Tickets go on sale Friday: How excited are you about the 2020 Red Sox?

As of now, how much are you looking forward to the 2020 Boston Red Sox season?

  • Much more than I was looking forward to the 2019 team

  • More than I was the 2019 team

  • A bit more than I was in 2019

  • About the same as I was in 2019

  • A bit less than I was in 2019

  • Less than I was 2019

  • Much less than I was the 2019 team

  • Hardly paying attention at all


Results are only viewable after voting.

donutogre

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Jul 20, 2005
3,193
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I'm not excited now, but I think I will be come mid-February, especially if they make some move not involving trading Mookie (nor Beni/Devers/X)

Chaim's got something up his sleeve, I'm confident in that. Don't really have a valid piece of reason/proof though.
That's about where I'm at, although I voted "much less excited." I definitely hear the people saying "it's baseball" -- I'm sure once things pick up, I'll be plenty happy to have the 2020 Sox in my life. But the Cora thing really took the wind out of my sails. It's not a great look for the Sox, and I'm not looking forward to more revelations and drama around what went on in 2018. Coupled with the incredibly quiet offseason, they just haven't taken much much of my attention lately.

That said, I'm still on this website every fricking day so I'm probably underselling my interest in next season :)
 

ookami7m

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Ramon Martinez, Bret Saberhagen, David Cone... we had an odd menagerie making their way through our rotation in the last '90s / early '00s.
R Martinez, Sabes, and Cone are one thing but there were periods of time where we were excited to see the likes of Paxton Crawford, Pete Schoruek, and Brian Rose take the hill. And who can forget the bullpen powerhouse in 2001 that was The Aging Corpse of Rod Beck, El Guapo, Ugeth Urbina, Wakefield and our closer Derek Lowe.
 

keninten

New Member
Nov 24, 2005
588
Tennessee
Before 1967, 1975, 2013, and even the 2018 not many were expecting much out of the Sox. I love baseball so of course I`m excited. If the Sox don`t win it all too bad. I can still enjoy the games as long as the players are giving it their all. If the management doesn`t seem to care (I think they do, just making a point here) I`ll still enjoy the games. It`s the game not the management that gives me my thrills. We are very lucky to have an ownership group that does care.
 

PseuFighter

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Dec 22, 2003
14,408
I recently moved to Chicago and am more excited about taking 3/30 off to attend Cubs opening day than I am anything Red Sox right now. The pravda outfit running things has really turned me off, at least for now. I'm more excited to attend a bunch of cheap baseball games in support of two teams I don't have really any rooting interest in. So, sure, bring back baseball, but really don't care about the Red Sox at the moment.
 

Foxy42

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The potential of them losing Betts has me as down on the Sox as I’ve been in 40 years. If I knew Betts would be back, I’d be atleast equal to last year. But if they deal Betts, I won’t step in Fenway this year.
 

Earthbound64

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R Martinez, Sabes, and Cone are one thing but there were periods of time where we were excited to see the likes of Paxton Crawford, Pete Schoruek, and Brian Rose take the hill. And who can forget the bullpen powerhouse in 2001 that was The Aging Corpse of Rod Beck, El Guapo, Ugeth Urbina, Wakefield and our closer Derek Lowe.
I still weep (figuratively) for the lost promise of Juan Peña.
2 starts, 2 wins, 0.69 ERA - then sent to the bullpen, got injured, and never pitched in the majors again.
 

Seels

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Much less. I think the last season I didn't watch the vast majority of their games was 1992 or something. I can't get amped up for a team in the middle of a cheating scandal, that has traded their best player, fired their manager, and has their best pitcher with serious health concerns. I'd watch, but it wouldn't be an every day / every inning thing like in years past.
 

fiskfan75

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FWIW. I was able to get cubs/sox tickets today for the Father's Day weekend series at Wrigley. The markup for the "diamond " level series is usurious. But it's on my bucket list...
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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I’m always excited for baseball season, especially for Red Sox baseball. I voted slightly less than 2019, because going into 2019 I thought they had a legit shot at a repeat.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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FWIW. I was able to get cubs/sox tickets today for the Father's Day weekend series at Wrigley. The markup for the "diamond " level series is usurious. But it's on my bucket list...
I looked into that but refused to pay 15=20% over face value for the presale. And you can't even chose your seats, you give them a price range and they randomly pick for you? I'll wait until Friday. I don't expect an immediate sellout
 

williams_482

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391
I'm excited about baseball.

How to get excited about the local team, who were sitting in the fattest part of the win curve and deliberately got worse in order to save money, I really don't know.
 

OldNed

New Member
Feb 18, 2020
1
Necessary? I think that's a matter of opinion. I don't want to step in anything since this is my first post here, but my feeling is that ownership has thrown in the towel on the 2020 season already. I understand the arguments that are being made, but for a company that is now worth 6.6 BILLION dollars it seems to me that they are making their decisions based on what their accountants are telling them rather than what their baseball staff is telling them. Does this make me an entitled fan? Probably, although I'm old enough to recall some very grim years and I think this year will be another grim year and that's why I voted for being much less excited than 2019.
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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I guess you should maybe read the many threads that explain why this was necessary.
That's like, your opinion man.

This was by choice, not by necessity, and don't let ownership's blatant lies blind you to that fact.

They've admitted to ticket sales being down 15%, which in all likelihood means the truth it that they're down 25%. Fans won't put up with the team acting like the Pirates or the Royals. And it's already showing. There is absolutely nothing to be excited about for 2020. 2019 was a bad year, their manager got canned, they jacked up ticket prices again and then cried poor and traded away their best and most popular player for a injured scumbag and a shortstop named Jeter. And then ownership had the gall to lie about why they did it. Completely insulting.
 
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tims4wins

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Jul 15, 2005
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That's like, your opinion man.

This was by choice, not by necessity, and don't let ownership's blatant lies blind you to that fact.

They've admitted to ticket sales being down 15%, which in all likelihood means the truth it that they're down 25%. Fans won't put up with the team acting like the Pirates or the Royals. And it's already showing. There is absolutely nothing to be excited about for 2020. 2019 was a bad year, their manager got canned, they jacked up ticket prices again and then cried poor and traded away their best and most popular player for a injured scumbag and a shortstop named Jeter. And then ownership had the gall to lie about why they did it. Completely insulting.
 

NomarsFool

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I'm very concerned about the pitching. That is the sort of thing that just snowballs. You empty your bullpen every 5th game, and then you have nothing in the tank to help with the next few games and everyone is worse.
 

The Talented Allen Ripley

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Have fun paying the salary of Wil "Negative WAR" Myers!
I attended a game at Fenway in the early-to-mid '90s that featured an outfield of Lee Tinsley, Wes Chamberlain, and Billy Hatcher. Perspective. I'll be plenty excited to go see the 2020 team in person. Already have tickets to three games, I'll be taking each of my kids to one. I like baseball and the Red Sox, you see.
 

Ale Xander

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Oct 31, 2013
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I'm very concerned about the pitching. That is the sort of thing that just snowballs. You empty your bullpen every 5th game, and then you have nothing in the tank to help with the next few games and everyone is worse.
But we'll have Chris Sale starting the game after, and he never gets injured.
 

Ale Xander

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I attended a game at Fenway in the early-to-mid '90s that featured an outfield of Lee Tinsley, Wes Chamberlain, and Billy Hatcher. Perspective. I'll be plenty excited to go see the 2020 team in person. Already have tickets to three games, I'll be taking each of my kids to one. I like baseball and the Red Sox, you see.
What's wrong with Hatcher? Entertaining player. I'll take Hatcher/Mo over Verdugo/Moreland any day.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgOK_h2OEcE
 

Smiling Joe Hesketh

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I attended a game at Fenway in the early-to-mid '90s that featured an outfield of Lee Tinsley, Wes Chamberlain, and Billy Hatcher. Perspective. I'll be plenty excited to go see the 2020 team in person. Already have tickets to three games, I'll be taking each of my kids to one. I like baseball and the Red Sox, you see.
As did I. I attended the Valentin UTP game and Tinsley and Chamberlain were in the OF and Ken Ryan was impersonating a closer.

Back then bleacher tickets were $6. A bit of a difference as you'd imagine.

I'll be taking my daughter to games as well: Sea Dogs games.

I can't support ownership crying poor today. That they've added insult onto injury after trading Mookie by lying about it just makes the decision easier.
 

Senator Donut

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Apr 21, 2010
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I'll be back next year. I'll still watch, but if ownership is going to take a year off to reset the team, then so shall I.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
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Oct 31, 2013
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As did I. I attended the Valentin UTP game and Tinsley and Chamberlain were in the OF and Ken Ryan was impersonating a closer.

Back then bleacher tickets were $6. A bit of a difference as you'd imagine.

I'll be taking my daughter to games as well: Sea Dogs games.

I can't support ownership crying poor today. That they've added insult onto injury after trading Mookie by lying about it just makes the decision easier.
For those too young to remember. Love the lack of showboating, too. A young Arod taking cues, too, on how to play SS, watching the play from the bench at first game.
https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/BOS/BOS199407080.shtmlhttps://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=rodrial01&t=b&year=1994
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXJuw4Rd0ck
 

williams_482

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Frankly, they didn't need to get under this year. They will have to eventually, but paying a large percentage tax on a rather small overage this year is not going to hurt them very much. Even the maxed out 95% overage tax amounts to very little if the overages are small, so it's not like being slightly over for years on end is an especially big deal. The draft pick penalties are very nearly negligible (highest pick drops 10 slots, worth ~$3M in projected surplus value) and that only kicks in if they are over the threshold by $40M. One can construct a scenario where they save gobs of money by getting under this year, but those scenarios all require them to spend like drunken sailors in the next couple offseasons regardless of consequences, something they obviously will not do.

The Red Sox made a deal that saves them ~$40M in 2020 salary and something in the area of $30M in taxes between 2020 and 2021 relative to doing absolutely nothing this offseason to clear salary. There were other moves and non-moves they could have made this offseason that would have trimmed both figures substantially at a far lesser cost to the 2020 roster. It is overwhelmingly clear that they treated getting under this offseason as their singular objective, but it is not remotely clear that getting under this season was the optimal choice as far as maximizing long term wins or championships.

And, none of this analysis assumes that keeping Betts this season equated to signing him in the offseason. His value to the team amounted to the wins he would add this season only, relative to his salary this season only, plus a comp pick. This is what the Dodgers, a team with an overwhelming handle on their division, was willing to pay so much for. Imagine if they had been, oh, sitting on the wildcard bubble, in a spot where adding seven wins or so would put them more or less even with the division favorite? Can you imagine a more valuable situation in which to add a superstar player? Can you imagine a worse situation in which to dump one?

I'm still going to root for the damn team, and the effect of my opinions on their finances amounts to a somewhat reduced probability of me buying two tickets at some point this season, so I make no claim to being important. But moves like this one, where very rich teams deliberately make themselves worse at terribly chosen times and claim their hand was forced by a spending limiter far less damaging than they let on, deserve no response more positive than tolerance from those of us stuck supporting them.
 

effectivelywild

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Jul 14, 2005
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Frankly, they didn't need to get under this year. They will have to eventually, but paying a large percentage tax on a rather small overage this year is not going to hurt them very much. Even the maxed out 95% overage tax amounts to very little if the overages are small, so it's not like being slightly over for years on end is an especially big deal. The draft pick penalties are very nearly negligible (highest pick drops 10 slots, worth ~$3M in projected surplus value) and that only kicks in if they are over the threshold by $40M. One can construct a scenario where they save gobs of money by getting under this year, but those scenarios all require them to spend like drunken sailors in the next couple offseasons regardless of consequences, something they obviously will not do.
I would argue that once they decided to trim payroll by a significant amount, getting under the tax should have been the top priority. Yes, the tax they would pay on, say, a 3 million overage would be pretty low, but it doesn't allow them to "reset" their tax rate going forward. Unless you think they will remain at or just over the tax line going forward (which they have not done in the past and which is causing a lot of the spleen here), just barely missing getting under the tax line would be a disaster, as it would show an almost total lack of thinking ahead. I fully expect them to go over the tax and by a significant amount next year, while trying to stay under the highest (draft pick penalizing) threshold. I don't think this most recent attempt to get under the tax represents a new penny-pinching reality for Henry.

And yes, it would of course be possible to just blow through the tax year after year and deal with the penalties---its mostly just money and the draft pick/international bonus money penalties would be less hurtful if you just decided to patch things over by throwing more money around. But let's also realize that there are no other MLB teams doing this. It would mean that John Henry (and the ownership group) would be running the team in a manner entirely different than every other MLB team just for the sake of keeping fans happy.

And yes, they have botched the PR rollout of this year's strategy. Of course this sudden salary crunch is the result of expensive contracts handed out in the past that thus far (in the last year, mostly) have not looked like they have panned out. But expecting anyone to say "well, we had to get rid of Betts and Price in part because the Sale and Eovaldi contracts are looking like a misstep" is ridiculous. THOSE GUYS ARE STILL ON THE TEAM. You really think its smart to even imply that the reason they are jettisoning Betts is because Sale and Eovaldi were mistakes while those guys are still on the roster? Why not also say "and yeah, if Pedroia would just stop being selfish and retire, that would have put us in a better position." It sucks, but there's only so much they can say.

(And that's ignoring the possibility that they thought it was wise to get whatever they could for a year of Betts rather than lose him for a draft pick)
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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Isn’t it possible that they just aren’t going to pay Betts $420M, and wanted to get something for him instead of him walking for nothing?
 

Seels

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I attended a game at Fenway in the early-to-mid '90s that featured an outfield of Lee Tinsley, Wes Chamberlain, and Billy Hatcher. Perspective. I'll be plenty excited to go see the 2020 team in person. Already have tickets to three games, I'll be taking each of my kids to one. I like baseball and the Red Sox, you see.
Doesn't matter. Tickets were $15 a piece then and you could get in and easily sit within a few rows of the dugouts. Go now and you're paying $60 a ticket, $30 for food and beers, and an absurd amount for parking.

I was at that unassisted triple play game too. I remember Arod debuting two weeks later in a double header that was delayed hours because of the rain. I was a few feet from the Mariners dugout.
 

Bernie Carbohydrate

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Did you read this thread;

https://sonsofsamhorn.net/index.php?threads/stark-doing-the-math-on-the-competitive-balance-tax-and-the-red-sox-motivation-to-trade-mookie-betts.29616/
Do you disagree with Stark's math that the Sox are saving a whole lot more than you come up with?
The most intellectually honest line in that Stark piece is “But now let’s go all sci-fi and venture into an alternative universe.”

The writer starts with the premise that the Sox would keep Price and Betts, and then imagines a “Dombrowski style” spending spree. Then, having set up a straw man, Stark wants the reader to buy that in this alternative universe the Sox really, really, really needed to trade Betts.

But for some reason Stark lacks the creativity to present any of the many scenarios where the Sox could cut payroll and keep Betts. Frazee Junior must have been pleased.


The writer spends minimal time on the actual math and makes his case using an imaginary scenario — the math is “correct,” but the article is trash.
 

Lose Remerswaal

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There is certainly embellishment there by Stark but he's generally a good writer and the bottom line of getting under the tax threshold once to reset things is a really big deal, as effectively wild, well, effectively says above
 

Shaky Walton

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There is certainly embellishment there by Stark but he's generally a good writer and the bottom line of getting under the tax threshold once to reset things is a really big deal, as effectively wild, well, effectively says above
In the Mookie/Price trade, the Sox

(a) got a return on Mookie that is greater than they would have gotten had they just played it out

(b) traded him in a year in which it was very hard to believe they would have been WS contenders with him on the roster

(c) got out of the Price deal; and

(d) re-set their luxury tax situation/fixed their CBT problem

One can disagree whether this was a good idea. The Price part is an easy target given the current state of the starting rotation. Trading one of the very best players in the game for prospects, essentially, one of whom is already injured, takes a lot of buy in to like.

But one thing is undeniable if you know anything about how the CBT works: Getting out from under the taxes is a huge positive.

That John Henry and Chaim Bloom want us to actually believe that one of the few clear benefits of an otherwise difficult deal to swallow was a non-factor is incredibly annoying.

I can put up with a lot. I am extremely grateful to this ownership group for the four titles and the work they have done on Fenway. There have been mistakes along the way, but the "19-18" chants from those asshole Yankees fans still ring in my ears, and the sense after the Grady Boner Game that they would just never win a freaking title is something I remember well. So, in my view, it would take a special kind of ingrate to outright hate this ownership group. So many good things have happened on their watch, after decades of so many bad things and near misses.

But damn, don't lie to me so obviously, and if you are not lying, don't be so stupid. And you, Chaim Bloom, you're new. Don't start off your career in Boston by asking very intelligent fans to believe that one of the few clear positives in this deal is irrelevant.

In light of all this, I am less excited in late February about the upcoming baseball season that I ever have been at the same time in my life. I don't see that changing and given the state of the pitching staff as a whole, I suspect that I will be less dialed into the Red Sox this summer than I ever have been. That the owners and new GM have handled themselves as they have is a factor in all this. Not the only one, to be sure, as the team's prospects on the field matters the most. But the combo of the trade and how it has been spun have left me angrier than anything other than Grady leaving Pedro in (or better said, bringing him back out), and that problem was effectively remedied by this ownership group within days of Grady making his incredible set of mistakes. Here, the owners have thrown gasoline on the problem.
 
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richgedman'sghost

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As did I. I attended the Valentin UTP game and Tinsley and Chamberlain were in the OF and Ken Ryan was impersonating a closer.

Back then bleacher tickets were $6. A bit of a difference as you'd imagine.

I'll be taking my daughter to games as well: Sea Dogs games.

I can't support ownership crying poor today. That they've added insult onto injury after trading Mookie by lying about it just makes the decision easier.
Don't the Red Sox essentially own the Sea Dogs though? By going to Sea Dog games you're still supporting the current ownership. If you're really fed up with the Red Sox take her to an independent league game or a college game. Tickets are really cheap and the play is good. In the summer maybe take her to the Cape Cod league game
 

williams_482

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If you think the Red Sox were non-contenders prior to trading Betts, the deal makes sense. ZiPS and Steamer certainly didn't, and they still think Boston is a contender now, only a fringy one instead of a strong WC1 favorite with real if sub-50% shot at the division.

The argument that they traded Betts to "get something for him" is silly. They had something "for him" already: One year of a grossly underpaid superstar. That's what the Red Sox were trading, and what the Dodgers acquired. Betts clearly isn't going to sign for a discount so close to FA, so being the last team to touch him before he hits the open market has zero added value except for the comp pick.

And yes, I read the Stark piece. If you read my post, this is what the "spend like drunken sailors" bit was referencing. Thank you Bernie Carbohydrate for explaining in more detail.
 

Ale Xander

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Has there been a less exciting/hyped look toward the season in recent memory? Maybe 1997?
 

pk1627

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Well, here's some data. OD tickets are currently on sale and plenty are left after 2 hours.

I bought OD tickets yesterday. To me, this seems a lot like 2013 where the team has some some good offense despite trading a marquee player.
Pitching seemed thin back then too, and they then proceeded to lose their closer and later Buchholz. Let's give them a few months before we write the season off.