The Red Sox have reached an agreement with free-agent utilityman Marwin Gonzalez, according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com. It’s a one-year, $3MM pact, Feinsand tweets. MassLive.com’s Chris Cotillo tweets that Gonzalez can tack on an additional $1.1MM via bonuses based on plate appearances.
This deal will reunite Gonzalez with Red Sox manager Alex Cora, who was Houston’s bench coach during Gonzalez’s best season in 2017. Gonzalez played with the Astros from 2012-18, and though it took a couple years for his offense to come around, he became a solid producer at the plate for the club during those last years. The switch-hitter amassed 2,265 plate appearances as an Astro from 2014-18 and batted .271/.328/.438 (111 wRC+) with 70 home runs. He also lined up at every position but pitcher and catcher while with the Astros.
Gonzalez parlayed his all-around success with the Astros into a two-year, $21MM contract with the Twins entering 2019. He continued to provide impressive defensive flexibility in Minnesota, taking the field at all of his previous spots except center field, but his offense faded. The 31-year-old concluded his Twins tenure with a subpar line of .248/.311/.387 (85 wRC+) and 20 homers in 662 trips to the plate.
Although he didn’t produce as hoped as a Twin, it isn’t a surprise Gonzalez garnered interest from several teams this free-agency period. The Blue Jays, one of Boston’s division rivals, were also among the teams fighting for him, per Feinsand. Like fellow new Red Sox utilitman Enrique Hernandez, Gonzalez figures to play all over the diamond for the club. That should include the outfield, as the Red Sox traded one of their previous starters – Andrew Benintendi – on Wednesday.
He certainly hit well in 2017…
Thanks to the trash cans…
Crazy how many players on that team had career years that season.
BANG BANG!
BANG BANG!
Feuer frei
BANG BANG!
BANG BANG!
Feuer frei
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BANG BANG!
Marwin says, Dang, hitting is hard when you don’t know what’s coming!”
Love me some Rammstein!
Crazy how many players on that team DID NOT have career years that season.
Look at the facts.
Marwin Gonzalez and Derek Fisher are the only player with more than 50 PA who had a career high in bWAR that season.
5 players had their highest OPS+.
Out of 17 players with 50 or more PA, Martin was the only one with a career high in both.
Marwin. Stupid autocorrect.
Its really hard to take you seriously when your username is “Stros fan” i mean you are not biased or anything. The bottom line is, if it wasnt benefitting them, then why did the continue to do it? At least the players taking HGH could argue that it helped them heal quicker. Gary sheffield went from being on the DL every other week, to being a healthy every day player. The Astros obviously were not just doing it for the hell of it
The trashcan thing doesn’t hold up. Check out his home/road splits in 2017 – ..881 OPS at home, .932 on the road (where they weren’t using the trash can.
The more you study it, the less clear it is that it conferred much advantage at all. Doesn’t make it right of course, but nevertheless.
That was 4 years ago.
Can’t believe cora gets a 2nd chance he doesn’t deserve and now he’s trying to get the old band together. Cheaters are always going to cheat they will stop for a while but then find better ways to do it. Once a cheat always a cheat.
Yank, you’ve never made a mistake or a bad decision or rolled with something that you knew wasn’t right and regretted it? We all make mistakes and hopefully learn from them. Sometimes it’s a group and we roll with it but I think we learn from these things. He’s 45 not 65 and a lifetime swindler.
Starting out in the management business and trying to please has bosses and do the best he can to win. What are you going to do…, give it a rest Mr. Perfect.
Would rather have given a Munoz type a real chance. Kids, remember your parents are wrong: Cheaters do prosper!
My thinking is a chance for Munoz to stick on 25 man roster anyway now with benny gone. Either Chavis stays in AAA to get him consistent AB’s, Arroyo gone for good because he’s pretty much useless anyhow.. Really nice moves looking back to sign both Gonzalez and hernandez for 10m combined when both can play everywhere and munoz 4 positions himself. Covers OF platoon, allows hernandez to play 2nd and those other 2 to rotate at it and multiple other positions.. Those knocking it just clueless, even just hernandez and gonzalez on the 25 man and keeping Arroyo would be decent, but keeping munoz over Arroyo would give them pretty much unlimited depth.
Just sad the way the game has gone. The need for so many pitchers today. Arroyo looked like good last season in the small sample size but now appears to be an afterthought on a likely losing team. As for Munoz, I just liked the sting off the bat.
Cheating in baseball is not a mistake. It was a conscience decision by all of them. They should have all been banned from the game and all titles stripped from the books.
shanefalco, another mister perfect. Always makes the correct conscious decision and never makes a conscious decision to do anything wrong.
Though I believe in personal restoration I am an agreement on stripping the titles. That should have absolutely happened… the Astros found guilty- strip their title. Red Sox found guilty- strip their title. End of story.
It looks like you cheer for the Yankees which is quite the oxymoron.
Right jdgoat
Hokum!
For all the Marwin critics, if you guys think his 2017 stats were due to cheating, then how do you explain his home/away splits for that season?
.282/.339/.543 HOME
.336/.416/.516 AWAY
Those are some pretty nice away numbers in 2017.
And his 2019 that is almost a mirror age of his career avg/obp/slg
Can’t wait to see Houston in New York gonna be fun to watch
A-Rod says what?
So what you’re saying is the Yankees will always find a way to cheat…?
So he cheated, why are you whining about it the Yankees had enough cheaters themselves bet you didn’t bash you’re own cheats
Yeah Cora and Hinch both have new managing gigs already. Deal with it. All teams cheat. It’s been going on since the dawn of baseball. The 1951 Giants cheated. Gaylord Perry and Don Sutton cheated. Enough with the infantile comments about the Astros cheating. For the love of God, come up with something new guys.
Beltran didn’t get his job back …. 🙁
Dont be nieve. The fact that the players werent punished at all is exactly why nobody outside of Houston can “deal with it”. Its not like they served a 25+ game suspension and we are still piling on
I love how you say “come up with something new” as if the biggest cheating scandal in the last 100 years is just something we can throw to the side and find something else to get mad over.
“Yeah im over the astros cheating for almost every home game in 2017 and 2018 but now lets talk about them raising the prices of hotdogs 50 cents. Talk about slime balls who dont care about their fans”
Cause he cheated stupid
Stupid? Where is Manfred letter to the Yankees? Using the court system to hide evidence is smart? That’s cheating plus collusion with the commish plus bullying.
Boston Utility Sox?
true haha
Just gotta bring holt back
Nah, Bloom likes the lesser fan favorite utility guys.
No place for Holt now. More likely Moreland to teach the art of playing first base.
Exactly my thought.
No need for more, that’s plenty.
Why do we need him though?
We? I don’t know why you need him but the RedSox could use him as their utility guy. He adds depth to 2b and LF which seem to be up for grabs at the moment.
A fanbase is part of every franchise. There’s nothing wrong with people using “we”.
There’s also nothing wrong with people not using it.
If Redsoxx is a season ticket holder (prior to pandemic), he can say “we”.
I’d go a bit further and say if you purchase game tickets, hats, jerseys, shirts, etc., you have bought into and helped to support that franchise in many ways and are entitled to refer to yourself as “we” when in discussion about your favorite team.
I’ll add that in order to refer to your team as “we”, you must also fall into a depression once they have played their last game of the regular season (if missing the post season) or lost their last game of the post season, as you know they will not be playing another game for many months and you don’t get to spend that period of time celebrating their WS title. Needless to say, it was nice to finally not fall into either category, since WE finally won the World Series!
I disagree – ban “we” permanently. It is the bane of human existence.
Typical. The fun guy.
It was good natured ribbing. Nothing serious about it. Take a breath and calm down people.
People. go to a different chat board to have this discussion
Do Tattoos count? Apparel can be hidden or thrown away. Ink is forever
My question is who plays Centerfield, 2nd base, Left field, who is the closer, 4th and 5th starters, and who are the relief pitchers? But we have a bench!!! Great Offseason Bloom!!! You knocked it out of the ballpark. World Series here we come!!!
Cambio, get over yourself. Geez
Exactly. Another fun guy. Just root for your squad and leave it at that. Come on here and talk the game with fans, don’t be a jerk.
Calling out someone for using “we” when talking about their favourite team is considerably more obnoxious than using “we” in the first place.
It was good natured ribbing. Nothing serious about it. Take a breath and calm down people.
Ok, I guess I’ll get technical now…without fans, there would be no professional sports. Like any other entertainment product, it relies on supply and demand. Without demand, the supply eventually becomes zero, so as a matter of fact — the fans are the single most important component of any sports franchise. Seems like pretty good grounds for one to refer to their team as “we”.
I’ve missed quite a bit recovering here and not being able to get online. Some things I had right, some wrong.
That said, your current OF is Renfroe, Frenchy, and Verdugo. (Far car from Betts, Benny, JBJ.)
they could still be working for something more, but, it may be looking like a renfroe/Frenchy platoon, verdugo in center, and Kiki in the other corner hoping for a promotion from the minors in Duran to realign things if all went well
Yep – The 26 year old who had his only full season at league average in 2019 and got hurt and missed most of 2020 got shipped out after 3 seasons with an average OPS+ of roughly 115. Sounds like the perfect guy to trade for a platoon outfielder that costs less.
We had Manny being Manny now the Red Sox have Bloom being Bloom. They could be moving up for the #1 pick in 2022. Bloom’s strategy is getting clearer. He’s using the Houston Astro approach. Suck for many years, get lots of top draft picks, have a manager that cheats and eventually win a World Series.
Bloom is a man with a plan!!
Red Sox fans and (more importantly) ownership won’t allow a full tear down and slow rebuild. Sox will make moves next off season.
GASoxFan – How are you doing?
KD. Look at the trade in a few years. How many Tampa fans were happy when the Archer trade was done? Unless the Sox ride a miracle, they’re not winning in 21. Benny only then has one year left at a cost of about $8m or so. Another season like 19 and he has very little value.
Dewey – I hear you about Benny and I look at Verdugo the same way.
After the Mookie deal it’s really hard to get excited about anything being gotten by Bloom. I can’t help being frustrated that a team in their prime was blown up because I’m a Bears fan and a Bulls fan and I’ve seen this too many times for one lifetime.
Once Mookie was gone there were only two choices: 1 – Use his money and get a big bat to replace him and stick with the great 2018 core team or 2 – Trade off all the vets for high level minor league prospects, not highly ranked just prospects that are AAA or possibly AA if they are good enough to play in a year. That way the timing of the bad seasons and good picks come together in 2025.
I feel like Bloom is straddling the fence. Not a re-tooling but not getting anyone good enough to make the team better soon. Contrary to many prospect ranking systems, the Red Sox farm system was ideally spaced for bringing up new talent to start every year. Houck in 2020 along with Dalbec. I figured the Red Sox would force Downs in 2021 because of all the unsubstantiated hype he has and Duran would be an original Red Sox farm system guy that actually makes 2021 like most of the last 8 years when a minor league player one a starting spot.
I don’t think Benny will be 2020 Benny in 2021. I expect him to learn from the mistakes he’s made with his self image and go back to being a guy who sprays the ball all over the park like in college and his first couple of years with the Red Sox. KC did very, very well in this deal. Benny may only have an upside of a 125 OPS+ but his downside to me is no lower than 100 OPS+. That’s a much lower risk guy than Cordero, Renfroe and many of the other clowns picked up by Bloom.
You are absolutely correct, though, in what you said about Benny being a waste that close to free agency. It sad that it’s come to that. Verdugo has a few more years but without any impact players from Bloom there is a great chance the Red Sox may only be competitive during one year of Verdugo’s control years. That’s an even bigger waste than Benny would have been.
@KD17 – relatively well, thanks for asking!
I’m absent a few weeks though and bloom appears to have gone crazy assembling a cast of potential trade chips lol. I missed all the action!
KD: There was no pitching to make the team able to compete in the short term. I loved AV but like I’ve said to others, last year was like a hot streak as compared to a full season. If Verdugo continues to shine, the team will in my view look to sign him up long term when he’s arbitration eligible. By that time Bloom will have fixed the financials and the system so the team can make both short and long term goals. Ownership’s need for success after last place finishes in 14 and 15 (which tanked NESN ratings) forced the signings of Hanley and Panda. The team then doubled down on overpaying for Price, etc. Such culminated with the 18 championship but then stupidly overpaying again for Eovaldi and Pearce and finally resigning Sale knowing he never has been able to pitch strongly in September. Bloom was brought in because he knew how to best manage a small market club which is what the team needed to do to reset. The pandemic just added to the urgency. That said, Six ownership unlike the Yankees are hands on and will always be the final word. Theo, Ben and DD know this and Bloom will find out. He’ll be gone to by 23 if there’s not another banner to raise by then. While Hal is George’s son, I tip my hat to him for allowing Cashman to stay in charge on the field. The Yankees haven’t won in a while and I love to needle Rocky7 but it’s all in good fun. It was not fun growing up a Sox fan when the team always finished second. If Boston can’t win, I actually want the Yankees to win. It would be great locally and after this pandemic years, we all need something to celebrate (I live on Long Island). My bitterness after 86 when my brothers in-law gave me such a hard time prevents me from rooting for the Mets (lol ).
-sorry all for the long single paragraph as I didn’t realize it until I posted,
Note to MLBTR: why not give posters the right to remove or edit their posts?
We are probably around the same age and my father is from Boston and even went to camp with the Boston Braves in 42. I grew up a diehard Red Sox fan and White Sox fan since my mother was from Chicago. The lean years were hard on me like you. One of my first memories of the Red Sox was watching Ted play in 1960 then the young Yaz a year later. I was so pumped when Tony C started his career and then the beaning was sickening. I stayed home from school to watch the day games during the 67 series and was completely deflated after Gibson shut them down in game 7. My college roommate is a Yankee fan so the Dent HR tortured me for years then relief came in 86. Unfortunately that ended badly too. I made the mistake of calling my buddy who is a Mets fan and told him we were popping champagne in game 6 around the 7th inning, I couldn’t have imagined what was about to happen.. My father had a heart attack in 2002 and lived on a ventilator for year when the Sox started looking like they could compete with the Yankees. He passed in August of 2003 at age 80 never seeing a ring.
I hate seeing what ownership has done since firing DD because it took so long to see the first ring. I saw Bears and Bulls dynasties never last as long as they were supposed to and now the Red Sox and Patriots. I simply can’t figure out why owners don’t realize how incredibly special it is to win a ring. I am sure lots of young Red Sox fans can’t relate since both the Pats and Red Sox have been so successful but for those of us that grew up with losing year after year, we appreciate the winning in a completely different manner. I wish ownership could appreciate the winning as many of the older fans do. That would have prevented the tear down and would have given the older fans a few more years of pleasure. For all the people who say complaining with four rings in 20 years is just selfish, I say 4 rings in 100 years is one every 25 years. That’s hardly selfish.
Your point about Cashman is one I have questioned many times. That much money spent with so little success would have gotten most GMs fired long ago. If DD ever goes to the Yankees look out. It could be a repeat of the 1920s to 1962 when half the years the ring ended up in NY.
My negativity comes from the fact that ownership has no idea what they have done to the older fans. I’m sure Cub fans are beginning to feel like the lovable losers they were for over 100 years and now older Red Sox fans are getting flashbacks to the 86 years of nightmare finishes. It didn’t need to end this way. Turning around the mistakes made will take both time and money and those are things that came up short for nearly a century. So for many, it’s easy to say this will be a quick turnaround because they’ve never seen a Boston organization not turn things around quickly. For those of us who have, we will only believe it if it happens and looking at the mess of a roster in 2021, it’s not happening soon.
So he can be flipped @deadline for prospects and keep Chavis in Worcester to work on his game.
Worcester? What did I miss? Keep in mind I don’t live in New England anymore.
Moved away from Pawtucket
Sox ownership screwed RI big-time, moving the club after so many years.
Maybe the Red Sox should be the Pancakes because it sounds like Bloom’s plan is to have a Pancake Breakfast at the trade deadline. Swap out a bunch of worthless talent for what? Crappy minor league prospects arriving in 2027 if they ever arrive?
I can’t wait to see who is going to accept these flipped players at the deadline. Like I’m always telling people, you simply can’t have enough guys like Frenchy, Renfroe and Hernandez to move at the trade deadline to improve your future team!!!! hahaha
Wow, what a great strategy Bloom!!! Gather as many mediocre players you can and flip them at the trade deadline. I can remember when ………….. used that strategy. Wait, I’m wrong, I think this is a brand new approach to deconstructing a championship team and turning it into a consistent winner in a half decade or more. Can’t wait to see how this turns out!!!
No kidding. We cut payroll by moving out our stars and sign multiple utility players instead and have done only tweaks to our pitching which was abysmal last year. Bloom go back to Tampa PLEASE !!!
Yeah I wish Bloom would leave
DITTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
None of you seem to get it. Once ownership decided they would no longer bust the tax limits (draft and international money penalties as well), there had to be short term pain. Most of us accepted this with the 18 win. I have no issue with this longer term strategy, I just hate ownership for throwing DD under the bus for doing what they wanted, ignoring all the good that Tom Yawkey did, marrying themselves to cheaters and showing zero loyalty to the Pawtucket community after so many years.
Dewey – I’m loving everything you are writing today. I completely agree. I’m so disappointed that ownership didn’t have the vision to see Mookie as a foundation to the team. He may not be big but neither is Patrick Mahomes but he’s clearly an outstanding athlete with the clutch factor you want out of your super star. Mookie should do very well in LAD, just like he would have in Boston.
I’m also confused about why, after 20 years and 4 rings, an ownership group would decide to stop busting the tax limits even though profits were outstanding when they did bust it. They will need years and years to return to the level they were at in 2018 and 2019. 2019 can be summarized as a set of very unfortunate circumstances that made a nearly identical roster to the WS champs be average. Bad years happen and most don’t over-react and throw the baby out with the bath water. Sale’s injury was the main thing holding back the group of retained WS champs from going for another ring. Poor managing would also make it difficult like in 2018 but the talent was still there. Mookie, JD, Bogey, Devers, Vasquez, Benny plus Price, E-Rod with Houck on the horizon was a playoff team. A few taxes needed to be paid to attain the sustainability they claim to seek and they chose to blow it up instead.
Tearing it all down to build it sustainable is rhetoric. First, they won’t ever be as good as the 2018 team they destroyed. Next, like you said, it’s going to take 5 to 10 years to be close to competing for a ring and that’s only if you actually acquire talent. The home grown path doesn’t reap the rewards all at once like free agency. They need MANY hits on the guys they acquire to be competitive down the road. The early draft picks will help but 2025 should be the first non sub .500 year in the Red Sox future and I’m not very confident in that statement because I have yet to see Bloom acquire a big name player. Yep, not in Boston nor in Tampa. He’s putting together an interchangeable team that resembles TB. Last TB ring? Long before the current brain trust assembled in TB arrived. The last TB team to be competitive in the post season was 10 years ago. So it only 10 years for the TB approach to be effective enough for them to get to the World Series and of course they lost again.
Is that really what Red Sox fans want for the future of the Boston franchise?.
KD, the team will be competing consistently again for a title by 23. If not, Bloom is gone. I’m of the mindset that Mookie never intended to stay and would have used team offers to get the most from LA. The pandemic just forced his hand when the Dodgers put their offer on the table. Had Boston put the same extension on the table before the pandemic, he would have either increased his demand or at worst locked himself in at $400m. He just wasn’t re-signing in Boston.
I agree, there was to be no Boston signing and that in itself speaks volumes to whats wrong with the ownership that a generational player would rather move on than stay in a city that loved him.
The pandemic hadn’t really happened or maybe wasn’t recognized by the time the trade happened. Ownership might have had other foreign companies that were feeling the effects and felt the US would be next but I think that’s giving them too much credit. In the end, a trade deadline move made more sense since the NL was highly contested between LAD and ATL in January and SD ended up joining the NL leaders by July.
LAD also had the luxury of cap space in 2020 so the one time $65M bonus helped their cap room for the next decade and made the offer outstanding for Mookie. Their AAV is $3.4M more than what Mookie was paid in 2020!! If Mookie had been open to Red Sox offers he could have signed for $35M for 12 years. That meant an $8M dollar increase in 2021 and JBJ was costing $11M so he could have been paid for in 2021 by replacing JBJ with a reasonably priced temp solution until Duran was ready. It’s a damn shame the owners didn’t treat Mookie and others the way they should have. It will cost Red Sox fans at least a half dozen years to regain their former competitiveness.
Fans should be disappointed in the actions of ownership. Cora is simply the final nail in the coffin of ownership support. There are very few mistakes as colossal as the ones made by ownership beginning with the firing of Dombrowski..
We needed another guy who could bat from the left side, too. Fits that bill, I expect he’ll see playing time almost every day.
Whether he’s any good with his playing time will be another question.
Might be in line to play a lot of LF for them this year
Good thing we traded Benny so we could afford to sign this guy….wait for it….doh!
Good get here. Cheap, short… just like my uncle Chet.
Outstanding
What the hell is bloom doing with all these utility players. Makes no sense.
Marwin and Cora…..getting the band back together.
Apple watches and trash cans down, what is next?
Is the first line of your post a clever Christian Lee Hutson reference?
Wins
Buzzers
Yes, love to see it! Did not want him back with the twinkies at all.
He’s washed up. The dude could barely hit a ball last year. He just is not good anymore.
I heard Marwin and Cora are close…
He can’t hit Cora’s weight.
why?
We needed Mitchy two bags! But Nooo!
Yeah he really made a lot more sense for them.
I’d rather have Brock Holt back
Let it go already with the Brock Holt obsession. He was a solid utility guy and a great human being for several years with the red Sox. But the reality is he just isn’t a very good player. Not that Gonzalez is a star either… but he is better than Holt. Nothing against Holt he did amazing things in the community and by all accounts was a great guy to have around in the clubhouse. But he’s not worth bringing back for any reason at this point.
Jeff, if Cora can come back to get Devers bat going why can’t the BrockStar come back to get JD’s bat going? That doesn’t seem fair. Either way they suck so why not at least have an upbeat guy who will keep spirits up as they lose nearly 100 games?
Me too, but not as a player. Can we have Brock Star as a personal services guy running around doing all kinds of cool stuff for the club?
Anything to get him back into the organization I’d be more than happy with
Another under the radar under appreciated move by bloom. So far he is killing it in Boston.
He is doing decently but I’m questioning how their clubhouse relationships will be like. Seems a little bit messy.
You are trolling, right?
Honestly, was not expecting this signing but the relationship between the cheaters makes sense. Sucks that Dugie and Kike have to play with them! I wonder what that must be like.
They’ll hit the strip club and forget about it come April.
Not sure what the Red Sox are doing.
Building a team of interchangeable parts. Will soon be the envy of the major leagues. Coast through the season with only about three “regulars” while slowly building a formidable pitching staff bolstered by the addition of Sale as the lights out closer.
Or maybe they finish around .500.
Sorry after the first game, there will be no point in the season when .500 is possible. I think rose colored glasses could bring a .400 win rate but those are very rosie glasses. Sale would need to be dominant upon his return and Cora will need to find yet another new way to cheat to bring wins to this joke of a team. Bloom dumped the three B outfield, kept the butcher at 3B to kill the pitching ERAs and increase the losses, and has positioned himself to watch Bogey leave after the 2022 season so more interchangeable parts can be procured.
Maybe Bloom will rename them the Junkyard Sox. By 2022, the name will fit.
Well, John Henry has decided now isn’t the time to take FSG public, so he told Chaim, “The heck with it…buy the two-ply toilet tissue”!!!!!
Gonzo and Kike and Codero et all give the Sox the best bench in the East…..of course, there’s the small matter of the starting lineup….
Kiké will be the starting 2nd baseman, not a bench guy
I heard he’s a pumpkin eater
Marwin will be the LH 1B option Bloom was looking for. Lets see who gets cut or traded: Chavis or Arroyo as they likely will not carry Kike, Marwin, Chavis, and Arroyo on the roster at the same time
Thinking Chavis is going to Worcester as he still has an option and can’t hit the high fast ball. Kike and Arroyo alternate at 2B. Kike can play OF when Arroyo plays 2nd. I think Arroyo can also sub for X at SS too.
Fenway also known as Rubbermaid Park – so he feels at home.
Compared to his last contract, this is a value. He needs steady at-bats to be productive. Maybe he can find his power that he lost the last several seasons.
Yeah if he can find some of that power he used to have he will be a very solid pickup. Unfortunately (and I’m really not usually one to say/bring up that a player was only good cuz he cheated… because I think that’s usually an unfair assessment… it takes so much skill to hit at the ML level cheating or no cheating) however having said that… a lot of his “power” may have been because he knew what pitch was coming. I hope that’s not the case and he does wind up rediscovering some of that pop he had in the past… but idk… I’m not sure how realistic it is to expect. If he does though… he could wind up being a really great under the radar pickup for the club!!
Well when you know the what the pitch is going to be it usually gives you an edge
He hit a solid .211 last year! He should be a needed bat to help us this year!
I guess every player will play a different position every night (except JDM). How fun…
Trash cans
I’m probably in the minority here but I was hoping Boston would sign Yasiel Puig instead of Marwin. He’s a much better player; he just doesn’t have the positional versatility that Marwin the Martian does. This version of the Red Sox just screams .500 baseball. I really do like the Sawa signing though. He’s going to be a solid late inning reliever for them. I guess if everyone stays healthy and has close to career years then they might be able to push it to 90 wins but that could be a stretch. It’s still hard to swallow that this roster costs them $200M against the CBT.
i was thinking the same thing but they obviously valued Marwin’s defensive versatility over his bat
If it helps you out, about 30m of that money goes to Price, Benny, and Pedey who are contributing anything.
That gets you down around 170m… then wrap your head around how much the trio of Sale, JDM, and eovaldi eat up… its not as bad a pill to swallow. Only big ticket player really earning his money lately has been Bogey.
The $200 Million is Dombrowski’s fault, not Bloom’s. Not to mention the idiotic 8 year contract for Pedroia.
PKCasimir – During DD’s run he was not the reason for the $200M, it preceded him. He had an active roster costing $165M and $40M was overages from the previous GM.
Pedroia’s contract length wasn’t stupid at the time. You see everything in hindsight. It’s like saying an 8 year contract with Tony C would have been dumb but one to Yaz was less dumb since we know now he wasn’t going to get hurt like Tony C. Pedroia should have made good on his contract. Give your thanks to Manny “cheap shot” Machado for the millions wasted on Pedroia.
First of all, any eight year contract to a player who plays hard, slams his body around the infield and doesn’t know how to control himself is just plain stupid in2013, now and at any time in the future. Your rationale about Tony C, Yaz, etc is just as stupid. Given the fragility of the modern day athlete you don’t give anyone that long a contract.. That’s something you factor in in negotiating a contract.
It’s obvious you have absolutely no business or economic experience and you don’t even understand Business 101.
DD left the Sox paying a luxury tax. That’s th facts.
PK – Insulting someone who disagrees with you is one approach but I’m going to take a different approach.
You have two issues you believe you are right about:
1 – Pedroia isn’t the type of player that should get an eight year contract
2 – Modern players are fragile so long contracts make no sense
Also, just to be clear, the Yaz reference was simply using two players who I thought you might relate to and showing that hindsight is 20/20. Nobody could have guessed that Tony C would get a devastating injury that would have made any contract bad and Yaz would stay healthy for 22 of 23 years.making a long term contract very appealing. It’s only in hindsight that the perfect contract approach could have been used for those two players, just like Pedroia.
Opinion 1
The type of player as you suggest should be considered and I’m sure it was in 2014. The Red Sox won a ring and Pedroia was a big part of the success. Management and Pedroia wanted him to retire a Red Sox player, so they asked for a discount, got it and signed the contract. Did they know Pedroia played hard? Yes. Had he been hurt a lot prior to the 2014 contract? No, just one year in 2010. Should expectations have been he could miss part of one or two of the eight years? Yes. Did ownership factor that into the contract? Absolutely, in the form of a home town discount. Was there ANY way to see the career ending injury happening in the 5th year of the 8 year contract? No. Historically, a couple of seasons missing games would have been expected not a career ending injury. They simply don’t happen enough to put them in the equation. HINDSIGHT is the ONLY way your argument can be justified and they didn’t have hindsight when the contract was signed.
Opinion 2
Modern players are fragile so long contracts make no sense. Why is this statement false? Because modern players are stronger, faster, throw harder and have far more nutritional diets than the good old days. Your comment relating to how fragile they are is uninformed.
A player has protocol for reporting injuries and the team dictates the response not the player. Sale didn’t want to go on the IL when Cora put him there but he had to. Was he fragile or was he simply obeying orders? Many players are better prepared than in the old days to deal with physical issues. There are better training facilities, there are dedicated personnel for physical therapy, there are strength and conditioning trainers that never existed in the good old days and weren’t technically trained to support a professional athlete. Today’s player is not more fragile. That’s simply your misconception.
Last point to you about long term contracts. My understanding of Business 101 starts with the time value of money and the discount rate of contracts. If Pedroia signs a contract in 2014 for $110M over 8 years the AAV is $13.75M per year and the net present value of the contract costs using a discount rate of 7 percent makes the last year of the contract equal to roughly $8M in 2014 dollars. While the Red Sox still have to use the $13.75M against the luxury tax threshold the time value of money makes his 8th year $5.75M less or nearly half as costly as year 1. Thus, all contracts with multiple years have declining present values paid in the future.
Likewise, the owners expect the players to decline as well. The question of cost versus value comes down to whether a player decreases in value greater than the discount rate which in this case I used 7%. Buried in the underlying calculations by ownership is risk. They must assess the risk over time of the future values provided by the player.
I guarantee that NOBODY assumes a career ending injury like Pedroia faced when calculating the payback on a player. His contract was discounted because Pedroia wanted to be a Red Sox player until the end of his career so he took less. That discount then translated into fewer losses when the completely unexpected event of a career ending injury happened. That’s Business 101!!
Here is a bit more free insight into your off kilter viewpoints.
DD in 2018 paid $165M or so to active players. $40M of retained payroll from the previous GM put the Red Sox significantly over the luxury tax 1st threshold. Your facts are inaccurate. Look up the true facts on Spotrac.
Lastly, you need to wake up about baseball finances. The Red Sox for many years have made hundreds of millions of profit based on the data made available to the public related to operating profits. Using the industry statistics related to Operating Profits vs Net Profits and the knowledge of the rough age of Red Sox assets compared to other teams with newly financed facilities one can conclude that $10M in luxury tax is almost a rounding error in the profits of the Red Sox organization.
The amount the club exceeded the luxury tax is NOT significant compared to their profits over the last decade. It’s a lot to you and I but not to an organization with the revenue streams of the Red Sox. So why does any fan in Boston care about the luxury tax? Because ownership suggested Mookie had to go due to the high expenses. Hundreds of millions of dollars in profit over the last decade and NOBODY put away money in case injuries happened and the luxury tax had to be paid? That’s a poorly run organization that is short-sighted in its financial planning.
Mookie is gone because of diversity not a luxury tax. Price is gone because of diversity not luxury tax. For $10M in 2020 the Red Sox could have gone forward with their existing payroll and worked to keep the tax burden under $10M, which is $1M less than they paid JBJ to play center on a team that had the 4th worst record in baseball.
The contract length of Pedroia is insignificant to the big picture. The team got ripped apart because ownership offended it’s star players and chose to obscure the diversity issue by claiming a money issue. Mookie didn’t have to leave, he chose to leave. Price got thrown out like yesterday’s trash. Neither would have happened if the ownership didn’t have issues with diversity and had planned effectively to meet the needs of payroll going forward.
In 2022 a new CBA will raise the luxury tax level which may have brought the Mookie deal back under the 1st threshold. That’s what Cashman is counting on in NY. Ownership screwed up in so many ways during the last year and a half that focusing on whether Pedroia’s contract was too long seems insignificant and unimportant. No Mookie and Price is a much bigger problem. No new infusion of MLB ready talent is a much bigger problem. Peddy was a great asset that got forced out of the game too early by a cheap shot. Any time that happens the contract will look bad whether it’s in year 1 or year 5 of 8. It’s value lost for no good reason.
Still not sure what Boston is doing but it’s interesting to watch.
Actually it’s very simple. Bloom built a team in Tampa Bay that almost every player played multiple positions and now he is trying to do it in Boston. Problem for Chaim is there is a much smaller margin for error in Boston. If it works he’s a genius, if it doesn’t he’s an idiot and will probably be run out of town
I’m betting on the run out of town choice. Interchangeable parts doesn’t win rings. Red Sox fans like rings since they were denied them for so long. TB fans may accept annual slightly above league average performance but Red Sox fans won’t handle it well.
Your point is spot on Rsox!!!
Positionless baseball! Bloom’s taking tips from Brad Stevens/Brad Stevens I guess.
Red Sox could have spent their apparently limited funds so much better this offseason.
Bloom keeps making minor moves in free agency that no one will hold against him, but taking big swings in trades and the draft that will either pay off or collapse in his face. Betting a lot on players who most evaluators have pegged way lower.
Cherrington lasted 4 years as GM of the Red Sox, and he won a World Series.
I’d give Chaim Bloom another 2 til he’s AGM of the Royals.
First off the Sox needed a left compliment to Dalbec and also a safety net if he fails. Moreland was my guess at the exact same price. This is an upgrade if nothing else because he can play anywhere. I like the signing and the BS about the sign stealing in Houston is just redundant. This is clearly an addition to this team with little or no downfall. 3mil for him is a great price. Go ahead boys, rip away
One season significantly exceeding league average (2017 the cheating year) and he’s a smart move? I think his price and value are just as out of line as the other Bloom acquisitions. Richards seems to have the highest likelihood of having higher value than cost and for me that’s a long shot.
Bloom gets an F for the off season. Heck, make that 1 and a half years in his job. He needs to use his philosophy in a small market not large market. Also, don’t EVER confuse his approach with Friedman. I’m not a Friedman fan except how he abused Bloom last year but he’s not afraid of picking the right star and spending money on them. Bloom has NEVER paid for a highly skilled, high priced ball player.
Jiminy XMAS – this guy is loading up for a huge losing season and trade deadline fire sale. Anyone who is cheap is for sale at the trade deadline – Marwin Bang Bang, Japanese guy, Ruh-roh Renfroe, Squeaky Kike, Martin Perez, Sleepy Barnes, etc. Shoot might as well trade #7 Vasquez too he’s on a cheap contract. Going for the high draft pick and restocking the farm all the way down to A level. – Now where are those starting pitcher retreads they rolled out last – Kickham, God awful Zack Godley, Chris Mazza, Colten Brewer, Matt Hall. remember we also had Tzu Wei Lin, Jose Peraza, and Kevin Plawecki all pitched for us last year – position players be ready to be called on to throw some innings this year.
I probably still can throw 65 mph with a curve – waiting for a phone call any minute from Chaim – gotta go!
Great signing for Bloom. We needed more versatility options. Marwin fits that.
Does versatility mean they stink at multiple positions? Well, he got what he’s looking for. Good call. I agree. Versatility is needed in case an average player goes down we can replace him with another average or slightly below average player. That should work out well against the all-star teams in NY and TOR. I think for fun we ought to swap 5 mediocre guys on Baltimore with 5 mediocre guys on the Red Sox and then flip them at the deadline!!
So, his best season was 2017. You don’t say…
Does anyone know what the Red Sox’ payroll looks like now after this signing and the AB trades? Are they still over the penalty threshold?
Don’t sweat where they are today. A mid season trade could move them below the 1st threshold because they are hovering near it right now. When he dumps JD for next to nothing they will be under and will earn the early draft pick they so desire..
DBH1969 – After the MG pick up they are $6M under according to Spotrac.
Thanks, KD. I also think Bloom is tanking the season. I would too considering the likelihood of getting to the post season is just about nil lol
Good signing.
Perhaps he & Cora can help the sox cheat their way all the way to fourth place in the East.
Cora has been away for the game for over a year. Do you think he can make a comeback that quickly? I think 4th is a bit aggressive!!
He was trying to have a little fun.
I thought it was fun and I tried to follow in the same vein.
Which I felt you accomplished.
Hey…it’s always a little bit of fun to poke at the red sox. Especially in years like this. I figured they’d throw a bunch of money around & spend their way into – at the very least – Wild Card contention.
But they didn’t.
& they look like a pretty bad ballclub right now. Which is kind of a bummer, really. sox & Yanks should *always* be batting for the AL East.
Ya know?
Absolutely!! Best rivalry in sports. I don’t know if you read all the comments about the luxury tax but as a Yankee fan do you care or do you think anyone in NY cares about the luxury tax? It’s insignificant compared to the hundreds of millions of dollars the Yankees make each year. I laughed last year when Henry went cheap and the Yankees signed Cole to his huge contract after they were already over the 1st threshold. Now the Dodgers are repeating what the Yanks did last year. It’s February and the Dodgers are $44M over the 1st threshold.
Boy, I bet all Red Sox fans feel great about Henry zipping his wallet in his pocket and waving good bye to Mookie. I’m just glad that Mookie was able to give a return hand signal for the way Henry treated him in Boston. Seeing Mookie rise to the level Red Sox fans thought of him was outstanding and clearly left egg on Henry’s face. Best part of 2020!!
Sure is.
The Yanks & the sox are supposed to slug it out all summer, kinda loathe one another, & fight tooth & nail every time they play each other.
& If we’re lucky meet up in the postseason.
The tax.
Man.
It’s an excuse & a lot of Yankee fans have swallowed the company line. You’ll read posts talking about how the Yanks “have” to reset. Like if they don’t the league won’t let them play or something.
When – in fact – it’s merely a fine.
Lowering payroll wasn’t an issue for me as a fan. I completely understand that ’20 worked out fairly poorly for a lot of teams. So I get that.
But knocking 40+ mil off payroll in one season has definitely weakened our squad. Which sucks. This core keeps getting older & they haven’t even won a pennant.
I was pretty surprised that the sox traded Mookie. Such a good player, man. Loved watching him play in the Series.
Dodgers aren’t playing around, are they?
Ooof.
Pretty good ballclub out there in LaLa.
Dudeeeeeee. With him and Cora in the same dugout it should be interesting if we start hearing random noises during Sox games lol. Even if it has nothing to do with them you know people are gonna make assumptions lol
I’d like to see angry fans bring trash can banging sounds on their phones and play them when the Red Sox bat. Maybe ownership will figure out what a BAD idea it was to bring back the cheater!!
I don’t wanna work. I want to bang on the can all day…
Kinda what WE expected to see on RedSox fan page……. Not surprised, not surprised at all…….
So he cheated, why are you whining about it the Yankees had enough cheaters themselves bet you didn’t bash you’re own cheats
Would like to see the team add Tyler naquin. Kid has upside in center and would be cheap for sure!
I have no clue what is in Chaim Bloom’s mind right now.
I think Cora is trying to get the band back together!! Would ANYONE be surprised by the fact that in 9 years Marwin Gonzalez has had just ONE year with an OPS+ significantly higher than league average? Anyone want to guess the year? HAHAHAHA Yep, 2017 when he was with the Astros. Maybe Cora figured he needed him for his new cheating scheme?
Seriously, this guy played two partial seasons and sucked at ages 23 and 24. Then, two slightly above league average seasons with the Astros. Then he became a starter and was below league average at 27. Then, his 28 year old season of 2017 he had an OPS+ of 146, which was significantly up from the previous year’s 91!!!! He was league average in 2018 and ended up in Minnesota in 2019 where he fell below league average again. Oh yeah, and his 2020 wasn’t as good as Benny’s disaster season!!!
Great job Bloom. Seems like a ring is certain now!!! hahahaha
Your takes are out of touch. First off MG will be a platoon 1st baseman at best with a couple starts here and there at 3b and LF. You’re acting like he just got 5 years 50 million. 1 year 3 million for a guy that’s capable of playing all over the field with equal splits from both sides of the plate isn’t bad. Next, the fact Bloom isn’t pleasing some of you with the DD strategy of shelling millions out to guys like Eovaldi and Price who become albatrosses after a couple years is the same reason he was hired. This is a buisness and he he’s trying to build us like the the Dodgers and Rays are built… Ya know the teams that were in the World Series last year… That comes with a great farm and financial flexibility which creates sustained success. Trust the process brotha.
Your speech is old. The team makes hundreds of millions of dollars and you want to preach austerity. That’s ridiculous. DD got it right and won. Bloom has it wrong and won’t. Believing is one thing, believing blindly is foolish when it comes to philosophies in baseball. NO TEAM won a world series on an austerity plan. Friedman isn’t the founder of the Bloom approach, TB is. TB has no rings and never will. Boston is heading into another 86 year cycle if they don’t wake up and realize what DD did worked.
So, the team pays a luxury tax and makes $500M rather than $550M is that not worth winning a ring? Stop preaching about the right way to do the job of GM and start believing in the way that actually produces results not rhetoric. Until Bloom gave LAD Mookie, Friedman was about as successful as Cashman. Both have great farm systems throughout the years and no rings. DD swoops in and wins rings. Why? Because he shows very, very rich people that they can cut their profits slightly for the glory of winning a ring for their city and their fans.
DD wouldn’t take the TB job because spending over $100M isn’t allowed. He’s not interested in the slow, slow process Bloom is putting Red Sox fans through. Most Red Sox fans don’t want that process either because once you get accustomed to winning after an 86 year drought you don’t want to go back to not competing like they are doing now. This is a losers philosophy. The Red Sox farm system in the 2010s out performed everyone with graduating players from their minors but because some ridiculous people said guys like Swihart were better than Mookie in their prospect ratings uneducated fans believed them and thought we should be more like the NYY and LAD by giving up the rings and going for an almost approach to winning but thumping our chests about a farm system filled with big names that don’t produce what the little names in Boston have produced over the last 10 years. Mookie or Judge? Mookie Swihart like the experts said or Judge? Judge. Don’t trust the rankings, they are meaningless. Don’t trust the Bloom/TB process, it’s for losers.
The Red Sox play in a division with the highest spending team in baseball. The way to compete is to stay close in spending and be smarter at picking your players. The Red Sox have 4 rings by using that philosophy. Now we are using a philosophy professed by one of the only franchises without a ring in their history. Does that make sense to you? It doesn’t to me and many other fans who have enjoyed the benefits of spending with the Yankees but doing a better job than them. If ownership were losing money over the years I’d hear your argument but they aren’t so stick with the plan that won the rings not the one in TB where there are no rings. Again, this is not the Friedman approach simply because both came from TB. Friedman made deals involving top players like Mookie. Bloom’s biggest deal was getting Glasnow a player under team control. That’s NOT what Boston needs to win.
I still don’t understand how perfectly rational people have not been able to see that Boston was never going for it this year- They just keep doubling down on the hatred
What I can see now; Is why Bloom doesnt just come out and say it…..pretty tough fan base here…. be happy with all the recent championships and the fact your teams a top 5 spender year in year out…..everybody has to re-tool every once in a while…..yelling at the Tv isnt going to help the process
I don’t think Bloom is going to hold a press conference and say, ‘Well, we’re in a salary dump this year to make way for a tear down next year that will make way for a rebuild in a few years.
The fans can thank an ownership that will never admit that DD’s leadership was a disaster for the franchise. This ownership NEVER admits their mistakes.
So don’t blame me for us having to play No-Money-Ball!”
Just can NOT see that happening lol
Money ball….your at 200 mill ?
Id hardly say DD was a disaster, its pretty common to overpay your stars that won you a ring, SF is going thru the same thing as yall…the best 2 teams of the 2010’s if your going by rings…..difference being SF fans are perfectly fine with the process playing out and dont want to go spend a gazillion dollars this offseason.
Im sure the edges would be trimmed off his speech; but if its not going to be met with open minds, why bother…that was more my point
Cap & Crunch – Have you seen the profits made by the Red Sox when their payroll was over $240M and they won a ring? How can anyone claim poverty or a need for one year of austerity after so many years of massive profits? SF may not have pockets as deep as Boston but there is really no excuse for paying $10M in luxury tax to stair step down to the 1st threshold and retaining the core group that won in 2018. It’s pure stupidity.
Your take might fit SF but it doesn’t fit the Boston. Also, if SF fans have lower expectations than Red Sox fans stop acting like that is a fault of the Red Sox fan base. It’s a different choice not a worse choice as you suggest. Over-achieving isn’t the desire of every fan base and that’s fine but don’t criticize those fan bases that think that way.
They are realistic you guys are not KD
Here ill just be simple- The 2021 Red Sox are terrible, you can go spend 60 more million and still be terrible while accruing draft pick penalties, tying down free agents for multi years that is an unnecessary gamble, exceeding the CBT for no reason yada yada yada – But hey the fans will be happy!
You literally dont even have 2 pitchers you can count on being above avg…wake up people it aint happening and Blooms doing the RIGHT thing
Cap – You are half right. It ain’t happening. Perfect analysis. Now lets break down the other half.
First, in 2021 it will take $250M in spending to exceed the 3rd threshold. You don’t lose picks when you spend that much you simply have your first pick pushed back 10 spots in round one assuming you don’t have a top 10 pick. If you have a top 10 pick, then it’s the second round pick that gets move back 10. Yep, that’s the total severity of spending $40M over the first threshold!!! To my knowledge only the 2020 Yankees exceeded the first threshold by more than $40M. So take the crap about draft pick penalties out of your argument. It simply doesn’t apply.
Next, the time for spending is past. DD had built a team that was to compete until 2022. What went wrong? He hired Cora because many of the foreign players needed a mother on the team because they lacked maturity and Farrell was like a demanding gruff father. Next, the really bad manager did everything he could to prevent winning in 2018 but the team outperformed their normal years and won a ring. Then, in 2019, the mistakes by the unqualified manager clobbered the pitching staff early, there were unexpected injuries to key players and the team fell behind by 10 games by the end of April. Was the talent still there? Absolutely. Were the players having career years for the second year in a row? No. Did pitching injuries to Eovaldi, Price and Sale (their 1,2 and 3 pitchers) destroy their competitiveness early in the season and then again later in the season? Yes. Any team would have failed with the injuries they had. Should that have broken up the band? NOPE.
DD was still on track but got fired because someone in the front office wanted to change it up and dump Mookie. We’ll never know why both sides were so hostile towards each other but race seems like a very likely root to the problem Maybe Mookie wasn’t as willing as Papi to play ball with the owners and take below market money or maybe Mookie simply observed the behavior towards player like him and Price and rather than ruining his stellar image chose to move on without stating the obvious. We’ll never know.
Losing your best fielder/hitter and your #2 SP is devastating. The return they got for them was even more devastating because the timing of the deal was completely inappropriate to maximize value if moving Mookie was inevitable. The hundreds of millions of dollars of profits should have been put into a contingency fund in case there was a year where things didn’t go well but instead the owners abandoned the fans by DUMPING the two best black players on the team and got next to nothing in return. Then they misled the public to think it was a money issue.
If the only thing standing between having Mookie or Verdugo in right field and Price on the mound was money, then shame on the Red Sox for crying austerity. If the real reason was race related, then again, shame on the owners for being ignorant. Either way, this disaster of a team was not created by DD overspending, it was created by ownership mistakes.
So I suggest to you – look up the financials of the Red Sox. I believe their Operating Profit is published. Then look up industry numbers on the ROI for company’s in the baseball industry. Gross up the averages since the Red Sox don’t have a comparable depreciation expense to those with new stadiums and you will see just how much money they have raked in during the last decade. Once you see that number, come back to me and lets talk about how insignificant $10M in luxury tax is in the big picture. Why 10M? All money spent over the first threshold but below the second threshold was to be taxed at a 50% rate. Since the thresholds are $20M apart the max tax is $10M. So, when DD was still here the money that was be the 2020 payroll was at $232M or $4M over the 2nd threshold. That means not signing JBJ in 2020 rather than giving up Mookie would have allowed the 2020 payroll to stay under the $228 second threshold amount and limit the luxury tax to $10M.
If Mookie was a guaranteed free agent for 2020 because he hated ownership then trade him in July and let him play until then. The COVID situation would have significantly reduced his cost to Boston and his return during a bidding war among LAD, SD and ATL would have reaped far more than the pittance they got from LAD. In July, ATL might have been willing to give up Ian Anderson since his stellar performance happened after that. How much better would Boston be with Price and Ian Anderson rather than Verdugo, Downs, and Wong? Light years ahead going into 2021!! What would have happened to the luxury tax amount when Mookie got moved? It would have dropped to much less than $10M. That would have opened the door for more Bloom moves to get the payroll under by 2021 OR it would have allowed Bloom to put a competitive team on the field in 2021 knowing that Pedroia money rolls off in 2022 ensuring the luxury tax would not be exceeded in 2022 and leaving the new CBA to dictate the new cap for 2023 so Boston would be in a great position to pursue the big FA class on the horizon.
DD had a great plan. Too bad ownership changed their entire philosophy of competing with the Yankees and decided to model themselves after an organization with no rings in their history.
Dear Mr John Henry, I will watch a .500 team every day if it has my hero’s from past years on it. I will not watch a .500 team that has no resemblance to the club I am used to. Chaim is just another of your failed experiments!
Looks like the Red Sox are building a roster with the intention of changing the lineup for every game.
This is starting to look like ‘A state of the union’ season. Get all these utility guys who can step in if guys like Chavis, Dalbec, etc….. crap the bed. Find out what on the farm can actually play and what can’t until the payroll clears in 2023. Use the next two drafts to stock the farm and eye towards 2024. That is what it looks like to me.
Red Sox fans are the definition of bandwagons fans if I ever saw one.
Some. Not all of us.
This team is deep in fielding resources and had plenty of hitters to hold their own. Kike & Martin give us massive flexibility all over the field, average hitting (maybe better) and plus base running… This is a great depth signing and also makes sure the infield has plenty of defensive replacements for late game maneuvers as well…
—-The pitching is deep too; not excellent but deep. If Sale and eRod come back to form by August we’ll probably be able to trade a few of them if we’re out of it, if we’re in it we at least have depth behind everyone.
So many average to below average players is better than a starting line-up filled with standouts. You think just like Bloom!! Good luck with that approach. It should reap great draft picks.
Crazy how many players on that team DID NOT have career years that season.
Look at the facts.
Marwin Gonzalez and Derek Fisher are the only player with more than 50 PA who had a career high in bWAR that season.
5 players had their highest OPS+.
Out of 17 players with 50 or more PA, Martin was the only one with a career high in both.
You convinced me. The massive cheating had no impact. 90 games where the batter knew what the pitcher was throwing absolutely did not help the hitters.
Very persuasive!!