Look at Ray Ray Run

They said last off-season that they weren't eliminating his future as a starter, and we're taking it year to year.... but they were clear he was going to be a bullpen guy this year? When did that happen before today? You can spin this however you'd like. It's a large blow to this teams future with Taylor being destined for the bullpen long term. He was one of the few high level arms they had, and the other two are also facing significant challenges.

An elite closer is most valuable to a team in the playoffs. A great closer on a bad team is almost a worthless player to have. Not only that, but an above average starter is worth more to the team and the market than a great closer, but a great closer might nab you a little more at a deadline and be easier to trade. That I would concede. Throwing in the towel on him as a starter is a huge loss for the organization. Most closer tenures of dominance are pretty short lived, and even truly dominant starters have ups and downs that move them through 4-5-6 organizations in a career.

The Sox already committing to another year of Taylor in the bullpen is a disaster. Insane the Sox did not/have not looked into trading Taylor if he's purely a bullpen arm. What a waste of an arm, and I know some will point to Crochet's shift but that's just not reasonable to expect of someone. Taylor will be 24 all of next season. I don't buy for a second the Sox think he can start because no way they waste all this time on his starter development just so they can get some quality relief innings out of him.

Wheeler, your point is valid. It was the highest offer and strong possibility he accepts when you offer the most. With Machado though.... I could offer 3 million for the house Ishbia is building on the lake, but it doesn't make my offer serious since there was no real chance he would accept when he could get much more guaranteed from other buyers. That said, Pirates have already spent more money than the Sox on a guy.

I would be very surprised if ohearn got 30 million. I'm saying any 2 year deal doesn't top 11 per.

I think you could be right, but Cease being healthy relative to the rest of the league over the past 5 years has a lot of value. Especially with his stuff. I'm not sure he'll ever learn to really pitch, but if he does as he ages I could see him having a pretty reasonable aging curve through his age 33-34 season which would make this a nice deal. If he throws 165+ innings with a FIP below 3.8, he's definitely worth the deal. I don't think that's too far fetched.

Show me the r value of ZIPs lack-of-predictive qualities, and also show me that the variance for youth is statistically significant when compared to others. It surprises me that people still post stuff like you do with very little understanding of what ZIPS does and with very little evidence to refute it. Of course it shouldn't be used for projecting records - it normalizes and projects playing time in a way that doesn't equate directly to wins and losses and isn't actually correlated directly to expected playing time.

Bump

Pal you literally said in a post one month ago that he was a part of your vision if a 70+ win team next year.

I love watching your opinion of players eb and weave with Getz moves. Month ago Tauch was a part of a 70 win team next year but since Getz nontendered him he must be cooked.

In my opinion, improving a player means moving them off their trajectory/projected path. Vargas is very much in line with his projections when the Sox acquired him. Therefore, I hesitate to call that a vast improvement. Now if the Sox got/get something out of Curtis Mead, that would be a big improvement and deserving of credit.

His big improvement? Huh. The guy put up numbers last year that were like 4% better than his projections when the Sox acquired him.

I think this says his medicals are shot. Which wouldn't be surprising.

He's a big leaguer and they need more of those, so it wouldn't be a bad addition to the team but him falling off a cliff wouldn't be surprising either.

Not sure how it's not business as usual. It would be signing a 32 year old coming off a career year... A guy who has graded out as a negative defender every year of his career, and by a good bit. Someone who between age 24 and 29 basically was worth 0 WAR over 450ish games. He won't demand a big contract, he's a strong-side-of-platoon bat, and he's projected for a little over 1 WAR. This is absolutely business as usual.

This is fair. Didnt realize i selected so late!! Although I did say they would win in the high 50's in other spots and that they definitely wouldnt break their own record.

Yeah... that's what I said.

Moreno at least has been trying to win his entire tenure. Trying to win is much more valuable than what Jerry has been doing imo. That said, obviously John Fisher is worse than Jerry. He doesn't spend any money or try to win, he actively forces stars out of town, he tanked the team and stadium in Oakland so he could move the team to Vegas who doesn't even want a team, and he's now playing in Sacramento in a minor league sham of a stadium. He basically ran a public hate-campaign against Oakland and their fans. At least Jerry has the respect to hate us mostly in private. Jerry has had periods where he invested to win. While the A's have had some nice seasons, it's been in spite of Fisher.

Fajardo is rising. I think we see him in the top 15 in some publications at start of next year.

I'm not even sure Eddy believes what he says; maybe just trying to convince himself. What I can't figure out is before the year, in the predict how many games the Sox will win thread, Eddy picked the right answer (same as me!). But now he says "Getz exceeded expectations and was a B to B+." How did he exceed expectations if he won the exact amount of games you predicted from the start of the year. Make it make sense?!?!

I mean... if the tax gain on that loss is greater than the interest accumulation minus the taxable benefits of that interest then it would absolutely make sense to report paper losses while taking on debt and interest to pay for that loss. It's also not crazy to take on debt to clean up a balance sheet prior to sale which could also be playing a role. I certainly wouldn't say no one is doing that because that's not true. I'll edit to say capital has been expensive making this harder to do and it wouldn't be smart for someone who is actually running negative cash flows.

If we just use the 41% number, it would put there total operating expenses around 212 million making them profitable this year if they run the same/similar revenue numbers. Not sure where the 185 in player expenses is coming from for 2024. I also think it's very likely the Sox were under spending on the admin side so their salary-share-of-revenue is likely higher than the league avg at 41.7%.

No chance tucker needs to take a prove it deal and at 25 million? Guy is going to sign for 400+.

Ok, so what are you doing with the other 158 million?

The team was the worst team in the American League. I don't think feelings have anything to do with an F grade for an F performance. Also, Ishbia is taking over in 4 years at the earliest, and you're "hoping" they're hovering around .500 by then. Sounds like a lot of F's still to come then. The cavalry from the 17th ranked farm system is on their way to save the 31st ranked MLB club.