If it starts in 2024, he'll play that entire season at age 27 (will turn 28 in October of 2024). So just from that perspective I think I like this more than the other big long term deals given out this season to older players.

(Also I just like it because they actually signed him!)

The quote above says it begins this year.

Thank goodness. It may ultimately not be a great deal, but it had to be done - Chaim Bloom was one fan favorite headed west away from having Red Sox Nation outside his house with pitchforks.

I wouldn't be shocked if (season) ticket sales were taking a hit, too. I've got a friend who has mostly stayed away during the pandemic (older, immunocompromised person in the family) saying he's holding on to them for the chance at an All Star game in a few years, and I suspect a lot of people aren't exactly planning that far ahead (seems nuts to me, but I gather he breaks even on StubHub).

Come on who RTFQ anymore? Just kidding thanks for that, I saw 2024 elsewhere online and just assumed. This year would make it even better from an age perspective, obviously.

There are conflicting reports whether 2023 is part of the 11 years.

But either way, it's an exciting thing!

Chaim Bloom was one fan favorite headed west away from having Red Sox Nation outside his house with pitchforks.

Perhaps the fans & media had an effect, since the difference in the treatment between Devers and Bogaerts (and Betts before him) remains a mystery.

Lotta folks going to be pointing to John Henry getting booed at the NHL Winter Classic at Fenway on Monday (where, weirdly, his group owned the home field and the visiting team), and, heck, maybe that was the first real encounter he's had with the city he's done a pretty decent job burrowing into turning on him, enough to tell Bloom to just get it done.

the difference in the treatment between Devers and Bogaerts (and Betts before him) remains a mystery.

IYHO, right? Yes, Devers being several years younger is such a mystery.

Mixed feelings on this, mostly positive. I'm glad they signed one of their talented core long-term. But of Betts, Bogaerts, and Devers, Devers was my least favorite for a long-term deal. Betts, obviously, is an all-time great, so he's number 1. Bogaerts was older but has been consistently excellent, has improved his fielding, and has a few steps down the defensive spectrum before he's a DH. Devers is a defensively challenged 3B who's had questions about his conditioning and health. He's only going to be 26 in 2023, so that's a huge plus.

I'm not thrilled that they decided to wrap 2023 into the extension (according to Speier). That inflates their luxury tax number by about $12.5 mil for this year, giving them fewer resources to fill out the rosters. If they had instead done it as an extension as a 10 year/$314 million deal starting in 2024, the hit on 2024-33 would have only risen from $30 mil to #31.4 mil. (I'm assuming they're still able to structure deals in this way in the new CBA.)

Overall, though, great fun day to be a Red Sox fan.

Yes, Devers being several years younger is such a mystery.

It’s not just that Boston was outbid for Bogaerts, but that they reportedly never made an offer above ~ $160M, which wasn’t near fair market value. The Red Sox can afford to pay fair market value to retain or acquire top talent, but for some reason have been mostly adverse to doing so in recent years, until the Devers signing.

nvmnd

Good for them. Although I think I'd rather have Betts with his contract than Devers with this one. Of course, Boston could afford both, but that's a different discussion

Although I think I'd rather have Betts with his contract than Devers with this one.

Sure, but yet again, let's look at this. The Betts contract was signed when things were insanely unpredictable at the beginning of all the Covid issues. Prior to that, people were talking like 12/400+ for Betts and the Sox were not going to do that. Now the contract looks pretty good because no one knew how it was all going to play out 3 years down the track. The Red Sox offered 10/300 prior to Covid, traded him before it all went to sh*t, then he signed 12/365 in July 2020 when no on knew what the heck was going to happen.

Maybe 5 years from now we'll have China's silent invasion of Taiwan issues and again that will affect the world's economy and no one will be quite sure what is going to happen. I don't know, but you cannot look back at the Betts contract and assume that's what he would have signed for that before Covid started.

It's still a mish mash of a team - not sure how anything they've done recently helps given where the division is. But hey it beats letting yet another player go. The time between the two deal announcements suggest ownership jumped in and told Bloom to get it done.

Prior to that, people were talking like 12/400+ for Betts and the Sox were not going to do that.

I'd sure rather have Betts at 12/$420 than Devers at 11/$331.

I'd sure rather have Betts at 12/$420 than Devers at 11/$331.

Yeah, I would too, actually.

WaR looks as if it is thoroughly undervaluing Devers, as it overvalued Betts. Given the discount and the age difference (even though it's 3 years later) I'd rather have Devers. I think we will have better metrics in 2050 that push him up and Betts down a bit.

Congrats to the Red Sox on signing their allegorical Van Slyke after letting their Bonds (Betts) and Bonilla (Bogaerts) walk.

I think we will have better metrics in 2050

The KarlBot needs a tune-up. I'm sure Jim will get to it eventually.

Devers is a 4-WAR player who will be moving to 1B/DH soon. You never know who's about to break out big time but he seems a bad bet to produce more than 35-40 WAR in this deal.

It is fair to question Mookie's bWAR -- statcast rates him about 10 wins worse in the OF. Who knows which is closer to the truth but those two +30s aren't remotely believable IMO. Still, even discounting his defense by a full run per year, he's a 5.5 WAR/650 player the last few years. (FWIW, statcast is all over the place on Devers

Congrats to the Red Sox on signing their allegorical Van Slyke after letting their Bonds (Betts) and Bonilla (Bogaerts) walk.

I'll take Van Slyke over Bonilla from ages 27 through 36, and even from 1992 on (when Bonilla left), it's close. Unfortunately, Devers's defense and build look a lot more like Bonilla's than Van Slyke's.

It is fair to question Mookie's bWAR -- statcast rates him about 10 wins worse in the OF. Who knows which is closer to the truth but those two +30s aren't remotely believable IMO. Still, even discounting his defense by a full run per year, he's a 5.5 WAR/650 player the last few years. (FWIW, statcast is all over the place on Devers

The Mookie defensive numbers are interesting:

Total:
DRS +143
TZ +108
UZR +94
SC +52

Just RF:
DRS +128
TZ +118
UZR +89
SC +52



TZ thinks Mookie is a butcher in CF.

Who knows which is closer to the truth but those two +30s aren't remotely believable IMO.

2015 in CF: + 11 DRS/1200 innings in CF
2016 in RF: +26 DRS/1200 innings in RF
2017 in RF: +26 DRS/1200 innings in RF
2018 in RF: +20 DRS/1200 innings in RF
2019 in RF: +20 DRS/1200 innings in RF

Given the positional adjustment between CF and RF is about 10 runs per season, his performance is fairly consistent during this period. If you don't buy the +30s in 2016-17, you probably shouldn't buy DRS's take on him for the other years either.

I'll take Van Slyke over Bonilla from ages 27 through 36, and even from 1992 on (when Bonilla left), it's close. Unfortunately, Devers's defense and build look a lot more like Bonilla's than Van Slyke's.

Maybe fair, though, a lot depends on Bonilla's defensive numbers (which may or may not be as accurate as the difference in offense). But, why send their "Bonds" away without a legitimate attempt to sign him?

As a Red Sox, I am very happy. If you want premium young players on your team, this is the price. I'm not sure they got a discount over what it would have cost if he was a free agent. However, unlike some of the other big contracts signed this off-season:

1) There is no no-trade clause
2) There are no player opt-outs
3) The contract covers him through only his age 36 season (Bogaerts, for example, is through age 41)

Although Devers seems less likely to stay in great shape through his 30s, the Red Sox aren't on the hook for his late 30s.

It is the first real piece of good news about the Red Sox in a while, and changes the media narrative about the team, from "Red Sox in Disarray!", to something more like, "Red Sox Get Deal Done".

In fact, I've seen a few regional and national accounts of this extension going into the whole, "The Red Sox now appear to have a plan, building around a young core of Devers, Casas, Bello, Mayer, Whitlock, etc."

It's funny, because all of those players were already in the organization yesterday, but the Devers extension makes it feel like there's a plan. I'm not deriding it - I feel better today than I did yesterday about Boston's future, too. I just wish we had backed up the Brinks truck for Betts when we had the chance...

OvertheMonster has an article that reflects my relief and happiness over this deal getting done. Also has a fabulous video clip from Yankee Stadium that I had forgotten about. Props to that Yankees fan for keeping the camera rolling and capturing the stunned silence.

The Mookie defensive numbers are interesting:

Total:
DRS +143
TZ +108
UZR +94
SC +52

Just RF:
DRS +128
TZ +118
UZR +89
SC +52

Where are you getting the Statcast numbers?

A little while back I observed that the Red Sox sometimes sign big stars to top of the market deals, like David Price. With their homegrown players though, they seemed obsessed with getting team-friendly, below market rate extensions (ex. Pedroia) and if the player isn’t willing to let John Henry keep some of the money due, they either get traded or leave (Mookie, X, Ellsbury).

This contract for Devers certainly breaks the trend.

Statcast numbers are here:

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/leaderboard/outs_above_average

Statcast numbers are here:

Thanks!

It's funny, because all of those players were already in the organization yesterday, but the Devers extension makes it feel like there's a plan. I'm not deriding it - I feel better today than I did yesterday about Boston's future, too. I just wish we had backed up the Brinks truck for Betts when we had the chance...

I mean, they've been generally transparent about the plan all along, though infuriatingly unclear about specific components. The lack of clarity on specific players, most recently Bogaerts, is why it felt like they didn't have a plan. But letting Bogaerts go, and locking down Devers, fits their plan to build a competitive team within a budget.

They didn't want to sign Bogaerts at market rates. It's really as simple as that. They have Story for the next 3+ years (opt out after 2025) and they have Marcelo Mayer who should be ready by then. That will cover the next 10 years or so at SS, almost certainly with better performance than Bogaerts, at lower cost than Bogaerts. If they could get Bogaerts for a much shorter length, and not pay a premium for it, sure why not? But, like, that's not what you say when negotiating, and it sure as #### isn't what you say in public at any point. They have to remain relatively tight-lipped and cautiously optimistic in public. The role of GM is both the nuts-and-bolts of the business AND it's a PR role. Those responsibilities run counter to each other, and we should never assume what they say is what they mean in a specific negotiation, especially when the actions don't line up. Their actions regarding Bogaerts underscore that they didn't want to sign him at market rates.

And, like, the reaction here and throughout the Nation to Bogaerts' contract wasn't "They should have beat San Diego's offer". No, it was \"####, that's too rich. I want to believe they could have had him for much less than that." Yes, Bogaerts, a Boras client, having an opportunity to get a contract into his 40s in free agency, in a post-CBA market that Boras had already identified as being willing and able to support contracts like this, would have taken a lesser deal. GTFO. That aside, it appeared that everyone universally agreed that Bogaerts won't possibly be worth the contract he just signed. Boston's behavior suggests the same. If their plan is to build a competitive team within a budget, then Bogaerts isn't the guy you sign at market rates. I think everyone is agreed on that, even if they still wanted Bogaerts signed. (IOW the disagreement is on the "within a budget" part.)

Clearly they wanted to sign Devers at market rates, given that (roughly speaking) they just did that. The fact that they did this with Devers and not Bogaerts is not a sign of a change in direction, or a different plan, or a panic move, or whatever. Those are just stories the people who built stupid narratives tell themselves so they can still cling to those stupid narratives. Boston knows they need to spend on players. It's just a matter of who they spend it on. Like, if they matched SD and signed Bogaerts then there would have been no point in signing Devers to such a long-term deal because Bogaerts would be playing 3B by 2026 anyway. They're signing just one of the two. If you could pick one or the other to stay with Boston - under the contracts they actually signed - who should they sign? IMO it's Devers.

As SBPT brought up in an earlier thread, Boston still has too much money going to players who aren't necessarily going to produce much. They're still in a mode where "build a competitive team" and "within a budget" are competing against each other, but they are working both sides of the ledger. The Devers deal doesn't change this; it just makes it much more obvious to us that they're working the competitive side of the ledger - because this is clearly not a budget austerity move. The last time Boston signed a player to a contract remotely this rich it worked out so poorly that they had to bundle him with Mookie Betts to get rid of him.

Having said all that, let me be clear that I'm not saying they've built a competitive team. Hoo boy, no they haven't. I'm just saying locking down Devers is a step in that direction.

Statcast numbers also don't include Mookie's first two seasons FWIW.

If you don't buy the +30s in 2016-17, you probably shouldn't buy DRS's take on him for the other years either.

Which I thought I was pretty clearly implying, simply stating that the +30s are the most egregious examples that "everyone" should agree are not believable. (And let's not forget the +10 in 2020, a 30/1200 rate. Now whether DRS is off by 20 runs or 40 runs or 100 runs over Mookie's career is much harder to nail down and I have no idea where I'd guesstimate that.

Directly comparing DRS and statcast is tough because DRS is relative to average RF while SC is relative to average OF but, near as I can tell, the average OF is roughly the average RF (which also makes common sense I think). For 2020-22, DRS has Mookie at +30 runs while SC has him at +8 outs (which should be about +8 runs which is available in SC but it takes a bit more work).

That's 2+ wins over 2.4 seasos. It's not a huge deal -- i.e. not big enough to lead to a conclusion like, in baseball terms, you'd rather have Devers -- but half a win a year is $4-5 M in AAV which is $50-60 M over contracts of this length. The difference between, say, 12/$350 and 12/$400 is "what do you think Mookie's defense is really worth?" We can ignore it because it's not our money, the teams certainly can't.

(On a tangent, Mookie's contract is so heavily deferred that I don't think there's any way any team could possibly prefer Devers' contract, even with the age difference, unless Devers' contract is also heavily backloaded. But I haven't actually run the numbers so don't hold me to that.)

(On a tangent, Mookie's contract is so heavily deferred that I don't think there's any way any team could possibly prefer Devers' contract, even with the age difference, unless Devers' contract is also heavily backloaded. But I haven't actually run the numbers so don't hold me to that.)

I haven't seen discussion of deferrals in Devers's deal, but it's not out of the question. On Mookie's, I thought the MLBPA valued his deal at 12/306 or so. With those numbers, I'd much rather have that than what Devers got (again, assuming no deferrals there).

That's roughly my memory too and I'm pretty sure I'd rather have Mookie at 12/$306 for ages 28-39 than Devers at 11/$331 for ages 26-36 ... but finally deciding on that would require me to guesstimate each player's production over their contracts. Swapping ages 37-39 for ages 26-27 is surely in favor of the Devers' contract but is it a big enough difference to overcome what I expect to be a quite big difference in Mookie's favor over ages 28-36.

Near as I can tell using something that seems close to the MLBPA formula that must have been applied to Mookie's contract, these two contracts have about the same NPV. So it probably is just a straight WAR comparison.

The main point of course remains that the Red Sox are more than rich enough that they could have had Mookie and Devers ... or Mookie and X or X and Devers or probably all three. Even if it turns out correct that Devers is the one to pick if you're only picking one, there was no reason to only pick one.

By the way, I've come around a good bit on the X contract. I thought it was nuts at first too but I think we're over-reacting to the 11 years and possibly under-valuing the deferral aspect. (Properly valuing it gets pretty deeply into boring stuff around CBT tax/threshold management, rates of return, the value of current wins vs future wins, what salary inflation will look like over the next decade, etc.)

Over the last 5 years, X has produced 23 WAR at a 5.4 WAR/650 pace. There's no guarantee he'll remain durable, no guarantee he won't decline in performance rate ... but because of 2020, those 23 WAR were produced in an average of 540 PA per season so using that as a projection of the next 5 years has already cooked in a reduction in durability (or continued durability with a reduction in rate).

So I don't think a projection of 23 WAR for ages 30-34 is out of line. At $9/WAR that's already more than $200 M in value. If you think that 5/$200 M for X is a "fair" deal but you don't want the cash flow hit or CBT hit of paying him $40 AAV, you immediately think about making it 7 years to take him through 36. But if he projects to 5/23 WAR, he's likely to still be at least average for 35-36. So now you're around 7/$240. That's basically the contract Rendon got 3 years ago for the same ages (Rendon was probably better for 25-29 but balance against inflation). At that point, 11/$280 is little more than accounting tricks. In NPV (3%) terms, 11/280 is about $16 M more than Rendon's 7/$245 which, theoretically speaking, is projecting that X will probably produce a couple of WAR from 37-40 or is just adjusting for inflation and revenue growth over the 3 years between those two contracts.

I'm not sure that I think X is quite as good a risk as Rendon was (and I thought Rendon was overpaid) but I can't say "Rendon plus a bit for those extra 4 years" is unreasonable for him.

So I'm seeing their point of view. Yes, given his age, the dominant majority of X's remaining value will probably be produced over the next 5 years; most of the remaining bit will probably come in the next two years after that. Once you've decided that paying him a fair salary for that projection is a good idea, you've essentially paid for the remainder of his career anyway. If you've done that, then you might as well literally buy the remainder of his career if that helps you manage payroll and CBT.

Maybe they could have had him at 5/$200 with a $40 CBT hit every year, all under the current CBA. They probably could have had him at Rendon's 7/$245 with a $35 CBT hit, nearly all under the current CBA. Now they have him nearly as low as $25 per year with the 2nd half of that under a new CBA that will almost surely feature a big jump in the CBT threshold if not bigger changes. So they likely save millions in tax in the short term while a $25 AAV in the 2nd half of the contract will be relative to a threshold of probably at least $270. Those extra years aren't painless but the difference between carrying an extra $15 M on the books for the next 5 years vs carrying an extra $25 M on the books for the last 5 years is not that big.

All that said -- I know I underrate Bogaerts for some reason but I just don't see him as a 5/$200, 7/$245 player. Or at least I have a hard time seeing how Story could be "fair" at 6/$140 while Xander is "fair" at 7/$245.

I like this deal. I think Devers may have goofed for not asking for opt outs at, say, after the 2026 or 2027 season. If the Red Sox are still building then he may regret not negotiating for opt outs, especially if he's playing well and is healthy.