This discussion has given me a headache. Here is the bottom line: Baseball is a team sport . If you want to win , you need good players . If you want to sign and retain good players , you have to pay. Of you can hope to get lucky. There are no money back guarantees. And no stat or small , cherry picked sample size changes that. As for Eovaldi , he has been our best , most reliable pitcher . If the Sox don't pay him , someone else will. Then we can follow his career and hope that the results justify our position.