drewski6

Its not always true, man. Liquidity does not come only from profit. Maybe in your business' case because you are a proprietor and not backed by a team of deep-pocket investors. Sofi financial had the naming rights to a stadium and commercials running non-stop before they ever turned a profit. Because they had deep pocketed investors. How profitable you are is just one factor when determining whether to ramp up or ramp down your expenditures.

Lets go back 35 years and compare how many championships were won by a team that either had a big contract that was going to run well into that players 33s vs the championships won by team that had no contracts that were going to look scary by the end of it. IF you play this game, and manage via minimization of risk, you wont sign any bad deals. But I assure you the majority of championships are won by teams that take risks or teams that are willing to carry a contract that will one day be ugly (but helps in the short term) What Im trying to say - if you play ultra conservative, you wont make any major blunders. But you also probably wont win the game.

I wasnt calling you a wimp, and I wasnt trying to bully JH into spending money (although maybe I would if I could, lol - "Bregman or wedgies, choose 1") There was a distinct time, an actual moment, when I was watching Bloom - and thought he was punting on accountability. There is a thin line between providing context and providing excuses, and I think Bloom crossed that line. When asked why the team fell apart 2 years in a row "but look at the pipeline" when asked why his FA adds struggled "but look at the prospects" when asked why he couldnt do a deadline deal "but look at the prospects" why last place? Look at the prospects!!!! You know me, you know I embrace cyclicality, and not everybody here does. WE both do. We have that in common. So there are points in the cycle, where what bloom is saying would be valid. "Hey dont look at this year, or next, look 3-4 years out cuz thats the window we are building towards" - Im okay with hearing that someimes. But theres an inherent comfort in that. Like a honeymoon period in a new job. Low expectations. Hey dont me accountable for what Im doing currently, because Im in development mode. Judge future me, not present me! Theres a comfort in that, that I think Bloom started hiding behind. Similarly, I think there are a few Red Sox fans who are hesitant to make their move. Its human. I have friends at the poker table who play scared. They are not the best players. Taking a swing is scary. Putting chips in the middle of the table is scary. Asking a girl out is scary. You cant miss if you dont swing. If one was to say , hey "2028 is the year" it takes pressure off 2026. ANd Im okay wiht that. Where I get frustrated personally is when 2028 comes, and then some of those people get nervous, and start talking about 2031. There is a shiny new toy syndrome that applies to prospects as well. Hey this guy on sox prospects I just read about , hes 19 , hes going to be soooo good. 4 years later, hey this new guy who is 19 is going to be soo good. And these things kind of run together. The people who are afraid to say this is the beginning our window its time for results (and I acknowledge that is scary) generally are the people who will then go find a 19 yr old and say well, even if we fall on our face this year - we'll still have that guy coming up - and they'll use the existence of a good prospect to take the pressure off any year. And if it helps their nerves, thats okay. They are not bad people. BUT the poker player who plays scared is not the best player at the table, and the GM who operates scared is not the best GM. The baseball fan who is scared to acknowedge that certain years have more pressure than others is not the best armchair GM. These people are letting hesitancy get the best of them. Bloom got fired for this reason. I have firends who never evere ever make fantasy trades in our league. Because they are scared they are going to give up something good. They arent the best managers in the league. Sometimes , its time to pull the trigger and acknwledge a window. Sometimes, you look around and you say there are expectations and pressure on this team THIS year. That is scary. And sometimes, people deal with that fear by finding a way to take the pressure off. Well, even if we fall on our face this year , we still ahve x,y,z coming up. And thats okay. Worse things to be than optimistic. But when those fans start saying (in those widows) well , I dont want to sign x because it could wind up overpaid, or I dont want to trade prospects because already too many eggs in the short term basket.....Sometimes this is valid, but sometimes its someone's hesitancy clouding their ability to be objective. Theres a comfort in knowing that better days lie in front of you. It takes the pressure off that year. But there comes a time when you need to meet expectations and face lofty goals, and acknowledge that if we fail to win this year or next thats a larger failure than it otherwise would be because we've had these years circled and have been building for them. One could, instead, alleviate some of that pressure by kicking the can further down the road....IN 2025 you say wait until 2028, in 2028 you wait until 2031, in 2031 you wait until 2034....And youll never have to confront expectations/pressure and its a shield to prevent dissapointment. I get it, dissapointment stinks.

Agreed 100% My point was that there was a gap between our projected rankings for pitching and position players between objective third parties (Steamer and others) with the pitching looking much rosier. I understand that Contreras (and any future signings) will close that gap, and your comment was worth pointing out, TY. Im not sure how much Contreras moves the needle. I would assume a decent amount but not a ton. The context for my post was to express disagreement with people expressing we need another pitcher more than another hitter (or at least that was my initial submission - conversations twist and turn).

Im not sure which thread it is but its buried by now. BUt we are projected to have one of the very best pitching staffs in the league and one of the very worse offenses. TO imply that pitcher vs bat is preference is just not reality. We have an excellent pitching staff and bad position players. FUll stop.

You reduce 57m to 29m and start fantasizing about how JH can invest this money in treasuries. Meanwhile, all the insightful stuff he just said flies right over your head. Its not just cash outlay vs tax hit, like we've been telling you all day. You also have to look at the alternatives to each decision. Roman could have cost us min wage from both tax hit and cap. But you glossed over that point by saying but I dont want to lose him 5 years from now. As if we couldnt resign him 5 years from now. The Red sox have become a team that cringe at the thought of paying great players great player money. And so we lock RA up through his prime at a discount, and now we dont have to worry about it, but it zaps our cap for 2026,2027 And you rebut but what about 5 years from now! Well 5 years from now you will be worried about 5 years from then and youll be talking about how we need to trade RA because we can flip for someone else half as good but 1/4 as cheap and thats better value. Then we'll lock up new guy in 2031, and blow our cap for 2031, 2032, 2033 but at least we wont have to negotiate with new guy and have him locked up through his prime which will be 2038, 2039. THen in 2038, we flip him beccause we can get somene half as good for 1/4 the price and thats better value! We'll lock up new new guy in 2038, which will blow our cap for 2039 and 2040 but at least we wont have to pay him top dollar in 2045!! Do you not see how kicking the can down the road is a trap? Where are all these stacked championships of the pirates and the a's since theyve operated under this kick the can model? You imply that Im short sighted because what about 2032! Had we not locked up RA we might have to pay him top dollar in 2032!! Maybe just maybe we shouldnt revolve our entire philosophy around not having to ever pay people top money. When you were jumping for joy in 2020 because we traded Betts and yayyyyy no players making good player money, you told me then that it would really help us in 2025/2026. Now in 2025/2026 you are worried about 2031/2032 This isnt hypothetical this happened. The thing about you can kickers, is that it avoids accountability and its a disappointment shield. If our best years are always in front of us, then you can never be too disappointed because next year will always be even better. And like Bloom said when he missed the playoffs multiple times and didnt even really try to field a competitive team. He said "but look at the pipeline" this is an accountability punt. And i get it. Saying this is our year is scary. You may not win it all. Pushing in chips , aligning for 2030 (for example) and then once 2030 comes its scary. Expectations are scary. But always looking 5-10 years out avoids ever having to face a do or die year. And at some point, you need to just stop being such a wimp.

For Asuka?

https://www.reddit.com/r/baseball/comments/1po068n/red_sox_pitcher_payton_tolle_explains_his_new/

Tolle hit at witchita st, just saying.

I feel that you are underrating Tolle and Early.

I say one last like hes had more than one short stint at the top (of the singles division)

Jeff Hardy has one last WWE championship run in him

and id rather be retired at 41.

I understand that prospects go up and down in value drastically and there is something to be said for numbers. Roman, at one point, was like prospect #14 (I assume)

At least right now

I would rather be truly competetive 3 years followed by 4 years of rebuild then in third place 7 years in a row.

this is more of a case for keeping cheap players cheap. Because if you arent going to spend, you need to make the most out of your payroll. And the most efficient is the min wagers. So just gotta hope you get 5 prospects busting out at the same time, and you can grab a couple mid-tier FAs to fill in and maybe you have a team that can win a series in the playoffs. WE could be the Rays. But we'll have gaps between our playoff cores and we'll win the big one....WHen was the last time the Rays won it all? Remind me

None that Im crying about.

And why would we would have to sacrifice ANthony in 5 years? Couldnt we , you know, pay him market price in 5 years?

It doesnt always make more sense. It sometimes makes sense. Case by case. Too simplistic. Yes, very often, the better move is to keep your cheap players cheap and cram as much talent onto your team as you can in the short term. This is called "a competitive window", and its not a novel concept.

Saying we will always spend 244/yr regardless if we are good or not, regardless if we have multiple guys peaking at the same time or a long shot to compete anyways is just foolish This is just beyond oversimplified. Its also contradictory wiht your earlier comments. Like whne you said something like 10b over the next 30 yrs. If you told me I had 10b to spend over 30 yrs , I wouldnt allocate it evenly. Duh. At the poker table, you dont say I have 200 chips, and I want to last for 100 hands, so Ill use 2 chips for every hand. No. You gamble more the stack when you have the cards. You spend more on your team when you feel you are close. The Red Sox in 2025 and 2026 prioritized 2030.

But I hard disagree that its always soooo much better to lock up your youngsters and yay im so glad we are locking up our youngsters. We zapped Campbells trade value, and created a crunch for oursleves in 2026 when we could have kept cheap players cheap. But we spent money on our cheap players to prevent having to spend more down the line, and now we cant afford stars in their prime. Lets hope that a 40 yr old (ish) contreras can still hit .815 vs Alonso who would have a much better shot at clearing that hurdle.

There is some truth that we've been more aggressive lately because Breslow is more aggressive than gun-shy Bloom. And Ive said that I dont give Breslow enough credit for getting Crochet because I feel the deal was obvious and I laugh at people who cry about Teel. That was a deal you make 200 out of 100 times, in my opinion, but Im not sure if Bloom makes that deal. Cuz bloom is scared money and breslow isnt scared. So sure. If we can combine Blooms professionalism and non-ego with Breslows aggressiveness wed prob have a very good GM.

They were aggressive in the offseason, but they should have traded for a bat at the deadline, they dumped their most expensive player....They undid it. Aggressive means trying hard to win. They werent trying really hard when they just accepted that they would finish up the season not replacing any of the guys who got hurt (or traded) before the deadline.

You prefer more simple ways to determine our aggressiveness, I show how that can be misleading, and we come to different conclusions. The Red Sox, since 2019 have not been aggressive enough. And thats why we have more third/fourth/fifth place finishes than playoff series wins. "It makes no difference whether we spend $250M on FAs or our own players" I literally just showed you how/why it matters and it matters a lot. We could have Roman and Crochet at a tax hit of under 10m. But they will have a tax hit of 40m because we chose to extend them and buy future years. We could have kept them at a 10m cap hit, and added 30m tax hit externally and had a better team this year. That would have been very aggressive for 2026, but would have hurt us in 2029 onward because we would have missed our chance to extend crochet and RA at a discount. Whether or not we think it is the right move, my point is that forget about the actual 2026 team and join my in a more conceptual conversation. The concept is that sometimes it makes sense to keep your cheap guys cheap vs extend, so you can be more aggressive in the short term. Teams that spend/teams that trade/teams that win. They are aggressive. They dont say well we have this 1.8 WAR player here and I guess thats fine. I really care more about aggressiveness than payroll. The Red Sox were not aggressive in 2025 and they are not aggressive in 2026. The CBT is misleading and its higher because they bought future years for current players at a discount which raised such players 2026 CBT numbers. So in this case, the CBT is not a true reflection of how aggressive we have been. And we havent been aggressive. Now you may think 2026 wasnt the year to get aggressive and you think that its wise to raise our 2026 CBT by extending our own (rather than keep RA/Crochet/Cedanne/Campbell cheap), you may agree with all of that, and its not unreasonable. I may not even hard disagree. But where I disagree is when you jump out of the concrete (2026 RS) and into the conceptual (all future RS teams forever), becaue I do believe that sometimes it makes a ton of sense to keep your cheap players cheap (even if they are awesome) becuase it allows you to cram MORE under the CBT and be more aggressive in the short term. I can be sold that greatly increasing our CBT in 2026 by extending our own was the right move. I cannot be sold that extending your cheap players is always the right move. So for example, in 2007 we won (yay) with Pap, pedey, youk all making peanuts. Had we extended them in 2005 , we would have raised their CBT and we may not have been able to afford JD Drew, Mike Lowell, Beckett. Guys who cost more, and maybe werent as valuable from a WAR/$ spent as the youngsters but guys who contributed to your championship. And you were able to afford all of these guys JD, Lowell, Beckett, Pap, Youk, Pedey because you kept the latter 3 cheap.