bmags

I mean they really shouldn't have implied they'd spend, but there really may be a benefit to waiting. There will be a point where the lux tax penalties kick in that make the teams spending hold back for a year or so. Next year, they could go hard after Devers/Ohtani. But the problem is after that it's not amazing, and Devers could easily be re-signed. So you leave yourselves vulnerable.

my theory on the lockout was that they really could have done nothing to the cba and it'd end up like this. I didn't really think the players got much anyway, insane(!) to me that they didn't get rid of the QO. But the reason was I thought the 15-20 years in baseball were just transformational in terms of front office set-up. The "old school" teams all cried mercy, it was dead. It required modernizing their operations, and at the same time there were huge technological advances (or at least, applications) to player development. They were focusing there, getting this stuff set-up. That led to a lot of rebuilds while they rebuilt their orgs. Reds, white sox, tigers, twins, royals just in our division. But then starting 2020 that was largely done and they were done. Now we have way more competitive teams due to that cycle, and because they are all operating a bit smarter in putting money toward productive positions (except sox), they can go big game hunting like this. But notice the mid-level fa's haven't been crazy at all. And to some extent I wonder with Swanson what we'll see. Old times a team would just take what they offered to correa and offer it to swanson. I don't think teams will do that. So we'll see.

I think it’s fine if you don’t like bat flips. I don’t like sotos batting stance stuff. As long as we aren’t advising throwing a 95 mph baseball at someone over something that annoys us, to each their own. but to me that one series where the blue jays kept hitting monster shots and having insane wrestler-like celebrations was the height of baseball and hilarious.

I’m saying if the Yankees agree to trade a prospect to you they are probably on the road to garbage.

I will never trade for a Yankees prospect they are willing to give up.

I thought there was a relationship move there, but if there was any franchise that boras owed it was the Nats who signed many a client, and then went bank for Strasberg, only to have boras guide Soto right outta there. You do boras favors, he doesn’t do you them.

I'm surprised those rooting against him. He's been a top 10 cy young finalist two years in a row, right? Pitching is what have you done for me lately. Patrick Corbin was a great pitcher for 1 year and got 6/$140 and that was 5 years ago in a much less competitive time for FA. These numbers aren't really surprising. There was only one surprising move in this whole saga.

Aren't they last in points scored? Can't imagine it's that big a drop off regardless, and that denver d could still win a game. I still believe

Last year we beat the Bengals, year before that the Bucs. Would keep a weird streak alive.

Yes not so much lately, but 5-6 years ago it was consistent that As would make trades people thought was light. But they got a lot of players right (including Semien, Bassitt)

Here’s the good news, doc. Last year they thought same thing about Rodon.

Man what a bummer. Would have also loved to replace Milwaukee in this discussion.

I think right now sox fans are just on the short end of the stick. How many franchises feel hopeless? Probably us, rockies, oakland just because that relationship right now. If you are pitt, you know it isn't great, but ben cherington is extremely smart and basically helped create a successful boston core that lasted a decade. And boston couldn't keep em either. Tampa has competed. Milwaukee has competed. In many ways it's more competitive across cities than it is in the NBA, where the player salary compression reduces it to "where is the weather and city nicest". Given how many baseball players are from southeast/west coast, do you want the midwest teams only offering the same as florida teams?

Unless Jerry appointed Hostetler to be his new scouting director going into a massive rebuild I don’t want to hear it.

Also not a dig at @Y2Jimmy0 but at Hahn, but last year he kept saying he didn’t think the 2B was yet on the roster and that ended up being Harrison. Hard to care too much when they are fishing for a 2 WAR guy.

Yeah, doesn’t bother me. Next ownership will have to clean up a mess anyway. Also I rarely care about the “did you hear what they are asking for!?!?” because the actual deals are usually far less. To the extent the Sox couldn’t match that anyway, that’s kinda the problem of where Sox are at right now. Prospect poor, cash poor.

I still see this as the most impactful rumor that could happen. Would be nice.

I think you also see 2005 reaffirmed “spread the money spread the risk” (unfortunately not for a single contract). likelihood of success on a contract less important to JR than likelihood of failure. To the extent that this works, it may be fine to enforce this only on pitching staffs. But also enforcing it on position players has just destroyed the org since then.

I think despite the offseason, as a fan of baseball I don’t think we are in that late 90s/early 00s feeling where you just can’t compete. I still think Braves are most likely to win NL east. Scherzer and Verlander we have every reason to believe are the exceptions, but so was Nelson Cruz and you do eventually hit that wall. But to be the Braves the Sox needed to go back in time and perform their drafting and player development better. They didn’t, but neither did Phillies or Mets really, but they had owners who weren’t going to let missteps derail the years it took to build their initial foundation. Obviously Phillies are exhibit A. But it’s never too late to stop operating better in scouting and pd, and at the very least I do think we may have at the end of the year be impressed with the wave of pitching arriving from there. The last part I hate is just knowing now this was doomed from the start, because unlike orgs that legitimately feel they must win, clearly there was going to be a point in this rebuild when the Sox were like, wellp this is it, let’s see how they do. Meanwhile the other teams keep adding, never stopping trying to get an overwhelming advantage. JR wants to find the perfect equilibrium of where exactly what’s needed meets exactly what it would cost and never risk going above it that equilibrium.

Aww don’t be silly. He was their plan A.

Christian pache outcomes, but not Christian pache prices helps that.

Was yoan moncada or Eloy Jimenez f***ed in incredibly team friendly deals? Hard to even say Robert was.

While I think anytime someone is mentioned a lot it seems to inflate their importance, I think there are things about Outman that are good. His power became a big thing last year, he hit 31 homers. I think we will see a number of later breakout prospects the next few years because of this. James outman came in the league as a 21 year old. Then he had a pretty good year of A ball as 22. that's all normal. Then all the sudden the next time he plays baseball he's a 24 year old just hitting A+. He's moved up a level mid season each of the last two years. Some of these unexpected profiles are going to show up because of the extremely rare "no baseball for 1.5 years".

exactly. The main reason it was hard to pull the trigger.

yeah I'm actually not surprised it took this long, mono has really derailed some athletes years recently. I am surprised how good he looked, and am excited to see how he fares these last few weeks.