I think it's also in the general MLB news and notes thread. A little time intensive to bounce back and forth between them, but I'm making the effort to read it all.
Red Sox in season discussion
- Thread starter Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat
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So, all told it's 5/$102m. (edit: actually a bit less than $100 total — the posting fee is only 20% of the first tranche of the deal, and then less.)
There's some risk there. I think we all fell in love with the idea when we were thinking of it as 6/$55m or so: this is twice the price.
I was really excited about Suzuki, but I wouldn't be broken up if the FO didn't want to match this offer.
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Two things have been clear so far with Chaim after three years: he has considerably improved the depth of the minor league organization and has refused to add long contracts this far.
i recall seeing the free agent class wasn’t too strong next year so I wonder if the 2023-2024 offseason is where He feels this organization is ready to go balls to the wall both in free agent signings and prospects making significant contributions.
i recall seeing the free agent class wasn’t too strong next year so I wonder if the 2023-2024 offseason is where He feels this organization is ready to go balls to the wall both in free agent signings and prospects making significant contributions.
I don’t care they didn’t get Suzuki. My larger concern is that they (apparently) passed on Schwarber and unless you buy the Freeman rumors, I don’t see what they’re getting to replace that type of offense.
Renfroe/Schwarber out - JBJ in.
Obviously the off-season did not end yet but it’s been an awful one so far IMO.
Renfroe/Schwarber out - JBJ in.
Obviously the off-season did not end yet but it’s been an awful one so far IMO.
Yeah I was super on board the Suzuki bandwagon but that's a pretty big deal for a guy who hasn't seen a major league pitch. 5/$102 probably isn't that far off what it would take to get other RHHs like Bryant or Story. Since I don't believe the Freeman rumors, I hope this is Chaim's strategy - wait out the market and grab Bryant or Story at a decent value. I would not be thrilled about Soler. Outside of his 48 homer season he's never surpassed 1.0 fWAR in any year.
I'm not sure how Freeman fits in for the Sox. For one thing, he's playing a position where we have two cost-effective players. Second, he's way on the other side of 30. If the Sox weren't going to pay big bucks to keep Mookie Betts (who was four years younger), why would they turn around and do so for Freeman? Which leads into my next point, he's too expensive. Freeman is a good to great ballplayer, but how long is he going to be that type of player? The Sox have (or should) be worried about finding money to sign Devers and Bogaerts long-term.
My hope is that Bloom is scooching up the price for the Dodgers, Jays and Rays. This signing would make zero sense for the new Red Sox.
My hope is that Bloom is scooching up the price for the Dodgers, Jays and Rays. This signing would make zero sense for the new Red Sox.
Sounds like a leaked smoke screen to me. Sox have much bigger needs including another pitcher now.
Well the Freeman contract will look a lot different than Mookie’s. 5/150 ish is a lot different than 10/350.
So... I'm gaming out Freeman scenarios.
If we could get a desirable deal for Freeman, that could free up both Dalbec and Casas for trade. The details of a fake internet trade are uninteresting, but if we sank a few other chips from the system (Duran, maybe Wilkelman Gonzalez), the trade sim suggests we could return an absolute haul in young SP from teams like the A's and Marlins. So maybe it makes sense if you think Freeman would age well?
If we could get a desirable deal for Freeman, that could free up both Dalbec and Casas for trade. The details of a fake internet trade are uninteresting, but if we sank a few other chips from the system (Duran, maybe Wilkelman Gonzalez), the trade sim suggests we could return an absolute haul in young SP from teams like the A's and Marlins. So maybe it makes sense if you think Freeman would age well?
Jack Curry said last night that Freeman turned down 5/140 from ATL, so odds are the final deal will be at least a notch higher than that. I don't think TOR is out on him, they have emptied their system in trades and are really going for it.
I will be baffled if we sign a 32-year-old first baseman to a big dollars deal when we have a top-20-in-baseball 1B prospect who is ten years younger and could start making an impact this year. Freddie Freeman has been a great player for the Braves, but we don't get those years. Do we really want Freeman's age 32-37 years, paying $20-30M for each, over Casas's years 22-27? This seems like exactly the opposite of this FO's MO. I'm trying to imagine them having a deal lined up to trade Casas for an outfielder or pitcher, the only way it would sort of make sense to me. But this seems like a "let's get some headlines and not lose the offseason" kind of deal.
That's where my thinking is too, if in fact they are interested in Freeman. I remember Chaim mentioning post deadline that some framework had been laid down for potential trades with Marlins guys.
I'd prefer Freeman to Correa because of the cost, him being the best bat on the market, and a 3 win upgrade.
All that said, I'm not buying the Freeman stuff.
You're right. I thought it was because he projected to get about two thirds of that.
From Rosenthal’s story last night:
The five-year, $130 million extension Paul Goldschmidt signed with the Cardinals in March 2019 is the current bellwether for first basemen. Freddie Freeman considered that deal a floor in his talks with the Braves before he became a free agent.
A bidding war between the Sox and Dodgers would stand to push it higher, but I don’t think it’s a given we’re in >$200M territory.
With the current state of the Sox, I can’t see us getting in a bidding war with the Dodgers for a thirty-two year old first baseman in a position where the Sox have a promising prospect. It would go completely against Bloom’s habits so far.
Unless you use your farm depth to trade for need and where free agents aren't available or are thin, like starting pitching. Chaim said as much in his news conference this morning.
My favorite part about this post is that it came almost as long after Wingack's post as his post came after the Suzuki news, AND you're something like the 3rd person to be an ass to him about it.
You guys are in prime offseason SoSHape today.
Edit to add some substance: I love Freddie Freeman and he is one of my favorite players in the game, but it feels like the plan right now is to restart a long window for contention in either 2023 or 2024. I would rather hang on to Casas for that reason.
I think this team is middle of tge pack in the AL and I don't think Freeman puts them over the top, so I'm okay with a reset year as we wait on Casas ( and hopefully Durran, Bello, and potentially Downs) to add the depth they need for next season.
I won't be upset oif they add Freeman (though I like Bryant as a better fit), but I'm pretty okay with not giving him $150m+.
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For me, the most "Chaim"-like sequence involving a splashy FA signing would be to sign Correa and trade Bogaerts to help balance the roster elsewhere. This to me is what an "upscale Rays" philosophy would look like. For age and positional reasons, I agree that Freeman doesn't seem like the most in-line with how this FO would look to operate—with the caveat that it's still a fresh FO that has not yet had the benefit of big money to spend under the tax. But we can guess, and I'd guess they prefer to splurge at premium positions where it is tougher to cobble together decent production cheaply both in terms of money and prospects.
And while we have Mayer down the road, the whole left side of the infield is a question mark in the medium-term until Devers is locked down.
I fully understand what everyone is saying about paying up for Freeman when you have Casas waiting in the wings for next to nothing. On the other hand if the Sox are ever going to make any meaningful trades (either this year or in the next few) they will need something of value to offer. They only way they can do that is to make some of their best young prospects available. Bringing in Freeman makes Casas available. I'm not necessarily advocating bringing Freeman in at the type of money and years that he's looking to get, but when people here start looking to making trades with Oakland, Miami or Cincinnati for pitching you have to be able to offer something of value and if we're hoping for a future of Yorke and Mayer up the middle Casas is your chip.
Or split time at 1b. I'm not sure I want Casas as a full time DH at age 23, especially when he could potentially be an above average 1b. I'm with you that having Freeman doesn't necessarily mean Casas is gone.
edit: Someone compared FF to Adrian. Hopefully Casas isn't Rizzo.
With Schwarber out of the equation this does make sense. Though I think I’d rather trade Casas for equivalent value in a starter or catcher and then sign Soler or Castellanos and suffer a year of them playing some RF before DHing in ‘23.
Kris Bryant is starting to look more and more appropriate for the 2022 Sox.
He fits the positional flexibility theme that Bloom seems to value with the acquisitions of Kike Hernandez, Marwin Gonzalez, Danny Santana, Christian Arroyo, Jose Peraza, Yairo Munoz, and others I'm probably forgetting. He's right handed. He can play LF or RF. He can give both Devers and Dalbec a day off.
The downside is he's probably going to be more expensive than anyone wants.
He fits the positional flexibility theme that Bloom seems to value with the acquisitions of Kike Hernandez, Marwin Gonzalez, Danny Santana, Christian Arroyo, Jose Peraza, Yairo Munoz, and others I'm probably forgetting. He's right handed. He can play LF or RF. He can give both Devers and Dalbec a day off.
The downside is he's probably going to be more expensive than anyone wants.
My biggest disappointment of this off season is is the JBJ trade. I didn't like it then and like it less now.
The way I could see Casas dealt is if they sign Freeman and trade Casas to Oakland for Montas or Manaea.
I haven't scoured twitter, but is there any smoke at all on Freeman and the Sox other than from Heyman? Because at this point, roughly 24 hours since the initial mention came out, you'd have to think someone else in the baseball beat reporter ranks (national or local) would be picking up on the story by now if there was anything substantial to it. If Heyman's the only one pushing it, I think we're all wasting bandwidth discussing it.
The better positional flexibility options still out there are Jonathan Villar (FA) and Chad Pinder, Jurickson Profar and Ha-swing Kim (trade). I’d thought McNeil was available too but it looks like the Mets are keeping him. It’s possible Nick Senzel and Ketel Marte may be available, but who knows.
Bryant can play a lot of positions but none of them particularly well. The one he’s most valuable at is where our best hitter plays, so it never struck me that we’d have the highest bid for him. But who knows.
That would go both ways though. Either concurring with Heyman or saying it’s false.
Neither of which has happened yet as far as I know
I understand that, that's why I asked. I'm not looking for anyone to refute him necessarily, just independent corroboration would be nice to have before we run too wild discussing/debating the possibilities. No sense wasting time if Heyman is merely crying wolf over and over again.
I don't think teams are allowed to say publicly that they are not interested in a specific FA, as that gets into collusion which they've been convicted of before.
Casas is projected to be an above-average defender at first, bringing him up and slotting him at DH wastes some of his value and hurts his development. If what we're missing is a DH for 2023, signing an aging first baseman for big bucks in 2022 seems like an inefficient way to go about it.
Villar is a guy that I've been curious about as a hedge against Arroyo's health as well filling the INF utility role with someone not named Arauz. No idea what he's looking for in terms of $$$ or years, but I think he's 30ish, has some pop in his bat and hits from both sides of the plate.
Couldn’t you play Kris Bryant at 1b against righties and in LF against lefties (moving Verdugo to RF and Bradley to the bench)? Seems like that would represent a huge offensive upgrade at those slots .
As far as Casas goes, there’s almost nobody under contract past this year. He’s only blocked if they acquire someone that blocks him.
Villar could be useful. Start at 2b and move Arroyo to a utility role?Huge upgrade over Arauz.
As far as Casas goes, there’s almost nobody under contract past this year. He’s only blocked if they acquire someone that blocks him.
Villar could be useful. Start at 2b and move Arroyo to a utility role?Huge upgrade over Arauz.
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Eh. Last year was odd with COVID replacement players and the like, so it's harder than usual to do back of the napkin math.
That said, I'd agree that replacing a full-season 2021 Renfroe with a full-season 2021 JBJ would be awful. But Renfroe's 2022 netted him 2.3 WAR. JBJ's usually good for that. He had a blistering 2020 (truncated) and fell off the cliff in 2021. I'm not saying JBJ is likely to rebound, but there's a decent chance it's a wash.
Schwarber got 168 plate appearances with us. There are other ways to make gains. If we exclude the late-season heroics of Iggy and Shaw, and just consider the following PAs and OPS+ numbers:
| Marwin Gonzalez | 271 | 52 |
| Franchy Cordero | 136 | 32 |
| Danny Santana | 127 | 57 |
| Jarren Duran* | 112 | 36 |
| Michael Chavis | 82 | 42 |
| Jonathan Arauz# | 75 | 69 |
| Total | 803 | (something crappy) |
Spring Training actual games start in less than 24 hours and I’m curious to see who plays in the first one. The first one usually has many ml players but that’s usually in February.
I'm guess that it will still be mostly ml players, especially the pitchers, if only because they actually have been in camp for a couple weeks.
I'm leaning more towards Kris Bryant now. I can't believe it. Always thought he was overrated (but still very good player) and yeah, while he's not good defensively at any position- he's versatile. I like the 1B/LF platoon idea and he (or Dalbec) could slide over to 3rd to give Devers an occasional DH or full rest break.
I don't see Bryant breaking $25M per season... but I also am more wrong than right
I don't see Bryant breaking $25M per season... but I also am more wrong than right
Are we waiting on Correa or Freeman to sign and then make a deal with the other? Could Kris Bryant be the one Bloom has been after all along? I feel like we’re going to be very surprised, but it seems like all the chips are getting scooped up by others. Maybe Chaim is planning on Dalbec to start the season at 1B with Casas planned for a mid season (or sooner if Dalbec flounders) and the real moves will involve JDM+ being traded for a rhh RF and young cost-controlled SP with Bryant taking over at LF.