S5Dewey

Right you are. My bad. B_R has no salary listed for 2018.

What are you people who don't want him thinking?? Clay went 7-2 with an ERA of 2 and a WHIP of 1.037 in almost 100 innings. Do you think Johnson or Velazquez are going to do that for you?? This is a guy who has ace stuff but can't stay on the field. A prime candidate for someone with a huge upside and little risk if he can be signed for the right price. Last year's $13.2M was an overpay for him but DD should be more than just kicking the tires.

Hahahaha!! Actaully that's a great bit of marketing by Spectiros. Everyone who hears it will remember it!

Even then we're subjected to a barrage of ads. The Starting Lineup is brought to you by.... The first pitch of the game is brought to you by.... The first strikeout of the game is brought to you by... It goes on endlessly. Someone - Dustcover I think - made the observation that a football game is a series of commercials strung together by a football game. Baseball is rapidly becoming the same way.

I agree, and while I recognize that EM's numbers are better than Ortiz' I think Papi gets in first because of his WS heroics and the fact that he played on the East coast where he got more media exposure. Once it gets determined that a DH can get into the Hall Martinez will be on Papi's heels.

I agree completely. That's where I was going with it. MLB is attempting to limit total team salaries to make more elite players available to the teams with lower revenue streams.

And BTW, I'm not saying it's bad for baseball. I'm just saying that's the way it is.

:confused: Of course the taxes and rule changes affect parity. Revenue sharing is what allows the teams with poorer attendance and less lucrative TV deals to remain competitive. Or at least it should although some owners have been accused of 'tanking', not acquiring talent, and instead pocketing the money. IIRC MLB is already looking into that. The "Competitive Balance Tax" is exactly that. A tax on teams with higher salaries designed to ensure that as many teams as possible are competitive. They couldn't have said it any plainer than they did when they called it a Competitive Balance Tax. It's a tax designed to balance competition. The thinking is that if MLB can put a huge disincentive on a team's intent to spend big (a CBT) then the team won't sign multiple free agents because paying those FA's plus the indexed tax will cut into the profits of the team. "Follow the money". Limiting the money that can be spent on International signings (as well as slotting draft picks) is, again, designed to prevent the richer teams from having an "unfair" financial advantage over the poorer teams by putting a cap on what they can pay International players and draft picks. Nearly everything that's being done is being done to penalize the teams with higher revenue streams and reward the teams with lower revenue streams in the interest of parity. The argument can certainly be made that it's not working (Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, etc.) but that doesn't mean that MLB is done trying. MLB wants to keep fans in every city believing that their team has a legitimate chance to win the WS so they will continue to put their fannies in the seats and buy the overpriced beer. Look for more and more and more taxes and restrictions until it becomes fiscally prohibitive for teams to develop even a minor "dynasty'. The race to mediocrity is on!

2019 will be the year that determines whether the owners are taking a harder line on FA signings. When something happens for one year it's easy to find isolated reasons for it. When it happens a second year it's becoming a pattern.

While we sit here agonizing over an impending cliff we should also recognize that the game is rigged against teams like the Sox. MLB wants more parity within the league and they're doing everything they can to achieve it through Revenue Sharing, the Competitive Balance Tax (the title of which should tell you the goal of the tax) and the restriction on International signings. While the Sox have ownership that most fans of other teams would love to have, even our ownership can't stop the tide of "parity". It's inevitable that the Sox are going to have some down years in the future because MLB is altering the rules to force it to happen. IMO the Sox are riding the crest of the wave in 2018 & 2019 and should make the best of it. Then we as fans need to be "emotionally prepared" for a downslide of a couple of years. I don't see this team falling off a cliff. Rather I see it as finishing 3rd or 4th in the division while the team reloads. That's exactly what MLB wants and they're going to keep altering the taxes and the rules until they get it. 'The good news' (as I like to put it) is that as long as we have JH & Co. at the helm we're going to be a part of the cycle of good-to-mediocre-to-good ad infinitum rather than being part of a cycle of weak-to-mediocre-to weak, which is where teams without JH's type of leadership will be. But.. that's just my opinion. What do I know?

As ugly as that is, it's also a real possibility. He may have even taken less money to do it.

It's not quite that clear-cut. I'd be surprised if Pearce's agent HASN'T contacted DD by now, if only to show interest in his coming back. He and his agent are negotiating. Pearce may not be looking for the best offer as much as he is negotiating. Assuming the Sox want him - which is something we don't know - he's probably wanting to find out the spread between what the Sox and some other team will offer him. Then he'll make his decision. Players don't always sign for the best offer.

TW won the MVP in '46 & '49. As to salaries, since that was before the days of Free Agency TW had no choice but to play for the Sox if he was going to play at all. Collusion among owners was rampant at that time and anyone challenging the "ownership clause" would be blackballed.

It is a mismatched competition and even more so when you compare the two leagues. IMO a NL pitcher should have a better chance of being an MVP than one in the AL.

Papi needs to be making better decisions as to who he hangs out with. A bit more seriously, many/most Sox fans have an intense dislike for ARod and at the same time a love for Papi. Therefore we're conflicted and don't understand how a nice guy like Papi can stand being around a douche like Arod.

IMO the scenarios I expressed (2/$15.5M vs. 2/$15M) is essentially the same offer but at the same time $500,000 is still half a million, which ain't hay. IMO your scenario of 2/$15M vs. 3/18M is about the place where it would be a tough decision. Don't kid yourself, players will pay a premium to be on what they think is a winning team especially players who are in the last years of their career. And paying that premium is a lot easier when you're already looking at $15M. IIRC it was Ted Wiliams who said he'd give up some of those MVP awards if he could have just one World Series Championship.

Me too, but aren't we getting greedy now? It wasn't that long ago when we'd have been happy with one ring. Now we're hoping for B2B! LOL As I've said here before, perspective is everything!

Well... sometimes a player is helping the defense by NOT playing. According to B-R JDM has consistently had a negative dWAR, so doesn't it help the team and his case for MVP if he's not on the field?

OMG YES! But that bar is so low it's on the ground to begin with!!

Ahhhh...yeah... sometimes my offbeat sense of humor doesn't carry well on line.

I'm not sure I buy into this. People make decisions every day that aren't in their best financial interest. Sometimes it's not all about the money. People turn down promotions because they don't want to do the next job or because they'd have to move in spite of the fact that they'd make more money at the new job. Go to Baltimore for the money? Really? Do you think that if Baltimore offered him 2/$15.5M and the Sox offered him 2/$15M he'd go to Baltimore? It's difficult to go to a team that's going no place after you've just won the WS and have a chance to stay there.

If you've been reading here for a while you know that there's very little (any?) support here for signing Harper. For one thing it's too much money and for another we've got three guys in our outfield now who are better defensively than Harper. Unfortunately the FO doesn't always listen to the posters on TalkSox so anything can happen.... but I'd bet against it.

IMO he regrets how what he said was interpreted rather than regretting saying it. I've read it more than once and here's my take on it FWIW: The game of baseball has been around for 100+ years and it's bigger than any player. If every player got their unconditional release before next season, none of them were re-signed, and the 2019 rosters were comprised of A, AA, & AAA players the game would still go on. There have always been stars and there always will be but a star becomes a star by being better than his peers. Even if the stardom bar was lowered fans would still come and watch the games to see the game played and the players play because the game is the game. James may be right or he might be wrong. We'll never know, but his position (If I've interpreted it correctly) is worthy of consideration. That's just IMO. Yours may differ and that's fine.

Ok... I'll say it... I'm not looking forward to this. Papi was a team leader in Boston and contributed to WSC's but I don't see him as being good in the booth. First of all, I speak two languages (English and Downeast Maine ) and I frequently have trouble understanding what Papi is saying. Also, while I do understand that he's enjoying himself, he can't seem to utter a sentence without laughing during it and I don't find the jocularity enhancing. [understatement] I know that he at one time was one of the faces of baseball and as such he'll be a good draw for Fox Sports but I'm not at all sure he's cut out for the booth. Ok. Trash me. Tell me what a bad fan I am. Ugh.

I saw David Ortiz listed as being 240 lbs and I'd swear that Papi's left leg weighed more than that! However, if we dismiss listed weights as meaning nothing then we have nothing to go by other than our own opinions. If we dismiss the posted heights & weights then Pedey is probably somewhere between 2'0 and 11'0 tall and Ortiz probably weighs somewhere between 100 & 900 lbs. Ok, I'm being facetious, but still... we have to have something to go by and IMO Devers shedding a few lb's should make him quicker defensively.