drewski6

I would stop short of doesnt make sense at all. Pros/cons to everything, and there are some pros here. If he proves to be a piece that may help attract free agents, ticket sales, jersey sales, maybe get some buzz about a young kid. When you stink, watching the kids is kind of all you get. Dont get me wrong, the reasons why not I think exceed the reasons why. So I think its dumb. But there are reasons why teams do things like this. I remember in like the 2005ish the Tigers were joke(like multiple consecutive last place finishes, couldnt get a free agent without overpaying) and they signed a 32 yr old Pudge Rodriguez to 4 yrs at (for the time) big money. His first year there, he was great but they finished 4th in central, well under .500 out of playoff contention early. The next year he wsa great, they finsihed 4th in central , well under .500 out of playoff contention early. And then things got better from there. Around late 2007 I was in grad school at Bentley and had a class with a dude who worked for Theo (thats when i learned that theres 2 sets of rings because he had one but it wasnt real diamonds). He let me wear it. Cool guy. He explained to me that the Pudge deal at the time was universally panned. Why is this awful team clearly not ready to compete spending big money on a 32 year old! And this dude (forget his name) taught me that sometimes you do stuff like this for the side benefit. He told me the real reason they signed Pudge wsant to have a good team in those 4 years (they wound up having very good years his last 2 years) but even if the rebuild took longer that and if they never made the playoffs in those 4 years ....They still wouldnt regret it becuse they overpiad an aging Pudge to change their perception. To stop being a dormat. To generate buzz. Not every baseball dedision is made for 100% on field reasons. Sometimes changing the perception/culture comes first and building the competitive core comes next.

But youve said many times its all about WAR/$ , no? If Braden Montgomery has a projected 1.3WAR at min wage (round to 1m). Thats 1.3 War / $ (in millions). Cedanne is $6.5m (tax hit, which you always use) and is projected 4.7m WAR. So thats .72 War/$$ So according to your own logic, Monty (this year) is almost double the value of Cedanne! What a bargain! And what about next year when Montgomery gives you 2.5m on a 1m tax hit (2.5 War/ $ in millions)! And the year after , he may even be a 4m on a 1m tax hit ( a whopping 4 WAR / $ in millions). So over next 3 years , Monty is like a cumulative 7.8/WAR(in millions) over the next 3 yars but Cedanne is only like 2.5m So Monty is worth 3 Cedannes!!!!! Or maybe this is exactly why WAR / $ is a grossly oversimplified metric.

Sometimes its wiser to keep your cheap studs cheap so you have extra ammo to build around them. Sometimes, its a good idea to lock up. Im a case by case guy. But when we lock up youth, we try (at least reasonably) to keep the cash outlay in line with expected performance. For example, Romans tax hit is like 17m, but they are actually paying him like 7m this year. And sure thats more than his pre-arb hit of ~1m but the gap between 7 (cash) and 1 (what he would have been if no extension) is still a lot better than the gap between his AAV/Tax hit (17m) and 1m (what he would have been if no extension). If we're talking about upping a 1m to 7m and getting some free agent years added, that feels more worth it than if we were upping his pay from 1m to 17m (which we are not). So yes going by the tax hit does create a little bit of a "funny money" effect as the tax hit only matters for the tax. So Ive been applying the tax hit evenly across the entire roster to estimate true cost. For example, Spotrac estimates that the Red Sox will have a 256m tax basis and therefore the tax hit is like 30% on like 12m aka ~3.5M. They also estimate that our payroll expenditure (without penalty) will be 213.5m So 3.5/(213.5+3.5) = 1.6%. So really only thing the tax is doing is adding 1.6% to our payroll (side note: all this fuss about tax and all its doing is increasing our payroll 1.6% lol and thats with 2nd year repeater penalty. Tax is borderline irrelevant unless you are going to go full Dodgers, fans just love having pretend budgets to make roster building more like a fun puzzle). But Im not going to go by tax hit when all it does is calculate a miniscule penalty. But I am willing to apply a 1.6% markup to cash spend to account for the tax because thats what its doing. So instead of 213.5M, our real payroll is 213.5+ 1.6% or 217m (2026 player expenditure + tax penalty). Romans true cost in 2026 is 7*1.016= 7.11M (his salary + 1.6% markup due to tax penalty). But its not his 17m cap hit, and going by tax is indeed just carrying water for ownership. All of that being said, I really do not think the handcuff (this offseason) was financial. I dont think they are being super value driven, at least not to the extent of the past. I fully believe the thrice reported story that everything centered around Bregman, and they blew it with Breslows bad interpersonal skills. At least blew their plan, I dont think they've blown the season. We may be better served without Bregman, and Story and Duran will step up as the leaders. I do think Sox look very strong right now. Breslow, I have mixed opinions on, and I think hes a douche. But I think hes made 2 spectacular moves that are really going to save his bacon. Them being 1) Crochet 2) not trading Duran. #2 might just be another example of mr magoo'ing into a good decision accidentally. Like botching something but winding up better for the botch (if he tried to trade Duran but couldnt) - so I dont know how much credit to give him there personally....But whatever, we look great and its hard for me to be as mad at Breslow as Ive been when I like the team - but I still think hes a huge douche

Best compliment Ive received today

Maybe detective Columbo of classic television drama series can get to the bottom of why Coulombe is still assigned.

Am I that sicko?

Agreed. The contracts are not underwater, and thats what the positive BTV represents. But its not like either player would have negative value if they were still on pre-arb or in their arb deals (if extension never happened). I use to think that Cedannes contract would turn negative eventually, but Im loving what Im seeing from him this spring. Bello is currently blocking a better pitcher from making the rotation and should get the MVP (MoVed for Prospects)

TY Jad, the number of times in my life I've heard "you're not white, you f'ing Jew" rose from 1 to 4 in recent months. In my experience, trying to police who gets to call themselves what is so rarely coming from a good place. My post was sincere. I only meant to express my hope that Kimmi's expressed interest in the backstories were to celebrate them, not police their eligibility. But I guess that went too far. Unfortunately, this isnt the first time Ive run into this particular brand of ugliness on this website.

Who is the fastest player in MLB right now? Victor Scott? Corbin Carroll? I assume its not Trea Turner anymore.

Looks like me out there when I played lf

I heard that Ward cant actually run the bases at full speed and has to slow up while hes going around them because if he went at full speed, hes too fast for the human retina to register and nobody would even see/believe him that he already went all the way around and touched all 4 bags (if he ran at full speed).

Bunt inside the park HR?

You are very good about staying even/pragmatic. I was team Yoshida on the 26 man until I fell in love with Eaton and Ward. Now Im less team Yoshida. Im prob jsut flat more emotional than you (juxtaposition intended). You are prob jsut more level than I am. This is intended to be a compliment. I think your plan: send down who you can, even if that is someone who impressed this spring. Lets keep as much depth as possible. This use to be my plan. Now my plan is : Braiden Ward can bunt single and steal at will and he'll prob break the single season record for runs scored in a season by bunting, getting on at a 50% clip, and stealing second and third every time. Who has the record for runs scored in a single season. I know RBIs is Hack Wilson and thats my showing off (I didnt google it). I think runs record probably Rickey, right? If its not Rickey (or Ichiro) its prob someone from before 1940.

1. Trading Yoshida is a lesser evil than trading Duran or Abreu to create a path for Yoshida. 2. Yoshida is a lefty, Eaton is a righty has speed/utility off the bench, defensively versatile. Eaton is probably a better bench player but can be sent down, and Im okay with sending him down initially while we continue to assess (roster battles continue into the season) 3. I think it is a bad idea to trade Yoshida on 3/6/2026, especially before we ask if he is okay with a minor league assignment. I doubt he'd say yes. This right here, makes it hard for me, a very pro platoon guy, to warrant keeping him on the 26 man in lieu of someone who can hit lefties - but Im willing to start the year with the better bench players in AAA because Yoshida prob wont agree to be sent down. I think most likely is that we'll send everyone down who we can. SO maybe Eaton makes more sense as a bench role, but sorry bro - you have options - down to AAA. Ditto Ward. Maybe ditto Monasterio too. Im willing to try somethign outside the box like, oh I dont know, 5 bench players and one less pen arm in April when there are a ton of days off in the first few weeks. Not sure why 5 bench players went extinct, it use to be a real thing. Im willing to start the year sending everyone down who we can to postpone having to make a decision at that point. Buy ourselves time to continue to assess. Im willing to open Masa on the 26 man. But eventually, someone may force a decision (maybe not, maybe there will always be a revolving door of 2 guys hurt). One key date may be Romys return. For no other reason than - gotta cut someone from teh 26 to make room for Romy and it may force a decision (again, maybe not if someone else is hurt). Im open to someone pushing Masa off the 26 man eventually. Maybe thats KC, Monasterio, Ward, Eaton...Personally, its not Casas for me. I take Yoshi > Casas all f'ing day. Even if Casas is healthy, hes prob not the same person he was in 2023 , in fact hes prob less athletic/durable today then he was then. He might even be fatter. His bat speed may have slowed down. He might need another full year to get back to where he was in 2023 which wasnt a wartless player. He prob still has holes in his swing/approach like always and slow start like always. This isnt to say that I hate Casas or think we should DFA him today or trade him today (common theme: hoard as many options as you can). But I do have Masa > Casas on my depth chart. And yes, thats even if Contreras gets hurt. Yoshi should learn first base , ive been saying it for a year.

If you determine you have more than enough depth and you want to package some, you go for superstars. Not a poo-poo platter of help around the margins.

Im starting to think we dont have enough spots for the studs we have, clearly Eaton and Ward are all-stars. I might be drunk on spring hopefulness.

Paredes isnt good enough to make this trade. If they are going to make a trade, packaging depth - it neesds to be for a superstar - not for a lesser player + improvements around the margins. Marte is worth trading Abreu, Paredes is not.

Eaton?

Question on a lot of minds.

It is a very good defense for sure.

Sure, but Yoshida is more competing with Eaton and Ward than Campbell

Sounds like he priced himself out of Boston this spring (kidding!)

One from each word from a spacing perspective, not a technical perspective. Its for hand written notes and it just means (bring down above word). It doesnt matter , and Im not trying to be a jerk, but if you care, the "correct" would be: Sandoval (at some point) Crawford (" " ") But like if you used your imvho you would only put a " under that not 5 of them because even though its 5 words, its one word from a "between two spaces" point of view. Really its best use is when you are hand writing notes and want to change one thing from the note above. For eample: Amendment 2 Section II Article B (p.59) states Brands cost $70 " " " " " C " " generics " $15 Which means: Amendment 2 Section II Article C (p.59) states generics cost $15 Keep in mind this is for shorthand, like note taking during a meeting, so what is technically correct is really jsut whatever is gonna work for you.

For a while my thought was : less bullpen pitchers = more innings for Kutter Crawford (a good thing) but I think I need to come off that. I do think we could use one more. Especially if they are going to start with Kutter/Sandoval on IL and Tolle/Early in AAA.

Was he a 40 man roster crunch casualty? Please remind me :)