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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 17:02:16 GMT -5
Andrus was DFAed because Oakland shamelessly didn’t want an option to vest, not for on-field performance issues.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 15:01:26 GMT -5
Looking ahead…. There is dough left, and a few guys in mlb’s FA top-20. Rodon? Correa? Swanson? Bassitt? I’m not really huge on any of those (factoring in how insane the bill will be… I’m happy to be gifted one!). So… alternatives? Run with what they got? Anyone have any big ideas? This is a great topic of discussion for another thread and I will move it as such shortly.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 15:00:50 GMT -5
I am sure I would have seen it, but have the Red Sox (Bloom, Kennedy, Other) made a public statement about the Bogaerts news? The Julian McWilliams Boston Globe story ( link) had some quotes from Bloom at the airport departure gate (I am intentionally just including his actual words):
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 14:07:14 GMT -5
That's all well and good but it still remains a crazy over-pay... It's not an overpay if this is just the way the market is. If you are shopping for a house in a neighborhood where every 3 bed/2 bath cost over $1 million, you can complain all you want about it being not worth it, but at the end of the day you either pay the price or don't get the house. Well, sure, but that's only a problem if living in that neighborhood is the only place to live (the only way to win). I do think that the salary inflation is uneven and there will be discounts to be had. It is of course harder (and higher-risk) to build a good team on discounts alone. But signing star free agents is not a prerequisite to winning, either.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 11:11:00 GMT -5
Your point is...? Yes, a 78-win team is not great. But it's a lot better than a 70-win team. My point is you are adding 7 wins and saying “viola!” Well, you can subtract seven wins. Sure, if you take a bad team and add seven wins they are… less bad. Or… in your terms… an 85 win team is slightly better than mediocre, but it is a lot better than a 78 win team. It's not unreasonable to expect a team with $80M to spend in free agency, and which started free agency with an 82-win projection per ZiPS, to add a few wins. Or do you want to take the under on 78 wins next year?
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 11:05:02 GMT -5
Painful from a fan emotional perspective, sure. But a 78-win team (with an 80-win third-order winning percentage) is not that far from being an 85-win playoff contender. By that math, it is equally not far from a 71-win catastrophe. Your point is...? Yes, a 78-win team is not great. But it's a lot better than a 70-win team.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 10:56:47 GMT -5
78 wins and being in playoff contention most of the year is not bottoming out. It is at the bottom of the AL East. Are they the 1962 Mets? Of course not. But acting like this is somehow a huge leap forward from boom and bust is disingenuous. By the end of last year, this was a painful team. They finished 21 games out. Let’s not act like there is somr kind of success in any of that. Painful from a fan emotional perspective, sure. But a 78-win team (with an 80-win third-order winning percentage) is not that far from being an 85-win playoff contender.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 10:44:39 GMT -5
This is exactly how I've felt from the get-go. I'm not sure this will result in a championship, but it does stop the team from bottoming out. You have a small market approach with your internal guys and let them leave when they get expensive and then fill the gap with 1-2 year contracts with certain exceptions. Rinse, repeat. They have literally bottomed-out 2 of the last 3 years. 78 wins and being in playoff contention most of the year is not bottoming out.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 10:36:29 GMT -5
Anybody else read the Speier article about Bloom last night in the globe? Speier describes it like Bloom was in shock. “Staring blankly at his phone,” repeating “I need a minute,” a few times, apparently unable to gather his thoughts. He claims Bloom’s voice “trembled” talking about Bogaerts after he had finished collecting his thoughts. Also uses the word “shell-shocked” explicitly. Bloom also knows full well how upset the fan base is about to be cause he says it verbatim. Here is the link www.bostonglobe.com/2022/12/08/sports/san-diego-airport-stunned-chaim-bloom-tried-process-thought-red-sox-without-xander-bogaerts/Just bringing it up because unless (and it’s possible totally) Speier is just writing total fluff meant to make look this as good as possible, it appears Bloom really is pretty messed up by this. It’s kind of concerning in a way, also a little humanizing to hear about Bloom being genuinely upset and not at all suave. Sounds like he has no idea what to say and is as upset as anyone. Do they have a plan for this? It certainly appears they did want X back quite a bit. This also might be Bloom’s first taste of turbulence like this. It has to be overwhelming. Makes me curious as hell what happens next. The article is overwhelmingly explicit about Bloom being really unsure of himself and shocked. That’s the vibe of the article and honestly idk if it’s fluff cause it doesn’t make him look all that great. It makes it seem like the Boston FO is actually in a serious state of flux and disarray like many of us increasingly believe. That article was written by Julian McWilliams, not Alex Speier.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 10:33:08 GMT -5
My (value judgment neutral) take: the Bloom front office seems to be focused on building optionality around fungible player performance: trust what the spreadsheets tell you a player is worth, don't encumber the team with big-money, long-term contracts, focus more on $/WAR value than roster fit, have a high tolerance for player performance risk so long as it's priced into the contract, use your payroll space in creative ways (e.g., buying prospects, signing an injured player to get a cheap second-year option, etc.). It's a very private-equity approach that will build a sustainably 85 to 90 win team, albeit a team of mercenaries that fans and media will hate.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 7:58:40 GMT -5
Folks, this is the Yoshida thread. If there are other positions/free agents/topics you’d like to talk about, please take it to another thread or start a new one.
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Post by jmei on Dec 8, 2022 7:51:40 GMT -5
There is a separate Bogaerts signing with SD thread, so locking this one.
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Post by jmei on Dec 7, 2022 19:14:32 GMT -5
Feels like an overpay on a risk-adjusted basis. But he has a higher ceiling than most guys in this price range, which will be fun to dream on/root for.
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Post by jmei on Dec 7, 2022 16:21:03 GMT -5
Let’s move on. Thanks.
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Post by jmei on Dec 7, 2022 14:30:07 GMT -5
“He closed in the minors” is the “he comes from a good family” of closer compliments.
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Post by jmei on Dec 7, 2022 12:04:23 GMT -5
So with that Judge contract, that is yet another free agent who has blown the Fangraphs crowd estimates out of the water. Ben Clemens has so far come much closer, but he has still been light on every contract - both in terms of years and total $. And his projection for Bogaerts is 7/$217. I am sticking with my guess that Xander signs for 8/$225, maybe even 8/$240. We are in a new era now. It’s a biased sample as have so far, though. The tendency tends to be that the earlier contracts are the larger ones (because players only accept the premium offers early in the offseason) and the more value contracts get signed later in the offseason. Let’s see where we are in March before making a judgment here.
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Post by jmei on Dec 7, 2022 11:45:07 GMT -5
Feels like the logic is that they couldn’t get anyone else to take their money so might as well overpay for a short-term deal. That’s… not great.
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Post by jmei on Dec 6, 2022 22:25:29 GMT -5
Having 3 starting caliber MI in X, Story, and Wong let's you rotate and rest each, which is valuable, even more so if you don't have an everyday DH. Didn't pan out, but seems like they're exploring all options. I mean, maybe? However Wong and Story's best attributes is defense. Unless Xander and Devers (with maybe Xander moving over to third base?) are soaking up most of the DH time, doesn't make much sense to me. This is all addressed in the article that you did not read but proceeded to comment on nonetheless:
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Post by jmei on Dec 6, 2022 21:36:24 GMT -5
If you haven’t read the paywalled article, maybe refrain from posting your opinion on it?
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Post by jmei on Dec 6, 2022 14:56:54 GMT -5
There’s this point of view that the Celtics’ offensive success is built on unsustainably good three point shooting. That’s half true—I certainly don’t expect Horford, Brogdon, G. Williams, White and Hauser to all shoot well above 40% from three as they’ve done to date. But, at the same time, Tatum and Brown have slightly underperformed from three and I expect their percentages to tick up. They’ll definitely still regress as a team, but not as much as some of the critics suggest.
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Post by jmei on Dec 6, 2022 7:59:52 GMT -5
As has been pointed out previously, that’s a parody Twitter account.
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Post by jmei on Dec 6, 2022 7:47:28 GMT -5
You can’t play the “those Jets games could have been losses” card without acknowledging that the Packers and Vikings games could easily have been wins.
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Post by jmei on Dec 6, 2022 7:43:30 GMT -5
That’s a game they lose last year—back to back on the road against a mentally and physically tough opponent. Great sign that they keep winning those sorts of games this year.
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Post by jmei on Dec 4, 2022 21:46:06 GMT -5
I moved all the Sean Murphy stuff to its own thread. As a reminder, we have a bias for starting new threads to discuss new topics rather than cramming everything in a few mega-threads.
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Post by jmei on Dec 4, 2022 20:52:28 GMT -5
There are definitely some owners who care more about cash expenditures than cap space. Kraft is not one of them.
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