Who should the Red Sox extend in 2022?

Eh at those prices listed the only one I'd say would be Devers. I love eovaldi but I'm not giving him a 4 year deal with his injury history. Xander I hate to say it the writing is on the wall with Story signing. JD has been great here but I don't want anymore long term high dollar DHs. Maybe Hernandez if he replicates last year, I don't think that'd be a crazy offer looking at what Chris Taylor got. Vazquez if he'd sign that deal would be a good deal but doubt he would.

Certainly not signing him until age 39.

Oh, and Kiké at 3 years

Definitely extend Devers. Anything else is unforgivable.
Really should extend X at almost any cost.

Eovaldi… certainly negotiate, but with real care. I love him, but he is a risk.

CVaz…. I have a hard time seeing it unless it is a pretty short term contract at a bargain price. It isn’t like age will help him.

JDM? I don’t think so.

Kiké… it might be risky, but I’d like to see a half season.

Thing about the last four is if things go South, I’d consider trading them, too.

As always, it depends on the price.

As a fan, I'd be happy with a Devers deal that was bad WAR/$ value. And I'd be upset with a Vazquez deal that was great value.

They should extend all those guys if they all agree to reasonable deals that improve the team's chances of sustained success. They shouldn't extend any of them if none are willing to take reasonable deals that improve the team's chances of sustained success. It's really that simple.

At the numbers listed, the only one that's an easy yes for me is Vaz at those low dollars. I'd think about Eovaldi at 4 years/$80M because a front of the rotation starter is a necessity and I don't see how we're going to get one any cheaper than that. None of our farm system guys project to be aces.

Hard no on Devers and X. Red Sox Stats did a deep-dive on X a few months back and, as I recall, estimated about 6 years and $150 million or so. That's as high as I'd go. Why would they even consider going to $33.3 million a year for a guy who's likely to move off a premium position to a position where his offensive production is not extraordinary?

Carlos Correa got about that same AAV for only three years. He's younger, coming off a significantly better year than X, and will play SS for the length of the contract.

As I posted before, factor in even a modest drop in X's production, put him in LF and you have Michael Brantley going into his 2021 season. Brantley got two years and $32 million.

The thing with Raffy is that while it's fun watching him play, his defense is so bad that it brings down his overall value. He was 3.5 b-Ref WAR last year and under 2 on a pro-rated basis in 2020. That's not a $30 million-a-year player, or even a $20 million-a-year player.

Raffy's best position is DH and I think CB looks forward to not having to pay big $$$ to that position starting in 2023.

Eovaldi four years and Devers 9 years with an opt out after 4. While I'd gladly sign on for the deals above, my guess is the money both will get will be more than what's above.

I would offer $5M more a year to Xander (i.e. $25M AAV) for four years with some achievable incentives to bump it to possibly $10M extra a year.

I really feel like they have to extend at least one of Devers or Bogearts because otherwise the 2023-2024 Sox will be pretty bad with JDM, Bogey and Devers leaving. If they do that, you are looking at just waiting for the Casas/Yorke/Mayer era, assuming all 3 are legit, and 2023-2024 is too early for those 3 to contribute anything meaningful. I would love for them to extend both Devers and Bogey, but if you can only pick one, I think you have to pick Devers. Aside from him being younger and in my opinion having a higher ceiling, you are looking at potentially having Devers' age 27, 28 and 29 seasons right when Casas, Yorke and Mayer are coming into their own in 2024, 2025, and 2026. If those 3 guys can be the guys we think they can be, that is a formidable foundation to build a lineup around.

I would really hate to see Bogey go though. He has been as consistent as any player I've seen wear a Red Sox uni. I think he's gonna have a really good shot at the HOF when all is said and done.

To expand on foreverred's math

Fangraphs defines WAR such that there is 1000 each year. So an average 81 team has 1000/30 = 33.33. And a 91 win team has 43 and so on. It doesn't match up exactly to real win totals because of teams outperforming their run differential etc.

A team that spends up to the first luxury tax limit with average free agent market efficiency will get 205/8 = 25 WAR = 73 win team. The luxury tax limit is 230, but like 25 is non salary expenses

So you need find about 12 surplus wins to be solidly in the wild card hunt, and 25 makes you a top tier contender.

I understand the points forever9 and julyanmorley are making and, in fact, was already aware of them.

Before I posted, I thought I recalled reading that an all-replacement level team would win about 48 games. I searched and found this article, which seems to confirm that: www.beyondtheboxscore.com/2018/12/26/18155292/correlation-war-wins-pythagorean-expectation-second-order-wins-third-order-wins

It says, "A replacement-level team, rather, is projected to post a .294 winning percentage. Over the course of a 162-game season, this team would win 47.628 games. Thus, for every single WAR above this, a team should be worth WAR + 47.628."

So, getting to 90 wins at $8M per would get your payroll to $336 million (42 x $8M). If I understand julyanmorley's post, it says the same thing. Getting to 81 wins requires a 33-WAR roster. You get 48 for being replacement level and need another 33.

I'm also aware that the high-end cost per WAR that gets quoted is for FAs. The lesson I take from that is that it's best to avoid big FA contracts when you can. They are an inefficient and super high-risk way to add talent. If you feel your team in nearly complete, but you just need another piece or two to go on a run that could bring one or more titles, then go ahead and overpay. Three years of paying David Price to pitch in LA is painful, but he was integral to the 2018 championship, so I'm Ok with it.

There's also the issue of downside risk. The question the thread poses is whether we would pay Raffy $300 million for nine years. That's $33.3 million/year. If his career were to go the way of, let's say, Nomar's, the RS would have a massive sunk cost on their hands. Nomie put up 2.4 WAR from his age 30 to 33 seasons. Starting a nine-year Raffy contract now (in other words buying out his last two arb years) would take him through his age 33 season.

Mo Vaughn is another example. Mo put up 3.6 WAR in his age 31 to 33 seasons while drawing checks from the Angels. I'll grant you that Mo's lifestyle probably didn't help. The VIP lounge at the Foxy Lady and buffet restaurants aren't known as great training facilities. He let himself go when it came to conditioning.

Nomar and Mo are probably extreme examples of guys who fell of a cliff. But I think we all agree that the second halves of these massive contracts are usually disasters.

In general, I'm extremely wary of massive long-term contracts, as I guess you can tell.

I'm mostly with you on the massive contracts but at the same time the sox have money and basically nobody signed very long term so they can afford one maybe two? I don't want a team full of them obviously but theoretically Devers at 10 for 300-350 mil would be fine with me since he's still so young and Bloom seems to be building a good farm that would allow them to have a massive contract or two on the books and still have a well rounded team.