Why would anyone care about John Henry's money, other than John Henry? If JH wants to keep his money in a big safe and swim in it, Scrooge McDuck style, sell the Red Sox.
Should the Red Sox Look into Punto Pt. 2?
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Maybe I'm being naive, but I believe that one of the main reasons for getting below the $208m threshold in 2020 is that it will allow the Red Sox to be competitive for Mookie's services during his free agency without the onerous financial penalties that Alex Speier detailed not long ago. Mookie and his representatives are undoubtedly going to be looking at how competitive his suitors will be in the coming seasons, and having a $95 million anchor dragging down the Sox payroll (using Speier's example) regardless of their offer to Mookie is hardly will be a selling point.
Regarding the bolded, how so? There are multiple ways the Sox can get under the tax threshold, it's not like dealing Mookie is the only option. It's not even the best -- or easiest -- option.
It would be sad to see him go, but I'd understand it. It's a reasonable enough move, financially, if the player return in the potential trade is satisfactory.
Yup: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2014/11/red-sox-to-sign-pablo-sandoval.html
They agreed with Pablo before agreeing with Hanley, although they were very close in timing. And I felt the same way - was much more excited about getting Hanley than Panda - for the same reasons.
Especially since as of now Henry is the only owner who has gone over the top tax limit in the current CBA, NY may do it this season but that's not clear yet.
Trading Betts quickly gets rid of $27-$28 million for 2020. That's a pretty big chunk of change. I also think his absence in the OF will be somewhat easier to patch up, than say trading Sale and even Price. The issue is that a lousy pitcher can pretty much singlehandedly lose a game for you. Even a replacement level OF isn't going to go out and lose a game for you every 5 days.
I keep coming back to one pointed question - what is the advantage of trading Mookie now, vs. seeing how the season is going? Do you get better prospects now? Maybe, maybe not. Yes, in theory a full season of Mookie should be worth more than a half-season of Mookie. But, on the flip side, other teams also have to know that there is a chance they won't be in contention - even with Mookie. To me, he has the most value to a team who is right in the hunt before the trade deadline, who can reasonably expect that adding Betts could get them to the WS.
This is not a rhetorical question, is anyone aware of a player getting traded away and then resigning with that team as a free agent?
Does Eck count?
May 25, 1984: Traded by the Boston Red Sox with Mike Brumley to the Chicago Cubs for Bill Buckner.
December 9, 1997: Signed as a Free Agent with the Boston Red Sox.
Or Reggie (traded by the A's in '76; signed with Oakland in '87).
But seriously...Aroldis Chapman, traded by NYY mid-2016; signed as FA by NYY in December
EDIT: beaten by Mr. Ripley
It's silly to respond to Henry taking measures to use his money more wisely by saying "I don't care about his money." Of course we don't care about his money. In other news, water is wet and the sun rises in the east. But he has a perfect right to care about his money. The only thing we would have a right to be angry about is if it appeared that he was not even trying to win. And that would be a ludicrous thing to say.
They may have dotted the I's and crossed the T's on the Pablo deal first, but this thread suggests that the news of the Hanley agreement became public first:
https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/red-sox-pablo-sandoval-agree-to-5-year-100-millionish-deal.6747/
Note particularly posts 1, 24, and 33.
Seems pretty rare, I guess. I imagine teams rarely trade players they want to have long-term, and I imagine that once a player is traded they feel a bit like "well, I guess they didn't want me".
Get asset(s) for him.
Get some portion of his $25 to $30 million off the 2020 books by trading him.
Reset the luxury cap.
Put yourself in better position to sign him after the year.
That would be a heck of a coup. The cost -- not having him play for our team in a down year -- seems potentially worth it to me. A good portion of this thread comes down to number 4 -- people are skeptical and think that once we let him go he won't want to come back. Once he sees L.A., watch out . . .
(To be clear, I think there's a very strong possibility that the Sox do not sign Betts in 2021 because his market will be too high. My point here is that I don't think letting him go for some or all of this year will meaningfully change the possibility.)
Why do you think it's a down year? The offense looks pretty solid to me. We of course have a big question mark with Sale and Price - but we'll know by June, I'd think, which way that is trending. If those two are pitching well, this team can go all the way. If not, yeah - it's a lost year.
I guess I'm just assuming because it's fundamentally the same team that it was last year and last year wasn't great. But, I guess, last year was fundamentally the same team as the year before.
Still a ways to go this offseason, but FWIW Fangraphs has Boston with the 4th most talented team in MLB as of now:
https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=3
https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=3
Well last year Sale, Price and Eovaldi weren’t healthy. Our season will be decided by them, we will hit plenty.
View: https://mobile.twitter.com/dodgerslowdown/status/1207446734592335872?s=12
Yuck
Guessing this guy still holds a grudge from 07?
Yuck
Guessing this guy still holds a grudge from 07?
This deal needs to be killed with fire. That is essentially what a salary dump would look like. They need to get back one Major League ready player and a couple of good prospects to really consider moving Betts.
That deal kind of lays bare the problem with moving Betts and Price in a single deal. The discount you give the other team for taking on Price eats up most of Mookie's value. And it's probably overkill, from a salary trimming point of view, to trade both--unless they use some of the savings to sign a useful FA, and those are disappearing fast.
EDIT: Have to admit, though, the trade simulator app thinks this is pretty fair. Favors the Dodgers, but just barely (-13 to -10).
EDIT: Have to admit, though, the trade simulator app thinks this is pretty fair. Favors the Dodgers, but just barely (-13 to -10).
Depending on what you mean by "good prospects", this is conceivable. But not if Price is in the mix.
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It is amazing to me in a world where there are far lesser guys either going into a contract year or in their last year being traded at the deadline, that would fetch more than Betts appears to be able to. The guy is the second best baseball player on planet earth, and he's just 28 years old. Yes, last year of a contract. Goldschmidt. Chapman. Lots of other guys dealt for a good return, and here we are imagining deals for Betts that bring back far less of a return? Maybe that's the reality, but it's crazy.
Put it this way, if Betts was on the Pirates, and the Sox were trying to trade for him, there's no way we'd think that a relative bucket of balls would be sufficient to get him, even as he enters the last year of his contract. But alas....these imagined trades are probably not far off, which is mind blowing to me.
Put it this way, if Betts was on the Pirates, and the Sox were trying to trade for him, there's no way we'd think that a relative bucket of balls would be sufficient to get him, even as he enters the last year of his contract. But alas....these imagined trades are probably not far off, which is mind blowing to me.
Not to mention the stated unwillingness to sign an extension with whatever team might acquire him. It's important to note that Goldschmidt signed an extension with the Cardinals three months after they acquired him, before he played a meaningful game for them (it was during spring training).
There is a significant difference between trading for a guy with whom you'll have a year to negotiate exclusively for an extension and trading for a guy who has absolutely no interest in such negotiations. We're seeing this play out. My thought is that if there were a Goldschmidt type return on the table, Mookie would probably already be in another uniform. And since there isn't, the Red Sox are wisely not chasing it in vain (per Speier).
I'd like to see a visual representation of the salary outputs for all rosters since FA began. Kind of like a population pyramid https://populationeducation.org/what-are-different-types-population-pyramids/where the vertical axis would exist only for the purpose of centering the salaries of each of the 25 rostered players. If it was interactive then you could order it by regular season winning percentage or postseason success. In an instant you could see how the shape of the roster relates to the chances of winning a championship. I'm sure front offices don't need this (or already have it) because it's their job to know such stuff but for me as a fan, it would help to know whether I really ought to be rooting for Mookie to stay and be paid his 'due'. If he does stay for $40M/year for seven years or something like that, our pyramid gets even more top heavy. Is that a good thing? Is there an optimal pyramid shape? What is it?
If anyone out there knows of any resource (visual rep of roster salaries) please advise.
If anyone out there knows of any resource (visual rep of roster salaries) please advise.
True. It does depend on how much of the tab the Sox picks up on David Price. Price at 20-22 million is not looking all that bad over 3 years. Price becomes a positive value at that contract (3/60) in my opinion. Tanner Roark just got 12 million a year.
I just feel like trading Price and paying some of his contract (or getting little to nothing of value in return) feels like selling low. The pitching staff sucked last season and it destroyed what could have been a repeat year. Maybe the long post-season had an effect, maybe not, but I like the chances for them to rebound this year and pitch they way they have done in the past.
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You're absolutely right. Trading Price is 100% about dumping salary. Getting something of value is secondary to simply dumping the contract.
Which is a sad state of affairs for a team with the Red Sox's resources and a player who has been nothing but a positive contributor to the team when healthy.
LA getting cash and dumping Pollock’s contract in the process? Honestly if Boston is eating Pollock’s deal, making Price essentially a 3/49 guy, they should expect more prospect-wise than a 24 year old AA reliever and a college guy that’s spent three years in A Ball (the definition of a Powerball level lottery ticket, only one where the maximum prize excludes the jackpot).
Which leaves Boston getting a reliever and a relief prospect for Mookie. That’s a major no for me.
Which is why my proposal of Betts and Price for Pollack/Muncy/prospect is a much better situation if you are in fact having to shed salary. For the Dodgers to get the talents of Betts and Price, it has to hurt a bit.
Oh, I agree with you. I mean the point of going to free agency (for Betts) is to see what the Dodgers will pay for his services, so I think that he probably signs a market rate extension with them.
Price for Pollack straight up seems like a "fair" deal, although (1) it really only makes sense for the Red Sox as a means to get below 208 (i.e. it doesn't make the team better), and (2) it necessarily requires the Sox to deal JBJ, and I'm skeptical that there's such a deal to be made.
So the rest of O'Dowd's proposed deal is Mookie for the other guys. No deal. And since dealing Price and JBJ should get them below 208, even taking back Pollack, there's nor real need to trade Mookie too unless you're getting a good return. And this ain't that.
So the rest of O'Dowd's proposed deal is Mookie for the other guys. No deal. And since dealing Price and JBJ should get them below 208, even taking back Pollack, there's nor real need to trade Mookie too unless you're getting a good return. And this ain't that.
If the Dodgers are paying $16 million a year for Price, there would be more coming back than a salary dump (Pollock, who's a glorified JAG, makes another $47 million on this deal). And you can't say "But Price has injuries!!!" when the guy coming the other way has had two or three healthy seasons in a seven year career. He also isn't much of a CF anymore, even the Dodgers moved Bellinger to center and Pollock to a corner spot. So Bradley's completely safe if that's a worry.
As for the rest of it, yeah, a 30 year old reliever, a reliever with shoulder problems, and a 24 year old AA reliever, and a lottery ticket whose payoff is jAG for Betts is a joke.
As for the rest of it, yeah, a 30 year old reliever, a reliever with shoulder problems, and a 24 year old AA reliever, and a lottery ticket whose payoff is jAG for Betts is a joke.
Agree with most of this, especially the conclusion, as well as the fact that Pollock is probably not a CF anymore. But if the deal was just Price for Pollock (no Betts) then they'd be looking to deal JBJ and probably move Beni to CF. But yeah, if it's both Price and Mookie, then no need to deal JBJ, but the return has to be more than this junkpile.
There were rumblings in the media about Hanley being a difficult person who had worn out his welcome in Miami and LA, so he came with some caveats in real time.
An anonymous high ranking exec making a prediction. Yes, we should absolutely draw conclusions from that.
The Indians let teams know to make best and final offers this weekend. Wouldn't that make you think they are trading him?
Sorry, Buster, you're ignoring the fact that Betts will be paid a ton of money for his 2020 season. There will likely be more teams who can afford a half-season rather than a full one, so trade value is likely higher at the deadline.
It makes me think that they want it resolved one way or the other so they can plan for 2020. They ask for team's best proposals, decide if the best one is good enough or not, and either trade him or announce he's off the market.
It's become so public with Lindor that it may be hard to bring him back at this point.
Lindor has 2 more years of arb left. With his 2020 pay projected at $10-12 million less than Betts, he's quite a different scenario.
Unless it's a lopsided trade, the Sox should hold onto both Betts and Price. If 2 out Price, Sale and Eovaldi are healthy and pitching close to their norms, the Sox are contenders.
If they aren't, the Sox aren't contenders, and you can still get something for a half season of Mookie and whomever else you can trade. Worry about the luxury tax after the window is closed.
If they aren't, the Sox aren't contenders, and you can still get something for a half season of Mookie and whomever else you can trade. Worry about the luxury tax after the window is closed.
I agree on Mookie, but Price gets 10-5 rights after this year, so any reasonable trade offer for him should be (and likely will be) strongly considered.
Still, those innings have to come from somewhere, and Price is the most likely of the injured 3 to be healthy and effective, IMHO. I'm sceptical the Sox can get a comparative pitcher for the money saved since they'll probably have to chip in money to get someone to take Price. Better to see what they've got and trade him if they aren't in the hunt, unless someone wants to take on the whole contract.