Hugh2

I don't think so either, given the market, teams will compete for his services, and seeing how this may be his only real chance at a big pay day he would take the years over the higher AAV. I think someone going to 176/8 - 170/7 is the team that gets Montg. I want the Sox to grow some balls if they believe in a guy. But I think at this point they're very far into "put up or shut up" territory.

I always say, trust actions not words. They did go over the LT as recently as 2022 after resetting. The Sox are spenders, what has changed is their spending habits. They'd rather go out and pay more in AAV to sign middling guys to short term deals. They spend the money, what they do not do, is go out and sign premier free agents to long term deals. They struck gold with that strategy before. 2013, and came close in 2021. The problem with it is you're 3X more likely to have a 2022 season than you are a 2021.

The only two premier pitchers to sign so far have been OHTANI and YAMAMOTO. One is coming off a surgery and wont' pitch, and we never had a chance anyways. The other maybe things would be different if we were winners, Yama wanted to go to a winner and obviously now was using other teams as leverage to go to LA. The Sox level of interest in Snell/Montgomery will be the real tellers of how serious they are to improve this team. I'm not terribly optimistic.

He did, and it didn't involve any pitching. Had a few good drafts, but no pitchers in there. Maybe Matt Duffy looks good this year with his 88-92 MPH fastball from the right side.

Who do you trade for though? many of the top pitchers on the trading market are only 1 year away from FA. Guys go to free agency now a days, it's very rare they sign an extention and some of those names have even said they are not going to sign an extension. So why trade top prospects (that you will have to replace in free agency) just to go out and get a good pitcher for one year, that you will have to pay $200 million to keep? when you can just go spend that money this year. It's like. Do you want Mayer/Teel/Montgomery??? Or do you want Burnes/FA1/FA2???? Given the teams history and budgetary constraints, I wouldn't have confidence in FA1 and FA2 being very good. You're astronomically better with option 1. You have to spend the money trading for an ACE if you want to keep him around, so why not just spend the money now. Depleting your system when you suck is like throwing in all your chips to try and be a .500 team. I don't want to be a .500 team, I want to compete for World Series Championships.

I mean, it would be better to be able to draft and develop your own. The problem with that is we don't. Breslow seems to be putting together the structure, but that takes years, and I can only imagine the carnage in the streets if the next several years looks like the last several. Even if Breslow does an amazing job at building up the future of this organzaiton, without help from ownership allowing him to spend he is either going to need time.....or he will have to get lucky and be a better dumpster diver than Bloom was.

From what we know now, I think it was the Dodgers all along. Reportedly the Mets offered more money, and he still didn't go back and give them or anyone else a chance to up their offer. Sox might of never been in on it regardless, but at this point, I think it's obvious Yama just wanted to go to LA and used other teams to get the best reported deal. I think we all kind of sensed this possibility when Ohtani signed that siginificantly AAV friendly deal.

Depending on the years, Montgomery probably gets somewhere in the $22-$27 million aav range. That's my guess. 5/$135 - $176/8. I can live with that.

Exactly, I'd love to get some good pitching in here. People will complain that we paid too much, people will complain about the contract not being worth it, etc etc etc. But I'd be much happier having that debate in here, than any of the other ones we've had the past few years.

They've been under on pretty much everyone so far. But tha's fine, so is everyone, including fans. It just feels that we always complain about them not signing free agents and then when they do we complain that they pay them too much. Of course, to be fair, when is the last time we signed a top teir free agent pitcher? Id much rather have that argument in here (that a guy is overpaid) than pretty much any other one we've had.

I won't be surprised if he gets at least 6 years.

That was my point. I hope that 150 is on point, I'd certainly take that in Boston. I don't expect anyone to be perfect in the prediction game. From a certain perspective MLBtraderumors is fairly accurate. I'd say if they're off on the 150/6 it's because someone is going an extra year to get him. So in a bidding war maybe he's getting 7/175 +/- a few

Doesn't matter. The present day value of Mookies contract was $285 million. Regardless, $460 today is $700 million in ten years. Just like Mookies $285 million was 365 spread out over 12 years. No one talks about contracts like that, they made it a thing with Ohtani, there will never be an Ohtani again. Point was, Point is, and continues to be that most of these free agents are getting more than their predictions. In either total dollars or AAV. Montgomery is getting a heck of a lot more than 105 million.

Yeah, ok, but how many other contracts do we report in present value? even a standard 8 year contract, if you wanted the present day value you would discount back to T=0. Techinically every MLB contract is not expressed in present day value. The disparity is just a little bigger for Ohtani because you're discounting back further due to the deferments. The 528 they predicted was NOT a present day value prediction either, it was a prediction of nominal value.

And moving to connecticut where the taxes are even higher.

They were over on the years with Gray, they projected 25 million AAV for him. They were way under on Ohtani 528 million to 700 million They were under on Yamamoto 225 million to 325 million They were under on Nola who supposedly took a team friendly deal 150 million to 172 million. Montgomery is projected to get $150 million. If you look at how off they've been at the top of the market, it shouldn't be surprising if Montgomery gets somewhere in the $175-$200 range. Not really sure where this 105 million number came from.

Every single year people say the prices are too high and I always say that's the market, and then the next year salaries just keep going up and up and up. Anything, ANYTHING, is worth exactly what someone is willing to pay for it. Mutliple teams offered Yamamoto over $300 million, that's the going rate for young high caliber pitchers. He's also younger, so Snell, Montgomery will probably get signinficantly less. $100 million is significantly less. I think both those guys are getting around $200 plus. Of course some will say "well lets just trade for a guy" ok....lets give up Mayer/Anthony + for a guy that we are just going to have to pay over $200 million. Corbin Burnes has publicly stated he plans on going to FA, Betts did the same thing but thats' because money talks, him and his agen have a dollar figure in mind. I wonder if anyone is willing to bet that number is less than $250 million???? This is the price of admission. Most of us aren't living on this island anymore, but no one can really be angry at the Sox for not getting any quality pitchers AND complain about the price of free agent contracts. I'm moving on to Montgomery + Giolito.

FULL THROTTLE!!!!!! with the car in park.

I mean, whose doesn't nowadays? Most pitchers, if they have long careers, are going to sustain some kind of injury at some point in there careers. Even a guy like Verlander who lasted a long time eventually got hurt. Pitching is unnatural.

A record setting contract to a pitcher over $300 million? no POBO on the planet was making that deal without the approval of ownership. Yamamoto didn't sign here because we didn't offer him the most money, Breslow can only offer what Henry approves of. If you believe he didn't want to come here because of recent track record, that's also on Henry. I think it should be painstakingly obvoius the problem here is Henry, Breslow can't make something out of nothing. no one can in one year.

I'll take the Rays track record here, he will become an ace and they will trade him in 3 years for a prospects.

https://boston.craigslist.org/gbs/acc/d/boston-sports-team-owner/7700293260.html lol

Wasn't he allegedly told that he had to put it into to laymen terms for these guys and he went right back into the board room and gave the same presentation worded differently and it went great? Supposedly the thing about Breslow is he can play both sides of the equation. He's a smarty, but he's also a ballplayer that understands all the things pros go through with or without the Yalie Jargon.

Agreed, I suppose I don't have to chance my tag line just yet with a few top teir pitchers still out there, but it ain't looking good. I will believe this team can make big moves after they actually make a couple.

The price for those guys was always going to be above $200 in my opinion. And no one else was able to sign them up until now either, so we can deduce it would have taken a substantial offer to get them to break their "wait and see" mode, that price tag was over $200 million. Always was. Honestly, they could be fine with Montgomery + Giolito. Jordan won't cost you a draft pick, and if Breslow/Bailey think they can fix Giolito he could be the pickup of the offseason. I honestly believe that we have more of a chance of signing Montgomery with Yamamoto going to LA opposed to NYY, if the Yankees signed Yamamoto they'd probably be ok with letting Cole opt out and walk. Why not? you can replace him with a 25 year old ace and take that money and try to resign Soto. (they couldn't have all three and avoid being over the threshold for a 4th year!!!!!) The Yankees won't have the same mentality with Montgomery, but LA would have made a strong run at him if the Yankees landed Yamamoto EDIT: just because they hypothetically have the best position to sign Montgomery doesn't mean they will. As a matter of fact they've put us in a position to believe they will not. I truly believe this, but I'm also starting to realize that all this means jack squat if ownership won't give Breslow the checkbook. I actually really like Breslow a lot, from his philosophy and focus on pitching and the guys he has brought in like Bailey. But the reality is, without allowing him the ability to go out and sign real pitching talent, it's going to take a few years for his system to get pitchers developed and into the majors. He doesn't have that with this fan base, they are going to do to Breslow what the Patriots did to Mac Jones. That's me being cynical perhaps, and assuming Breslow can't sign guys because of ownership is pure conjecture on my part. But I think I have very good reason to make that latter assumption. We are a big market team, and our biggest free agent signing the past ten years have been David Price and Trevor Story. And one of those guys signing is almost a decade apart from today.