It's also hard to have faith when you see everyone else getting boxes of gourmet chocolates and you're getting rolls of Life Savers.
Poll: Rate Your Faith in the Red Sox Front Office
- Thread starter Pozo the Clown
- Start date
I still don’t see the frustration over X in any way. He and Boras played it perfectly. They got an extension that took them basically up to the edge of him getting max contract.
There’s no way Bloom was going to get him until his age 33 season. No possible way.
So then who wants the contract X actually got? I really don’t get the level of anger and frustration with this.
There’s no way Bloom was going to get him until his age 33 season. No possible way.
So then who wants the contract X actually got? I really don’t get the level of anger and frustration with this.
There's not much difference really. Either you're healthy and get lucky or you don't.
If you don't (most don't) the question is do you have enough depth to offset minor setbacks either through replacement play or trade? But there's a point at which where you just can't realistically build a team with enough depth to replace an entire starting rotation for a month or so - witness last season.
We have:
Sale/Paxton/Pivetta/Whitlock/Houck/Bello (Crawford/Mata/Murphy/Winckowski/Seabold)
Jansen/Martin/Schreiber/Rodriquez/Barnes (Brasier/Taylor/Kelly et al.)
C: McGuire/Wong
1B: Casas (Hosmer/Dalbec)
2B: Story/Arroyo (Hernandez)
SS: Story/Arroyo (Hernandez)
3B: Devers (Arroyo/Dalbec)
LF: Yoshida (Verdugo/Refsnyder)
CF: Hernandez (Refsnyder)
RF: Verdugo (Arroyo/Refsnyder)
DH: Dalbec/Yoshida/Hosmer
Assuming there's health and no downturns, that's basically a Yes. Particularly the pitching.
But no downturns also hinges on what is really the baseline play for each player. Is McGuire really a ML hitter? Can Dalbec be Schwarber-whispered back into productivity? What kind of Chris Sale do we get? I think there are a lot of unknowns there. But in 90% to best-case-scenario world, that's a very competitive club.
Also, obviously, they can improve the team of today, December 14. They could acquire a RH bat, and finding one that can play 2B/SS/OF would provide a lot of depth in one player, since we're thinnest on all those fronts. And this could happen as we have trade chips in Dalbec/Hosmer and some of the AAA pitchers.
In the "maybe" box of the farm system, I don't see a lot at the moment.
Rafaela fits most what we need - almost perfectly, but he's only had a half year at AA and probably isn't ready. Maybe he's viable depth in the second half of the season if he gets off to a blistering start or something.
Valdez, Duran, and Fitzgerald are unfortunately LHH, and are maybes, while Downs (again a good match in handedness and position) seems broken at this point.
Narciso Cook seems like a decent emergency OF and is a RHH, so there's some break-glass depth there, if not exactly call-up for half the season depth. (But we're assuming health.)
If you want to pivot and assume injury and random variation, I think the pitching looks deep. If you discount Sale and Paxton, an otherwise "good season" lineup of Pivetta, Whitlock, Houck, Bello, and Crawford could be pretty competitive. As long as there are no Dave Bush mound visits.
The bullpen has enough viable candidates to pass the sniff test.
The lineup. . .there's just a lot of potential uncertainty there, so it depends who gets hit with regression and injury. As we're RHH weak, regression-Refsnyder, pumpkin-Dalbec and TJ-surgery Story leaves us instantly vulnerable in that department. Or key-bat wise, Casas/Dalbec problems could rob us of a lot of potential power.
So there, I'd say we only have moderate depth, and are pretty weak at some positions. But, at the end of the day, there's only a limited amount of replacement depth you can carry on the ML roster or stash away in AAA.
And if we get a shit ton of bad coin flips. . .well, that's going to be irrecoverable.
Overall, this is very much a "let's bet on a good year from this guy" team.
Last edited:
Also if they were going to build up through the minors, why did they not protect three prospects that were just plucked from them in the Rule V draft? I mean, I guess two of them will probably come back but the best one, Thad Ward, is probably staying on the Nats' ML roster for as long as needed.
The thing about Bloom I don't get is that he says "The Sox are building up their minor leagues" and then he can't figure out which minor leaguer needs to be on the 40-man roster and which roster chum (Ort, for example) can be jettisoned.
He says that Bogaerts was his biggest priority of the offseason, yet he's nowhere near the final cost and is so flabbergasted that according to Julian McWilliams he stares at his phone for minutes, asks for some privacy to compose himself and then rambles about being "shocked". What the fuck are you shocked about? You're the President of Baseball Ops for the Boston Red Sox, you should know what the market is going to bare before anyone else.
Misreading the Bogaerts market was dumb, but not anticipating the markets for Abreau, Vazquez and the parade of relievers also isn't a good look either.
His trade deadline flip flopped between, "We are definitely out of this" to "Uhm, actually I just checked the standings and we're only two games out, so we're back in boys!"
I don't give a shit what he does, as long as he's all in. You want to build the team up through the minors, fine. Do it. You want to talk to free agents and grab a couple of pricey ones. Cool, that's awesome. IDC. But go all in. You can even do both things (ala Theo Epstein in the early part of this century) but good lord, this plan is so mucked up, I can't make heads or tails of it. And the Bloomers that say that they can, it's just faith at this point. I haven't seen any articulation of what Bloom is attempting to do other than, "Build through the farm system and buy low on MLB players", which is a really shitty plan for 2023.
And stop with the injuries excuse. There are teams with more injuries who contended. Honestly, if you buy a TV at the Dollar Store, you don't get to complain when it shits the bed on Super Bowl Sunday.
I thought about this too but the soxprospects.com podcast had an interesting point; with more signings coming (presumably), they will need to DFA some more guys. If you DFA a guy and someone claims him, he's gone. But if you lose a guy via rule 5, you might get him back. They probably liked Ward more than Hoy Park (and whoever they DFA for Yoshida), but kept those guys to be sacrificial lambs once they added Jansen and Suzuki to the 40.
I think this is a really interesting topic and a fair question. I'm not sure if you meant $300m as in "one contract" or $300m as in "total payroll" so I'm going to assume the latter.
They needed to trade Betts. He didn't seem to want to be here UNLESS we offered him the absolute most money. So moving him and getting under the tax to re-sign guys like Devers and Bogaerts as your core made a ton of sense, especially because we were "adding" a decent cost-controlled option for a corner OF slot and could ostensibly see a situation looking like Benintendi, Bogaerts, Devers and Verdugo occupying some manner of 1-6 slots in the line up for the next decade.
Instead Bloom decided to trade Benintendi based on having 14 awful games in a pandemic for nothing of value, which I will never get. Beni wasn't a "star" but his worst season was an exactly average hitter (99 OPS+) where his defense STILL made him a 1.8 bWAR player. But when you can get Franchy Cordero for that guy, I guess you have to do it. He elected not to make Bogaerts a serious offer last spring and then misread the market this year. He also probably p*ssed off Devers in the process. Granted, I don't know this for sure, but I tend to trust Speier as a reporter and if Bloom had simply offered Bogaerts 6/$140 last year, he's likely still here on a steal of a contact.
I'm not sure if you meant me, but as I mentioned, I would have paid Bogaerts a little less than SD did, and I also would have paid Correa what SF did to fix losing Bogaerts.
Short of that, I still WOULD have signed a lot of mid tier FAs the past couple of years (choose any of Stroman, Schwarber, Tallion, Senga, Bassitt, Abreu, Jansen - I liked this, Yoshida - liked this too, Rizzo, Josh Bell, Jon Gray) but to be fair, I also would have applauded signing guys last year whom haven't worked out (Castellanos, re-signing Rodriguez, Steven Matz, Eddie Rosario, and I loved the Story deal).
That's all water under the bridge. What I'd like to see us do now (I'm not going to speculate on trades to acquire impact talent because I'm not a GM and I have no idea how the trade market works - as in would Milwaukee trade Corbin Burnes and Adames for Mayer, Houck, Nick Yorke and Mata I have no idea, so I won't guess).
First thing - I'd blow it up. Trade Pivetta, Verdugo, Devers (if he won't sign an extension), Arroyo, Schrieber, offer to trade Herandez if he wants. The major league roster isn't good, and I don't think whatever is left in free agency makes it more than a "maybe we're the last wild card if everything breaks exactly right" kind of roster. Literally anything besides Whitlock, Bello, Casas and Houck since they don't have the choice to leave for 5/6 years or whatever the number is, and there is at least still potential for them to be part of the core.
They won't do that (I would), so:,
Sign Andrew Benintendi (I'll call it 4 at $15m for $60m). Sign Jurickson Profar (call it 4yrs at $12m for $48m). Sign Michael Conforto (no idea, but lets go with 1yr / $12m, team option to add on 2yrs / $20m / $40m). Sign Michael Wacha (2yrs at $10m for $20m). Eovalidi (2yrs at $13m for $26m). I'd also give Devers literally whatever he wants to extend him. Literally, anything.
Line up of McGuire, Casas (L), Story (R), Devers (L), Profar (S), Benintendi (L), Hernandez (R), Conforto (L), Yoshida (L). Rotation of Eovalid, Wacha, Whitlock, Bello, Houck.
I also move Verdugo, Pivetta (we'd get pretty good prospects) Arroyo, Brasier, Hosmer (we'd get literally nothing, but hope someone pays it) to get us under the Luxury Tax.
To be fair, I don't think this is great and I don't think it's a playoff team, but I think we've already massively failed the last two off-seasons (before 2022 and 2023) as well as the 2022 trade deadline, and now it's trying to mitigate the suck with some upside. Hopefully Wacha, Eovaldi, Jansen and Martin pitch well enough to move them for prospects this trade deadline - and unless we're at least in the wild card slot at the time - not chasing it, TRADE THEM.
Last edited:
I never considered that, but that does make a bit of sense. I'm just really surprised with the amount of time and effort that they put into Ward, how they couldn't find a spot for him.
My lack of faith stems from the fact that they have constantly made statements that
they were in the process of finalizing major acquisitions , would add 7-9 new players
and intended to be contenders in 2023. So far there is no evidence that this is happening.
they did acquire a potential right fielder and 2 pitchers To boost the bullpen but when you subtract the players that are gone we have gone backwards, which is hard to do when you start in last place
they were in the process of finalizing major acquisitions , would add 7-9 new players
and intended to be contenders in 2023. So far there is no evidence that this is happening.
they did acquire a potential right fielder and 2 pitchers To boost the bullpen but when you subtract the players that are gone we have gone backwards, which is hard to do when you start in last place
I think where we disagree lies in the team’s baseline of talent; do we disagree that if you have better players on your team, that team is more likely to win more games?
Sure, luck, health, and depth can take you pretty far if things break your way (2013, 2021) and nothing will save you if everything goes against you (such as 2022’s injury parade). But if ownership and the FO are saying they’re going to improve and be competitive in 2023 that would seem to imply that they are adding better players to your roster, not that their thinking is “we had bad luck last year, and we hope to have better luck, and maybe sneak into the playoffs.” That doesn’t seem like a line thats likely to boost excitement when they start selling season tickets.
In short, “hope is not a plan.” Improving the baseline talent is a way of absorbing the vagaries of luck and health. Maybe there’s more to come, but so far the talent level has not improved.
A little late responding to this, but my retort to Kennedy would be that the playoffs are built for the Sox to make it. A high revenue team with the resources to pay for some talent ought not have to hard a time making the post season in a system that lets in almost half the teams in the league. And yet here we are...
When the new playoff format was first proposed, I speculated that it would cause teams to spend less on talent. Why shell out top dollar when there's a decent chance you can make the playoffs anyway? And once you're in the playoffs, it's kind of a crap shoot, so having the highest payroll doesn't guarantee you anything. You're better off spending enough money to win 85-90 games, make the playoffs (which would seem to satisfy many here), and then see what happens. Why be the Dodgers with a payroll that gets you 100+ wins but only a slightly better chance of winning several consecutive small sample size playoffs?
So obviously the Padres are not behaving this way. But it sure seems like the Red Sox are. It's probably great for the owners and it seems like it's good enough for those a lot of SoSH members. Personally, I don't like it, especially if the Sox can't even reach their newly modest expectation.
I think you answered your own question, which was essentially "pick an option and stick with it." Personally, I would have blown it up - if you knew you weren't going to pay these FAs (and the FO knew, likely because ownership told them directly) then blow it up, get some kind of (hopefully elite) prospects and start over. Especially if saving money is key, try to get some cost-controlled players. I believe Sox fans have patience if there is a light at the end of the tunnel or a plan. Instead, the FO is trying to have it every way - too poor to sign FAs (lol), too good to blow it up (lol) and too much in the pipeline to not give it a chance (lol, they better hope Mayer/Bello are the second coming of Trout/Cy Young). One of these things would have been fine and fans can stand by a plan to build. But the farm is not good (deep maybe, but not good), the team is not good and instead of focusing resources on fixing one of those areas - which should have been the farm - FO decided that they would do nothing, which was the worst and IMO only irredeemable option.
Sure, but "having better players" is so basic a statement it's not very useful. I mean, a healthy Sale is a significant improvement from 2022. As would be a productive Casas. Improvement is not only a question of "adding better players to your roster."
100% agree with this post. The thing Bloom is supposed to be so damn good at (building and developing the farm, a la the Rays) does not look like it is materializing at all. Combined with the fact that he seems to have no read on the FA market or the limitations of his own team... what, exactly, is he contributing then?
In the past, I believe Bloom brought up the point that the Dodgers can do some of the things they do because their farm was/is so strong that they can lose big names and adequately replace them internally, or trade some of those valued prospects for major league talent. The Sox are not there yet, which, fine, that's the nature of the beast and he inherited a pretty barren cupboard. But he needs to show he is at least working on addressing that and to date he really hasn't. And given the fact that he has no idea what going rate is for players on the FA market, that seems to be the thing he *should* be focusing on.
How much do you need to spend to win 85-90 games? Last year they would have had to spend 300m with as many injuries as they had. They spent enough last year to probably make the playoffs with average injuries, sometimes that isn't enough.
This is a great point. Bloom, Kennedy and the Sox FO have consistently shot them selves in the foot with their statements (and their leaks) to the media. As free agency was about to start all we heard was “we are going to spend money” “Xander is our top priority” “we plan on being a lot better and competing next year”…..and then you go out and do this?
I mean, when you compare what’s been done vs what the front office directly told the fans, it’s honestly embarrassing.
Now there’s a decent amount of posters here who will blame literally everyone or everything else except for Bloom but, IMO, these are pretty big unforced errors. (And i have to tip my cap to @8slim, he hit on something that I’ve also noticed. The “Bloomers” seem to lean heavily into condescension and acting like they’re much smarter than the normal folk)
If you knew you probably wouldn’t bring back X, why continually talk him up as the top priority? If you think free agency inherently leads to bad contracts for too many years, why talk about how much money you’re going to spend? It makes the team look like liars or inept morons who completely misread the market and neither one of those is great
Not when you're working from the baseline of talent on your roster. We can look at the team we have now and project their performance, and we can expect variation within that during the season. The offseason is about improving that baseline, which means changing the roster.
Within the question posed by this thread, how much faith should we have in a FO where the baseline is not being moved, and the only plan is "hope to get lucky"?
I don’t get this. You’re posing this as an all or nothing. I defend Bloom but think he’s made some dumb moves. Theo made several that I think spun into some seriously shitty years that affected the Cherington era years afterwards.
I think they planned to spend a damn crazy amount on X but got beat. What’s the issue there? Ideally the FO extends X up to his age 33 season. What kind of terrible agent would allow that??? Since Trout, Harper and Mookie’s deals it’s clear if you’re elite (or borderline elite) the path forward is to get a hometown extension that takes you up to 28-30 then hit FA where you can cash in up to or beyond age 40. Likelihood of injury or decline in performance past 30 is significantly high so your chance of that max contract plummets. I don’t blame Bloom for this.
Well, if that's your take, it depends on their talent evaluation. And there, I think, is an issue. They seem to be decent-to-good in terms of evaluating pitching talent and coaching it along.
I'm less sanguine about their hitting talent evaluation and coaching. There, I personally have little faith in the organization's abilities, particularly in doing the Rays thing as far as identifying marginal talent and honing it.
But I disagree with you about changing the roster for the sake of change. The goal is to make sure the talent level at each position is there for Spring 2023 and beyond. Sometimes that means changing the roster. Sometimes that means being patient and using personnel already in the org.
Sometimes I think the Sox PR is too effective and leads people to think that they've somehow been personally promised something.
I haven't got an inquiry yet, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if some recent purchaser of a Xander jersey floated, "putting together a class-action RIKO for the Inflicting of my Emotional Distressment and LYING to me."
I really do want to believe in these guys, and I do admire Bloom's sticktoitiveness, but two of three years in last place, seeing favorites jettisoned, the weak sauce of "we weren't going to go there, when it never, ever had to get that fat in the Xander example and the current construction of this club with the less than desirable options remaining is really making me doubt his ability to guide the Sox. Everyone loves the potential of prospects but the axiom I believe in is that nothing gets a manager fired more often than unreached player potential. The ability to know who to hold onto and who to give up on separates winning and losing ballclubs. As far as player acquisitions and the noise I hear from the front office I am at the point where I want them to show me, not tell me. From what i am reading the Sox are no longer a team the players are excited about joining which means they now need to overpay to get high quality free agents. Short of that they get the leftovers no one else was excited about. What is the cost of achieving the stated goal of being competitive every year while building from within? Is that even possible this year? Does anyone feel like shelling out the money it takes to get to games for another last place team. How many hours will I devote to NESN for another last place finish. If Chaim is going to build a winner it is time to "Show me, not tell me".
You need about 41 WAR to make the playoffs. More to have a legit championship team. To buy 41 WAR (f) in free agency costs around $350 million at 2022 prices. 2023 looks like it will be significantly higher. So the trick is always to get as much under market WAR as you possibly can, and then spend what you need to spend in free agency to get the rest. Or to give backend years on a contract to pay less now annually for the WAR you will get in the short term.
https://blogs.fangraphs.com/what-are-teams-paying-per-war-in-free-agency/
I've had a couple of people, Red Sox fans but certainly not hard core SOSH'ers, tell me in the last week that it feels like the front office is punishing them. Just saying.
I think we’re also starting to see some evidence, perhaps, that players around the league don’t trust Bloom? See Matt Strahm’s comments regarding the trade deadline on Bradford’s podcast, and combine those with the dismay that Eovaldi and others felt when Vazquez was traded. And we are hearing reports of players like Zach Eflin turning down offers from Boston this season even as the money was competitive or even higher than what the player ultimately signed for. These guys talk to each other. Word gets around.
I get that the 2013 team is a unique animal, but that was a case where a team needing to rebuild was able to bring in players to fill holes at decent cost and field a competitive team while the farm developed. It wasn’t hard to persuade those players to be part of a rebuild. Where is that effort now?
Bloom has been on board for 3 years and I still can’t figure out who he thinks he’s building around, what kind of players and skills he even values as a GM. So far almost every player seems to have been acquired only because they were available, which is why so many have come with asterisks. They signed Renfroe coming off a COVID season in which he hit .156, because the numbers showed he could still hit LHP. They got Schwarber, whose market was likely affected because he was on the IL at the time of the deadline. They signed Story because he fell to them after Semien & others signed for bigger contracts elsewhere. They got Wacha after a bad season that ended with a solid final 2 months in which he seemed to turn things around. The whole project seems to be about making chicken salad out of chicken shit, and if you are a player thinking of coming to Boston, it can’t be very appealing to think of yourself as this guy’s next chicken-shit project.
I get that the 2013 team is a unique animal, but that was a case where a team needing to rebuild was able to bring in players to fill holes at decent cost and field a competitive team while the farm developed. It wasn’t hard to persuade those players to be part of a rebuild. Where is that effort now?
Bloom has been on board for 3 years and I still can’t figure out who he thinks he’s building around, what kind of players and skills he even values as a GM. So far almost every player seems to have been acquired only because they were available, which is why so many have come with asterisks. They signed Renfroe coming off a COVID season in which he hit .156, because the numbers showed he could still hit LHP. They got Schwarber, whose market was likely affected because he was on the IL at the time of the deadline. They signed Story because he fell to them after Semien & others signed for bigger contracts elsewhere. They got Wacha after a bad season that ended with a solid final 2 months in which he seemed to turn things around. The whole project seems to be about making chicken salad out of chicken shit, and if you are a player thinking of coming to Boston, it can’t be very appealing to think of yourself as this guy’s next chicken-shit project.
End of the day, players mostly want 2 things:
1. The most money they can get
2. A winning environment
The Red Sox aren't very competitive these days in either department. Not sure there is any broader distrust of Bloom at play here but if a site of hardcore fans can't collectively figure out what Bloom and Co. are trying to do, the players certainly won't either. This team has no identity WITH Devers. I have no idea what they think the identity will be without him.
I know that there are a lot of posters on here who are in for the long haul, and that's awesome. Some of these same posters have a tendency to look down on fans who aren't in as deep as they are as "not serious fans" or whatever idiom they choose to use (pink hats, entitled fans, etc). But the great majority of Red Sox fans are the latter rather than the former and the Red Sox need them. Or at least need to cater to them. They don't need to cater to the fan who's in deep and is going to follow the team no matter what moves they make.
The problem the Red Sox face is that the non-serious fan doesn't believe in them or what they say anymore (and this is happening and not just here, national columnists [Calcaterra] and friendly Boston writers [Finn] are writing that the Sox are either full of shit or acting disingenuously) then the bottom line of the team is going to be affected. Does that mean that Fenway will be a ghost town in July? No. But great seats will be available in April and September. That means that the talking heads don't talk about them, or if they do it's going to be about how out of touch the ownership is. I know the cliche, "Even bad publicity is a good thing" is kinda, sometimes true; but I don't think that the over their 20+ years the Red Sox ownership has ever agreed with this. Look at how they spin every departure as how the team "needed" to get Person X becuase Person X was a "bad guy, detrimental to the entire organization".
Public trust is a hard thing for a corporation to keep and the Red Sox are just kicking it away every time Kennedy or Bloom open their mouths. They say one thing and do another. I am not under any illusions that the Boston fan is smarter than the average sports fan, that's not true. But we also know when we're being bullshitted and I think that the Sox are bullshitting us--and have been for the last three years. That tends to drive people away and it's going to take a long time for them to come back. Is the answer to sign all of the free agents, give Bogaerts $400m for five years? Of course not, but a little truth, a little transparency would be nice too.
The reason why there is such a big schism between Bloomers and non-Bloomers isn't because one side wants to win more than the other. The biggest reason is that the Red Sox are broadcasting messages that aren't in sync with what they're doing, so you have two smart groups of people saying, "You have to believe that Bloom and the FO know what they're doing" and "Bloom and the FO have no clue as to what they're doing". And they're both not wrong, it's based on perspective and whether they truly believe the message. That sort of organizational dysfunction is a nice debating point on a die hard Boston Red Sox board, but most fans don't give a shit. At all. They're going to find something else to waste their time and energy on. I maintain that the Sox slow fall from unquestioned first loved team in the region to second is a real black mark on the Henry ownership. And that's despite the championships! I'd hate to see where the team winds up once public trust is eroded.
The Sox have to figure out what the fuck they're doing, and quick, or they're going to fall even farther back in the sports conscious of New Englanders. It's really that simple.
Last edited:
I posted this right after Thanksgiving and was accused of being a parody.
The Red Sox aren't an appealing destination for free agents right now. The only ways to get players to come here are to blow them away with an offer or to go after guys who don't have any other options. If they're not going to pay top dollar for free agents, they're ending up putting together a team with the leftovers.
It is not change for change's sake. It is improving the roster where you can so you are put in the best position to succeed (both short and long term).
In this case
The PR message has been that Bloom and this team are "committed to putting together a team capable of winning a championship in 2023." That's certainly the message you want to put forward when you're going to be selling season ticket packages and (probably) raising prices. I think fans, and certainly the people here, have a sense of how to assess the talent on the roster and see where the team stands today, and are able to look askance at what the team is saying vs how the roster is shaping up. The plan based on what they've done (as opposed to what they've said) so far appears to be "we're hoping for the best", which I don't think is going to sell tickets the way they want.
I mean, Schwarber, Renfroe and Wacha are great examples of why players would want to sign here. They're all going to get paid (or got paid) because they were good in Boston. Pitchers like signing for the Dodgers because their coaches fix them, and they get paid in free agency after. If this becomes Bloom's reputation, we're probably going to be better off for it.
'If you're good but had a bad year, get yourself to Boston, Bloom will fix you and then you'll get paid in free agency'
This doesn't mean we can build a championship team, but I don't think anyone in the FO or Bloom himself has said this is the core strategy. The core strategy is to have lots and lots of cost-controlled young talent, which would be supplemented by free agency. We just don't have enough young cost-controlled talent now. Maybe things will look better next year if Houck, Whitlock and Bello each give us 150 innings of 110 ERA+. Maybe Walter and Mata breaks through and we end up with 4 or 5 cost-controlled starting pitchers. Then it would be time to spend in free agency to open up a 6 or 7 year contending window.
This is a very good post an encapsulates my feelings pretty well. Look at the other teams around Boston. The Celtics just came a hair away from a title in June. They took that team and added Malcolm Brogdon to it. They play a fun and exciting brand of basketball and Brad Stevens has basically aced every test as a front office professional. The only thing this group hasn't done is close the deal in June. The Bruins are currently sitting at 47 points, the most in the NHL. They completely surprised many fans by being this good. They, too, focus on offense and their games are fun as hell to watch (and I'm not even a hockey guy despite going to BC). Both the Celtics and Bruins have TONS of home grown stars and players.
The Patriots? Well, they play the most popular sport in America by a longshot. Their talent level and style of play is more akin to where the Red Sox are right now but they do have a young and exciting defense that seems to be gelling a bit and has several talented guys who are young that you can dream on. Most of the young guys are recent draft picks of the team. They're a ways away from contention but this is a team worth following.
Now, you have the Red Sox. They've finished last place in 2 of the last 3 years. They traded Mookie, a guy we all loved. They completely screwed up the Bogaerts negotiations. They're laying the foundation for screwing up Devers. Their top prospect has 19 games in A+ ball. There are other guys like Rafaela, Casas, Bello who are either here or close but the average fan just doesn't pay attention to the farm. The rest of the lineup outside of Devers is a collection of blah. The rotation is blah. And then you have the optics of the Yankees retaining Judge, other big name guys going elsewhere, etc.
This team really runs the risk of falling to 4th place in the interest level of the town, if they're not there already. If they go out in 2023 and have another bad year (which is more probable than not at this point), why should the fan base be patient with Chaim? That would be 3 out of 4 bad years sandwiching one decent year with an improbable playoff run. Chaim needed to have a big offseason this year. He hasn't. It hasn't been great. Now, he needs to have another improbable 2023 season where the team overperforms and where we get tangible development from the young guys. But if you trade Devers before the season (I don't think they will), it'll be a PR disaster that they won't be adept at managing.
Disagree on the black mark (we’ve discussed before; no need to rehash), but otherwise, bravo. This nails it for both sides.
The average fan may not pay attention to the farm, but I'm sure glad Chaim does, because that's the ticket to long-term success.
I mean, other highly successful franchises have let homegrown talent go elsewhere to sign huge contracts:
- St. Louis let 31-year old Pujols - coming off a 37-hr, 148 ops+ World Championship season - sign elsewhere for huge dollars.
- NYY let 31-year old Robinson Cano - coming off a 27-hr, 147 ops+ season - sign elsewhere.
- The Dodgers let 29-year old Matt Kemp - coming off a 25-hr, 140 ops+ season - sign elsewhere. They let 27-year old Corey Seager - coming off a 142 ops+, WS MVP season - sign elsewhere.
- The Nationals let 25-year old Bryce Harper - coming off a 34-hr, 133 ops+ season - sign elsewhere. They let 29-year old Anthony Rendon - coming off a 34-hr, 157 ops+, World Championship season - sign elsewhere.
- The Braves let 31-year old Freddie Freeman - coming off a 31-hr, World Championship season - sign elsewhere.
- The Astros let 26-year old Carlos Correa - coming off a 26-hr, 131 ops+ season - sign elsewhere. They let 30-year old George Springer - coming off a 141 ops+ season (13th in the MVP voting in shortened 2020) - sign elsewhere.
Every team - including the huge market teams - let fan favorite, homegrown talent sign elsewhere for huge dollars. It happens every year. It feels to us like this is unique to the Red Sox, but that's hardly the case. I'd argue that these teams did very well for themselves letting those players go.
That the Sox let fan favorite, homegrown talent go elsewhere for huge dollars, is not even close to unique. It happens all over the league, all the time. We don't like it, but it's the way of the world all throughout Major League baseball.
I mean, other highly successful franchises have let homegrown talent go elsewhere to sign huge contracts:
- St. Louis let 31-year old Pujols - coming off a 37-hr, 148 ops+ World Championship season - sign elsewhere for huge dollars.
- NYY let 31-year old Robinson Cano - coming off a 27-hr, 147 ops+ season - sign elsewhere.
- The Dodgers let 29-year old Matt Kemp - coming off a 25-hr, 140 ops+ season - sign elsewhere. They let 27-year old Corey Seager - coming off a 142 ops+, WS MVP season - sign elsewhere.
- The Nationals let 25-year old Bryce Harper - coming off a 34-hr, 133 ops+ season - sign elsewhere. They let 29-year old Anthony Rendon - coming off a 34-hr, 157 ops+, World Championship season - sign elsewhere.
- The Braves let 31-year old Freddie Freeman - coming off a 31-hr, World Championship season - sign elsewhere.
- The Astros let 26-year old Carlos Correa - coming off a 26-hr, 131 ops+ season - sign elsewhere. They let 30-year old George Springer - coming off a 141 ops+ season (13th in the MVP voting in shortened 2020) - sign elsewhere.
Every team - including the huge market teams - let fan favorite, homegrown talent sign elsewhere for huge dollars. It happens every year. It feels to us like this is unique to the Red Sox, but that's hardly the case. I'd argue that these teams did very well for themselves letting those players go.
That the Sox let fan favorite, homegrown talent go elsewhere for huge dollars, is not even close to unique. It happens all over the league, all the time. We don't like it, but it's the way of the world all throughout Major League baseball.
Those teams all have counter examples where they did lock up stars. The Sox do not. Aside from Sale. Yikes.
Haven't all of those teams also signed homegrown players?
Everyone knows that you can't sign a long term deal with every good player who comes up from your farm system. But you gotta sign some. The Sox have literally let everyone walk from the graduating minors classes of 2013-2015. If they don't sign Devers it'll be a near-ten year stretch where the kept no one. That seems unique.
This is one reason why they need to (IMO) lock up Devers. It may be hard though, because Raffy knows he kind of has them over a barrel, so they may need to REALLY overpay him to get it done. But regardless, teams do let fan favorite, homegrown talent walk away all the time. Happens every year.
The lack of a core and unclear direction of the future has been apparent for a few years but those concerns were brushed aside with the idea that the team had tons of cash and would figure it out…but now that the market has exploded, the cash doesn’t seem to be as going as far as it did. Tough spot to be in.
Totally agree with the idea that the team seems to just be in on everyone; I think they are scattershot and just looking for value wherever they can find it without any clear strategy as to how it all fits together. It’s why they are in on a million different players without any clear idea of who they are really targeting…I don’t think they are really targeting anyone specific just wherever they think they can extract value .
Totally agree with the idea that the team seems to just be in on everyone; I think they are scattershot and just looking for value wherever they can find it without any clear strategy as to how it all fits together. It’s why they are in on a million different players without any clear idea of who they are really targeting…I don’t think they are really targeting anyone specific just wherever they think they can extract value .
What if you don't actually need to?
Baseball isn't like the NBA where the team with the best two players usually wins. The Angels locked up Mike Trout, spent huge in FA, and have been to the postseason once in 13 years, despite stumbling onto the most uniquely valuable player in the past 100 years.
The Rays have been to the postseason 7 times in the same period. The A's have been 6 times. The Twins have been 4 times.
What if those deals are simply bad bets, and teams who can afford them like the Sox are nonetheless better off putting a cap on them right around the Trevor Story level, and spending the leftovers up and down the roster?
I cut some of these down just so as not to have a hugely long post, but +1,000,000 to each of these things.
I'd be ok with a full on commitment to building through the farm. At least that would be a plan. We haven't done that. I'd actually have MORE faith in the organization if we traded Devers tomorrow. At least that would be a move to get something since it's obvious we're not giving anyone 10 years and $250m anymore. I'm not even saying they're wrong not to go there, what do I know - but ithat is kind of the "minimum" if you want to extend elite talent, so if you're not going to meet the market, deal the player to build through the farm - which I'll guess is the plan, even though we clearly haven't committed to it or really executed upon it that much.
Because, I won't go into the farm too much other than to say what I did the other day 5 of the top 10 and 10 of the top 20 on SoxProspects are evenly split between Bloom and Dombrowski. 9 of the top 15 are Dombrowski, but every one of the 20-30 are Bloom. If Bloom's strength is building a farm and if that is our plan, shouldn't you have gotten better top end talent to at least make it an 8 to 7 split in your favor in the top 15 over 3 seasons.
Put another way...let's say they sign Swanson for 160/6 and Corey Kluber for 10/1. They will have gotten the next 5 years of Yoshida, 6 of Swanson, 2 of Chris Martin, and 1 of Kluber for what it would have cost for the next 11 of Xander. What WAR total do you want to bet on?
True, but it’s 4 players vs one.
I have no problem letting X walk in a vacuum. But that argument is slightly disingenuous.
I wouldn't have signed X for 11 years, and I've seen no one here saying we should have.
What if we did precisely what you said, but signed X for 7/200 in March and didn't touch Swanson?
*edit* 6 years for Swanson makes my skin crawl.
In theory, sure, but you only have so many roster spots. There’s a reason why high value players are worth a premium.
Agree. When you have lots of spots occupied by cost-controlled platers who are productive. Which the Sox have not had. Thus the need to spread it out.
Also, the Sox fucked around and played games with Bogaerts all year. There was no way that they'd sign him for what he got in San Diego, mostly because he wasn't going to ask for what he got in San Diego. Then the FO comes out in October and says that "Xander is their number one priority", which again, is not true at all. They weren't even in the ballpark of what SD offered them and if reports are to be believed, they were the fifth highest bid.
Sure, if they could have actually done that. I'm skeptical that Boras would have let that happen. It's one thing to agree to his first massive pay day with an opt out clause. But to quote one of least-favorite Beatles songs, Not a Second Time.
Exactly. If you want to emulate the Astros / Braves (which are good pieces to emulate) you can't just let every single all-star you develop leave for either a) nothing at all or b) more prospects. You have to sign some of them long term. Houston locked up Alvarez until his age 32 season; they locked up Altuve until his age 35 season; McCullers until he's 32. (Just to show you might not always knock those deals out of the park, but you have to sign them. If not you continually make the playoffs and win nothing - like Tampa or Oakland).
I don't think there'd be nearly the consternation on here if Bloom had locked up Bogaerts and Devers with the exact contract George Springer got (I assume they would have signed extensions commiserate with the top free agent signing of the market) following the 2020 Tournament. Or given either one the Kris Bryant deal from last year (yes, I think they both would have signed extensions commiserate with the 2nd largest deal of last off-season, even with Boras as Bogaerts' agent). Bogaerts wanted to be here. Based on Speier's reporting (I trust him) I think if we'd offered Bogaerts the second highest deal of the off-season last year, he'd have told Boras to sign it or fired him.
Bloom didn't, and here we are. No core real core. A good but not great farm system. An approximately $200m payroll that if we everything breaks right we make the last wild card slot.
Last edited:
I suspect its hardly unique. It's just that the other teams in this category are in places like Pittsburgh were the local franchises aren't even trying to compete.
They extended X right up to the point where he's likely going to start regressing. Way to go Bloom!
If you're upset they didn't extend him 3 years ago into his age 33 season, then you think Boras is a moron. He's not.