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Baseball Primer Newsblog— The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand
Thursday, November 17, 2022
Ownership doesn’t have a good track record of retaining its own players. They spend money yet still seem too interested in making team-friendly deals.
The handling of Mookie Betts broke me. Kennedy acknowledges that actions speak louder than words, but he assures the organization has been active in contract talks with a number of players, including their own.
“Coming out of [last week’s] GM meetings, I can tell you that we have been very proactive, though I know people don’t want to hear about how aggressive we’ve been, because it doesn’t mean anything until there’s something to announce,” Kennedy told Silverman.
“But I can tell you that we’ve made offers to several players, including our own players. And we’re cautiously optimistic that things are going to start moving here.”
jimfurtado
Posted: November 17, 2022 at 09:33 AM | 28 comment(s)
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1. pikepredator Posted: November 17, 2022 at 10:01 AM (#6105909)I try to be optimistic but the last few years of mgmt decisions don't give me too much basis for that optimism. "strong farm system" is great and all but I also want to have faith that the Sox will keep them and not turn into Tampa Bay of the North.
Now, though, the Red Sox could certainly afford to keep one or both of Devers and Bogaerts and would *not* hamstring the club payroll to do it; the only real question is whether they want to pay market rate or not.
(And yes, I know that in the real world John Henry has more than ample $ to spend what he pleases and still light his cigars with $100 bills, they could afford a $20 million player at every key position... and that cries of "but the payroll!" are laughable.)
I do wonder what the possible sale of Liverpool means in all of this. Even if they get an 5x valuation on a sale (instead of the talked-about 10x), he'll have more $ than Scrooge McDuck in profit, though I doubt any of it comes back into the Red Sox payroll.
And of course I do now start to wonder what a post-Henry Red Sox would look like--like what sort of crazy rich lunatic/consortium would buy the Red Sox? It seems while no one is happy with ownership now, the situation could be far, far worse (see pre-Henry Red Sox period; any number of other MLB ownership groups).
--They are willing to spend up to and at times beyond the tax threshold.
--They treat the team like a business and therefore want to make money from it.
--They believe that winning leads to profits.
Some things I'm not sure about:
--Although they understand that certain players are important to fans, beyond just winning, I don't know if that affects their decision making. They've said they felt they made a mistake with Lester, but then also traded away Mookie. Their offer to Bogaerts during the season also looked a lot like the offer they made to Lester (far worse IMHO). (Prior to that: Nomar, Pedro, Manny, Damon, Papelbon, Nava, etc. were all traded or allowed to leave. Exceptions: Pedroia, Papi, Wakefield, Varitek.)
--Do they think they can pretend to try to keep their stars, get outbid, and then throw up their hands? I think maybe they do because fans seem to fall for this quite often and turn on the player.
--Building off the above points, do they think they can create a Rays-like organization only with a higher payroll? Winning consistently while refusing to pay top dollar for top talent, turning over the team constantly?
I think the Bogaerts and Devers situations will help answer these questions. If they keep at least one of them long term, it will signal that they see the need to commit to some fan favorites. If they're both jettisoned, and they continue signing shrewd mid-market deals, I guess not.
I agree. But I think they also have noticed that some of those shrewd mid-market players become fan favorites (Damon, Napoli, Victorino). Of course, a pennant is generally needed for that...
What? He fits right in there, right? ;)
I would put them each in their own category. Betts was a generational talent, possible inner circle HOFer. Bogaerts has been consistently very good, and has built a borderline HOF career. Devers, as awesome and young as he is, has not really put it all together in the way that they guys have. He has health, defense, and conditioning concerns that the others don't (IMHO).
However, if I were to group any of them together, it would be Betts and Bogaerts. Very subjectively, they both were the face of the franchise who've led the team to championships. Both have exhibited amazing consistency, putting up multiple dominant seasons. Devers's 2019 was great, but he hasn't reached those heights since (that may be splitting hairs a bit, but I really don't think 2021 or 2022 are on the same level).
Edit: I agree with your #8. The only context for my grouping was in (potential) departure of very good homegrown players.
I guess it depends on what he's offered elsewhere, but age 30 is not that old for a FA. He's in good shape, has a stellar health record, and is projected by Steamer to put up 4.5 WAR next year. Compare that with Marcus Semien, who was a year older with a similar projection and got 7/175. The estimates for Bogaerts out there have him getting anywhere from 6/168 up to 8/225. If he gets about $200 mil or less, that seems like a good investment to me, all things considered.
1B Jose Offerman
2B Mark Bellhorn
3B Bill Mueller
SS Jed Lowrie
LF Daniel Nava
CF Reggie Smith
RF Shane Victorino
C Jason Varitek
DH Carl Everett
P Tomo Ohka
Well, at least for the first few months of his Red Sox tenure. Then he switched to the right side exclusively, which, if nothing else, helped him lead the league in HBPs (and pick up seven more in the postseason) in 2013.
In the movie Moneyball, Beane says almost the exact same thing about how they can replace Giambi. Must have given DD a chuckle.
Yes Darren I remember that very well about the Duke.
For what it's worth, when Bart Simpson imitated Ohka he batted left-handed: https://twitter.com/aria1exander/status/699354513367371778?lang=en
Oh, I've wasted my life.
The 1st half of 2022 certainly was-until he got injured, came back but was never the same. I'm convinced he has at least one monster season to come.
Did someone mention Mark Bellhorn? Have I mentioned lately that he clearly should have been the World Series MVP in 2004 and Manny was an awful choice? BELLHORN DIRECTLY WON THE GAME 1 THAT MANNY ALMOST BLEW WITH HIS 'DEFENSE'
Obviously this deal is a shitty one (for the Sox) but I really don't think you can say it was a bad decision at the time. Yes, he was hurt a bit in '18 and '19 (27 starts/158 IP & 25 starts/147.1 IP), but those two years were preceded by 3 years over 200 IP (including leading MLB in '17), and unless he had an injury really early on in his development never had a history of arm issues. $29/per for 5 years of one of the best pitchers in the game is entirely reasonable - especially considering they traded so much for him. Sandoval was a ####### disaster from the start. Just a stupid, shitty deal. Eovaldi is the pitcher that pisses me off - he had about a 90% chance of missing time, and if they signed him they knew they'd be in a major crunch with Betts.
And as much as I loved watching some of them, Nomar, Pedro, Manny, Papelbon, Nava, (& I'd add Holt! to the list) were all the correct calls. It's the Patriot's method, and it works - trade them a year too early rather than a year too late.
In the other sense, yes they were correct about how many good years he had left. And in this timeline we got a 2007 World Series, so I wouldn't be quick to trade it away.
To be totally fair, you were wrong about Martinez, Porcello, and Xander so let's call that bit of prognostication a push at best!
Right, some of the were good financial decisions, some weren't. But the point is that they were willing to let these guys go even though they were fan favorites.
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