Boston Red Sox – Scott Priest

3 paths forward for the Red Sox

December 8th, 2022

So the Padres signed Xander Bogaerts for eleventy trillion dollars over nine centuries.

I see three paths forward for the Red Sox strategically, setting aside ownership or front office changes, merely what they can do with the roster. Let’s look at them from most to least likely.

Path 1: Unsatisfying competence

The first possibility is–based on the history of this iteration of the front office–the most likely: Chaim Bloom and Co. search high and low for bargains, signing players no one cares about to contracts that seem vaguely reasonable, to mixed results. They continue to be #InterestKings in the trade market, but get beat out on Sean Murphy and Bryan Reynolds. They combine a handful of Brandon Nimmos and Jean Seguras and Justin Turners, maybe they even bring back a familiar face or two from the JD Martinez/Michael Wacha pile. They structure the deals to stay ever so slightly under the luxury tax (which, according to Cot’s, they are $43 million under) and then re-evaluate the roster at the deadline, should they surprisingly compete.

Despite the fact that virtually no one wants them to pursue this path, I rate it at about 90% likely.

Path 2: Bailing on 2023 and focusing completely on 2024 and beyond

Seeing how the fanbase and greater baseball world has reacted to their tepid forays into roster building, the Red Sox pivot and completely bail on 2023. Ownership gives Bloom a vote of confidence and says to continue to proceed with his/their vision of efficiency and financial prudence. They trade Rafael Devers for every prospect under the sun–or, shudder, staple Chris Sale’s contract to him and take back less, a la Mookie Betts and David Price–and focus entirely on developing Triston Casas and Brayan Bello and anyone else who might be close. They even tip-toe around the trade market for Trevor Story, seeing if anyone wants him for a song. And they fill out the roster with one- or two-year deals, opening themselves for taking back salaries of other teams’ unwanted players with prospects who offset the value. They skyrocket up the minor league rankings, promote aggressively from within, and get back to spending in the 2023 offseason after yet another last-place finish.

Doesn’t that sound fun? While frustrating to punt on yet another season, in many ways I’d rather see this path than the previous, but using a complex algorithm called estimation, I rate it as a 9% likelihood.

Path 3: Panic-reacting to the Bogaerts fallout/accusations of complacency

Fans and media members alike are excoriating the Red Sox organization, not just for perceived cheapness, but for the communication around said cheapness. They pitched themselves as so emotionally connected to Bogaerts, and so determined to bring him back…and then they got beat by $120 million. On the flight back from the Winter Meetings, they remember they’re in a massive market, they remember that elite talent leads to winning, and they try to correct their mistakes. They sign Carlos Correa for more than Bogaerts got over the same term, as well as add Koudai Senga to the rotation to give them enviable pitching depth. Having blown through the luxury tax, they bring back Christian Vazquez to split time with Reese McGuire and add Jean Segura as an extra infielder, allowing them to rotate regular players through the DH spot. They improve every aspect of their roster in the near term without sacrificing prospects. Oh, and they re-sign Rafael Devers for the remainder of his career, no opt-outs, no options, no funny business.

All it costs is money.

And while that would be both the most fun and in the best interest of the 2023 season, I rate it as a 1% chance.

And that may be high.

Projected contracts from the MLBTR Top 50 that I like for the Red Sox

November 23rd, 2022

The Red Sox are allegedly planning for big spending this offseason, but it’s been underway for awhile and all they’ve done is sign a middle reliever. Cool. (MLB really needs to figure out a way to get back to the days of the hot stove).

So I thought it might be fun to read through the MLB Trade Rumors Top 50 free agent list from a different perspective: If their predictions are accurate, which contracts would I be happy to see the Red Sox end up with.

(1) Aaron Judge, 8/$332 million. I obviously don’t expect to be in on him, but Aaron Judge is awesome, it would be awesome to have him.

(2) Carlos Correa, 9/$288 million. Carlos Correa is also awesome, and it would also be awesome to have him. Like Judge, not exactly a popular player in this market, but he is a true superstar and Boston should be in the market for all superstars.

(4) Xander Bogaerts, 7/$189 million. If Bogaerts stays under $200 million or under 8 years, I think it’s probably a pretty good piece of business. I think my preferred outcome would be Philadelphia or Seattle overpays for him early and then we get aggressive on Correa.

(11) Kodai Senga, 5/$70 million. Personally, I don’t think there’s any way he goes for this little based on the number of teams interested and the fact that many of them are large markets. Sign me up.

(23) Nathan Eovaldi, 2/$34 million. Seems like an excellent compromise for a known commodity. I imagine he’ll work hard to pull another year from someone.

(26) Christian Vazquez, 3/$27 million. Good with a staff, known commodity, and we have no good options. I’m sure the organization is all fired up about making do with the cheapest possible guys, but this is a perfectly reasonable deal for a reliable veteran.

(40) Jean Segura, 2/$18 million. If we get cheap at shortstop, I wouldn’t be heartbroken to shift Story back to short and have Segura in at second. He’s a real baseball player.

(43) Michael Brantley, 1/$15 million. Good bat, no commitment. I’d love to see him or Conforto added in tandem with a trade of Verdugo and/or Duran.

(44) Michael Conforto, 1/$15 million. See above.

(49) Mike Clevinger, 1/$10 million. Seems like a no-brainer one-year gamble.

What did I learn from this exercise? I’m not in love with a lot of free agents, and the ones I like are either elite players, familiar faces, or rentals of known quality guys.

Piecing it all together, my ideal offseason would be extending Devers, adding Correa, Senga, Vazquez, and Brantley, bringing back Eovaldi, collecting a pick for Bogaerts, and trading Verdugo, Duran, and Houck for prospects. How’s that for being both a buyer and seller, Chaim?

Every big team should be in on every big free agent

November 6th, 2022

I am an analytical person by nature, and I by and large agree with the way that thoughtful, analytically driven sports teams build their talent. But one issue that has bothered me more than a reliance on a certain arcane stat or a resistance to spending money is simply the obsession with timing.

In Major League Baseball, particularly, every big team should be in on every big free agent, regardless of their circumstances. Particularly when that free agent represents a rare opportunity.

My case in point to friends has been, for years, Bryce Harper, who hit free agency ahead of his age 26 season. Harper was the rarest of rare: an uber-prospect who had actually delivered on the hype, the LeBron James of baseball, whose impact was only dimmed by the fact that single baseball players can only impact a team of 26 so much. The only concern for Harper was durability, as he played under 120 games in three of his seven seasons in Washington.

But he was also a Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player and six-time All-Star and one of the more marketable players in the game. His postseason numbers were not exactly Big Papi, but they also weren’t A-Rod. He was, barring injury, a sure-fire Hall of Famer.

Which made the lack of interest in his services somewhat confusing. Sure, if you go back into the MLB Trade Rumors archive you’ll see notes that eight teams had checked in on him, or that there was interest beyond what was being reported…but the only real known interest was from the Dodgers, Giants, and Phillies. The Dodgers only wanted a shorter, higher-AAV deal; the Giants balked at his eventual price, a then-record 13-year, $330 million deal with Philadelphia.

The problem is, that’s just three teams: Every other big team should have been in there making an offer. The Yankees should have been dying to put him in pinstripes, a chance to put a premier player into their market. Same for the Cubs, same for the Mariners, same for the Mets. And don’t get me started on the Red Sox, who presumably were saving their money in case they needed to re-sign Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, Xander Bogaerts, and Rafael Devers.

These teams made excuses that don’t matter–they might need the money elsewhere; they already had a guy at the position; or, my least favorite, that the timing wasn’t right.

Who cares?

When you have endless revenue streams and a rabid fan base, you should do everything to acquire the best players, and figure out the other stuff later. Worry about your luxury tax issues with other positions; cheap out on a second baseman if it’s such a big deal. Maybe don’t play so much for a fourth starter.

And stop worrying that your farm system isn’t perfectly aligned to produce major leaguers every season, like the Dodgers. If you know what you’re doing, you’ll get there eventually.

Were the Phillies on the verge of a championship in 2019? No. But they are now, and because they smartly invested in one of the best players in baseball when he was available, they now have him–still very much in his prime–for what should be a pretty competitive period for them.

So when you see the Cubs talking about intelligent spending, or the Red Sox talking about spreading risk and maximizing marginal free agent dollars per win, and they don’t even think about talking to an Aaron Judge or Carlos Correa unless they can get some kind of deal, remember that these kinds of players only come around so often. If you’re a big club with big resources, you should do everything you can to be in on them.

A few assorted thoughts from tonight’s Sea Dogs loss

July 8th, 2017

In the interest of satisfying the who-what-when-where portion of writing, I’ll tell you that I went to the Sea Dogs game at Hadlock Field in Portland tonight, and the Sea Dogs lost to Reading, the Phillies’ AA affiliate, 4-3.

But it was minor league baseball, and we all know that the outcome isn’t really that important compared to individual performances and the random inherent nonsense at the ballpark.

So here are some assorted thoughts:

The main reason to go to a Sea Dogs game these days is Rafael Devers, one of just two of the Sox’ top 31 prospects to currently play for Portland, according to SoxProspects.com. (A pitcher is on the DL, helping to exaggerate this number.) Naturally, Devers wasn’t playing, so the main draw was no. 4 prospect 3B Michael Chavis, who went 0-for-4 with a strikeout. On the plus side, he was solid on defense.
One of the reasons minor league baseball is such a joy to watch is it moves along incredibly quickly. They use a pitch clock and fill the inning breaks with silly games featuring kids and mascots, but more importantly the managers don’t swap in new pitchers every time the wind changes direction. Each team only used one reliever, and it made for a crisp pace — we were out of there in two hours, and it never felt boring even though it was mostly a pitchers’ duel.
Portland’s lefty reliever Luis Ysla, most famous to me as a serviceable bullpen arm in an Out of the Park baseball simulation I did, threw either 9 or 10 straight balls upon appearing in the game. He conceded what would be the losing run and took the loss, but he stayed in the game and was, I would argue, on the whole pretty effective. 2 2/3 innings, 2 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, 2 strikeouts, and he was throwing gas in the 9th. (I never trust the gun at the park, but he was mid-90s.) The crowd razzed him when he finally threw his first strike and recorded his first out, but he kept his composure and pulled it together.
The Sea Dogs’s starter was Elih (pronounced Eli, the purpose of the “h” is beyond me) Villanueva, who had a 1.99 WHIP coming in, so needless to say I was expecting an offensive evening. He actually looked very sharp. He didn’t throw hard at all, cracking 90 only a couple of times that I can recall, but he struck out quite a few Fightin’ Phils on offspeed stuff. He finished the night with 7 strikeouts in 6 1/3 IP; anecdotally I believe six of the seven were on off-speed or breaking pitches, and two were caught looking.
Two homers on the night: Chad Of the War (Chad de la Guerra to those of you who speak one language) on the second at-bat of the night, and Jeremy Barfield off the first pitch of the Reading closer in the 9th. From memory, de la Guerra’s homer was the hardest-hit ball of the night, but give me a generous room for error on that statement.
My favorite part of the night was an error by the Sea Dogs second baseman, Deiner Lopez, who back-handed a ball he should have been able to get cleanly in front of, and bobbled it. I immediately said “they would’ve had that in the big leagues,” drawing a sizeable eyeroll from my wife; half a second later a guy in the row in front of me said “that won’t play in the majors,” and I was vindicated.