Hugh2

Do you think we will go above the luxury tax threshold?

I'm too lazy to look it up now but didn't he only pitch something like 39 innings in the second half last year? And now he's going to be 37. Looked it up, it was 36.1 innings.

Also I believe his contract dissallows him to be optioned. He'd have to agree to go.....and why would he?

Bad optics? might have a hard time signing future Japanease players? I mean.....why haven't they done that yet?

depending on how the offseason goes I could really like a Zac Gallen signing, but if that's the only rotation move and he's your #2 guy I would be dissapointed.

BTV has Cespeded + $27 million cash (half his contract) has a surplus value of 11 million. Of course, something would have to come back in return as well.

You're more than welcome to put your money where you mouth is and vote on my LT poll page. Or not....don't bet actually money. I think we sign a big name and trade for a big name and then a bunch of ancilliary moves.

They made the playoffs last year and are largely returning the same team. Minus Bregman, you probably get what Giolito gave you with some combination of Tolle/Crawford/Early/Harrison/Sandoval/Dobbins etc. You have the budget to add at least Bregman or replace him E.G. Alonso or Bichette or other. SO unless you think you will have zero progression from the youth movement, this team on paper should be even better next year. If they add to that, in an open A.L. east.....they should be very competitive next eyar.

I'm wondering if one of our prospects who have fallen from grace but still offer upside might entice them. Either entirely or part of package of prospects. E.G. Miguel Bleis or Yoelinis Cespedes. It's still going to have to sting a little bit. But I don't think losing one of those guys is going to hurt the system at this point and the roster flexibility it creates is probably worth more. For example, and I'm not saying they go this route but they COULD hypothetically sign a Pete Alonso and still have a roster spot for Tristan Casas if he actually came back stayed healthy and hit. Maybe that example isn't the way they go, but it illustrates the possibilities with the roster with Yoshida off of it.

I've often wondered if the Sox could split the difference on this. Trade Masataka to a team, eat half his salary and give them a couple good but not elite prospects. Like a couple guys in the 15-25 range.

We might not have the budget of the Dodgers, but the Sox have shown time and time again that they will significantly increase their budget when they believe they are inside their window. Same ownership group has been a top 2 spender in baseball many times in their tenure and during the last world series run had the highest payroll in baseball in 2018. This is exactly why I've been adamant about them going over the luxury threshold next year and firmly believe they will do so.

I love Schwarber, and would love to see him again in a Boston uniform. But I just don't think he's a great fit for this team. He's a DH only type, we have so many of those right now. We need a guy who can swing the bat and play 3B, 2B, 1B, and maybe even LF/RF (if we trade away Duran)

Chris Sale has obviously found himself again in Atlanta, perhaps he was always that guy and just needed to get healthy. Perhaps 4 years of injury after injury was just a fluke. But he's still going to be a 37 year old pitcher next year. He's still going to be at that age where any year guys completely fall off of cliffs. We need ceiling, but we also need consistency and dependability at the top of the rotation as well.

The ony way I would want some of those guys signed would be if they traded away one of their current pitchers for an upgrade in the rotation E.G. Bello being traded in a package for Hunter Greene, in which case I'm signing a guy to replace Brayan. Otherwise, any signing OR trade should be for a legit #2. And FWIW on a championship caliber team I consider a legit #2 a pitcher who is good enough to be a #1 on most teams. Do the Sox think that? well they don't have the best reputation recently although they've built back some equity with Crochet last year but If you take Breslow at his words then they will do just that. Breslow has stated the team has plenty of #4 and #5 starters and that they are specifically looking for a guy who is a top of the rotation starter. Now I suppose that's subjective, we could be sitting here in March listening to the Sox brass talk to us about how Justin Verlander is the greatest pitcher of all time and now he's on our team.

This is a good point, but I'm not exclusively talking about a negotiating window. And look, perhaps Skubal is just a pipe dream and probably is but its' the principal of it. The Sox have their own internal evaluation system and maybe there's another pitcher out there who is young and they think is going to be an elite pitcher going forward who they can sign for Crochet money. IDK who that is. But if you believe in a guy and you want to pay X dollars and they want to make Y and the gap is small......you can take the risk of aquiring them knowing that you should be able to work out a deal with them. Maybe the Red Sox think SKubal is the best pitcher on the planet and 400M is worth it, maybe 400M is the price Skubal is asking for as a starting point and would actually settle at 350. But I believe these teams know what players want, and should have a pretty damn good ideal what their odds are of signing them to an extension when trading them. I don't believe ANY player is unsignable for the right price. Obviously, some teams do this poorly and fail to sign a player. A prime example of this is the New York Yankees trading for one year of Juan Soto. There is risk, you have to be willing to assume risk but you can take calculated risks. I wonder if the Yankees knew SOtos numbers and just didn't care or if that number changed when he got to NY. I don't know. What I do know is the Sox need starting pitching.

I asked the same question, as far as I am concerned I can't recall deals being made like that. What I"m saying is these teams KNOW what a players demands are. THey have relationships with other teams and agents. They have a pretty darn good ideal what they're looking for. They should be able to tell how good a chance of extending him before they pull the trigger.

A.) Fans don't set the market B.) His demand isn't necessarily the settling point. Maybe he signs for 350

Is there any precedent for this in baseball?

It's funny you keep using NYM as an example of paying guy and exclude the LAD paying money to sign guys. The LAD just won back to back world series. Pay premium players!

No it is an answer, I definitively believe exactly what I said. Just because you don't have an extension in place when you trade a guy doesn't mean you haven't had conversations about what each side wants, or even have a framework. That's an entirely realistic situation that happens and this may be conjecture on my part but that's probably exactly what happened with Crochet. These guys all have agents, teams have relationships with these agents. They're talking.

I addressed this yesterday. There's a difference between trading and immediately extending a guy and trading for him with an ideal of what his number is and hashing out the deal once he's in your organization. E.G. Crochet.

have you noticed how s***** free agency has been in recent years? yeah we get a Ohtani and Soto, but besides a guy or two at the top the amount of impact players in free agency has dwindled down to bare bones. GUys sign extensions, and when they say they're not signing an extension but rather going to FA it's because they actually will sign an extension but they just want more money. Going to FA is their leverage. There is a vERY VERY VERY real chance someone else comes in, trades for him AND signs him. Of course, he might actually just go to FA. But I have ZERO problem giving up assets for him if we had a legit shot at extending him. That's up to JH

It will be interesting to see when the first 1 billion dollar player will be. A lot of it depends on WHEN the right guy gets to free agency. Teams are just going to spend much more on a elite 26 year old than they would an elite 30 year old. If everything is 100% equal the younger guy gets paid so much more. Using the last decade of mlb player salary inflation, IF a Juan Soto type were to reach free agency, we would get the first one billion dollar player not next offseason, but the one afterwards. So, heading into the 2028 year. That's pretty crazy to think about. 400 mil don't seem too crazy now.

Honestly I don't know but I thnk Story could be a lot better there than people are talking about right now.

What do you mean nothing is lost? they signed David Price to a record contract whiffing big time and that, I feel, has completely changed how they have approached free agency and pitchers moving forward. A lot the success they had in 2018 came from guys they already had in their system before they whiffed. There is certainly 100% ramifications if you whiff on a big free agent. Although I would argue a billionare investor shouldn't get spooked by a bad signing. If you sign big names you're going to have booms and busts.