Juan Soto

Is ownership the driving force because it’s Soto or would this mindset represent a reversion to the early-2000’s Sox where they are willing to spend like a top of the market power? Either one is encouraging to me but the latter would make me feel pretty confident in this organization being top tier across the next decade when combined with the incoming homegrown talent.

I’m thinking 15 years and pay him $55 per for the first 5 years with an opt out after that. Then 10 at $35 per the rest of the way and he could hit the market again at age 31 like Judge just did.

Already annoyed at the click economy. So many quotes hedging and equivocating about who's the favorite to sign him, who's a dark horse, who's bidding against who, etc. I don't think it's done maliciously, but most of it is garbage. Maybe I have PTSD from last offseason's Ohtani/Yamamoto show.

No disrespect intended: what are Carrabis's bonafides, if any, as a "sourced" insider?

I thought he was an internet Red Sox fan 1st 2nd & 3rd -- have I got it wrong?

I too would like to be an alpha dog on the Red Sox

Can't they just offer Soto $780,000 per year over the next 897 years?

Why the hell have I refreshed this page so much today knowing that at the bare minimum nothing substantial will be reported before Monday, and likely much later than that? I’m like Dexter… Just accepting that I have an issue and swimming with the current.

There aree 3 groups here:
1. Completed Contracts: Alex Rodriguez is the only player to have completed his contract on that list and in hindsight, it was bad. Not debilitating, because the Yankees had huge payrolls relative to the league, but 22.5 fWAR for $275mil at 2008 rates (12.2mil per fWAR) was a bad overall investment. He was very good for 4 years and then the testosterone laced wheels fell off.
2. Half-Completed: Harper has accumated 23.8 fWAR over the first 6 years for ~133mil for ~5.6mil per WAR - a good investment so far but with age 32-38 seasons left to go. Cole has accumulated 17.2 fWAR in 5 years for 157.3mil for 9.14mil per WAR - this is a bit high for FA rates but not by much and the Yankees & Cole agreement to keep the last 4 seasons (ages 34-37) as-is shows it's about market rate. Machado has had 16.6 fWAR over the first 4 years for 81.1mil, for 4.9mil per fWAR, a bargain - but Machado received an even larger 350mil/11year (ages 30-40) extension which superceded the last 6 season of the original contract. (these players each went through the 2020 shortened season and were only paid 37% salaries for those years; this has been accounted for in the numbers)
3. Just Started: As Incandneza points out only Xander looks bad from this group (still time to rebound), but of this group only one player (Seager) has completed 3 seasons as the rest are all in years 1 or 2 of contracts ranging 9-12 years.

I think this just illustrates that paying young stars big money is a good investment while paying aging stars big money is a bad investment. The opt-outs make it even more interesting as the Yankees will likely be seen as smart for not agreeing to add 36mil/1yr to Cole's contract and the Padres will likely look like idiots for extending Machado through age 40 to avoid his opt-out

I’d do that same total amount for 12 years

Could there be a scenario where Soto and Crochet are linked in a sense? They sign Soto for 45M AAV and they're going to have a hard time convincing Henry to also spend 30M on fried/burnes/Snell.

Enter crochet and all of a sudden you get the big bat and the big pitcher for 50-60M. Just a thought, probably isn't much correlation but makes you wonder.

If you trust Breslow's ability to set up a consistently good pitching development system, it kind of makes sense to go over this year by acquiring a high-priced reliever and another moderately priced one on short term deals with the assumption that, in the future, internal reinforcements will render those unnecessary expenses.