The Conductor: who should Breslow haul to Boston this winter?

RS2004foreever

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Jeff Passan



Closer Tanner Scott and the Los Angeles Dodgers in agreement on a four-year, $72 million contract, sources tell ESPN. Scott, 30, was the best free agent reliever available this winter and got paid an elite amount as part of a deep Dodgers bullpen.
@Feinsand
was on the news.

Wow.
 

pjheff

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This is also likely going to be the case the next 3 as well since that is the duration of time Story has to start somewhere and Yoshida is blocking Devers moving to DH. It could go well, sideways or poorly, but is what it is.
This leap — they’re upside down now so they won’t be traded ever — makes no sense.

I can’t wait until Story has a good season and people around here complain when he opts out of his contract for a deal superior to the 2/$50M he has remaining.
 

simplicio

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Jeff Passan



Closer Tanner Scott and the Los Angeles Dodgers in agreement on a four-year, $72 million contract, sources tell ESPN. Scott, 30, was the best free agent reliever available this winter and got paid an elite amount as part of a deep Dodgers bullpen.
@Feinsand
was on the news.

Wow.
Don't forget with taxes they're paying over $150m for this.
 

DeadlySplitter

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We just saw Hader get 5/95, which is around what Bob is claiming we were at, and year 1 not go well at all. So fine with that falling through, I guess.
 

moondog80

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I actually either think that’s not actually him or it’s just complete BS.

I kinda refuse to believe they went 5 years.

Go get Kirby Yates
FWIW he has been posting about the Scott deal on his X account and has not mentioned the Sox. I say BS.
 

E5 Yaz

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Yeah, that doesn't scan as Nightingale's MO ... I don't think he would say "doing their best Blue Jays impression"
 

BringBackMo

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Though I continue to maintain that when one factors in that they play in the 2nd most hitter friendly park in baseball, if the offense is 9th in runs scored, that's a lot closer to a "middling" offense than a good one (because if we're going to talk about curving their pitching up for degree of difficulty in navigating Fenway, then their offense has to be graded down the curve to be consistent).
I’d encourage you to take a look at the Sox’s home/road splits last year.
https://www.teamrankings.com/mlb/stat/runs-per-game

The Sox last season scored 4.64 runs per game, the ninth in the major leagues. They scored 4.52 runs per game at Fenway…and 4.75 runs per game away from Fenway.

The Sox last year slugged .423 as a team, fifth in baseball. They slugged .422 at home…and .424 on the road.

The Sox last year OPSed .741 as a team, seventh in the majors. That broke down as .742 at home…and .740 on the road.

They were pretty much the same offense at home and on the road, although they performed slightly better when not hitting at Fenway.

The Red Sox would like to improve their handness gap. Breslow has said they’d like to add a right-handed bat. But we continue to blow this issue *way* out of proportion on this board.

The goal of an offense is to score runs. The Red Sox scored runs. They probably need to score even more if they want to truly contend, but the path to scoring more runs is to field overall better hitters at more positions, not to obsess over their splits. Yo La Tengo has shown that, owing largely to injury, an outsize number of at bats last season went to hitters who just weren’t good. It looks like far fewer at bats will go this season to just-not-good hitters. People are coming back from injuries. Prospects appear to be ready. Good hitters hit better than bad hitters regardless of handedness.

All of this plus the fact that the Sox have bench players who hit lefties well—and that the board may yet get its wish and Breslow will add someone to thump lefties—and the Sox have a good chance of scoring even more runs next season regardless of how their splits eventually shake out.
 

simplicio

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What posters are saying is that there are bluesky accounts under reporter names that aren't real. Passan is used as another example
Passan has a misspelled bluesky account because someone camped his real name there. If you look at that Nightengale profile there's no reason to assume it's fake.
 

BringBackMo

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Jeff Passan



Closer Tanner Scott and the Los Angeles Dodgers in agreement on a four-year, $72 million contract, sources tell ESPN. Scott, 30, was the best free agent reliever available this winter and got paid an elite amount as part of a deep Dodgers bullpen.
@Feinsand
was on the news.

Wow.
It’s good to be the Dodgers. But man does this suck for baseball.
 

E5 Yaz

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Passan has a misspelled bluesky account because someone camped his real name there. If you look at that Nightengale profile there's no reason to assume it's fake.
And here's what he wrote on X

@BNightengale
The Dodgers strike again! They sign closer Tanner Scott to 4-year, $72 million contract.
@Feinsand 1st with news

Why wouldn't he write the same details on both forums? The Blue Jays snark makes me believe the Blue Sky account is fake, because that's out of character for his established approach to reporting
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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Passan has a misspelled bluesky account because someone camped his real name there. If you look at that Nightengale profile there's no reason to assume it's fake.
Except Nightengale hasn't mirrored that info on his X account. I get that not everything has to go on all social media outlets but that seems like a biggy to not be on the feed that will get the most eyeballs.
 

simplicio

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And here's what he wrote on X

@BNightengale
The Dodgers strike again! They sign closer Tanner Scott to 4-year, $72 million contract.
@Feinsand 1st with news

Why wouldn't he write the same details on both forums? The Blue Jays snark makes me believe the Blue Sky account is fake, because that's out of character for his established approach to reporting
I think a lot of people are moving to bluesky as their primary platform but still posting the biggest updates to twitter without mirroring all the content. I know Speier has done this.

I'm going with Occam's razor indicating that vs someone running a long con maintaining a fake bluesky account for Bob fucking Nightengale for the last 2 months where this is the payoff.
 
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E5 Yaz

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I think a lot of people are moving to bluesky as their primary platform but still posting the biggest updates to twitter without mirroring all the content. I know Speier has done this.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on this.
 

DeJesus Built My Hotrod

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If I was a Dodgers fan I guess I would enjoy winning the WS with this team. But I think a lot of the joy would be stripped away. Yuck.
Completely disagree. If I am a Dodgers fan right now I am thrilled. I get to see a lot of the best players in baseball play for my team. I wish the owners of the team I root for had their resources and commitment to going for it.
 

Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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This leap — they’re upside down now so they won’t be traded ever — makes no sense.

I can’t wait until Story has a good season and people around here complain when he opts out of his contract for a deal superior to the 2/$50M he has remaining.
Cannot speak for others, but I hope Story is awesome, opts out, and the Red Sox move on with no attempt to retain him. This would be awesome.

Not the profile of someone I want them depending on. Same goes for O’Neill (glad he’s gone). I also would have zero interest in acquiring any of Luis Robert, Jazz Chisholm, Byron Buxton, Giancarlo Stanton or Royce Lewis either. Just to name a few and remove the Sox from the equation.
 

chawson

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Cannot speak for others, but I hope Story is awesome, opts out, and the Red Sox move on with no attempt to retain him. This would be awesome.

Not the profile of someone I want them depending on. Same goes for O’Neill (glad he’s gone). I also would have zero interest in acquiring any of Luis Robert, Jazz Chisholm, Byron Buxton, Giancarlo Stanton or Royce Lewis either. Just to name a few and remove the Sox from the equation.
At the time he was signed, Story had been 16th in total games over the previous four MLB seasons, and 15th in total games over the previous five.

Among shortstops, he was 1st or 2nd in total games over those respective spans (Semien).
 
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Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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At the time he was signed, Story had been 16th in total games over the previous four MLB seasons, and 15th in total games over the previous five.
Yeah. I had no problem at all with his signing at the time. Not trying to say I did.

I liked the Carl Crawford signing at the time, Rentería too. Adored Josh Beckett as well. Really liked AGonzalez.

I also applauded the Rentería / AMarte swap and the Punto deal when it was obv the other deals weren’t working and were hamstringing the team. (Not for nothing, but I hated the Hanley and Sandoval signings, and was of course glad when they were moved on from - NOT that there is any similarity off the field / clubhouse to anyone on the roster that I’m aware of and those two, to be clear).

Even though I want them to cut bait and move on, it’s clear the organization does not act and react in that way any more.
 
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Big Papi's Mango Salsa

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Strange, I could have sworn they traded away Chris Sale a year ago.
After letting him hamstring the organization for 5 years, yes, they did. So I guess maybe they’ll trade Story for a solid prospect before 2027. (Then probably still not replace him with a core MLB bat that year, just like they did not add a core MLB SP to replace Sale in the off-season he was dealt).

So, likely 3 more years before a core MLB bat is added from outside the organization. Which is what I said. Hope to be wrong, we’ll see.
 

simplicio

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Goalposts!

But don't let me get in the way of you getting disappointed about how they're going to mess up everything in the future I guess.
 

chawson

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Yeah. I had no problem at all with his signing at the time. Not trying to say I did.

I liked the Carl Crawford signing at the time, Rentería too. Adored Josh Beckett as well. Really liked AGonzalez.

I also applauded the Rentería / AMarte swap and the Punto deal when it was obv the other deals weren’t working and were hamstringing the team. (Not for nothing, but I hated the Hanley and Sandoval signings, and was of course glad when they were moved on from - NOT that there is any similarity off the field / clubhouse to anyone on the roster that I’m aware of and those two, to be clear).

Even though I want them to cut bait and move on, it’s clear the organization does not act and react in that way any more.
Okay but a lot of these are very old news. You linked Story to oft-injured guys like Buxton and Robert, when one of the factors that led to us acquiring Story was his durability.

It’s also been pointed out (imo) more than sufficiently in these discussions that the Red Sox are not “depending on” Trevor Story. They have many MLB-caliber players capable of playing shortstop! They’re going to play him to start, however, in part because even with the injury rehab and his timing being way off and his offense being well off his career marks, he’s still been worth 4 bWAR in the 163 games he’s played for us.

I think a lot of your posts are interesting but respectfully, I haven’t been able to find much rhyme or reason in what you like or don’t. The one criterion I’ve seen you repeat several times — that you prefer them to sign free agents to long-term rather than short-term deals wherever possible — seems undercut by your aggressive campaigns to either trade for pennies or move off position literally every hitter the Sox have got under contract.
 

bstoker7

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After letting him hamstring the organization for 5 years, yes, they did. So I guess maybe they’ll trade Story for a solid prospect before 2027. (Then probably still not replace him with a core MLB bat that year, just like they did not add a core MLB SP to replace Sale in the off-season he was dealt).

So, likely 3 more years before a core MLB bat is added from outside the organization. Which is what I said. Hope to be wrong, we’ll see.
Last offseason, when they traded Sale, was also Breslow’s first in charge of the team. I believe Breslow has and intends to continue operating differently than his predecessor. It strikes me as unjustified to assume he’ll treat Story’s case the same as the organization — prior to Breslow’s hiring — treated Sales.
 

chrisfont9

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Oh well. Estevez is still around. Also for those thinking the Dodgers are just gonna crush everyone, on paper that may be. But every single time they take the field, there will be enormous expectations for them to win, and every opponent will play loose and motivated. Baseball is still very much a mental game, and it won't be a cakewalk having the biggest target possible on your back. Also Roberts is a shitty manager.
 

LogansDad

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Oh well. Estevez is still around. Also for those thinking the Dodgers are just gonna crush everyone, on paper that may be. But every single time they take the field, there will be enormous expectations for them to win, and every opponent will play loose and motivated. Baseball is still very much a mental game, and it won't be a cakewalk having the biggest target possible on your back. Also Roberts is a shitty manager.
They also might be the only team as adept at breaking pitchers as the Rays are, too.

I totally get people being pissed about this, though. This is getting into Gwen Stefani territory, for sure.
 

pjheff

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Cannot speak for others, but I hope Story is awesome, opts out, and the Red Sox move on with no attempt to retain him. This would be awesome.
The ideal outcome would include Mayer laying claim to the position and posting similar production for a rookie scale wage, allowing Breslow to spend the savings elsewhere.
 

jim_vh

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The Sox should trade for Christian Vazquez for backup catcher. Should just be a salary dump for the Twins I expect.
 

simplicio

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The Sox should trade for Christian Vazquez for backup catcher. Should just be a salary dump for the Twins I expect.
The reporting we've gotten indicates that they're bullish on both Narvaez and a defensive improvement from Wong, and the acquisition of Blake Sabol implies that they're done at the position. We'll see if it pays off.
 

jim_vh

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The reporting we've gotten indicates that they're bullish on both Narvaez and a defensive improvement from Wong, and the acquisition of Blake Sabol implies that they're done at the position. We'll see if it pays off.
Sounds like a plan then.
 

RSN

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The ideal outcome would include Mayer laying claim to the position and posting similar production for a rookie scale wage, allowing Breslow to spend the savings elsewhere.
Story turns 33 after this season. No opt out means he collects $75M over the last three years of his contract. Can he do better than that at age 33 after his history in Boston. Doubtful.
 

nvalvo

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Story turns 33 after this season. No opt out means he collects $75M over the last three years of his contract. Can he do better than that at age 33 after his history in Boston. Doubtful.
On the one hand, I wouldn’t be advising him to opt out.

On the other hand, there are only about twenty active players who have had a season better than his 2019. The ceiling is insane with this dude.
 

jim_vh

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On the one hand, I wouldn’t be advising him to opt out.

On the other hand, there are only about twenty active players who have had a season better than his 2019. The ceiling is insane with this dude.
That was age 26. Age 32 is a long time in baseball years.