Hugh2

I don't work for the Boston Red Sox, nor have I ever worked for a front office. I don't specifically know what their duties are.

At the end, but what did he do the first 2/3 of the season in Chicago (which was the majority of the season)????? In 121 innings he had a 3.79 era 118 ERA+ 7.9 H/9 9.7 K/9 Then he literally completely fell apart. I have no ideal why, but I find it interesting his fall from grace matches up perfectly with his wife filing for divorce and leaving him. That makes me think it's a head problem and NOT "stuff problem" Kluber was done, washed up. Giolito is 7-8 years younger. Look, I don't know if he's the next Kluber or not. Who does? but I think theres a lot more reasons to believe Lucas can bounce back in 2024 than there was for Kluber last year.

you have zero clue what duties come with that title, and I don't mean that as an insult, I don't either and probably nobody does in here. It's literally just a title with more pay so he doesn't leave. It seems highly plausible that he's going to be serving the team in a similiar fashion he is now. I don't think having 4 assistant GM's means 4 guys are splitting the work of one position. We don't know how those positions are defined.

It's not like teams like LA/NY don't make moves like this. I'm not hating this move in a vacuum because they refuse to sign/trade for reliable talent. I can be angry at both and like the upside of this move. The sum of all the parts might suck, but that doesn't make this an automatic bad contract either.

The Red Sox didn't invent multiple assistant G.M.s The Soxprospects podcast talked about this about 4 months ago right after the bloom firing, about how teams all over baseball are creating new positions, new titles, and having multiple assistant G.M.'s in an attempt to prevent top talent from being plucked from other organizations.

This is actually not as uncommon as one may think. A lot of organizations of multiple assistant GM's or haven't invented other titles in an attempt to retain talent. Tobon seems like one of the good guys, and they may want to hold onto him as long as they can and prevent him from being pluked by another organization.

I can't deny that the actions of this offseason do not look like that of a club that is all in, and to be honest I don't blame them, yet I myself am frustrated. However, I doubt they would sign a guy like Giolito if they didn't think they can get him right. Doesn't mean they will be successful, but oftem teams are. There's a new guy in town, new pitching coach, and other personel, who look at and evaluate these pitchers. They have something prove, but at the very least it's obvious they think Giolitos issues from the last 1/3 of last season are fixable. If they're right, he leaves, but at least they get a draft pick, OR they could even trade him at the deadline. We can sit here and August and talk about how Breslow is Bloom 2.0 and Giolito is Kluber 2.0. Or we may be talking about how great of a move it was.

This stats argument is just ridiculous. Advance stats are just stats, all a stat does is measure something. You're feelings are valid, ERA, W-L, all those stats tell us something, just like FIP, wRC+, and Z-contact% etc etc. All stats matters guys! honestly, it doesn't make sense to discount something just because you don't understand it, which seems to happen at times. There's no GM/POBO/Front office on earth that looks at a guy and uses a singular stat to judge them. Being able to measure different things tells you more,it's more information, and more information allows you to make better judgements and predictions. One of my favorite examples of this was Jarren Duran. And old schooler might of looked at his .195 batting average in AAA and thought "this guy SUCKS" but he was squaring up, and hitting the ball hard. The totality of the picture said this guy was getting unlucky with the number of hits he was getting but was hitting the ball well. He came up to the majors and IMMEDIATELY was getting better results. ERA is nice, but how much can ERA differentiate between having the best defense and the worse defense in baseball behind a pitcher? Do you want to chalk that s*** up to Voodoo, magic and just believe it's all somehow the same? we've been complaining about defense in here. DEFENSE FOLKS!!!! defense matters, if you truly believe defense matters then how can look at ERA without considering how defense might influence that stat? why WOULDN'T you want to know how good a pitcher really is when comparing pitcher A to pitcher B. It's not that more conventional stats don't matter, or don't tell you something, or aren't important. It's just an incomplete picture. Why would you want incomplete information. If you were wronglyfully accused of murder, would you want your defense lawyer to use a narrow set of facts in the defense and when provided with cameras from different angles and other witness, facts that might help you are going to want those things employed or not? It's that line of thinking that got Bartolo Colon a CY-Young award over Johan Santana in 2005, who was CLEARLY a much better pitcher.

Yeah, I never really bought into that either. The only time I think it could really screw with a guy is if they make an insanely aggressive move. Like promoting a guy from A ball to AA, and then straight to the majors after a month. Effectively going from A ball to the majors. Even then, I think the good ones will eventually set them selves right, but that can certainly mess with a kids development.

I know the Sox aren't going to do this, and it's probably the right thing to do to give him more time in AAA, but man....Rafaela really fits this roster perfect right now. He sets the defense in the outfield. He will give you GG defense in CF, pushing Yoshida to DH and plugging better speed on the corners with Duran/O'Neill. He can also back up at 2b/SS making the infield defense better. That level of versatilty also allows you to keep more of a one dimensional player such as Valdez on the roster who I think will really mash righties. You also don't have to spend any money on a OF/DH type and can go out and get a pitcher now and still stay under the cap....because apparently they have a budget now.

Imagine trading Mayer and Story going down, if anything Grissom makes Yorke expandable, or a SS further away.

The same way Yoshidas metrics suffer in LF at Fenway. Not that he's a great defender anywhere else, but Fenway does punish him. I wonder how he looks year two.

Of course, we won't see that alignment, unless Abreu establishes himself as a big leaguer, O'Neill stays healthy, and Rafaella gets the call up and sticks as a starter. But defensively that would be a very good outfield.

I wouldn't say Abreu is miles ahead of Verdugo because I haven't seen him. But O'Neill and Rafaela pass both the EYE test and the defensive metrics test. O'Neill and Rafaela are good defenders, Rafaela might win a gold glove if he gets the chance to start. MVP gives Judge too much credit, he's not a butcher but I'd call him a below average defender. Or maybe I give him too little because he was good at one point, but his defense has declined. Look I get it, the Yankees outfield is better, NO ONE is disputing that. You have to score at least 1 run to win a game, but on the defensive side of the ball our outfield, or at least THAT outfield would be better. It's entirely possibly to have a s*** team and have something better than someoen else.

Defesively? that outfield would miles better than the Yankees outfield. Offensively? not many in baseball will match Soto/Judge.

It's the same people complaining about the Sox being connected to everyone and not signing anyone that trust the "trust me bro" sources on Reddit.

There are a very few circumstances when a guy chooses less money, it happens, but not very often. What is more likely to happen is a guy choses to stay with a team or go home for even money. Or for the same reasons they may take less money but a higher AAV. Or sometimes they take less years but a very high AAV. There are other motivations at play there such as wanting to re-establish value. But this narrative that nobody wants to come here to play is just....false.

Look, Red you make a lot of good points around here and don't get enough credit for it. This is not one of them. Don't try to rewrite history. Everyone knows the vast majority of free agents follow the money. Does it not happen that way sometimes? of course, but lets call a duck a duck here. Unless of course John Henry isn't a cheapskate after all. He offers the most money and everyone just turns him down.

The significanly high amount of free agents go to where they're paid the most. No matter how much their fans think the teams sucks.

I haven't heard anything on Snell, but I easily could have missed something. I just question how much they're really interested in all these guys. Odds are they saw the decline in Teoscars bat, and didn't want to go 4 years like he wanted and probably didn't want to go more than 12-14 a year. Teoscar took the one year deal I think because it had a much higher AAV than what he was being offered and figured he could make more money in the long run. Pure conjecture on my part here. Remember, Teoscar is horrible on defense as well. Strike out, doesn't walk a lot. Soler is just a Teoscar with slightly worse defense a little less average but more walks. If we WERE talking about a DH position, I actually think you could make the argument for Soler. Personally, I don't really want either.

They could, and I don't hate that, but trying to read in between the tea-leaves here it really doesn't look like they're starting the season with both Abreu and Rafaela on the roster, Rafaela likely in AAA. Solers best fit is as a DH.

I mean....I PERSONALLY don't want to see either one of them in the outfield.

THere's also how us fans take these reports. Often agents leak interest to build up price but often time there is no real interest. Teams check in on players all the time and then fans go rabbid rabbid because they "lost out again" I'm sorry, but I just get a laugh when someone thinks we lost out on SETH LUGO. The reports are we are heavily into talks with Soler, to me that's different. I still don't think it means we sign him, but I think the probability that we do is much higher. Lets just remember this if they actually do sign him. THere's a difference between checking in and genuine interest....the Boston sports media will never differentiate between the two.

Not if you view Soler as a DH mostly type of guy. However, I thought the Sox didn't want to approach the DH position like that anymore and that also means Masa is a full time LFer. Which isn't highly improbable. They also could be looking to Trade Masa as you said. Who the eff knows. They haven't even signed him.

To me, that's 100% a strength and conditioning issue, not that I'm downplaying it, but I'd feel a lot better about him if he's DHing more and not playing the field.