Hugh2

An equivalent Sox package might look something like Wikelman Gonzalez/Ceddanne Rafeala. If he would have signed an extension, I would have been ok with that.

Why not? he's one of the best in baseball, and has been a top 10 guy every single year for the past 4 years including a cy young. He will also be entering free agency four years later than Cole, so you have to factor 4 years of player salary inflation. Unless he falls off a cliff next season, he's probably commanding a contract around 275-300 million dollars.

Why not? he's one of the best in baseball, and has been a top 10 guy every single year for the past 4 years including a cy young. He will also be entering free agency four years later than Cole, so you have to factor 4 years of player salary inflation. Unless he falls off a cliff next season, he's probably commanding a contract around 300 million dollars.

Pffft, if you really want to. As long as the LOSER buys the first round when it's all over.

100% although I don't think this team is too far away with the right leadership and right moves. I think they should be competing for playoffs again by 2025 if all goes well.

I often wonder how personalities in here would clash in real life. Like, would Moon and Oldred have a fight to the death match? or, and I find this thought more flattering, do they unknowingly run into each other at bar and share drinks enthusiastically talking about the Red Sox all night.

s*** man, I thought people just weren't ever banned here, because I thought for certain I was going to be a month ago when I completely lost my s***. Sorry about that.

If THeo was given full authority he's not going out and making a ton of moves. He probably views the Sox as an organization that needs 2-3 years to fix. He's not going to sign Montgomery or SNell and trade for a guy. And if he was are they demoting Breslow before they really even let him have the job? is he a fake POBO? I don't know what the plan is, but I know what I would LIKE the plan to be. This is still Breslows team to run, but Theo is the guy he reports to now and not Henry. If he needs more money, or wants to over the cap for someone some year, or wants to hand out a franchise altering contract, it's going through Epstein. Epstein is given full power a owner would have with the forsight to know when it makes baseball sense and not just dollars and cents.

In the absence of the Red Sox willing to invest in a competitive team, this would almost be a step back in the career of Theo. I don't think he would come back here if the Red Sox were turning themselves into the Pittsburgh Pirates. I'm hopeful

Pretty much. Effectively John Henry is saying, I like the Red Sox, they're a big part of FSG, but I'm obviously an idiot and way to busy with this golf s*** and other s*** to do anything. Here's Theo, he knows something about baseball, let him manage the baseball side of FSG. Maybe this is wishful thinking, but if Theo goes to Henry at some point and says "now is the time to expand payroll, we have young guys to lock up and if we bring in these players the added revenue from being a playoff competitive team pays for itself" I think Henry would listen to him" Or at least in theory, that's how it should go.

There's nothing Theo can do to add value to the W/L column in 2024, but I think he can be a vital asset moving forward and this move is overall good for the Red Sox.

But was it? he just came off a season where he finished 2nd in Cy young voting two years in a row, top 6 for 5 of the last 6 years including a Cy Young, FWars of 4.8, 4.3, 4.0, 5.6, 6.7, 4.4 Very similiar numbers to Garrit Cole before he signed his 324 million dollar contract. The market isn't set by us fans. We just have a tendency to think everything is too much. If the Sox end up signing Montgomery and SNell, odds half the board will be upset (to varying degrees) and calling it a gross overpay.

Odds are most people view it as a gross overpay. It very well may be an overpay, but to many fans (of all teams) market value is always a gross overpay. Those fans will only respond to results on the field at this, that’s the only thing that will turn around some perceptions. And I’m not arguing against that perception one bit.

Oh I’d agree their perception is already screwed up. But money being even, I think the move now gets criticized more than it would if it was made in December. Which, as angry as I am at ownership….kind of does not make any sense.

Getting a draft pick for one year on a guy is a pretty sizable consolation prize for having a pitcher leave after one year. In a vacuum I think the Giolito deal is great, it’s the lack of other moves to strengthen the rotation that worries me.

At this point, if the Red Sox were to sign Montgomery or Snell to a market value deal would the perception of ownership change? Or would the narrative be that they freaked out and overpaid a guy to appease the fan base?

This is what all teams do. Unless Anthony or Mayer have 200 at bats in AAA and are tearing the cover off the ball, calling up AAA depth is the same move any team would make. And the teams that do the opposite, and rush players often aren't exactly model franchises.

Absolutely. I just personally don't see it a blunder not resigning a guy like Schwarber, Erod, or Turner. No one ever says the Sox lost Cody Ross to Arizona or Scott Atchison to NYM, but they also went out and got Shane Victorino and Koji Uehara and won a world series the next year. Players are replaceable, with the exception of guys like Betts.....who are much much harder to replace. But finding a Schwarber or an Erod is not very hard at all. Sox just don't want to invest in those guys and the guys they have invested in to replace them have largely been lackluster. If Kluber came in here and pitched like he had something left in the tank, Whitlock stayed healthy and pitched well, Jeter Down panned out and took over SS, and Yoshida was better on defense and didn't tail off at the of the year with the bat how much better might the 2023 team looked? Sox made all the right moves, in terms of trying to fill holes, they just made the WRONG right moves. Is that cheapness? faulty player evaluation? bad coaching? or just bad luck? Probably all 4, but when you can consistently do a few of those things right you can cover up for a bad signing here and there, a bad trade, a bad draft etc etc etc. The only bright spot today compared to 4 years ago is the farm is better, and honestly, 3/4 last place finishes and no real big trades in a long time should render a better farm system than just middle of the pack. Sox have a lot of work to do.

Are those guys even in the same stratosphere though? Failing to secure Betts might be the blunder of the millenium. But was losing Schwwarber to Philly and Erod to Detroit really that bad? or does it just look bad because they didn't make any moves to really replace those guys. Most would agree LA is a more competent ownership group, they lost Turner to Boston. Turner is 39, I have no problem grabbing your poker chips and leaving the table, what I take issue with is walking out before you'd really tried to hit it big. I bet John Henry only plays at the $5 black jack table.

I'm not even sure who Gonzalez is here. I do agree with Notin though in that I think one of Rafaeala/Abreu starts the year in AAA. I think it's Ceddanne, he could use alittle bit more seasoning, and Abreu has earned a shot.

John Henry will pop out of nowhere and pretend like he's cared the whole time if the Sox actually ever manage to win another World Series under his tootiledge. Credit should be given in that situation, but I will despise him for how he's handled this team recently, and the seeming lack of any accountability and inability to communicate and empathize with the fan base that has made him much richer.

Allegedly the Yankees weren't bidding with anyone and that has been his best offer. Boras is good at what he does, but lets not pretend like he's never had a client go unsigned and have to play in Japan for a year OR settle for a one year deal and hit the market next year. Here's the problem with Montgomery and Snell, next years pitching market is better and has 4-5 guys that would probably be picked before them at this point. Waiting out a year to hit next years market does not exactly help them. There's either a mystery team out there, Baltimore enters the bidding (despite recent news I actually highly doubt this for this year) OR Boras has actually fugded things up for once. We will know more when these guys actually sign come March.

Gonzalez? or Reyes?

4.5 billion

I would have agreed with this up until recently. Casas does not look like he has platoon splits at all, in 2022 it looked concerning, but his break out was against both LHP and RHP. If anything, I want that cultivated. Imagine going up against our lineup with Casas right in the middle of it who can hit lefties and just DARING a team to burn through their lefty reliever. Kind of un-necessitates the need to be so L/R/L/R/L/R heavy.