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Post by awalkinthepark on Mar 7, 2024 23:27:49 GMT -5
IMO this is the best sign yet that Bello has a massive ceiling. The Red Sox would not give this much guaranteed money to a 25 year old pitcher unless they thought he was gonna be a stud.
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Post by 07redsox on Mar 7, 2024 23:42:13 GMT -5
IMO this is the best sign yet that Bello has a massive ceiling. The Red Sox would not give this much guaranteed money to a 25 year old pitcher unless they thought he was gonna be a stud. I personally think it’s hard to draw a conclusion like that from this, or any extension like it. It’s not like they overpaid to get him. They essentially bought out his arb years for what you would generally expect him to receive so that he has guaranteed money in place for buying out some free agent years. It’s risk vs reward for both parties. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the player should be viewed differently. As long as Bello stays healthy, he would have most likely earned this much money to begin with. Sure, he could blow out his arm and be worth nothing, but he could also excel and be worth more than they are going to be paying him now. If that were to happen, we would be paying him much more than we will be now during his arb years. As I said before, risk vs reward.
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Post by awalkinthepark on Mar 7, 2024 23:50:13 GMT -5
IMO this is the best sign yet that Bello has a massive ceiling. The Red Sox would not give this much guaranteed money to a 25 year old pitcher unless they thought he was gonna be a stud. I personally think it’s hard to draw a conclusion like that from this, or any extension like it. It’s not like they overpaid to get him. They essentially bought out his arb years for what you would generally expect him to receive so that he has guaranteed money in place for buying out some free agent years. It’s risk vs reward for both parties. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the player should be viewed differently. As long as Bello stays healthy, he would have most likely earned this much money to begin with. Sure, he could blow out his arm and be worth nothing, but he could also excel and be worth more than they are going to be paying him now. If that were to happen, we would be paying him much more than we will be now during his arb years. As I said before, risk vs reward. Just disagree. This is the 2nd most guaranteed money ever given to a pre-arb pitcher, behind only Strider. This type of contract is not given lightly.
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Post by keninten on Mar 7, 2024 23:59:40 GMT -5
Compared to Yamamoto`s contract, Bello`s looks like the deal of the century.
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Post by 0ap0 on Mar 8, 2024 8:29:59 GMT -5
Compared to Yamamoto`s contract, Bello`s looks like the deal of the century. This is correct. They're about the same age and both project to be ~#2 starters. Bello has proven MLB success, Yamamoto is worryingly small, and Bello signed for like 30% of Yamomoto's salary.
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Post by bentossaurus on Mar 8, 2024 8:35:10 GMT -5
Worrying about leaving room for additions in July so much that you make the team worse for the entirety of the season seems like it would be putting the cart before the horse. But I don't think they're doing that. I think they're either A) actually being cheap, as Cotillo keeps saying, or B) still negotiating/going to sign one of the four options left. It's plausible enough to me that they don't like Montgomery or Snell as a long term bet and don't want to hurt rosters in a couple years, but that does not apply to Lorenzen or Clevinger (or a bunch of guys they passed on already, but perhaps Giolito's injury changes things). I do think that if they could sell one of those guys on a 1/10ish deal to come compete for a spot in the rotation, they’d probably have done it already. My hunch is that they’re waiting for a more guaranteed rotation spot. I don’t think this is a super attractive team to sign with if you’re a starter trying to set himself up for a better payday next year. There’s a good chance the team just isn’t very good, there’s a good chance that the defense isn’t very good, and there’s a good chance that they don’t even start the season in the rotation. So it’s a bit of a tough sell. Sounds like a reason then to sign one of the veterans that don't really care about setting themselves up for the future, like Hill or Greinke.
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Post by notstarboard on Mar 8, 2024 8:53:52 GMT -5
I personally think it’s hard to draw a conclusion like that from this, or any extension like it. It’s not like they overpaid to get him. They essentially bought out his arb years for what you would generally expect him to receive so that he has guaranteed money in place for buying out some free agent years. It’s risk vs reward for both parties. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the player should be viewed differently. As long as Bello stays healthy, he would have most likely earned this much money to begin with. Sure, he could blow out his arm and be worth nothing, but he could also excel and be worth more than they are going to be paying him now. If that were to happen, we would be paying him much more than we will be now during his arb years. As I said before, risk vs reward. Just disagree. This is the 2nd most guaranteed money ever given to a pre-arb pitcher, behind only Strider. This type of contract is not given lightly. These sorts of contracts are much more in vogue nowadays, though. And the knock-on effect of them becoming more common is that fewer players are hitting free agency in their primes, which means more competition for the guys left, and which further incentivizes pre-arb extensions like this. Bello would need to regress from where he is now or have his career destroyed by injury for this not to he a value for the team. The most likely outcome is that he continues to improve. Injuries are inevitable, but it's unlikely for them to torpedo a guy's career in his 20s. And besides, smoothing out the AAV for tax purposes and not needing to go to arbitration benefit the team while costing the player nothing. Even if the overall value is a touch negative this could make it worth it again. I do think this shows belief in him, but he doesn't need to have a massive ceiling to provide value on this deal.
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Post by kwodes on Mar 8, 2024 9:35:02 GMT -5
I don't understand how anyone could criticize this. He only needs to be worth like 5 WAR over the life of the deal to make it worthwhile. He was worth 3.1 bWAR and 1.6 fWAR this year alone.
Even if he gets hurt for a full season, he'd still probably give surplus value on the deal.
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Post by notstarboard on Mar 8, 2024 9:56:30 GMT -5
I don't understand how anyone could criticize this. He only needs to be worth like 5 WAR over the life of the deal to make it worthwhile. He was worth 3.1 bWAR and 1.6 fWAR this year alone. Even if he gets hurt for a full season, he'd still probably give surplus value on the deal. Well in theory he needs to be worth more than that because you have to factor in the pre-arb and arb year discounts. Still, though, it seems like the odds of him being worth it are very high. And it seems like the realistic upside is massive, while the realistic downside is not particularly scary.
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ematz1423
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Post by ematz1423 on Mar 8, 2024 10:14:12 GMT -5
I'm not critical of the deal, I like the extension very much but there is more to the equation than he just needs to be worth 5 WAR over the course of the deal because as others have pointed out it's not as simple as looking at it like one might an FA contract where the math is pretty straight forward.
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Post by incandenza on Mar 8, 2024 10:25:13 GMT -5
What I'd say is that this extension looks good if he turns out to be a steady 2 WAR pitcher. The degree to which he's better than that is the degree to which the extension looks better than good.
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Post by asm18 on Mar 8, 2024 10:29:29 GMT -5
I don't understand how anyone could criticize this. He only needs to be worth like 5 WAR over the life of the deal to make it worthwhile. He was worth 3.1 bWAR and 1.6 fWAR this year alone. Even if he gets hurt for a full season, he'd still probably give surplus value on the deal. Well in theory he needs to be worth more than that because you have to factor in the pre-arb and arb year discounts. Still, though, it seems like the odds of him being worth it are very high. And it seems like the realistic upside is massive, while the realistic downside is not particularly scary. The downside is if he has a catastrophic injury or personal/legal issue that causes him to either not play or completely suck - and even then you're only paying him 16.5 million dollars more than you are Lucas Giolito to rehab from Tommy John for the next two years. (Bello - 55 mil, Giolito 38.5 mil after he elects to use his player option in 2025.)
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Post by 0ap0 on Mar 8, 2024 10:35:41 GMT -5
The downside is if he has a catastrophic injury or personal/legal issue that causes him to either not play or completely suck - and even then you're only paying him 16.5 million dollars more than you are Lucas Giolito to rehab from Tommy John for the next two years. (Bello - 55 mil, Giolito 38.5 mil after he elects to use his player option in 2025.) And you could take out insurance policies on these things if you were actually worried about them impacting your bottom line.
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Post by chaimtime on Mar 8, 2024 10:56:54 GMT -5
The downside risk is limited because the realities of MLB’s player control system have kept the salary down overall. Even if he disappoints going forward, he’s almost certainly going to provide better value for money than an equivalent pitcher available on the free agent market would.
But make no mistake about it, the exact same forces keeping his salary below market are the ones that demonstrate that they’re paying him like they expect him to become a very good pitcher. You can look at the contract one of two ways, they’re either giving him a generous raise over what he could reasonably expect through arbitration in exchange for two free agent years that have a high likelihood to be below market rate, or they’re giving him a lucrative two-year extension now in order to keep the CBT number down once he’s in his prime.
There’s plenty to like as a Red Sox fan here, but they’re not saving any money if he’s a steady 2-WAR starter going forward. That’s a relatively pessimistic outlook, though, and that downside risk isn’t anywhere near significant enough to outweigh the benefit of having him locked up at a reasonable number through his prime years.
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Post by incandenza on Mar 8, 2024 12:58:47 GMT -5
(Trigger warning: it ends with three gratuitous paragraphs about what a sad-sack organization the Red Sox are, as has become standard in media coverage of anything the team does.)
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Post by asm18 on Mar 8, 2024 13:30:48 GMT -5
(Trigger warning: it ends with three gratuitous paragraphs about what a sad-sack organization the Red Sox are, as has become standard in media coverage of anything the team does.)
That article shows data where the Sox have 3 starters who were in the Top 20 last year of "Largest Platoon Splits Among Righty Pitchers" - Houck, Bello, and Pivetta being alot worse vs lefties. For as much as we've discussed Houck's lefty problem Bello actually had a higher wOBA vs lefties than Tanner did. Kind of interesting because Breslow has downplayed the rotation not having a lefty - IIRC Breslow had something to the effect of it doesn't matter the handedness of your rotation if all 5 can get both righties/lefties out. Hopefully Bello can take the next step on that.
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Post by julyanmorley on Mar 8, 2024 14:35:54 GMT -5
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Post by carmenfanzone on Mar 8, 2024 15:25:52 GMT -5
Good news. I have high hopes for him. To bad he can't pitch every game.
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Post by dcb26 on Mar 8, 2024 15:29:49 GMT -5
This is the kind of "risk" I want to see the Red Sox taking more of, and that I think their financial strength should allow them to continue to take. Yes, there is absolutely a risk that the Red Sox pay Bello more than he ends up being worth or that they would have paid him if they went year to year. But - how big a risk is 10million AAV to the Sox? Not saying it's nothing, but even (especially?) if the Sox can't compete with the highest spending teams anymore (and I'm skeptical of that, although its more realistic than some fan expectations of how they should spend) they absolutely should have the payroll to support these kinds of deals going sour in a worst-case scenario. Meanwhile, the upsides are obvious, and extend beyond just having Bello on the roster. More like this, please.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Mar 8, 2024 15:54:12 GMT -5
Thread title needs to be 'Bello gets his bananas tallied'.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Mar 8, 2024 16:42:40 GMT -5
What I'd say is that this extension looks good if he turns out to be a steady 2 WAR pitcher. The degree to which he's better than that is the degree to which the extension looks better than good. Hard to imagine this contract will look good in hindsight if that's the case. Dane Dunning, for example, is coming off of a 2.1 fWAR season after compiling 3.6fWAR in 2+ seasons and he received 3.32mil in his first season of arbitration. If Bello is only a 2-war pitcher then something in the range of 1+1+4+8+12=26mil for the 5 years of team control would be on the high-end of what he could expect. That would leave 29mil guaranteed 5 years early for a 2-War pitcher, which would likely be double what he'd be looking at on the free agent market (although he would likely receive a multi-year deal). This isn't accounting for the chance of major injury either. It's slightly dated, but here's a write-up Ben Clemens at Fangraphs did a couple of years ago regarding $/WAR for arbitration eligible players: blogs.fangraphs.com/an-arbitration-compensation-update/I get that you weren't implying that Bello will only be a 2-WAR guy, but thought it was worth illustrating that the Red Sox really need him to become a 2.5-3 WAR type of pitcher for this contract to make sense. But at least they will be using (presumably) some of the CBT/AAV payroll rather than burning it. (side note: I didn't read the Fangraphs article because Jaffe has a history of deceitful writing regarding the Red Sox - really wish Fangraphs would dump him)
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Post by incandenza on Mar 8, 2024 17:28:46 GMT -5
What I'd say is that this extension looks good if he turns out to be a steady 2 WAR pitcher. The degree to which he's better than that is the degree to which the extension looks better than good. Hard to imagine this contract will look good in hindsight if that's the case. Dane Dunning, for example, is coming off of a 2.1 fWAR season after compiling 3.6fWAR in 2+ seasons and he received 3.32mil in his first season of arbitration. If Bello is only a 2-war pitcher then something in the range of 1+1+4+8+12=26mil for the 5 years of team control would be on the high-end of what he could expect. That would leave 29mil guaranteed 5 years early for a 2-War pitcher, which would likely be double what he'd be looking at on the free agent market (although he would likely receive a multi-year deal). This isn't accounting for the chance of major injury either. It's slightly dated, but here's a write-up Ben Clemens at Fangraphs did a couple of years ago regarding $/WAR for arbitration eligible players: blogs.fangraphs.com/an-arbitration-compensation-update/I get that you weren't implying that Bello will only be a 2-WAR guy, but thought it was worth illustrating that the Red Sox really need him to become a 2.5-3 WAR type of pitcher for this contract to make sense. But at least they will be using (presumably) some of the CBT/AAV payroll rather than burning it. (side note: I didn't read the Fangraphs article because Jaffe has a history of deceitful writing regarding the Red Sox - really wish Fangraphs would dump him) How do you reach this conclusion? If he were to hit free agency as a consistent 2-WAR pitcher in 2029, I think he would definitely do better than 2/29. And you think he'd only be looking at HALF of that?
For comparison: Lugo just got 3/45 based on one good season as a starter at age 33. Hicks, who hasn't even been a starter, got 4/44. Wacha, with a 1.5 WAR projection, got 2/32. Maeda is 36 and has totaled 210 IP and 3 WAR over the last two seasons and he got 2/32. Take those as a conservative baseline and add in 5 years of inflation. And then also factor in the benefit to the Red Sox of adding some payroll stability to their long-term planning.
ADD: Actually I don't know why I overcomplicated this. If you're saying this extension is basically paying him $29 million for his two free agent years, and we're stipulating he'd perform at 2 x 2 = 4 WAR over those two years, then of course $29 million for 4 WAR is a good deal.
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Post by scottysmalls on Mar 8, 2024 18:28:06 GMT -5
Hard to imagine this contract will look good in hindsight if that's the case. Dane Dunning, for example, is coming off of a 2.1 fWAR season after compiling 3.6fWAR in 2+ seasons and he received 3.32mil in his first season of arbitration. If Bello is only a 2-war pitcher then something in the range of 1+1+4+8+12=26mil for the 5 years of team control would be on the high-end of what he could expect. That would leave 29mil guaranteed 5 years early for a 2-War pitcher, which would likely be double what he'd be looking at on the free agent market (although he would likely receive a multi-year deal). This isn't accounting for the chance of major injury either. It's slightly dated, but here's a write-up Ben Clemens at Fangraphs did a couple of years ago regarding $/WAR for arbitration eligible players: blogs.fangraphs.com/an-arbitration-compensation-update/I get that you weren't implying that Bello will only be a 2-WAR guy, but thought it was worth illustrating that the Red Sox really need him to become a 2.5-3 WAR type of pitcher for this contract to make sense. But at least they will be using (presumably) some of the CBT/AAV payroll rather than burning it. (side note: I didn't read the Fangraphs article because Jaffe has a history of deceitful writing regarding the Red Sox - really wish Fangraphs would dump him) How do you reach this conclusion? If he were to hit free agency as a consistent 2-WAR pitcher in 2029, I think he would definitely do better than 2/29. And you think he'd only be looking at HALF of that?
For comparison: Lugo just got 3/45 based on one good season as a starter at age 33. Hicks, who hasn't even been a starter, got 4/44. Wacha, with a 1.5 WAR projection, got 2/32. Maeda is 36 and has totaled 210 IP and 3 WAR over the last two seasons and he got 2/32. Take those as a conservative baseline and add in 5 years of inflation. And then also factor in the benefit to the Red Sox of adding some payroll stability to their long-term planning.
ADD: Actually I don't know why I overcomplicated this. If you're saying this extension is basically paying him $29 million for his two free agent years, and we're stipulating he'd perform at 2 x 2 = 4 WAR over those two years, then of course $29 million for 4 WAR is a good deal.
Not sure if I’m missing something here, but isn’t it $29m for one free agent year by this math? Of course in actuality they are paying him $19m that year, $36 over the arb years. And then there’s the team option. Anyways I agree if he’s a 2 WAR player the deal is basically break even or pretty good however you want to frame it. I think they’d be happy to get a 2 WAR pitcher on a 1/20 with a team option at the age he’ll be, they would have overpaid by about $10m during his arb years, but that isn’t really a big deal.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Mar 8, 2024 21:07:25 GMT -5
How do you reach this conclusion? If he were to hit free agency as a consistent 2-WAR pitcher in 2029, I think he would definitely do better than 2/29. And you think he'd only be looking at HALF of that?
For comparison: Lugo just got 3/45 based on one good season as a starter at age 33. Hicks, who hasn't even been a starter, got 4/44. Wacha, with a 1.5 WAR projection, got 2/32. Maeda is 36 and has totaled 210 IP and 3 WAR over the last two seasons and he got 2/32. Take those as a conservative baseline and add in 5 years of inflation. And then also factor in the benefit to the Red Sox of adding some payroll stability to their long-term planning. ADD: Actually I don't know why I overcomplicated this. If you're saying this extension is basically paying him $29 million for his two free agent years, and we're stipulating he'd perform at 2 x 2 = 4 WAR over those two years, then of course $29 million for 4 WAR is a good deal.
I think I see the issue - you're one year off (add: as Scotty caught above). the 29mil would be for ONE year, not two, and my estimates are on the high-end and assuming greater payroll inflation than we are currently seeing. The second free agent year would be an additional 21mil, or 50mil total. You can certainly argue that a 2-war Bello gets closer to 18mil/1 or 36mil/2, but that's the high end, and still well short of what the Red Sox are paying - not accounting for any additional risk. I was already accounting for inflation, which is why I estimated 26mil through arb for the first 5 years. If they had bought out 2 free agent years (before the option), then I would certainly agree with you, but the 1 less free agent year is huge in the calculation. The payroll number may be a benefit 4-6 years from now for the CBT, but given the health risk pitchers face, price stability can backfire real quick. ADD: I'm not complaining about the deal. It's only high if he's a 2-WAR guy going forward. If he becomes a 3-WAR guy then it's a good deal.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Mar 8, 2024 21:24:45 GMT -5
The bar is set way too low. Here's a list of the pitchers with a bWAR of at least 2 over five years (minus 2020): Year | Pitcher | bWAR | 2023 | Chris Martin | 3.2 | 2023 | Brayan Bello | 3.1 | 2023 | Kutter Crawford | 2.5 | 2023 | Nick Pivetta | 2.4 | 2022 | Michael Wacha | 3.3 | 2022 | John Schreiber | 2.7 | 2022 | Nick Pivetta | 2.6 | 2021 | Nate Eovaldi | 4.3 | 2021 | Garrett Whitlock | 2.9 | 2021 | Nick Pivetta | 2.5 | 2019 | Eduardo Rodriguez | 5.5 | 2019 | Brandon Workman | 3.1 | 2019 | Chris Sale | 2.1 | 2018 | Chris Sale | 6.4 | 2018 | David Price | 3.7 | 2018 | Rick Porcello | 2.6 | 2018 | Eduardo Rodriguez | 2.5 | 2018 | Craig Kimbrel | 2.1 |
Bello already exceeded 2 WAR at 2324. The arrow is pointing up and given good health I believe he can easily be worth a minimum of 3.5 for the majority of the contract years.
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