drewski6

One way to do it is to cultivate a culture of honesty and to build a relationship with Bregman over time that fosters trust. Therefore, its not solely a game of deception or spy vs spy. Works both ways though, if you want to get honesty and transparency , you have to give it.

I agree, DD was on a runaway bullet train heading for a cliff, and only the power of friendship could have saved him. He had tried to make friends, but the sincerity of those efforts were labeled a sham. He did , have one trick up his sleeve, however, and when the train was about to go over the cliff he said "Mariners, Mariners, Mariners" Harmony reluctantly saved him per Harmonys contract with the spirit of pojections, which forces him to appear whenever such sacred word is uttered.

Close: DD and not DD Team DD: Dave Dombrowski, Dan Duquette, Dunkin Donuts, Dungeons and Dragons, Designated Drivers Team not DD: Everything and anything that doesnt have "DD" initials

Ive seen this movie before, and it ends with Mariners trading for Bichette while Blue Jays ink Suarez, only for us to jsut fall shot of Phil's offer for Bo.

I dont think Breslow sleuth'd out the info he needed to sleuth out.

Not relevant. The current conversation that Im having is not about sticking with your assigned value vs panicking at rumors....its about Breslows inability to effectively conversate preventing him from deducing needed info (the competitiveness of his offer) The offer was competitive and it was obviously designed to be. There was no sham, just a second place offer. Would Breslow have added more money should he known his offer wasnt enough? Im not sure, but I think more likely than not. He just had no idea because listening (part of communicating) isnt his strong suit. Dont get me wrong, I was just telling my buddy. Hes smart and knows baseball but hes jsut a douche. I think it got in his way here, and it isnt the first time. I like that Breslow is smart and aggressive. There's def been more activity than there was in the Bloom years, which I liked the first year of, then it felt like jsut rolling the same mediocre roster over every year

Good points, but to expand, its not always a retroactive look at how much you got vs how much you paid, and thats what some people just cant figure out. And its not that complicated. Lets say I have 3 awesome players who are all on pre-arb deals. They are all young. You may think: hey, we can get a little greedy here and cram a lot of talent onto this team, becuase these 3 are all super cheap and contributing, and we can take advantage of that by spending on guys around them and have this awesome team. Sure it will get hard to keep these guys , but we'll have a nice window of overlap before those guys need to get paid with the players we brought in. Whether or not to extend your players is a decision. To have them for less cheap in the front end in order to buy some FA years at a discount. And like most decisions, its case by case. Id rather have a guy give me 8 WAR for $10m when I have a good team around him than have a guy give me 10 WAR for $8m on a team that stinks (aside from him). There is a timing element to all of this. Its not as simple as simple minds want it to be.

Sure - agents lie, and so do teams. I understnad that theres reason not to believe everything you hear. But asking questions to flush out the honesty/sincerety of competitive offers is a sign of a good communicator, and thats all what we're saying here.... That communication skills are important. Becuase they are. Always. For everybody.

There was a communication breakdown between us and Bregmans team, we thought we had the best offer outstanding when we didnt, and now Bregman is a cub.

I dont think Marte is available anymore, and Im note sure 20m/yr for 2 gets it done for Geno. I do like the team though

Nobody cares if you care. But its widely reported that Bregman and Breslow were talking past each other and now Bregman is a cub. You may say that you applaud value blah, blah , blah , blah blah , i really dont care. But Bregman/team said "I have a better offer from the cubs" and breslow didnt believe it, thats bad. Its so dysfunctional its almost funny, but its bad.

Sticking to Paredes, a 3 WAR player making about 9m is worth more than 11 trade value units, then you have a whole second year. 2 WAR players are getting 22m QOs. FOr his next 2 years, I would think Paredes WAR about 6.5. Expected to be paid like 25m. I think each WAR is worth like 10m. I think Paredes should be about 30 himself , maybe even more (not a lot more). I think we are all buyers of Paredes at 11 trade value units. Its low, if you can get him for that, we definitely should.

Austin Hays.

I honestly have seen it get corrected by a large amount for a given player. Ive seen it be way off. Its usually good , but I think its just off on Paredes. I think his trade value units is about 30. How is Duran near 50, and Paredes is like 11 with both having 2 yrs of control left around the same money. Granted Paredes may make like 9.5m this year vs durans 7.7m, so that accounts for 2 of the 36 delta between em. It just feels off.

I think Elly and Hays are both in for better offensive seasons. Probably McClain too. Also, I may have wrote that before Gray, Contreras....

So another words, there was bad communication.....hmmmm

Alonso and Bregman (and Schwarber) , total packages were all very close. Yes Breg cleared 170m but enough deferred to make the hit and present value closer to 30-31 per. This is a triple down that a player of around this caliber in their early 30s (ish) gets around 5 yrs at a little over 30 plus annum. Thats fair market value for a FA of this tier. If you see this moves as gross overpayment, then either you are hoping for a market correction or you are unwilling to shop at the second tier of free agency, which the sox may be unwilling to do as well.

Now you are overlooking the deferrals, though.

YOu think they are this rigid?

Probably. But the Orioles offer was pretty far ahead of us, so not as confident it would have been enough more to make us serious bidders.

If you could combine Breslow's willingness to take risks with Bloom's interpersonal skills, you'd have a GM....who would probably be out of our price range.

Bloom was a capable communicator, and very professional. He was just scared money at the poker table and too gun-shy.

I dont get why BTV has Paredes so low and Im not buying it. BTV is mostly good, but on certain players for some reason, the formula seems off. Right now casas has like 19 trade value units and paredes has like 11. It doesnt feel right.

How much drama we talking about here? They have better options than to give us a 125 OPS+ guy for someone with reliever risk. I would not entertain this if I was Houston, and they have some flexibility with their position player mix. They could send out Christian Walker and play Paredes or Correa at 1b, they could play Altuve in the outfield.... Tigers and/or Dbacks, I would imagine would be willing to top an offer of just Philips. Maybe Philips and Harrison.

Paredes would be a great get. If they get Arrenado, they should also get a DH with the cost savings from Bregman to Arrenado. If they get Arrenado for cheaper than Bregman was, they should be more willing to consider Yoshida's salary sunk. Geno starts making sense to me. Or maybe his ability to play third and remain healthy is higher than I credit, and hes a plug at 3b. I kind of see him as a DH, and not because I think defense is as or more important as hitting, but because Im concerned how a mid 30's body that isnt particularly slim holds up at 3b. Geno got a belly.