Red Sox Rumors - Just Kidding

What happened?" There was a long while the Red Sox would always have a few of the very best players in baseball in any given season. I mean, in some ways, the current squad has the least in-their-prime- blue-chip talent since the mid-60s. And yet the Red Sox are rich organization. Honestly, what, exactly, is going on? Is it The Plan? Am I not able to perceive The Plan in my layman's myopia? I certainly hope so.
Making due and looking for bargains was the name of the game in the 90s for the Red Sox. Sure they had Clemens and Boggs early on, and Vaughn and Nomar and Pedro in the latter half, but most of the rest of the rosters were filled with unfulfilled promises, has-beens, never-wases, and retreads galore. Those were the days when the major free agent acquisitions were guys like Danny Darwin and Andre Dawson and Jack Clark and Matt Young and Frank Viola and Bret Saberhagen. When scrap-heap pickups Tim Wakefield and Troy O'Leary and Reggie Jefferson were just as key contributors as homegrown "stars" like Aaron Sele and John Valentin and Tim Naehring. Sometimes I think the successes of the last 20 years or so has clouded our view of history. They haven't always been a big spending titan of the game with an unending supply of "blue chip" talent.

The Sox had a sustained run of success where they were able to exploit their high revenue in ways other teams couldn't (or wouldn't), but the rules have changed a bunch to take away those advantages (draft slotting, bonus caps, international spending caps, etc). The playing field is more level than ever. It's harder to be the smartest team in the league, if they ever really were.
RHF gives a great summary here, and I'd like to build on it a bit. I can't speak to the history before the late '90s, and will leave that to others to explore. For the purposes of this analysis I'm going to break things down into three time periods: The Steroid Era (late 90's to late '00s), the Open Draft era (late '00s to 2013) and the current era (2013-present).

I do agree with the premise that the Red Sox have fewer blue chip players right now than any time in recent history, but I think there is a clear explanation as to why this is that has little to do with organizational incompetence.

To start, let's look at each of the eras and the ways in which the Red Sox maintained an advantage:

  • Steroid Era: This time period was characterized by fewer limits to spending and a significantly smoother aging curve due to substance use. I also wouldn't be surprised if players took longer to develop in this era due to a lack of some of the advanced training systems and analytics that we have today. Players typically peaked in their late 20's and sustained that peak longer into their 30s. These factors combined made free agency a MUCH more viable path to talent acquisition for a high budget team. The Yankees are best known for leveraging this approach, but for much of this time period the Sox weren't too far behind. The Red Sox developed some marquee players during this time period (Nomar, Tek) but traded for others and then locked them down with market rate contracts (Pedro, Schilling, Manny, later Beckett). Additionally, the Sox got lucky with Ortiz. Talent evaluation surely played a role, yes, but having a scrap heap acquisition turn into a franchise level superstar was a very unlikely outcome.

  • Open Draft Era: By the late '00s, the aging curve was getting steeper and fewer players were extending their primes deep into their 30's. Player were also starting to develop a bit more quickly. Budgets were starting to feel the pinch of externally imposed restrictions. As a result, the game shifted younger and free agency started to become less attractive in comparison to developing young talent. During this period the Sox still tried to sign some marquee players but those contracts blew up in the Sox's face (Crawford, AGon). Luckily the organization was able to use their cash to spend more on the draft, which led to quite a lot of talent coming up through the system. While the success of the early 2000's was acquired in trades and market rate contracts, the success of the late '00s and early '10s came more on the shoulders of players like Ellsbury, Lester, and Pedroia who came up through the system. There was definitely a bit of luck here, too. I doubt many saw Pedrioa as having star potential early on, and he far exceeded expectations.

  • Current Era: Starting with 2013, the slot system closed off another way for high budget teams to gain an advantage. Instead, focus shifted more toward the international free agent market. Trends that have made free agency less attractive have continued, with players peaking younger and declining younger. The Sox continued to graduate star players from their farm (the killer B's, Devers, etc.). The league also got more competitive as the balance of power between low spending and high spending teams narrowed thanks to a great many factors (plus the increase in available playoff berths). The narrowing set of levers to push to get an advantage led the Sox to push harder at the mid to late 2010's contention window. Dombrowski leveraged the farm to acquire MLB level talent, which has resulted in the system graduating very little in the late 10's and early 20's. Furthermore, the Sox lost a year of IFA spending AND suffered the tragic death of their top international prospect in Daniel Flores who could easily be a superstar player today if things had gone differently. It's also worth mentioning that Betts was a bit of a stroke of luck in the vein of Pedroia and Ortiz.

So in summary, as RHF said, the Sox's ability to leverage financial advantage has narrowed over time, which has made it more and more difficult to guarantee a steady supply of marquee talent. Furthermore, some recent events have resulted in one of the main areas where a team can realistically get an advantage (IFA market) being less productive for the Sox recently. The Sox were also lucky in getting several star/superstar players out of nowhere (Ortiz, Pedroia, Betts).

Right now the Sox are lacking in star power. If they had splurged in free agency they might have fixed this temporarily, but it likely would likely have just kicked the can down the road. Hopefully the relatively strong farm system will fix this problem by graduating enough star power to buoy the team in the medium term future. In the meantime we may just have to deal with a temporary focus on value players fueling up for the next push.
 

TimScribble

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I don’t find SI to be as reputable as they once were, but they’re quoting MLB’s Ian Browne reporting Boston may have pulled their offer on Eovaldi after spending elsewhere:

https://www.si.com/mlb/red-sox/prospects/red-sox-reportedly-pulled-offer-for-nathan-eovaldi-after-spending-elsewhere-scott7

“"It sounds like they made him what was a good offer earlier in the offseason and (his agents) weren't ready to take it, they were like: 'this market could blow up.' The market never did blow up.

"It sounds like from some of what I've heard, Eovaldi's camp came back to the Red Sox and said 'okay, can we still get that offer back?' (The Red Sox) said no. That was after they got Masataka Yoshida, Kenley Jansen and Chris Martin."”
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Interesting - in a vacuum, I don’t see the problem here. The Red Sox seem to be placing a lot of value on guys who want to be here - Bloom has referenced that. If true, Eovaldi shopped their offer around and only came back around when it was clear he couldn’t beat it. Seems like that may have annoyed the Sox. Maybe a miscommunication but I don’t think anyone can expect a contract offer to be out there forever.

That being said, it’s potentially another example of the Sox treating a respected and long time player in a sub-optimal way, which isn’t ideal.

It seems like the Sox wanted Nate back and he wanted to come back, yet it didn’t happen which is kind of hard to figure out.
 

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Interesting - in a vacuum, I don’t see the problem here. The Red Sox seem to be placing a lot of value on guys who want to be here - Bloom has referenced that. If true, Eovaldi shopped their offer around and only came back around when it was clear he couldn’t beat it. Seems like that may have annoyed the Sox. Maybe a miscommunication but I don’t think anyone can expect a contract offer to be out there forever.

That being said, it’s potentially another example of the Sox treating a respected and long time player in a sub-optimal way, which isn’t ideal.

It seems like the Sox wanted Nate back and he wanted to come back, yet it didn’t happen which is kind of hard to figure out.
Bullshit. If they made him an good offer, he shopped it, then came back after he couldn't beat it, there was nothing "sub-optimal" about the Sox saying that the offer was no longer on the table. This narrative doesn't need to be created when it doesn't exist.
 

jteders1

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Interesting - in a vacuum, I don’t see the problem here. The Red Sox seem to be placing a lot of value on guys who want to be here - Bloom has referenced that. If true, Eovaldi shopped their offer around and only came back around when it was clear he couldn’t beat it. Seems like that may have annoyed the Sox. Maybe a miscommunication but I don’t think anyone can expect a contract offer to be out there forever.

That being said, it’s potentially another example of the Sox treating a respected and long time player in a sub-optimal way, which isn’t ideal.

It seems like the Sox wanted Nate back and he wanted to come back, yet it didn’t happen which is kind of hard to figure out.
Tough to put too much blame on the Sox here. They made a respectable offer, Nate declined, and they spent the money elshwere. I’ve been critical of how the FO has treated players before, but not on this. Seems absolutely reasonable to look around after Nate said no.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Bullshit. If they made him an good offer, he shopped it, then came back after he couldn't beat it, there was nothing "sub-optimal" about the Sox saying that the offer was no longer on the table. This narrative doesn't need to be created when it doesn't exist.
I guess, yet they didn’t sign Kluber until after Eovaldi went elsewhere. Did they think Nate would beg to come back for less, or is the timing here just a coincidence?
 

soxhop411

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Interesting - in a vacuum, I don’t see the problem here. The Red Sox seem to be placing a lot of value on guys who want to be here - Bloom has referenced that. If true, Eovaldi shopped their offer around and only came back around when it was clear he couldn’t beat it. Seems like that may have annoyed the Sox. Maybe a miscommunication but I don’t think anyone can expect a contract offer to be out there forever.

That being said, it’s potentially another example of the Sox treating a respected and long time player in a sub-optimal way, which isn’t ideal.

It seems like the Sox wanted Nate back and he wanted to come back, yet it didn’t happen which is kind of hard to figure out.
His agent is the one who should be blamed. As well as Nate to an extent. Bloom was right here.. He had that contract on the table for more than a month and his agent apparently shopped it without success.

At a certain point the sox had to move on cant have Nate holding up any other moves.
 

BringBackMo

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That being said, it’s potentially another example of the Sox treating a respected and long time player in a sub-optimal way, which isn’t ideal.

It seems like the Sox wanted Nate back and he wanted to come back, yet it didn’t happen which is kind of hard to figure out.
Where are you getting this? The report is that they made him a good offer early in the off-season and he said no. Then he discovered that their offer was, in fact a good one and asked for it again but they had already shifted gears because he said no. How is that treating him sub-optimally?
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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His agent is the one who should be blamed. As well as Nate to an extent. Bloom was right here.. He had that contract on the table for more than a month and his agent apparently shopped it without success.

At a certain point the sox had to move on cant have Nate holding up any other moves.
Ok, but they didn’t move on until after Nate had signed with Texas, right? They made him an offer….yet didn’t replace him until after he came back to accept that offer….which they then pulled? It’s sort of weird.

I completely agree that the offer should not be out there forever but it seems like they could have put an expiration date in it and avoided some drama here, and ideally, kept a player that they had a good relationship with.
 

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I guess, yet they didn’t sign Kluber until after Eovaldi went elsewhere. Did they think Nate would beg to come back for less, or is the timing here just a coincidence?
I don't claim to know what they thought. But they made him an offer, he made a business decision, they made a business decision. Period. There was no bad faith on either side.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Where are you getting this? The report is that they made him a good offer early in the off-season and he said no. Then he discovered that their offer was, in fact a good one and asked for it again but they had already shifted gears because he said no. How is that treating him sub-optimally?
They hadn’t replaced him when he came back to accept the offer. They only signed Kluber after Nate signed with Texas. If they had “shifted gears”, the timing is a little weird. Why not inform a guy who had been here a long time and won some big games here that “we are moving on, the offer is no longer good, best of luck”?

Just seems like it probably could have been handled better, no?
 

BringBackMo

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Ok, but they didn’t move on until after Nate had signed with Texas, right? They made him an offer….yet didn’t replace him until after he came back to accept that offer….which they then pulled? It’s sort of weird.

I completely agree that the offer should not be out there forever but it seems like they could have put an expiration date in it and avoided some drama here, and ideally, kept a player that they had a good relationship with.
Eovaldi signed for $34 million and two guaranteed years. Kluber signed for $10 million for one year plus a team option. The contacts are not comparable. Nate said no, they made other commitments, and no longer had that salary slot available
 

RicoPfan

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Glad to get a little insight into negotiations with Nate. Sorry to see him go, but it is a business. Good luck to him in Texas.
 

BringBackMo

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Why not inform a guy who had been here a long time and won some big games here that “we are moving on, the offer is no longer good, best of luck”?
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding something? Isn’t that precisely what the Sox did according to that report?
"It sounds like from some of what I've heard, Eovaldi's camp came back to the Red Sox and said 'okay, can we still get that offer back?' (The Red Sox) said no. That was after they got Masataka Yoshida, Kenley Jansen and Chris Martin."”
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Eovaldi is a guy who was here a long time and won here. They made him an offer, seemed to be waiting to fill the role, then he comes back to accept it, they say no, let him sign elsewhere, and then announce they’ve signed his replacement. It kind of looks like they wanted to make him look like the bad guy, no?

A simple phone call (text, whatever) to his agent / reps letting them know that the offer was no longer good (or when it would expire) seems like it may have saved everyone some hard feelings.

It seems like there have been multiple instances of reports that the Sox are not communicating all that well with players, maybe it’s just spin or maybe it doesn’t matter, I don’t know, but it could be an area to improve upon.
 

soxhop411

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Eovaldi is a guy who was here a long time and won here. They made him an offer, seemed to be waiting to fill the role, then he comes back to accept it, they say no, let him sign elsewhere, and then announce they’ve signed his replacement. It kind of looks like they wanted to make him look like the bad guy, no?

A simple phone call (text, whatever) to his agent / reps letting them know that the offer was no longer good (or when it would expire) seems like it may have saved everyone some hard feelings.

It seems like there have been multiple instances of reports that the Sox are not communicating all that well with players, maybe it’s just spin or maybe it doesn’t matter, I don’t know, but it could be an area to improve upon.
Your making this an issue when it isnt one.

you get a job offer. You have x days to accept. Its not an offer that will just sit there waiting for you.
 

streeter88

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Eovaldi signed for $34 million and two guaranteed years. Kluber signed for $10 million for one year plus a team option. The contacts are not comparable. Nate said no, they made other commitments, and no longer had that salary slot available
The discussion may have passed me a little, but does the no longer having that salary slot available mean we think they are:

1. Saving the money for a Devers extension? ...which I think is unlikely to occur
2. Considering that they have enough SP now? ...which again I think is a flawed argument given the recent reliability of Sale and Paxton

Just trying to make sense of this fairly disappointing offseason thus far - so any insight is welcome.
 

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Right, because every article and report about the Sox is solely designed to generate clicks and piss Sox fans off, right?
No, because you continue to state your opinion as if it is a fact, despite common business practices and media reports that would indicate otherwise.

They made him an offer, seemed to be waiting to fill the role, then he comes back to accept it, they say no, let him sign elsewhere, and then announce they’ve signed his replacement. It kind of looks like they wanted to make him look like the bad guy, no?

A simple phone call (text, whatever) to his agent / reps letting them know that the offer was no longer good (or when it would expire) seems like it may have saved everyone some hard feelings.
You keep trying to frame it this way, when the reality appears to be that they made him an offer, he said no and shopped, eventually came back and said yes, and the Sox said it was no longer on the table.
It is highly, highly, highly likely that his agent/reps knew that the offer had a time limit(this is SOP), but came back to them anyway. Which is fine to try.

Not everything is a sinister plot or a conspiracy theory. No one was trying to make anyone look like a bad guy. There don't appear to be hard feelings. This was just a negotiation. Business.
This is a total nothingburger that you continue to try to turn into something.
 

joe dokes

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They hadn’t replaced him when he came back to accept the offer. They only signed Kluber after Nate signed with Texas. If they had “shifted gears”, the timing is a little weird. Why not inform a guy who had been here a long time and won some big games here that “we are moving on, the offer is no longer good, best of luck”?

Just seems like it probably could have been handled better, no?
You're assuming that its a 1 for 1. Eovaldi and Kluber. I dont think it works that way. Between the time that Nate declined the first offer and the time he changed his mind, didnt the Sox sign and lose several players. Lots of moving parts. He was one of them.
 

BringBackMo

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The discussion may have passed me a little, but does the no longer having that salary slot available mean we think they are:

1. Saving the money for a Devers extension? ...which I think is unlikely to occur
2. Considering that they have enough SP now? ...which again I think is a flawed argument given the recent reliability of Sale and Paxton

Just trying to make sense of this fairly disappointing offseason thus far - so any insight is welcome.
These are reasonable questions and I don’t have better answers to them than anyone else does right now. BUT, there is just nothing in Henry’s past to suggest that he doesn’t want to spend money on the team. I think it’s safe to assume that there are more moves to come, perhaps via a trade, that will involve taking on salary. If the Sox spend significantly below the tax threshold I will be as surprised and disappointed as anyone. I don’t think it will happen but, again, that’s just my opinion. (I don’t think a Devers extension will inflate this years’ payroll as, if it happens, you’d think they’d have it kick in next year.)
 

BringBackMo

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Right, because every article and report about the Sox is solely designed to generate clicks and piss Sox fans off, right?
I don’t think he’s talking about the articles. I think he’s talking about how you keep stating as a fact that Eovaldi was mistreated when we don’t have any evidence of that.

Edit: He didn’t need my help to make his point.
 

Petagine in a Bottle

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Do we have any examples of long drawn out, back and forth, negotiations in the Bloom era? I think they wanted Eovaldi on their terms, when they offered it, and probably soured on him when he didn’t accept their initial offer and / or shopped it around. Here’s what Bloom had to say earlier in the off-season….

“You want the players who want to play for you and some players really crave what Boston brings. Others are interested in the opportunity or the financial terms are there but they want something that is different from our situation and different from the atmosphere that we have. As history has shown, you don’t want to bring players to Boston who don’t want to play in Boston.”

I don’t think there any “sinister plot” or “conspiracy”, yet you’ve got multiple instances where the team and player both claim to want to get a deal done, yet it doesn’t happen. Why? Seems like there could have been better communication here, on both sides, regarding the status of an offer, that’s all. I think they’d be better off with Eovaldi than Kluber, but reasonable minds can disagree on that one.

Moving on….
 

JM3

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If Eo signs they probably don't go after Kenley & plug Houck in as the closer.

Once he doesn't, they have a new plan & probably aren't interested in guaranteeing that money.

Eo people hoped for more $, understanding that it's a risk that teams will move on. The article literally says Eo's people asked if they "could they have the offer back" which means it was pretty clearly not an offer sitting on a table.

The Red Sox were no longer interested at that price & probably were happy to get the 4th round pick & keep the future financial flexibility.

I'm sure they had a polite conversation, thanked him for all he had done for the franchise, & everyone lived happily ever after.
 

BringBackMo

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Do we have any examples of long drawn out, back and forth, negotiations in the Bloom era? I think they wanted Eovaldi on their terms, when they offered it, and probably soured on him when he didn’t accept their initial offer and / or shopped it around. Here’s what Bloom had to say earlier in the off-season….

“You want the players who want to play for you and some players really crave what Boston brings. Others are interested in the opportunity or the financial terms are there but they want something that is different from our situation and different from the atmosphere that we have. As history has shown, you don’t want to bring players to Boston who don’t want to play in Boston.”

I don’t think there any “sinister plot” or “conspiracy”, yet you’ve got multiple instances where the team and player both claim to want to get a deal done, yet it doesn’t happen. Why? Seems like there could have been better communication here, on both sides, regarding the status of an offer, that’s all. I think they’d be better off with Eovaldi than Kluber, but reasonable minds can disagree on that one.

Moving on….
I’m sorry but this is ridiculous. He’s not in any way saying what you are implying he’s saying. His quote is not making the point that if you don’t immediately accept an offer it means you don’t want to be here, and he only wants people here who *want* to be here. He is obviously talking about something completely different, namely that if you come to Boston just for the money but don’t have the kind of personality that thrives under pressure, it’s going to be a problem. And by “as history has shown” he is obviously talking about the Carl Crawfords of the game. You’ve somehow taken a quote that applies to apples and presented it as applying to oranges.
 

nvalvo

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Ok, but they didn’t move on until after Nate had signed with Texas, right? They made him an offer….yet didn’t replace him until after he came back to accept that offer….which they then pulled? It’s sort of weird.

I completely agree that the offer should not be out there forever but it seems like they could have put an expiration date in it and avoided some drama here, and ideally, kept a player that they had a good relationship with.
Huh? The sequence in which things are announced/leaked is not necessarily the sequence in which they happened.

For all we know, Eovaldi took Texas’ deal because the Sox told him they were going with Kluber.
 

TubeSoxs

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Arent they 15th in total payroll currently with still 40 mill under the luxury? If they spent the Evoldi money on diffenent players doesnt it mean they were never going to go near the luxury tax threshold anyways?
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Arent they 15th in total payroll currently with still 40 mill under the luxury? If they spent the Evoldi money on diffenent players doesnt it mean they were never going to go near the luxury tax threshold anyways?
They are within about $17M of the luxury tax cap right now (Cot's has them at ~$204M without Turner's ~$11M included). We have ZERO indications that they are not going to go near the luxury tax threshold. In fact, all signs point to the opposite of that given where they are now and the fact that they still have deficiencies to address. There are just three middle infielders on the 40-man (Arroyo, Story, Kike), for example.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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Glad to get a little insight into negotiations with Nate. Sorry to see him go, but it is a business. Good luck to him in Texas.
We have a report from SI. Not an Oral History of the Exit of Eovaldi. I am not so sure there is much insight here.


Do we have any examples of long drawn out, back and forth, negotiations in the Bloom era? I think they wanted Eovaldi on their terms, when they offered it, and probably soured on him when he didn’t accept their initial offer and / or shopped it around. Here’s what Bloom had to say earlier in the off-season….
No, no we don’t. Nor do we have any from Dombrowski or Epstein or Haywood Sullivan that I can recall.
 

joe dokes

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Do we have any examples of long drawn out, back and forth, negotiations in the Bloom era?
Trevor Story's were long and drawn out.

Well actually, I made that up. We know nothing about how "long" or "drawn out" Story's or any other negotiations - successful or not - were. So while it's easy to say "there were none," it's just as easy to say "they all were."
Especially since "long," "drawn out" and "back and forth" are little more than Rorschach words. (Unless you mean "back and forth" literally, in which case I think we can confidently say "all of them involved some amount of 'back and forth' negotiations," as an agreement would be impossible otherwsie.)
 
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Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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They are within about $17M of the luxury tax cap right now (Cot's has them at ~$204M without Turner's ~$11M included). We have ZERO indications that they are not going to go near the luxury tax threshold. In fact, all signs point to the opposite of that given where they are now and the fact that they still have deficiencies to address. There are just three middle infielders on the 40-man (Arroyo, Story, Kike), for example.
Just as another data point, Spotrac shows the Sox at ~ $211m, which includes the Kluber and Turner deals, as well as the arb estimates. It also still includes around $4m on Homer which Speier has reported is wrong, which would make the payroll ~ $207m, so ~ $26m left. Those two sites are generally pretty close, and I believe are both respected as reliable. I can’t open the Cots spreadsheet, so I can’t see the differences in accounting.

To the Eovaldi stuff, as someone that has been very critical of Bloom, I want to say I see literally nothing to even raise an eyebrow at here in regards to how it was handled. He made a good offer, Eovaldi‘s reps turned it down (as in they said they wanted to see if the market went higher) and asked for it back. Bloom had made other deals and said they couldn’t.

The fact that I’d personally (or anyone else) rather have Eovaldi back instead of the money spent on Martin, Rodriguez and some of the tendered contracts is irrelevant. Bloom made a really good offer to someone he wanted back and seemingly wanted to come back. The player said “no”, and Bloom allocated the money elsewhere. No blame should reasonably be assigned to either side - unless one wants to say the agents misread the market and should have told Nate to take the Sox offer. Bloom is totally acting in good faith here.
 

Sandy Leon Trotsky

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Just as another data point, Spotrac shows the Sox at ~ $211m, which includes the Kluber and Turner deals, as well as the arb estimates. It also still includes around $4m on Homer which Speier has reported is wrong, which would make the payroll ~ $207m, so ~ $26m left. Those two sites are generally pretty close, and I believe are both respected as reliable. I can’t open the Cots spreadsheet, so I can’t see the differences in accounting.

To the Eovaldi stuff, as someone that has been very critical of Bloom, I want to say I see literally nothing to even raise an eyebrow at here in regards to how it was handled. He made a good offer, Eovaldi‘s reps turned it down (as in they said they wanted to see if the market went higher) and asked for it back. Bloom had made other deals and said they couldn’t.

The fact that I’d personally (or anyone else) rather have Eovaldi back instead of the money spent on Martin, Rodriguez and some of the tendered contracts is irrelevant. Bloom made a really good offer to someone he wanted back and seemingly wanted to come back. The player said “no”, and Bloom allocated the money elsewhere. No blame should reasonably be assigned to either side - unless one wants to say the agents misread the market and should have told Nate to take the Sox offer. Bloom is totally acting in good faith here.
This makes too much sense.
Also…. Isn’t Valdez a middle IF on the 40-man? (Replying to Red Sawks Fan upthread)
 

OCD SS

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From the article:
Unfortunately, the more we hear regarding Boston's antics, the worse it gets. Based on this report Red Sox chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom correctly read the market, and made a fair and competitive offer.

The only issue was that he reportedly took it back for seemingly no reason.

Boston remains far under the luxury tax, and had made no additions to the rotation when Bloom reportedly rescinded the offer.
The timing may be off, but the real question would be with the addition of Kluber, who's negotiations were certainly happening concurrently, is there a full rotation spot for Nate that's still open?

I think it's also safe to say that the team is not going to go over the CBT threshold absent either a Devers extension now, or a team that is in legitimate contention at the trade deadline. They can afford Nate + a new middle infielder, but aren't going to put themselves over the cap to start the season with Devers in limbo...
 

SouthernBoSox

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This Eovaldi stuff is very silly.

In negotiations you can not, at any point, let an offer be a back up to the market.

You make your fair offer, they accept or reject it, once it’s rejected. Good luck, we will talk later once you test the maket. You don’t get to have the benefit of testing the market and saying “we were good on that offer a month ago right?”

You lose all leverage and will never had free agents take your offer when presented because they have no opportunity cost of waiting.

They played it right.
 

joe dokes

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"took it back for no reason" is some next-level bullshit.
They "took it back" because Eovaldi said "I do not accept your offer "
That's kinda how shit works on Earth.
 

YTF

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This Eovaldi stuff is very silly.

In negotiations you can not, at any point, let an offer be a back up to the market.

You make your fair offer, they accept or reject it, once it’s rejected. Good luck, we will talk later once you test the maket. You don’t get to have the benefit of testing the market and saying “we were good on that offer a month ago right?”

You lose all leverage and will never had free agents take your offer when presented because they have no opportunity cost of waiting.

They played it right.
Yes and for all of the crap that Bloom has taken for dragging his feet, being indecisive and letting opportunities slip from the board, he decisively moved on after Eovaldi declined the offer. He fortified the pen and later brought in Kluber. It's not that he shit himself on the Eovaldi, he changed directions, built a pen and in the end signed Kluber to help bolster the back end of the rotation.
 

mikcou

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From the article:

The timing may be off, but the real question would be with the addition of Kluber, who's negotiations were certainly happening concurrently, is there a full rotation spot for Nate that's still open?

I think it's also safe to say that the team is not going to go over the CBT threshold absent either a Devers extension now, or a team that is in legitimate contention at the trade deadline. They can afford Nate + a new middle infielder, but aren't going to put themselves over the cap to start the season with Devers in limbo...
This Eovaldi stuff is very silly.

In negotiations you can not, at any point, let an offer be a back up to the market.

You make your fair offer, they accept or reject it, once it’s rejected. Good luck, we will talk later once you test the maket. You don’t get to have the benefit of testing the market and saying “we were good on that offer a month ago right?”

You lose all leverage and will never had free agents take your offer when presented because they have no opportunity cost of waiting.

They played it right.
There are times to leave offers open. This was probably not one of them so agree with you there. The bigger question which is somewhat implicit in OCD's post is why they couldnt beat the offer from Texas not whether to hold the offer open.

I see zero reason to prefer Kluber over Eovaldi on an on the field basis - they've both been hurt a decent bit recently and Kluber's stuff has degraded to a place where he was on smoke and mirrors in 2022. Further degradation could be ugly.

To OCD's point - they definitely have a budget and perhaps thats the answer, but that really brings into question the moves early on in the offseason. I hated the Martin move to begin with; hated it more after Jensen signed; and hate it even more now. Spending $25M a year on two relievers was strange at the time with the massive talent deficiencies on the roster for both position players and the starting rotation and is even stranger if they are working on a strict budget.

They'd be better off with Eovaldi instead of Kluber and Martin and regardless of leaving offers open or not is 100% attributable to Bloom's decision making this offseason which has continued the jilted directionless decision making he showed in 2021.
 

YTF

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There are times to leave offers open. This was probably not one of them so agree with you there. The bigger question which is somewhat implicit in OCD's post is why they couldnt beat the offer from Texas not whether to hold the offer open.

I see zero reason to prefer Kluber over Eovaldi on an on the field basis - they've both been hurt a decent bit recently and Kluber's stuff has degraded to a place where he was on smoke and mirrors in 2022. Further degradation could be ugly.

To OCD's point - they definitely have a budget and perhaps thats the answer, but that really brings into question the moves early on in the offseason. I hated the Martin move to begin with; hated it more after Jensen signed; and hate it even more now. Spending $25M a year on two relievers was strange at the time with the massive talent deficiencies on the roster for both position players and the starting rotation and is even stranger if they are working on a strict budget.

They'd be better off with Eovaldi instead of Kluber and Martin and regardless of leaving offers open or not is 100% attributable to Bloom's decision making this offseason which has continued the jilted directionless decision making he showed in 2021.
The bullpen was pretty deficient as well wasn't it? In a vacuum I'd rather have Eovaldi, but Bloom seems to have pivoted based on Eovaldi declining their offer and addressed other needs with players who were willing to accept what he was offering. I can appreciate that.
 

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat

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The bullpen was pretty deficient as well wasn't it? In a vacuum I'd rather have Eovaldi, but Bloom seems to have pivoted based on Eovaldi declining their offer and addressed other needs with players who were willing to accept what he was offering. I can appreciate that.
Yes, the way Bloom handled this was the opposite of indecisive and directionless. Debating Eovaldi vs Kluber is fun fan discussion, but in reality, it's considerably more involved than that.
 

ElcaballitoMVP

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There are times to leave offers open. This was probably not one of them so agree with you there. The bigger question which is somewhat implicit in OCD's post is why they couldnt beat the offer from Texas not whether to hold the offer open.

I see zero reason to prefer Kluber over Eovaldi on an on the field basis - they've both been hurt a decent bit recently and Kluber's stuff has degraded to a place where he was on smoke and mirrors in 2022. Further degradation could be ugly.

To OCD's point - they definitely have a budget and perhaps thats the answer, but that really brings into question the moves early on in the offseason. I hated the Martin move to begin with; hated it more after Jensen signed; and hate it even more now. Spending $25M a year on two relievers was strange at the time with the massive talent deficiencies on the roster for both position players and the starting rotation and is even stranger if they are working on a strict budget.

They'd be better off with Eovaldi instead of Kluber and Martin and regardless of leaving offers open or not is 100% attributable to Bloom's decision making this offseason which has continued the jilted directionless decision making he showed in 2021.
Of course from an on-field basis, you take Nate over Kluber. I don't think a single person will argue with you there. But you can't just look at it that way. We're looking at 1/$10 with incentives plus a team option for Kluber vs what could end up being 3/$63 for Eovaldi if his vesting/player option kicks in and he reaches incentives. The exposure to injury risk is far greater for Texas than it is for Boston here. Kluber's option doesn't get picked up if he's hurt or isn't effective and the Sox can get involved in a much better free agent market for SP next year to take his place in the rotation. You can't just ignore that for a guy who was injured for a lot of '22.

And I'm not sure what you wanted the Sox to do? Wait for Eovaldi to make up his mind while you let the rest of the team suffer? Just ignore the bullpen and hope he comes back saying "Hey can I get that offer I didn't accept back?" while other free agents you like are coming off the board?
 

mikcou

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The bullpen was pretty deficient as well wasn't it? In a vacuum I'd rather have Eovaldi, but Bloom seems to have pivoted based on Eovaldi declining their offer and addressed other needs with players who were willing to accept what he was offering. I can appreciate that.
I didnt say anything about not improving the pen. Jensen is an obvious upgrade.

There was always going to be a lot of work to make this team even decent - an amount that I think most here underestimated with all the discussions about how much space there was under the luxury tax threshold. IF that is a cap (and I honestly dont know that it is, but they appear as if it is), then there were always going to be places where they were going to need to be light and take risks.

I'd rather it be the bullpen than any place else where performance volatility is at it highest. Signing both Jensen and Martin went the other way and locked them into taking a lot of underperformance risk in the rotation and lineup where performance tends to be more steady.
 

EvilEmpire

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Boston didn't do anything wrong, but I'm glad things worked out this way. I think Eovaldi is more likely to have a better year than Kluber. Maybe by a good margin.

84 vs 109 ERA+ and I think Eovaldi is more likely to improve on that and approach the 125 and 129 from his two previous years.
 

LogansDad

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"took it back for no reason" is some next-level bullshit.
They "took it back" because Eovaldi said "I do not accept your offer "
That's kinda how shit works on Earth.
And also because they signed something like $34M in 2023 contracts before he came back to them. What a ridiculous article.
 

mikcou

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Of course from an on-field basis, you take Nate over Kluber. I don't think a single person will argue with you there. But you can't just look at it that way. We're looking at 1/$10 with incentives plus a team option for Kluber vs what could end up being 3/$63 for Eovaldi if his vesting/player option kicks in and he reaches incentives. The exposure to injury risk is far greater for Texas than it is for Boston here. Kluber's option doesn't get picked up if he's hurt or isn't effective and the Sox can get involved in a much better free agent market for SP next year to take his place in the rotation. You can't just ignore that for a guy who was injured for a lot of '22.

And I'm not sure what you wanted the Sox to do? Wait for Eovaldi to make up his mind while you let the rest of the team suffer? Just ignore the bullpen and hope he comes back saying "Hey can I get that offer I didn't accept back?" while other free agents you like are coming off the board?
Sure, but if Eovaldi gets his $60M hell have been well worth it. The guarantee is only $34M and he onlgy gets the $60M if he's thrown 320 innings in the first two years of the deal. Its pretty well built to protect the team.

It didnt have to be Eovalid either - some other starter who isnt Kluber would have worked as well. $25M on two bullpen pieces made no sense unless they were willing to blow up their LT thresholds.

Edit: Ill be really clear - spending $25M on two relievers and then having budgetary problems finding a decent starter when there's only one guy who;s both decent and likely to be available for 150 innings in your rotation is a really poor allocation of resources.
 

LogansDad

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Boston didn't do anything wrong, but I'm glad things worked out this way. I think Eovaldi is more likely to have a better year than Kluber. Maybe by a good margin.

84 vs 109 ERA+ and I think Eovaldi is more likely to improve on that and approach the 125 and 129 from his two previous years.
I agree with this. I would have loved to have Eovaldi come back, but the team couldn't sit around and wait for a month for him to make up his mind, they had way too much work to do. It takes two sides to come to a deal. The Sox have made their fair share of mistakes over the years, but this isn't one of them.

Also, that SI article looks like it was written by an intern (dude graduated from Merrimack last year). "From the start of the offseason, fans clamored for the Red Sox to re-sign Eovaldi" is kind of a ridiculous opening line, as well. If he had posted that here, I feel like he would have gotten the "Do better" response.

Instead, he get paid every time one of us unwittingly clicks on it.
 

Apisith

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Boston didn't do anything wrong, but I'm glad things worked out this way. I think Eovaldi is more likely to have a better year than Kluber. Maybe by a good margin.

84 vs 109 ERA+ and I think Eovaldi is more likely to improve on that and approach the 125 and 129 from his two previous years.
If he didn’t finish the year unhealthy with diminished velocity, I would agree with you. But the fastball velocity continued trending lower even after a IL stint, so there’s something to be worried about for sure.

Kluber will likely be able to give us average to slightly below average innings, which is fine.

With Sale eating up 15% of our payroll, the season basically rests on whether he can put up 150 high quality innings. If he does, it’s easy to see the team be successful, and it puts a lot less pressure on Bello, Whitlock and Houck to put up those innings.
 

Harry Hooper

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Upfront caveat, over-interpreting this smidgeon of reporting (which could be a bit jumbled up) can be a fool's errand, but it's hot stove season.

Observing how Bloom has operated in Boston, this may have not been so much a money matter as a flexibility one: i.e., once he reached the point where he knew Kluber would take a 1-year deal Bloom might have lost interest in a multi-year deal with Nate.