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Evaluating the Front Office and Ownership
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Post by pasadenasox on Dec 22, 2022 15:40:32 GMT -5
Dumpster fires?
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Post by manfred on Dec 22, 2022 15:44:51 GMT -5
The one thing that makes Hanley and Pablo slightly different is… they were obviously terrible moves. I mean, I think both signings were met with horror. Crawford was met with suspicion, but at least there was a talent there that could still be a superstar. But Hanley and Panda were disasters from the go.
Add: just went back looking at Carl Crawford’s stats. 12 bWAR the last two seasons in TB. Someone needs to make a 30-for-30 about his first season in Boston. How does that go so wrong??
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Post by notstarboard on Dec 22, 2022 15:46:15 GMT -5
1) How long do you think it takes for good drafts to translate into stars on the major league roster, especially if those prospects are just leaving high school? 2) Is your answer to #1 longer or shorter than Bloom's tenure in Boston? So, wait - the guys who were drafted or acquired before Bloom's tenure can't mature into stars? Casas, Bello, Rafaela, etc.? The farm wasn't gutted and if your premise is that it takes more than 3 years for guys to become stars, yes, that's probably true for high school players, but less true in a small percentage of guys for college players. If, however, your premise is that the only guys in the system who will become stars were drafted by Bloom, then this team won't have any - if they have any at all from Bloom's drafts, which is still much, much more likely given data on how many drafted high school players even make MLB, and then how many of them become All Stars - until 2026 or later. But all of this begs the question: do you really think this ownership group will sit around and wait for Bloom's drafts to blossom into "stars"? They certainly can, but this thread is meant to be a referendum on the front office and ownership. The farm was not empty it was just weak relative to other farms around the league, hence why Devers is the last regular starter to graduate, but there are still a few guys who were in the system at the time who have real promise.
I can only hope the ownership group has more patience than the fanbase.
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Post by incandenza on Dec 22, 2022 15:57:17 GMT -5
The one thing that makes Hanley and Pablo slightly different is… they were obviously terrible moves. I mean, I think both signings were met with horror. Crawford was met with suspicion, but at least there was a talent there that could still be a superstar. But Hanley and Panda were disasters from the go.
Shout out to jerrygarciaparra for being a lonely voice of skepticism.
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Post by manfred on Dec 22, 2022 16:03:03 GMT -5
The one thing that makes Hanley and Pablo slightly different is… they were obviously terrible moves. I mean, I think both signings were met with horror. Crawford was met with suspicion, but at least there was a talent there that could still be a superstar. But Hanley and Panda were disasters from the go.
Shout out to jerrygarciaparra for being a lonely voice of skepticism.
Huh. Hanley in LF seems like a disaster waiting to happen. But there you go.
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Post by Guidas on Dec 22, 2022 16:06:19 GMT -5
So, wait - the guys who were drafted or acquired before Bloom's tenure can't mature into stars? Casas, Bello, Rafaela, etc.? The farm wasn't gutted and if your premise is that it takes more than 3 years for guys to become stars, yes, that's probably true for high school players, but less true in a small percentage of guys for college players. If, however, your premise is that the only guys in the system who will become stars were drafted by Bloom, then this team won't have any - if they have any at all from Bloom's drafts, which is still much, much more likely given data on how many drafted high school players even make MLB, and then how many of them become All Stars - until 2026 or later. But all of this begs the question: do you really think this ownership group will sit around and wait for Bloom's drafts to blossom into "stars"? They certainly can, but this thread is meant to be a referendum on the front office and ownership. The farm was not empty it was just weak relative to other farms around the league, hence why Devers is the last regular starter to graduate, but there are still a few guys who were in the system at the time who have real promise. I can only hope the ownership group has more patience than the fanbase.
Maybe ownership will. Then again, who pays for tickets, concessions and gear and affect ratings? At the end of the day, it's still entertainment. If people don't want what you're selling then they will spend their (dwindling) cash elsewhere.
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Post by dcsoxfan on Dec 22, 2022 16:15:27 GMT -5
1) How long do you think it takes for good drafts to translate into stars on the major league roster, especially if those prospects are just leaving high school? 2) Is your answer to #1 longer or shorter than Bloom's tenure in Boston? So, wait - the guys who were drafted or acquired before Bloom's tenure can't mature into stars? Casas, Bello, Rafaela, etc.? The farm wasn't gutted and if your premise is that it takes more than 3 years for guys to become stars, yes, that's probably true for high school players, but less true in a small percentage of guys for college players. If, however, your premise is that the only guys in the system who will become stars were drafted by Bloom, then this team won't have any - if they have any at all from Bloom's drafts, which is still much, much more likely given data on how many drafted high school players even make MLB, and then how many of them become All Stars - until 2026 or later. But all of this begs the question: do you really think this ownership group will sit around and wait for Bloom's drafts to blossom into "stars"? I strongly suspect that when all is said and done, the final assessment of the farm system under Dave Dombrowski will be that it was fairly average. The problem is that the Red Sox farm system didn’t keep pace with those of Baltimore, Toronto or Tampa. Would you rather have the players added by the Red Sox between 2016 and 2019 over those added by any of those three teams? Would you even have to think about the answer? (Note: that’s not intended as a knock on Dombrowski; I think a lot of this is about what those teams did right. I would also note that the primary difference between the Red Sox and Phillies last year was that the Phillies went 28-10 against the Marlins and Nats. Red Sox just happen to be in a rough neighborhood.) Only one player drafted since Bloom became GM has posted even 1 WAR (Spencer Strider). As you noted, he hasn’t had the time to build the cost controlled talent needed to really contend in what really is baseball’s toughest division. And do I think the owner’s will give Bloom time? Nope. I agree with you on that, too. And that’s a problem. Good organizations aren’t about one person making all the decisions; they are about building teams. You can’t build strong organizations by constantly flip-flopping between management philosophies. Each turn of musical GM makes it harder to build a good organization.
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TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
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Post by TearsIn04 on Dec 22, 2022 17:27:30 GMT -5
This is to say: yes, Houston first got to a championship level by tanking for a few years. Since then, they've built... a sustainable contender. Boston could have tried to do that too ca. 2018-2019 but they went a different route. Now they're trying to get back on track, but that's a long run process, and now they've shot themselves in the foot by screwing things up with Bogaerts. Maybe. If we assume that he actually would have been amenable to a contract in the Story ballpark the previous offseason, which feels like a big if (wasn't this just said in a tweet, or has X lent credence to this?), then sure. If we're talking more like 7/210, yes it's a discount versus what SDP offered, but it's still not a great contract imo. If there was any failing with any of the guys in the last core it wasn't getting them locked up long term while they were young. This close to free agency they're hardly more efficient to sign than any free agent. The only real advantages are sentimentality, leadership (player-dependent), and perhaps proving that they won't implode in a big market. Collectively that feels like a small on-field benefit. I think being so close to the LTT some years made it hard to keep guys. They stayed under in 2019, 2020 and 2021. It would have been much harder to do that if they had tacked on another $33M in AAV for Mookie. They went over in 2022, so I can't explain why they didn't make X a serious offer last off-season that would have brought him a nice, but moderate, raise and kept him here through his mid-30s. I have to write that one off to plain old incompetence. I maintain some feint hope that Bloom's plan is to get the payroll under control, so that he can lock up the next generation of stars early in their cost-controlled years. He'll have a shot at that with Casas and Bello after this season. If his ability to evaluate young players is solid, he could lock in the next core at reasonable numbers and have the flexibility to shop wisely on the FA market. For me, that would have meant Senga, Abreu and a couple of others this off-season. If there's one thing I like about this off-season it's that he made only one long-term commitment. That was to Yoshida. That shouldn't stop him from being able to some Wander-ful things with young stars.
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Post by pappyman99 on Dec 22, 2022 17:41:53 GMT -5
What people seem to keep forgetting that is the farm had just produced 3 potential hall of famers, 1 probably for sure in Betts.
The farm always has peaks and valleys of producing talent. We didn’t need to keep any sort of pace with other teams after 2016 (well in theory)
You can’t be looking at letting all three of those guys going and then turning around and saying the team is bad because there was a 3 year period where the farm didn’t produce much
Yeah it’s less than ideal that we were barren for a couple of years but they won a World Series.
Rays keep producing talent but don’t win. The dodgers only World Series so far was basically in a fake year
When you develop 3 stars in a big market you should be signing all 3 to large extensions but realistically should be signing 2/3 that way for the next decade you have Major foundational pieces to build around.
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Post by GyIantosca on Dec 22, 2022 17:53:37 GMT -5
Bring back Theo, Make the call J. Henry. Give him any title he wants. Let the buck stop with Theo Lucchino is long gone. For the introductory press conference he could walk out on stage wearing the Gorilla suit and then dramatically take it off.....symbolically picking up right were he left off I like it. or since were in the season show up in a santa outfit. But I do like the original idea
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Post by runner on Dec 22, 2022 19:42:48 GMT -5
A long thread from Joon Lee regarding ownership.
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Post by incandenza on Dec 22, 2022 20:13:32 GMT -5
There are some good points in that thread, but overall it's a little incoherent - not clear if the team should sign big FAs for business reasons or for team-building reasons. And I don't think Cohen sheds any light on the Red Sox situation. For one thing, he's a one-off as an owner who's willing to take 9-figure losses to field a winner; one could just as well ask why the Yankees or Dodgers aren't doing what Cohen is doing. For another thing, the whole Red Sox approach is predicated on the fact that these big contracts usually don't work out well toward the end. Let's check back in on the Mets organization i 6 or 7 years and see how they're doing with Lindor, Correa, Nimmo...
People want to draw Big Lessons here, but the only real mistake the Red Sox made is bungling the negotiatioins with Bogaerts last spring. That was a big mistake! But I don't think it's ultimately their philosophical approach that undermined them. They were just incompetent.
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Post by manfred on Dec 22, 2022 20:37:17 GMT -5
There are some good points in that thread, but overall it's a little incoherent - not clear if the team should sign big FAs for business reasons or for team-building reasons. And I don't think Cohen sheds any light on the Red Sox situation. For one thing, he's a one-off as an owner who's willing to take 9-figure losses to field a winner; one could just as well ask why the Yankees or Dodgers aren't doing what Cohen is doing. For another thing, the whole Red Sox approach is predicated on the fact that these big contracts usually don't work out well toward the end. Let's check back in on the Mets organization i 6 or 7 years and see how they're doing with Lindor, Correa, Nimmo... People want to draw Big Lessons here, but the only real mistake the Red Sox made is bungling the negotiatioins with Bogaerts last spring. That was a big mistake! But I don't think it's ultimately their philosophical approach that undermined them. They were just incompetent. Cohen’s moves aren’t as bad long term as I think people make it out. Scherzer and Verlander are off the books soon. And Correa and Lindor *could* stay decent for a long time. I mean, yeah, he’ll never get fill value, but I wonder if he doesn’t fall as short as people think. Nimmo to he is the worst contract, but we’ll see.
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Post by runner on Dec 22, 2022 20:43:50 GMT -5
I think his point of mixing in a large contract with a star player is valid.
If you stay away from that completely, then you're not doing your franchise any favors when it comes to competing.
Yeah it's possible you might be able to do it, but why do you need to thread the needle every single time? Especially when you're the Boston Red Sox? Okay if you're the Reds, I just feel bad for your fan base in that case (go root for another team would be my best advice).
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Post by incandenza on Dec 22, 2022 21:02:59 GMT -5
I think his point of mixing in a large contract with a star player is valid. If you stay away from that completely, then you're not doing your franchise any favors when it comes to competing.Yeah it's possible you might be able to do it, but why do you need to thread the needle every single time? Especially when you're the Boston Red Sox? Okay if you're the Reds, I just feel bad for your fan base in that case (go root for another team would be my best advice). Yeah, but they were willing to do it with Story. And Bogaerts, but they botched the execution. And Devers, but that is TBD. And hell, it was just this season that Price came off the books.
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Post by manfred on Dec 22, 2022 21:37:24 GMT -5
I think his point of mixing in a large contract with a star player is valid. If you stay away from that completely, then you're not doing your franchise any favors when it comes to competing.Yeah it's possible you might be able to do it, but why do you need to thread the needle every single time? Especially when you're the Boston Red Sox? Okay if you're the Reds, I just feel bad for your fan base in that case (go root for another team would be my best advice). Yeah, but they were willing to do it with Story. And Bogaerts, but they botched the execution. And Devers, but that is TBD. And hell, it was just this season that Price came off the books. But I am suspicious Story was the 5th SS of this batch, and the cheap option. So yes they spent, but they also went economy.
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Post by incandenza on Dec 22, 2022 22:08:13 GMT -5
Context for their reticence to sign the biggest FAs on the market: man do a lot of these turn out bad. Here are the top 7 free agents pre-2020:
Cole - 9/324 Rendon - 7/245 Strasburg - 7/245 Wheeler - 5/118 Donaldson - 4/92 Bumgarner - 5/85 Ryu - 4/80
Wheeler's been great. Cole has been adequate for his contract so far but there's a loooong way to go. The other five have been somewhere on the bad to cataclysmic spectrum.
This was just three years ago! And look at those contract lengths, and consider what guys have been getting this year...
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TearsIn04
Veteran
Everybody knows Nelson de la Rosa, but who is Karim Garcia?
Posts: 2,947
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Post by TearsIn04 on Dec 22, 2022 22:14:49 GMT -5
Context for their reticence to sign the biggest FAs on the market: man do a lot of these turn out bad. Here are the top 7 free agents pre-2020:
Cole - 9/324 Rendon - 7/245 Strasburg - 7/245 Wheeler - 5/118 Donaldson - 4/92 Bumgarner - 5/85 Ryu - 4/80
Wheeler's been great. Cole has been adequate for his contract so far but there's a loooong way to go. The other five have been somewhere on the bad to cataclysmic spectrum.
This was just three years ago! And look at those contract lengths, and consider what guys have been getting this year...
You could do this analysis for any five-year period and find the same thing. Most of these contracts are catastrophic losses. It argues for the strategy that I hope Bloom is employing: develop young studs and sign them early in their cost-controlled years to long-term contracts that keep them here through at least age 30 and preferably 32 or so.
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Post by runner on Dec 22, 2022 22:30:40 GMT -5
I think his point of mixing in a large contract with a star player is valid. If you stay away from that completely, then you're not doing your franchise any favors when it comes to competing.Yeah it's possible you might be able to do it, but why do you need to thread the needle every single time? Especially when you're the Boston Red Sox? Okay if you're the Reds, I just feel bad for your fan base in that case (go root for another team would be my best advice). Yeah, but they were willing to do it with Story. And Bogaerts, but they botched the execution. And Devers, but that is TBD. And hell, it was just this season that Price came off the books. Is Story really a good example in this market? Story's contract might be the new mid level deal.
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cdj
Veteran
Posts: 15,659
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Post by cdj on Dec 22, 2022 23:17:00 GMT -5
Context for their reticence to sign the biggest FAs on the market: man do a lot of these turn out bad. Here are the top 7 free agents pre-2020:
Cole - 9/324 Rendon - 7/245 Strasburg - 7/245 Wheeler - 5/118 Donaldson - 4/92 Bumgarner - 5/85 Ryu - 4/80
Wheeler's been great. Cole has been adequate for his contract so far but there's a loooong way to go. The other five have been somewhere on the bad to cataclysmic spectrum.
This was just three years ago! And look at those contract lengths, and consider what guys have been getting this year...
You could do this analysis for any five-year period and find the same thing. Most of these contracts are catastrophic losses. It argues for the strategy that I hope Bloom is employing: develop young studs and sign them early in their cost-controlled years to long-term contracts that keep them here through at least age 30 and preferably 32 or so. Braves do indeed have the best model
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Post by mwgray13 on Dec 23, 2022 6:45:54 GMT -5
Bloom's management of player assets at this point has been a complete disaster. - Paying Yoshida $18M to be a comparable hitter to Hosmer - Letting Hosmer walk for nothing at league minimum salary - Jeter Downs leaving via waivers - Losing Ward, Song and Politi to the rule 5 draft (could be returned but still) - His trades have been bad/awful for the most part: - JBJ, Hamilton, Binelas for Renfroe - Winckowski, Cordero, Grambrell & 2 milbers for Benintendi - Verdugo, Wong & Downs for Betts - Hosmer, Rosier, & Ferguesen for Groome (w/o Hosmer what did you get? a AA .200 avg UT , and a A+ back up outfielder)
Too many assets are leaving for free or little in return.
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Post by 07redsox on Dec 23, 2022 7:47:59 GMT -5
Bloom's management of player assets at this point has been a complete disaster. - Paying Yoshida $18M to be a comparable hitter to Hosmer - Letting Hosmer walk for nothing at league minimum salary - Jeter Downs leaving via waivers - Losing Ward, Song and Politi to the rule 5 draft (could be returned but still) - His trades have been bad/awful for the most part: - JBJ, Hamilton, Binelas for Renfroe - Winckowski, Cordero, Grambrell & 2 milbers for Benintendi - Verdugo, Wong & Downs for Betts - Hosmer, Rosier, & Ferguesen for Groome (w/o Hosmer what did you get? a AA .200 avg UT , and a A+ back up outfielder) Too many assets are leaving for free or little in return. Some of the assets you mention are worth almost nothing though. Did you expect them to get something for Downs? It’s one thing to criticize the actual trade that brought him to Boston, but placing Downs on waivers isn’t one of them to me. And how is Yoshida being paid to be a comparable hitter to Hosmer? If Yoshida hits in his first season like Hosmer has recently or would have hit this year then Bloom is hopefully fired at the end of the season. I have seen many people here, myself include, who are generally optimistic about Yoshida. I’d be interested in seeing how this type of list compares to other head front office figures over a similar period of time. With how unknown prospects can end up being, I would not be surprised if other teams who make trades for prospects like these end up looking similarly bad over time as well.
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Post by Guidas on Dec 23, 2022 8:27:08 GMT -5
There are some good points in that thread, but overall it's a little incoherent - not clear if the team should sign big FAs for business reasons or for team-building reasons. And I don't think Cohen sheds any light on the Red Sox situation. For one thing, he's a one-off as an owner who's willing to take 9-figure losses to field a winner; one could just as well ask why the Yankees or Dodgers aren't doing what Cohen is doing. For another thing, the whole Red Sox approach is predicated on the fact that these big contracts usually don't work out well toward the end. Let's check back in on the Mets organization i 6 or 7 years and see how they're doing with Lindor, Correa, Nimmo... People want to draw Big Lessons here, but the only real mistake the Red Sox made is bungling the negotiatioins with Bogaerts last spring. That was a big mistake! But I don't think it's ultimately their philosophical approach that undermined them. They were just incompetent. To the bolded statement, I would add bungling the negotiations with Mookie - which should've started back in 2017 - and the negotiations with Devers, who, with just a season to go before he's the #2 free agent on the market, has zero incentive to sign anything less than a deal like Correa got (or more) for 10-12 years. I would also add trading Benintendi when his value was at its lowest. That runs counter to even the most basic negotiation and asset management best practices. I'm not saying buy all the free agents like Cohen seems to be doing, but he didn't set the market - Texas and Philly did in their early strikes. He's just doing exactly what he said he'd do and trying to build a winner for Mets fans. As for future losses, we don't know do we? If, in the next few years, Cohen has full stadiums, increased concession and parking revenues, a spike in TV/streaming ratings (and increased Ad revenue) more team endorsement deals, and the marketing power that comes with brand elevation is he losing money? To wit, in this piece today by Jon Heyman: "the Mets sold an amazing $1M in single-game tickets Wednesday after making the Correa deal."Those would be the crap seats and weeknight bleacher seats that no one wants for a bad or middling team, but that become currency when a team's game are the hot ticket in town. And that's just Correa. Who knows how many tickets and seat licenses they sold after signing Verlander? As for the ends of these long contracts, yes, they rarely end well. Then again, 8-12 years from now, when the QO $25M or more and the Luxury Tax is significantly higher, a $25.5M AAV will likely be akin to a $20M or even $18M AAV now, still significant but more than manageable for a high revenue team. And if they win a World Series, hey look, piles of more money. Finally, I almost laughed out loud when you held up the Yankees as a model above, particularly after gleefully castigating NYY for having three $30+M AAV players signed to long-term contracts just a few weeks ago. I know you also mentioned the Dodgers and will point out they are resetting - something Bloom could've done this year at the deadline (another "big mistake"?). But don't worry, the Dodgers will go well over next year when they sign Ohtani to a $500+M deal and Devers to a $375M deal. Meanwhile, Chaim Bloom will be signing 2.0 fWARs on "reasonable contracts," and all his acolytes will be telling me that his methods are superior. I do hope that's true so I, too, can become a BloomBoy. And trust me, I will if this method yields results. But that only happens if this team starts winning on the regular, not losing or being a .500 team but fielding "great value." If I want to root for value I'll go cheer Warren Buffett's and Charlie Munger's portfolio.
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Post by mwgray13 on Dec 23, 2022 8:39:22 GMT -5
Bloom's management of player assets at this point has been a complete disaster. - Paying Yoshida $18M to be a comparable hitter to Hosmer - Letting Hosmer walk for nothing at league minimum salary - Jeter Downs leaving via waivers - Losing Ward, Song and Politi to the rule 5 draft (could be returned but still) - His trades have been bad/awful for the most part: - JBJ, Hamilton, Binelas for Renfroe - Winckowski, Cordero, Grambrell & 2 milbers for Benintendi - Verdugo, Wong & Downs for Betts - Hosmer, Rosier, & Ferguesen for Groome (w/o Hosmer what did you get? a AA .200 avg UT , and a A+ back up outfielder) Too many assets are leaving for free or little in return. Some of the assets you mention are worth almost nothing though. Did you expect them to get something for Downs? It’s one thing to criticize the actual trade that brought him to Boston, but placing Downs on waivers isn’t one of them to me. And how is Yoshida being paid to be a comparable hitter to Hosmer? If Yoshida hits in his first season like Hosmer has recently or would have hit this year then Bloom is hopefully fired at the end of the season. I have seen many people here, myself include, who are generally optimistic about Yoshida. I’d be interested in seeing how this type of list compares to other head front office figures over a similar period of time. With how unknown prospects can end up being, I would not be surprised if other teams who make trades for prospects like these end up looking similarly bad over time as well. I believe the Sox knew what they had in Downs by about half way through the 2020 seasons minor league camp. If they didn't they should have realized it by the end of 2021. IMO Downs should have been offloaded at that point, if not sooner. He still had some value at that point. As for Yoshida, I look at Seiya Suzuki as a Japanese hitting comparable, and Hosmer as a established MLB comparable. Their Japanese batting stats are similar especially when you consider Yoshida had enter Japanese pro ball at an older age, has few seasons in pro ball, has more peak years accounted in those stats, and that he is still a year older then Suzuki. Suzuki in his first year with the Cubs was a 115 OPS+. Hosmer for his career and last year was a 108 OPS+. Additionally Yoshida is not projected to be a positive or avg defender at LF, or a threat on the base paths. That said, with Hosmer as the baseline, and Suzuki as the high end outcome, I'd say spending $17M for that upgrade is a poor allocation of pre luxury tax dollars.
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jimoh
Veteran
Posts: 4,121
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Post by jimoh on Dec 23, 2022 8:48:25 GMT -5
Some of the assets you mention are worth almost nothing though. Did you expect them to get something for Downs? It’s one thing to criticize the actual trade that brought him to Boston, but placing Downs on waivers isn’t one of them to me. And how is Yoshida being paid to be a comparable hitter to Hosmer? If Yoshida hits in his first season like Hosmer has recently or would have hit this year then Bloom is hopefully fired at the end of the season. I have seen many people here, myself include, who are generally optimistic about Yoshida. I’d be interested in seeing how this type of list compares to other head front office figures over a similar period of time. With how unknown prospects can end up being, I would not be surprised if other teams who make trades for prospects like these end up looking similarly bad over time as well. I believe the Sox knew what they had in Downs by about half way through the 2020 seasons minor league camp. If they didn't they should have realized it by the end of 2021. IMO Downs should have been offloaded at that point, if not sooner. He still had some value at that point. As for Yoshida, I look at Seiya Suzuki as a Japanese hitting comparable, and Hosmer as a established MLB comparable. Their Japanese batting stats are similar especially when you consider Yoshida had enter Japanese pro ball at an older age, has few seasons in pro ball, has more peak years accounted in those stats, and that he is still a year older then Suzuki. Suzuki in his first year with the Cubs was a 115 OPS+. Hosmer for his career and last year was a 108 OPS+. Additionally Yoshida is not projected to be a positive or avg defender at LF, or a threat on the base paths. That said, with Hosmer as the baseline, and Suzuki as the high end outcome, I'd say spending $17M for that upgrade is a poor allocation of pre luxury tax dollars. Two problems: Yoshida played in a tougher league than Suzuki, so his stats are more impressive, at least on offense. Last year Hosmer had a great first month and then hit like Jonathan Arauz the rest of the way.
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