Should the Sox Extend the Young Guys?

[loneredseat]

Fans seem to really like Casas. Why isn’t he locked up tonight with an extension?

This is a question I've had for a little while (probably not the best thread for it, but oh well). When is the best time to lock up our young guys? We have Casas (and Bello) for a lot of cost controlled years. Hate to lock them up and have them fizzle out, but we've also seen how nicely extending guys early has worked elsewhere, like in Atlanta. My thought is maybe you'd like to see two good, full MLB seasons?

 

[Max Power]

This is a question I've had for a little while (probably not the best thread for it, but oh well). When is the best time to lock up our young guys? We have Casas (and Bello) for a lot of cost controlled years. Hate to lock them up and have them fizzle out, but we've also seen how nicely extending guys early has worked elsewhere, like in Atlanta. My thought is maybe you'd like to see two good, full MLB seasons?

You're also trading a $700,000 hit against the CBT limits for a $10 million one, or whatever the AAV of the new contract turns out to be.

 

[HfxBob]

This is a question I've had for a little while (probably not the best thread for it, but oh well). When is the best time to lock up our young guys? We have Casas (and Bello) for a lot of cost controlled years. Hate to lock them up and have them fizzle out, but we've also seen how nicely extending guys early has worked elsewhere, like in Atlanta. My thought is maybe you'd like to see two good, full MLB seasons?

I think you absolutely need to see another season out of Casas and Bello. As promising as they both appear, their 2023 WAR's did not end up as strikingly impressive. Casas seriously needs to improve his fielding or he'll be better suited to DH.

 

[simplicio]

I wanted to extend Casas back in April when his results were terrible, cause his approach and underlying numbers are phenomenal. I'd honestly hand him a Red Sox for life contract barring major medical concerns; I think his bat is that special. He's got plenty of time to improve on D.

 

[LogansDad]

I really love both of these players, but I think that comparing them to the Braves pre-arb extensions is a bit of Fool's Gold. If you look at the players they gave pre-arb extensions to (Albies, Acuna, Strider, Bummer and Harris), I would argue that, outside of Bummer (whose extension is $16M total), they are all more "complete" players at this point than either Bello or Casas. Also, Albies contract is just plain ridiculous (and has been discussed here ad nauseum).

Albies is a 4+ WAR player, Acuna is an MVP, Strider is a Cy Young candidate, and Harris is a nasty combination of offense and defense. All of them are what I would call 4+ tool players (except Acuna, who is like a 10 tool player).

Riley wasn't signed until he was in arbitration already, and Olson and Murphy came over in a trade before signing their extensions.

Neither Bello nor Casas has come close to the production of these players. I am pretty convinced that Casas is going to be a monster offensive force this year, and if I had to pick one of them to extend it would be him, but even he has his warts and I would call him a 3+ tool player at this point. Bello is a ton of fun to dream on, but he is essentially the same age as Strider and has barely half the K%, a worse HR%, and is lagging almost 30 points behind in ERA+.

Again, I want to be very clear, I am a big, big fan of both of these players. I would love to see both sign to extensions and spend many years with the Red Sox, but I also don't think that it is "necessary" at this point, for lack of being able to come up with a better term.

 

[Rovin Romine]

Neither Bello nor Casas has come close to the production of these players. I am pretty convinced that Casas is going to be a monster offensive force this year, and if I had to pick one of them to extend it would be him, but even he has his warts and I would call him a 3+ tool player at this point. Bello is a ton of fun to dream on, but he is essentially the same age as Strider and has barely half the K%, a worse HR%, and is lagging almost 30 points behind in ERA+.

I'd also favor Casas, but the X-factor here is Bailey. Can he turn Bello into Logan Webb?

Personally, I'd see how they start this year and plan on having talks with them during the season, or during next off-season. (Unless one of them were willing to sign a massively team friendly deal today - but if so, you think that would have been done already.)

 

[absintheofmalaise]

Broke this out of the Town Hall thread.

@LogansDad covered some of what I was typing about the Braves contracts

 

[Fishercat]

Depends on the nature of the extension. My default answer is yes - the floor for pitching is always the floor but if you're gonna pay Bello, I like paying him more for his younger years and trying to steal a year on the backend (sort of like a lower end Spencer Strider deal). Casas is a professional hitter and I think a reasonable extension choice. I agree with Logansdad that neither of them are as well rounded as the Braves hitters or as high profile as Strider, but they don't need to be either, so I'm okay with it. An SP the caliber of Bello picking up the ball every five days and an 1B the caliber of Casas can be key parts of a long term winning team.

With that said it does all depend on the terms. Like, obviously if one or both would agree to one of those super friendly Braves type extensions I think you do it and worry about the rest as it comes. But there has to be a team benefit beyond solidifying cost and paying a little less in Arbitration Year 3 if things go right too.

I do think the jig is up on the Braves type extensions though. You're noticing that the players getting these super early mega extensions are S-tier prospects - the Chourios, Julios, etc. I don't think Bello or Casas' agents are going to allow a crime like the Albies extension to happen or for Bello or Casas to sell out multiple years on the tail end with the absurdity of this FA market. In general though I'm a big fan of buying out arbitration years and trying to get a bonus year on guys you believe in for a lot of reasons and this is no exception. I feel like someone like Brayan Bello - who signed for a 28k bonus and spent nearly six seasons in the minors before getting that MLB payday, would be very appreciative of locking in real value without the Sox taking advantage of it on the tail end of the deal.

 

[moondog80]

You're also trading a $700,000 hit against the CBT limits for a $10 million one, or whatever the AAV of the new contract turns out to be.

Yes. But...the problem now seems to be not that they don't want to spend money on 2024, but they don't want to spend money in 2024 in a way that will have a high risk of hurting them in 2027. Extending them spends money in 2024 that might otherwise have gone unspent, and (hopefully) buys them cheaper production down the road.

 

[LogansDad]

I agree @Rovin Romine . It's funny. I think that we (myself included, and probably worse than most) tend to underrate our established players, and inflate our young players and prospects (which is how you end up with people advocating trading Nick Yorke as the centerpiece for George Kirby).

I still think Bloom did a good job getting prospects in the system, and I am excited for the future, but it is pretty clear that the development system for the Sox over the last few years hasn't even had close to the productivity of the Braves or even the Dodgers. I am higher than many on the pitching, but we watch these players come up to the MLB and almost none of them appear completely ready for The Show, for whatever reason, but then Strider comes up and drops a 2.67 ERA his rookie season (with a 1.83 FIP!!!). I think the Braves are currently the model franchise of the MLB, and it is where I would like the Sox to be at some point, but they are currently not even close. Breslow has a lot of work to do.

An aside: I keep bringing up the Braves because they were in the OP, but I think there are a lot of teams who have done a better job preparing their players for their promotion to MLB in recent years. The Dodgers are an obvious one, and the Rays as well (through different means), but I think the Mariners, Rangers, Diamondbacks and even the Reds are teams that I would rank higher than the Red Sox in this category (and that list is just off the top of my head).

I know the argument will be that those teams all had recent, very high draft picks, but that isn't the entire story. Spencer Steer was a 3rd round pick (after being a 29th round pick), and while he is two years older than Casas, I am not 100% confident that I would say no to a straight up trade. In Cleveland, Tanner Bibee was a 5th round pick. It isn't all about draft positioning.

I really don't know what the answer is and what they need to do to fix the system (or maybe they already have and we just need to wait another year for it to bear fruit), but it's pretty clear to me that sometime after Mookie's debut the Sox' player development system hit a serious point of stagnation, that they have yet to make it out of.

 

[PRabbit]

Bello yes, Casas wait and see. Talk with his agent around the ASB if his D improves.

 

[bosox188]

The thing is, if you wait for all apparent flaws to go away before you consider the extension, it's going to be way more expensive or the player will be less inclined to agree to one. Waiting for Casas to improve his D or put up a full season of upper tier production, or for Bello to start striking more guys out, will probably be too late to get something done.

The whole point is the team takes on some projection risk to get a more team friendly deal. And I somewhat agree with others who have said they'd have signed Casas last April when the results weren't there but the underlying approach looked solid.

 

[Wingack]

Bello yes, Casas wait and see. Talk with his agent around the ASB if his D improves.

Bello is probably riskier though. Pitchers are such injury risks and their success can differ greatly from year to year. Even for real good pitchers like Blake Snell and Aaron Nola.

 

[absintheofmalaise]

Bello yes, Casas wait and see. Talk with his agent around the ASB if his D improves.

Why Bello now? So if Casas doesn't improve on defense, and he did make improvement last season, you wouldn't want to extend him? What about if his offense keeps improving? He ended up the year with a 129 OPS+.
Here are his splits from 2023 from B-Ref. He's the one player I'd extend now. I'm not as sold on extending pitchers, mainly because they are only one pitch away from losing at least one season, if not their career.


If you want to use WAR, his oWAR last season was 2.6. His WAR was 2.2. So even accounting for his lack of defense, which was improving, that's a MLB average player.

 

[Rovin Romine]

The thing is, if you wait for all apparent flaws to go away before you consider the extension, it's going to be way more expensive or the player will be less inclined to agree to one. Waiting for Casas to improve his D or put up a full season of upper tier production, or for Bello to start striking more guys out, will probably be too late to get something done.

The whole point is the team takes on some projection risk to get a more team friendly deal. And I somewhat agree with others who have said they'd have signed Casas last April when the results weren't there but the underlying approach looked solid.

Pre-arb extension are usually only offered for players who have shown significant upside anyway.

In that small pool, I'd guess most players will bet on themselves in terms of skill. You're talking about (usually) high picks who have had some success in the high minors and in the majors. So they're on the path and they kind of have to have the "I will do it" mentality to succeed at the ML level. I doubt very many of them are thinking, "I may plateau at any moment and totally suck at this next year." Maybe some do, but I'd think that to be unusual.

So, I'd guess extensions (in terms of player decision making) are really about guaranteed money and hedging against future injury. I don't think that changes all that much if you wait a year. I mean sure, in some cases someone will have a monster sophomore year. But they're still looking at 4 years till FA. You offer to buy out one or two of the FA years, especially if they're young enough to hit prime FA years when the deal ends - I'm sure you'll get some takers.

 

[nighthob]

I know the argument will be that those teams all had recent, very high draft picks, but that isn't the entire story. Spencer Steer was a 3rd round pick (after being a 29th round pick), and while he is two years older than Casas, I am not 100% confident that I would say no to a straight up trade. In Cleveland, Tanner Bibee was a 5th round pick. It isn't all about draft positioning.

I really don't know what the answer is and what they need to do to fix the system (or maybe they already have and we just need to wait another year for it to bear fruit), but it's pretty clear to me that sometime after Mookie's debut the Sox' player development system hit a serious point of stagnation, that they have yet to make it out of.

The Red Sox definitely had development issues. Under Dombrowski, just due to general attrition, the minor league developmental staff had shrunk drastically in relation to other orgs. That was one of the issues that Bloom was supposed to be fixing. Their hitting coaches have certainly done a pretty job. But on the pitching end the developmental staff clearly needed more work, and lo and behold, Bloom was replaced by the Cubs’ pitching guru.

I’ve said this elsewhere, but when you look at the behind the scenes moves, Breslow is surrounding himself with guys that have slightly different views than his own (they hired Minnesota’s Justin Willard to handle Breslow’s old Chicago job, listen to his comments about control/command in contrast to Breslow’s). So I think that Boston is going to improve rapidly in this department. Not sure that Wikelman Gonzalez or Luis Perales can be fixed at this point in their developmental cycle (they both have command issues), but Yordanny Monegro seems ready made for Willard.

 

[LogansDad]

The Red Sox definitely had development issues. Under Dombrowski, just due to general attrition, the minor league developmental staff had shrunk drastically in relation to other orgs. That was one of the issues that Bloom was supposed to be fixing. Their hitting coaches have certainly done a pretty job. But on the pitching end the developmental staff clearly needed more work, and lo and behold, Bloom was replaced by the Cubs’ pitching guru.

I’ve said this elsewhere, but when you look at the behind the scenes moves, Breslow is surrounding himself with guys that have slightly different views than his own (they hired Minnesota’s Justin Willard to handle Breslow’s old Chicago job, listen to his comments about control/command in contrast to Breslow’s). So I think that Boston is going to improve rapidly in this department. Not sure that Wikelman Gonzalez or Luis Perales can be fixed at this point in their developmental cycle (they both have command issues), but Yordanny Monegro seems ready made for Willard.

Yep, I have commented on this in the past, too, when they first signed Willard. Some people said something like it doesn't make sense that they aren't on the same page, but to me they all complement each other, and hopefully it will lead to good things.

 

[nighthob]

I’m just thrilled that Boston has brought in two guys with a track record of producing quality major league starters, because the Red Sox have some live arms in their system.