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Where did things go wrong?
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Post by fenwaydouble on Dec 8, 2022 12:03:49 GMT -5
I'm not a Bloom hater or a doomsayer, but I don't think anyone can deny that things haven't been great lately. We've disappointed three out of the last four years, during which time we've let two franchise cornerstones walk away with relatively little to show for it. I still believe we can be a good team as soon as this year, but even if that happens I expect it will feel like a one-off transition year, not the start of the Next Great Red Sox Team.
How did we get here? Was it reckless spending from Dombrowski? Toxic frugality under Bloom/Henry? Bad luck with player development under Cherington? Maybe just bad luck in general? If you had a time machine and the ear of John Henry, how would you put the Sox on the right track to avoid this 3-5(?) year stretch of uncertainty?
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Post by bellhorndingers21 on Dec 8, 2022 12:14:17 GMT -5
How did we get here? Was it reckless spending from Dombrowski? Toxic frugality under Bloom/Henry? Bad luck with player development under Cherington? Maybe just bad luck in general? If you had a time machine and the ear of John Henry, how would you put the Sox on the right track to avoid this 3-5(?) year stretch of uncertainty?
These questions basically address the whole situation. Since Bloom's introductory press conference they've preached the same message of developing a sustainable contender. If ownership is going to consistently spend to the first threshold annually it's hard to have a lot of dead money on the books and a pipeline not producing league minimum talent on a consistent basis to balance the roster. They have a new corporate philosophy and they are sticking to it. |
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Post by ramireja on Dec 8, 2022 12:21:24 GMT -5
You can't pin it on any one thing, but there has been very little mention given to Dombrowski's spending plan and the state in which he left the team from a financial planning standpoint. When Bloom inherited the team, recall that Dombrowski had spent over the luxury tax limits the prior two seasons and Bloom literally had to subtract payroll (with Betts being an obvious place to subtract) in his first offseason to reset the penalties. Also the Bogaerts extension that Dombrowski put together was always interpreted as 'team-friendly' and I won't necessarily say that it wasn't, but I think the extent to which it was interpreted as 'team-friendly' was exaggerated on the basis that these opt-outs (which Dombrowski loved to include in deals) were always going to come back to bite us. All that said, I do think Bloom and/or ownership certainly could have done more prior to this past season to extend Bogaerts, and extending Devers should be a priority now....a failure to do so reflects poorly on Bloom in that regard.
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Post by James Dunne on Dec 8, 2022 12:23:06 GMT -5
My feeling: it is the fact they haven't integrated a home-grown regular contributor to the lineup since Devers came up in 2017, combined with the fact they were paying too much money for too little return from the starting pitching. Dombrowski acquisitions provided 3.3 bWAR toward the 2022 team (or 4.9 if you zero out the negatives, which is probably the more fair way to rate them). And a huge chunk of that value came from Tanner Houck, who Dombrowski didn't really have a hand in scouting and selecting. You can correctly argue that he kept the right guys in Bogaerts, Betts, and Devers, but he didn't do anything to supplement that core longterm, so there wasn't any leeway by the time those guys were expensive. Without a minor league system, there's only so much that Bloom has been able to piece together - with more front offices being savvy, it's harder to find those buy-low candidates, and buying free agents just becomes untenable at one point. That's not even to argue that Bloom has done a good job. He's made a lot of mistakes and left a lot of things unfinished when he's built rosters. But, like, the 2022 Red Sox weren't one outfielder away from being good. You can argue that the Red Sox should be willing to blow past the tax number, and I'm receptive to that opinion, but that's not a criticism of Bloom.
So my blame would be from ownership, being willing to give Dombrowski a blank check on longterm contracts without being willing to supplement those if/when they went bad in the long term. Between the sapped system that Bloom inherited (no matter what Tomase tells you, the current contributions of Dombrowski players speaks for itself), and his bosses' order to stay within a certain limit, there's just not a lot, realistically, that he could have done.
Anyway, the structure of the CBT has made it so teams need to give more years instead of more money. In order to get a prime free agent, you have to be willing to add a couple years of likely dead weight to the end of a deal in order to compete in the short term. You can't succeed if you've got a ton of dead contracts sucking up most of your payroll, but it's my feeling that one or even two of those guys are fine if they contributed on the front end and can be supplemented by cheap home-grown talent at the back end. Is Bogaerts the right guy to put together that kind of deal for? I'm honestly not sure.
Given the market, I think 6/$160 is pretty insulting, though. If that's how they value Bogaerts, it's... it's just hard to figure that they value good baseball players enough. That's just clearly not what the going rate is for a player that good anymore.
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Post by redsox3in10 on Dec 8, 2022 12:24:50 GMT -5
I think the financial state that led to us not being able to keep Mookie. When I look back at his stats, he legitimately put up the best year from a red sox position player in the last 50 years. Not being able to keep him was tragic.
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Post by notstarboard on Dec 8, 2022 12:30:21 GMT -5
My feeling: it is the fact they haven't integrated a home-grown regular contributor to the lineup since Devers came up in 2017, combined with the fact they were paying too much money for too little return from the starting pitching. Dombrowski acquisitions provided 3.3 bWAR toward the 2022 team (or 4.9 if you zero out the negatives, which is probably the more fair way to rate them). And a huge chunk of that value came from Tanner Houck, who Dombrowski didn't really have a hand in scouting and selecting. You can correctly argue that he kept the right guys in Bogaerts, Betts, and Devers, but he didn't do anything to supplement that core longterm, so there wasn't any leeway by the time those guys were expensive. Without a minor league system, there's only so much that Bloom has been able to piece together - with more front offices being savvy, it's harder to find those buy-low candidates, and buying free agents just becomes untenable at one point. That's not even to argue that Bloom has done a good job. He's made a lot of mistakes and left a lot of things unfinished when he's built rosters. But, like, the 2022 Red Sox weren't one outfielder away from being good. You can argue that the Red Sox should be willing to blow past the tax number, and I'm receptive to that opinion, but that's not a criticism of Bloom. So my blame would be from ownership, being willing to give Dombrowski a blank check on longterm contracts without being willing to supplement those if/when they went bad in the long term. Between the sapped system that Bloom inherited (no matter what Tomase tells you, the current contributions of Dombrowski players speaks for itself), and his bosses' order to stay within a certain limit, there's just not a lot, realistically, that he could have done. Anyway, the structure of the CBT has made it so teams need to give more years instead of more money. In order to get a prime free agent, you have to be willing to add a couple years of likely dead weight to the end of a deal in order to compete in the short term. You can't succeed if you've got a ton of dead contracts sucking up most of your payroll, but it's my feeling that one or even two of those guys are fine if they contributed on the front end and can be supplemented by cheap home-grown talent at the back end. Is Bogaerts the right guy to put together that kind of deal for? I'm honestly not sure. Given the market, I think 6/$160 is pretty insulting, though. If that's how they value Bogaerts, it's... it's just hard to figure that they value good baseball players enough. That's just clearly not what the going rate is for a player that good anymore. Agree with everything except 6/160 being insulting. I know the market has been pretty hot, but plenty of people were thinking around the 6/170 ballpark going into the offseason. Even if you tack on 10-20% or so for the hot market, 6/160 might not be expected to get it done, but I don't think it's insulting either.
I think this is more a case of SDP going overboard than the Red Sox going way too low.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Dec 8, 2022 12:33:15 GMT -5
If I had to pick one thing knowing that this is a gross oversimplification: Extending Sale before Mookie
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Post by manfred on Dec 8, 2022 12:35:26 GMT -5
I agree it goes back to overspending at the end of DD’s time. The Sale contract is the obvious disaster.
But I think that while we all acknowledge Bloom has had to dig out, he has not done a good job of it, starting with the Mookie trade. Let’s stipulate he had to go. It was a *bad* trade. They got a guy destined to peak as a backup catcher, a guy who was not even the best 2b in the Dodgers’ system, and an ok OF. For a HOF entering his prime. And since then, we’ve had a lot of moves that don’t advance us. Trade Beni for almost nothing. Now sign an unproven guy for $100 mill who *may* be better than Beni. Let JBJ walk. Trade to get JBJ back. Let X walk for a 4th rounder because you sign an injured guy who never pitches. On and on.
The Workman trade was a coup. Pivetta has already done enough for that to be a big win. That is really the only thing I can point to that is 100% a smash.
Taken in sum, there has been a lot more talent out than talent in. And all the money issues are in the past. They reset. They had tons of money on hand. DD started it, but his fingerprints are all wiped clean.
They’ve added young guys through the draft, some of whom are very exciting. Yorke had a bad year last year and needs to show it was injuries. If he flames out, that is another huge miss… Ball-esque. So there remains a ton that is TBD.
But where did it start going wrong? Somewhere in the champagne spray of 2018. When has it looked like it might be getting right? Nowhere yet.
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Post by orion09 on Dec 8, 2022 12:38:13 GMT -5
If you had a time machine and the ear of John Henry, how would you put the Sox on the right track to avoid this 3-5(?) year stretch of uncertainty?
Tell him to sign 2/3 of Mookie, Xander, or Devers to long-term extensions prior to free agency. Failing that, tell him he needs to shell out a little more than he might like for Correa or Swanson, to bridge the gap until the next wave of talent. Other than that, I do think we’re feeling the effects of a combination of Dombrowski’s “all-in” roster decisions - which did net us a ring, and I wouldn’t change that - and a lack of success in developing talent. Lots of little things that have added up: losing draft picks, losing international bonus money, less favorable CBA conditions w/r/t international signings and draft compensation. Easy to forget that the last wave of talent came out of that system (Mookie, Xander, Devers). There’s a nice wave of talent coming up, at least that’s the hope, but we need to spend in the meantime to bridge the gap, probably over the luxury tax, or endure 85 win limbo. |
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Post by bspeed on Dec 8, 2022 12:39:01 GMT -5
So let's say they kept Mookie with the contract he has with the Dodgers. Now let's say they matched the Padres offer to Xander. Now let's say the Devers extension is in that ballpark, that's $100 million dollars+ per year tied up to three players for a decade plus and all three through their declining years at HUGE AAV's. Does any fan want that? No argument that mistakes weren't and haven't been made with all three but keeping all three seemed like a pipe dream anyway.
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jbuttah
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Post by jbuttah on Dec 8, 2022 12:39:16 GMT -5
If I had to pick one thing knowing that this is a gross oversimplification: Extending Sale before Mookie Yes, I would say extending the version of Sale that they were extending was a huge mistake that I think a lot on this board felt angst about. |
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Post by manfred on Dec 8, 2022 12:40:43 GMT -5
So let's say they kept Mookie with the contract he has with the Dodgers. Now let's say they matched the Padres offer to Xander. Now let's say the Devers extension is in that ballpark, that's $100 million dollars+ per year tied up to three players for a decade plus and all three through their declining years at HUGE AAV's. Does any fan want that? No argument that mistakes weren't and haven't been made with all three but keeping all three seemed like a pipe dream anyway. That contract is already seeming more reasonable. Just wait until Soto signs. |
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Post by orion09 on Dec 8, 2022 12:42:55 GMT -5
So let's say they kept Mookie with the contract he has with the Dodgers. Now let's say they matched the Padres offer to Xander. Now let's say the Devers extension is in that ballpark, that's $100 million dollars+ per year tied up to three players for a decade plus and all three through their declining years at HUGE AAV's. Does any fan want that? No argument that mistakes weren't and haven't been made with all three but keeping all three seemed like a pipe dream anyway. I don’t think anyone expected us to keep all three… but maybe *one* of three would be nice? Maybe *two* if we’re feeling perky? |
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Post by briam on Dec 8, 2022 12:47:24 GMT -5
So let's say they kept Mookie with the contract he has with the Dodgers. Now let's say they matched the Padres offer to Xander. Now let's say the Devers extension is in that ballpark, that's $100 million dollars+ per year tied up to three players for a decade plus and all three through their declining years at HUGE AAV's. Does any fan want that? No argument that mistakes weren't and haven't been made with all three but keeping all three seemed like a pipe dream anyway. The issue is they are continuously waiting on these extensions and by the time they get serious they lose nearly all leverage and get caught in bidding wars like the one they just lost for Xander. The globe today reported that in spring training, the Story/Altuve extension was what Xander was looking for. Approximately 5/150. Instead they offered a bad faith extension of 4/90. When you continuously let high level players get this close to free agency it’s going to break your bank but it’s something you can avoid and they simply haven’t. |
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Post by orion09 on Dec 8, 2022 12:49:43 GMT -5
I agree it goes back to overspending at the end of DD's time. The Sale contract is the obvious disaster. But I think that while we all acknowledge Bloom has had to dig out, he has not done a good job of it, starting with the Mookie trade. Let's stipulate he had to go. It was a *bad* trade. They got a guy destined to peak as a backup catcher, a guy who was not even the best 2b in the Dodgers' system, and an ok OF. For a HOF entering his prime. And since then, we've had a lot of moves that don't advance us. Trade Beni for almost nothing. Now sign an unproven guy for $100 mill who *may* be better than Beni. Let JBJ walk. Trade to get JBJ back. Let X walk for a 4th rounder because you sign an injured guy who never pitches. On and on. The Workman trade was a coup. Pivetta has already done enough for that to be a big win. That is really the only thing I can point to that is 100% a smash. Taken in sum, there has been a lot more talent out than talent in. And all the money issues are in the past. They reset. They had tons of money on hand. DD started it, but his fingerprints are all wiped clean. They've added young guys through the draft, some of whom are very exciting. Yorke had a bad year last year and needs to show it was injuries. If he flames out, that is another huge miss... Ball-esque. So there remains a ton that is TBD. But where did it start going wrong? Somewhere in the champagne spray of 2018. When has it looked like it might be getting right? Nowhere yet. He's done well finding $/win value in budget to mid-level players. Kiké, Wacha, hopefully some of the signings from this year. He's also picked some nice players off the scrap heap. Whitlock, Schreiber, potentially Refsnider. He's clearly a creative thinker - in fact, there are a lot of things he does well. But, yeah, a lot of the moves have left inexplicable holes for questionable return (trading Renfroe and not bringing back a replacement, not replacing Schwarber's bat). And either he or ownership seem unable to conceptualize that, while you can find some great stuff digging through dumpsters or shopping at Costco, that's probably not where you want to get your car, wedding ring, or shortstop |
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 8, 2022 13:06:28 GMT -5
Perfect example is not even trying to trade Bogaerts, then making an offer that's not even close. If you complain about the farm system, this is the type of crap that haunts you for years. Your chance at jump starting our system, giving you options to make win now trades, not just sell off trades.
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Post by sibbysisti on Dec 8, 2022 13:25:35 GMT -5
The column in today's Globe by Abraham/Speier is a good description of the Bogaerts contract failure and other blunders by our current (and hopefully not for long) GM. It's especially noteworthy when the decision not to trade J.D. cost the Sox a chance at 2nd round choice in the draft. It's one error after another; trading Renfroe and not signing Schwarber cost the team a chance at the post season this year, return on Benintendi, bullpen decisions, etc., etc.
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Post by alexcorahomevideo on Dec 8, 2022 13:29:15 GMT -5
The failure to draft and develop star players until Mookie came along and the failure to bring back Lester comes to mind. The fact they had to sign a DH after Papi retired instead of having one single power bat in the system and the fact they had to give Price that ridiculous deal instead of extending a homegrown talent that was begging to stay doomed them. Bloom has improved the farm, and there is no denying that. But this ownership has kicked the can down the road for so long that the can finally stopped rolling last night and now the delayed effect is happening. People didn't understand Lester leaving and Xander is the same thing. Imagine if this was Varitek and ownership at the time he was a free agent let him walk instead of paying him what he was worth. Imagine if it was Pedroia.
Ownership overreacted to all of this and in between signed Panda and Hanley as fixes and created albatrosses. How can you fix this? Obviously by winning. But I don't think the fans are going to forgive this stuff overnight. A guy who wanted to be a Sox for life could have been signed in the spring and instead they lowballed him so bad it brought them to last night when he decided to take his talents out to California for 280 million.
Bash Dombrowski all you want...the guy wasn't perfect but the Price deal was a direct reaction to losing Lester. And Sale was a bad deal to extend.
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Post by danredhawk on Dec 8, 2022 13:29:41 GMT -5
So let's say they kept Mookie with the contract he has with the Dodgers. Now let's say they matched the Padres offer to Xander. Now let's say the Devers extension is in that ballpark, that's $100 million dollars+ per year tied up to three players for a decade plus and all three through their declining years at HUGE AAV's. Does any fan want that? No argument that mistakes weren't and haven't been made with all three but keeping all three seemed like a pipe dream anyway. If you handle your business respectfully and urgently you might have those three signed for 85 million per season - or two for 55-60. Also absent from the conversation is what will be the true 'cost' of a 30 million dollar salary in 2030? I tend to doubt it would be an albatross contract. -- Like it or not, there is plenty of blame on Bloom. While I am not a Doom and Bloom poster (full disclosure, I am hardly a fan), I am truly starting to resent the fact that he skates on all accountability while fingers are pointed in every other possible direction. He gets credit for 'talking' about what he wants to accomplish - its hard to blame posters who might be more interested in action/productivity than words. Just yesterday, the doubters (and media members) were told they'd need to eat crow when reports surfaced that the Sox were engaged in active conversations with Xander. The reality - now clear - is that Bloom/Ownership were never interested in having a serious conversation with X based on realistic market value. They low balled him again once final time, and perhaps solely for the optics of effort... Boston has used its negotiating windows for home grown stars as opportunities to offer low ball contracts and build their alibi. Xander is still here if they approach him professionally, IMO. He is - literally - the example of a Boras client taking less to stay 'home' ahead of free agency... -- There is plenty to question about when Bloom does make moves. Despite the narrative he certainly has not been above reproach. 100 million to Yoshida on the heels of 60 million being FAR to rich for Abreu (your purported #1 target)? That's is certainly a debatable decision... -- I often wonder, what is the opinion of Bloom if the Sox lose ONE more game in 2021 - or fail to sweep Washington in the final weekend and miss the playoffs entirely. If he's 0-3 in getting to the playoffs does he even have a job this offseason? |
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Post by scottysmalls on Dec 8, 2022 13:38:39 GMT -5
By far the biggest issue has been the zero home grown talent (even average players) since Devers came up. The cheap contracts on Devers/Mookie/Xander/Benintendi ran out and they had no one to fill those slots affordably. The bad contracts also added up, Ramirez, Sandoval, Price, Sale all affecting the team in recent years. The ownership not being willing to stay over the tax to keep Mookie despite those contracts adds into it.
On Bloom's side here's where I ding him personally:
The prospect returns on the deals under Bloom have been underwhelming, Verdugo never fully blossomed, Downs has flopped, looks like nothing much from the Benny deal. The right field sequence was awful this off-season. The bullpen was terrible. The Barnes deal stinks. Has he done better than the average modern GM given the inherited circumstances? I really don't know, and I am still where I started the off season which is that the 2023 season is a major referendum. If they fill out the roster well the rest of the way, Yoshida and the relievers are good, and the team wins 85+, I'll believe in the direction again.
*I also think extending Devers is important but that to me is a signal about ownership, not management
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Post by incandenza on Dec 8, 2022 13:39:47 GMT -5
My feeling: it is the fact they haven't integrated a home-grown regular contributor to the lineup since Devers came up in 2017, combined with the fact they were paying too much money for too little return from the starting pitching. Dombrowski acquisitions provided 3.3 bWAR toward the 2022 team (or 4.9 if you zero out the negatives, which is probably the more fair way to rate them). And a huge chunk of that value came from Tanner Houck, who Dombrowski didn't really have a hand in scouting and selecting. You can correctly argue that he kept the right guys in Bogaerts, Betts, and Devers, but he didn't do anything to supplement that core longterm, so there wasn't any leeway by the time those guys were expensive. Without a minor league system, there's only so much that Bloom has been able to piece together - with more front offices being savvy, it's harder to find those buy-low candidates, and buying free agents just becomes untenable at one point. That's not even to argue that Bloom has done a good job. He's made a lot of mistakes and left a lot of things unfinished when he's built rosters. But, like, the 2022 Red Sox weren't one outfielder away from being good. You can argue that the Red Sox should be willing to blow past the tax number, and I'm receptive to that opinion, but that's not a criticism of Bloom. So my blame would be from ownership, being willing to give Dombrowski a blank check on longterm contracts without being willing to supplement those if/when they went bad in the long term. Between the sapped system that Bloom inherited (no matter what Tomase tells you, the current contributions of Dombrowski players speaks for itself), and his bosses' order to stay within a certain limit, there's just not a lot, realistically, that he could have done. Anyway, the structure of the CBT has made it so teams need to give more years instead of more money. In order to get a prime free agent, you have to be willing to add a couple years of likely dead weight to the end of a deal in order to compete in the short term. You can't succeed if you've got a ton of dead contracts sucking up most of your payroll, but it's my feeling that one or even two of those guys are fine if they contributed on the front end and can be supplemented by cheap home-grown talent at the back end. Is Bogaerts the right guy to put together that kind of deal for? I'm honestly not sure.Given the market, I think 6/$160 is pretty insulting, though. If that's how they value Bogaerts, it's... it's just hard to figure that they value good baseball players enough. That's just clearly not what the going rate is for a player that good anymore. This is something that I worry ownership just doesn't understand. A big market team can afford a big contract because there are dead years at the end of it - that is the financial advantage they have. You get the surplus value at the beginning (5 WAR for $25 million or whatever) and then pay at the end (when inflation makes it sting less anyway). A big market team can afford a couple of those dead contracts at a time - e.g., Hanley and Panda were on the books in 2018. (The Yankees ALWAYS have contracts like this, and we are always predicting they're going to collapse under the weight of them, but they never do because they just reload with the next generation of future-deadweight contracts.)
Of course you want to minimize the dead weight as much as possible, but I get the sense that this ownership is just allergic to ever having deadweight contracts. Hence exactly a 6 year offer to Bogaerts and no more. But you're never going to be able to sign the top free agents if you approach it that way.
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Post by danredhawk on Dec 8, 2022 13:46:14 GMT -5
Bloom has improved the farm, and there is no denying that. I don't root for Worcester or Portland. The improved farm means little to me until those players begin to matriculate or are used to bring talent to Boston via trade. Dombrowski's approach may not have been optimal - thought it won a WS for, which is what I do root for - but certainly there is a middle ground between his tenure and the tenures of Cherington/Bloom which are defined by the farm system (I am no fan of BC, but I will give him credit for winning one; flukeish or not)... An 'improved' farm means little if you can't evaluate your own prospects well enough to know which ones to keep and which ones you can trade. You don't get win MLB games for having average prospects stashed away in AAA/AA... Not to mention the farm is a crapshoot - for all the talk about Bleis, let's not forget that less than two years ago Gilberto Jimenez was a can't miss five-tool prospect. In hindsight, it sure would have been nice to trade him at his peak, despite the uproar that would have existed here. Yorke may end up another example. For all the discussion about MiLB depth pieces, it would be nice to turn some into actual MLB pieces. Even the top Boston prospects remain question marks with real risk - only three players in the entire system are graded by THIS site as average regular or better... Until the farm system starts paying off, Ill reserve judgement. Just like I'll reserve praising Bloom's claims of building an LAD-like system until it actually happens. Meanwhile, SoxPROSPECTS.com is left to rationalize away two of (soon to be three?) the best prospects to come out of the system in how long? |
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Post by manfred on Dec 8, 2022 13:48:27 GMT -5
My feeling: it is the fact they haven't integrated a home-grown regular contributor to the lineup since Devers came up in 2017, combined with the fact they were paying too much money for too little return from the starting pitching. Dombrowski acquisitions provided 3.3 bWAR toward the 2022 team (or 4.9 if you zero out the negatives, which is probably the more fair way to rate them). And a huge chunk of that value came from Tanner Houck, who Dombrowski didn't really have a hand in scouting and selecting. You can correctly argue that he kept the right guys in Bogaerts, Betts, and Devers, but he didn't do anything to supplement that core longterm, so there wasn't any leeway by the time those guys were expensive. Without a minor league system, there's only so much that Bloom has been able to piece together - with more front offices being savvy, it's harder to find those buy-low candidates, and buying free agents just becomes untenable at one point. That's not even to argue that Bloom has done a good job. He's made a lot of mistakes and left a lot of things unfinished when he's built rosters. But, like, the 2022 Red Sox weren't one outfielder away from being good. You can argue that the Red Sox should be willing to blow past the tax number, and I'm receptive to that opinion, but that's not a criticism of Bloom. So my blame would be from ownership, being willing to give Dombrowski a blank check on longterm contracts without being willing to supplement those if/when they went bad in the long term. Between the sapped system that Bloom inherited (no matter what Tomase tells you, the current contributions of Dombrowski players speaks for itself), and his bosses' order to stay within a certain limit, there's just not a lot, realistically, that he could have done. Anyway, the structure of the CBT has made it so teams need to give more years instead of more money. In order to get a prime free agent, you have to be willing to add a couple years of likely dead weight to the end of a deal in order to compete in the short term. You can't succeed if you've got a ton of dead contracts sucking up most of your payroll, but it's my feeling that one or even two of those guys are fine if they contributed on the front end and can be supplemented by cheap home-grown talent at the back end. Is Bogaerts the right guy to put together that kind of deal for? I'm honestly not sure.Given the market, I think 6/$160 is pretty insulting, though. If that's how they value Bogaerts, it's... it's just hard to figure that they value good baseball players enough. That's just clearly not what the going rate is for a player that good anymore. This is something that I worry ownership just doesn't understand. A big market team can afford a big contract because there are dead years at the end of it - that is the financial advantage they have. You get the surplus value at the beginning (5 WAR for $25 million or whatever) and then pay at the end (when inflation makes it sting less anyway). A big market team can afford a couple of those dead contracts at a time - e.g., Hanley and Panda were on the books in 2018. (The Yankees ALWAYS have contracts like this, and we are always predicting they're going to collapse under the weight of them, but they never do because they just reload with the next generation of future-deadweight contracts.)
Of course you want to minimize the dead weight as much as possible, but I get the sense that this ownership is just allergic to ever having deadweight contracts. Hence exactly a 6 year offer to Bogaerts and no more. But you're never going to be able to sign the top free agents if you approach it that way.
Totally. I laugh at the 11 year thing. By then, the CBT line may be $600 million. The minimum salary could be $4 million. Xander might be dead. I might be dead. They might be able to dump his contract on the Vegas Sharpshooters or the Mexico City Marauders. It is basically funny money. |
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 8, 2022 13:51:41 GMT -5
How did we get here? Was it reckless spending from Dombrowski? Toxic frugality under Bloom/Henry? Bad luck with player development under Cherington? Maybe just bad luck in general? If you had a time machine and the ear of John Henry, how would you put the Sox on the right track to avoid this 3-5(?) year stretch of uncertainty?
These questions basically address the whole situation. Since Bloom's introductory press conference they've preached the same message of developing a sustainable contender. If ownership is going to consistently spend to the first threshold annually it's hard to have a lot of dead money on the books and a pipeline not producing league minimum talent on a consistent basis to balance the roster. They have a new corporate philosophy and they are sticking to it. If this was their new corporate philosophy then they should have dealt Xander, Devers and others 2 years ago for huge hauls, cleared their books and rebuilt. If you have too much dead money to build a real contender and you’re not going to make a real effort to keep your top talent, then they should have done a hard reset. |
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Dec 8, 2022 13:54:28 GMT -5
Of course, mentions of the ghost of Dombrowski.
it is pretty simple, with their hiring of their GM. Not really a knock against him, he is miscast as a GM of a large market team.
if your work history is informed by running shoestring budgets in front a 10k fans, if your lucky, then it is quite a leap to running the Boston Red Sox, with all the market and the history backing it.
He may yet be successful in his model, but the price has already been paid.
And as other leaders have found throughout history. The Pride goeth before the fall.
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