UtahSox

For a classic unproven SP and Duran? Yep!

Sign me up. resign Bregman trade Mayer+ Duran for Cole Ragans. As you can tell by now I’m not sold on Marcelo Mayer. (Hope this is a historically bad take, thatgets brought up daily for years to come, anytime I share my opinion)

IMO Marte only makes sense w/ Bregman. If they think they can win now. I think Marte has such a team, friendly contract, and is such a good baseball player. That if we thought we could win a WS, this move might make sense to give up one of the two left-handed pitchers + Mayer. But if the Red Sox end up giving up more prospects, to get Marte and back out of Bregman sweepstakes, this is not a good move.

Agree with you but it’s 19m or 32m and 1% chance he is pitching in Detroit on 8/1. He will be on Dodgers or Yankees.

So Randy you don’t think we are in a championship window? I’ve been starting to feel that the Red Sox agree. Honestly would make more sense. With some of their moves since 4/1/2025- now.

Yes I was looping those 2 together, I needed to quote both of them, for clarity of context. which I did not do. But now I figured out how to quote multiple, so in the future my message will be more clear. My response was to both of them, based on what moon had responded to Joe’s (now quoted message.) Respect both of them, but will not see it the same way as the way the FO has handled this offseason. I also take a more win now approach vs worry about 2030.

I can’t do this anymore…. you guys can show us where a top 10 spending team didn’t make the playoffs, or a bottom 10 payroll team did…… You’re right, the marlins, A’s, Rockies win just as much as the Yankees, Dodgers, 04-19 Red Sox. Because It’s not about spending, that getting good players via free agency does not guarantee you wins…. So don’t do it, It is not important…... But if it actually is important, we actually do spend enough, and we are right back in the upward “heyday” because we signed Devers to the biggest contract in Red Sox history (ignore the fact we traded him as the actual pay caught up to AAV) AND because our payroll is double what it was in 2004. One of you guys actually used the 2025 Dodgers as an example of a failure??? Because their regular season record. Agree to disagree is my final answer.

Agree that financial discipline is a Major factor. As historically homes haven’t risen as much as S&P 500 yet wealth favors home owners. Stability less moving around, feel different about your disposable income if you have a mortgage etc etc.

The #3-4 revenue team should NEVER finish sub 500 IMO. When was the last time the Yankees were sub 500? It’s easier to remember the few years they miss the playoffs than the years they made a deep run. Because they rarely miss the playoffs. This should be our standard.

sounds like Bregman has an “aggresive offer” from RS and hasn’t accepted. Shifting gears out of the box idea…… I was just listening to MLB radio and they were talking about how bad everyone missed on Tucker Market. I think Red Sox should now go up to him and offer him a 5yr 70m deal. 14m AAV. Offer 50m cash for first year, 5m for years 2-5. *with an opt out clause after year 1. Kyle gets 50m in his pocket…. Retests the waters next year. then go offer the same deal to Bichette 50m cash 1st year 5m for years 2-5 a 14m aav. Get these 2 for 2026. For the same 28m aav you’re gonna get Bregman. now you’re down 100m in cash but we’ve established we’ve been netting like crazy last few years. Follow that with you can trade 2 out of 4 outfielders for SP2. Abreu/ Duran/ Campbell or Rafaela.

Do it now! Based on your ja rule reference, I think we’re about the same age…… so I’m not giving you advice. I went to b school with Professors that said the same sh**. “S&P historically out performs blah blah blah” Biggest differentiator in wealth in our country is owning a home. Case study is obviously looking at past performance not future.

I think we all agree (unless you represent players union, or are an agent). How do you shorten the window? Make it fun?

Sometimes everybody zags for a reason….. IMO the most dangerous thought you can have, is the thought that you’re the smartest person in the room.

What’s funny is yesterday… I almost wrote Drewski6 is my spirit animal. Ha Hoping I don’t share the Kristian Campbell 2025 season arc, and flame out once you all start adjusting to my posts. Ha

Sooooooo far from confirmed. Got it. I wish they did postmortem autopsies on all these organizations. Would be the one way to somewhat redeem the slime ball Boras. If after the deal was over, he just said yeah Red Sox offered three years 90 million to Pete Alonso. Mets offered four years 120 and of course Baltimore offered five years 150. I started thinking about this yesterday as Imai had his press conference and alluded to the fact that he left money on the table to go to Houston. It would be fun to know who else was in on him. Obviously, I know this is never gonna happen but would make it more fun. And let’s be honest, baseball off-season is the worst off-season of any sport not even close. Fun question how would you guys improve baseball off-season? What changes what you make to make it more exciting and draw more attention to the sport?

Yes let’s go. I’ll happiness hedge that. Under 89.5 seems like a lot.

Confirmed? Dude, if he has that deal out there and hasn’t signed what the hell are we doing? We clearly backed the wrong horse. He doesn’t wanna win. He just wants to maximize his money. Good for Red Sox management if they did this deal. Bregman the hell are you doing? Sign the deal.

And yet we are 8th-9th in spending vs 2018 we were 1st. That’s net regression 8 spots In life, in business, in baseball nothing happens in a vacuum. I think a lot of the points you are making above……the AB2 40 million AV, the Devers deal and subsequent dump- All fit into what I wrote a few pages back about optics, yes we made all those moves last year, and barely, barely were in Tax. Us and cubs have the largest gap between revenue and payroll. We know we spend less on scouts than the Yankees and the Dodgers. So basically derive at the assumption we NET. While they win. I think you guys who have been here a long time, sometimes look for key performance indicators that show slight improvement, you’re way down in the details. yet take your eye off the main goal. As I say to my team, when I think we are too far in the weeds. let’s fly at 30,000 feet for 10 minutes. 1- do we have a championship worthy roster? if you can’t say yes emphatically to the first question, proceed to question 2 2- what do we have to do in free agency, to answer yes to the first question. We should be spend 300 million until you get there. That’s what top four teams do. And the Boston Red Sox are a top 4 brand in baseball.

The DFA of Buehler made no sense to me. Yes he sucked generally, Would have cost us 500k a start, would have made 3-4 more starts by end of year… And I’ll bet FO wished they kept him, considering his best baseball was always October, and we had to roll out a rookie in game 3. Or he could have been a stop gap in game 2 when Bello gave us a solid 2 innings.

Oh if we don’t sign AB2 we aren’t making the playoffs unless the stars align. And Mayer is 3+ WAR

We all know this is true, I think the frustration comes out in trying to educate others on what might be happening. As my dad always says “what you do speaks so loud, I can’t hear what you say” - he stole it from someone. This years frustration is a different frustration for me, hence why I joined this “support group” ha ha Everything set up so perfectly to add Alonso, AB2, trade for a #2 and go take a real run at a WS….. Alas here we are, RS are going to scrape and claw to hopefully 88 wins, and backdoor into playoffs again. And yet to prove JH’s point…. I still booked 3 road trips to see Red Sox this year. Including my 1st Red Sox vs Yankees Fenway series. He knows he’s got us. Go Sox!

You’re both right. At the beginning of last year expectations were that we were on the rise and ownership belief in that was reflected…. It’s funny how people spin it, as we overachieved last year but many picked us to win AL East after we got crochet, moved Devers to DH and had Bregman signed. And that’s before Roman Anthony became who Roman Anthony was in July- August, so you could imagine What we could have been. And this is the Rub, yes we were aggressive, but you can’t give Breslow credit for being aggressive in December-February without debiting the move that happened in June. We are not a better baseball team having Yoshida DH versus Devers. Now, if he would have traded Devers and actually been aggressive at the trade deadline(like he said he was going to be) then you could say yes things are changing. I just don’t see it. I see fake hustle, I see optics, I see Hella conservative management and ownership that’s going to flounder what should be a championship window.

Long post sorry: don’t expect any of you to read it. Just had to get my thoughts out there. I work for a large local company with over 800 employees, significant revenue, and it is locally high public-facing, I am privy to participation in the board meetings. In these meetings the conversation is driven almost entirely around optics. Too often, the focus isn’t on what is actually best for the business, nor the products, but on how decisions will be perceived by customers and clients. I see a similar dynamic with the Red Sox and their early extensions of players like Rafaela, Anthony, and Campbell. On the surface, these deals are framed as smart baseball moves—locking up young talent at a discount before they enter their prime. That part is definitely true. But there’s another layer to this that doesn’t get discussed enough: “the difference between spending optics, and actual cash spending.” If the sole objective were to put the best possible product on the field within parameters of 2026-2027 regardless of financial optics, you would wait to extend these early risers. Allowing these players to prove themselves further, and take the traditional arbitration-to-free-agency route. Instead, early extensions allow the team to inflate reported AAV figures—which DOMINATES public and media narratives—while deferring real cash outlays into the future. In the present, payroll cash remains controlled, profits are maximized, and future negotiation risk is eliminated. The result is a masterclass in optics management. The organization can legitimately point to rising AAV numbers and claim it is “spending,” even though the actual cash commitment today remains relatively modest. From a business standpoint, it’s savvy. From a competitive or fan-facing perspective, it creates the illusion of aggressive investment without the corresponding financial sacrifice. Example: Last season, the Red Sox had Devers and the consensus No. 1 prospect in baseball in Roman Anthony—who held that ranking for a damn good reason. In August, the team extended Roman Anthony at a $16.25M AAV, yet in the upcoming season he will actually earn only $2.5M in real cash. Just months earlier, in June the team moved Devers off the books. Devers carried a $29.5M AAV, and importantly, that was also $29.5M in real cash paid this year, with the following three seasons requiring 33m real cash vs 29.5m AAV even more cash than his AAV. By trading Devers, the team immediately improves its cash position by roughly $27M. But from an optics standpoint, it doesn’t look like cost-cutting at all. On paper, Devers’ $29.5M AAV is replaced—at least partially—by Roman Anthony’s $16.25M AAV. The public narrative becomes “we’re still spending,” even though the actual cash outlay drops dramatically. That’s the brilliance of the strategy. Cash spending goes down, near-term profit goes up, long-term negotiation risk disappears, and AAV-based reports still show meaningful payroll commitment. From a financial and optics-management perspective, it’s genuinely clever. It allows the organization to look aggressive without actually being aggressive in real dollars. Red Sox appear to be more interested in ‘optics’ backdooring our way into 3 games in October and spinning the optics vs actually winning. In that sense, the Red Sox have been extremely effective at looking like big spenders, without actually being big spenders.

This is really well said. I might offer another phrase aside from the word cheap, although cheap is the root of their goal. But everything you just described is “optics over everything”.

Saying “we spend” by comparing ourselves to all 30 MLB teams misses the point. That’s the wrong benchmark. The only comparison that matters is against our true revenue peers. Look at the next 6–7 teams in revenue: the Yankees, Dodgers, Blue Jays, Cubs, Phillies, and Mets. Against that group, the Red Sox are recently last — or trading places with the Cubs — in actual spending. Yes, it’s technically true that we’re in the CBT. But context matters. We’re also roughly $60 million behind teams like the Phillies and Blue Jays, who generate $100 million less in revenue than we do. So the issue isn’t whether we spend relative to the league. It’s whether we spend appropriately relative to our revenue and competitive position. And by that standard, we clearly don’t.