Flexibility (both on the field and on the payroll ledger) was the key word in a very active Red Sox offseason.
Major League Signings
- Enrique Hernandez, IF/OF: Two years, $14MM
- Garrett Richards, SP: One year, $10MM (includes $1.5MM buyout of $10MM club option for 2022; option and buyout totals could increase based on performance escalators)
- Martin Perez, SP: One year, $5MM (includes $500K buyout of $6MM club option for 2022)
- Hunter Renfroe, OF: One year, $3.1MM
- Hirokazu Sawamura, RP: Two years, $3MM (includes a dual club option/player option worth at least $600K for the 2023 season; buyout increases based on roster bonus and appearance incentives)
- Marwin Gonzalez, IF/OF: One year, $3MM
- Matt Andriese, SP/RP: One year, $2.1MM (includes $250K buyout of $3.5MM club option for 2022; value of club option can increase based on innings totals)
- Total spend: $40.2MM
Trades & Claims
- Acquired OF Franchy Cordero, SP Josh Winckowski, and three players to be named later from the Royals and Mets as part of a three-team trade. The Royals acquired OF Andrew Benintendi and $2.8MM from the Red Sox. The Mets acquired OF Khalil Lee from the Royals.
- Acquired RP Adam Ottavino, SP Frank German, and $850K from the Yankees for a player to be named later
- Acquired C Ronaldo Hernandez and IF Nick Sogard from the Rays for SP Chris Mazza and RP Jeffrey Springs
- Acquired a player to be named later from the Phillies for IF C.J. Chatham
- Acquired IF Christian Koss from the Rockies for RP Yoan Aybar
- Acquired RP Zach Bryant from the Cubs as the player to be named later in last August’s Josh Osich trade
- Claimed RP John Schreiber off waivers from the Tigers
- Selected SP Garrett Whitlock from the Yankees in the Rule 5 Draft
Notable Minor League Signings
- Danny Santana, Kevin McCarthy, Chris Herrmann, Daniel Gossett, Zac Grotz, Jett Bandy, Matt Carasiti, Cesar Puello, Stephen Gonsalves, Michael Gettys
Extensions
- None
Notable Losses
- Jackie Bradley Jr., Collin McHugh, Jose Peraza, Rusney Castillo, Robert Stock, Deivy Grullon, Dustin Pedroia (retirement)
Continuing the trend of player turnover that marked Chaim Bloom’s first year as Boston’s chief baseball officer, Bloom’s second offseason running the team’s front office saw quite a few new faces arrives as familiar faces departed. Most notably, Jackie Bradley Jr. and Andrew Benintendi will both be playing elsewhere in 2021, so in combination with last winter’s Mookie Betts trade, the Red Sox have now said goodbye to all three members of the superb offensive and defensive outfield that was such a big part of their 2018 championship team.
Bradley’s extended stay on the free agent market — he didn’t sign his two-year, $24MM deal with the Brewers until early March — created some speculation that the former Gold Glover could end up returning to Boston, and the Sox reportedly stayed in touch with Bradley’s representatives throughout the winter. However, the signing of Hunter Renfroe in mid-December was an early indicator that the Red Sox were looking beyond the JBJ era, and the team’s subsequent addition of several other outfield-capable players seemed to further limit the chances of a Bradley reunion.
As for Benintendi, his departure from Boston also began to seem more like a reality as the offseason wore on, and trade rumors continued to swirl about his availability. The Royals ended up landing the former seventh overall pick, joining forces with the Mets to work out a three-team swap that saw the Red Sox walk away with an injury-prone but intriguing power bat in Franchy Cordero, a young minor league starter in Josh Winckowski, and three other minor leaguers to be named later.
It wasn’t nearly the trade package that Benintendi would have commanded following his outstanding 2018 season, when the Red Sox were seeing him as a future cornerstone rather than as a trade chip. Benintendi’s value diminished after a pretty average 2019 season and then an injury-shortened 2020 campaign that saw him hit just .103/.314/.128 in 52 plate appearances.
In one sense, the Red Sox were selling low on Benintendi, and an argument could certainly be made that the outfielder should have been retained in order to see if he could bounce back when healthy (and in a season played under less unusual circumstances than 2020). But, after two down years in a row, Bloom might have simply felt Benintendi had already peaked, and moving him now allowed the Sox to obtain multiple minor leaguers while more struggles in 2021 would have cratered Benintendi’s trade value.
There was also a financial element to the move, as even though the Red Sox included $2.8MM in the trade to help the Royals cover Benintendi’s salary $6.6MM, that still left $3.8MM in savings. That $3.8MM figure happens to exactly match the total of Cordero’s $800K salary and the $3MM the Sox gave to free agent Marwin Gonzalez. This type of valuation was prototypical of Boston’s offseason, as the club spread its money around to several players rather than focus the majority of its available dollars on any particular big-name signing.
This strategy manifested in the types of player Boston pursued, as the Red Sox went after multi-positional types that could help out at several spots around the diamond. At the cost of a two-year $14MM deal, Enrique Hernandez was the priciest of the bunch, but the super-utilityman can and has played every position but catcher over his seven MLB seasons with the Dodgers.
Between Hernandez, Gonzalez, and minor league signing Danny Santana, manager Alex Cora can now approach the left field and second base positions in a number of different ways. Hernandez will probably get the bulk of time at second base, though he could also occasionally spell Alex Verdugo in center field. Verdugo could get an off-day or move to a corner outfield spot in that scenario, which would then give Renfroe, Cordero or Gonzalez a breather. It’s also possible for each of those players are all still in the lineup and another regular gets a day off. In short, the Red Sox now have quite a bit of depth built into the roster in the event of injury or if one or more players are slumping.
The question now becomes whether this depth can be productive or if these new additions could be notable for versatility alone. Hernandez, Renfroe, Gonzalez, and Santana are all looking to bounce back from poor seasons at the plate. Platooning and juggling the lineup could put any of the quartet into optimal hitting situations and get them back on a good offensive track, plus the likes of Christian Arroyo, Michael Chavis, Jonathan Arauz, and Yairo Munoz are also available to provide even more options for Cora. Top prospect Jeter Downs is also expected to arrive in the majors at some point in the 2021 season, so the Red Sox might have another position spoken for if Downs can hold his own as a semi-regular second baseman.
Bloom took the same wide-ranging approach to his pitching acquisitions, as Boston’s costliest arm of the offseason was Garrett Richards on a $10MM salary. Richards and the re-signed Martin Perez are penciled into the rotation along with Eduardo Rodriguez and Nathan Eovaldi. Swingman Matt Andriese could get some spot starts or potentially end up replacing Perez or Nick Pivetta at the back end of the rotation.
It’s safe to assume that these six pitchers and other depth options like Tanner Houck, Daniel Gossett, Connor Seabold and company will all get some action as the Red Sox try to rebuild everyone’s arm strength and keep everyone healthy in going from a 60-game season to 162 games. (Chris Sale is also expected to be back from Tommy John rehab around midseason.) Indeed, signing an unspectacular innings-eater like Perez may have been almost a necessity considering how Richards and Eovaldi have struggled to stay healthy during their careers, and Rodriguez missed all of 2020 due to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis and myocarditis. Thankfully, E-Rod has looked in prime form during Spring Training and appears to be ready to roll as Boston’s Opening Day starter.
Some of the depth starters might eventually join Andriese in contributing out of the bullpen, which will introduce a couple of external arrivals in Hirokazu Sawamura and Adam Ottavino. Sawamura comes to the majors after nine NPB seasons and with a distinguished track record as a relief pitcher, making him a potential bargain investment for the Red Sox if he can come close to replicating his numbers from Japan.
The Ottavino trade would have been notable solely for being a rare deal between the Red Sox and Yankees, but the financial elements add more interesting wrinkles. With New York paying $850K of Ottavino’s $8MM salary, the remaining $7.15MM price tag makes Ottavino the second highest-paid player of any of Boston’s new additions for 2021, behind only Richards. While the “buy a prospect” (namely young righty Frank German) element is certainly at play, the Sox wouldn’t pay that much for a reliever coming off a 5.89 ERA season if they didn’t think Ottavino could be a productive player in 2021.
Many of Ottavino’s advanced metrics from 2020, in fact, are pretty close to his career averages. The righty was hampered by some bad luck (.375 BABIP) and by one ERA-inflating nightmare of an outing on September 7, when Ottavino allowed six runs to the Blue Jays without recording a single out. With this in mind, the Sox are certainly hoping Ottavino can get back to his 2018-19 level, and provide the bullpen with either a quality setup man or perhaps even a closer candidate to share save chances with Matt Barnes.
Trading Ottavino helped the Yankees ease some of their luxury tax burden, while Ottavino’s addition brought the Red Sox a bit closer to the $210MM Competitive Balance Tax threshold. The Sox reset their tax “penalty clock” by spending under the limit in 2020, but the team has seemed loath to surpass the threshold again so quickly. Their volume of offseason moves has brought the Red Sox within range of $210MM; Cot’s Baseball Contracts has Boston’s tax number at roughly $204.3MM, while Roster Resource’s calculation of around $207.6MM leaves the Sox with even less breathing room for further spending. That proximity to the threshold was among the reasons that a late reunion with Bradley simply didn’t seem likely.
Of course, over a year after the Betts trade, Boston fans are more than a little sick of hearing about the luxury tax, and undoubtedly many of the Fenway faithful are wondering why the team wasn’t more outwardly aggressive in responding to a last-place finish in the AL East. Signing DJ LeMahieu (in whom the Red Sox had at least some cursory interest) or Connecticut native George Springer would’ve been a much easier sell to fans than a collection of multi-positional players who all struggled in 2020.
As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes has outlined, it’s quite arguable that no big-market team should be worried about a luxury tax overage this year, considering both the small actual price in tax dollars and how the CBT system could be altered significantly in the next set of collective bargaining talks. It could be that Boston’s upper management has decided that there isn’t any value in exceeding the CBT threshold unless the Red Sox look like a surefire World Series contender.
Bigger spending might come next year when Sale will theoretically be fully healthy, Dustin Pedroia’s contract will be off the books, and the Red Sox know more about what they have in Downs, Bobby Dalbec, Jarren Duran, and other promising youngsters. Of course, the Sox will also have to replace Rodriguez in the rotation, as he’s set to hit free agency following the 2021 season. They’ll also have to patch the many holes left by all the current players on one-year deals.
In the meantime, Bloom will surely continue to tinker throughout the year on a roster that looks improved from last season, but still seems at least a couple of steps behind the Yankees, Rays, and Blue Jays in the AL East.
How would you grade the Red Sox offseason? (Link to poll for Trade Rumors iOS/Android app users)
Incoming Yankee fans trashing on the Red Sox. My grade was a B, they got some pieces they can trade at the deadline. Cordero could be a steal if he finds out how to put bat on ball. I think Dalbec will be a stud. Hopefully E-Rod and Sale come back strong for them.
“Cordero could be a steal if he finds out how to play baseball.”
This also applies to most of the Cardinals’ 15 outfield prospects.
RIP Tavares
BAC 6x the legal limit
Cordero is a analytics fan’s dream and a manager and GM’s nightmare. Proof hitting the ball hard and being fast doesnt just make you a good player.
I’d say he’s more of a toolsy player who is a scout’s dream. He’s more of a free swinging athletic type player.
Bennie was a nightmare for the Sox financially. He would have possibly been released in November with a so-so year and his arb due raise. Even if he rebounds, he’ll only have one year left. The time to have moved him was after 19. That said, they did better than I expected as I’m assuming the the three prospects to be named later are 40 man eligible players that they wanted the Mets and Royals to carry this year.
Looie- agreed! The RS were able to get a lot more for Beni now (2 years from free agency) than if they waited. Most players one year from FA get very little .
Lets check back on these comments in September. I think Benny returns to his old form and regains his confidence. It’s hard to understand how a guy who barrelled up the ball so well to end his college career and then to start his pro career just loses the ability. Maybe he has eyesight issues, other than that it’s simply odd that he lost it out of the clear blue and under the direction of Cora’s coaching staff..
He’s a likely candidate to get it back but there are never any guarantees. His money was less than what the Red Sox threw away on JBJ. Remember the world series run, the key catch wasn’t made by JBJ against Houston. Benny was a great addition to the Red Sox and earned a bad year mulligan for all he did prior to him falling off. If a team lets a butcher like Devers play third for 5 years (counting this year) when he has led the league in errors every year, then hanging on to Benny to let him come back after COVID wasn’t too much to ask.
JBJ cost over $15M more in 2020 & 2019 than Benny.. That $11M paid to JBJ in 2020 could have been used to bump Mookie from $27 to $36 and there would have been change left over for other moves!! How about this trivia about Benny versus JBJ. Benny had an average year in 2019 (OPS+=100) which was disappointing to everyone and a miserable 3/8ths season in 2020 while JBJ had yet another below league average season in 2019 (OPS+=90) (3rd in a row below 100!) and a career 3/8ths year in 2020 which was perfect for JBJ since he typically only has 3 good months a season.
The public considered Benny as being DONE and JBJ as getting better. The facts show Benny took a big step down in 2020 and JBJ took a big step up in 2020 but the cost of JBJ’s failures over time dwarfs that of Benny’s one year failure. Money should never be discussed as an issue related to Benny. Benny averaged an OPS+ of 111 during his controlled years,
JBJ averaged a 94 OPS+ during the comparable 4 years to Benny while under control and the Red Sox paid him more despite his lack of offensive abilities. Heck, if JBJ didn’t walk as many times as he did he would have added NO value to the offense!!
So, lets see how Benny does in KC and JBJ in Milwaukee. $15M more than Benny over two years for JBJ was a complete waste of money. Bloom could have gotten closer to the 1st Threshold in 2020 by not tendering JBJ for $11M!! Bloom’s first big mistake.
Can’t judge this at the end of 21 unless it means Boston already won the trade. Let’s see what the return in total brings back down the road. Also, dIfferent positions. Forget saberstats. JBJ has been a lifetime quality CFer. Benny’s beginning was nice but not spectacular. He had that big time game saving game 6 catch. Can’t take that away but JBJ had that amazing big time bat earlier In the 18 playoffs. Granted they paid more for JBJ than the team would have liked but forget Mookie already. The man spoke perfectly but it’s clear he was never re-signing. Regardless of where he wanted to play in 21, he was playing it out for free agency until the pandemic changed the world. That said, let’s assume the Sox still have him. How do you finance the rest of the club? Keeping Mookie without other trades also means you still have Price. The team stoke that trade with the Dodgers. They won a short strange season. Sox will be deeper in 22 and beyond than they would be had that trade not happened.
You need to look at the numbers. There is NOTHING wrong with Price except possibly his personality. His stats are still far above average and he would be the #1 SP in Boston if he was here and Sale was on the IL. E-Rod will never be as good as Price was at his peak. Price had legitimate #1 SP numbers when they signed him. Sale has legitimate #1 SP numbers when they re-signed him. E-Rod puts up #3 or #4 SP numbers but fans are so desperate for a star pitcher with Sale out that they are making E-ROD into something his numbers don’t support.
If the 2020 GIVEAWAY never happened things would have played out very differently. Mookie could have brought the Red Sox a good young SP in July rather than a guy with a bad back, a guy who had 12 good games out of 289 in the minors and the Dodgers 5th catcher. Price opted out so the actual cost to Boston would have been far less than expected. The Red Sox would have exceeded the luxury tax by less than $20M so they would have paid $10M in penalties but by not tendering JBJ they could have saved $11M. Pillar could have played CF at a decent price, and god only knows how much less an emotional impact there would have been on guys like JD, Devers, Bogey and Benny. The team without Sale and Price would have still been bad in 2020 but the Mookie situation might have ended differently with the world in a COVID state. Maybe, Mookie forgives any issues with ownership or maybe ownership wakes up and realizes how critical Mookie was to the team and city.
Maybe nothing happens, it’s all speculation at this point. The point is, the team talent level would have been better and ownership might not have paid any additional money in 2020 and 2021 would have had Price, E-Rod, Eovaldi, Perez and Pivetta/Houck without spending $10M on Richards. The outfield wouldn’t have Verdugo but the pitching staff might have had a guy like Ian Anderson, Dustin May or Cal Quantrill. In 2021, Pillar could have taken right field and Duran could have been the new Center Fielder just like DD imagined (the Duran part).
2021 may not have been much better from a win perspective but it would have been far less likely that Boston would win 65 games in 2021. Losing Mookie was never going to lead to successful years. The damage done was always going to take time which is why losing him was a travesty.
See the important point to remember is that NONE OF THIS NEEDED TO HAPPEN. It was forced on Red Sox fans by ownership. That’s the disturbing part to me.. After 20 years of being good owners, they suddenly and inexplicably changed direction like a car taking a hard right off a bridge. The car is sinking now and Bloom can’t seem to open the doors and save the survivors. It will be years before the car is back on the road and speeding along like it was in 2018.
I agree only with respect to ownership. Mookie forced his trade. He got the bucks so good for him. The Dodgers had the payroll flexibility Boston did not have. Price also had injuries during his time in Boston. Outside of 18, he was basically a bust given his cost. He has to redefine himself given the innings in his left arm. The team was built to repeat in 19 and failed miserably. 2020 was always known to be one of big changes due to the tax implications. It’s the loss of international money and draft placement that was important to a farm system that was running dry. In hindsight, once ownership re-inked Sale, Mookie was not coming back.
loole – Mookie didn’t force the trade for money, he knew money would be there wherever he went. Mookie forced the trade for reasons not made public but rumored to be race related.
The Red Sox made so much money over the last two decades you’ll never convince me of poverty suggesting Mookie was too rich for their blood. The Red Sox always have payroll flexibility just like all big market teams making hundreds of millions of dollars. They chose not to use it and LAD did.
Price was first or second in Cy Young voting 3 of the 6 years before he signed his deal in Boston. He never repeated those performances but can we really blame Price alone? Don’t you think it’s odd a guy with such great DeGrom-like credentials stumbles so badly in Boston? Then Sale, another perennial Cy Young candidate comes to Boston and has similar drops in performance? The Red Sox pitching staff sucks. It’s very easy to explain and that explains why highly touted draft choices didn’t blossom either. The only guy who appeared to know what he was doing was Farrell and he had so many issues to deal with he needed to move on but Cora sure as hell wasn’t the answer. The pitching staff plummeted under Cora. To show how bad things are, they rehired the cheater who couldn’t manage and knew nothing about pitching. This is an organization in a severe tailspin.
The failure of 2019 is on Cora. The mishandling of the pitching staff led to many problems along with a couple of key injuries. Cora was the genius that changed Sale’s delivery and created a TJ issue. The TEAM was fine in 2019, the coaching staff sucked. If ownership picks Girardi over Cora the Red Sox might have two rings in the last 3 years but instead they chose an totally unqualified guy who was part of their new diversity plan as announced in the fall he was hired. They absolutely needed to address their issues with diversity but that doesn’t mean hire someone who fits the bill but isn’t qualified. There were plenty of diverse candidates that actually had experience, AND weren’t cheaters.
The Farm System is still vibrant from the DD days. The constant stream of promotions over the last 8 years speaks to how good the farm system is. Nobody should care about ranking of prospects, they should care about the graduation of prospects that add significant value to the team. It started years ago with Bogaerts and hasn’t stopped during the last eight year.
There was no issue with draft picks or international money. Where are you coming up with those concerns? The CBA only talks to that when you exceed $40M over the 1st threshold. Boston came close one year thanks to bad contracts from the previous GM but that was NEVER a danger under DD. $10M in fees was set to happen in 2020 if Mookie was to resign and Price was to stay. That’s less than what they paid JBJ and there were NO consequences to the $228M targeted payroll in 2020 because MONEY was the only thing that came out of the overage. Money that has been banked for 2 decades and is insignificant when compared to the profits. Yes, it’s a lot of money for you or me but not for a team making hundreds of millions of dollars and having the value of it’s franchise rise by billions. There were no financial issues stopping Mookie from signing for $360M to $400M. There were no draft pick issues and there were no international money issues. There were only ownership issues that prompted Mookie to want to leave.
There was also PLENTY of money for both Mookie and Sale. Remember, Sale was on the books at a huge discount his first two years. His average salary whether he got hurt or not was a steal of a deal for a top 5 pitcher. Mookie’s deal is something MANY teams are absorbing in the marketplace today. Teams paid big dollars like that over 20 years ago when AROD got big money, or Pujols, or AROD a second time or Pujols a second time. Now Trout and others are getting it. With all the profits over the last 20 years, Boston could have handled a big payday without a hesitation but they chose not to.
Price will put up healthy Price numbers if he is healthy. It’s just that simple. He probably won’t win a Cy Young but he’s not with the pitching coaches that ruined two superstar pitchers careers so maybe he’ll get some of his form back. If he wins 15 with an ERA in the low 3s I wouldn’t be surprised. He has skills, and now he has good coaches again.
Mookie earned every bit of a $36M a year contract in a shortened 2020. I expect him to do more in 2021, just like he would have in Boston.
Whether it’s technique, a misunderstanding of how to read new metrics or simply bad bio-metrics on delivery, the Red Sox coaching staff has significantly lessened the value of two CY Young type pitchers over the last five years. Someone needs to recognize the problem and completely overhaul the program. Bloom isn’t the star GM he was purported to be. He should have identified the issue immediately and fixed it. Instead, he’s been busy doing what he knows, making insignificant deals for inexpensive players and minor league players other teams have given up on. That’s awesome. Shouldn’t take more than a decade or two to fix the Red Sox at that rate.
Luc, I suspect some of the heaviest trashing may come more from Red Sox fans than Yankee fans. Many Sox fans are not happy with Bloom, but as I noted below, I think they had a sneaky good offseason so that if a couple things break the right way they may be a significant pain to one or both of the Jays or Rays in a Wild Card battle. I do think the Yankees will win the division.
They’re pretty similar in talent to the Cubbies, but just happen to play in a much tougher division.
I’m not sure why NY is being anointed the clear division winner. They really did nothing to improve on a team that barely finished above .500 last year, and if not for their beating up on the pathetic array of starting pitching the Sox had early on en route to a 9-1 record against Boston would have finished under .500 for the year. Boston has at least vastly improved what they were forced to rely on for starters last year, which should improve their overall competitiveness. They won’t have anywhere near the number of games where they give up 3+ runs in the first inning and are playing an uphill battle all game. 2020 was more an aberration than what to expect from the Sox going forward.
Hammerin and King – Interesting thoughts. The Cubbies have WAY more talent than the Red Sox but they are in the NL and have no chance for anything more than a wildcard spot. The Red Sox will be lucky to stay ahead of the Orioles.
The Yankees ALWAYS find a way to have half their team on the IL so projecting them to be #1 would mean next to no injuries. That seems to defy the odds to me. I think both TB and Toronto will push the Yankees and it’s too close to call who wins the division. Should be a 2 to 5 game span across the 3 teams. The Red Sox and Baltimore should finish roughly 20 to 25 games back with 60 to 70 wins.
The Red Sox pitching for 3 months will be a total mismatch because the #1s are all better than E-Rod, the #2s are all better than Eovaldi, #3s may be the best match-up for the Red Sox with Richards if he pitches to his good past but if he doesn’t then make that 3 spots they are at a complete disadvantage from a pitching perspective until Sale returns.
The Red Sox hitting swapped a guy named Betts for a schmuck named Verdugo. Big drop. Renfroe for JBJ? Less defense more power neither makes consistent contact. No more runs generated just more power stats. Gonzalez for Benny? Wash assuming Benny returns from the COVID season and puts up OPS+ numbers between 100 and 123 like he did his first four full seasons. To call it even suggests Benny might perform more like Gonzalez, inconsistently. Other than the cheating year, Gonzalez has less upside than Benny and a lower downside unless 2020 was real for Benny. The only other upgrade on offense in 2021 is Hernandez over Chavis at 2B. That’s not enough to offset the Betts/Verdugo drop-off so less run production and worse pitching is the 2021 future of the Red Sox. They WON’T compete for the post season but they MIGHT compete for the #1 draft pick in 2022!!
Starting pitching never winds up being an exact matchup, and I think you’re short changing E-Rod compared to the rest of the division. The only #1 clearly
better than him is Cole, and even he is susceptible to a bad outing at times. You’re seem to be being heavily influenced in your assessment of Boston based on how pathetic their pitching was last year. They are a vastly different pitching staff all around from then. They’re much closer to TB, Toronto and NY as a team than they are to Baltimore.
kingken67 – I can’t be short changing E-Rod, I’m using actual numbers!
I’m not voicing an opinion that he’s not better than Glasnow or Ryu, I’m comparing their numbers and he’s not even close.
The upgrades in pitching in Boston are ONLY on paper. Richards hasn’t pitched well in years, Pivetta failed in Philly and you are aware that Toronto added Ryu, Chase Anderson, Roark and Yamaguchi? You think that is less than Boston added? Seriously? RYU alone is more than Boston added.
TB lost Snell but their staff still has Glasnow as the new #1 and he’s tons better than E-ROD. They also added Chris Archer, SP, Michael Wacha, SP
Luis Patiño, SP and Rich Hill. That’s way more than Boston added.
I’m not sure what reality you are experiencing but the distance from NYY, TB and TOR got bigger not smaller this off season. The distance between the Red Sox and Baltimore who finished ahead of them might have shrunk a bit. Now both are equally bad. 65 win teams. Whoever wins the 10th game in the 19 game series will finish ahead of the other!!
The Red Sox are a shadow of what they once were. Obvious a rebuild and tanking going on here.
Can Bloom get them back to the promised land?
I don’t think you can go on a full rebuild when you have so many good players. I think they are trying to ramp up their pitchers and hoping for some players to breakout like Cordero and Renfroe. I think they could compete by next year
I hate that so many fans expect to either have a super-team or to be actively tanking. The goal of any organization should be to be competitive every year and to be ready to make a push to get over the top when the opportunity arises. The reality is that they playoffs are a mostly a crap shoot and anyone who gets in could get hot enough to win the Series.
I didn’t say any of that? I said they were in the middle trying to get competitive trying to build up their pitchers and want their new hitters. I think they know they won’t be super competitive so they’re prepping for a push next year. People seem to forget they are 2 years away from a WS.
I didn’t mean to suggest that you were saying that. You were pointing out that the Red Sox aren’t tanking or fully-loaded, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, even though everyone thinks a team either needs to be the Dodgers or the Orioles with nothing in between.
Oh ok, I completely agreed with your statement but it looked directed to me
Yeah it wasn’t clear. Sorry.
Luv – agreed, the Red Sox also needed flexible players who could switch positions so as to not block the prospects who will begin arriving this year. In addition current players like Devers may switch to DH with Dalbec to 3B, so this team employed the flexibility to make changes depending on which players show the most promise.
DD did not pay much attention to the bottom of the 40-man roster and it showed in the lack of depth. Bloom has added 26 player to the 40-man roster, and there are significant upgrades to the that and even as deep as the 60 top prospects. This is how you get a sustainable winner, but it does not happen over night.
No other franchise can match 4 World Series wins in 17 years, but most “fans” do not realize that the RS averaged 80 roster turnover between WS wins. Turnover is necessary and healthy for sports teams to be competitive. In business a working career can span 40 years, whereas a productive mlb athlete the best year can be limited to four or five years more often than not. As a fan I hate seeing “my” team paying huge money for a player who used to be good: Sandoval, Hanley Ramirez, Carl Crawford, and even trades like Allen Craig. I would rather have Bloom “test out” players and see how they do and if it does not work out o well.
“The reality is that they playoffs are a mostly a crap shoot and anyone who gets in could get hot enough to win the Series.”
@ baseballpun;
Don’t agree.
I watched a lot of Royals games in 2014 and 15. It was clear that they were playing the best baseball in the AL. But the national media doesn’t cover small-market teams much – their highlights are primarily K’s, HR’s and eye-popping defensive plays.
The same with the Nationals in 2019. Around June they jelled as a team and were playing the best baseball in the NL – but because they’d had a slow start they could only get into the playoffs as a wild card. Few realized they were that good.
In all 3 cases even people that thought they followed MLB closely either truly believed that the Royals and Nationals “got hot” in the playoffs; or told themselves that because the teams the media was telling them were the real contenders were not as good.
No team gets though 2-3 rounds of playoffs because they “got hot” or in spite of the fact that they have poor pitching depth or a crummy defense.
baseballpun11 hours ago
The goal of any organization should be to be competitive every year
==========================================================
Easier said than done. No matter what you do, someone will finish with the 30th worst record in BB, and 29th worst, etc. If you read some of the writers, you think that all they need to do is to spend more money, and all 30 teams would be above .500.
But it is impossible to be competitive every year.
RS8 – DD shouldn’t have paid too much attention to the bottom of the 40 man roster because the players that win aren’t part of that group. The flawed philosophy of having 40 average and interchangeable players has NEVER worked. The philosophy of have GREAT #1-3 SPs and a GREAT set of starting 8 fielders has worked, MANY TIMES.
Bloom sucks at his job. He has the wrong philosophy and will drive the organization into a change back to a winning approach within 5 years. He will be the GM that couldn’t win in Boston after his predecessors ALL did since 2000!! Great legacy.
The testing philosophy is for losing small market teams not a big market team. He’s embarrassing the fans by showing his lack of comprehension for how to win. The sooner he is gone, the better.
What will be most of interest is how trigger happy Bloom gets at the trade deadline. Do they extend Erod? Move him mid season? Part ways with Evoldi? J D Martinez is guaranteed lots of cash. Just what would he bring in return? Is the goal to compete in 2022?, or if later, perhaps Devers and Bogearts can re- supply the farm. One thing is certain. John Henry hasn’t spoken to the media since the Mookie Betts trade and he’s not talking. They will be tight lipped near term maybe longer. I think John Henry is looking to get his money out and move on to other things.
JD didn’t bring much of a return at all to Detroit before free agency. And he was younger and better then, albeit a rental.
JD is a lot better then Moreland, Workman, Hembree, and Pillar. Trading them brought back 4 top 24 prospects. JD will likely not opt-out so if the RS send $ with JD they are like to get a decent return.
I think it is more likely that if Richards and Eovaldi pitch respectably that they would get flipped for prospects before core players like Devers and Bogaerts.
The guy after DD in Detroit was an idiot. He squandered MANY, MANY opportunities and fans re=wrote history as if it was DD’s fault. It’s just like what Bloom is doing. He pissed away Mookie and Price and Benny. He is the same level of disaster that hit Detroit. A GM without a clue on how to get value for his assets. Rebuilds happen when GMs know how to move product for higher value not lesser value.
Bloom will run the organization into the ground just as much as the Tigers were driven into obscurity. Bloom needs to go now before the hole he is digging gets too great to recover from.
I don’t think they are tanking, as they haven’t sold off all their tradeable assets. However, I think it’s clear that the Red Sox are on a rebuild.
They are not tanking. They won’t make the playoffs but will be much more competitive than last season and have a lot of good, young players on the roster. Once old money comes off at the end of the season, they will ramp up into playoff contenders.
@jimmer
How does one “Tank” with a $200,000,000 payroll? Poorly?
to be fair, teams usually tank because of poor payroll allocation
stymeedone – By doing what Bloom is doing is how one tanks with a $200M payroll.
Next year Pedroia’s money drops off. That’s not going to provide cap space to get a big name. Whether you want to call it tanking or stalling, Bloom and Ownership are buying time with promises of a bright future and no additional money spent. Yes, there is a sunk cost of $200M at this point and Bloom has proven he doesn’t have the skills to move big contracts along with other assets to clear cap space. He DOES, however, know how to GIVE AWAY players but he has no dealing skills and know how to move unfavorable contracts. Thus, they must sit on the money they owe through 2022, which was spent by DD to win championships until then. Ownership trashed the DD plan and told the fans they are re-tooling not rebuilding. The problem is they haven’t acquired any now tools. Unless you are thinking about the slang meaning for tools and realize the two tools they have are Bloom and Cora.
Ownership hit the pause button. Is it a form of tanking? Maybe. Is it pure ignorance for a big market team? Absolutely. Will great draft picks be in their future? Absolutely. The minute they finalized the Betts/Price deal the next five years were destroyed. 2023 will be the first year with real money to spend if ownership decides they want to. Will the farm system be fixed by then? NO because it was never broken. Several guys who were in the farm system before Bloom arrived will graduate by 2023 making the team more viable but until a replacement for Mookie and for Price is acquired, the Red Sox are like any small to mid size market team from a talent standpoint.
The best Red Sox players today without Mookie and Price are:
1 – Sale
2 – Bogaerts
3 – Devers
In 2018 the list was:
1 -Betts
2 – Sale
3 – JD
4 – Bogaerts
5 – Price
6 – Devers
7 – Benny
Nobody is afraid of a team with 3 stars. Teams with 3 stars win 65 games.
Tanking can simply be stupidity in disguise. The Red Sox are guilty of enormous stupidity since firing DD so it may appear to be tanking to those who don’t follow the organization closely.
I would say C+. Hopefully some good pieces to trade at the deadline, and at least the team will be better to watch then the Matt Hall experience was last year!
Why has no one signed Rusney to at least a minor league deal ?? He has to be better than a 25th man somewhere?
he signed in the NPB
The Red Sox plan remains unclear – C.
yeah basically what my thinking was.
If Sale and Rodriguez come back healthy this season they very well could fight for 3rd place with the Rays/Jays. Octavino was definitely a steal for them no reason why he can’t close. BoSox offense is still legit. 75-87 finish is likely.
Agreed, although I had em 75-90. This will be a fun year unlike last year. Just happy to see a real season of baseball. Go Sox
They’re going to play 3 extra games?
Boston Bob must think the Red Sox will play in the playoffs with those 3 extra games….lol
A steal? For 9 million they couldn’t have signed better relievers?
Can’t wait to see Duran up and playing regularly for the Sox. Kids gonna be a stud
I still maintain that the Red Sox had a solid offseason. Couple in they underperformed some last year, and I think they’ll be better than many believe. I don’t rule out a Wild Card run at all. They should strengthen as the season progresses and Sale returns.
I gave it a D. I can see why some people gave it higher grades due to looking for items to trade. The D may not be fair due to the salary cap.
The Red Sox are doing what the Yankees did a few years ago. They are clearing bad contracts and trying to rebuild the farm system.
They couldn’t spend any big bucks on anyone because they were fairly tight on the cap. Their best trade chips are part of their future so it wasn’t like they could make a splash there.
I questions the Benintendi trade. I don’t see the value there, especially with how cheap his contract was.
This is the Dombrowski price. At least we won a title unlike the poor Tigers.
Goose – That’s weak crap you are spouting. DD has NOTHING to do with the Bloom disaster. The team Bloom inherited was FAR greater than the team today. That’s not on DD. By the way, try using some facts not media bs when talking about the Red Sox farm system.
The Red Sox Farm System OUTPERFORMED the Dodgers in the 2010s under DD’s and Cherington’s watch. Name another team that graduated all but their DH from their farm system and won a ring? Vazquez, Devers, Bogaerts, Peddy, Chavis, Betts, JBJ and Benny all came up after 2013 from that rotten farm system you are insulting. A complete lack of knowledge of a subject needs to be tempered with some discretion as to what you write. Your facts are so far off it’s embarrassing.
DD was the solution and Bloom is the problem. Get your facts straight. You don’t get a ring for finishing 4th to last. Bloom is and will continue to be a disaster for the Red Sox. A bad philosophy can set back an organization for a decade. Ask the Yankees. No wins over a decade but consistently a bridesmaid. Is that really what you want for the Red Sox?
This will be my 58th season following the Red Sox since Y A Z won his first batting average title in 1963 and convinced me to be a Red Sox fan. Most of their seasons have looked like this one coming up. Good team but not a great team. I’ll hang in with them but I’m not expecting anything. More, I’m looking for what some of the youngsters have to offer and what kind of pitching staff evolves. I’m more excited about getting vaccinated than watching baseball. Priorities.
Excited to get vaccinated? Wow. People just amaze me.
Can people not be excited to get one? Especially people risky conditions. Who are you judging people? If you don’t want one idc. You are so ignorant
Oh, he’s judging people because he’s an idiot, but he thinks he’s smarter than everyone because that’s what Alex Jones or Q or whoever has been telling him.
You are the most annoying troll on this board
Hope you do not end up like 1 of the 1000 people who have died from the vaccine…
Good luck with that
whyhayzee – Great commentary. I’ve got four years on you from a fandom standpoint and like you I want to see Dalbec flourish, I want to see Duran get a chance to prove his skills, Houck and Pivetta need to get their chance. This year like last year simply is a throw-away that is a direct result of the Mookie/Price mistake. Next year will be too but during the 3 to 5 years of recovery from the Mookie/Price mistake there will be a group of young players getting their chance and that’s interesting.
What’s not interesting to me is seeing Devers make another 24 errors and another dozen not counted errors at 3B. What’s not interesting to me is seeing a cheater in the dugout because it speaks volumes to the ownership’s lack of integrity, especially in light of the likelihood of racism driving away Mookie. These are embarrassing times for older Red Sox fans. The team stunk in our initial years but it had integrity and it had some excellent new talent in Yaz, Tony C and others. I’m hoping to salvage the next several years by seeing an influx of talent graduate to the majors from that miserable farm system like their predecessors. That’s something to look forward to.
I can sum up the Sawx offseason in one word: Meh.
Comments closed for the “Indians Owner Paul Dolan On Team Name, Lindor, Francona” article. This site cracks me up sometimes.
Comments here are like drinking the water from a brook in your back yard. Yes, it’s water, but it’s probably got a lot of bad stuff in it, too. Best to just stay hydrated from other sources.
My only comment regards the fact that teams can change the name of their stadium in a heartbeat but somehow it takes years to come up with a new name for their team.
Reminds me of the comedy of writing a mission statement in the corporate world. “To make money.” OK, that’s done, now what? You didn’t spend enough time on it. “To make more money.” That’s much better. Good work.
To be fair, the stadium name is a corporate sponsor that the already named business gives them permission to use. The problem with a team name is people own the patents to every name so in order to change your name to that name you actually have to purchase the rights to it from the person who owns it. It’s actually harder than it seems.
I totally understand what you’re saying. It’s just that I’ve worked for two companies that changed names and they hired an expensive consultant and wound up with something in a reasonable amount of time. Both names were kind of lame but they flew. I believe that if they put their efforts towards a new name they could get it done.
This off season is the beginning of a rebuild. We will be able to judge it in 2022-23.
You should do a show called The Prisoner.
Boston is the sleeper team. Their entire season rides on numerous bounce back seasons. That’s never a good sign. Their bats give them a fighting chance.
How is that different from NY who is counting on bounce back seasons from Kluber, Taillon, Sanchez, Judge, etc.
One team made the playoffs last year with numerous injuries and the other finished last in the division. Did you really ask this question or is this just a fun joke?
NY made the playoffs last year because MLB expanded the playoff field. If they had been playing under the normal playoff rules, like they will have this season, they would have been on the outside looking in because the 5 playoff teams from the AL would have been the Rays, Twins, and A’s as division winners and the White Sox and Indians as the wild card teams. And the only reason NY was even that good as to miss the normal playoff by 2 wins was because they went 9-1 against Boston and the pathetic array of pitching they had after losing Sale and Rodriguez unexpectedly. If NY was merely .500 vs Boston they would have finished below .500. Also, why does NY get benefit of the doubt because of all their injuries but Boston simply sucked despite all their injuries?
Discount then if you want to but the Sox, Rays, Jays and Yankees are all relatively even coming into this season. Each team had positives and flaws, and how they all fare depends on how well some players with question marks from last year play for them.
It’s not a popular opinion, but I agree. After a 16-6 start, the NYY were an under-.500 team. After a 6-18 start, the RS were > .500. All three teams are a good bit less than bulletproof.
KingKen – Red Sox finished last. Period. Your diatribe response wasn’t necessary. Nothing you said changes the fact the Red Sox were in last place. You bringing up the “yeah but the Yankees…” excuse does not fly. Red Sox were in last and my original comment was fair and accurate.
Last year was not normal. Get over it.
Yeah, that was LAST year. This is a vastly different Sox team from a year ago. They’ve gone from last to first twice in the past decade. Doing it again wouldn’t be a shock.
It’s not a question of “will” they come back; it’s a question of “when”. Leaving aside that, with their revenues, they should NEVER, EVER be out of it, going cheap(er) this year is obviously a business decision. Dress it up any way you want, this is a faceless team, with very little entertainment value. And, unless the stars align in a very narrow way, they’re not competitive.
They’re not as bad as some think, but saying they’re in the same tier as the Yanks is just silly. The AL East is far from the monolith it used to be, so it’s possible they can contend.
But not real likely.
As the offseason began, and even through most of it, I felt like the Sox warranted a C or even D. But taking the moves as a whole, and seeing how they are performing in the spring (I know these games are meaningless, but it does give us a look at the new players), it garners a B. I agree with the majority of projections, predicting Sox to grab a WC spot. I tend to be a critical Sox fan, but this is a very solid team that may well finish 2nd in the East (TB and Toronto both seem overrated).
Majority of projections picking the Red Sox for a WC.?? Do tell which might those be?
Most projections have them 80-82 wins.
Sox fan here and gave them an A. Bloom did an exceptional job at adding depth and accumulating value on the margins while not getting saddled by any FA contracts in a weaker class. Once there’s more payroll flexibility, then you can talk about bigger additions. A lot of fans are still just upset about Bloom (being forced by ownership) to trade Mookie. The goal is to build a sustainable pipeline and contender while we still have some bad contracts.
A $53 million payroll? The movie comes to life in Cleveland. You might say they scalped the payroll.
I gave it a B. I think there are less moving parts here than folks think. I always liked Renfroe, and he could be awesome in Fenway. He got Hernandez for two players he was going to have to cut. And this kid Whitlock looks like the real thing.
The rest of the moves look like they were about market-priced. But the first three moves merit a pretty good grade.
JoeBrady – Let me ask, was Mookie a good move by Bloom? Or is it simply one he had no say in? If we put aside the worst move in 100 years, do you see ONE impactful move on the list at the beginning of the article?
Nice things can be said about many of the guys acquired or released but was ANYONE other than the #2 player in baseball or David Price of consequential value? Impact players?
My view is NO. Not one impact player gained and 2 lost. One of the two lost is not just an impact player but a profoundly impactful player unlike almost anyone else in baseball.
The impact of that one player has yet to be replaced.
The impact of Price not being in the rotation has yet to be replaced.
If the bleeding is less by wrapping the team in a universal utility player bandage that’s great. But to grade a GM on finding a utility player bandage and a few hopeful prospects when the team is hemorrhaging wins due to the Mookie/Price deal is that GM really being effective?
I say NO. His grade is an F for failure. No impact players to offset the loss of impact players. Has Bloom done anything you or I couldn’t have done except part with Mookie? Nope. He’s doing exactly what Friedman did in LA, he’s sitting on his hands picking up minor deals and watching the previous GMs minor league players graduate to the majors to sustain the team. The difference is Friedman didn’t throw away Kershaw and Turner to start his job in LA so he sat on top of a franchise that could win 90+ games with him doing nothing. Bloom doesn’t have that luxury thanks to his Betts/Price move. Now he gets to sit on a 65 win team and hope that the internal growth that would have happened anyway takes place sooner rather than later. Once Sale is back it will appear that the team improved and I’m sure Bloom supporters will suggest it’s from him but it’s not. Just like Houck is not a Bloom add, nor Dalbec nor Duran in the future.
Bloom added to the team – Hernandez to play 2B, Gonzalez to replace the better player Benny, Renfroe to replace JBJ which to me is a wash (power for defense). Neither players was that good.
Bloom got Richards and is paying $16M a year to replace Price. He got Perez last year and he’s a solid bottom of the rotation guy. He got Ottavino for when Barnes fails. None of these moves are building for a future, they are all minimizing current damage.
The building for the future is the graduation of the rotten farm system that just keeps producing quality young players like Bogaerts, Betts, Devers, Vazquez, Chavis, Dalbec and hopefully Duran. Bloom has nothing to do with the improvement of the team in the future. Yes, Pivetta looks to be a nice add if he pans out and there are a few others but will any of them be bigger than Houck, Duran and others who were there before he arrived? I don’t think so. Not based on deals so far.
See Bloom hasn’t changed the core of the team except he lost the #1 hitter and #2 pitcher and added a bunch of generic filler players and a few prospects that may or may not pan out.. Until the impact players are added the Red Sox will limp along like in 2020.
He clearly has earned an F by not doing anything impactful in a year and a half.
In answer to the only legitimate point you make. Yes, getting rid of Mookie was a good move since Mookie refused to sign a long term deal with Boston. That’s reality, not the fantasy world you live in. And, Bloom got an excellent return for him.
The only thing graded F around here is your lack of understanding about Bloom’s off-season.
PKcasimir = Hey Einstein, Mookie refused to sign. Tell me why? It wasn’t the money because Boston had hundreds of millions of dollars profits in recent years so they had the money and could have paid it without a second thought. You believe Mookie refused money? Then tell me why?
LAD didn’t pay him more than the market rate which he asked for. WHY? Why would Mookie want out? Are you that ignorant? Every time you write an opinion it’s just hate speak because you are ignorant. I don’t live in a fantasy world. I simply like to discuss topics with intelligent baseball fans, so that does not include you.
Here’s my view, in no particular order.
1-I don’t think it was a matter if whether or not he was ordered to trade Betts. Betts was leaving. I’d go so far as to suggest it is possible that Betts even told them that he was leaving, and that they make the best deal possible.
2-Well before the trade was finalized, my opinion was two-fold. The first was that, straight-up, a minimum-wage Verdugo was a better value than a $30M Betts. The second was that we should get more than Verdugo, which we did. It is also helpful that I was already a Downs fan.
3-IRT Price, I was an agnostic. At the $15M net cost, he seems reasonable. But, if we had an extra $15M, I’d bet that LA would trade him for no return.
4-As for an overall grade, Bloom has none. I’ve been saying this forever: it is almost impossible to grade a GM prior to having 5 years on the job. As I’ve said, I like most of the moves, but no one knows how they will work out. At his point, we barely have one complete ST to judge these players.
But that said, I fully expect .500+ this year.
JoeBrady – I get it. You don’t want to discuss the racial issues related to Mookie leaving. I’m ok with that. Betts was leaving as you said over a year ago. Whether you guessed it or simply knew of the issues is not clear but you stated that he wanted out and you were right.
The actual deal will always be a bust for Boston. Verdugo, Downs and Wong will provide next to no value for the MLB team. Verdugo will spend his controlled years on a team winning 65 games. Downs won’t ever make the starting line-up in the majors until he learns to hit AA pitching. Wong was the Dodgers 5th catcher and may someday get promoted to back-up Vazquez. How much value is that to the Red Sox organization?
Starting Pitching was the need last January and we got an outfielder with a bad back, a middle infielder who shined in 12 of 289 games in the minors and a back-up catcher that at best will be a Sandy Leon type player. They got Mookie for one year and David Price for 3 years (which got reduced to 2 years by COVID). They came out so far ahead it can’t be measured in anything but RINGS. They got one, the Red Sox won’t see one for years. That’s what each team plays for so how you can think the Red Sox got the better end of the deal is beyond me.
Point 4 – You do realize DD won a ring and didn’t make it to 5 years, right? Your review period isn’t practical. You also have to detail accomplishments to evaluate a GM. Everyone loves Friedman but he did very little except watch the minor league players grow into major league players and all but Buehler came from his predecessors. Bloom, he’s made no significant impact so far. Every fan hopes you are right that he will, we simply don’t have your patience since ownership tried to fix something that wasn’t broken.
KD171 day ago
JoeBrady – I get it. You don’t want to discuss the racial issues related to Mookie leaving. I’m ok with that.
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1-I’ve never said anything about racial issues. If you’d like to discuss racial issues, please feel free to do so. I have an opinion about everything, and don’t mind sharing those opinions.
2-If you were really ‘ok with that’, you would not have raised the issue. You sound like one of those people that say ‘it doesn’t bother me at all’, and then go on for 30 minutes talking about what it is that they think doesn’t bother them.
Since you feel compelled to bring race into it, go ahead. I’d be interested in hearing what your thoughts are, and how they relate to Mookie.
JoeBrady – My opinion is that Mookie felt the owners behaved in a racist manner with regard to some minority players. I also think they told him they expected a home town discount and he said no or his agent said it for him. I don’t believe he wanted to stay because he didn’t like the things that were happening with the team.
I think the move away from DD who forced ownership to belly up to bar to compete impacted his desire to stay. I think he’s highly competitive and viewed the GM change as a step in the wrong direction or maybe he simply saw it as the hand writing on the wall with respect to the ownership’s position with him. Either way, I don’t believe money was the issue I believe he witnessed lots of diversity issues within the Red Sox organization. I think he witnessed the way Cora cheated and took issue with it but never crossed the line and told on him. I think he knew ownership was aware of what Cora was doing but agreed to leave quietly so ownership could save face. I think he didn’t want to be associated with the type organization that shows racial bias, condones cheating and expects it’s players to take home town discounts yet makes hundreds of millions of profits each year. That’s not a player friendly environment. I think there were lots of places he could have landed and been happy. I think LA was the choice because of the Friedman/Bloom connection and their willingness to take Price at an enormous discount.
I don’t think he left for the limelight of LA. I don’t think he wanted to uproot his family but in the end he felt it was best for them. I think he’s a strong individual willing to stand up to ownership because he truly did have the leverage that others don’t have. I hate that people are angry with him without knowing what was behind the decision and I don’t think he is the type of person to let it slip out. I think people close to him have shared some of the issues but we’ll never know all the issues and that’s probably good for baseball but it’s terrible for transparency with fans.
That’s what I think.
Also, when I stated it was ok that you didn’t want to voice your opinion I was being sincere. My goal was not to bait you into a racial discussion. I was actually curious why you thought Mookie wanted out because you were one of the first to say it and I found it incredibly hard to believe that he would want out with all that appeared to be right about the situation from his charities, community service and his team mates including past team mates..
Your early belief that he wanted out intrigued me. I was curious what drove you to your conclusions. If it wasn’t racial issues, then why would the face of the franchise WANT to leave? It wasn’t more money because Boston has plenty of money and could have paid him. What was the factor that convinced you HE wanted out not that ownership didn’t want him?
1-I think you are making a lot of assumptions. No one knows why Mookie wanted to leave. That said, it appears to me like Boston is not quite as ‘accepting’ as many other cities.
2-The factor that convinced me he wanted out was the nature of the negotiations. He never gave a single hint that he wanted to stay. Most players say they want to sign an extension, even if they don’t. Some, like Lester, scream out that they want to stay. I never heard anything from Betts. The one thing I heard was that he’d sign for $420M. This is the same thing that the RS have done with Bay & Pedro-offer just enough that they would turn it down, and give the impression that RS were trying to re-sign them.
In addition, it took only 6 months for him to sign with LA, after endless discussions with the RS, and for less that the RS offered.. It looked to me like there might have been discussions prior to the trade, and endorsed by the RS. The more likely LA is to extend him, the better the return for the RS.
3-Past that, it makes no difference to me why he wanted to leave, so I don’t really put much thought into it. From my perspective, whether he thought Boston was a racist town, or the RS too cheap, or the winters too cold, or if he just wanted a change of location, it doesn’t matter.
My only concern was and is, if someone doesn’t want to be here, let’s get the best return possible. Letting him play out, and getting a 4th round pick, instead of Verdugo, Downs & Wong, would’ve been a disaster.
The worst possible moves in BB often are teams keeping guys like Donaldson and/or Machado too long, and minimal returns for them.
Joe – Thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading your response.
My assumptions that you mention at the beginning of your response are more rumors than pure assumptions created by me. I don’t live in Boston but I know people who are closer to the rumors about the club than I am and it’s always interesting to hear what the scuttlebutt is about the team. I’m sure you probably know people as well and that’s why I asked.
As far as the LAD money being less than what the Red Sox offered, that’s simply not true. The $65M bonus to his 2020 contract transferred from the Red Sox ($27M) and then the new contract with an AAV of $30.4 totals to lots more than the Red Sox offered him. In fact, thanks to the time value of money, the up front $65M makes the Net Present Value higher than several other 10 to 13 year contracts that have higher AAVs. Mookie didn’t take a discount, he took an extremely fair contract that sits right where the second best player in baseball should be paid. Good for him and his family.
Your perspective on Boston (the City) being less accepting rather than ownership being less accepting is an interesting one. I’ve never heard Mookie or any of those close to him complain about the city, only the ownership. I also find it hard to believe weather had anything to do with it since every geography has pros and cons and snow versus earthquakes and extreme smog seems like a trade=0ff in favor of Boston. San Diego has better weather but still has earthquakes. Atlanta has brutal humidity but no earthquakes. It seems like of all the contenders that would have wanted Mookie and could have afforded him, LAD was just one of several and all have different geographical advantages and disadvantages. I think the culture of the organization might have been a bigger factor in Mookie’s decision to sign long-term with LAD rather than weather.
Baltimore as a team that wasn’t terribly competitive should have expected Manny to want to leave and planned better for it. Boston was winning so there shouldn’t have been an expectation for the face of the franchise to leave. I don’t believe he would have left if DD hadn’t been fired because that made a bad situation worse. The Red Sox went from a non diversity oriented club to a non-diversity oriented club that wasn’t going to be competitive with a small market GM. That had to help in swaying the decision to leave.
Asking for fair market value should never be looked at as a selfish demand of any employee whether they are going to make millions or thousands. Mookie did the right thing for his family and I’m glad it’s worked out well for him. The Red Sox ownership dodged a big bullet by diverting public attention away from their diversity issues. Their marketing team has done a great job pretending the issues are in the past by hiring a black female coach and an under qualified minority manager who was convicted of cheating and fired from the team a year earlier.
The public seems to have given ownership a pass on their racism except for people like me. Ownership is now the worst part of the Red Sox organization along with Cora. Neither has integrity and that’s an issue I can’t get past. So I’m going to wait and see if things can improve in the future when Bloom is gone, Cora is gone and hopefully ownership sells to others with far less human interaction issues and far more empathy for the fans in an age where ticket prices have all but pushed the common man/woman out of being able to watch a game with his/her family. That type of ownership along with a willingness to compete with the Yankees from a spending perspective since the profits are so high would be my new ideal owners.
Asking for fair market value should never be looked at as a selfish demand of any employee whether they are going to make millions or thousands.
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I have no issue with Betts leaving, and it makes not a whit of difference to me why he left. He has to do what’s best for him and his family, and the RS have to do what’s best for the organization.
Sometimes a guy like Pedro will come in and love the place. Sometimes a guy like Betts will come in and decide he likes it better elsewhere.
And I don’t think it makes as much difference as some people think. Free agents generally look like good deals for couple of years. And five years later, the same fans that loved the deal, will be blaming the GM for signing them. That is just the history of free agents.
Lets call a spade a spade. The owners hired DD several years ago and gave him the cheque for the sole purpose of winning the W/S and being consistent contenders. They knew they were going to over the luxury but that was the cost of doing business, DD had done the same things with every club he ran.
They also knew that they couldn;t sustain that payroll because their stars were either getting older and losing a step or two, ie Pedroia, Price, Moreland. Others were becoming free agents and would be asking big money, Betts, and Bradley. Sales has been injury prone always a better first half then a second, Evoldi has been average. So DD is gone, they dump Betts, let Bradley go Pedroia retires, they deal Bennidenti, leaving them with a less then average team compared to what the fans are use to. Bloom is in year 2 and really hasn’t done much but then those purse strings are pulled tight, I’m sure if they could find a taker for their DH/RF they’d jump at the chance to get out from under that contract. Cora who shouldn’t even be in MLB is going to have to manage and be squeaky clean doing it, he’ll be under a microscope.
By the time Boston is ready to make another run Bloom . Cora, Sale, Evoldi will be long gone.
ketticknotz – Outstanding commentary. Spot on with what happened. DD didn’t create the large payroll, he simply refused to not spend close to the cap for players in the year he was GM. Historical mistakes were on ownership and DD had the backbone to tell them that. The 2018 payroll from DD was well under the cap. Even after they signed Sale they were positioned to take two years to address the issues of paying Mookie and keeping him, moving JD’s big contract, moving Eovaldi’s big contract and either moving Bogey’s big contract or removing the opt out so a future team could be planned. The Price contract was planned for and reflected the value he had when it was signed. Moving Price’s contract would have been nice but wasn’t necessary.
Instead, ownership simply pulled the plug and drained the water from the tub along with the baby. Today, the tub is empty with a soiled ring around it that I like to call Cora. Hopefully soon the team will get some Clorox disinfecting wipes and clean the stain and start over using the remnants of DD farm system and some newly available money in 2023. Devers at DH, Vazquez, Dalbec, Casas, Bogey, Duran takes care of 6 out of 9 spots, none from Bloom. Sale, Houck, Mata takes care of 3 of 5 spots, again, none from Bloom. D. Hernandez and Taylor gives you a closer and set-up man. none from Bloom.. DD’s future team would have been great if only Mookie and Price hadn’t been tossed in the garbage to avoid the humiliation ownership would have felt if Mookie actually discussed the diversity issues publicly.