35thstreetswarm

The Sox have been a top 5 payroll team before, and if they sniff real contention they will be again.

Cole or Strasburg. Go ahead with your little laugh emoji

Bingo. The whole rebuild set this up as our time to splurge. Saying “we couldn’t do that, that would be a splurge” misses the point. Too many freaking Tiny Tims on this Board. “I don’t even want the Turkey Fathahh...The scrawny duck you bought us is splendid! God bless us every one!” This is only Zack Wheeler we’re talking about ffs, and people seem happy not only with settling for him, but settling for losing out on him but trying really hard in doing so.

I’ll eat crow if it turns out that he absolutely, unequivocally turned down real money to go play somewhere else. I know I’ve been a broken record around here that that almost never happens with mlb free agents. I am still guessing when more details come out it will be more complicated—whether “extra” money was on the table will be arguable, it will turn out they were roughly equivalent offers (ala Heyward and the Cardinals). We’ll see. Oh well, I was not that wrapped up emotionally in landing the third prize in the free agent pitching sweepstakes.

I understand that from a fan's perspective. It's perfectly understandable to say, in retrospect, that you'd change absolutely nothing about the formula that led to a WS since you never know if it might have altered the trajectory that led to the ultimate prize. If I had a time machine I wouldn't trade Juan Uribe straight up for A-Rod at the beginning of the 2005 season lest it somehow disrupt the space time continuum and cost us the precious. I wouldn't even magically cause Frank to come back from his injury for the playoffs because...who knows? As a non-Cub fan I'm not burdened by all that, though. Correlation does not necessarily equal causation and I do sometimes wonder if Chapman IN FACT was strictly necessary to the championship and if there was any way for them to win it while hanging on to Torres. We'll never know.

I wish there was a way to automatically block all posts suggesting players regularly refuse millions from teams because they don’t “like” them.

Strasburg and it's not even close. Who would choose Wheeler?

Yep - losing the consolation prize means there is no prize.

Obviously didn't keep his head on a swivel: that's what you gotta do when you find yourself thrust into the middle of vicious cockfight.

I get it: everybody has written off the possibility of the Sox getting the nicest thing, or even the second nicest. We're thrilled we made a signing to get our payroll up to, what, the 30th percentile in MLB? It's just strange everyone is so cheerful about these constraints we seem to have accepted. The FO gets slammed unnecessarily (in my view) all the time on this board, but they've really put a spell on us here for some reason. For the record, I don't think we need to accept it. I am a broken record on this, but the *Sox have been a top 5 payroll team* in recent memory. Don't know if they'll get there again, but at this point I see no reason to build a 120 million salary cap into all thinking and expectations about this team.

As negative as people are on this board about so many things, I’m kind of amazed at how jacked everybody is about the possibility the Sox could sign the third best pitcher on the free agent market (maybe) when we easily have payroll room for #s 1 and 2. (...Debbie Downer—wamp wah)

I suspect Yolmer is the kind of player some folks on this board will fall back in love with when they seem him in another uniform.

Obviously. But it's kind of obtuse to treat (a) spending money on baseball players (whose "win" contribution can be calculated) and (b) building a winning baseball team as if they're two completely separate things. Foregoing opportunities to add multi-win players to your roster when you have the resources to do so is a bad thing to do when trying to build a winning roster.

I'd be furious, too. The pressure's on as far as I'm concerned. This is the first offseason where there's truly no excuse not to sign premium free agents: we have clear needs, there are elite players available to fill them, we have a surplus of payroll room, and we're coming into our supposed contention window. If we don't get it done and other clubs do it's just a clear concession we're not serious. (Last offseason was damn close to "no excuse" as well, but I guess they could say it was a year or two early, and they also just got "surprised" on Machado, who they thought they had in hand. )

"Fortunately, Cole or Strasburg IS going to happen." There -- the baseless speculation ledger is back to even and we can concentrate on waiting to see what actually happens.

Were they? Neither even made it to the Series.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that I'll be disappointed with just about any offseason that doesn't net Cole or Strasburg. The name of the game is to build a World Series contender. World Series contenders need a bona fide ace to anchor to their pitching rotation, period. There are TWO aces on the market this offseason that could anchor us through our contention period, and we have nothing but money to spend. We have a clear and obvious need, available solutions, and the means to make it happen. Why wouldn't we be disappointed if we fail to execute? Yes, I know -- I should get ready for disappointment because we've all decided the Sox won't spend the money on these guys. Maybe that's true, maybe not, none of us knows and it's irrelevant anyway. I'm bored with this meta-analysis that tries to craft an offseason that's acceptable within the imaginary set of plans and preferences we've ascribed to the front office. Ace or bust!

I mean I'd be happy the offense got significantly upgraded. But disappointed and puzzled that they spent a bunch of money without addressing their most glaring need: a frontline starter. I'd take Cole and a bunch of stopgaps over the above.

Sure, but less cool than an infield of Rendon/TA/Madrigal paired with the outfield I described above (since the addition of Rendon would be the condition bringing about that outfield grouping.) Whatever, you can play this game all day plugging in your favored players. My only point is that an "all-prospect" outfield comprised of the centerpieces of the rebuild would have a cool symmetry.

Boy, if it worked out the idea of a Jimenez/Robert/Moncada outfield is pretty damn cool.

I'll be the first to admit Rick Hahn has had his share of misses; last offseason in particular was a shambling beclownment of the franchise. But if you did an assessment like this (heavily weighting recent playoff appearances, wins, etc.) of any GM at the tail end of a multi-year rebuild it would look pretty terrible. We are at the doorstep of the supposed contention period the rebuild was designed to usher in. If the Sox take off on a multi-year tear all will be forgotten. If they fall on their face RH will have no supporters left, and will probably be fired. Doing this exercise right now seems sort of pointless: a bit like criticizing a movie for going over-budget, making controversial casting choices, and hiring a director of with a few flops on his resume as you're sitting in the theater watching the opening credits roll. At this point just sit back and watch the movie.

Good ole low-energy Bruce

I agree. Not signing any stars would also mean going into the year with like a sub 75 million in payroll, which seems unlikely.

That's for sure. We have more payroll room than we know what to do with, and with the emergence of our core have no excuse not to go big with free agents. We deserve nice things. If we let teams like the Padres continue to scoop up elite talent while we cobble together scraps my rage will know no bounds.

Well, if it's *true* that they're actually in the mix for another elite free agent then I agree. But I wouldn't put too much stock in the wild speculation in the sports media at the moment. Another report cited in this thread has the Sox getting Gerritt Cole, but I don't take that as a sign of Jerry's seriousness. Who knows?