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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 18, 2020 10:00:44 GMT -5
War is over, if you want Noah Song to pitch.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 18, 2020 9:26:59 GMT -5
And that would be the Stros organization that has been made an example of, Cora gets a year just like the other guys. Remember, Hinch was his boss.And Cora, rightly or wrongly, is the guy he threw under the bus. Plus Cora continued this behavior on another team, one that had already been warned, etc... even if you're right that Cora shouldn't get a harsher punishment, I mean... since when does that matter?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 18, 2020 9:14:02 GMT -5
Just curious, are you a qualified medical professional with access to recent information on Sale’s arm health? Have you examined him personally? Did you at least stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night? If none of these things, I am curious why your opinion should be considered anything more than a blind guess. You're going to have a hell of a time with your fantasy draft if that's your standard for evaluating pitcher health.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 18, 2020 9:11:11 GMT -5
Could Cora be looking at a lifetime ban for cheating? I think it’s an option. I doubt this highly. Much of what I have read about this talks about how prevelant this is in baseball and many wish it had just been kept in house. I think their is plenty of sentiment for the people caught up in taking it too far and being rightly suspended. But to make it a life time thing is a bit much. That's exactly why you would ban him, though. They didn't ban everyone associated with the Black Sox scandal because that type of behavior was uncommon at the time, they did it because it was too common. Or for a more recent example, John Coppolella was most certainly not the only baseball executive who ever tried anything shady in the DR. That's how this stuff works, an escalation of bad behavior until someone takes it too far and gets made an example of.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 16, 2020 17:53:01 GMT -5
Ive been very busy at work and unable to follow this in detail but what are people’s guesses on our penalty? I just get the feeling we’re going to get clobbered as well. When baseball folds and liquidates its assets after today, the Red Sox are getting a smaller cut.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 16, 2020 17:20:36 GMT -5
If there's any chance of the MLB covering this up until they no longer could, then we should assume that it's possible for any superstar to be on HGH. Edit: Should have added, that's a big IF. I assume it's possible, and I fully believe it's a thing David Brosius has heard. But the idea that there are whispers within the game that Mike Trout is using something... yeah well no shit, he's Mike Trout. You can't be Mike Trout and not have those rumors floating around on some level.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 16, 2020 16:59:32 GMT -5
I, the rando son of a former major leaguer, certainly do have some scandalous information to share right now, the exact moment at which it will attract the most attention to me.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 16, 2020 9:46:20 GMT -5
No, the Rays do not remove $30 million from their payroll every year. Are you kidding? That's like, all they do. They don't cut $30m at once because they DFA everyone who's arb number goes one dollar over their projected value.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 15, 2020 14:02:03 GMT -5
There is no justice unless the law is applied equally to all. First off, this isn't the law. This is baseball. Secondly, just because someone somewhere got away with the thing you didn't get away with, doesn't mean you don't have face consequences for it. That's how a child thinks.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 15, 2020 7:17:02 GMT -5
I keep hearing people suggest Varitek for manager and while I think he has some qualities that may make him a great manager some day this is not the situation for learning on the job. He maybe in a perfect storm with help could develop into a good manager. But think of all he would be dealing with the pressure of managing in Boston, the ramifications of MLB ruling and a roster that may never be set this year (do we want to win or are just setting our salary structure) We can talk about how our expectations are tempered but when the season starts fans will want to win. Maybe next year when the turmoil has been cleared up Varitek can with a very good bench coach can ride in on his white horse and save the day. Right now I do not know who can manage the team but hopefully he has been a MLB manager so can handle that part because the rest will be somewhat overwhelming If Varitek was really interested in working his way up through the ranks of coaching, I feel like he would have been doing it already. I don't think he's a guy who misses the day-to-day grind of the MLB season.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 14, 2020 17:13:52 GMT -5
If they get the same draft pick penalty that Houston got, they should blow up the Luxury Tax goal. Of course, with all the top FAs gone now, probably moot, but still. This is a joke that MLB is apparently not investigating all teams but just the ones a reporter drew attention to. It’s headline chasing. How unjust that a team would be singled out merely because they were credibly accused of wrongdoing.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 13, 2020 16:50:53 GMT -5
We should be separating what Cora did in Houston from what he did in Boston and what Boston actually did. Boston cannot be punished for what Cora did in Houston. Agreed and we also have to consider that these talks about Cora being the mastermind of this scheme largely come from the Astros, it's possible they tried to scapegoat him to save themselves. That detail about Hinch being against the plan and damaging the monitors in protest... like, aren't you in charge here, dude? Why are you using the tactics of a crappy passive aggressive roommate? Not trying to dismiss any of this, Cora's obviously implicated in all sorts of stuff he shouldn't be, but I do wonder if we're getting the whole story here.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 13, 2020 16:00:29 GMT -5
If you are the Sox, do you have to consider firing Cora, if he's suspended for a year and proven to be instrumental in not one, but two cheating scandals? I like Alex, but man, it's going to be an uphill battle for him to recover any respect around the league when he does come back from his punishment. Based on what we're hearing from this report, do you even want him back?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 13, 2020 15:48:43 GMT -5
This sucks.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 12, 2020 11:57:09 GMT -5
Hacking is the correct term. The vast majority of sites get hacked through social engineering and lapsed physical security - passwords taped to desks, doors left often, screens left on, idle talk at parties... that sort of thing. That's the gateway for what comes next. It's all part of the "hack". Can the hair-splitting, please. It only counts as hacking if your keyboard makes extremely loud clicky-clacks.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 10, 2020 10:55:53 GMT -5
But they didn't just do it to pick up the bonus pool money... they also got Arozarena and Martinez. That's kinda the point: the players they got back alone weren't worth it, and the pick upgrade alone isn't worth it. But the combination? Trading Liberatore to make the current MLB squad marginally better while also making a pretty significant improvement in the draft pool? Sure, I can see that. I would be 0% surprised if the Rays internal projections put a higher dollar value on Arozarena than Liberatore. Fangraphs gives Arozarena a 55 future hit, 55 future field, his minor league numbers are solid and he has a 97 wRC+ Steamer projection, and he has almost zero MLB service time. That's exactly the kind of player the Rays are going to value way more than his prospect rankings would suggest. Martinez is also interesting. At a minimum he's a lefty masher for them, but he's also got this weird profile where he's actually kind of a contact-based guy who hits the ball on the ground a ton despite decent power production. I could see him being a guy they acquired with a swing/approach change in mind. Wouldn't be surprised at all if he has a huge year for them.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 9, 2020 14:46:59 GMT -5
Couple things here. While I don't think Cora gets fired, it's concerning out of his 2 seasons with the club, his historical WS year is tied into a cheating scandal while year 2 was a major thud and disappointment starting with entering the season completely unprepared. I will say though that if this is coming out now in 2020 then why was he cheating in 2018 and not 2019? Unless he was spoken to and stopped or his "cheating" wasn't as big of a deal as people are making it sound. I'm curious how you explain the drop off between years if you credit the cheating to his success. What I'm most fascinated in is how this could impact Betts trade value. Altuve hasn't had the same pop since and Betts was an MVP 2 seasons ago. Should we reasonably expect last year to be his new norm (still all-star caliber) or can we expect him to be capable of flashing Mike Trout type of numbers? No amount of cheating can stop your rotation from being garbage.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 9, 2020 6:37:58 GMT -5
Maybe it's just me, but I keep seeing these 10/420m figures, 10/375m for Betts and have to wonder.. How much is left over for the rest of the potential good players Boston will have 4-6y down the road? Giving 1 guy 40m is a huge chunk of cash, even without the salary cap in force today and for 10y? Myself, no chance. Not even for the current 2nd best player in the game. 5y? Sure thing. You're proposing a $40m and the lowest threshold for the luxury tax will be around $210m so I'd say about $170m is left over for everyone else. So, almost twice as much money as the Rays needed to win 96 games this year.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 9, 2020 6:33:39 GMT -5
And it worked even in 2018, when we had Sandoval, Ramirez, and Pedroia all on the books and doing nothing. But like FTHW said somewhere above, you gotta spend the money somehow. It doesn't prevent the team from retooling if and when they have to. Obviously it's harder when you owe $40 million to one player who isn't producing. But have, like, the Yankees had a single season this century when they didn't have that much money sunk into some motley collection of broken down all farts? Yet they seem to get by okay. Here's the other thing people are missing about those "low risk" free agents in the $80-120m range... a lot of them bust, a lot of them bust right away, and then you have to go get more of them. Sandoval, contract was dead money from the moment it was signed. Eovaldi could easily be that guy. There's no "well at least we get a few good years" assurance with that class of free agents; if there was, they'd cost more. Yes, each $100m free agent incurs less risk, but you have to incur that risk more often. Rodriguez had a 2.7 fWAR season the year he turned 40. His rapid decline came when he was 41. Cano has put up 21.5 fWAR in 6 years, which is hardly terrible for a $24 million/year deal. He was mediocre this season but good last season and it's not obvious he's totally washed up. Votto's been even more productive than Cano - 24 WAR in six seasons - and he projects to add a few more WAR to that. These contracts are not "showing one thing and one thing only. Oh man, can we talk about how good the original A-Rod contract turned out?
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 8, 2020 21:31:12 GMT -5
Detroit doesn't suck because of the Miguel Cabrera contract. But if they didn't suck and they were at max budget, that contract would be crippling them and preventing them from improving. That is the point you're ignoring. It's true, in a scenario constructed specifically to make that contract a problem, it would be a problem.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 8, 2020 19:19:34 GMT -5
It's 100% fine if you want to gamble on Betts. I just think the better arguments are he'll be so good early that you could win a few Championships, something like that. Not he won't hurt us if we become the Detroit Tigers because we'll suck for five plus years! We haven't been like that for 20 plus years. It's why the length matters so much. The brilliance of our owner has been retooling and going for a Championship every few years. Detroit doesn't suck because of the Miguel Cabrera contract.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 8, 2020 12:36:21 GMT -5
There's no point in pretending there isn't very serious risk they would be taking on. I know people are allergic to nuance but I absolutely assure you: no one is saying that.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 8, 2020 7:25:44 GMT -5
I would rather swan dive off the green monster than watch Desmond try to play RF at Fenway baseball. Proposed correction.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 8, 2020 7:21:16 GMT -5
Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols are examples of guys who used to be as good as Mookie. Starting with his age-28 season - where Mookie will be in 2021 - Cabrera put up 37 fWAR through the next 6 seasons and ~0 in the last 3. Pujols also put up ~37 fWAR over the 9 seasons starting from age 28, but -2.6 in the 3 years since. It would hardly be disastrous if Betts produced like that over the course of a 10/375 deal. These contracts are also not franchise-ruiners people make them out to be. The best projected hitter on the Tigers roster right now is Jonathan Schoop at 1.7 fWAR. How does the Miguel Cabrera figure into that franchise's misery at all? You could vaporize it tomorrow and their rebuild timeline doesn't improve by one day. Pujols has been more of a legitimate detriment, but even then, it's not his fault that the Angels have had a horrific run of pitcher attrition. These are absolute worst case scenario contracts, and it's still hard to argue (impossible in Cabrera's case) that they're the primary detrimental factor for their respective organizations at this point.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Jan 7, 2020 19:43:20 GMT -5
You're not giving Pablo Sandoval and Hanley Ramirez 12 year deals. Alright, you've convinced me.
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