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Red Sox Notes: Dalbec, Perez

By TC Zencka | February 29, 2020 at 12:02pm CDT

The identity of the Boston Red Sox is unclear now that Mookie Betts and David Price play for a different organization. The trickle down effect of losing a bat like Betts from a lineup will certainly affect the other Boston position players, but they still have a talented group of players on hand, starting with corner outfielders Andrew Benintendi and Alex Verdugo. If that sweet-swinging pair can take their games to the next level, the Red Sox should once again roster an above-average offense in 2020. Believe it or not, the Red Sox were fourth in the majors in runs scored last season, so even without Betts, they could surprise some people. Let’s check in on some camp battles worth watching in Red Sox territory…

  • Bobby Dalbec won’t be on the opening day roster, per Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com. Dalbec turns 25 this June, so it’s entirely likely he’ll be ready for major league action at some point this season. With Rafael Devers and Michael Chavis already on the roster, Dalbec is blocked at his natural position of third base. He has taken some reps at first base the last couple of seasons, which could pave the way for a 2020 debut. Mitch Moreland has his foot on the bag for now, with Chavis potentially sliding over from second against tough lefties. Even so, with the Red Sox holding a club option for Moreland in 2021 and a long history of just adequate offensive production, Moreland is hardly a monolith at first. With the expectation of making the opening day roster apparently dashed, Dalbec can focus in on the larger task at hand – putting himself in a position to usurp a roster spot at some point during the 2020 season. 
  • Martin Perez was courted this offseason by both the Rays and Red Sox, ultimately signing with the Red Sox on a one-year, $6MM deal just before Christmas. Perez, a client of OL Baseball Group LLC, felt strongly about joining the Red Sox, even going so far as to tell his agent that even if the Rays offered more money, he preferred signing in Boston, per The Athletic’s Chad Jennings. Perez’s most recent body of work hardly suggest he’s worthy of a bidding war – bidding skirmish, say – but Jennings provides an insightful quote from Red Sox Chief Baseball Officer Chaim Bloom, who says of Perez, “Basically, we felt two things. One, the stuff and the underlying way in which he pitched deserved better results than he got. And two, that there were further tweaks we could help him make to his repertoire to make him even more effective.” 
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Boston Red Sox Notes Tampa Bay Rays Alex Verdugo Andrew Benintendi Bobby Dalbec Camp Battles Chaim Bloom David Price Martin Perez Michael Chavis Mitch Moreland Mookie Betts Rafael Devers

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Who Else Could The Red Sox Target In Trades?

By Steve Adams | February 28, 2020 at 1:43pm CDT

When Wil Myers’ name surfaced in trade rumblings surrounding the Padres, Red Sox and Mookie Betts, it seemed like a fairly straightforward thought process. The Padres wanted to acquire a star (Betts), had been seeking to jettison some of Myers’ contract and didn’t want to pay both Myers’ $20MM salary and Betts’ $27MM salary. But when the Myers-to-Red Sox rumors reemerged even after Betts had been traded to the Dodgers, that was more surprising. Eventually, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reported that the Sox’ aim in those talks was to use some of their newfound payroll space and luxury tax breathing room to effectively purchase some young pitching from the Padres. The basic premise: take on half of Myers’ contract and also acquire a pitcher such as Cal Quantrill to immediately plug into the mix at the MLB level. However, per Speier, there’s not much optimism at the moment that such a deal will come together.

But does that mean the Red Sox should abandon the strategy entirely? Well, why would they? There are dozens of undesirable contracts throughout MLB, and many clubs on the hook for those deals have pitching talent with which they could conceivably part.

However, it’s not as simple as just picking out a big-time contract and saying, “Let’s dump this on the Red Sox along with [Player X]!” Myers’ contract was something of an ideal fit for the Sox. The Padres aggressively backloaded his six-year, $83MM deal to the point that Myers earned only $7MM in salaries from 2017-19 (in addition to a weighty $15MM signing bonus). That’s notable for the Red Sox because they’re still “only” about $12-13MM shy of the luxury barrier. Taking on a bad contract with a $20MM+ annual salary over its full term — the relevant data point from a competitive balance tax perspective — would put them right back into the tax territory that ownership insisted on escaping erm, was … happy to escape as an ancillary benefit of building a competitive window … or however they choose to try to spin it.

Myers came with a $13.8MM luxury hit — and the cash the Padres would’ve included in the deal (a reported $30MM or so) would’ve essentially dropped Boston’s luxury obligation to $3.8MM. That’s an ideal balance of flexing the club’s deep pockets without running the risk of even approaching the luxury barrier. It’s easy to suggest Albert Pujols ($24MM AAV), Justin Upton ($23MM), Jason Heyward ($23MM), Chris Davis ($23MM), Matt Carpenter ($18.5MM) and plenty of others as a plausible fit, but Myers presented Boston with the rare opportunity to absorb half of a player’s remaining contract (and more than 36 percent of the total value) while only increasing their luxury payroll by about 1.9 percent. That’s not going to be the case with such high-AAV players.

Arrangements like the Myers deal are tough to find. Myers may well have been the single best target for this prospect-purchasing gambit — but he’s not the only one. Let’s take a speculative look at who else the Red Sox could inquire on in an effort to pursue a similar template but with a different trade focal point:

Rougned Odor, Rangers, 2B (three years, $36MM remaining on six-year, $49.5MM deal)

Odor’s contract only comes with an $8.25MM luxury hit in the first place, which the Red Sox could fit into their current budget even if Texas doesn’t include any cash. Add in even a few million dollars from the Rangers, and the Sox would be well shy of running into the threshold. To say the Odor extension hasn’t worked out for the Rangers would be putting things mildly; he’s hit .219/.285/.419 since putting pen to paper three years ago, and the bulk of the guarantee is yet to be paid out

The Rangers aren’t really maxed out in terms of payroll, but they’re also looking at playing one of the game’s top second base prospects in center field — surely in part due to Odor’s presence on the roster. Texas also added three starters with multiple years of control this winter (Corey Kluber, Kyle Gibson, Jordan Lyles), making it easier to absorb the blow of trading a big-league-ready arm. Maybe they wouldn’t be keen on using Kolby Allard (or someone similar) to rid themselves of the Odor contract, but if you’re the Red Sox, that’s an avenue to explore. It’s not like second base is a position of great certainty in Boston at the moment, anyhow.

Kyle Seager, Mariners, 3B (two years, $37MM remaining on seven-year, $100MM deal*)

The asterisk next to Odor’s name is necessitated by his contract’s “poison pill” — i.e. a $15MM club option that turns into a player option in the event of a trade. He’s at two years and $37MM only while donning a Mariners jersey; the moment he’s traded, that effectively becomes three years and $52MM. That wrinkle wouldn’t immediately impact his luxury tax hit though (and only minimally impacts it if/when he does trigger the option, as the current mark is $14.29MM).

The Red Sox are set at third base with Rafael Devers, but this type of trade isn’t really about positional need (and Seager could perhaps work at second base anyhow). The Mariners’ rebuild/”reimagining”/whatever they prefer to call it is nearing the point where GM Jerry Dipoto is going to want to supplement his emerging core with free agent acquisitions. Dropping a notable portion of the $19MM owed to Seager in 2020 and, perhaps more importantly, the $18MM owed to him in 2021 will aid in that effort.

Dee Gordon, Mariners, 2B/OF (one year, $14.5MM remaining on five-year, $50MM deal)

Same concept as Seager but with slightly different details. Gordon is a man without a position in Seattle and a free agent at season’s end. Gordon’s deal comes with a $10MM luxury hit that the Sox could shoehorn into their ledger without going over the barrier, but they’d have minimal breathing room. Gordon could step in as the primary second baseman with Dustin Pedroia on the shelf, pushing Jose Peraza to a more familiar utility role. And the Mariners would surely love to use that roster spot to get a look at a younger player while saving $14MM to spend on supplementing their core.

Randal Grichuk, Blue Jays, OF (four years, $43MM remaining on five-year, $52MM deal)

It’s hard not to wonder if the Jays would like a mulligan on last spring’s extension after Grichuk slashed .232/.280/.457 in 2019, effectively playing at replacement level. Then again, the Grichuk deal was a head-scratching move for most onlookers (myself included), as he didn’t appear to be a clear extension candidate. That 2019 slash looks awfully similar to Grichuk’s combined production from 2016-18 (.241/.292/.485), so perhaps the Jays are content with what he’s bringing to the table… but $43MM over the next four seasons nonetheless feels quite steep.

If the Jays are indeed looking for a way to back out of the deal, the organization is teeming with usable but unspectacular arms in the upper minors as it awaits the rise of higher-end prospects. The Sox aren’t getting Nate Pearson or anyone close to that caliber out of this deal, but paying a good chunk Grichuk’s deal in an effort to acquire a controllable fourth/fifth starter would be plenty defensible.

Ian Desmond, Rockies, INF/OF (two years, $26MM remaining on five-year, $70MM deal)

The Desmond deal has been a bust for the Rockies, who no longer even have a clear place to play one of their most highly compensated players. Charlie Blackmon, David Dahl, Raimel Tapia and Sam Hilliard are all more deserving of looks in the outfield. Garrett Hampson, Brendan Rodgers and Ryan McMahon are in the mix at second base. McMahon could also play first, where the Rockies have another underperforming veteran in Daniel Murphy (though he’s only signed through 2020).

Colorado owner Dick Monfort opened the season by declaring a lack of payroll flexibility (and, after a winter of inactivity, bizarrely proclaimed that the same Rockies club that lost 91 games in 2019 would win 94 games in 2020). The Rockies aren’t exactly teeming with high-end pitching talent — hence the 91 losses in 2019 — but they have seven or eight starters on the 40-man roster and in Triple-A behind German Marquez, Jon Gray and Kyle Freeland. This type of trade doesn’t really feel like Colorado’s style — in general, the Rockies aren’t highly active on the trade market — but if the Sox are interested in one of those back-of-the-rotation arms, it’s not hard to see the framework of a speculative deal.

—

As this exercise shows, it’s not exactly easy to structure a deal on this sort of premise — in large part because there just aren’t that many suitable contracts. And few clubs have the abundance of upper-level talent (with associated 40-man roster pressures) of the Padres. Still, the Red Sox surely will keep exploring avenues to put their wallet to work while still ducking under the luxury line.

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Boston Red Sox MLBTR Originals

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Red Sox Still Open To Adding Rotation Depth

By Mark Polishuk | February 27, 2020 at 8:40pm CDT

With Chris Sale heading to the 15-day injured list, a Red Sox rotation that was already lacking in depth got a little bit thinner to begin the season.  To this end, Sale’s situation doesn’t really alter the team’s interest in potentially adding a new arm from outside the organization, as chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom told reporters (including the Boston Globe’s Alex Speier and MLB.com’s Ian Browne) that the Sox were exploring such an acquisition even before Sale’s recovery from pneumonia delayed his preseason preparations.  “We would always want to accumulate as much depth as we can.  So I don’t think that changes,” Bloom said.

The Red Sox could look into trade possibilities, perhaps picking up a starter who has become a spare part on another team that already has an excess of pitching candidates.  Such surplus arms could also become available closer to the end of Spring Training as teams start to finalize their rosters, not to mention the free agent hurlers who are currently on the market.  While these pitchers might not necessarily be picky in choosing a new team this deep in the offseason, the Sox can offer extra opportunity to available starters, since a solid short-term performance could lead to a proper rotation spot even after Sale returns.

Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez, Nathan Eovaldi, and Martin Perez were Boston’s top four projected starters, and with Sale now out for at least the first couple of weeks of the regular season, the battle for the fifth starter’s job now expands to a battle for two spots.  (Assuming a “starter” is required at all, since interim manager Ron Roenicke raised the possibility that the Red Sox could use an opener for one or both of the rotation spots.)  Hector Velazquez, Ryan Weber, Matt Hall, Chris Mazza, Phillips Valdez, and Brian Johnson are among the names under consideration, and it’s possible that the Red Sox could stick with one or more of these options rather than an outside acquisition.

“We have a lot of guys here we’re interested in learning more about, that we’re excited about, and we brought them all in for a reason,” Bloom said.  “We have some guys within the organization to help them get better. This is good to see them put those adjustments into play and learn more about them.”

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Boston Red Sox

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Chris Sale To Open Season On Injured List

By Jeff Todd | February 27, 2020 at 8:55am CDT

Red Sox manager Ron Roenicke says that star lefty Chris Sale won’t be ready for the start of the season, as Alex Speier of the Boston Globe reports (Twitter links). This news doesn’t come as a surprise but is still a bit of a disappointment. It’s worth reminding that the recent slate of rule changes in MLB included pushing the minimum IL stay for pitchers back to 15 days.

Sale, whose return from elbow woes was interrupted by pneumonia, is said to be approximately two weeks behind the schedule of the remainder of the team’s starters. That provides a solid gauge as to the earliest possible point at which he’d be slotted back into the MLB rotation. Fortunately, the delay largely reflects the poorly timed illness, not any development of concern with regard to Sale’s throwing arm.

While the Sox would surely prefer to hand Sale the ball on Opening Day, the team can live with a few missed starts. That said, the organization needs to rack up every possible win if it hopes to surprise sans Mookie Betts. Even with the rival Yankees dealing with a host of worrisome health problems early in camp, the New York roster is loaded. The Rays look strong and there are several good Wild Card competitors from other divisions.

Despite the desire to turn Sale loose as soon as possible, it’s quite understandable that the Red Sox would elect a conservative course. The club is invested in him for the long run and has obviously not put all of its eggs in the 2020 basket.

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Boston Red Sox Chris Sale

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Red Sox, Padres Unlikely To Line Up On Myers Swap

By Steve Adams | February 26, 2020 at 5:17pm CDT

The Red Sox have been linked to various permutations of trades involving Padres outfielder Wil Myers this offseason — including as recently as last week. However, Alex Speier of the Boston Globe now reports that the two sides are “unlikely” to line up on an agreement. The Red Sox’ interest in working out a trade was largely a means of attempting to purchase some minor league and/or controllable MLB talent by absorbing part of the remaining three years and $61MM on Myers’ contract.

It’s not a surprise to see the Red Sox seeking creative ways to bolster their farm and their stock of MLB-ready rotation options. Boston’s farm landed 22nd of 30 in Baseball America’s February ranking of the game’s best minor league systems, and the back of their rotation looks perilously thin. Beyond Chris Sale, Eduardo Rodriguez and Nathan Eovaldi, the Red Sox will likely rely on reclamation project Martin Perez and an unproven internal option (or options).

Among the candidates vying for the fifth starter’s job  are Hector Velazquez, Matt Hall, Chris Mazza, Mike Shawaryn, Ryan Weber and Kyle Hart. A clear winner might not be declared, as the Sox could shuffle a number of names through that spot or even deploy an opener every fifth day. And, of course, Sale and Eovaldi were far from 100 percent healthy in 2019. The added depth such a move would bring about would be particularly valuable in Boston.

As for the Padres, while it’s logical that they’d want to get out from some of the remaining Myers money, Speier indicates that the club isn’t interested in depleting its depth just to save money at this time. Shipping a Cal Quantrill or Joey Lucchesi to Boston thins out their starting depth, and there’s no real means of improving the roster quality right now outside of an additional trade. Bringing a third club into the mix — as has been previously rumored — would give the Padres more options but obviously comes with additional layers of complexity. With Opening Day just one month away, the time to put together a deal of that magnitude is waning. (Not that Opening Day is a deadline, per se, but notable trades early in the regular season are a rarity.)

Even if Myers remains in San Diego to begin the season, rumors centering around the former Rookie of the Year will surely persist into the summer. The Padres’ outfield will consist of Tommy Pham, Trent Grisham and Franchy Cordero. Myers, Josh Naylor and non-roster invitee Juan Lagares are on hand as additional options, and the club also has yet-to-debut outfielders Edward Olivares and Jorge Ona on the 40-man roster — though neither has played above Double-A. The outfield has been something of a revolving door in San Diego over the past couple of seasons, but the team’s depth remains strong, and Myers is very arguably superfluous — particularly given his significant salary.

With the Friars set to open the year at a club-record $153MM payroll, it stands to reason that a successful jettison of even part of Myers’ salary would give general manager A.J. Preller additional room to improve the club this summer and to make further additions next offseason. As evidenced by the apparently unproductive talks with the Red Sox and the lack of success in prior efforts to deal Myers, however, bringing that idea into actuality is a rather challenging task.

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Boston Red Sox San Diego Padres Wil Myers

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Red Sox Notes: Weber, Verdugo, Moreland, JBJ

By Jeff Todd | February 24, 2020 at 8:28pm CDT

Just what are the Red Sox thinking by tying up a 40-man roster spot on righty Ryan Weber? Chad Jennings of The Athletic explores (subscription link). The club sees Weber as a clear candidate to take the fifth starter’s role or at least to serve as valuable depth. (He can still be optioned.) While his stuff isn’t eye-popping, it seems the org’s talent evaluators were wowed by Weber’s “command and execution.” And new chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom evidently hasn’t seen cause yet to disagree. Weber doesn’t throw hard and owns only a 5.04 ERA in 114 1/3 MLB innings over the past five seasons. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Sox can help him find a path to contributing value in 2020.

In other news out of Boston, Rob Bradford of WEEI.com rounds up a series of interesting stories on the Sox. We’ll take a brief look at those of particular hot stove relevance …

  • There’s some good news on the progress of recently acquired outfielder Alex Verdugo, but also some added questions. Bradford writes that the 23-year-old has made major strides just since camp opened — but also that he may miss a month or more of the regular season. “The fact it is taking this long is frustrating,” says Verdugo. “What keeps me positive is that all the players, the staff, the trainers, they all support me. They all want me to wait until I’m fully healthy and get back.” Verdugo spoke about the lingering back and related issues that have plagued him for some time now, saying that he had been on a “regular workout plan” from the Dodgers that (it now seems) may not have been the best approach.
  • Regardless whether this lengthy recovery process could’ve been shortened, it’s certainly disappointing that the Boston organization is dealing with this sort of uncertainty surrounding the key player acquired in exchange for Mookie Betts. And Verdugo’s potential also makes for a key component of the team’s 2020 outlook. Even without Betts, the club is certainly at least a plausible Wild Card contender. Fans feeling down about the situation may at least be buoyed somewhat to learn of Verdugo’s unabashed affinity for legend David Ortiz (Twitter link).
  • Returning veteran first baseman Mitch Moreland spoke of his most recent stint on the open market. While he again ended up inking with the Sox, it wasn’t an obvious outcome for much of the winter. Moreland, a Mississippi native, says he fielded interest from a number of other clubs, including some “really close to home that were enticing.” Ultimately, the Red Sox re-engaged — and Moreland says he was happy to work it out to remain in Boston. The Sox will be pleased if they get a repeat of Moreland’s 2019 output; he slashed .252/.328/.507 (112 wRC+) after putting up only league-average offensive output in his first two years with the club.
  • The free agent process can certainly have its twists and turns, but center fielder Jackie Bradley Jr. sees it in a positive light. Bradley, who’ll hit the open market next winter, tells Bradford that he’s looking forward to having the ability “to finally make a choice for yourself.” There are ways in which nearing free agency can be stressful, he acknowledged, but that’s all a matter of perspective. For Bradley, there’s nothing but upside: “Why not be excited about it?” he queried.
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Boston Red Sox Los Angeles Dodgers Alex Verdugo Jackie Bradley Jr. Mitch Moreland Ryan Weber

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Red Sox Claim Phillips Valdez Off Waivers, Place Pedroia On 60-Day IL

By George Miller | February 23, 2020 at 1:32pm CDT

The Red Sox have claimed right-hander Phillips Valdez off waivers from the Mariners, reports Chris Cotillo of MassLive. To clear a spot on the 40-man roster, Dustin Pedroia was placed on the 60-day injured list.

Valdez, 28, had been designated for assignment on Friday following the Mariners’ claim of Taylor Williams, another right-handed reliever. He debuted with Texas last year and was claimed off waivers by Seattle in November, but was unable to stay on the roster for the entirety of the offseason. In his brief Major League stint last year, he tossed 16 innings of 3.94-ERA ball, striking out 18 batters. He was deployed exclusively as a reliever after spending the majority of his minor-league career as a starter. We’ll have to wait and see how the Red Sox view his future role, but evidently they like Valdez enough to give him a shot with the team.

Pedroia’s placement on the 60-day IL isn’t reflective of any new developments in his recovery from left knee complications: after suffering a “significant setback” this winter, Pedroia targeted late May or June as the most optimistic date for his return to the field, meaning that those first 60 days were always out of the question. And with Pedroia having only appeared in nine games over the last two seasons, Boston surely hasn’t been planning around a sizable contribution from the former MVP.

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Boston Red Sox Seattle Mariners Transactions Dustin Pedroia Phillips Valdez

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Red Sox Hire Jerry Narron As Bench Coach

By George Miller | February 22, 2020 at 3:21pm CDT

The Red Sox have hired Jerry Narron to serve as Ron Roenicke’s bench coach, according to Chris Cotillo of MassLive. Narron had spent the last three seasons in the same role with the Diamondbacks.

Although it’s a change of scenery for Narron, he should inherit a fairly familiar situation. It won’t be the first time he’ll have held the title of Red Sox bench coach; in 2003, he was second-in-command to manager Grady Little for Boston’s run to the ALCS. He’s also coached in tandem with new Sox manager Ron Roenicke, working as Milwaukee’s bench coach concurrent with Roenicke’s five-year stint as the Brewer skipper.

Narron brings to the table his own experience as a Major League manager, having presided over the Rangers and Reds in the early 2000s for 633 total games. His teams compiled a 291-341 record in his career and never appeared in postseason play.

Between his days as a coach and Major League catcher, the 64-year-old Narron has been around the MLB game for 32 seasons—not to mention plenty more coaching and playing in the minor leagues.

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Boston Red Sox Jerry Narron

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The Athletics Have Placed Their Betts

By Jeff Todd | February 21, 2020 at 9:30pm CDT

At first glance, the Athletics didn’t really do much of note this winter. The club retained southpaw Jake Diekman and picked up infielders Tony Kemp and … picked up a club option over Yusmeiro Petit and … umm …. signed Ryan Goins to a minor-league deal.

Viewed through another lens, though, the notoriously low-budget A’s had a blockbuster, all-in offseason. Which lens is that? The one through which Red Sox owner John Henry views the game of baseball.

After trading away homegrown superstar Mookie Betts, Henry conveyed his cherished memories of Stan The Man for brownie points with the Boston fanbase. Saying his young heart would’ve shattered had childhood hero Stan Musial “ever been traded — for any reason,” the now-grown Henry … well, gave some reasons why Betts was sent west by one of the richest teams in sports.

It wasn’t about getting under the Competitive Balance Tax threshold, Henry says. Rather, it’s just the sort of thing that is foisted upon MLB teams — even those “consistently among the highest-spending clubs in baseball” — by the collective bargaining agreement (a deal those same teams negotiated to their general advantage).

The Red Sox, per Henry, were forced to “make hard judgments about competing for the future as well as the present.” Their hands were tied by the fact that, “In today’s game there is a cost to losing a great player to free agency — one that cannot nearly be made up by the draft pick given.” Ultimately, Henry said of the organization’s leadership: “we could not sit on our hands and lose [Betts] next offseason without getting value in return to help us on our path forward.”

There are many ways to approach and discuss these comments. For our purposes here, we’re not even going to consider what they mean for the Red Sox or the game of baseball. There’s no need to call for pitchforks; that statement has already had its day in the news cycle anyway. The Boston club certainly has spent and put a winner on the field of late. And Henry at least fessed up to the fact that the team simply decided to punt near-term performance for future value, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge the rather obvious financial component of that calculus.

What’s most interesting to me about the comments is that … holy smokes, the Oakland Athletics really believe! If Henry is to be taken at his word, then the A’s are making one heckuva roll of the dice by keeping, rather than trading, their own pending free agent star: shortstop Marcus Semien.

True, Semien almost assuredly isn’t as good as Betts, but the former actually contributed a full fWAR more than the latter in 2019. Semien is only earning $13MM, just under half the $27MM Betts will receive. But it’s a much bigger portion of the Oakland payroll than Betts was to the Boston budget. (That’s true just based upon simple math, but that tends to undersell the impact. The A’s have to consider every dollar spent over league minimum, while the Red Sox have far greater operating leeway to shoehorn in cost-efficient but more-than-minimum players.)

What of the odds of success in 2020, which is obviously a huge component of this decision? The Red Sox are well behind the Yankees on paper. But the A’s are chasing an uber-talented Astros team that remains mighty even without its crack signals operations unit. Both of these teams are unlikely to take their division, but each is a solid Wild Card contender. Fangraphs’ postseason odds aren’t gospel and obviously must be taken only as a guide to true roster capability (as they are intended) … but wait, how does this make sense? The Red Sox, sans Betts, project at about a coin flip of making the postseason. That tops the A’s, even with Semien! You might quibble with the projections and point to the upside on the Oakland roster. But don’t the Red Sox still have Chris Sale and Xander Bogaerts and Andrew Benintendi and Rafael Devers?

So, even as the Red Sox determined they couldn’t “sit on [their] hands and lose” Betts without adequate compensation after the coming season, the Athletics decided to keep Semien in roughly analogous circumstances. Well, analogous from a roster talent and postseason odds perspective. The low-budget A’s are the sort of team that’s typically forced to take its Betts-type players off the table on the rationale set forth by Henry, even if it stings, in order to preserve a long-term flow of talent and keep up with deeper-pocketed rivals. Instead, they’re letting their version of Betts ride.

It’s quite the juxtaposition. Perhaps the A’s still have designs on a Semien extension, but it’s far from inevitable and we haven’t heard indication that a deal is particularly likely. And if one is to be struck, it’ll require convincing him to forego free agency … which will assuredly require the kind of price that makes the A’s squirm (even if they can now finally see a new ballpark on the horizon). A mid-summer trade fall-back is available but isn’t exactly plan A. All things considered, in relative terms, the situation is quite similar to that which would’ve faced the Red Sox on Betts.

Look, I don’t really have a Take here. I’m not here to call the Oakland front office reckless or label Henry’s explanation feckless. My point is only this: given those two teams’ divergent approaches, doesn’t Henry’s statement suggest that one or the other is true?

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Boston Red Sox MLBTR Originals Oakland Athletics Marcus Semien Mookie Betts

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Red Sox Notes: Rusney, Sale

By Connor Byrne | February 20, 2020 at 11:44pm CDT

Remember Rusney Castillo? Signed to a seven-year, $72.5MM contract in August 2014, the Cuban outfielder had a rough season in the majors with the Red Sox the next year and has barely appeared in the majors since. The Red Sox have minimized their luxury-tax bill by keeping Castillo in the minors, and he’s likely to stay with Triple-A Pawtucket this season, but he’ll be a free agent thereafter. The 32-year-old discussed his status with Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, saying: “My goal remains the same: I want to make it to the big leagues. And if given the opportunity, give 100% to Boston. That’s the goal, to get up there.”  As Mastrodonato notes, there’s at least an outside chance Castillo will return to Boston late in the season if the team’s well under the tax threshold by then (he’s due a $14.3MM salary, so it could be a tall order to fit him in). Castillo will first have to impress in Pawtucket for that to happen, though. He wasn’t great at the highest level of the minors in 2019, when he hit .278/.321/.448 with 17 home runs in 493 plate appearances.

  • Sticking with the Red Sox, ace Chris Sale has been on the mend from 2019 elbow problems and a recent bout of pneumonia, but he’s recovering well. Sale’s “progressing quickly and could begin to face live hitters soon,” Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com writes. However, it’s not clear whether Sale will be ready for the start of the season. The 30-year-old had a stunning amount of difficulty preventing runs in 2019, when his ERA ballooned from 2.11 the prior season to a career-worst 4.40, but most of his other numbers looked fine. Sale notched a 3.39 FIP/2.93 xFIP with 13.32 K/9 and 2.26 BB/9, suggesting he’s still a front-of-the-rotation talent.
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Boston Red Sox Cleveland Guardians Los Angeles Angels Notes Albert Pujols Brad Hand Chris Sale Rusney Castillo

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