I for one would like to give Bloom the benefit of the doubt and not jump to conclusions
I'm not 100% sure that this is how this works. I'm guessing that if the Padres decide to sign Bogaerts his position on the field will have already been discussed/decided.
I have tons of respect for Peter Gammons, but every time I see one of his tweets, I’m amazed he’s a professional writer. They read like fever dreams.
I remember that, but I think there was more to it than that.
I think it was Panda who was using his phone while taking a dump in the clubhouse during the game.
Makes perfect sense to me. The problem isn't the AAV this year or next year, it's whether the team will be on the hook for the money later in the decade when we really want to be signing top tier FA talent to support a developed young core.
This is absolutely where I'm at. I'm all for the team being aggressive with a high $ amount but shorter years. Contend now without selling out the back half of the decade.
Re: Point 1…have you met SoSH?
lol. To be more accurate, Xander figured out how to create new, anonymous profiles for his extracurricular perving.
The problem is that as long as there are other teams that are willing to commit to expensive contracts longer than four years, this team's current philosophy will result in them almost never being able to retain their home grown talent beyond arbitration or sign a premium FA.
Unless they channel the aggressive spending *into* that homegrown talent, like the Braves have.
This is a common refrain, but it's a gross over-simplification of the situation. Sale's contract alone isn't preventing and hasn't prevented the Sox from doing anything. It only gets the blame due to the timing/proximity to Dombrowski's firing and the Betts trade. It would be just as easy and accurate to point to the David Price contract or the JD Martinez contract or the Nate Eovaldi contract as costing the Red Sox great players.
Position players are far from immune to this kind of contract trajectory. I'm sure you remember Carl Crawford -- free agent on the right side of 30 having put up 7 straight seasons averaging about 5 fWAR each and then BAM, he's a near replacement player averaging .7 fWAR per year over the remainder of his contract (less if you count the final year that he didn't even play). Over the 7 years of that contract he only played over 100 games in 3 of them.
I'm not suggesting that the Sox should never be willing to give long years to players. It's about where the player is in the aging curve and where the team is in its talent cycle. Right now the Red Sox have very little young talent, but that's likely to change in the next few years. You want to commit to big FA contracts as your farm graduates its best players so that you have the likely best years of those FAs coinciding with the breakouts of your young stars. That's in part why I'm more OK with big years for Devers than I am for X. Unless there is something specific about Devers' skillset or medicals that suggests otherwise, he's more likely to still be producing at a high level in the middle of the decade. There's a very good chance X's contract will be dead money by then.
Even Ken Griffey Jr. wasn’t immune from this fate. After being traded to the Reds after having accumulated 71 WAR through his age 29 season, he put up 5.5 bWAR in his age 30 season, but then only averaged 1.2 per season during the rest of his career.
It's early but Gausman just led the American League in FIP and K/BB in his first season in TOR. Zack Wheeler has been maybe one of the two or three most valuable pitchers in all of baseball for the first three years of a contract that many considered an overpay at the time. Lester and the two largest posting contracts (Tanaka and Darvish) were good value.
Seems like some other holistic factors involved too. It wasn't that long ago that ace pitchers were seen as having a sort of innate ability that warranted enormous contracts. Now, the availability of Driveline and other performance training systems have elevated a lot of otherwise so-so arms into very useful pitchers, which seems to have flattened the upper tier a bit. That, plus more smart teams pouring money into advanced international scouting, and you've got more alternatives to dropping $150M+ on an ace.
The difference is that the unnecessary Sale extension has cost Boston roughly $30 million per WAR, Price was a more economical $12 million per. But it's a fact that those underperforming contracts were weighing down their payroll and Boston needed to lose one. Pity it couldn't have been Sale's.
Its definetly a safer bet to go with the outfield players than the pitchers but problem is If the top of your rotations is full of Rich Hill's and Michael Wachas you are probably not going to win anything. You have to take the gambles on the Sales and De Grom's of this world. We badly read the Sale signing but without pitchers of that ilk winning is not going to happen
Haniger is fine if they also add another Haniger-type, one of the top SS, an Eovaldi/Senga SP, and some bullpen help. Which I still think is the template.
At this point the roster really needs solid, everyday major leaguers. Given's Haniger's pull power and excellent clubhouse reputation, sign me up.
I came here to say the exact opposite! I hate the idea of shopping in the 2 WAR aisle. We need to be able to trust in our minor league system or smart under the radar picks to fill out the roster. We should be using the money to bring in players with star power. Are we aiming to win 81 games or trying to win a championship?
He has the potential to be a Hunter Renfroe-type season if he stays healthy. Good power, decent in the OF(Haniger is better than Renfroe there). But, that's more of a depth signing. There had better be more to Bloom's offseason than adding those types. He did this last year with the pitching staff in terms of getting injury risks and relying on them to stay healthy.
Unless you are ‘Judge or bust’, what move are you seeing in the OF that makes more sense? The team will have its stars, but to compete Bloom should also fill in players around the stars with reliable everyday players, instead of sub-replacement guys who are just sucking chest wounds in the lineup.
I hope you're right on the stars comment. I think Haniger would be a decent move, but if these types of move are the crux of the offseason instead of this being buoyed by bigger moves then I will be disappointed.
They are running out of roster spots; if they add Haniger they still need a SS, obviously, (or 2B if Story can play SS I guess), and another bat who could play some combo of 1b/dh/c, I think.
Wall-ball singles are that one-bag to which I presume you’re referring?
Hey all he said was that “Something could happen at any minute”. He never said it would be a huge signing. This would definitely fall into the category of “something”.
I will take anything at this point so I have something else to think about aside from which SoSHer is closest to heading to the penalty box for a salty or poorly vetted post...though this could be a fun break-out poll.
