Hugh2

John Henry doesn't care how restless the natives are. Not when hundreds of millions of dollars are involved. If they think it's better to reset this year, they still have the resources to improve the team and that's the direction they will probably go. I could be wrong, but there's a strong chance they do here.

I think it makes him less valuable. His defense sucks which makes him less valuable on defense, and he can't hit enough to get on base. Despite his speed, he has bad base running instincts and doesn't swipe a lot of bags as someone with his speed should. his value has gone up as a pinch runner. How much value does that really add?

I think it's a deterrent but not a strong one, this isn't the NFL, the difference between pick number 30 and 40 is pretty insignificant. It's the revenue sharing that is going to cost the Sox. John Henry has to dish over 31% of his income to be pooled and dished back out. If he doesn't receive his portion of the revenue sharing then, for example, this year he lost $318,000,000 dollars. That's the big deterrent, there's no way the Sox stay over 3 years in a row. No way John Henry is leaving $318 million on the table. He's a businessman first. That's the real deterrent.

I figured that's what you meant. I can speak "I haven't had coffee yet" very fluently.

I think that's easy from we want to win now fan mindset, but from the build, an organization from the bottom up, and it looks like they still might be one more year away it makes more sense to go all in after 2023. You'd have reset, and some of that minor league value should start blooming into MLB roles. You can also still make moves to be better in 2023. I think they reset this upcoming year. I don't expect them to go over.

Not during the most part of the regular season, but you see a pure pinch runner type when rosters expand and in the playoffs now. Also, Kier Meredith is nice, but minor league stolen base numbers may be the most useless stat ever. Garin Cecchini once stole over 50 bases, he was not very fast at all.

It's closer to 12% and that number goes down every year as the tax threshold goes up. Still significant, but remember once you get under for a year you have two years to play with. So if they reset next year, they'll never have to worry about Sales money again, because the next time they'd need to reset he's going to be off contract.

They're desperate to shed payroll and have specifically targeted Soler and Garcia as contracts they need to shed. You take on one or two of those and you can pry away one of their young highly talented arms for next to nothing. That's the type of Bloom strategy I envision. I personally would like to see Soler and see if he can bounce back with limited playing time split between RF/DH and see the Sox get a platoon bat to go along with him. You might be able to pry away a relief arm from them too (especially if you take both contracts on) I'm looking at Nardi and/or Bass. So think of it as getting a set up guy and a potential young ACE for 20 million per year. And if Soler gets healthy now you have a RFer as well. That stinks of Bloom.

Well, I think it's going to drastically reduce shifting, which is going to put a premium on infield defense. You might see some modified shifts for an extreme pull hitter where the LFer moves over to where the 3B would normally move over too. Then your CF/RF plays left center and right center. Need two good speedy guys for that to work too. Which again, if viable, puts a premium on outfield defense.

But it's blatantly obvious these new rule changes will increase the value of speed and up-the-middle defense. This makes the defensive tandem of Wong/McGuire more attractive and makes prospects like Rafaela, Bleis along with the 2022 draft class more valuable (potentially) as well. Sox used to love drafting all up the middle types. Glad to see them get back to that.

I don't think this does anything for Duran. His speed isn't a factor on the bases because A.) he can't hit enough to get on base and B.) he doesn't have great instincts which negates much of that speed. If anything this gives more value to a guy like Hamilton, who...may have been in the majors now as a pinch runner off the bench if we were a serious contender.

I was having this discussion on another forum and my opinion was changed on the matter. The tax on the overage is only the overage. So the Sox can spend another 20 million up to the next threshold ($253 million) That's $20 million over the cap and since it's their second consecutive year over they will be taxed at 30% That's 6 million dollars. $6 million dollars isn't scaring off John Henry, what's scaring him off is losing out on the revenue sharing for staying 3 years over. If that was this year, he'd be losing out on $318 million dollars. Ok that's not coming this year but it's coming next year if they stay over. $6 million is peanuts, hundreds of millions are not. So, the reality is the Sox are going to reset either this year or next, and if the reset doesn't come this season then I expect the team to be constructed in such a way that makes it easy to get back under next year. This is why they may not shy away from offering qualifying offers to both Eovaldi and Wacha, with the former possibly being more contingent on how healthy his arm looks.

I think we can easily assume John Henry is going to mandate Bloom gets under the cap this year, and if he doesn’t he has to get under next year.

Given Blooms payroll flexibility he could take on payroll to bring in a high caliber arm at low cost without any top prospects involved. E.G. someone give Miami a call and offer to take Soler/Garcia. Casas, Mayer, Bleis, Bello, Yorke, and Rafaela saved.

Well that's the problem. It's the easiest thing to evaluate a trade in hindsight. Some prospects bust, that's why the old saying "a bird in hand is worth two in the bush" is very relevant when it comes to trades in involving prospects. But in hindsight the two in bush end up both becoming more valuable than the one in hand, or none of them at all. We easily could have traded Devers and Benintendi instead of Moncada and Kopech for Sale. It's just the way things work out.

I want too, but I don't think it will either. And personally, I don't want it to be contingent on a guy who plays into our plans the next few years. Rafaella and Casas to me are almost as untradable as Mayer, who I would trade for the right guy. A lot of value is still tied up in the Sox minor league system, the closer those guys get to the MLB the more value they hold. Next year might be a better year to trade for an ACE, also with such a weak FA class the market for trading for a starter might also be higher as other teams looking to acquire pitching look to the trade market. I'm not against it, but there's an argument either way and I'm not sure I see Bloom going that route. But I could be wrong here.

I think Rafaela needs to be included into our future outfield plans. His defense is amazing, JBJ level and he can do it at CF and at SS. If he an at least be an average hitter that's going to be a tremendously valuable guy. With the new rule changes, up the middle position players are going to be as valuable as ever. The time to go all in, may be next season. I hate to say it, but there's too many holes to fix, it might take a cleaner bill of health and luck to go all the way next year but I think it's reasonable to assume they should compete. I also want to see how this young pitching pans out. Having a clearer picture of what guys like Houck, Whitlock, Bellow, Crawford, Mata and others can provide and what roles they may play will make investing in closing the gaps that much easier.

Probably a lot cheaper, because he’s probably not worth it. Velocity is gone so he’s probably not worth, certainly he isn’t worth $21 million. But would you take 5 million dollar flier on him? Maybe an incentive laden deal? That, perhaps might be worth exploring.

Call it a HARD maybe

So these new rules probably only make games 15 minutes shorter or so. I think they will have a much larger impact shortening those long rivalry games that take 4 hours ++. You know, the Sox/Yanks relevant September games, with pitching changes, throws over to first endlessly, batters stepping out of the box on every pitch. Nope, just a 2.5-3 hour game. When you think about it, the actual game will not be shortened at all. Just the time inbetween the game. I’m all for this

If he can ever hit at the MLB level, maybe he develops into an average defender in LF.

I think with a guy like him, if you can get him cheap on one year and you like the medicals it's a low-risk high reward scenario.

Maybe, but if you're letting Wacha/Eovaldi go (or at least one of them) how many pitchers do you have locked down? Pivetta? if you count on Sale being healthy you still have 3 open slots. Maybe Bello locks one of those down, maybe not, maybe he gets fatigued at the end of the year. You know what they say (you can never have enough pitching). Sox have a lot of money to spend, but they also have a lot of holes, So even if they did go out and spend 40 million a year on DeGrom they still need help. If Noah is super cheap, why not take that flier? you know what they say....you can never have enough pitching.

Duran is not Ellsbury, I doubt he will ever have the glove for CF.

No, but he's also only 29, and his struggles was attributed to injury. One has to wonder if given a clean bill of health if he could become that dominate pitcher again. He could be had on a 1 year deal to re-establish his value, and if he does, someone is going to get a steal out of him.