Right-hander Zack Weiss, who was designated for assignment by the Angels earlier this week, has been claimed off waivers by the Red Sox. Both clubs announced the move, with the Red Sox adding that Weiss has been optioned to Triple-A Worcester. Righty Corey Kluber was transferred to the 60-day injured list to open a spot on Boston’s roster.
Weiss, 31, has been on the Angels’ roster just under a year now, getting added last September. Since that time, he’s been an up-and-down depth arm, getting frequently optioned to the minors. He has thrown 18 2/3 major league innings in that time with a 3.86 earned run average. He struck out 30.9% of batters faced but also walked 11.1%.
He’s spent more time this year in Triple-A, tossing 37 1/3 innings with a 6.03 ERA. He walked 14% of hitters at that level but struck out 29.2%. Those control issues pushed him off the Angels’ roster but the Red Sox will see if they can help him rein in that command and get better results. He can still be optioned for two more seasons after this one and has yet to reach one year of major league service time, meaning they can cheaply retain him for the foreseeable future as long as he continues to hold a spot on the 40-man.
Kluber’s transfer is little more than a formality since he’s already been on the injured list for more than 60 days at this point, having landed there in June due to right shoulder inflammation. He’s eligible to return whenever healthy but he was shut down in late July after experiencing a setback. There’s been no public reporting to indicate he’s close to a return and may have trouble getting back on the mound this year with just over a month left on the schedule.
It’s a great time to be a AAAA player in MLB.
It doesn’t seem like a weiss idea for LAA to give up anybody at this stage
LAA is the city of Atlantis, they are sinking down and 5 years from now no one will know where they went. Super sad for LAA fans.
They need new something?
Start with a new owner!
“New owner”..The GM that Arte Moreno fired, Jerry Dipoto, has drafted more young, high end pitching in the last 5+ years, than the Angels have drafted in the last 20+ years. That tells you everything you need to know about ineffectual ownership.
High end pitchers maybe, but remember that in 2022, Anaheim used ALL 20 of their draft picks on pitching prospects. They did not draft one positional player in that draft!
The real proof is on the playing field; Seattle is soaring, whereas the Angels are doing their annual nose dive, flop.
I agree getting rid of trader Jerry was a mistake, not sold on eppler looks like he’s doing a terrible job in New York so far
What is Kluber’s injury? I’m a Sox fan glad he isn’t pitching, but a 7.00 ERA doesn’t mean you’re hurt. MLB should crack down on that. He has 10 years of service time
I believe he was stricken with a nasty case of the suck
Yep this one’s on Bloom, he stunk it up with Tampa last year
He was worth 3.0 WAR last year. He didn’t exactly set the world on fire and seemed more league average than like a 3 WAR player, but he didn’t stink. This year…. That’s a different conversation.
Not to disagree with your point, but at this time of year almost every player and pitcher has some sort of injury they can point to, to be placed on the IL. IL list manipulation has become just another part of the game and really offers no specific advantage, since literally every team does it.
You are correct. Hide on the IL, or don’t, it doesn’t matter, I’m just mad Bloom gave him $10,000,000.00
Imagine if the Sox had re-signed Michael Wacha instead of signing Kluber for $10M. They would most likely be a wildcard team right now. I believe Kluber started 0-4 this year and contributed to way too many bullpen innings needed after his starts. Wacha has been a little banged up by injuries this year but he has been excellent when healthy. I hated the Kluber signing from Day 1. They had both Wacha & Eovaldi willing to sign with them but Chaim balked on offering them multi-year deals. Probably his worst mistake of the offseason.
Eovaldi actually turned down 4/$68. Then the Sox signed Yoshida, the market didn’t have anything better, Boston didn’t have the $$ to pay him anymore if they were going to stay under the Luxury Tax, so he went to Texas with a lesser offer. He played himself. For everything that is Bloom’s fault, Eovaldi walking isn’t one of the reasons.
Wacha leaving was bulls***. Hurt or not, he throws 5-6 MPH harder than Kluber and thus is more likely to get people out. I’m with you there.
@BizzyDat – I wasn’t aware that Boston offered Eovaldi a 4th year. I thought they capped their offer at 3 guaranteed years (and maybe a year 4 option).
But glad to hear you agree with the Wacha decision. It was clear to see that Kluber was washed up after 2022. Signing a guy with an 88mph Fastball and who was starting to lose his control as well pointed to a potential disaster which is exactly what happened.
My understanding is that eovaldi didn’t reject Bostons offer at all. Rather the reps said thank you, our client will consider, but he isn’t prepared to sign quite yet.
Boston spent money on yoshida, yes, but had not yet signed kluber, some relievers, or a pile of scrubs as of yet, having done nothing of note to address pitching.
Eovaldi’s agent reached back out to Bloom, who said at that point for the first time, no, that offer is now off the table.
Then he started making the disastrous (on the whole with a couple exceptions, either bad performers or large overpay on FA decisions) offseason pitching moves that leave us where we are.
Go reread the transaction timeline and read some releases/interviews with the parties involved.
BizzyDat – I’m curious where you read Eovaldi was offered the exact same four year deal for $68MM that DD offered him in 2018 because I can only confirm a multi-year offer was made but nobody has the details that I can find. He had a QO for 1 yr at $19MM and change but I can’t find any documentation of the DD deal being re=extended to Nate.
One of the journalists phrased the situation badly so if you don’t read carefully it seems like he was suggesting the EXACT SAME CONTRACT but at closer look it’s simply poor writing skills on his part.
Also, if I had a chance to play for Young and Boche rather than Bloom and Cora it would be a no brainer that I would leave. Boston is trending down under Bloom and Texas is trending up under Young/Boche.
Eovaldi made a wise choice in my opinion. He’s far more likely to win a ring, a Division Title and all for roughly the same money. Seems like a win-win for Nate and Texas.
Wacha wanted a multi-year deal and the Sox didn’t want to be tied to an overrated, injury prone pitcher for multiple years. What about that is so hard to grasp?
Hindsight, of course. Every GM on this site knows better
Eovaldi hasn’t pitched since July 18th. I’m glad the Red Sox did not sign him.
Dorothy Mantooth: “They had both Wacha & Eovaldi willing to sign with them but Chaim balked on offering them multi-year deals.
___________________________________________
Wach and Eovaldi are too injury prone to give multi-year deals to. Wacha missed a lot of time last year and missed 6 weeks this year. Eovaldi has not pitched since July 18th this year.
GASox – Thank you, it does get tiring having to set the record straight over and over again. Bloom made an undisclosed offer to Nate early on, then immediately pulled it off the table and refused to continue negotiating with Nate.
And to say there was “no money left to sign Nate because of the Yoshida signing” is absolutely absurd when you look at the amount Bloom later spent on Kluber and a bunch of relievers.
Suit, if you compare the guys bloom did sign to the guys he didn’t bring back, I think, on the whole, the team would’ve been ahead in the wildcard had you taken either eovaldi or wacha instead of Corey and Joely, with money to spare on a replacement RP for Joely.
It was a gamble that didn’t work out, but, thats to be expected when signing old pitchers in the twilight of their careers.
This team has had a few bright spots, and, has slightly overperformed in some areas beyond my expectations while being about what I expected or much much worse in others. (I expected Kiki to be pretty bad, but not as immensely so as he was for example.)
The only thing that gave the squad a bump over last year’s finish wasn’t the roster construction, it was the league-wide schedule changes.
I’d say the toughest part of this season has been the polarization in the commenting – you get some good discussions in right around when the team is oscillating between short w and l streaks, but, once they’ve won 3 or lost 3 in a row it starts to go off the rails to the extremes, with overreaction on both sides.
One side desperate to see an overall improvement over last season when ita just a bump due to scheduling changes leaguewide.
One side desperate in hope that yet another playoff miss might see blooms leash finally run short, and desperate to point out how much free money he had to work with this year to end the last argument the other side made as having limited bloom so far, preexisting players and contracts.
All in the suit – How many bad pitchers does it take that are healthy to replace a guy who might miss some time that is a top flight pitcher?
You need to think like this team did when DD was here. We expected to make the playoffs so we built a team to endure the year and flourish in the playoffs. Eovaldi is a guy you want at playoff time. Kluber is not any more.
The same is true for guys like JD, Bogey and Mookie. You need your big stars for the short series.
That’s why the payroll needs to be a dichotomy of high priced guys and low priced guys, not a roster of interchangeable average players.
It is for this reason that I have as many WS Rings as the TB organization that Bloom modeled the Red Sox after.
Troll – those days are gone for now. Henry went all-in with bloom, and it’s too late to rewind the clock.
I’ll never forgive them for throwing in the towel on the core they had. And I hate bloom for being the guy who did it.
But.
Bloom is all-in on expecting that when HIS core of younger prospects coming up through the system are ready to graduate, that he will have a second wave waiting in the wings to back them up. Now, I’ve watched enough baseball through the years to know sometimes players arrive in spurts and lulls, so, we get to do nothing but wait at this point.
This means expect fewer DD style AA-MLB jumps skipping AAA, and, a couple more years, at least 1 or 2, where your expectation should be a .500 team with potential trial to exceed or fall short of that mark depending on if the gambles of the year fall to the good or the bad side of the ledger.
If the team can emerge to become a WC team the next two years, even if out the 1st round, bloom will get a leash to see if he can consistently graduate prospects that dont miss for several years in a row. If that process hits a wall, and they graduate some but go back to an empty pipeline for impact talent ready to make the jump? Or if his highly regarded prospects fizzle out and bomb? Thats probably when he goes.
KD: Agreed you need some big stars to win it all. The question is how to acquire them. I like the Orioles approach better than the Yankees approach. The Red Sox are taking an approach somewhere between the two I think. They haven’t tanked as much as the Orioles who have been drafting at the top of the first round. The Red Sox have spent on free agents, but are not stuck for years with older, declining players like the Yankees (Stanton, LeMahieu, Rodon, soon Judge).
GASoxFan – I want to buy into what you are saying about the future but I simply don’t see it. YES, Bloom has gotten far superior draft slots than GMs in Boston have gotten since 2000 but have his choices been good or should I ask better rather than good?
I don’t see waves of great players in the Boston Farm System but that means nothing since guys like Houck and Duran weren’t recognized as having the potential to be all-stars. Casas was and is starting to show that the guesses might have been correct.
We wasted 4 years so far rebuilding a system that wasn’t broken. We tore down a championship team in 2020 in hopes of building a new one by 2025 at the earliest. None of that makes sense.
Can a new GM who actually understands how to construct a winning team and organization like DD come in and fix what Bloom broke? Absolutely and he can do it far faster than Bloom would do it if he is allowed to stay.
So my question is why push off success for the sake of a bad GM when the Red Sox could turn this around much quicker with new blood?
We have 4 players in the top 100 prospects on MLB. Mayer is there because he was an early 1st round pick and hasn’t sucked. Roman Anthony to me has the highest ceiling of any of the prospects acquired in the draft by Bloom. I think he’s better than Mayer and is the one guy that might become a break-out player. The rest of the Bloom picks….. too early to tell if they have that wow factor.
Maybe I’m too old school but big market teams shouldn’t have to wait for prospects to be good, they should blend in with the great MLB team as they progress to the MLB level. Bogey did that. Mookie did that. Benny did that and Devers did that. This year both Duran and Casas are doing that. But it’s harder for them since the team sucks overall. There is more pressure on them to perform than there was on the superstars from the 2010s. Casas and Duran could have had a much easier transition year if Bogey, JD and Nate were still in Boston but they aren’t and we can’t walk back Bloom’s mistakes.
I say hire a guy to fix the team and let the prospects flourish and fit in rather than counting on them for the team to be competitive again.
All – Cashman has been making mistakes for over a decade with no repercussions on his job status. DD had more success in 4 years than Cashman has had in the last decade. The Yankees and Cashman are an example of what NOT TO DO.
Baltimore’s house clearing probably wasn’t as big as Bloom’s off season moves this past year but they benefited from the great AL East and the imbalanced schedule to finish with great draft slots. They made wise choices and now are transitioning to an elite team. NYY is heading in the opposite direction with Boston and Toronto and TB are hovering as well above average teams but lacking in the key elements to win playoff series.
The power in the AL is now in Houston, Texas and Baltimore and everyone else needs to make moves to catch them. Seattle to me, is a year behind Baltimore and will be a force in 2024 and definitely a force in the 2023 playoffs.
For me Cashman doesn’t understand the concept of who should get a big contract. It’s ok to give big contracts to big talent but you have to consider so many aspects of the player. Stanton was a disaster waiting to happen. Yes, he had a good year among his injured years but he was one dimensional A very bad choice.
Mookie on the other hand is a brilliant choice because he’s multi-talented unlike Stanton. He’s a GG fielder, he hits for average and power, he runs the bases well and he is fit with an understanding of how to convert his smaller size into power using his wrists like Ernie Banks.
Trout and Harper are both big boys who you would think are ideal for fighting off injuries but both play with an intensity that puts them at risk. Harper and Trout have been hit with lots of pitches that have impacted their games played. They have gotten hurt on hustle plays on defense and offense but they have been the elite of the elite for years. I thought Harper’s make-up would keep him elite for more years than Trout because of his approach to the game. Trout’s talent has eroded significantly whereas Harper simply has lost a ton of time due to getting hit by pitches and freak things like slipping on 1st base. I would do a long term contract with either of them in their prime. I would do a long term contract with Adley Rutchman right now because he seems to be a generational talent like Buster Posey at the catcher position..
I know you are not a fan of big contracts but winning teams need a strong foundation. With $230MM as the CAP a team can spend 1/2 that on 6 all-star quality players. They need to be right about who they pick to sustain a winning program so the GM’s choices are critical. In Texas, Chris Young the Texas GM brought in Seager and Semien a year ago as Free Agents. They have a good farm system and some of the young players were starting to advance so this was the right time to go for it. This past year they brought in deGrom and Eovaldi to strengthen their pitching and at the deadline they added Montgomery and Scherzer. Now the rotation is one of the best in baseball while their hitting has grown with the development of Nate Lowe at 1B and Josh Jung at 3B and Heim at Catcher to go with Seager and Semien. Their outfield already had Adolis Garcia and Taveras so they added an inexpensive good defender in Janikowski to complete their team. Their DH is Ezekiel Duran who gives them speed and infield depth that was needed when Seager got hurt.
That’s how you take an average roster and turn it into a potential champion in 2 years. If Bloom leaves, Boston could do the same. It also helps that Young went out and got the best available manager in Bruce Boche.
Boston needs someone like Chris Young’ with the expertise to find expensive and quality talent. Remember, it should always be about value provide for the cost. Large cost is not bad if large value is received for the large cost.
Really good commentary!!! I like your analysis of NY and BAL.
suit – With all due respect, all multi-year contracts are gambles. Until the contracts are done, you simply don’t know which ones were good or bad.
Why would you think Judge will soon be a declining player? Because of a fluke toe injury?
Any team that refuses to give longterm contracts is automatically excluding themselves from a large pool of talented players. And signing several risky players to numerous short-term contracts, like Kluber, doesn’t end up saving the team much if any money.
I’m a fan of Yoshida and Devers, but how could you not admit both those contracts are risky? Neither of us knows for certain if those two players will severely decline in coming years.
And you know my thoughts on the Story contract, it couldn’t have started any worse.
Did you think Whitlock’s longterm contract would start out this bad?
Even the extension Bloom gave Barnes, it turned out awful but I don’t blame Bloom for that. At the time the extension was given it was a solid decision.
Just really seems like you’re doing the same thing Joe often does, pointing fingers at other teams without acknowledging Bloom has already taken gambles on at least 4 longterm contracts and half are already not looking very good.
Fever: We are kind of on the same page I think. I think it is ok to gamble on some long-term contracts when you are a large market team because you can afford some dead money. I don’t think the Whitlock contract is much of a gamble as it was only a 4 year deal with an AAV of $4.69M. So, I think Bloom is batting .667 on long-term contracts so far. I doubt he gives out anymore unless he can lock up Casas on a team-friendly deal. Devers is the high risk contract. Yoshida and Story are lower AAV and years so less risk. I think Story can still turn around his deal at least somewhat.
I think with Judge’s large body, he will decline sooner rather than later. He is 31. I think his age 35-39 years on that contract could be brutal. The Yankees spent on old men this year: LeMahieu, Stanton, Rodon, Hicks, Donaldson, Rizzo. They spent so much, their draft pick will likely be lowered by 10 places. So, my larger point is the Yankees seem to be spending on older players and that is not giving them good results and they are constantly drafting in the bottom of the first round which hurts their ability to get good, young players.
Agreed you need some big stars to win it all.
———————–
IMO. in the regular season, it is all about the best 26 players. In the playoffs, it is often times about who has the best 1-2-3 SPs.
If this season has shown us anything, it is that the “big star” model is an almost complete failure.. LAA has two legit generational, 1st ballot HOF players, and hasn’t had a .500 seasons with them. SD & the NYMs, and the NYY to a lesser extent, has acquired nothing but stars, and none are likely to play .500.
Bloom is all-in on expecting that when HIS core of younger prospects coming up through the system are ready to graduate,
==============================
I think he’s going hybrid. His 2024 roster:
C-Wong
1B-Casas
2B-Urias
SS-Story
3B-Devers
LF-Yoshida
CF-Duran
RF-Verdugo
DH-Turner-maybe
#4 OF-Ref
UIF-Reyes
BUC-McGuire
SP-Sale
SP-Bello
SP-Crawford
SP-Houck
SP-Whitlock
CL-Jansen
RP-Martin
RP-Schreiber
RP-Pivetta
RP-Winc
RP-Bernardino
RP-Murphy
RP-Walter
That’s a team that can win a fair share of its games. And that’s without spending a dime.
Joe – Bad GMs are responsible for spending big on players who don’t perform big. Your choice of LAA is a fine example of how not to use the big star approach to building your team. NYY, specifically Cashman is just as bad at implementing a big star approach..
Remember the idea is to pick quality elite players. Nobody considers Rendon elite but he made a big payday just like Stanton who was not elite.
The Texas Rangers are run by a GM who gets it. Chris Young a former player who is capable of seeing elite players and paying big for them has taken a below average team to the playoffs within two years. He’s the latest edition of a quality GM that follows in the footsteps of guys like DD who blaze the train on how to win championships quickly.
The Texas Ranger added Seager and Semien in 2022 knowing they needed more pitching despite having studs in the farm system like Leiter. In 2023, they added the best pitcher in baseball in deGrom and locked him in for 5 seasons to ensure continuity rather than a one time wonder. Then, they added Nate Eovaldi who again will help teach the young guns and add depth to the rotation. At the deadline they added Montgomery and Scherzer to ensure that they not only win the division but go deep into the playoffs since deGrom needed TJ surgery and Eovaldi has missed time since the all-star break. Young is doing EVERYTHING Bloom could have done to fix what he broke.
So to suggest only the guys who don’t get how to use an approach to winning as the example you set forth is completely biased. DD and Young get and are shoving their success in the faces of the guys you named as people employing the same approach. They may be taking similar steps but like Bloom they have no idea what they are doing. The GM spots should go to professionals who can evaluate the value of talent and use the $230MM CAP to maximize team success.
Here are the OPS+ values for the Rangers and their payroll in 2023
Seager $32.5MM OPS+ 188 – Earning his money
Semien $25MM OPS+ 119 – A bit low with 1/4 of season left
N Lowe $4.5MM OPS+ 124 – Near elite for $4.5MM
Garver $3.9MM OPS+ 132 – Elite number for a part time catcher
Grossman $2MM OPS+ 91 – Fair price for a slightly below league average
Adolis Garcia $750K OPS+ 122 Near elite for less than $1MM!!!
Heim $750K OPS+ 110 – Nice pair of catchers costing $4.5MM
Taveras $750K OPS+ 97 – League average player at under $1M fair price
Jung $720K OPS+ 119 – Great young player got hurt and impacted wins
Duran $725K OPS+118 – Another young player far above cost
Chris Young developed farm hands and bought what he needed. Sound familar? Yep a page from DD’s book on how to be an effective GM.
This is model you should look to and pointing out GMs who fail to understand player value can be done with big and small contracts. Bloom is a perfect example of a small time fool who can’t pick good players to acquire and Cashman and Minasian are prime examples of GMs that spend foolishly on non elite players. Both types don’t belong in their jobs.
Joe – When you suggest that the team listed would win a fair share of it’s games you hedged your bet. Are we talking 81 or 91 or 101?
Based on reading your list I would lean toward 81 if Sale is healthy
C – Still weak compared to good teams
1B – A budding all-star graduating from the excellent DD farm system
2B – An inconsistent complimentary player
SS – A formerly good SS who hasn’t performed well in recent days
3B – A butcher with a great bat
LF – A butcher who gets on base
CF – A budding all-star graduating from the excellent DD farm system
RF – A league average player in his last year of control
DH – A 40 year old who becomes less reliable each day
SP1 – A stud who has never performed well under Cora
SP2 – A young stud from DD’s farm system
SP3 – A young stud from DD’s farm system
SP4 – A young stud from DD’s farm system
SP5 – A Bloom rule – 5 pickup
CL – Top flight closer signed by Bloom
RP1 = Top flight set-up man signed by Bloom
RP2 – A solid late inning reliever
RP3 – A SP converted to long relief acquired by Bloom
RP4 – RP8 League average relievers at best
Two things jump out immediately.
1 – BOY DID PEOPLE MISS ON THE QUALITY OF THE FARM SYSTEM!!!!! WOW!!! THANK YOU DD!!!!
2 – It will be another year of bad defense hurting the ever improving pitching staff. A ton of money wasted on slugs jumping from AAA to the majors and back needs to go away..
Also, Sale is not a given since Cora is still managing.
This team looks to be around .500 yet again. The spending will jump thanks to the Devers $14MM jump in cost and the other rising amounts across the roster.
Will they be as good as BAL? NOPE,
Will they be as good as TB? NOPE,
Will they be as good as TOR? Maybe
Will they be as good as HOU? NOPE
Will they be as good as TEX? NOPE
Will they be as good as SEA? NOPE.
ONLY 5 teams from the AL East and AL West can make the playoffs!!
Based on the answers above they don’t make the playoffs next year either!
The above answers don’t include the NYY who might completely overhaul their team thanks to the horrible 2023 performance. It’s not likely they will do a good job with Cashman but stranger things have happened!.
So do the 2024 Red Sox make the 3rd WC spot? NOPE
It is a long-shot just like this year and no relief is in sight since player like Mayer, Yorke and the stud Anthony need time to become MLB league average or above players.
Also, once the DD farm system guys have all graduated there could be a huge gap until comparable players from Bloom graduate other than Anthony.
One more consideration is the bounce a team takes after they far exceed their abilities in a specific season like 2021. 2022 was a big drop-off. That could easily happen in 2024 if Casas, Duran and the young pitchers regress into sophomore slumps.
I believe what’s needed is a fresh perspective by a trained individual who actually knows how to be a GM and a manager who has more than bilingual skills to tout in getting a managerial job. Given those two HUGE fixes, I think the new GM can rework the roster and dump the bad fielders replacing them with more well rounded talent. Devers can finally go to DH. Turner can retire and his money can be spent on a two dimensional player that can hit and play defense. I would add a lefty to couple with Sale (Urias is my suggestion) and use the young guns in the 3 other spots. Paxton’s effectiveness seems unlikely going forward. Urias would be more reliable. A new 3B that can field and hit. A new right fielder with power and better defensive skills than Verdugo.
It’s not a lot of changes but they would dramatically transform the bad defense, they would build depth at starting pitching and turn the hitting into a deeper line-up rather than counting on the first four hitters for the majority of the runs.
Maybe PIT would deal Hayes to Boston or maybe NYM would trade S Marte and Alvarez for Devers. There are plenty of bad GMs as you have pointed out so we should think big in trading Devers to get two dimensional players.
Trollfree10 hours ago
Remember the idea is to pick quality elite players.
The Texas Rangers are run by a GM who gets it.
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On #1, approximately 8B people will agree with you. But almost by definition, half the FAs will under-perform and half will over-perform.
IRT Texas, the success rate is not quite what you perceive.
1-Young also paid $77M for DeGrom, Gray, Perez and Heaney for a total of 3.7 bWAR.
2-FA contracts usually look better in the first half of the contract than the second half. Let’s see what Seager and Semien look like a few years from now when they age.
3-Past that, you need to consider the entirety of the FA world. Teas has done well, for now, but the WS, NYY, NYM, and SD have stumbled so badly, they have no easy exit strategy.
Trollfree9 hours ago
Joe – When you suggest that the team listed would win a fair share of it’s games you hedged your bet. Are we talking 81 or 91 or 101?
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As of today, 81. I like that position with a very good farm and ~ $50M in spending money.
I guess the team would of necessity be technically hybrid just because they’re stuck with Devers for the decade and then some.
However, while I do accept the argument bloom shouldn’t get credit for the portion of a bump in farm rank coming from guys prior gms brought in developing and being more highly regarded, for purposes of a guy being promoted being a prospect bloom ‘liked’ based on his preferred analytics, to be part of the proposed continuous pipeline of MiLB talent, I dont care who brought them in. In other words, no requirement they were acquired by bloom, just that he built them into his ‘pipeline process.’
Bloom has traded, released, or otherwise left unprotected guys, some that had a higher ceiling (groome) or lower (ward) amongst others that are permanently gone despite the need for pitching, not to mention position guys. I take that as evidence of him not simply keeping all the prospects, but, rather picking which guys were important to his pipeline.
In that regard Joe, I think your proposed lineup is well on the way to being a promoted core, which is why I figure next year, or the one after at the absolute latest, is where his process REALLY needs to be showing dividends from there after.
In fact, your lineup unless I’m having some brain fog this morning, every player was either acquired, extended, or promoted by bloom except for sale in his final season, isn’t it?
I dont care who brought them in.
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I have absolutely no horse in that race. I just look at it like who’s going to be on the team for the next five years. One slightly different approach I like to take a look at is “how much WAR are we losing, and how much money is that WAR costing us” The higher the WAR/$$$ you lose, the worse off you are. And vice versa. Right now, we lose Kluber, Duvall, Paxton, Mondesi, and Ki ki.
That’s $31M, and we only received 1.6 bWAR. We could cover Yamamoto and Duvall with that type of money. I’d be surprised if we weren’t a good bit > .500 next year.
Joe, as a practical matter I think you lose JT’s production because of how his contract was structured.
His opt out is prerty much a a lock to be exercised, so, he’s as much a FA as any of them. Either he leaves because he’s healthy and a sure bet to make more, or, something horrific happens injury-wise and it’s a sunk cost that can’t contribute anything for his salary.
As for next year? It wouldn’t surprise me if the team performed better than this season, not at all, but again subject to young player volatility. Remember early performances by Benny, Chavis, dalbec, etc, and the dropoffs that followed.
GASox – Excellent post! You are so right about early success often not translating to sustained success. Joe tends to obsess on the very recent, wanting to lock up for several years every young player who performs well as a rookie. It’s silly to be so shortsighted, especially looking back at all the players who flamed out after a solid start.
JoeBrady
My expectations: Red Sox 2024
C – Wong
1b – Casas
2b – Story
3b – Devers
SS – Adames
LF/ DH – Yoshi
CF – Rafaela
RF – Verdugo
DH/1b – Turner
Bench :
INF – Reyes
4of – Refsnyder
C – McGuire
OF – Abreu
SP :
#1 – FA Yamamoto
#2 – Bello
#3 – Trade
#4 – Sale
#5 – Crawford/Houck
#6 – Walter
Bullpen :
CL – Jansen
RP – Martin
RP – Whitlock
RP – Schreiber
RP – Pivetta
RP – Winck
RP – Bernardino
RP – Murphy
RP – Z.Kelly
1) W.Adames conducts an unsuccessful season for Milwaukee and he has the last year of arbitration – near $12m AAV , (B.Turang SS Brewers 2024).
Starting rotation of Brewers on the last arbitration ( Woodraff Arb 4, Burns Arb 3, Houser Arb 3, Williams Arb 2).
I think that he will be an untender candidate and Brewers will give up him as it was this year with Renfroe.
It’s a chance of Red Sox to take him.
I like the make-up of Willy, when he was a player of Rays – is a player with force, 20HR+, good defence (5756.2 IP (SS), +16 Rdrs, +6.0 UZR, +7 OAA, +5 RAA).
Present the internal field of Adames SS – Story 2B ( would protect the hand of Story from a wear) and outfield Rafaela CF ( less pressure when Yoshi plays on the left) and Verdugo RF ( candidate GG 2023).
2) We need a legal ace in a SP (money is a not problem) – Yamamoto excellent candidate and he must be in priority on 2024.
You can’t hope on that Sale will be healthy complete season and he will be your ace.
I would put him under #3-4 and would lead around a pencil.
3) We have congestion in outfield on 2024 .
Duvall leaves, however even in this case surplus with outfielders – Yoshi, Verdugo, Duran, Refsnyder, Abreu, Rafaela.
Duran conducted a good season and he must be trade In a package with Dalbec or Valdez, Bonaci, lottery ticket on pitcher #3.
Why?
Duran recovered a value in this season, he became better in a defensive ( as compared to a previous season ), but a problem is in that for him weak of arm.
We have the prepared elite defender in CF – Ceddanne Rafaela, that will be ready to 2024.
4) Our bullpen is ready to 2024 and there is not a necessity to call to the free agents.
Conclusion.
These motions will allow to improve securing defence for infield, in a outfield, Red Sox without problems able to fight for a title in a division or at least for one of places of WC.
GASoxFan
If Bloom in this offseason will do correct things – will expend money in a SP (Ace), will do an exchange on SP №3, will improve 2B or SS, then a command will be law in 2024.
Let us conduct a comparative analysis.
Red Sox 2023 :
1.Wong C is the first complete season in MLB, 90Wrc+, +6Rdrs, +1.8Dwar, one of candidates on GG.
2.Casas1B is the first complete season in MLB, 120Wrc+, bad defence – 0.9dWAR, -4Rdrs, -10 OAA.
3.Arroyo 2b – 70Wrc+, middle defence +3Rdrs, +0.4dWAR, 4 OAA, Valdez 2b – 82Wrc+, bad defence – 6Rdrs, – 5 OAA, – 0.4dWAR, Urias 2b – 95Wrc+, bad defence – 2Rdrs, – 3 OAA, – 0.2dWAR.
4.Devers 3b – 129Wrc+, – 6Rdrs, – 0.3dWAR, – 8 OAA, bad defence.
5.K.Hernandez SS – 60Wrc+, – 7Rdrs, – 12 OAA, bad defence.
6.Yoshida LF is a debut in MLB, 114Wrc+, – 6Rdrs, – 1.2dWAR, – 7 OAA, bad defence.
7.Duran CF – 120Wrc+, – 5Rdrs, – 0.4dWAR, 0 OAA, middle defence.
8.Verdugo RF – 110Wrc+, +13drs, 1.0 dWAR, 0 OAA, candidate on GG.
9.Turner DH – 130Wrc+, Mr. Clutch.
SP:
1.Bello – Ace, first complete season.
2.Paxton – plays a number 2, after 2 y’s of absence.
3.Crawford is the first complete season.
4.Sale – constantly injury SP, once was an ace.
5.Houck – tries to be successive in a starting rotation.
6.Pivetta/Whitlock/Kluber – a set from pitchers that conducted unsuccessful season in SP.
Bullpen:
CL – Jansen
RP – Martin
RP – Schreiber
RP – Winckowski
RP – Whitlock
RP – Pivetta
RP – Bernardino, claim of waivers
RP – Murphy, debut in MLB
RP – Walter, debut in MLB
RP – Llovera
RP – Ort
RP – Bleier DFA
RP – Brasier DFA, shines for Dodgers
RP – J.Rodriguez
RP – Jacques
RP – Garza
_________________________________________________________
Red Sox 2024
My expectations:
1.Wong C is potential in an attack, plus defence.
2.Casas 1B – regress of second-year student is possible in an attack, 110Wrc+, prosecution of defence.
3.Story 2B – potential in an attack is higher than middle, elite defence, hope on a complete season.
4.Devers 3B – 130 Wrc+, hope that defence will become better it is not, therefore not worse 2023.
5.Adames SS – the project of renewal of Brewers, attack and defence is higher than middle.
6.Yoshi LF is potential in an attack, defence not worse 2023.
7.Rafaela CF is a debut, elite defence, attack 100Wrc+ .
8.Verdugo RF is an attack ( quarry indexes ), defence ( must prove that 2023 year not chance).
9.Turner DH – 39, there can be regress, bloomed after 30, was successive, 120Wrc+.
SP:
1.Yamamoto – Ace, debut season.
2.Bello is a season of second-year student, good 2023 year, but it is needed to do some work yet with Pedro.
3.Trade – Duran must be in a transaction.
4.Sale – it is needed to put many candles that Chris remained healthy, my number 3 or 4.
5.Crawford – the good conducts 2023 year, there can be regress, my number 4 or 5.
6.Houck – tries until now to work out the third serve, my number 5.
7.Walter is a depth of SP (№5), the best left-handed pitcher in the system of Red Sox, help starting
rotation or bullpen.
Bullpen:
CL – Jansen
RP – Martin “Bulldog”
RP – Whitlock
RP – Schreiber
RP – Winckowski
RP – Pivetta
RP – Bernardino
RP – Murphy second-year student
RP – Z.Kelly
RP – Mata maybe will help a command at some instant, if won’t do DFA after 2023
RP – Drohan, a debut is possible at some instant
I hope that other garbage that was in bullpen( 2023 ) it won’t be in a next season.
I like it bogie2x!
Only change I’d make is I dont think Verdugo will be here next year. He would be used in trade for another OFer or for that 2nd starter you mention.
Great Job!
RSmith
Thanks)))
Who is the second player, Adames?
RSmith
I understood, that 2nd SP))
Verdugo traded for what you called “#3 – Trade”. (starter)
Or Verdugo for Adames plus a piece maybe. Adames would be a great stopgap at SS for a season.
I honestly like your whole list.
RSmith
An idea with Adames came me yesterday.
I checked his contract and for him the last year of arbitration.
He is a former player of Rays and Bloom know him.
Taking into count of situation with pitching at Milwaukee and that fact, that they reluctantly distribute arbitrations to the field players ( Renfroe 2023 Arb 3 ), then probability is high that Adames will get untender.
Brewers within the framework of budget of $145m, they have cheap of Turang on SS, therefore high-paying Adames ($12-13m Arb 3) don’t need.
I don’t think that Dugie will be interesting to Brewers, with outfield for them complete order ( Yelich, Wiemer, Frelick, Taylor ).
His ego is his injury! Time to hang up the spikes!
The injury is called ‘he sucks’:I believe it’s too dangerous to be pitching with the illness
Bad neck from watching the 17 HRs in 55 innings sail over the wall.
Because the rosters in the majors and minors have set limits each transaction to acquire a player should be tied to another transaction to release a player unless the roster being added to is not already full. This type of book keeping would show just how many worthless acquisitions have been added (those that in turn got cut without adding value to the MLB team) and who got cut due to each addition.
This would accomplish two things:
1 – Fans could see EXACTLY how many adds were released since Bloom arrived
2 – The remaining adds need to be compared to the associated drops to see if the dropped player is adding greater value elsewhere than the added player that has been kept by Bloom.
There is no accountability to all the dumpster diving because nobody is tracking and reporting on the ACTUAL state of the farm system. It is being assumed that the dumpster diving is adding value and I for one don’t see it. I would love to have an accountant come in and using concepts of debits and credits tie EVERY acquisition to the corresponding departure of an asset so fans can get a true picture of the churning that is going on in the farm system not the “development” or “improvement” of the farm system that is being marketed by Bloom supporters.
You can just look at a player’s WAR to assess their contribution to a team. That’s why the stat was invented.
You can also read up on every team’s farm system on numerous websites that track them in depth and offer updates all season like Fangraphs or BP.
All the things you claim aren’t tracked very much are.
MuteorAstroMute – WAR is one person or one company’s estimate of value. To me it’s meaningless because there are too many wrong assumptions built into it. It’s faulty logic related to the contribution of a player. The irony is that it was designed to predict the future as an estimation then it morphed into a one size fits all estimation that is now applied to the past, present and future. Estimations of the past are the farthest thing from a stat. They are merely retro estimations that coexist with facts like BA, OBP HR, SBs etc.
Also, WAR is an estimate not a fact based stat. That’s a really important fact to not overlook. It’s like predicting the weather. There is no certainty just probabilities. Whereas true baseball stats are facts accumulated over time.
The farm systems you suggest should be tracked are FUTURES. Just like in the Commodities World. The performance at the farm system level is insignificant because it doesn’t contribute to the success of the MLB team until the potential is realized at the MLB level. Professed experts on Statcast and other estimation sites are just math geeks trying to perfect trend analysis. That’s all well and good but it’s meaningless until the “great” player in the farm system becomes a “great player” at the MLB level. If he becomes a bust like the great Jeter Downs Bloom stole from Friedman in the Mookie deal, then there is NO value to the resource AND the farm system is grossly over=stated by the guys you are suggesting know what they are talking about. Bottom line, they don’t know the future any more than you, me or a coin toss. They just market it to naive baseball fans.
Your last statement intrigued me. You have seen an accounting like journal by team of adds and drops for all baseball organizations? Please share that information because I’ve looked everywhere I could think of and couldn’t find it. I don’t believe it exists. Someone like me would need to spend months building that puzzle to determine the net effect of a GM with respect to their impact on the results of their transactions.
See, it’s not good enough to claim victory on a deal where Mookie and Price go to LAD and Boston gets Verdugo, Downs and Wong. An analysis needs to be done that compares the 1 year of Mookie’s performance plus the follow-up years that were lost by Boston (opportunity cost) compared to the player replacing Mookie all those years in RF to the value of Verdugo, Wong and the now DFA’d Downs over the years they contribute at the MLB level. What needs to be taken into account is that Verdugo and Wong are easily replaceable at the same price so there is no added value whereas Mookie who cost more provides a huge premium over other available stars that Boston could have opted for after he was given away. It’s a massive and clear loss for Boston. Most people get fired after making a mistaken of such biblical proportion. Thus, we must assume ownership wanted it so they hired Bloom to do it.
So, if you like the world of simulated estimates like WAR and the other bogus modern metrics that’s great!! But NEVER suggest they are factual stats. They are simply estimates built off hundreds of wrong assumptions about the future.
The facts in baseball are the recorded data during games. Lately, those numbers have been damaged by allowing score keepers to change the criteria for an error or hit but at least they aren’t predictions like WAR.
You don’t understand WAR at all. Honestly, name one “assumption” built into any version of that metric. Its a mathmatical formula based off measurable stats. You may disagree with the weighting but you’d need to provide a lot of research. Maybe you should read up on it instead of posting a long rant based on received wisdom.
As for transactions, every MLB team has all their transactions listed on their websites in easily sortable fashion. ESPN, Spotrac and I’m sure numerous other sites also do this.
And if WAR is ineffective then why do the teams with most WAR win the most games?
MuleorAstroMute – So do you understand the concept of causation?
Take nearly any significant stat or estimate and plot it versus wins.
OPS, WAR, BA,,OBP they all show teams with the best records are at the top of each list. Does that make WAR accurate or significant? NOPE.
MuteorAstroMute –
First , the biggest assumption which makes it an estimate not a fact is that it assumes what happened in the past will happen in the future.
It assumes an average number can represent all teams effectively and doesn’t consider standard deviations from the average based on the make-up of the player or the team he is part of..
It assumes distances run by a player for a grounder are comparable despite the varying conditions of the fields, the weather, the temperature and so many other factors that it would take too long to list.
Do you understand that Hits/At Bat doesn’t assume anything therefore it’s a stat and weighted average runs is comprised of a weighted average that assumes the past averages will reflect the future averages and the current averages?
Clearly, you have no idea what modern metrics are. They are simulated circumstances that “in theory” could occur not facts.
If you had read my comments about the transactions you wouldn’t have written the comment about what sites have detailed transactions. It was addressed in my comment.
Seriously, you need to actually execute the detailed formula of a metric. You have no idea how things are calculated and what assumptions are made, what constants are assumed and what formulas could vary based on the personal preference of the person or team that builds the formula.
Don’t point fingers at others when you don’t know what you are talking about. I am fully versed on the topic of modern metrics and their huge shortcomings. The public can choose to be led in the wrong direction like lemmings to the sea but not everyone blindly follows estimates and pretends they are facts.
OPS is just a combination of BA and OBP. WAR factors in both BA and OBP among many other stats. So yes, players that perform well put up high WAR totals. What a concept.
Again, you really need to sit down and figure out what WAR is.
Since when are statcast metrics “simulated”? Go learn how they are actually measured and stop with the long winded rants that just show your desperation to look smart.
And yes, I know how WAR is calculated because the formula is public knowledge. This is not some nebulous mystery.
You said the transactions weren’t available. I handily pointed out where you could find them. Not sure why this is confusing to you.
What you seem to want is someone to hold your hand and do any heavy lifting so you don’t have to spend a minute or two on math. Which makes sense because that would cut into your rant time.
TrollingForFree is as we used to say ‘throwing the baby out with the bathwater’. Just because you can point out an instance where there could be a discrepancy doesnt make the whole stat useless. — What about when a player is ‘robbed’ of a hit, or scorer gives a suspect error/hit on a play that shouldve gone the other way? Every stat has its flaws and limitations.
BA is incredibly limited and youre comparing it to an ‘all encompassing stat’. When you look at BA its not taking running or fielding or walks or power into account AT ALL. Silly to think BA or OPS is a legit stat to sum up a player, but something that takes into account running, fielding etc isnt.
When you have a better stat to sum up a player’s full baseball acumen and the stat has no flaws, then I’ll be impressed. Until then its just KD doing more complaining about something that isnt a problem.
“Dumpster Diving” is often signing the best AAA player available TODAY (who is often not very good) to fill a hole that exists on the AAA team TODAY. You can’t wait to get a better option because the AAA team plays TODAY.
suit – With all due respect, isn’t it fair to say many of these AAA players being signed by Bloom end up playing for the Red Sox.
And many of the players had horrible stats this year in AAA before being promoted to the Red Sox by Bloom and put into action by Cora.
Fever: It looks like some guys do statistically well in AAA and never get called up and others do ok or bad and get called. So, I don’t think minor league stats are everything for whatever reason. It may be that teams get a guy and he pitches or hits badly, but then they work on his swing or pitching mechanics and feel good about promoting him. So, the stats may not reflect the change.
All – That’s a great observation about the politics of baseball. Players are either in the in group and liked by the front office or they are fillers. Some climb out of their pigeon hole like Mookie and others don’t like Chavis and Dalbec. It’s hard to have the organization against you while trying to make the MLB team. Like Devers, Casas was a front office darling so you knew he would be allowed to fail as long as it took for him to succeed. Others aren’t provided that luxury. It’s not right but it’s commonplace among most organizations. I guess the politics of the business world carry over into the baseball world. It’s who you know not how good you are. Those that are not in the inner circle have to work twice as hard as those in the inner circle to succeed. Swihart and Mookie are my common example of one being touted by the organization and the other not being touted. Swihart proved to be a bad choice by the organization because his skills were far over estimated and Mookie far exceeded expectations. If Mookie had been one of the inner circle like Swihart or Devers he probably would still be a Red Sox player and the face of the franchise.
In all seriousness. Does anyone know how many players we have picked up that were released compared to other teams. Seems like every other week we are getting some DFA pitcher
@B dog 351 –
You can see all of the Red Sox transactions here: mlb.com/redsox/roster/transactions
They are listed month by month and there are a ton of them!
Bdog 351 and Dorothy – Dorothy you are right and it’s huge. I started to cut and paste them but they don’t make it easy to tie the add to the drop. They also list a lot of transactions that are not adds and drops but simply promotions or demotions so you have to weed out the movement transactions from the add and drop transactions.
Needless to say, it’s no simple task based on the transaction page mentioned.
And how does the number compare to other teams? That’s kind of the point.
No kidding, everyone acts like Boston is the only team doing this kind of thing, which is myopic at best and clueless at worst.
The haters prefer to point to things that they think cannot be proven. In this case, they can be.
The average number of pitchers used is 27. The RS have used 32. I assume that is a function of the injuries to the rotation. TB & LAD are #1/2 with 39 & 38, which I presume is a function of injuries to their rotations as well.
it’s always hilarious when people get up in arms as if the red sox make more signings on the margins than other teams. No pun intended but totally intended
Sinister, Icon, JoeBrady and Accell10 – You completely missed the point.
NOBODY would care how many moves they made at the farm level if there were a lot of good ones. Heck, maybe even if there were an average number of good ones. The problem is you can’t name enough good ones to justify the number.
Should we care that other teams have inept GMs too? Does that make it OK for Bloom to suck at his job because others do? Very odd argument that you are making to give Bloom a break for being bad at his job.
Being equally bad with other organizations is no solace to Red Sox fans.
This is why you guys are considered Bloom apologists. It’s not his fault and we aren’t so bad because others suck just as much as Bloom!! It’s called RATIONALIZATION. There are perfectly good reasons Bloom is so bad at his job….. It’s DD’s fault, other GMs are just as bad, there isn’t enough money being provided by ownership, the farm system was bare before he arrived (despite the only star graduates being legacy players).
Yep, all excuses but never an admission of how incredibly bad Bloom has been for four years. 100 less games over .500 than DD after inheriting DD’s Championship team. It’s hard to picture somebody being worse at their job than Bloom.
Thanks for explaining all of that.
Even though I didn’t read any of it,
I wouldn’t worry about this guy too much, he’s paranoid, He’s changed his username numerous times because he claims everyone is out to get him, and thinks that many of the people posting here are all the same person.
It’s kind of sad,
Sinister and Icon – Trolls will be trolls!!! hahaha The pied piper of Trolls strikes again. You guys simply can’t pass on the unsolicited insults when it comes to my comments!!! If only you could see how foolish you look interrupting a great baseball discussion to insult a writer. Some people just never grow up!!
Why the personal attacks?
I don’t know anything about you.
Things ok at home? You’ve posted on this thread around 40 times.
Yeah, it’s sad.
As I said he changed his name repeatedly recently and even imitated other posters because he thought everyone was out to get him. He thinks everyone who disagrees with him is the same person using different accounts. I;’m not making fun of him, I feel badly for him, just letting you know what was up.
Icon – Nobody is buying the who me act. You comment wasn’t about what I said it was about me being paranoid. Keep those thoughts to yourself like a mature adult.
Everything is great except the band of trolls that comment on me not what I say. Oh gosh, did I miss understand your sudden concern for me as a cry for help? I’m sorry. Are you ok?
See how bogus your approach is? It’s lame. Stop talking trash and start talking baseball and most importantly, grow up.
Sinister Joe – Is this you disagreeing with a baseball comment or is this you trolling and making commentary on me?
This is an example of trolling as I have pointed out about you many times. There is no need to do it but your anonymity gives you a bravado you lack in real life. It’s sad, pathetic and I expect it to continue because there are no rules on this site that suggest you must act like an adult.
“and how does the number compare to other teams?”
In Boston, the fans dont want to compare to other teams, for the same reason they dont like WAR. These are ways to make easy comparisons and it ruins their imaginary reality.
Its the 38th through 40th roster spot and this practice has netted you Pablo Reyes, Refsnyder, Arroyo and Bernandino, so far. Those roster spots arent high leverage players. You’d think when they’d be okay with giving a pitcher with a 12.1 K/9 a chance. But, then you remember its Boston and complaining about nothing is what the fans do the most.
Sorry you feel victimized lady.
This is me making fun of you. Because it’s fun.
still confused?
Icon – Self esteem issues? Nice picture.
Sinister Joe – Hahahaha That’s me not caring and laughing at your ignorance. Your comment epitomizes trolling. Normally you get booted for harassing others. You must know the guys that control the site to be so bold as to simply insult others for the fun of it.
Dog – I don’t have time to update this list from two weeks ago, but here’s 32 players that are on the Red Sox payroll this year despite contributing very little to the team:
Kike $8,897,879 WAR -0.6
Barnes $4,875,000 WAR 0.0
Bleier $0 WAR -0.1
Brasier$2,000,000 WAR -0.3
Tapia $2,000,000 WAR 0.4
Hosmer $1,750,000 WAR 0.0
Alfaro $100,646 WAR -0.1
Scott $46,452 WAR 0.0
Sherriff $30,968 WAR 0.2
Littell $15,484 WAR -0..1
Faria $7,904 WAR -0.1
Kluber $10,000,000 WAR -0.9
Mondesi $3,045,000 WAR 0.0
Rodriguez $2,000,000 WAR -0.2
Mills $727,500 WAR 0.0
Kelly $723,500 WAR 0.1
Ort $543,480 WAR -0.3
Llovera $255,486 WAR -0.4
Barraclough $720,000 WAR 0.1
Luis Urias $1,541,409 WAR -0.2
Dalbec $65,807 WAR -0.1
Garza $212,905 WAR -0.4
David Hamilton $61,936 WAR 0.0
Jacques $220,647 WAR -0.3
Nick Robertson $11,613 WAR -0.1
Valdez $178,066 WAR -0.4
Arroyo $2,000,000 WAR -0.2
Chang $850,000 WAR 0.1
Dermody $3,871 WAR -0.1
Gudino $11,613 WAR 0.0
Caleb Hamilton $54,194 WAR -0.1
Lamet $7,742 WAR -0.1
Wow, what a list!! Crazy that Bloom is paying Mondesi over $3M even though it was common knowledge he would miss more than half the season. Tapia at $2M is another head scratcher. And $1.5M for just 2 months of Urias? Seriously?
To summarize:
32 players
-4.2 Combined bWAR
$42,959,036 Combined 2023 Lux Tax Salary
WOW!!!!!
For every $10.2M Bloom spent, he got just -1 .0 bWAR for it!
Fever: It would interesting to calculate $ spent per WAR obtained for each team and see where Bloom ranks. Unfortunately, I have no idea how to do that.
@Suit. Great idea. I would love to see that also. Even a step further, $/war per player. There are a lot of stats sites. Somebody should do this!
DBH – WAR is an estimation and the salary is a fact so in many ways it’s comparing apples to oranges. If you assume WAR is within say 5 standard deviations of what the players real contribution is then the comparison is meaningless but if you are a believer in WAR (which I am not) then comparing WAR to Payroll could give you a BALLPARK idea of the bad deals made by Bloom.
Some folks like OPS+ more than WAR to evaluate value. It’s still just an estimate and it is batting average biased but when they normalize it the bias is somewhat reduced.
Players with an OPS+ of 100 to 110 are common place players. Common place players should not be paid over $10MM because there are so many alternative choices that are just as good and under $10MM that league average player paid near $10MM or more are wasted payroll.
The next range above the 110 OPS= is a bit harder to define. Players with 110 to 120 are valuable commodities that deserve $10MM to $12MM depending on how close to 120 they are. These players fall into the category of complimentary inexpensive keepers that should provide payroll relief yet contribute significantly to the team for their price.
Players with OPS+ over 120 and less than 130 are the problem children. Their numbers really help the team but they usually cost too much for their contribution. A player returning an OPS+ of 120 to 130 annually should be paid $15MM to $20MM for their contribution.
Players over 130 are the stars of your team. How far over 130 should dictate their cost.. In 2021 there were 47 players with 130 or greater OPS+ across MLB. In 2022 the number dropped to 44. In 2023 there are 35 so far.
There are 30 teams so these elite players need to be the target of each GM because they should be coveted. Any team that has 2 is at a big advantage over the rest of baseball. Any team with 3 has an even greater advantage.
In 2018 when Boston won a ring there were 36 players at or above 130 with their OPS+. Betts was #2 at 186 behind Trout (100 is league average), then JD was 4th with 173 and Bogey also qualified with 135. Benny produced a very respectable 123. So the best team in baseball had 3 elite hitters and 1 near elite hitter. Paying the 3 superstars big money was completely justified and Benny was still under control so he was a HUGE cost savings for his performance. Moreland was at 102 and was paid accordingly and Devers at 94 was being paid under $1MM and he barely earned it, especially if you subtract his defense.
Lets put this OPS+ scale into effect in 2023.
Devers is at 130 and is making $17.5 MM
Duvall ranks 39th at 128 and is making $7MM (but only played 66 games)
Turner is at 123 and is making $10.85MM
Casas is now at 120 and is making under $1MM
Yoshida is now at 114 and is making $18MM
Verdugo is now at 113 and is making $6.3MM
As you can see this team is a far cry from the 2018 team. The primary star players are now gone. No Mookie, JD or Bogie. Fortunately Devers has risen to the 130 level and his pay of $17.5MM is close to appropriate. Beginning in 2024 his pay will be $31MM so his OPS+ needs to rise to well over 140 offensively but his defense is such a liability that his 140 needs to be over 150 to break even on how much the Red Sox will be paying him for the NEXT 10 years beginning in 2024. That’s why the contract appears to be an albatross of biblical proportions!!
As an FYI…. We lost Mookie, Benny, Bogey and JD from the 2018 team. Many justified the loses by saying they weren’t providing enough value.
In 2023 here are their OPS+ numbers and luxury tax cost
Mookie Betts 168 (second behind Ohtani) $25MM after $65MM buy down in 2020 by the Dodgers so he’s far exceeding his cost
JD Martinez 125 OPS+ for $10MM (Bloom looks foolish on this one)
Bogey 104 OPS+ for his $25.5 AAV vs the CAP is an over pay in 2023 so far
Benny 94 OPS+ for the under performing CWS is another overpay ($15MM)
The 2023 season is 3/4 over so the numbers are subject to change but this “as of now” update shows where contracts have paid off and where contracts have NOT paid off.
In the end, the team needs to transition to 6 elite players, 6 close to elite players and the rest of the team complimentary cheap players and controlled players. We are missing our top end performers which explains why we are hoping to make the last wild card spot rather than competing for the Division Title like under DD. The money spent is greater now but the performances of the players are way down since Bloom arrived and shed the star players from the roster.
In the end, the team is what you put into it. Bloom stripped the stars from the roster (Mookie, JD, Bogey, Benny) and added near stars in J Turner. Bloom got the benefit of DD’s wise drafting with regard to Casas and his 120 OPS+ but it doesn’t make up for all the losses to the roster. To turn this around the Red Sox need better performances by acquiring high OPS+ players to replace Mookie, JD, Bogey and even Benny who was near elite back in the day. Casas and Duran hopefully will be near elite in 2024 and hopefully Devers will actually earn his HUGE salary with a 150 or more OPS+ but after that it’s not clear who will be elite or near elite on this roster.
With great pitching in 2024 the team will still need upgrades in hitting and I simply don’t believe Bloom sees things that way so adding elite expensive players aren’t in the cards but should be. Strip away all the mediocrity costing far too much money and funds would be available for elite contracts. Lets hope by 2024 we have a GM who understands how to be a successful big market GM and we can try to win the division not hope for the last wild card spot!!
“$ spent per WAR obtained for each team and see where Bloom ranks.”
You do realize that those are cherry picked players right? I dont see Turner, Yoshida, Duvall, Paxton.
If you created a “$ spent per WAR”. the list would have to include productive players, not just the failures. If you did that Red Sox would be above average.
Its funny what happens when you take the bias out.
I can do that for most large market teams, with about 10% of the writing.
NYY-bottom 34 players in terms of bWAR, combined for $145M for a combined bWAR of -1.4!
WS-bottom 34 players combined for -10.2 bWAR for $71M.
LAD 33 players combined for $42M for a -5.3 bWAR.
Your entire exercise amounted to sorting a team’s roster by WAR, and adding up the bottom 30 or so players. Not exactly rocket science.
Joe – I hate to point out the obvious but I didn’t do what you said.
I only spoke about OPS+ and had you read my comments you would have known that. WAR doesn’t exist in my world because it is a fabricated estimate that varies by at least 5 standard deviations from the potential truth that it is supposed to represent.
If you like it I completely understand because it allows your ego to be satisfied when you talk down to others about what it is. Then you run into people that know so much more than you do and it stymies you. Your unwarranted arrogance plays well with others but I simply laugh at your ignorance on the topic.
You clearly don’t respect my knowledge so find someone you respect and have them explain to you why you are so wrong about the accuracy of WAR. Heck,, you might want to call multiple companies because they can’t even agree on the calculation but hey that shouldn’t stop you from professing it as the end all be all of baseball estimates (NOT stats).
Trollfree9 hours ago
Joe – I hate to point out the obvious but I didn’t do what you said.
============================
That was directed at Fever, and should’ve been so labeled. I will add a note.
My above comment was directed at Fever’s comment on the return on our spending. Virtually every large market team will have some FA misses. Take 1-2 misses, combine that with 1-2 injured players, add in another 20 AAA players that sneak on and off rosters, and you can create the same thing.
Heck, Miami, with their tiny payroll, still has 27 guys combining for a -5.8 bWAR for $43M.
“32 players
-4.2 Combined bWAR
$42,959,036 Combined 2023 Lux Tax Salary”
Joseph – Your response wreaks of arrogance and ignorance, never a good combination.
No I did not search for the worst bWAR on the Red Sox roster, if I had then I wouldn’t have included guys like Tapia and Sherriff who both had positive bWAR. Did I include Whitlock’s negative bWAR? No, I did not.
My list included strictly dead money, such as Retained Salaries or veteran players sitting in the minors or players who have been injured and won’t be returning.
You want to compare Miami with the Red Sox? Sure, let’s do that.
Miami’s Retained Salaries is $10M for 6 players
Red Sox is $22.4M for 12 players
How about Buried Minor Salary?
Miami is $1.4M
Red Sox is $4M
Anything else you’d like me to teach you?
Yet another Chaim waivers claim for a pitcher 30+ years old and limited (if any) success in MLB career to date. I’d much rather see him reach for one of the 24-26 year old cannon-armed DFA pitchers and try to fix him in the minors. They’ll probably end up DFAing Llovera soon and give this new kid a chance rather than promoting someone from Worcester who has pitched well all season and deserves a look in the majors. How do they send down Murphy and keep Llovera on the roster? I don’t get how they handle the 12th/13th pitching spots on their MLB team. The guys promoted to date have cost the team multiple wins on the season, most of whom were 2023 waiver claims by Chaim.
Mantooth. I often wonder if they anything about these dumpster dives . Like someone in scouting seem something positive. Or Chaim is like my neighbor and picks up any yard sale / curbside trash for the taking.
B_dog – I believe the latter!!
When Bloom first arrived I expected a cost/benefit analysis on players that was fairly accurate like what TB still does now that Bloom is in Boston but I believe the brains of all the analysis in TB still resides in TB. We have the marketing guy who sells the success of all acquisitions but doesn’t do the analysis.
If you’ve ever watched the football movie “Invincible” with Mark Walberg, it’s like the tryouts the Eagles had. If you look at a couple of thousand guys maybe ONE will stick to make it all worthwhile. We’re still waiting on the Vince Papale baseball equivalent!!
1) The waiver churn has brought the Red Sox Schreiber and Bernardino who have been very productive.
2) The Red Sox have used 41 pitchers in AAA Worchester (including rehabs). Even with that many the current AAA staff is:
Rotation
LH Shane Drohan
RH Grant Gambrell
LH Brandon Walter
RH Kyle Barraclough
RH Brian Van Belle
Bullpen
LH Chris Murphy
RH Nick Robertson
LH Joe Jacques
RH Justin Garza
RH AJ Politi
RH Ryan Fernandez
RH Justin Hagenman
LH Cam Booser
LH Oddanier Mosqueda
RH Chase Shugart
Inactive Pitchers
RH Zack Weiss
LH Brendan Nail
RH Andrés Núñez
LH Rio Gomez
RH Bryan Mata
RH Victor Santos
There is not a single pitcher I would bring up over what is currently in the MLB except Murphy, and if he is brought up then Llovera is a DFA meaning they do not have a right handed AAA depth option except for Gambrell who was just promoted from AA. The balance of the roster is AAA org pitchers which will never (and should never) see the MLB just like all the other 30 MLB organizations.
@JC#1 – There are a few players on this list, starting with Barraclaugh, who in my opinion have pitched well enough to get a shot in the majors over these recent DFA claims. Chaim is taking OPP (other people’s pitchers) who were DFA’d for poor performance and then advancing them to the majors over players who have pitched well most of the season in their AA/AAA affiliates. Promoting newly acquired players like Llovera and Lamet sends a message to the rest of the team that Chaim has no faith in them and other team’s ‘trash’ is better then what we have in the minors already. It has to be demoralizing for the players in Worcester who are having good seasons. To be clear, I’m not against Chaim making waiver claims to try and improve the back end of their 40-man roster; all successful teams do this. I just don’t like how Chaim feels like he needs to promote these newly acquired players ASAP without them learning the system or proving in AAA that they are worthy of a shot in Boston, especially when they still have (or had) a shot at a playoff berth.
There is not a single pitcher I would bring up over what is currently in the MLB except Murphy, and if he is brought up then Llovera is a DFA
=================================
Murphy is a tough call. His ERA/FIP in his last 10 games is 4.70/4.60. His walk rate in the pros and minors is pretty weak. And LLovera has been very good since the TO meltdown (SSS).
Actually, without that game, his full-season ERA is 2.70 with a 21/8 K/W.
Is it fair to reiterate what JC#1 wrote….. the AAA cupboard is bare. This goes back to people not holding Bloom accountable for his destruction of the MLB team and the farm system.
If the net impact is not positive in 4 years, why is he still here? 3 years was supposed to be his window to prove himself and he’s just as bad as he was in 2020 in 2023!!
The farm system may be rated higher but now you can begin to understand what I’ve been preaching for years about the rating systems. You get points for early picks like Mayer but that doesn’t translate to better MLB players. AAA is awful for a reason, Bloom failed at bringing in quality minor league players. Couple that with his inability to bring in quality MLB players and you have the current disaster.
We can all point to Yoshida and Kenley as successes but we can just as easily point to Mookie, JD, Bogey, Benny and others for the huge reduction in talent.
People bicker over bad players daily on this site. I’d like to argue about whether the next acquisition is the best player in baseball or just an all-star. Unfortunately, that will never happen on Bloom’s watch.
So do we really want to discuss a guy who has been good since the TO meltdown or do we deserve better players for a big market team with high ticket prices, food prices and parking prices?
This goes back to people not holding Bloom accountable for his destruction of the MLB team and the farm system.
===========================
I’m not taking sides with your DD obsession, but this is the farm he inherited. You should never expect a GM to take over and have contributing draftees three years later. Only one of our top 8 RPs in terms of IPs came from the DD era.
Does it really matter at this point though? The season is lost
The guys promoted to date have cost the team multiple wins on the season, most of whom were 2023 waiver claims by Chaim.
===========================
Including Bernardino, Schreiber & Barraclough, what do think the record is for the Bloom reclamation projects?
I’ll wait.
Joseph – Shame on you for comparing those three players to the crap that’s been cycled in and out this year by Bloom.
Schreiber has a career 2.12 ERA and 1.04 WHIP in the minors, he was very good.
Bernardino has been good so far after pitching well in the minors, 41 innings is a little too soon to label him a good find even though I’ve been his biggest supporter since Day One.
I won’t even dignify Barraclough and his 3 innings with a response.
But that’s not really the point, is it?
I quoted the part about Bloom’s RP pickups where Dorothy stated “have cost the team multiple wins”.
And I asked what their record was. Do you want to tell everyone what their record is, or should I? I am quite certain that everyone knows.
Joe – The suspense is killing me. Please tell us because we all love to drown in your insignificant data !!
Stop cherry picking phrases and grasp the bigger concept. Bloom is flying by the seat of his pants with no plan. He waiver claims guys constantly because he can’t build a farm system filled with stars because he no longer has his support team that resides in TB who did his figuring in the past. Throwing it against the wall and hoping it sticks is his plan and it’s not working. Quibbling over whether a bad player is a bit better or worse than someone suggested is like complaining about the rain as a tornado is hitting! Who cares what the record is, the entire organization is short of talent and the guy finding the talent has been asleep at the wheel for four years now!!.
Troll – I don’t believe bloom doesn’t have a plan, he does. And I see the pattern, at least I *think* I do.
Without his admitting he’s doing it, this is what I see:
* rather than being a ‘strong’ exec type, he defers to subordinates and seeks consensus so the blame doesn’t hit his head for deciding himself
* he won’t admit to ‘punting’ for an extended rebuild, but, essentially he wants to. That is to say, the goal each year isn’t to ‘win’ its to audition players looking for bargains and trade bait, while, trying to accumulate prospects that his preferred analytics favor. Think of this like any normal tanking rebuild.
* to ‘cover’ the rebuild process and not act like the Os did, or the Astros before them, each offseason he seeks short term deals for players he won’t be stuck with as the team finally has a new core held in the minors ready to graduate and be built around.
Now, in the process because his focus wasn’t to take what was on the mlb roster and build to ‘win now’ you didn’t get the deadline splashes any particular year, and, in the offseason the goal wasn’t to turn the holdover from ’19 back into a WS contender. The goal was to ride those out while circling back to looking for missed talent, fixable players, and, collect prospects to create his own core.
There is a process there. It just tends to not result in high end winning clubs for several years, tending more towards a roughly .500 club with some over and under performances possible.
GA: Yes, I think a rebuild of the farm system is in progress. So, prospects will not be traded to fill holes on the major league team and free agents will mostly be signed to shorter deals so they don’t block prospects. This limits the ability to field a good major league team and win now. However, seeing the two different approaches taken by the Orioles and Yankees and how they are set up for the future, I prefer building from the farm system. It does take time, but doing something well often does. John Henry should like this approach as it should result in less of his money being wasted on signing older players to long, expensive deals. Hope you are doing well.
Thanks Suit.
We’re up to an onco, cardio, gastro, and pain mgmt doc on the care team these days backed up by the GP, but, I’m still above ground, following baseball, so, I’d say thats enough right there to count as good! Can anyone want anything more than that?
Well, ok, I guess they could, people always want more but they don’t really need it. When the simple pleasures can leave you happy, life is good.
GA: We are all day to day whether we admit it or not. So, enjoying the simple pleasures of the day is the way to go.
All – There is NO PROOF that the farm system is better off other than the bad rating services with no accountability for their guesses telling the status of a farm system. Boston’s talent at AAA is bad. If the rating is so good why is AAA so bad?
It’s simple. The point based systems give Boston big credit for guys like Mayer. It’s premature because his success isn’t guaranteed but the rating systems aren’t suggesting a GM is doing a good job, they are suggesting the players in the drafts are raising the point total because some teams get earlier picks than other teams. DD won Division titles and got late picks but still chose two important players in Casas and Houck. Neither player was rated as highly as Mayer because Mayer was the fourth pick and should have been the 2nd pick in the draft based on skill.
This team’s depth at AAA, AA, A and all the other levels is DOWN since Bloom arrived not up. The draft picks are higher so the numbers are greater but the actual performances of the players in the system don’t suggest we have guys like Gunnar Henderson or Adley Rutschman. Heck for Bloom’s first two years their top guy was Jeter Downs who they DFA’d.
Teams like BAL and HOU built from the bottom up because they had no stars, tanked and got high draft picks and had success with their picks. The Yankees BUY talent which leads to late first round draft picks and seldom do they have stars emerge from their farm system. Judge and G Sanchez looked to be stars but only Judge has passed the test of time.
Boston started with a Championship team which included an all-star outfield of Benny, JBJ and Mookie with Duran in the farm system poised to replace JBJ. It had all-stars Devers at 3B, Bogey at SS, Pedroia (until Machado ended his career) at 2B and used 1st base as a low cost spot with the GG caliber 1B Moreland who saved countless errors by Devers wild arm. They had two servicable catchers with Vazquez breaking out as a top 5 hitting catcher. They had Sale, Price, Eovaldi, E-ROD and Porcello with Kimbrel as the closer.
The 2023 team is nowhere near as talented thanks to Bloom and you can’t blame the ownership for anything other than the Mookie/Price deal. They provided all the money requested by Bloom. He chose not to use Mookies $27MM on a star outfielder. He split it 3 or 4 ways on bad players.
2022 saw a $30MM increase over the most spending by DD in a year (2019) and the team finished 5th in the division and below .500.
The age of the player is irrelevant when it comes to cost benefit analysis. Your naive comment about older players is grossly inappropriate. The 36 year old and the 26 year old need to put up stats better than the money they are being paid. It’s that simple. Sale lost out on proving his worth thanks to Cora. JD earned his money and is still proving to be a vibrant player who is 3 years younger than JT. Mookie is a generational talent that should have never been asked to leave. Price’s breakeven point was never reached but his early years made it less offensive than the Hanley and Panda deals.
Giving Devers $31MM per year will turn out to be far worse than any contract we have seen to date. If he earns his $31 MM the first 6 years of his contract he will need to improve from where he’s been the last few years. The last four years of Devers’ contract will be at least a double pay if not triple pay for his contribution to the team. I expect him to be DFA’d at age 34 or hopefully traded long before then. Check out Miggy’s career to understand why 34 makes sense. Lots of parallels but far less talent than Miggy.
Giving big deals to young players is no more reliable than giving big deals to older players. What is most important is overall performance versus the money paid. Devers is a liability in the field, an average base runner and an above league average hitter. That doesn’t translate to $31MM in value so we are lucky the team is paying him only $17.5MM in 2023. He will earn that and a bit more. In 2024, he will become a permanent liability not producing his required numbers to justify the $31MM salary.
This is a perfect example of why suggesting old is worse than young is an erroneous assumption. There are bad contracts given to young players too. The 10 years to Devers is a massive anchor around the neck of the next GM. A smart one will dump him for quality young players so the expensive guys can be elite players not just good hitting bad fielding above average players.
KD: There is no proof of anything regarding the state of the farm system, just opinions. Bloom has drafted mostly high school players, so they will take longer to reach AAA. Mookie is the only player from the 2019 team that would have been worth keeping. Mookie was always about money first. So, I think he was going to free agency as he said he would. I think Mookie only changed his mind about free agency after be was traded to the Dodgers and Covid hit which cast some doubt about financial future in baseball. So, trading him was the right move to assure you get something for him. Price, Benintendi and JBJ were/are toast. The Devers deal is good so far. Bogaerts’ OPS is .726 at the moment. I think Story may finish the year with a higher OPS than him.
@GA. When Bloom was hired, I was happy, while still surprised that DD had been fired.
I thought Bloom would make FA deals that were more measured, but use the power of a big market to his advantage. Like an extra mil or 2 over other offers to sign a good player while avoiding 10-12 contracts. I expected a farm restock whole still competing. And I definitely expected him to hold on to our core of Betts, Bogey, Beni, etc.
This team this year is doing better than I expected, I will admit. And there are some good options on the horizon in the farm.
I can only wonder where we would be if Betts was having his career year in Boston instead of LA, etc.
Bloom would most likely be a very good GM for a mid market team. But if a GM is willing to just float it for 3 or 4 years, Boston is NOT the place for that GM.
Vision, plan or not, if the Sox are not a play off team almost every year, that GM is a fail here in my opinion.
BTW… this week and next are Doc weeks for me too. Specialists, surgeons, tests, etc. So I feel ya, bro! We woke up today, always a good start to the day, so hang in there man
Joseph – Are you seriously now attempting to use Pitcher Wins to support your stance that Bloom’s Dumpster Diving has paid off?
Even if you are talking about team wins, it’s irrelevant because using a relief pitcher in a 17-1 win doesn’t mean said pitcher contributed to the victory.
There were plenty of losses due in large part to Bloom’s Dumpster Diving, but you’d have to actually follow the play by play and game situations to know it. Pitchers who give up the gamewinning runs in extra innings don’t even get charged an earned run because of the Ghost Runner.
suit – Not me, I’m always on the 60-Day IL ;O)
All – Check out my earlier response so you can add JD as another Bloom bad move. he’s outperforming JT at a lower cost.
Also, your COVID info is inaccurate. The Dodgers offer exceeded any offer by the Red Sox or Mookie’s agent from a NET PRESENT VALUE perspective. If you consider the $65MM in year one of his deal and the time value of money Mookie made out like a bandit on his LAD contract AND he’s outperforming it after 3 years!!
NOT signing Mookie will be looked at as the biggest mistake since they lost Babe Ruth when historians barbecue both Ownership and Bloom for this enormous folly!!
KD: JD Martinez is not playing these days due to injury. He had a great first half (like last year) and has disappeared due to injury in the second half (like last year). It looks like a good call by Bloom to go with Justin Turner who is still playing and has an OPS of .846 at the moment.
Mookie was saying in July 2019 that he was going to free agency.
masslive.com/redsox/2019/07/mookie-betts-boston-re…
That is how you make the most money. So, Bloom was smart to trade him and get something for him. The Angels should have traded Ohtani for the same reason. The Red Sox never made their offers to Mookie public and you won’t be able to provide any quotes from the Red Sox about their offers. So, you really can’t make claims about the Red Sox’ offers.
Trollfree19 hours ago
Joe – The suspense is killing me.
=================
6-4. The problem with the casual fans is that they don’t understand the usage of our #14-20 BP guys. We use them in blowouts to see whether they can pitch, or simply to rest regular guys. They don’t hurt the team record.
Fever Pitch Guy1 day ago
There were plenty of losses due in large part to Bloom’s Dumpster Diving,
================================
I counted a 6-4 record by the RPs that Bloom brought in. Explain what you think the record should be.
Personally, I can’t speak for Fever, but, I think the approach to the middle infield this year has definitely cost wins independent of the approach to relievers, and, I think the choice of kluber also has cost, not only because of starts but the related taxing of the BP.
Kluber had red flags in his peripheral numbers last year that strongly hinted at a decline, and, he was given far too long of a leash to try to figure things out at the mlb level.
All –
Comparison of JD to JT
JD – $10MM at age 35
– 92 games 390 plate appearance 351 at bats
– 23 doubles 2 triples and 25 homers
– 49 runs 78 RBIs and 1 SB
– 856 OPS and 125 OPS+
JT – $10.85MM age 38
– 117 games 505 plate appearances 449 at bats
– 27 doubles 0 triples and 21 homers
– 76 runs 84 RBIs and 4 SBs
– .848 OPS and 126 OPS+
So Turner played in 25 more games and produced
= 4 more doubles 2 less triples 4 less homers
– 27 more runs 6 more RBIs and 3 SBs during the 25 games
While the numbers are close the net impact of JD is greater because the back-up player for those 25 games when added to JD’s totals would exceed JT’s totals significantly in all cumulative numbers other than Runs scored.
The season is not over yet so this comparison is premature but I’ll take the guy who is 3 years younger, nearly a million dollars cheaper and more productive in games played. But that’s just my understanding of the game. The most productive players per game are the most valuable and trying to predict injuries is not a science as much as intuition.
Also, JT is 13 games from reaching a plateau of games played that he has only attained 4 times in his 15 year career whereas JD has played in 130 games 5 times in his 13 year career. So history would suggest JD is more likely to play 130 games and bad luck happened in 2023 for him but not JT.
The good news is he is 3 years younger and if the roles were reversed the differential between the two would be far greater because JD is more productive per game played.
Any way you look at it, swapping JT for JD is a bad move.
Next, your logic on Mookie is not causal. Normally logic is if this happens then that should result. Well, if Mookie wanted a fair market salary not a home town discount like the Owners offer all their players then the logical choices are be stubborn and let a generational player become a free agent or sign the guy for what he’s worth. The owners chose to let him go.
Now, couple this huge mistake by the owners with a complete moron of a GM and you deal your franchise player in February when there is no market for him rather than at the trade deadline. This minimized the return for the player that should never have been on the trading block.
The owners were dumb and then Bloom double down on dumb by dealing him at the wrong time of the year. Oh yeah, in hindsight, had he waited a month COVID would have hit, Price would have opted out and the payroll would have been under the CAP!!! Talk about the worst possible timing for throwing away Mookie!!
Sources quoted that Mookie’s agent asked for 12 years and $420MM. That is $35MM per year which was his fair market value. I’m not sure why you haven’t read that but it’s online and easily accessible. You may be right that they either never disclosed their offer or never made their offer but some reporter documented the numbers I quoted.
As far as trading a generational talent goes, it’s a move only a moron would make because the job of the GM is to do what’s best for the ball club and what’s best for LAA is to resign Ohtani just like what was best for Boston was to resign Betts.
From a financial perspective, LAA should offer him 25% more than the highest AAV being paid in 10 year or more contracts. If you pay him $50MM per year for 10 or 12 years he’s worth it. If you don’t think you have the money then dump salaries of less effective players like Rendon. Take a one year hit in 2024 and pay Ohtani a $100MM bonus so his AAV for the next 10 years can be $40MM per year. The Angels can live with that type of money for Ohtani and he could continue to play with Trout. If he turns in down, they can at least walk away knowing they tried. Boston did NOT try with Betts and it’s the biggest embarrassment in 100 years.
GASox – Fantastic post, I agree 100%!
I think it’s entirely possible Kluber’s poor performance this year was due in large part to health issues, maybe we’ll hear that after the season. Either way, like you said his velocity was way down last year so it was a risky proposition to expect similar ERA and IP this year. Especially for $10M.
Troll . Great analogy Vince Papale!!! Did you ever hear the saying if you toss sh!!t at a wall something is bound to stick . Bloom could be going that way
Honestly, though, at this point the season is a loss, so this guy is just filling in to give pitchers rest.
dog – That would explain all the pitchers laying at the base of the Green Monster!!
Another bullpen clown, just what we need. And I forgot Kluber was even on our roster.
I also get angry at AAA signings.
Nothing winds me up more than an AAA signing in late August.
While the minors pitching is light now, they have successfully transitioned a few to the majors. Houck, Crawford, Bello. Those are starters. They are deep in position players, and have money to spend on pitching.
lucky – All three of those pitchers you’ve named were acquired by Dombrowski, not Bloom.
I wasn’t differentiating or obsessing as so many do about bloom. I was pointing out that they’ve brought up young pitchers successfully from the farm. I think they have a good base and a surplus in other areas to get the needed pitching through trades and FA signings. I like the team and the guys. Turner and Jansen were great signings, and some of the young guys are making strides.
@Lucky. I agree with Turner being a great signing. There are many reasons, nut my favorite is him taking Casas under his wing. Casas gives a lot of credit to JT for talking hitting with him. That type of experience is priceless, I think.
DBH – Great comment but to put things in perspective, that was what JD since he arrived in Boston and he’s outperforming JT at a lower cost and he’s 3 years younger. The contract went to the wrong guy. but I like what JT has done.
JD does not sign in Boston for the sweetheart deal he gave LA. JD wouldve required at least 15M/per to sign in Boston. At that price (the real Boston price) Turner is a much, much better deal.
Sorry, if that ruins your entire point.
Rsmith – No offense but why would you declaring something false ruin my entire point? The point still stands and it’s hypothetical as to what might have happened. All we can do is use what did happen even if you fabricate a scenario that never existed!!
Thanks for pretending something different happened and using it to argue against what actually did happen. It’s a unique approach to winning discussions with people that use facts not what’s in their head.
Perhaps what he is trying to say is that Boston needs to overpay above market rate to get players to agree to play under bloom? Thats certainly what it sounds like, claiming players demand more to play in Boston than elsewhere….
1) JD Martinez wanted at least 15M from Boston. He was projected to get 30M over 2 years by MLBTR before the offseason began.
2) LA provides a better chance at a championship, and gets him away from the nutjob Red Sox fans.
3) JD took a huge discount from LA to play there (1 yr/10M). Less pressure, better atmosphere, better chance at Ring.
4) Boston was never going to get a 1yr/10M contract. Any claim he was is a lie.
If you cant see this simple truth, thats your idiocy.
“demand more to play in Boston”
They sure do. Its called ‘The Crazed Fan Tax’. It has NOTHING to do with Bloom. Its been going on for a much longer time. Its why so many players put Boston on their ‘No Trade Lists’. It has to do with you guys. From Kiki to Renteria to Ted Williams, the fans and the media make players lives a living hell in Boston.
Or are you going to say players charged more to play for Bloom in Tampa Bay too?
When was Bloom top dog, the PBO in Tampa?
At least Apple has good quality picture and sound. Amazon prime looks like public access tv. I agree the streaming isn’t great. It’d be nice if they could just show on NESN and use that on those streaming platforms, also cheaper for them. Not a fan of their broadcast teams.
For the record, this Friday night Apple TV steaming of Red Sox games is really irritating me, especially when they play a good team like the Dodgers. I already pay good money for NESN and refuse, out of principle and fiscal responsibility, to have to purchase another streaming service just to watch one game per week. It’s bringing down their already lower TV ratings but it puts more money in the teams coffers so it shows where fan loyalty and viewship ranks within the organizational priorities.
Chaim Bloom loves to go dumpster diving thru Perry Minasian’s dumpster fires.
How is there this many comments on this post?
Nothing good on TV and lots of tangential thoughts!!
Season is winding down, people just want to talk baseball and how things have turned out
GASox – Last night Wong committed a major blunder on the basepaths. Even though he had the play right in front of him, he blew by 2B without caring about the fact there was already a runner stationed at 3B.
Instead of Devers at the plate with the bases loaded trailing by 2 runs, Wong ran the Sox right out of the inning and took the bat out of Devers’ hands. The announcers absolutely blasted Wong for it.
When the obituary is finalized for the 2023 Red Sox season, I’m sure it will include the countless baserunning and defensive errors that have come to epitomize Cora’s and Bloom’s team.
Let’s see if John Henry blows off the season ending press conference like he did last year.
HAH! It is Red Sox Nation, man! Lots of passion 24/7, 365… and even more opinions!
Perhaps I missed a comment or more that might have included Brassier–who is pitching well for the Dodgers. He was being abused in Boston-seems to be thriving in La, La Land.
I was happy to see JD move on. JT has been a welcome addition: good DH and plays a decent 1 B and 3 B.
I like Chang, Arroyo and Valdez( all in Woo land) none of them have shown the need tto be back in Boston.
Will Mata, Barraclough show enough in a year or two to make it to Boston? Will Houck and Whitlock warrant the positive vibes we hear about them.
They have to do something about the Defense –Devers is a DH at best or a 1 B. Masataka is in the same boat–good hit no field. Then you had Kike playing SS-all on the left side.
I bet you’d be frustrated if you were a pitcher and you saw innings evaporate having to throw all the extra pitches
Throw in poor running the bases and outfielders missing cut-off men. Things you should be doing right this late in the season. I like Cora but I think I might like Jason Varitek more as our everyday manager.
Perhaps Cora is tired of the merry-go-round player movement and has lost focus.
@madmc44.
The only one that could take Cora down is Henry. Bloom had no say his rehiring Cora. I could see Heny canning him and then saying Bloom fielded a competitive team, but lack of defense and fielding is on Cora.
madmc – Cora is an inexperienced manager who doesn’t learn from his mistakes. He repeats them over and over. His batting orders have been atrocious. He plays his favorites not the best player at that position. He can’t handle a pitching staff because he has no clue when a reliever is needed and what skills they should have.
We can only hope Cora is treated like so many players under Bloom and he gets sent down to AAA and then DFA’d!!!!
Varitek is old school and I’m not sure the make=up of the team is right for an old school guy. The cry baby foreign players ran Farrell out of town for being too tough on them so they brought in a baby sitter who was bilingual. The background of the players is still primarily Latin so a no nonsense aggressive manager like Varitek will create lots of issues for more than half this roster. Sure guys like Sale will love him but Devers will struggle without the constant coddling from Cora.
I vote with you on Varitek but I can’t see it happening with an ownership team that is still trying to shed the diversity issues that have existed since Big Papi retired.
Madmc44 I read somewhere on Brassier that LA saw that he needed another pitch in his arsenal. They have him using a slider more and that’s been his upside in LA. Obviously someone in scouting over there saw something that they could figure out and get him on track .
Bdod, they taught him to use a cutter to mix with his slider and FB, I believe.
B-dog – Going from Fenway to Dodger’s Stadium is a pitchers dream. One is a hitter’s park and the other is maybe the best pitcher’s park in baseball. Kluber would improve significantly in LA!!
Way to go Bloom. He should put us into the playoffs. Bloom you blew it at the trade deadline and did not pick up pitching at the trade deadline. This team has been 3 games back in the wild card hunt for over a month. We are not making the playoffs this year. Two years wasted in Boston. BTW Bloom Kluber stole money this year for what he gave this team in production.