Betts/Price to LA for Verdugo/Jeter Downs/TBA

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Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat

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Dodgers extended Muncy today which puts them slightly over the threshold. If they have to keep Pederson after his arbitration, they'll be looking to shed more money. Perhaps they send Pederson to us instead of Verdugo and send us Maeda? If so, I'd hope that a prospect (Gray/Ruiz?) is also included. Of course, that supposes that both the Angels and Twins deals are voided. Lots of moving parts.
There really aren’t nearly that many moving parts
 

Mugsy's Jock

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The Red Sox backed themselves into a financial corner here by making the classic mistake of trying to keep the 2018 WS winning band together, signing Pearce the MVP who got hot for a series, extending an injured Sale when they really didn't have to and resigning Eovaldi, the hero of a game they didn't even win. Paying players for past performance vs future performance is a classic overreach.

And sorry; if the reports are true that they offered Betts 10/300 he countered with 12/420, that tells me he really does not want to be here and is bound and determined to test the free agent waters, a right he's earned and he obviously wants to explore.

You can argue all you want that they did not get enough, but they were not dealing from a position of strength here.

Best of luck to you Mookie.
THis. 100% This.

Hey everyone, can we PLEASE remember the following:
1. Unloading Price's contract is the third asset in the deal, and it's a big one. Price does not bring an asset back, he costs an asset to unload.
2. Waiting until the trade deadline would be stupid, because it would prevent the Sox from resetting against the cap and, more than likely, not generate any better a return.
3. And if the Sox are over the cap, the draft pick compensation they'd receive after Mookie walks is minuscule (a third-rounder, big whoop).
4. This is speculation on my part, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the Red Sox do not feel confident they can re-sign Mookie after he hits free agency. They've made him proposals and lived with him and his agent for 7-8 years now and ought to have a pretty good feel for this situation.

Any trade involving Mookie, is disappointing, but it sure as hell isn't stupid. It's the opposite of that.
 

Marciano490

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I don’t understand Henry’s statements about staying under the luxury tax threshold in the context of moving Price’s salary. It seems like an odd thing to announce the weakness of your bargaining position to potential trade partners before you even sit at the table.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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The Red Sox backed themselves into a financial corner here by making the classic mistake of trying to keep the 2018 WS winning band together, signing Pearce the MVP who got hot for a series, extending an injured Sale when they really didn't have to and resigning Eovaldi, the hero of a game they didn't even win. Paying players for past performance vs future performance is a classic overreach.
Yeah, but I was totally in favor of it at the time.

They had just won 108 games and looked almost invincible. There was no reason to suspect it couldn't happen again. It did not occur to me that maybe 108 was a bit over-representative of what the team really was and that maybe they had gotten lucky and had several different players find lightening in a bottle.

Like everyone here, I've watched a lot of baseball. I still cannot understand how the 2019 Red Sox were so much less than the sum of their parts. Injuries and Kimbrel explain some of it. But I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing at times. It all seems so clear in retrospect.

The widsom of the point about not paying for past performance has been borne out time and time again, so it's clearly correct. I just really did not expect this would be that.
 

OurF'ingCity

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THis. 100% This.

Hey everyone, can we PLEASE remember the following:
1. Unloading Price's contract is the third asset in the deal, and it's a big one. Price does not bring an asset back, he costs an asset to unload.
2. Waiting until the trade deadline would be stupid, because it would prevent the Sox from resetting against the cap and, more than likely, not generate any better a return.
3. And if the Sox are over the cap, the draft pick compensation they'd receive after Mookie walks is minuscule (a third-rounder, big whoop).
4. This is speculation on my part, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the Red Sox do not feel confident they can re-sign Mookie after he hits free agency. They've made him proposals and lived with him and his agent for 7-8 years now and ought to have a pretty good feel for this situation.

Any trade involving Mookie, is disappointing, but it sure as hell isn't stupid. It's the opposite of that.
Wait, why would waiting to deal Price and/or Mookie until the deadline prevent them from resetting? I thought salary was calculated at the end of the season for CBT purposes.

I do agree with #4 though - the Sox clearly have a number in mind above which they would not go for Mookie and it's pretty clearly significantly lower than what they expect he'll get on the open market.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Wait, why would waiting to deal Price and/or Mookie until the deadline prevent them from resetting?
Not counting Price and Mookie's salaries, the Red Sox were about 38 million under the cap. Plus, you need some money during the year. Speier says about 10 million but let's say conservatively they needed 5 million. That means they were about 33 million under the cap not counting their salaries. Price makes about 1,600,000 per week and Mookie will make about 1,350,000 per week this year. That means, every week you don't trade them, you are tacking on 3 million to the cap. So, 11 weeks into the season, you are done. Even if you trade both of them and don't have to subsidize even a penny of Price, you're over the cap. You need to do something else now to get under, and they don't really have a whole lot of something elses.

What if Price blows an elbow in week 2? You're done. You have about two weeks to get rid of Mookie with every team in the league knowing you're desperate to do it.

Edit: Sorry, my numbers are a little high. Price is actually 1.2 million a week and Mookie is 1 million a week so you're looking at 2.2 million not 3 million each week. Still, with the prospect of having to subsidize Price you run out of weeks really fast.
 
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MuppetAsteriskTalk

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THis. 100% This.

Hey everyone, can we PLEASE remember the following:
1. Unloading Price's contract is the third asset in the deal, and it's a big one. Price does not bring an asset back, he costs an asset to unload.
2. Waiting until the trade deadline would be stupid, because it would prevent the Sox from resetting against the cap and, more than likely, not generate any better a return.
3. And if the Sox are over the cap, the draft pick compensation they'd receive after Mookie walks is minuscule (a third-rounder, big whoop).
4. This is speculation on my part, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the Red Sox do not feel confident they can re-sign Mookie after he hits free agency. They've made him proposals and lived with him and his agent for 7-8 years now and ought to have a pretty good feel for this situation.

Any trade involving Mookie, is disappointing, but it sure as hell isn't stupid. It's the opposite of that.
Why should Price, with the Sox picking up half his salary, still cost an asset to unload? Price seems attractive at his subsidized cost, no?
 

JM3

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this is a really, really good and underrated point. Congrats on being the first one I’ve seen mention it.

To continue with the house with bad toilets example above, the Red Sox are a short-seller in this deal. Short-sellers never get fair market value.

Walk away.
Right, but the Red Sox have already bought a new house so if they don't sell their old house they're going to be stuck paying two mortgages when they can only live in 1 house & they can't afford 2 mortgages, & the bank knows this, so the bank is going to charge them a stupid high interest rate on their 1st house & it will inevitably lead to a foreclosure & ruin their credit for years to come so they won't be able to purchase any new houses in the future & their financial situation & ability to live in awesome houses is going to be severely hamstrung as their current houses get older & older & more useless.

So even if it doesn't seem like they're getting a great deal on their 1 house, it's their only real chance to live a baller lifestyle in the future, & as such it may be necessary to take the perceived short term loss for the greater good.

& it doesn't matter if they announce their financial situation or not. Buyers know what's up & can read the tea leaves & can see when the seller is over-leveraged. One just has to hope there are enough buyers out there that want the property that they will pay more than another team will, even if it would actually be worth it to the seller to sell for even less than they might get.
 

barbed wire Bob

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THis. 100% This.

Hey everyone, can we PLEASE remember the following:
1. Unloading Price's contract is the third asset in the deal, and it's a big one. Price does not bring an asset back, he costs an asset to unload.
2. Waiting until the trade deadline would be stupid, because it would prevent the Sox from resetting against the cap and, more than likely, not generate any better a return.
3. And if the Sox are over the cap, the draft pick compensation they'd receive after Mookie walks is minuscule (a third-rounder, big whoop).
4. This is speculation on my part, but I think it's reasonable to assume that the Red Sox do not feel confident they can re-sign Mookie after he hits free agency. They've made him proposals and lived with him and his agent for 7-8 years now and ought to have a pretty good feel for this situation.

Any trade involving Mookie, is disappointing, but it sure as hell isn't stupid. It's the opposite of that.
Regarding #4 I don’t necessarily think that is the case. As other posters have pointed out, the only way to re-sign Mookie without hamstringing the organization is to trade him now, reset the taxes and make an offer at the end of the 2020 season. So I would not be surprised if they make him a fair offer. That being said, if Mookie thinks he will get a 12 year/$450m offer from any team then my guess is he will be disappointed. I’m guessing he will get somewhere near Harper money instead of Trout money which would be easier for the Red to absorb if they want to.
 

Plympton91

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No, casuals like you *are* killing the deal because they:
A. don't understand that Betts will test the market no matter what and are overvaluing what he would mean to the Sox this year
B. don't understand that the haul they are getting for Betts is based on *1 year* of Betts, not multiple years of Betts versus the years of team control coming back
C. nobody cares about David Price's likability given where we are re: cheating, poor play in 2019 and the mess of this offseason
Simply trading Betts alone gets them under the luxury tax threshold. Price was still a very effective pitcher last year until the wrist injury. There is no need to dump Mookie in order to trade Price at what could easily be the nadir of his value.

I get trading a year of Betts to get a couple controllable assets. I get the need to get under the threshold. I don’t get the need to staple Price to him and thereby get a lesser amount of controllable assets.

I’ve made this same post 4 times in the past month. I should stop I guess.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

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Simply trading Betts alone gets them under the luxury tax threshold. Price was still a very effective pitcher last year until the wrist injury. There is no need to dump Mookie in order to trade Price at what could easily be the nadir of his value.

I get trading a year of Betts to get a couple controllable assets. I get the need to get under the threshold. I don’t get the need to staple Price to him and thereby get a lesser amount of controllable assets.

I’ve made this same post 4 times in the past month. I should stop I guess.
Mookie alone gets them only about 6.5 million under the cap. Maybe teams need more than that typically to get through the year. Speier said at one point that you need $10 million to get through the year but I'm not sure where that comes from. I do not know how the cap works very well. I assume that the roster back and forth that goes on during a typical baseball year causes money to get tacked on, but I don't know how close they would be cutting it.

They also may simply have felt that for 2021 and 2022 $32 million and no David Price is worth more than $64 million and David Price. Would you anticipate that the Sox would want to sign David Price after this year to a 2/32 contract? If the answer is no, then they get some value.
 

JM3

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Simply trading Betts alone gets them under the luxury tax threshold. Price was still a very effective pitcher last year until the wrist injury. There is no need to dump Mookie in order to trade Price at what could easily be the nadir of his value.

I get trading a year of Betts to get a couple controllable assets. I get the need to get under the threshold. I don’t get the need to staple Price to him and thereby get a lesser amount of controllable assets.

I’ve made this same post 4 times in the past month. I should stop I guess.
If they keep Price, but trade Mookie, they would:

1) Have no wiggle room under the CBT to add anyone else & there are still holes on the roster & an overall lack of organizational depth.
2) Be stuck with Price because he would be a 10/5 guy & have the right to veto any trade they tried to make.

If they could move Price separately from Betts & get more overall value, of course they would do it. It's the same concept as bringing the Twins into this trade to make it a 3-team trade to begin with. You find the person who wants someone the most, & you send that person to them. The problem is that it seems like the Dodgers must be the team that wants both Betts & Price the most, & that's apparently not that high of an amount of want.
 

Seels

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I don't get the standpoint of they need more than whatever arbitrary amount over the year.

If they're trading Mookie or Price, much less Mookie and Price, they're obviously not seriously competitive this year. My biggest gripe about this is it says that they're okay not being competitive.

Does the current roster, even with a healthy Chris Sale, have any shot at 90 wins?

I mean we don't even have a manager a week before spring training so maybe it doesn't even matter.
 

Plympton91

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If they keep Price, but trade Mookie, they would:

1) Have no wiggle room under the CBT to add anyone else & there are still holes on the roster & an overall lack of organizational depth.
2) Be stuck with Price because he would be a 10/5 guy & have the right to veto any trade they tried to make.

If they could move Price separately from Betts & get more overall value, of course they would do it. It's the same concept as bringing the Twins into this trade to make it a 3-team trade to begin with. You find the person who wants someone the most, & you send that person to them. The problem is that it seems like the Dodgers must be the team that wants both Betts & Price the most, & that's apparently not that high of an amount of want.
There’s no one of any value left to sign for 2020 and even if there were they’d still be no better than a third place team In the division and a 7th place team in the league. They only need to end the season $1 under the cap to reset the penalties. So they have plenty of other options to get to $12 million or so under at the start

1) Trade Barnes and Workman for a prospect each.
2) Subsidize 1/2 of Jackie Bradley’s salary and get a prospect back.
3) Subsidize an additional $6 million of Price to make him a 3/$30 contract. I mean Price has still been a top 15 pitcher when healthy. He’s got to have positive value or at least nonnegative at some price that still meaningfully cuts the 2020 payroll.

I just think the projections for Price are way way off. The reasonit’s so low is that there’s high autocorrelation in the projection systems. But Price’s 2019 was ruined by something completely fixable.
 
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Jul 5, 2018
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There’s no one of any value left to sign for 2020 and even if there were they’d still be no better than a third place team In the division and a 7th place team in the league. They only need to end the season $1 under the cap to reset the penalties. So they have plenty of other options to get

1) Trade Barnes and Workman for a prospect each.
2) Subsidize 1/2 of Jackie Bradley’s salary and get a prospect back.
3) Subsidize an additional $6 million of Price to make him a 3/$30 contract. I mean Price has still been a top 15 pitcher when healthy. He’s got to have positive value at some price that still meaningfully cuts the 2020 payroll.

I just think the projections for Price are way way off. The recession it’s so low is that there’s high autocorrelation in the projection systems. But price’s 2019 was ruined by something completely fixable.
#1 and #2 should help them get a top ten pick in the next draft.
 

nvalvo

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Savin Hillbilly

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The wrong side of the bridge....
I just think the projections for Price are way way off. The reasonit’s so low is that there’s high autocorrelation in the projection systems. But Price’s 2019 was ruined by something completely fixable.
Which projections are you looking at? Steamer has him at 155 IP with a 3.69 ERA and a 2.9 WAR, which would be his best since 2016. That seems pretty rosy to me.
 

jon abbey

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Yeah, but I was totally in favor of it at the time.

They had just won 108 games and looked almost invincible. There was no reason to suspect it couldn't happen again. It did not occur to me that maybe 108 was a bit over-representative of what the team really was and that maybe they had gotten lucky and had several different players find lightening in a bottle.

Like everyone here, I've watched a lot of baseball. I still cannot understand how the 2019 Red Sox were so much less than the sum of their parts. Injuries and Kimbrel explain some of it. But I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing at times. It all seems so clear in retrospect.

The widsom of the point about not paying for past performance has been borne out time and time again, so it's clearly correct. I just really did not expect this would be that.
Honestly the 2018 team was so good (best team in franchise history) that I don't think they had much of a choice. Pearce didn't cost much and Eovaldi was kind of crucial if they were going to hold off NY, whose major weakness the last few years has been RH SPs who can hit 100. There are only a handful of those guys and Eovaldi was one of them, people forget that the Astros also went after him hard last winter.

Now, the Sale re-signing isn't part of this, that was somewhat odd from the start.
 

DeadlySplitter

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eh, they probably should have had some foresight and rethought the Eovaldi deal at least - most of his career was in fact a league-average pitcher. Henry seemed aware but still let DD do whatever, to both of their peril.

I'm trying to think of a homegrown stand-out the past 5 years and am struggling to think of anyone past Benintendi, who was the #7 pick of 2015 if I recall correctly. Devers was signed way earlier. That's just too many years of crap drafting in a row to survive in this current CBA.
 

Tyrone Biggums

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There’s no one of any value left to sign for 2020 and even if there were they’d still be no better than a third place team In the division and a 7th place team in the league. They only need to end the season $1 under the cap to reset the penalties. So they have plenty of other options to get to $12 million or so under at the start

1) Trade Barnes and Workman for a prospect each.
2) Subsidize 1/2 of Jackie Bradley’s salary and get a prospect back.
3) Subsidize an additional $6 million of Price to make him a 3/$30 contract. I mean Price has still been a top 15 pitcher when healthy. He’s got to have positive value or at least nonnegative at some price that still meaningfully cuts the 2020 payroll.

I just think the projections for Price are way way off. The reasonit’s so low is that there’s high autocorrelation in the projection systems. But Price’s 2019 was ruined by something completely fixable.
To add to this the organizational depth piece probably gets taken care of with the Mookie trade. You then have the option to make JBJ more attractive. Workman as well. And Price gets traded at the deadline. This would have been a much better way to go.
 

DeadlySplitter

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yep, the longer this goes the more likely it falls apart

I guess the Dodgers are not budging at all on adding their prospects, for now. tough shit
 

JCizzle

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Really broken up that we might be stuck with Mookie, definitely bumming me out.
 

OurF'ingCity

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Mookie alone gets them only about 6.5 million under the cap. Maybe teams need more than that typically to get through the year. Speier said at one point that you need $10 million to get through the year but I'm not sure where that comes from. I do not know how the cap works very well. I assume that the roster back and forth that goes on during a typical baseball year causes money to get tacked on, but I don't know how close they would be cutting it.
That ~$10 million is because the CBT calculation also includes a portion of all player benefit costs for the year. This article says that was around $7 million in 2017 and I assume teams want a little wiggle room just in case there is any minor miscalculation of travel perks or the like on their part. So yeah, just getting rid of Mookie alone would not have been comfortably sufficient for the Sox.
 

Jeff Van GULLY

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Would be nice to see this deal fall through and keep Mookie but the likeliest scenario if that happens is a worse trade to the Padres.
 

mr_smith02

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Somewhat tongue in cheek, somewhat serious post...

I am ready for the Red Sox to have Mookie Week during a long homestand...double ticket, food, and merchandise prices, with all extra proceeds going to keeping Mookie in Boston. I'd be willing to attend a few games during Mookie Week.
 

OurF'ingCity

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Well placed leak by Boston. Good luck selling to your fan base that hasn’t won a World Series that anyone under 40 can remember that you lost out on Betts because you wouldn’t part with a prospect like May or Downs to get this done Friedman.
Yeah, I'm not usually much of a conspiracy theorist but I do wonder to what degree this wasn't Boston's plan all along: agree to (and leak) the initial trade, knowing you'll likely be able to find something in either or both of Verdugo's and Graterol's medical histories that you can use as an excuse to hold up the trade and build pressure on the Dodgers to give up a better or additional piece, knowing that the Dodgers now not only face massive public pressure to get the trade done but also have at least one other trade lined up that is contingent on this one going through.
 

brandonchristensen

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Yeah, I'm not usually much of a conspiracy theorist but I do wonder to what degree this wasn't Boston's plan all along: agree to (and leak) the initial trade, knowing you'll likely be able to find something in either or both of Verdugo's and Graterol's medical histories that you can use as an excuse to hold up the trade and build pressure on the Dodgers to give up a better or additional piece, knowing that the Dodgers now not only face massive public pressure to get the trade done but also have at least one other trade lined up that is contingent on this one going through.
In the unlikely event that this were true, I would love our new GM.
 

mr_smith02

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Yeah, I'm not usually much of a conspiracy theorist but I do wonder to what degree this wasn't Boston's plan all along: agree to (and leak) the initial trade, knowing you'll likely be able to find something in either or both of Verdugo's and Graterol's medical histories that you can use as an excuse to hold up the trade and build pressure on the Dodgers to give up a better or additional piece, knowing that the Dodgers now not only face massive public pressure to get the trade done but also have at least one other trade lined up that is contingent on this one going through.
For an organization about to find out its penalty for a "cheating" scandal, I truly hope the new GM is not playing games like this that would most assuredly lead to other teams staying far away from dealing with the Sox if it were true.
 
Yeah, I'm not usually much of a conspiracy theorist but I do wonder to what degree this wasn't Boston's plan all along: agree to (and leak) the initial trade, knowing you'll likely be able to find something in either or both of Verdugo's and Graterol's medical histories that you can use as an excuse to hold up the trade and build pressure on the Dodgers to give up a better or additional piece, knowing that the Dodgers now not only face massive public pressure to get the trade done but also have at least one other trade lined up that is contingent on this one going through.
Heyman's tweet seems to suggest that the additional piece would come from the Twins. Not clear whether or how the Dodgers would be involved, but it doesn't appear--again, based on this tweet--that the sweetener would be a Dodger prospect.
 

amfox1

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Simply trading Betts alone gets them under the luxury tax threshold. Price was still a very effective pitcher last year until the wrist injury. There is no need to dump Mookie in order to trade Price at what could easily be the nadir of his value.

I get trading a year of Betts to get a couple controllable assets. I get the need to get under the threshold. I don’t get the need to staple Price to him and thereby get a lesser amount of controllable assets.
To be clear, trading Betts before the season AND taking back no salary AND replacing Betts with a minimum-salary player gets the Red Sox at or under the ltt.

If you don't trade Betts before the season, the Red Sox still would have to trade approx. $26-$28mm to get under the ltt. Trading Betts AND Price (without assuming any portion of Price's deal) AND JDM at the trade deadline is roughly the financial equivalent of trading Betts before the season.

The reason to trade Betts now is that not trading Betts now makes it extremely difficult for the Red Sox to get under the ltt, which means Betts' salary is effectively $40.5mm ($27mm to Betts and $13.5mm to MLB at the 50% penalty level).

The reason to trade Price now is that he becomes a 10/5 guy at the end of the season and there is a non-zero chance the Red Sox will not be able to trade him at or before the deadline, due to injury. If they can trade Betts now, the Red Sox could assume the risk that Price will become a positive asset, for trade purposes, before the deadline. That would be a $48mm wager, however, because if the Red Sox cannot trade him by the deadline, they cannot trade him at all without his consent.
 

Teachdad46

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Heyman's tweet seems to suggest that the additional piece would come from the Twins. Not clear whether or how the Dodgers would be involved, but it doesn't appear--again, based on this tweet--that the sweetener would be a Dodger prospect.
I'm a lil perplexed by that. My understanding was that the Twins traded Graterol to LA for Maeda, and the Dodgers then flipped him to Boston along with Verdugo. Not sure how that gets the Twins onto the hot seat here..but maybe the Dodgers' position on Graterol's health was 'as is/as we understand it' and thus the responsibility falls back onto the Twins?
We need a legal opinion in here..
 

Salem's Lot

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Yeah, I'm not usually much of a conspiracy theorist but I do wonder to what degree this wasn't Boston's plan all along: agree to (and leak) the initial trade, knowing you'll likely be able to find something in either or both of Verdugo's and Graterol's medical histories that you can use as an excuse to hold up the trade and build pressure on the Dodgers to give up a better or additional piece, knowing that the Dodgers now not only face massive public pressure to get the trade done but also have at least one other trade lined up that is contingent on this one going through.
I have to believe Bloom made this deal in good faith. He’s well respected in the business and he used to work for Friedman. I think the Twins medical people have a different opinion on what constitutes a healthy pitching than the Red Sox do, and Bloom can’t continue with the current deal as is.
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Granted we know nothing about who has actually said or thought what... I think the notion that new GM Bloom was planning to pull a fast one over his former boss Friedman is, frankly, silly. I think Friedman and the Twins had had prior discussions, likely the Twins eyeing guys like Stripling and Maeda as potentially available and cheap SP options for them, and LA brought MN into the trade discussions to meet what Chaim wanted: a high ceiling, cheap, close-to-MLB SP prospect (Graterol).

I think LA and MN realize that Boston has a legit concern about Graterol’s medicals. But how do you solve it? Is it solely MN’s problem? Too rigid a position by LA doesn’t help LA seal the deal. What if MN disagrees with Boston’s view and valuation of Graterol? Tough for them to add in more value. Chaim wants something more - a different player entirely? An extra player? Less money to subsidize Price? We don’t know. My guess? He wants a starting pitcher, and he wants projectability. Puts each team in a pickle, because the reason for bringing MN in might not really apply anymore.
 

ehaz

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No way that Minnesota gives up more than Gatorade for Maeda. I wonder if they could expand the deal to include Workman or Barnes and then have the Dodgers add Gonsolin.

BOS -> LAD: Mookie, Workman, Price, $$
LAD -> BOS: Verdugo, Gonsolin
LAD -> MIN: Maeda
MIN -> BOS: Gatorade
 

Salem's Lot

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No way that Minnesota gives up more than Gatorade for Maeda. I wonder if they could expand the deal to include Workman or Barnes and then have the Dodgers add Gonsolin.

BOS -> LAD: Mookie, Workman, Price, $$
LAD -> BOS: Verdugo, Gonsolin
LAD -> MIN: Maeda
MIN -> BOS: Gatorade
How about if they threw in a vitamin water?
 

nattysez

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8,435
How about you reconfigure the deal so that you're not trading for 2 guys with ongoing injuries and at least one of whom is a below-average human being?
 

54thMA

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Yeah, but I was totally in favor of it at the time.

They had just won 108 games and looked almost invincible. There was no reason to suspect it couldn't happen again. It did not occur to me that maybe 108 was a bit over-representative of what the team really was and that maybe they had gotten lucky and had several different players find lightening in a bottle.

Like everyone here, I've watched a lot of baseball. I still cannot understand how the 2019 Red Sox were so much less than the sum of their parts. Injuries and Kimbrel explain some of it. But I almost couldn't believe what I was seeing at times. It all seems so clear in retrospect.

The widsom of the point about not paying for past performance has been borne out time and time again, so it's clearly correct. I just really did not expect this would be that.
In fairness to you; so was I.

Pearce was money in the WS, bring him back.

Eovaldi produced one of the greatest pitching performances in WS history, bring him back.

Sale was blood and guts, closed out the series, struck out that asshat Machado, extend him.

But we're just fans, we don't get paid to make rational decisions, but the GM does, the ownership has to sign off on it.

The ownership signed off on it, the GM pulled the trigger and then in 2019, a lot of what went right in 2018 went wrong.

So here we are.
 

Yaz4Ever

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In fairness to you; so was I.

Pearce was money in the WS, bring him back.

Eovaldi produced one of the greatest pitching performances in WS history, bring him back.

Sale was blood and guts, closed out the series, struck out that asshat Machado, extend him.

But we're just fans, we don't get paid to make rational decisions, but the GM does, the ownership has to sign off on it.

The ownership signed off on it, the GM pulled the trigger and then in 2019, a lot of what went right in 2018 went wrong.

So here we are.
This 100%
 

Minneapolis Millers

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Eovaldi produced one of the greatest pitching performances in WS history, bring him
Allow me to expand. He was a RHP with serious heat who had demonstrated the ability to get the MFYs out. He cost less to sign than what we had been paying the soon-to-depart Porcello. He slotted in brilliantly as the long term #3 with Sale and Price (and E-Rod). Yes his injury history was bad. But it was pretty freaking clear why the team with a legit chance to repeat was drinking that Kool Aid at that time.
 

HangingW/ScottCooper

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Nov 10, 2006
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Mookie alone gets them only about 6.5 million under the cap. Maybe teams need more than that typically to get through the year. Speier said at one point that you need $10 million to get through the year but I'm not sure where that comes from. I do not know how the cap works very well. I assume that the roster back and forth that goes on during a typical baseball year causes money to get tacked on, but I don't know how close they would be cutting it.

They also may simply have felt that for 2021 and 2022 $32 million and no David Price is worth more than $64 million and David Price. Would you anticipate that the Sox would want to sign David Price after this year to a 2/32 contract? If the answer is no, then they get some value.
You need the wiggle room during the season in case you need a #2 starter or MVP Right Fielder.
 

E5 Yaz

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the Dodgers are loaded with prospects ... and they won't part with one to finish the trade?

this actually could fall apart
 
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