2024 Spring Training

Just take it at face value. They were obviously negotiating for Montgomery and now there is chatter that things are moving forward. The Red Sox are not being used as a boogeyman, they're the only team that hasn't publicly said they're out on Montgomery.

I was mostly being facetious. At this point I'll be surprised if they don't sign him. But is this true that all other teams are publicly out on Montgomery? Phillies, Cardinals, Angels, Giants...? I know the Giants have suggested they're done spending but they also keep getting linked to Chapman, so...

Cards added 3 rotation members already iirc

That seems like a fair guess as to other possible candidates. Although from what we know the Phillies are focusing on re-signing Zach Wheeler, the Cardinals already have their rotation full of 35 year olds, the Angels are weird, and the Giants don't seem to attracted to someone like Montgomery's profile based on their recent history of free agent pitchers.

I know the inclination when something like this comes out is to credit it to Boras media manipulation, but if he's hypothetically trying to get another team to seal the deal with Montgomery through leaking to Buster Olney, it's unclear who the heck the audience would be.

Something interesting (to me at least) in all this is very little Boston media seems to be reporting or providing insight on this. Rob Bradford has floated it a bit, Alex Speier had said they were monitoring his market, and Gammons obviously has some Boston ties. Everywhere else there is very little smoke, at least from the Red Sox beat. The Masslive guys (Cotillo, McAdam) and Carrabis have been pessimistic for some time the team will spend, but otherwise there hasn't been a Red Sox-connected person out there being like, "Yeah, it's all posturing, they're going to sign Montgomery." I wonder to what extent this lack of local smoke is because Breslow is new and might not have his go-to guy for leaking info yet?

I’ll take this form of complaining over what we’ve gotten all winter

His presence greatly lengthens both the rotation and the bullpen, making this a solid decent roster instead of one that's a single misfortune away from being a bad one. He also would put the team in a much stronger place for building a 2025 rotation which would otherwise require a *ton* of moving parts.

It’s funny- if they signed Montgomery 2 months ago the discourse would be entirely different. I don’t think we’d be thinking that we’re contenders but we would be a lot more positive about the direction of the club

I, for one, think its been a good off season whether or not they sign Montgomery. The only successful way to have a sustained contender, given the state of pitching, especially starters, is a grow your own approach. Good pitchers with team control are mostly just not available in trade. When they are, the price in prospects is 2 or more top 5. That's why Yamamoto was in such demand and commanded $325M. Pitchers generally hit free agency around or after 30, require a high price and a long contract. They're a big injury risk and even so you can only afford one. Right now only 2 of our top 10 and 4 of our top 20 prospects are pitchers, something that has to change. Brining in Breslow and other pitching related front office and developmental people is a great start. The moves you reference also move the Sox in that direction. There was and is not much that can be done to make this year's team a contender. Moving to build a steady stream of pitching prospects, if it is successful, may brighten longer term prospects, especially with a strong young core of position players that appears to be emerging.

Exactly this, it's the same thing over and over again. Stage 1: player is valued at [X] dollars. Stage 2: Boras demands 2.2 times [X] dollars for player, fans go insane with rage at Boras. Stage 3: Player signs for 1.2 times [X] dollars, fans mock Boras for being a failure. Player (and Boras) profit.

Hmm, I'm starting to sense an overcorrection of expectations here... I'd still be pretty surprised if he signs for less than 9 figures and 5 years. It's really rare for top free agents to undershoot the fangraphs crowdsource estimates (though Bellinger did...).

Not to belabor this point, but Montgomery is eligible for a QO the next time he is a free agent (assuming he stays with his team the whole season, which was not the case when the Rangers traded for him.) Imagine how the discussion over the Montgomery pursuit would be this winter if draft compensation was required to get him, and he was a year older? It's still preferable for a player to have an opt-out in a vacuum, but it might not be a slam dunk for him to want to enter free agency again. In comparsion, Bellinger will be 29 next year and will shed the QO offered this winter by the Cubs.