Gotta love that, after over two months of "Full Throttle" being out there, he's just now getting around to saying "not like that though..."
Let's Lay Off That Throttle
- Thread starter soxhop411
- Start date
As with Belichick and the Patriots, the Sox seem to have maintained faith in the plan but not the planner.
I am not going down any conspiracy theory. I’m merely pointing out that using his statement, which was carefully worded, doesn’t support your conclusion nor does it disprove people who hold the opposite viewpoint.
That's a good point. Gotta wonder if Ownership is tired of the "they're too cheap to spend" comments, when they gave Breslow autonomy to spend as he wishes.
I don’t know if it walks to back but it certainly adds another layer of context. Like ownership was willing to spend this off-season but Breslow thought that holding for a year and internal development was the better path forward.
A little over 30 years ago now, Werner was part of the Padres ownership, which was questioned about its commitment to fielding a winning baseball team. One of those who took him to task was the revered baseball writer Roger Angell, whose quote in The New Yorker was reprinted in an LA Times story:
“His obligation extends to the fans as well as to his corporate partners,” Angell said. “Bottom lines are not restricted to making money.”
LA Times story is here
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-07-13-mn-12756-story.html
“His obligation extends to the fans as well as to his corporate partners,” Angell said. “Bottom lines are not restricted to making money.”
LA Times story is here
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-07-13-mn-12756-story.html
On the recent Fenway Rundown podcast (edit - episode 179) former Red Sox exec Zack Scott talked specifically about the process.
Apparently, they have a budget, but the GM can make a sale job to ownership if he feels strongly (pun intended) but his job is then on the line.
If this is true then why didn’t they go out and outbid the Dodgers for Shohei and Yamamoto? There obviously is some limit, and whatever it is is less than the Dodgers’ limit by a significant margin.
That’s exactly my point. There probably isn’t some hard and fast number (so his statement can be perceived as true) but there is likely a general understanding on parameters. That is how budgeting works. I have access to an NBA team’s budget and financials due to my work and they always budget to a certain level every year. And there is a process for exceeding it that requires ownership approval. The GM knows his baseline is that budgeted level and he has to fight to go north of it. This is a good team too. I, unfortunately, don’t get to be part of any of those conversations.
My take on all of this is that Breslow isn’t really that enamored with the FA class and is probably trying to maintain flexibility as best he can. I don’t think ownership is micromanaging him or anything but I think there is some baseline limit that warrants further discussion. Anything below that may not depending on how their governance is structured.
Again, none of us know so I don’t put much value in public statements like these.
Perhaps because Breslow isn't insane and he also saw the writing on the wall that both guys were heartset on going to L.A.? Missing out on those two in particular had nothing to do with whether or not ownership had a redline limit on the payroll.
With all due respect to you, baseball economics from 30 years ago have zero relevance today, that was a whole bunch of CBAs ago.
Now that we know that Breslow has assured the owners that we will be "competitive" I am left to wonder if those assurances were about 2024 and what exactly does "competitive" mean. If it means playing meaningful mid-September 2024 baseball then if I were Breslow I would be thinking I have some work to do over the next few weeks specifically spending a lot more of the owners' money.
Sorry, I really disagree. McAdam and Cotillo have been saying for weeks that the Sox "won't spend at the top of the market" and really seem to be operating under a payroll limit from management. Both are directly disproven here. (Not that they did spend at the top of the market, but that they were willing to with Yamamoto.)
Sure it's carefully worded, but Werner is saying flatly that this is not true. He said so clearly in response to a question from McAdam about what the payroll budget is. It makes no sense to answer that if it were true, but he's saying that there is no hard number, which aligns with reporting from past years. We don't have to jump through hoops to say that Werner is lying and directly contradicting and throwing Breslow under the bus by doing so.
Per Soxhop's post upthread, Werner said this:
“In the end, we don’t have a line in terms of our payroll that we look at as much as trusting that Craig (Breslow) is going to deliver on his assurance that we’re going to be competitive.”
Per posts above, this topic is settled and we can put this line of discussion to bed. They have no maximum to exceed. They will spend when they are ready and find players worthy of them spending.
I deleted my prior spiel about tuning them all out, it's more honest to admit that I don't really do that. I do think they are holding back some money for the right opportunity, and apparently Snell and Monty aren't that guy. Who is, it's hard to say right now.
I didn't get that at all. If anything I think he brought expectations down that we'll see immediate moves, and said that they trust Breslow to make moves that make sense when he makes them. I don't see the the conflict in what each said even a little.
Whether one chooses to believe a word of any of it is understandable, but I'd rather they address the confusion than let it fester.
The court intrigue of parsing the FO's and ownership's words is tiresome, a symptom of a slow and frustrating offseason. I can't see any reason to criticize Breslow's interview, though. His plan might be disappointing, especially in anticipation of the upcoming season, but that plan is reasonable, was stated forthrightly, and had some specificity (like directly stating that much hope rests on Mayer/Teel/Anthony).
Werner's interview, on the other hand, is a bunch of mealy-mouthed, self-serving nonsense that deflects blame and future blame on Breslow. Like @OurF'ingCity said, that one statement about "we don't have a line..." is almost certainly untrue. It might be that the line is, "if this signing doesn't work out very well and very fast, you're toast," but there's still a line.
Much of the rest of Warner's words put Breslow on the same exceedingly narrow path of competing in the near future while simultaneously building towards the future that doomed Bloom. Now, Bloom failed, and early signs are promising in some of Breslow's moves, but for both it's a treacherous, low-probability path with multiple expectations of success.
Warner also just can't take the f'ing L on saying something stupid, instead parsing and qualifying. It would have been much better for him to laugh and say, "Yeah, that was a dumb thing to say" and then put a sock in it, especially on the heels of Breslow's interview. Instead he has to say something like, "We felt very strongly that we were going to compete for (Japanese free agent Yoshinobu) Yamamoto’s services. But in the end, he went to another team. But we felt were in the mix and we were going to be competitive," a statement that means precisely nothing.
Werner's interview, on the other hand, is a bunch of mealy-mouthed, self-serving nonsense that deflects blame and future blame on Breslow. Like @OurF'ingCity said, that one statement about "we don't have a line..." is almost certainly untrue. It might be that the line is, "if this signing doesn't work out very well and very fast, you're toast," but there's still a line.
Much of the rest of Warner's words put Breslow on the same exceedingly narrow path of competing in the near future while simultaneously building towards the future that doomed Bloom. Now, Bloom failed, and early signs are promising in some of Breslow's moves, but for both it's a treacherous, low-probability path with multiple expectations of success.
Warner also just can't take the f'ing L on saying something stupid, instead parsing and qualifying. It would have been much better for him to laugh and say, "Yeah, that was a dumb thing to say" and then put a sock in it, especially on the heels of Breslow's interview. Instead he has to say something like, "We felt very strongly that we were going to compete for (Japanese free agent Yoshinobu) Yamamoto’s services. But in the end, he went to another team. But we felt were in the mix and we were going to be competitive," a statement that means precisely nothing.
Reading back on Werner's comments today: "We are resolute about being competitive this year." That is certainly putting some heat on Breslow who was musing earlier today about the 2025-26 Teel Anthony Mayer team. Now if Breslow is likewise being held to a tighter budget down around 200M (or prevented from offering more than 2 years to guys) we have a serious front office problem.
Did I say Werner is lying? I doubt he is lying at face value but I also think it’s likely that there are general parameters on budget.
Ultimately, I don’t really care one way or another. If there really is no limit, then making additional moves to help the team shouldn’t be a problem. We’ll see what happens.
Pretty sure we’re agreeing here and cool note in the NBA.
Re the bolded, I get it of course. In this case however, there was no obvious reason for Scott to misrepresent an internal Sox process and it would probably be stupid to.
None of the words Werner says are flatly saying it isn't true I would note. He carefully phrases the Yamamoto portion to note that they "thought they would be competitive" rather than that they actually were competitive. He also doesn't actually say there isn't a budget either total or per contract, he instead says they look less to that than .. word salad about Breslow's assurances, which could mean anything up to an including assurances that they could be competitive without exceeding a budget.
It's a carefully crafted non-answer made to IMPLY a response to criticism/questions without actually making them.
Now maybe they really have no budget, and they really were in the hunt for YY (say within $40M), definitely possible. But nothing in that statement is an outright rejection of what McAdam wrote. SO I wouldn't trumpet that they are liars and Werner flatly said they were
Man oh man are they ever trying to stem the blowback from this weekend's event before it gets started.
I was more posting it as a past example of how Werner would express himself to the media, along with Angell's observation that Werner might not grasp the obligation to fans
Yeah, sorry for being confusing, I was referring to Werner’s public statements and not the ones from Scott. My belief is that every Sox GM has latitude up until a certain point. I do believe Werner is being truthful that they don’t have some magic number that can’t be exceeded. Any good owner will be willing to spend more when it’s warranted. And they’ve showed this in the past.
Ah yes, that makes sense.
Oddly though I found Breslows comments more grounded in something.
As for Werner’s comments, yeah I shouldn’t get worked up about the pro forma BS…but there you go
Nothing is directly disproved by Werner saying it. Really all we can do is wait and see what the payroll is when ST opens, and then we can look at what it is on opening day…
… Just not enough that he actually considered visiting Boston, or the ownership group.
So if the Sox don’t add anyone significant and the payroll stays flat, that’s just a wild coincidence because Breslow didn’t think the talent was there to spend on, because paragon of honesty and the forthright statement Tom Werner said that they could’ve spent if they really wanted to?
That’s what ownership wants us to believe, sure, and many do. But we don’t know, obviously. There’s been zero concrete reporting about an actual Sox offer to YY or Imanaga, is there? And even then, who knows what’s what.
Well they never even got a second meeting so how competitive were they really? I mean for all we know they completely misread the market and came in $50m under. That doesn’t mean anything Werner said is a lie.
Ownership has been lucky the last 2 years. Although they finished in last place, they were competitive in the first half of both years. The nightmare scenario for ownership is the team getting off to a bad start and sinking deep down the standings early on. Fenway could actually be an ugly experience next summer if that occurs.
As for the winter weekend, I am kind of disappointed that Devers won't be there. The team has only 1 star player and it sucks he wasn't able to make the event.
I see we're fully on board with overparsing comments made to the press. I wouldn't expect Werner to go out and say "we're not going to be competitive this year"; it would be kind of a crappy message to send to the players and to any prospective free agents that Breslow is still trying to bring on board.
I also would not expect Werner to disclose the exact budget Breslow is working under and the specific circumstances he can exceed that.
I also would not expect Werner to disclose the exact budget Breslow is working under and the specific circumstances he can exceed that.
Welcome aboard. I'm curious to know if you think that Breslow should have kept Sale, what you think about the return that he got in the deal as well as the return for Verdugo. I'm also curious as to what you would have liked to have seen him do to this point as well as the remainder of the off season.
Sort of the way things work in the real world when it comes to operating budgets and the consequences when they are exceeded.
And it still wouldn't prove that ownership has set a spending cap or payroll mandate, which is the Masslive speculation that everyone wants to believe. The burden of proof is on the reporters who are saying that there's a major policy shift. What Werner is saying is exactly what Speier reported about previous FOs years ago.
We're trying to determine the Red Sox interest and willingness to acquire him, right? Yamamoto's interest in Boston is an independent variable.
I don't know if it's a wild coincidence. What it says to me is that Breslow is likely not willing to wildly overspend to lure Montgomery or Snell away from the geographic locations they've been quoted to say they and their families want to live in, and I think that's okay. I don't know for sure what they're thinking or what they want, but it seems totally sensible to me to think it's a bad baseball move to pay a guy an absolute ton of money when we're not sure he'll be happy here. Especially if, like Breslow, that will be your legacy-defining move as a front office exec.
Yes, and I thought first hand(ish) corroboration from someone who had operated other side of the Red Sox firewall with this ownership was interesting.
None of this goes to say whether that base operating budget is a reasonable one or one that facilitates competition, that’s a separate topic.
That Warner et al felt very strongly about being competitive? Quite possibly--people are capable of all manner of astonishing feelings, grounded in reality or not.
That they were actually competitive? That's, at best, a lot murkier. There were a couple of reports in December they'd offered around $300 million that were contradicted the next day. I don't believe we heard anything from the team period. We know that YY never visited Boston and that the Red Sox were not mentioned as one of his final suitors. It certainly seems like final no offers regardless of budget were made.
Signs point to YY intending to go the Dodgers all along. Breslow and company might have realized that in the mid- to late-stages and bailed. The Red Sox don't seem to have been particularly competitive, though, unless we count being among the initial teams to meet with YY as competitive. And Warner's feelings regarding them being competitive or in the mix are meaningless. It's also meaningless as proof of their full-throttleness, which is ostensibly why he shared his feelings so expansively.
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What’s the incentive for a head of baseball ops to ever fight to exceed the budget, then? Seems like DD was allowed to do that and then immediately canned when it didn’t work. Maybe that’s the way the real world works but it doesn’t sound terribly collaborative.
Ahh, ok. I thought you were alluding to the mindset on SoSH that the Red Sox were going to blow through the Luxury Tax this year (or any year, really) and if they weren't planning on some massive change of direction, why fire Bloom (summed up, and not attributing that to any one poster. Carry on.
Yeah, I don’t get this being unreasonable either. Whatever the budget is, there ostensibly is one. Saying, we’ll listen to your pitch to go over, but you will be judged on the results of your projections isn’t exactly outlandish.
Now, maybe one wants to argue on a trigger being pulled too quickly for a firing, which is a different argument. But saying “you will be judged on how you spend the budget (whatever it is) and held accountable by results for excess spending” isn’t some horrible injustice.
Just like we saw with DD, winning a title means your job prospects remain strong. Isn’t that the incentive? All of these guys eventually know they’re getting canned. Breslow probably knows he has 4 years based on the prior guys. If, in Year 2-3, he sees this team as close but needing another expensive arm at the deadline, that is when I would go to bat for a budget variance. But it seems like he’s realistic about the 2024 team’s chances and likely doesn’t want to make a big play for a guy like Snell/Montgomery because of it.
Almost every MLB team has some sort of budget. And, yes, if you lobby your boss that you feel there is a very good reason to exceed said budget in any given year, you'll be expected to justify the increase with good reasons. And, if those reasons turn out to be wrong, you will be called to task for it.
What should the owner do in that case? Accept an expensive yet mediocre product on the field? Fire himself? A good owner will demand a solution and a timeline. A less patient owner....oh well...
Yes, it's a bit unfair. Being a GM for a major league sports team anywhere means you'll be judged directly for the results on the field, regardless of whether you are under budget, over budget, or right on target. Across town, we just saw the most successful coach/GM in NFL history get shown the door. The upside as GM is that if you win a title, you will have a number of teams calling you when you get shitcanned. Ben Cherington and Dombrowski had zero difficulty getting good jobs elsewhere.
But will Snell/Montgomery still be on the team and still effective when the team's "chances are better"? And for that matter, wouldn't they make the team's chances better? They are both 31, I believe, not 35. If they can get an 11-year contract like Xander, I get demurring. If they are going to get more like 6 years ... and the team revenue is high, and the budget commitments are low relative to past (successful) years ...and the need for quality starting pitching is a screamingly obvious need ...well, given all that, isn't there a logic to signing them?
So if the Sox payroll winds up around the budget line that's been reported (by just about everyone at this point), that's just a coincidence?
C'mon. It's possible that both things are true: Breslow is not enamored with the current Free Agent class, which is very weak, and Red Sox ownership is full of shit when they're speaking about how much they're willing to spend.
Can you elaborate? You're entitled to your opinion, but it's on you to back up your specific thoughts about Breslow. How is he overmatched? He may turn out to be, but what are you basing your statement on?
Edit: My bad, I apologize, you did say seems. Seems how?
If it's true (and it's not been established) that they've "lost their way," can they find their way back? Why or why not?
Is it really a disaster? Will we know that before we see some baseball? If you're correct, where do the fixes lie?
Others read his comments differently, and some quite similarly, and each explained why they feel the way they do. Can you do us the same courtesy?
I think the proof will be in whether this team enters the year above or below the CBT? We reset last year, they should be above it. Next year we’ll be hearing that aw shoot, Soto really likes NYC, etc.
Why hasn’t there been a sniff of a rumor on what they offered Yamamoto? I’ll give you a hint: it would make the FO/ownership look silly what they thought would be a competitive offer. Werner’s comments continue to make them look either out of touch with the reality of where they’re at or clueless(or both).
