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Ask Hugh. His prediction. He sets the guidelines…

After he turned down a 10 year $300mill offer and had only one year of control left. Think they should have held him for 2020 and battled it out for 4th in the AL East (without Sale) and then let him go for a draft pick? (Also all those awards were more than 1 year in the rear view mirror by then.)

So… by 9:04 PM CST on December 9th…

Only if you assume those stories come out of the Boston FO, whom I believe has some restrictions on what they can say about offers per the CBA. (Someone mentioned something about that on this forum.) Agents can say anything to anyone…

Just find an Eflin-type from Massachusetts. Paging Corey Kluber…

Sure let’s do this dance again. Notin: The Red Sox should absolutely be interested in Flexen. His surplus value on BTV is $0.3million, and presumably he will be costlier than that. But the Sox should and will pay for the price. Also the Sox should be all over Winker at his $1.8mill surplus value. Harmony: Actually the Red Sox don’t have anything the Mariners want. Annnnd scene!

The Sox also have a history of winning titles in those non-tank years, right?

That does depend on other moves, doesn’t it?

That’s a solid answer. The absolutely reasons to want long time players around forever. Fans of the Tigers had very little to root for this year, but you know they were there to see Miggy get hit number 3,000. It’s a tough call for me. I want a winner and enjoy watching the team do well, but I’ve watched some bad teams with players I always loved like Rice and Boggs. I wanted the Sox to keep Mookie, and was calling for his extension since David Price signed. I hate watching the Sox spend on all these players from other teams and obligate themselves to them for 6, 7, or 8 years (except Manny, who just knew how to win fans over). But on the other hand, anyone who grew up watching players like Jackie Jensen or Frank Malzone saw good players every year for a slew of awful teams. Building a winner is certainly harder than just keeping players. I think at some point, I’d like to have a winner as opposed to the same stars every year. But get a deal done with Devers, s that could be a path to both…

The Nats chose to tank. Do you think the Sox will let Bogaerts walk and go into tank mode? There is an advantage to letting stats walk as well s a disadvantage…

Haniger is a better outfielder when healthy, plus we don’t know the cost…

Joey Gallo has played 280 games in the past two years!!

Your way was a non-answer…

You could say the same thing about Harper, but Washington won the year after he left…

Why? You think he’d actually answer?

No specifics. It’s a question of priorities for you as a fan. Do you prefer a winning team or a team of favorite players? It’s great when you have both. And keeping known names is certainly easier than rolling the dice to build a winner. But what would fans prefer? If you like the Betts example, would he have made 2020 justifiably better? Or 2022?

That wasn’t the question. It was a simple hypothetical question…

But if fans had to choose between keeping their favorite players and winning, what do you think the choice would be? Because sometimes it does come down to that…

Health is the big issue with Haniger. He can do everything on a baseball field except stay there…

Reynolds isn’t a right-handed hitter. He’s a switch hitter with very different looks from each side of the plate, but results still come out remarkably equal. He’s a rarity (like Victor Martinez) in being a switch hitter who really should be a switch hitter…

So you think Henry takes no advice from his underlings on these matters? If that’s the case, Bloom, Cherington and Dombrowski are all irrelevant…

Hey that was the rumored policy at the time. Obviously if it was an actual policy, it didn’t last. But the bottom line is everything was different with Lester and all the names below Henry have changed since then…

Hey you said Bogaerts was too insulted to counteroffer. Me? I doubt he was involved at all. Players don’t hire agents so everyone can talk money, and I’d be very surprised if any players sat in on negotiations. I’d actually suspect Boras prefer players not do so since he might figure all they can do is screw up his negotiation strategy. The Lester case is irrelevant. Everyone in the Sox organization between owner and organist is different now. And certainly the “No 30 year old free agent pitcher” policy they had back then is long gone, as Price was 31 when they signed him for seven years…

But you’re biased. It s does make no sense for the Sox to refute the offer, as they would still have to continue negotiating. Publicly calling Scott Boras a liar does really throw a snag into that. It’s also very obvious which side leaked the story, and that type of thing is only done for political gain. It’s not done to keep people accurately informed. And as Boras is a very experienced agent, I’m sure he has methods of dealing with lowball offers that is more involved than simply walking away. Of course, he does have a very well-known strategy (per an SI article many years ago) of simply saying “no!” to any and all offers and forcing suitors to bid against themselves. No idea if he still does this. But keeping Boston engaged to drive up the league wide price certainly only benefits him and his client. So that feels unlikely. I’ve kept an open mind that they’re are more possibilities. You, as usual, assume you know everything. I do acknowledge the possibility that the Sox simply don’t think Bogaerts will last at shortstop very well. Heck, I agree there. But unlike me, they would actually be aware of whether or not Bogaerts is willing to change positions. Maybe he just isn’t. Maybe not today anyway. Or maybe they just like Correa better…

They added 1 year and $90mill to their last offer…