I took Breslow's statement to mean that even though Dalbec is right handed and has positional versatility he's looking for someone better.
Offseason rumors
- Thread starter opes
- Start date
- Status
The idea being (at least for me whenever I've talked about it, and I'll strongly assume for others too) is that Boston would pay the full salary in order to buy a prospect.
Jansen's value COULD be higher at the deadline (same with Martin). They're both almost 40 years old and if either gets hurt would have no value whatsoever.
I've resided myself to the fact that a move of Jansen or Martin won't happen any time soon, but those are the reasons behind what many of us have been suggesting. Pay every cent now and hope that you can "buy" a prospect by trading Kenly Jansen (and $16m) and Chris Martin (and $7.5m) to said hypothetical trade partners.
just to clarify, PiB’s list of multi-position FA’s was not exclusive to right handed bats.He has two right hands? No wonder he can't hit....
PiB's list of right handed bats still available gives me hope that we will not, at least immediately, see Bobby D on the 26 man roster.
They all had one right hand, however, as opposed to the unicorn that @absintheofmalaise was talking about. Two right hands and two left feet.Thank you, of course you are correct. Still gives me hope!
I just hope that Dalbec is in another organization next year so that we can stop talking about him.
Bobby D seems like the perfect guy for a smaller market team to take a flyer on, your typical change of scenery can only help story. I’m wondering how many HR he’d hit (and how many times he’d K) in 500 at bats for the Rockies. I’ll throw my guess out there: 39 HR, 192K
"Buying" a prospect by trading Jansen or Martin and paying their salary isn't a bad idea in isolation. I don't see how that dovetails with signing another free agent reliever to take their place though.
Like this idea of trading one of them and then signing someone like Matt Moore. If Moore is more desirable to the Red Sox than Jansen, such that you'd effectively pay upwards of $25M for Moore (~$9M to him and $16M to Jansen's new team), doesn't it stand to reason that he'd be more desirable to team X also? In which case, why do we think they wouldn't sign the free agent for cash to add to their pen and hold the prospect(s) to address another need?
I suspect that like the starting pitching trade market, there will be more opportunities to trade Jansen and/or Martin once the bulk of the desirable free agents are off the board.
Isn’t that a risky strategy? We have enough trouble attracting free agents without just treating them like assets.
Besides handedness, some of those guys are not coming to Boston to be backup CI/DH. Chapman, for example, has 4 gold gloves, and over a third of his value comes from defense. I'd be more than fine with him playing third, but then Raffy becomes a DH or shifts to 1B.
Maybe this isn't right but it feels like that in the NBA and also MLB, short-term deals or expiring contracts seem to carry the implicit expectation that the team signing the player could opt to trade the contract. And when you think about these sorts of deals, it makes sense because they are typically prove-it type contracts where the player doesn't have a robust market - so my guess is that if they are choosing this option, they understand that trades are on the table too.
I would add that a mitigating factor is that typically the team trading the player is further down in the standings than the acquiring team so the player does get an up-in-competition option out of that trade potential.
I feel like the A's, amongst others, have employed this strategy for a while now. That said, I do agree that you probably don't want to be perceived as aggressively doing it for fear of scaring FAs away at the margin.
I think of it this way and I'm just going to use Max Meyer as an example because it happens to work on BTV and makes some sense, and I'm projecting my own feelings of 2024 onto the FO, obviously. But they'd need to find a team that is closer to contending than Boston (not tough) but is so dirt cheap that they'd not be able to pay other players (much harder). Thus, the Marlins...
The idea is NOT that lets just say (from a list of relief pitchers still out there) that HJ Ryu, Michael Fulmer and Anthony Bass are BETTER than Pivetta, Martin and Jansen, it's the idea that the 2024 team is going absolutely nowhere and the next 6 years of Max Meyer are more enticing than simply having Pivetta, Jansen and Martin on the 2024 team.
Also, for what it's worth - I think that if the real goal is to win baseball games in 2024, Pivetta, Jansen and Martin are far better than those guys mentioned above. Of course, if your real goal was to win baseball games in 2024 there is no way you'd go into a season with a rotation of Bello, Giolito, Crawford, Pivetta and Houck / Whitlock / Winckowski / Paxton / Lorenzen / Ryu / whatever.
As to the idea of the Marlins - they're ostensibly contending for a wild card (still) and they are famously cheap (meaning they're probably not going to sign those guys listed as FAs above, anyway.
So the idea (for Miami) is that Boston trades Pivetta (to cover Meyer's spot in the rotation this year, Alcantara comes back next year), Kenly Jansen and Chris Martin to Miami. The Fish do it because those three are far better than whomever they're going to sign that is still out there AND it's not going to cost them a single dollar.
The idea for Boston is that you in essence "buy" Max Meyer for like $30m and give them a year of each of those players and give them Wilyer Abreu for the next 6.
Then, Boston (still with lets call it $30m left) goes out and spends $27m on Ryu, Fulmer and Bass to hope that you can deal them at the deadline for more prospects. Because, to be clear, with the present rotation I don't think it matters if you have better relief pitchers, because you're going to stink anyway.
FWIW, BTV rejects that (Abreu, Pivetta, Jansen and Martin + $30m to Miami for Meyer) as way too massive an overpay, which leads me to think they'd at least THINK about it.
Last edited:
The interest kings are at it again. Let’s see if it goes beyond that.
View: https://twitter.com/bossportsgordo/status/1750250120984096877?s=46&t=IVL2VrlFgLlpc3mjGGto8Q
View: https://twitter.com/bossportsgordo/status/1750250120984096877?s=46&t=IVL2VrlFgLlpc3mjGGto8Q
Let's try it this time.
EVERYTHING HEYMAN SAYS IS WRONG AND HE'S JUST BORAS' MOUTHPIECE
(It got James Paxton signed, maybe it will work here, too).
More seriously, "I hear that the Red Sox certainly do like Montgomery very much"? No shit, so do 29 other teams.
Okay, semi-more seriously. it's all I've got.
EVERYTHING HEYMAN SAYS IS WRONG AND HE'S JUST BORAS' MOUTHPIECE
(It got James Paxton signed, maybe it will work here, too).
More seriously, "I hear that the Red Sox certainly do like Montgomery very much"? No shit, so do 29 other teams.
Okay, semi-more seriously. it's all I've got.
Is going from "we are interested in" to "may be a possiblity" like moving from rookie ball to A?
I still think it is. He's not going back to TX IMO after they added Scherzer and are holding that bill. The last teams standing are Boston and SF and I think SF is where Snell will land.
Ownership used the words "We did not line up with top in free agents this year. They also use the words "We will most likely have a lower payroll in 2024 than 2024"
Do people think they ate all of that shit for no reason?
While I agree that this is mainly Heyman carrying water for Boras... I can definitely see a scenario where the Red Sox would be interested... just have to have the price (mainly in years) drop enough IMO
Something like 4yr/110m with all kinds of opts outs, option years, incentives for Cy votes, playoff starts, innings pitched, etc… I could sort of see it. I’ve been saying for months that he’ll get paid like a #1 when, aside from a great few months last year, he has been more like #2 high end #3 the rest of his career.
There was wiggle room in everything Kennedy said. He didn't say "We're definitely all done."
The #1 #1, Cole, got $324 million. By today's standards it's not a shock if a #2 type gets $125-150 million.
Yeah that's cool. Ownership/management says and has said all sorts of things over the years and then goes out and does the complete opposite. I'm not saying that they're lying. It's just how business operates. I don't care if they're "lying". And I don't doubt that Heyman is doing Boras's work or whatever... I'm basing my opinion on the fact that there's really only two teams remaining with the financial ability to bring these guys in somewhat close to what they're demanding: The Sox and The Giants. I've laid out my reasoning in plenty of other posts for why all the other big spending teams are now out.
I’m all for a 4 year deal. The longer term deals are a killer. But man - I would love to normalize shorter/richer contracts.
People can hold on and believe all they want. Every single action ownership and management has taken would leave you to believe they are on a pretty tight budget. Everything ownership said last weekend says they are on a tight budget.
Just don't get your hopes up here.
Just don't get your hopes up here.
This is what you aren't understanding. And I get it. It's a complete retraining of your brain its really difficult after seeing the last 20 years. But you need to really think about this and repeat it over and over.
The Red Sox are not a big spending team.
I still think that if we remove the pessimistic framing of some of the reports, these really could be totally normal and diplomatic things to say during ongoing negotiations of an abnormally slow offseason.
(Also, since you’re quoting, it’s “probably” not “most likely” — “probably; I don’t know for sure.” Seems totally possible to me it’s a non-statement reflecting the status quo of the payroll.)
Last edited:
My hope is that Montgomery simply makes too much sense. Him + Duvall is maybe $230 million. Trade Jenson (may have to eat some salary) and that is the team, and you are still probably below where you were last year.
First and foremost - this is almost assuredly nothing more than Boras trying to get Texas to go from 6/$120m up to 7/$150m and nothing more.
To the Kennedy part - it’s FAR smarter to say “we’re going to do nothing of substance and chop the payroll“ than Warner to go “Full Throttle.”
You always, always, always want to under promise and over deliver. (Or under promise and do nothing). Over promising and under delivering leads to the sh*tstorm they‘ve had all off season and will continue to have.
I think that the front office was being genuine when they stated that we don't line up with any of the free agents... but if the free agent's ask comes down... that certainly could change how we line up... I mean it doesn't mean we should be putting a Montgomery name plate on a locker, but damn it doesn't mean there is no chance. I mean I doubt it too... but let things happen and let's see where it goes.
I guess one question I have is if this is so obvious, why isn’t it obvious that Boras has been feeding Masslive their talking points all offseason too?
Heyman is notoriously a Boras mouth. It's well known.
Masslives reporting has been corroborated by every other reports/media figure in New England at this point. Ownership has come out and said everything other than directly saying "Masslive was right about everything."
It's really nuts you are still taking this position. I'm not going to reengage in this. If you'd like to continue the discussion you can DM me.
I just don't believe that agents negotiate with teams by using writers to put out tweets. Does anyone really think that Texas doesn't already know that Boston is a good possibility to sign JM if they don't? If Boras is trying to play the 2 teams against each other to get the best deal for his client he's talking to them directly, not having his favorite writer tweet.
Sheesh, how did this topic become such a third rail? I know that Heyman is a Boras mouthpiece. But like, who do you think — I'm genuinely asking, not rhetorically — Cotillo is talking about when he says "according to an industry source"?
No one has "corroborated" that the Red Sox are not willing to spend on Jordan Montgomery. Reports have corroborated that the impression is that the Red Sox are unwilling to spend.
Speier, Jan. 12:
Cotillo, Jan. 19:
If you're Speier's or Cotillo's editor, your first question reading this is Whose 'belief'? Who is 'continuing to characterize the Sox as unlikely'? Who is qualified to use as an on-background source there? Because if it's just angry fans on Twitter, that's not worth publishing. Is it Breslow himself, speaking off the record? Doubtful, but then why are we still reportedly in this late? Is it Cashman or a rival exec? Then why do we care? Pretty much the only source that you could plausibly use there as a reporter, who'd be qualified to comment, is Scott Boras (or someone on his team).
Last edited:
Actually it would be far, far smarter to say "No comment" or give a word salad when asked about payroll. Sam Kennedy isn't a dumb dude, he didn't screw up, he was at a friendly Winter Carnival event in front of fans and said what he said. My guess is that he did so because it's true.
I guess he could have said what he said in the hopes of being the "cool Dad" and delivering an awesome last minute present like Montgomery but I don't think so. The Sox haven't signed anyone remotely like Monte since Dombrowski was running the store and I'd be shocked if they broke the bank* for him.
* I don't think that Montgomery's contract demands are insane, BTW. That's baseball in 2024, as well as basic economics. Jordan Montgomery is not anyone's idea of a bonafide pitching stud, but in a limited market, he is.
Yeah. There is now, and probably always will be, a credulous market for Boras' bullshit. All he needs is someone who gets paid to generate clicks to do his bidding.
The bolded is definitely untrue. There are a ton of sources that you could use to write where Jordan Montgomery is going. There are a ton of people in MLB circles. There are people who work in Boras' office. There are other agents and their staff. There are players on the Rangers. There are players who know and talk to Montgomery that aren't his teammates. There are coaches and managers. There are general managers and front office people. There are people outside of baseball who know Jordan Montgomery.
There's a reason why Scott Boras gives his annual state of the union in front of dozens of reporters in the Winter Meetings. It's because he's a hard dude to talk to (aside from super connected "big" baseball writers). So if you're Speier or Cotillo and you can't get Boras, you make your way down the list. And then, if you're a good reporter, you double-check it with another source.
This is getting a little weird with your insistance that there is a conspiracy against the Red Sox and their approach to free agency. With all of the evidence we have (this year with Montogemery and the past five years with the Sox FO/ownership) what are the odds that the Sox sign Montgomery? Maybe 2% if he agrees to a below market value contract (ala Trevor Story)? Which would then prompt me to ask, what is wrong with him?
It depends if the team is susceptible to public pressure. There is a sense that the Sox are, although I don't know for sure and suspect that on some level they know they have to tune out the noise to do their job. Or alternatively, it's a little dance lawyers do for their clients, in this case Boras can tell Montgomery that he's generating buzz which will help his market position (even if that is bullshit). Maybe these athletes are willing to buy into that, or at least feel a little better? Who knows. But you are right, something approaching 100% of the real work is done in direct contact with the actual teams.
So the supposedly non-leaking, airtight Sox front office that makes all their moves in silence also has rabbit ears and is deeply influenced by reports fed by agents?
Also fair. I just meant that of the two extremes, you're far better off taking the Kennedy route and then either over-delivering (or in fact still doing nothing, like you and I both mentioned) than the Werner route.
Agree with everything else though. JM's demands are in line with the market (or at least seem to be from what we've heard he's looking for). The Sox are choosing not to do business as business is done (and they could be right to take this path, I have no idea).
Doesn't really matter as neither JM (nor Snell) are signing with the Sox.
Honestly, I agree with you... but it also happens. I suspect that the logic is riling up fanbases one way or another might possibly sway a team to do something, but that seems like such a remote reach I'm not sure why the Boras' of the world would even bother. But clients are paying Boras to get them good contracts and if working the margins is part of it, no matter how small and stupid and likely pointless "leaking stuff to the media" is I am sure Boras will do it.
I guess it’s just easier than excepting the truth that they’re just not spending any more than they have currently allocated I guess.
It's a business and they don't need to worry every year about finishing at the top. While I didn't find much information about the number of season ticket holders the team has, there was one source that said "As of 2019, the Red Sox had 27,000 season ticket holders." That wasn't broken down into which types of plans they had but 27,000 x 81=2,187,000 fans a year if they were all full-season. The Sox have finished 4-5 in attendance in the AL during the past couple of seasons and with the high cost of refreshments and keeping salaries down, hyping up prospects, they make money. If Devers has a good season with the bat, I wouldn't be surprised to see him traded with some cash in the not distant future...hopefully for better prospects than they got in the Betts trade.
The Oakland As have drawn 2,321,684 collectively over the past three seasons. Of the Red Sox start drawing like that then perhaps Henry, et al. will rethink things.
I'm with you on this - he's what I posted earlier today on the Moves I'd Make thread:
Here's what I'd offer:
4/105 guaranteed, with an opt-out after 3 years. 5th year option at 27m which vests if 175ip in year 4 (player can opt out of option year, Would consider an additional similar vesting option for year 6. I'd also consider a bonus of 2-3m for top 5 in CY voting.
While I'm sure this offer doesn't get it done today, maybe there's a chance if no one out there is offering the 6 or 7 years guaranteed that Boras is looking for. I might be willing to go to 5 years guaranteed (for something like 125m) if that's what it takes, with the option for Year 6.
Sure, fair. Not a ton of those would qualify as industry sources, though, and of course some of them would have opinions that are reflexive, influenced by the broader reporting (that the Red Sox are cheap now) than direct knowledge of the negotiations.
I don't know the guy. My impression has always been that he's extremely particular with the way local and national media describe his clients. Rosenthal made a little comment to this regard a few weeks ago.
This is the scenario I imagine. Scott Boras has two top-of-the-market starters. He sees a restive Boston fan base and a brand new CBO, whose implicit mandate is to not do what his predecessor did (not sign premium starting pitching, for one thing). He also sees the comments at Breslow's hiring, the full throttle thing, but also Warner's comment about "having no built-in restrictions."
The only thing I'm speculating is that Boras is pouring a little salt into that. He knows they were booed last Winter Weekend. There's no doubt in my mind that he (or someone on his behalf) would talk to the local press corps and say it doesn't sound like the Red Sox are going to do what it takes to acquire top of the market players. Does that seem far-fetched?
It's not. Boras is absolutely known for rousing teams' local media to pay up for his clients. Here's a story about how he went on a Chicago radio station this winter to put the screws to the Cubs front office. They've been calling the GM "Hibernation Hoyer" in Chicago, at least until the Imanaga signing.
And here's another piece (written during the Carlos Correa negotiations) about Boras's practice of going on local radio and other media.
Look at it the other way. Do you think the throughline of Cotillo and McAdam's reporting this offseason could be credible without sources from either the Red Sox front office or Boras Corp?
I'm not sure what you mean by conspiracy here. I'm not sure we have a ton of hard evidence as much as we do affective evidence. A lot of people are angry, that's 100 percent true.
Masslive's done a good job of generating discussion, starting with that McAdam Christmas Eve op-ed that prompted its own thread on this board. That was right after the Yamamoto sweepstakes concluded, and a lot of people sure were disappointed! McAdam gave us this:
See how McAdam massages "one industry official's" opinion into fact? And then speculates that there's pressure and organizational strife between Werner, Henry, and Breslow? I'm not sure who that official is, but McAdam's argument here is purely rhetorical. And it got translated onto this board as "Full-throttle may be business as usual."
Since then, they continue to "read between the lines" (Cotillo) that the Sox are cutting payroll because they traded three players on bulky salaries with one year left on their contracts (two years in Urias's case). They've found it impossible to cover these as good baseball trades; they're simply cost-cutting measures. Breslow says this on January 18th...
“I would hate to think that in some way, there’s a perception that the last two months are indicative or predictive of how we intend to operate going forward."
...and no one remembers it.
I have no idea if the Sox will sign Jordan Montgomery. I think there's enough smoke at this point to assume that they're legitimately interested. If I'm Craig Breslow, I'm wondering whether Chris Young decides it's better to sign Clayton Kershaw — who will pretty much only play for the Dodgers or Rangers — for like 1/$15 to join the rotation midsummer rather than add another huge contract.
I think the story is a whole lot more boring than what we've been given. The Red Sox lost Yamamoto to L.A. for reasons mostly out of their control. They for various reasons declined to dramatically outbid the winning teams for Nola, Gray, E-Rod and Imanaga, and all the while have been legitimately interested in Montgomery, a guy with an agent known for
But if the Sox don't sign Montgomery, their basic thesis is true. The Sox aren't just not spending, they're conspiratorially not spending, secretly, by decree, which will remain true until John Henry shows us the team's official budget. If they do land Montgomery or Snell, or add someone else substantial, it'll be widely considered a reaction, a response to the public pressure.
Sure, I agree that agents probably say things to writers to get them to write stuff. But I don't believe it has any effect on the moves front offices make. Heyman writes that Boston is a good possibility to sign JM if Texas doesn't. That has no effect on Boston and it isn't anything that Texas doesn't already know. Getting fan bases riled up has very limited value at best - how did that go with
Mookie - I know I'm not supposed to mention him, that's for another thread
There’s a lot here that I want to unpack and I probably won’t get to it tonight.
But I will respond.
The truth? Just because it's your opinion doesn't make it truth.
I'm sure the response will be the Sam Kennedy quotes again, which are far from definitive in either direction. He says they're probably not going to spend as much as last year, not that they are for sure not going to spend as much as last year. And every free agent that signs elsewhere is one that the Sox didn't "line up with" whether it was this winter or every winter for the past 50 years. That doesn't mean there isn't a chance of lining up with a free agent who hasn't signed anywhere yet.
That said, I fully believe that the Heyman line citing the Sox as a possible destination is all about Boras trying to negotiate through the media. It likely doesn't move any needles for the Sox, the Rangers, or any other team that might possibly sign Montgomery. It's fluff and it's meaningless and it still succeeds in riling everyone up.
- Status