Sox only have one catcher inside their top 25 prospects - 20yo Johanfran Garcia, who is slated to start 2025 in Greenville. So while the Sox fill the Grand Canyon-sizes hole at catcher, Teel could be a star in Chicago long after Crochet is gone. Of course we as fans look at prospects as treasures and prefer deals with “just money.” Pretty sure ownership prefers deals that are “just prospects” for multiple reasons. Many prospects dont pan out and it’s like getting the player for free. And you get to draft new prospects every year and can only hold on to so many minor leaguers anyway.

This is why, with rare exceptions such as Soto, I rarely want these players. And why I railed against Dombrowski for signing Price when it made more sense to extend Betts (which I found later DD was trying to do at the time)..,

But even when said free agent is still producing, he often hinders the team from signing other players. I also think winning a world series “because of” some free agent is easily confused with winning a World Series while still having some free agent. And I get why, as not all contributions are direct and plus we have our own personal failures to access parallel universes with alternate Sox rosters…

Casas and Abreu for Jones and one of their catchers…

I imagine soon. It’s been $8mill for a while now while FA prices have been climbing…

A lot of that depends on your expectations. The longer term contracts almost always go bad before they expire. How many good years make it acceptable?

The 40 man slot occupied by Sandoval may already be filled. Once he’s eligible to move to h to he 60 day IL, someone like Morán, Fulmer or Adam’s probably gets added in his place…

Now you have…

Lackey signed that contract in 2009, over 15 years ago. Not sure what the f*** 2013 has to do with this…

That is another way to look at it. But Lackey’s minimum wage year was also his best year (5.8 bWAR). On a different team in a different ballpark with a different pitching coach, and a different defense behind him. Does he have that same year in Boston? Lackey’s contract was also the biggest ever for Sox pitcher at the time, but dealt with numbers that look miniscule compared to today’s deals. And he barely justified it, largely with another team. But if you want to say it was, then giving a big deal to a free agent starting pitcher did work once for Boston (and St. Louis) nearly two decades ago…

I don’t prefer one over the other. But as Fangraphs mobile page can take forever to load, and B-R generally doesn’t, I tend to go their first. I also like bWAR because it gets broken down by team when a player switches mid-season. But if I want to see how a player (or team) ranked at an individual position, fWAR is the one that does that. Really, any sort of sorting and comparing or historical data is much easier on Fangraphs. So my choice of one WAR over the other is more based on access and application. It’s not like I have any clue which one is more accurate…

If Fangraphs wants me to use fWAR, they can make their page more mobile friendly. Also, B-R, unlike Fangraphs, splits up WAR for a player who played on multiple teams in one season, like Lackey did. And what he did for St. Louis is irrelevant. I only counted performances for Boston for any of those pitchers.

The goal posts are moving. First of all, a lot of these guys were the result of going cheap. Second, a much bigger number of them are not working out. I mean, Taijuan Walker has been worth 1 bWAR over 2 years in Philly. Carlos Rodon has been worth a total of 1.1 bWAR to NY. Did Boston really cheap out and miss these guys, just because they make less money? Do we need pitchers averaging less bWAR per season than Cooper Criswell? The Sox haven’t gone crazy buying an “ace.” But they did land Crochet and already had Houck. I am not wild about Buehler, but they did land rest of this staff is looking better. And it’s only Christmas. Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Whatever your theory, for the first 54 games of the season, Fox got nearly if not all the save chances. Whether or not they decided to go with him all year is moot. After 54 games, they acquired Byung-Hyun Kim. The bottom line is there was never a committee. A committee by definition is “a GROUP of people appointed to a specific function.” And the definition of a group, per Merriam-Webster, is “(n) Chad Fox”.

I’m not wild about Bregman, but he’s a better option than Arenado, whose last two seasons have shown OPS+ of 108 and 101. Bregman will cost a lot and decline the last few years. But getting the shorter Arenado contract is like deciding “ok let’s skip the early, productive years and jump right to the last few when he’s expensive and mediocre.” Id’d just assume hand 3b to Vaughn Grissom. Or just leave Devers and get elite production on one side only. Now if STL takes Yoshida in this deal for some reason, that’s different.

I’m not wild about him either. And it doesn’t help that he sucked last year. But as long as they have the depth…

The counter argument is how good is it going expensive? Especially on starting pitching? Price and Sale cost the Sox about $305, if you only look at Sale’s extension and remove COVID money plus money paid by LA and Atlanta. And for that $305mill, the Sox received a grand total of 12.3 bWAR. For 8 seasons of pitching, they got roughly twice what Sale gave Atlanta last year. Nate Eovaldi signed a 4 year $68mill contract, which became a 3.4 year $57mill deal. Eovaldi gave Boston 7 bWAR in 3.4 seasons, making him, by averaging just over 2 bWAR per year, the best starting pitcher free agent in team history The Sox dont have many long term free agent pitcher contracts in their history. Since Duquette extended Pedro, they’re sparse. After Price and Sale, the only other one that leaps to mind is John Lackey. Now as Lackey had a great postseason in 2013, he’s remembered as a success, and not as a pitcher who was mediocre his first year, horrible in his second, and didn’t even pitch in his third. Lackey was worth a total of 3.9 bWAR for his 4 and a half seasons in Boston, all for the (definitely not at the time) low, low price of roughly $80million (And Lackey was also the subject of an urban legend regarding threatening to retire instead of playing his contractually obligated minimum wage year; he did earn minimum wage in St. Louis in 2015.) Not so sure spending heavy on Fried/Burnes/whoever does anything more than keeping fans from calling the FO cheap…