I'm sure he would have, because they probably would have offered more than any other team, and looked like they were in a position to succeed. Spending is no guarantee of success, but it does indicate that you're trying.
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Yeah those Mets are going to be fighting to win it all every year. So they say now. Cohen said that last offseason, then said the exact opposite 6 months later, that they wouldn't be trying until 2025 or maybe 2026.
https://theathletic.com/4739281/2023/08/01/max-scherzer-mets-trade-deadline-retooling/
So now Cohen has completely changed his mind and the team's organizational direction for the third time in a year.
Nothing says commitment to winning championships like going from all in, to all out, to all in, in less than a year. Yamamoto should trust them to be consistent winners from now on and sign on for 10+ years of that? I guess the Red Sox can't compete against that kind of commitment to winning, as these owners only have 4 rings in the last 20 years.
Yamamoto might sign with the Mets for the money or because he loves NY or because he was a big fan of R.A. Dickey when he was a kid, but if he does it because he feels like it's the best place to compete long term, he should probably check with Max Scherzer about that.
It does seem disheartening that Y hasn't budged from LA. Any chance of an upcoming visit East seems contradicted by the Sox statement that they expect a decision within a week. All I know is, this process is making a nervous wreck out of me, and I have nothing to do with the outcome.
I've suggested this course of action to others before, it might help: Just watch with the presumption that the Red Sox aren't going to get the player involved. The disappointment becomes easier to deal with and, should the unexpected happen, it's excitement instead of relief.
I think at this stage, with so many teams involved, the chances Yamamoto winds up in Boston are extremely slim. Management didn't do the Devers deal until they were seemingly backed into a corner by the growing sentiment that they weren't willing to pay their stars. There's no similar pressure in this case because Breslow has just started his tenure.
I fully expect YY to sign with the Dodgers or one of the NY teams, and then the scramble begins.
Look, I'm all for the ownership, but I think the Sox are a much tougher sell than the Dodgers, Giants, or the MFYs right now. (If YY goes to the Mets, as I wrote, it would solely be because Cohen made an offer that blew all others out of the water.)
But we can't look at Cohen's zigzagging and also not point a finger at our own team, which has hardly been the model of stability over the past twenty years, successful as they have been with the four championships.
That last sentence. Literally no other team in the sport can say that. Comparing them to the Mets is a joke. Thankfully baseball players have more perspective on how hard it is to win even one than a lot of fans ever will.
I'm with you ITP. I wish they would have acquired someone, anyone, by now that would markedly improve the rotation over last year. I'm really concerned that the Sox will be left without a chair when the music stops, and we'll try to be sold on some wishcasting for the guys already here and happy talk on some reclaimation projects.
FWIW, and because I haven't seen this elsewhere in the thread, the meeting between Yamamoto and the Red Sox has in fact happened. View: https://twitter.com/tylermilliken_/status/1736017462498353345
I wanted us to add Lugo because he’s a good pitcher (albeit not a pitcher with a long SP track record) who could be had for the smallest deal in terms of years and dollars per year.
Giving him the 3-45 deal he got with KC could allow you to swallow giving out a heftier-then-wanted deal to SP number 2 whether it be YY or Montgomery.
Am I in the minority thinking 3-45 for Lugo would have been a good deal for us all things considered?
Giving him the 3-45 deal he got with KC could allow you to swallow giving out a heftier-then-wanted deal to SP number 2 whether it be YY or Montgomery.
Am I in the minority thinking 3-45 for Lugo would have been a good deal for us all things considered?
I didn't compare them to the Mets--@The Gray Eagle took a comment I made about the Dodgers and conflated it with a later post about the Mets spending last year. But I do think the lack of stability of the organization and its approach can negatively impact their pursuit of free agents. Look at this case, there was talk about how our signing Yoshida might help with signing Yamamoto, because they're buddies. Well sure, but it might also be significant to YY that the guy who signed his buddy is no longer employed by the team.
I'm with you. They need more than one starter, and that seems like a reasonable signing given the current market for pitching.
When everything is settled, my biggest fear isn't envying the MFYs' offseason; it's envying the Royals'. But then I'll just adjust my expectations that the timeline for this team competing seriously is going to be further out than next season.
I fully agree. My use of the term "fix" was just as a companion to the word refine. Helping guys develop a certain pitch in favor of one that's not working or tweaking something. Helping a guy who's prone to keeping the ball in the middle of the plate to work down and away or up and in. Finding flaws in mechanics, etc...
They're currently $47m under the CBT and $87m under the CBT+$40m threshold where the penalties are purely financial. It's not a question of not being able to afford someone after YY or JM.
Yeah, I take your point. They are lumped in with the Mets rn for YY, so to the extent people want to say that our ownership is a negative, I'd just say that it still has a LOT more to talk about than anyone besides Houston or Texas (recency) or I guess Philly or LAD (again, recency). If someone picks one of those teams, chances are it's more about their roster than their ownership anyway, which is a far more likely scenario, no? I'd have to think that players are smart enough to focus on the people they see 70 hours a week and not the owner they meet three times a year.
How many teams are interested in having meetings with him? Five? Seven? Ten? After flying here from Japan (and I'm guessing likely to fly back for the holidays) would you want to travel to all of these cities, be shuttled back and forth from airport, to hotel, to meetings and do it all again the next day and the next and the next? Sounds a bit absurd to me when the man can settle into one hotel for the duration and let multiple suitors come to him. That's not to say that Yamamoto might not be leaning toward LA or any other team, but rather that it just makes perfect sense.
What if the Sox were willing to trade Casas? Looks like KC first baseman Vinnie Pasquantino was rumored to be going to Miami? Wouldn’t they much prefer Casas?
It would be Casas for Luzardo, which you’d then follow up with by signing Chapman to play 3b. Devers switches to 1b where his chronic errant throw problem is less of a concern.
Dramatic improvement to pitching, dramatic improvement to fielding, and though hitting goes down you have a more balanced lineup as Chapman’s RH bat replaces Casas’s LH bat.
I’m sorry but if you think trading the best power hitting prospect the Sox have had in years for Jesus Luzardo is a good idea then you aren’t watching baseball.
It is possible. But, I don't think there is any honeymoon period for the new front office. They need to make things happen here. Like has been said before, there is little interest in the team right now, Henry is generally thought of as cheap (rightly or wrongly) and they are coming of 2 straight last season finishes in a division that is getting tougher and tougher. I think they will make some big moves here. They have to.
Not to pile on, but Casas is better than Pasquantino, so if the Royals wouldn't do Vinnie P for Luzardo then there's no way the Sox should even consider that. Casas should be the first baseman for close to the next decade.
Talk about overvaluing your own players.
I mean, Jesus, getting value requires giving up value. Triston Casas is an exciting young player but let’s be clear, he had 24 home runs and a 1.7 WAR last year - not exactly Mark McGuire circa 1987 (the best rookie power hitter ever). Casas was also terrible in the field on a team that seems to have cornered the market on players fitting that description.
And yet no one wants to trade him, but Luzardo ( with a 23’ fWAR more than double Casas’s) is an elite young starter, a commodity that couldn’t be more valuable right now. Yamamoto is a similar age and possibly a similar talent (we’ll see how he performs next year but if he performed as well as Luzardo it wouldn’t be a disappointment) and he’s about to cost some team $350 million.
My proposed plan would also replace Casas’s 1.7 WAR with Chapman’s 3.5 WAR and add Luzardo’s 3.7 WAR. It would also up Devers value by shifting him to a position (1b) that might be more suited to his defensive shortcomings (since his primary fielding problem has been bad throws).
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Agreed on all points. We would trade Casas for Luzardo, but Miami would not take that deal.
I’d be open to trading Casas under the scenario you lay out. But you’re not being fair to him here.
1.7 WAR is in no way an indicator of the kind of player anyone expects him to be going forward. He was fifth in AL OPS and second among AL 1B in his rookie year. He’s already a very good hitter and the important thing is that he’s going to get better, maybe much better. He’s also very cheap for years to come…though everyone expects the Sox to try to extend him early. It’s true that we don’t know whether he can improve his defense. We’ll have to see there.
Should we entertain dealing him for a good young pitcher? I like your thinking there, especially we can sign a good hitting first basemen much more easily than we can a good starter. But let’s be clear here that Casas is an exciting young player with a very bright future. No one here is “overvaluing” him.
And Casas has already shown a willingness to sign a long-term deal. That’s worth a lot these days.
The team seems very high on Casas, and his second half numbers are big part of it.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/11/13/sports/triston-casas-wasnt-rookie-year-he-looks-like-huge-part-red-sox-future/
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/11/13/sports/triston-casas-wasnt-rookie-year-he-looks-like-huge-part-red-sox-future/
Luzardo is not an elite pitcher by any means. He’s a controllable good young starter. If we could acquire say a Logan Gilbert or a George Kirby, then I would consider a package including Casas. You do realize this is the same pitcher that was traded straight up for Starling Marte a couple years ago right? Do you value Marte the same as Casas? Seems idiotic to trade a star hitter in the making for a pitcher with one year of success.
Your response is pretty reasonable and doesn’t at all suggest you are overvaluing Casas. The post I was responding to implied that to even consider trading Casas was so insane at to indicate that I don’t watch baseball. So yeah, not impugning anyone else but I do think bosox1534 overrates Casas.
PitcherList (one of the best sites re: pitching) has Luzardo as the 23rd best SP in baseball.
Whatever the A’s gave up in a bad trade has zero bearing on Luzardo’s current value.
Whatever the A’s gave up in a bad trade has zero bearing on Luzardo’s current value.
While I totally get your thought process here, I’m more than fine passing on someone like Lugo. He’s absolutely a fine piece to have and the contract made sense. I just really don’t believe having another pitcher that we really don’t know of he can be a reliable SP or not really helps the team.
The Red Sox already have 2 guys like that - Crawford, Houck, plus a 4th pitcher that hasn’t made more than 20 starts in nearly half a decade (Sale). Adding another “error bars” pitcher doesn’t help matters in my opinion. They need two pitchers that can reasonably be projected for 30 starts (or about 165ip) and I don’t think Lugo fits there, because we have 2 similar pitchers and a 3rd that it would be a shock to get through 150ip.
I’d actually rather extend Pivetta around that amount (3/$45m). He was more valuable than Lugo last year (2.4 bWAR vs 1.8bWAR) and is 4 years younger. I really don’t get the distaste for Pivetta on this board. He’s a perfectly serviceable 4/5 starter and has shown to be a legit playoff weapon from the bullpen. I’m more confident in Pivetta putting up over 150ip of decent pitching than literally anyone in the organization outside of Bello.
Can Pivetta be improved upon - yes, of course - but he’s absolutely decent and can be reasonably depended on to give 150ip of average to slightly above average pitching. One of two players in the entire organization I am confident in projecting those numbers for.
You’re clearly overvaluing Luzardo who has been a mostly Triple A pitcher his entire career until last season.
Luzardo was pretty universally considered a Top 25 prospect, and a guy with ace caliber stuff. The question with him has never been talent, it's health. Luzardo would immediately become the most talented pitcher in the Red Sox organization. I think you need to do a bit more homework on the kid.
I think you underrate Luzardo. Gilbert is 3 months older than Luzardo and had a higher fWAR a lower FIP and a higher SO/9 innings last year. I’m not saying he’s clearly better than those guys but I’m not getting your disregard for him. Luzardo is exactly the type of pitcher this team needs.
I don’t dislike the player I just hate the return. This is a player who finished 3rd in ROTY voting and is open to a extension and you want to trade him for a #3 starter.
I'm a big Luzardo fan, and would love for us to target him, but think that if Casas is part of the ask the Sox should hang up the phone. I just think when you're a team like the Sox and you have a guy that is controllable and already establishing himself to be a great offensive player in the majors, you should keep and extend him. They can figure out another way to get Luzardo without subtracting young talent from the major league roster.
Luzardo would without question be the #1 pitcher on the Sox, and would be on many other teams as well. I agree that you don't include Casas, but don't sell Luzardo short. He's really good.
Again, you underrate Luzardo. Barring injury (which is the primary concern), he very much could be an ace. If Luzardo is available and you make Casas available in return you may also be able to get extra pieces from Miami. This team has plenty of young hitters in the pipeline. What it doesn’t have is a 26 year old potential ace with three years of control.
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I wouldn’t deal Casas for Luzardo because it just opens up another hole, but doesn’t feel like an outrageous deal. Problem seems to be that everyone wants a really good pitcher- yet is only willing to give up Nick Yorke, Duran, or other expendable players.
Seriously. I mean, if we can get Luzardo for Yorke and Duran that would be great. But in an off-season that has turned into a feeding frenzy for starting pitching people need to accept that someone like Luzardo is extremely valuable.
Yup. Boston doesn‘t have the pitching prospects to get someone like Luzardo with “just prospects”. They probably don’t have the prospects to land even the next tier down.
People are really glossing over the fact that “trading hitting prospects for MLB pitching” is virtually impossible when you have no pitching prospects to include and the prospects you’re offering are not “Jackson Holliday” level of ranking AND high minors production.
Exactly, I mean, the market for bad fielding 1b isn’t at all comparable to starting pitching right now.
Rhys Hoskins is a free agent with zero buzz who was pretty statistically identical to Casas in his last season. I’m obviously not suggesting that he’s equivalent to Casas, if for no other reason because he’s several years older and not on a cost controlled contract, but that it would be a hell of a lot easier to replace what Casas did last year than find a pitcher that pitched like Luzardo.
I’m sorry but what makes you think this guy is a potential ace? He had one full season where he was a borderline top 25 pitcher, other than that has been mediocre to bad, and that wasn’t a small sample size of bad pitching. Pitching in Miami and pitching in the AL East are completely different things. On a playoff team this is a #3 starter at best. Even on our pitching staff I would still put him behind a healthy Sale and Bello.
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