Curious how much Chris Sale would get if he was a FA this offseason
My best guess is a little less than Sevy just got. Possibly the same if a team were desperate for SPs. Neither of them have been at all healthy the past 3 seasons, but Sevy has started 37 games over that time frame whereas Sale has started 31. Sale was better last year, but he's also 5 years older. They're both complete crapshoots at this point though that shouldn't be expected for more than half a season of starts.
To the question of starters coming off the market, I'm a bit more "nervous" than others. Not because of 90% of the pitching transactions that have taken place (though I think I'd have taken the shot on Gray at 3/$75m to be SP3 if that were possible - but he wanted to go to StL it seems like), but because I really wanted Nola.
It also seems there like he was going back to Philly no matter what and just wanted the best possible deal from them, but he was the FA SP this year I really hoped the Sox would land.
Obviously Yamamoto and Montgomery are still out there, but at a certain level, the interest is so high in Yamamoto that I've kind of written him off to another team already.
As to the Mariners and that side of things, a trade I think makes sense for both teams would be Mayer and Verdugo for Logan Gilbert (and for whatever it's worth, this matches on BTV). Though I've been pushing to acquire Gilbert for the better part of a calendar year now.
However, Seattle gets a RF for this year to cover losing Teoscar and since it looks like Mayer will be closer to two years away he coincides nicely with when Crawford's deal would be up. Boston gets the cost controlled top half of the rotation starter it desperately needs. (I think of Gilbert more like a 2 than a 1 and certainly than a true ace, but I really like the pitcher).
Ultimately, I'd try like heck (from the Red Sox perspective) to make that something like Bleis, Yorke and Abreu (which Sea shouldn't do) and I think Seattle would try and make that Duran and Mayer (which the Sox would likely balk on) and thus meet in the middle.
*If they prefer Abreu to Verdugo, so be it.