will the field manager work for me, or is it the other way around?

Fangraphs has the 2024 payroll at about $186 mil. and the tax limit at $237 mil.

--Trade Verdugo: -$9M
--Trade Jansen, eat $6 mil: -$10M

--Sign one of Yamamoto, Nola, or Snell to front the rotation. +$27-33M (scouting and medicals that we can't know from the outside will dictate the best option)
--Sign a #2-3 starter such as ERod or Gibson +$15-22M
--Sign Bellinger or trade for an above average corner OF (package can include some combo of players above, Houck, Crawford, Duran, Dalbec, Yorke, etc). +$10-25M
--Sign a lefty reliever such as Smith or Moore +$7-10M

New Payroll: $226-$257M, with enough money coming off in the coming years that you can dip below the threshold as prospects develop.

Sample Roster
Rotation:
Nola
Bello
Erod
Sale
Pivetta/Houck/Crawford

Pen:
Martin
Winckowski
Moore
Whitlock
Bernadino
Schreiber
Pivetta/Houck/Crawford


Lineup:
C Wong
1B Casas
2B Urius
SS Story
3B Devers
LF Duran
CF Rafaela
RF Bellinger
DH Yoshida

Bench:
McGwire
Reyes
Abreu
Refsnyder

I'm still not crazy about the infield defense on that team. A more radical plan would be to trade one of Devers, Casas, or Yoshida and sure up the defense.

I'm still not crazy about the infield defense on that team. A more radical plan would be to trade one of Devers, Casas, or Yoshida and sure up the defense.

Two ideas (not incompatible, they both could happen):

Sign IKF to a prove it one or two year contract and put him at SS (where's he's been above average defensively) and move Story to 2B. This also boosts their overall infield depth by moving Urias to the bench.
Sign Chapman to 3B, move Devers to 1B, move Casas to DH. This does leave Yoshida in LF, but I think he will get better there with having the year under his belt. LF in Fenway *can* be a lot harder than people realize. Some fielders just aren't comfortable with the Monster. Signing Chapman does probably mean they put off the OF acquisition until next year.

Looking at how #2 went through the thought exercise of putting together the 2024 team, I see the fundamental challenge for the next GM being the combination of:

1) The lack of starting pitchers means having to pay a lot of money to get at least two legit of them in the FA market; while
2) Really needing an offensive upgrade at one of the outfield spots; while
3) Dealing with the fact that arguably your three best position players right now are defensive liabilities (Devers, Casas, Yoshida), and can't really get shifted to much further over on the defensive spectrum; and
4) Management is not going to suddenly pull a Steve Cohen and tell the new GM to overpower this conundrum with money.

Also at play is that:
1) Even if you do everything listed in #2, I don't think that's a playoff team. That lineup is not great; the defense is pretty bad, too; and there are still pretty big question marks in that rotation.

2) There are at least three pretty legit reinforcements on track to come by late 2025 who would actually solve a lot of the problems above. Teel, Mayer, and Anthony are all young for AA, and they all would be legit upgrades at three positions, both offensively and defensively...and they would all be dirt cheap for several years.

So not only does the lineup get better, but the defense gets a lot better, too. And it allows Story to go back to 2B, where his defense is above-average (until Yorke is ready?). It also frees up the money to afford getting a franchise outfielder. Now imagine an outfield in 2025 of Anthony, Rafaela, and Soto. If you pay Soto $40m a year, that's a $43 million outfield. In 2023, we often had an outfield of Yoshida, Duvall, and Verdugo. Cost? About $33m. Where do you find the extra $10m? You're paying Mayer the minimum to play SS well, instead of Kike Hernandez $10m to suck. And in 2025, Sale's albatross of a salary is off the books, and Jansen's $16m/yr is off the books, too.

The problem is getting to 2025: Can everybody get on the same page that 2024 is the first bridge year where you can...actually see the land on the other side of the bridge!

Also at play is that:
1) Even if you do everything listed in #2, I don't think that's a playoff team.

Depends what you mean by a playoff team. That team is not a lock for the playoffs, especially in the AL East, but they are a reasonable contender for a playoff spot.

That lineup is not great; the defense is pretty bad, too; and there are still pretty big question marks in that rotation.

Lineup: looks pretty good to me, a bit better than last year, which finished 6th in the AL in runs.
Defense: Excellent OF defense (elite CF, a LF who can pass as a CF, and a RF who can pass as a CF), average-ish middle infield, bad corner infield, good catcher.
Rotation: Are there more question marks than most teams have? 1-3 are about solid as you'll get, #4 is a big question mark, and #5 is probably a guy who puts up 140+ IP and 2 1/2 WAR every year. Beyond that, you have Crawford and Houck for depth, both who are way better than most #6 and #7 starters.


That's a team that, if things go right, wins 90 games, but if they go wrong, wins 78 again.

2) There are at least three pretty legit reinforcements on track to come by late 2025 who would actually solve a lot of the problems above. Teel, Mayer, and Anthony are all young for AA, and they all would be legit upgrades at three positions, both offensively and defensively...and they would all be dirt cheap for several years.

And nothing in my plan prevents those reinforcements from joining the team. Mayer replaces Urias, Teel replaces McGuire and pushes Wong to backup, and Anthony can take Duran or Rafaela's spot if he's good enough.

And hey, where is everybody else's plan? This is an interview--present your ideas and get the job!

Apparently Gabe Kapler interviewed for the POBO job, Fuld was a target, and Breslow has been mentioned as a favorite. They seem to really like former players.

Sorry, Darren! I wasn't being critical of what you did - I really liked following your thought exercise to make the pieces work, and you are more thoughtful about it than anybody who tries this on Twitter or talk radio, etc.!

Apparently Gabe Kapler interviewed for the POBO job, Fuld was a target, and Breslow has been mentioned as a favorite. They seem to really like former players.

Because they're likelier than former General Managers to accept working for Alex Cora.

Sorry, Darren! I wasn't being critical of what you did - I really liked following your thought exercise to make the pieces work, and you are more thoughtful about it than anybody who tries this on Twitter or talk radio, etc.!

I didn't take it that way. I just want to hear everyone else's ideas!

Breslow

Anyone else hearing the rumors that Ohtani may be interested in the Sox? Love to have the guy, but considering his huge cost, does he really fit on the team? Obviously a great pitcher, but signing him as a long term DH means Devers and Casas are locked in to 3B and 1B, defense be damned. '24 could be interesting though, Ohtani starts the year at DH, then if the arm develops enough the Sox ship Verdugo out and move Ohtani to RF.

My first instinct is that I don't care if he fits or gets wildly overpaid, man, it would be a hell of a lot of fun to cheer for that guy.

There are new rumors? Gammons was floating it a couple months back, touting his good relationship with the folks at New Balance. Maybe Koji Uehera's doing some good lobbying back in Japan.

I kind of figure that if you can sign Ohtani, you do it and figure out how the other pieces fit later, even with the object lesson of how well that worked for Anaheim (or how signing Hanley Ramirez & Pablo Sandoval worked out in terms of free agents meant to boost ticket sales). Sure, those are reasons not to go nuts even for a guy like Ohtani, but the bar for what's nuts is probably a lot higher fo rhim.

Lineup:
C Wong
1B Casas
2B Urius
SS Story
3B Devers
LF Duran
CF Rafaela
RF Bellinger
DH Yoshida

Welp, that's not happening. Urias was traded for a random reliever. Yay. That leaves Valdez as the presumed 2B I guess? Sox flouting convention and trying for the all-lead glove infield. Screw defense, what did it ever do for you, right?

I liked Urias but we don't really know about his health/recovery from the outside, so I'm fine with dealing him. Campbell is no world beater or anything but I'd place him a rung above random reliever. Kind of intriguing, really, given that he was a 2nd round pick and has barely pitched over the last several years.

The free agent market also has a decent number of stopgap 2B options. Amed Rosario, Whit Merrifield, and Luis Guillorme all look like decent options at the right price.

Isn't Guillorme in the underrated, "will play for food" camp? Decent OBP and good D. He'd be the first one I looked at.

Nothing special and no real upside but ... If you're not spending that's a really positive summary.

Yes, I like him too. He was expected to get something like $1.7 mil in arbitration and he got non-tendered. He hits lefty so he would pair nicely with Arroyo or Reyes.

Yes, I like him too. He was expected to get something like $1.7 mil in arbitration and he got non-tendered. He hits lefty so he would pair nicely with Arroyo or Reyes.

I like the idea of Guillorme as well, I would rather the team go cheap and hope it works than waste $5-6M on an older player that will end up playing more than he should. I don't know about pairing him with Arroyo though, Christian is a FA as well.

I've probably mentioned this elsewhere but if Soto going to be traded, but I've thought a bit more about this. The precedent for the return is pretty well established with Betts and Lindor. Here are those two trades:

Red Sox - Dodgers Deal
1 year of Betts
3 years of Price (with $48 mil of the $96 mil he's owed)

-for-

5 years of Verdugo (good, young player who's already had success in Majors)
Downs (top 100 prospect, but there's some debate over him)
Wong (40ish prospect)

Guardians - Mets Deal
1 year of Lindor
2-3 years of Carrasco (2 years at $12 mil + a $14 mil option)

-for-
3 years of Rosario (good, young player who's already had success in Majors)
Gimenez (top 100 prospect)
Josh Wolf (40ish prospect)
Isaiah Greene (40ish prospect)


The two trades are remarkably similar. On one side, a superstar in his prime in last year of arbitration + a good pitcher of questionable health at around market value in exchange for a good young Major Leaguer and good prospect and some other stuff that might be interesting. Yes, Soto is two years younger than Betts and Lindor, which does matter. But that's mitigated by a couple things: 1) you're only trading for 1 year of his service, 2) Betts was better, 3) Betts and Lindor have profiles that tend to age better.

Having established the similarity of the situations, what would be a comparable trade between the Red Sox and Padres for Juan Soto? I'm glad you asked.

1 year of Soto
5 years of Darvish (owed $80 mil, maybe half paid?)

-for-

Jarren Duran
Nick Yorke
Pick a 40ish prospect


This may be a bit light, depending on your opinion of Yorke and Duran. But it's not far off. Let's do this.

#22 - I like where you are going with this, but Duran =/= Verdugo or Rosario. He's 2/3 years older which is huge, was signed 5 rounds later than Verdugo, and although he does have better minor league #'s, again he was much older comparatively to the other two. He also peaked at #81 on anyone's prospect list, Verdugo was at #19 (albeit #35 for the other two) and #5 for Rosario.

I hate to say it, but you probably need to increase that package to Casas instead of Duran to get closer to the perceived value, although I'd drop Yorke and go with a more volatile candidate in his place (Valdez maybe?).

Moving Casas does free up the huge defensive log jam that the Sox have though. If they could have solid negotiations with Soto prior to the deal and lock him in, that could be a great fit overall for the team. Devers at 1B, Yoshida/Soto in LF/DH and get a good 3B. And Yamamoto.

Those are all good points regarding Verdugo vs. Duran. The comp works in that they both have/had 5 years of control left and are coming off very similar years:
Verdugo - 377 PA, 112 wRC+, 2.1 fWAR
Duran 362 PA, 120 wRC+, 2.4 fWAR

But three years is a really large age difference. My thinking was that Betts was enough better than Soto to justify that, but you're probably right that it's not.

Rosario/Verdugo is a little different but still problematic. He's only 2 years younger than Verdugo was and was coming off a lost 2020--147 PA, 76 wRC+, 0.1 fWAR. On the other hand, he was only under control for 3 years vs. Verdugo's 5. Again that's a bigger gap that I gave credit for.

Maybe somehow the amount they kick in toward Darvish's contract could make up the rest of the difference? Maybe not.

If getting Soto requires including Casas, I don't think I'd do it. In both the Mookie and Lindor trade, the teams were dealing from a strength, and dealing Duran would be dealing from strength as well.

Maybe somehow the amount they kick in toward Darvish's contract could make up the rest of the difference? Maybe not.

I wonder how much the owner dieing will change how the 'feel' of the trade is. Could be an opportunity for a new owner to come in and just clean house and drop that payroll down big time, in which case $$ back could be a huge thing. Or maybe they will feel like they need to 'win' the trade and will demand only a big name prospect back, but will do similar deals as the Mets did and eat large chunks of the guaranteed money.

I think I agree I wouldn't give up Casas for Soto, just because of the incredibly huge difference in their pay. But I am very concerned about the corner IF defense and how poor it is. Not too excited to lock into two so clearly below average guys in Devers and Casas.

Quite the trade today. Verdugo for three Yankee pitching prospects - Richard Fitts, Greg Weissert, and Nicholas Judice. No idea how to rank them. I think I like this, seems like either Verdugo or Cora is gone at the end of '24, and I sorta assume it wasn't going to be Cora. The Sox still have their RF vacancy heading into '25, but maybe one or two of the arms they get in this trade pans out and is part of a decent end of rotation/pen going forward.

As to the '24 season? Still not contending, so, whatever. Just really hope the front office doesn't think Refsnyder can play everyday.

Oh, and to repeatedly beat a dead horse - the Mookie trade sucked majorly. There was and continues to be no baseball logic behind the move, it was 100% about $$. And that sucks.

There is a spectrum of projected rosters for each team that vary from

Good as long as everything doesn't go wrong


to

Good as long as nothing goes wrong.


The roster in 2 is much close to the latter than the former.

Oh, and to repeatedly beat a dead horse - the Mookie trade sucked majorly. There was and continues to be no baseball logic behind the move, it was 100% about $$. And that sucks.

BB-Ref WAR:

+3.6 Betts, after the Red Sox, before his Red Sox contract expired
+1.4 Price, after the Red Sox, before his Red Sox contract expired

+8.2 Verdugo, after the Dodgers
-0.6 Downs, after the Dodgers
+2.4 Wong, after the Dodgers

10 WAR gained (to date) vs. 5 WAR lost. You're right, though, that it sucked. Trading Betts and Price was 100% about $$, but the entirety of the trade included baseball logic that made the team better for 2021-23. Big whoop, they got that 2021 wild card berth. But if they didn't do the trade, they wouldn't have improved AND they still wouldn't have had Betts entirely due to $$.

Looks like Soto is headed to the Yankees. Your move, Breslow.