The stated reason he was fired was because it was "unacceptable" the team finished in last place two years in a row. It seems far-fetched that Breslow inherited a job where he's mandated not to finish last while also adhering to some further tightened payroll restrictions, as so many are speculating.
No but it’s been a way for Boras clients and the Sox to match up (Beltre) and for others to go forward when a big paycheck didn’t happen. Maybe Boras sees the market next season as more likely to give flawed starters “ace” type of money a year after YY and Ohtani both got crazy deals? I dunno.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01/16/sports/craig-breslow-red-sox-interview-globe/
Hanley, Jacoby, Buchholz, and Xander were all star players. We'll see about Casas. But yes, but historical hit rate, they'll be lucky if one of the three is an All Star and all three even make the majors.
Prospects are not guarantees, but knowing who to hold onto and who to trade is a skill, not an immutable constant. Some of the prospects on the list above got us Beckett, Sale, Bard, etc.
This article is worse than the first snapshot. It legitimately makes it seem like they are done or close to being done.
Benintendi with the Royals was another All-Star.
Right. Which is why it struck me as strange that Breslow seems to have taken the For Sale sign out of the window when it comes to prospects.
It simply can't be disagreed with credibly any more, because of the realities you cited.
Literally correct but only because KC needed a representative and Salvador Perez was hurt, he had 3 HRs in 363 PAs before the ASB that year, coupled with mediocre corner OF defense.
All he really said was that he's not going to trade for short term gains. Good for him.
I don't disagree at all with your overall point, but would ask where you think Mayer/Teel/Anthony would fall with all things being equal on those previous lists?
Well, Giolito sort of fits that mold already. Apart from him, there's nothing wrong with developing Bello, Crawford, Pivetta, Houck, Whitlock, and Winckowski.
Because apparently he blew multiple trades that would have accelerated the rebuild, as has been discussed here a lot. Obviously we don't know for sure, but it's the only explanation that makes sense, has some proof to it, and makes even a Bloom supporter think "yeah, he probably needed to go."
Right. That's why I didn't mention him, but I can see how my choice of words was confusing. All of them were stars, even if others were All Stars.
I think this is spot on. It is not guaranteed to work, but Breslow and Bailey both have pretty good track records. They know they have something in Bello, and believe they do in Crawford and Houck as well, maybe Winckowski can be added to this list. They probably think they can get Giolito back on track, and know they need his innings and were able to get (hopefully) great value for Sale. The path to developing their draft picks and others outside the organization is a longer term deal. This is why I believe they will sign one of Ryu, Paxton or Lorenzen (Clevinger too much of a PR mess) to try and get another 110+ innings on a 1 year deal and hope to compete for a WC as long as many other things break their way like they did in 2021.
I was curious on what percentage of prospects in the Mayer/Anthony/Teel class of prospects* make it to the majors. As someone said, not all prospects are equal and it seems like all three of those will be in the top 50 range in baseball (call it 55 FV). So I went back and looked at Fangraphs’ top prospect boards for 2017-2021 and was surprised how common it is for prospects in that range to make the majors. Here is the summary for position player prospects only rated 55 FV and above:
"We still intend intend to utilize our financial resources to try and compete this year, in a way that we won't jeopardize the future."
I'm encouraged that he mentioned our top 3 prospects by name, which makes me think he'll need to be blown away to trade any of them. All have the potential to play premium positions up the middle, and the biggest reason we were able to draft them is for being crappy enough to have those high picks. It'll be worth it and more rewarding to develop our own guys, so hopefully they do develop. Most of the other stuff he said was fairly depressing.
I'm actually pretty pleased that he took a huge steaming dump on the full throttle thing. If nothing else, any moves made now will exceed expectations, which is a better place to be than falling way short of false expectations. Just sucks that it became a mess that had to be addressed. Have I mentioned that To....
Why exactly are you comparing a list of guys a bunch of whom were barely ever even top 100 prospects with several guys who are being ranked around top 10?
Well, what do the media outlets that exist to do nothing but monitor minor league systems in baseball say about the Red Sox system relative to the rest of the game?
It didn't strike me as odd, per se, because Boston's best prospects are still at A/A+ or just arrived in AA. So by default the value is still low. Next year this time when they're A+/AA/AAA things will open up for them.
Since when has ticket price equated to quality of a team? The prices are created by supply and demand, not performance. If fans think they're paying too much, they'll stop going and prices will fall. Economics 101.
The first two bullets on this list are nothing like the rest. Bello was 24 years old last year and is showing all the potential in the world with or without Baily’s emergence. He’s a really good pitcher. Casas’s production outside of his first six weeks of the season has been well chronicled on this board. He was an absolute stud for the majority of the season, one of the better hitters in the game. We’d all love for his defense to improve but whether it does or it doesn’t, he is already a lineup anchor. Players of this caliber, who were prospects of a high caliber, have a long track record of success in MLB. There are no “well if everything goes right” questions about these players. These are the kinds of players that all MLB teams bank on.
This is a great response, lots of stuff to think on here.
Only thing is, those trades he allegedly blew would have hurt that year's team's chances at the playoffs. And they were supposedly trying to make the playoffs.
If this doesn't get you going, then you don't have a pulse. And I congratulate you (and myself) for that.
Huh.
Actually I think DD's forte has been knowing which ones to trade and which ones to keep.
I still felt Bloom deserved one more season and it included adding one of the big name starters which is how I read his plan.
Uhh only if you believe someone who has every reason to massage the truth on this point. Like that wording could very well be "Well go to $270M if we think it gets us a World Series, but not for anything else" Otherwise stay at 225M (or pick your number).
What a load of bullshit that served only to make me mad. Just shut up you mealy mouthed greedy fucks. ChatGPT has more integrity.
I’m not quite sure why you think a quote from an interested party proves anything. Neither position has been proven or disproven with this quote.
How much further down the rabbit hole do we have to go in this Sox payroll truther conspiracy theory? He came right out and said that we thought we had a chance at Yamamoto, which would have obviously added a ton of payroll. We don't have to offer Montgomery or Snell the same contract we would have given YY to make that true. And he definitely doesn't have to say what the Red Sox payroll should or will be, which would upset every agent in the game and hamper our negotiations, and may even border on collusion.
