A Realistic View at 2020: Part I

[Elktonnick]

Meh. Kiermeier would have hit it 20’ further.....and then sprint out to CF while the ball was in the air and robbed his own homerun....

The point is that JBJ is NOT the best defensive CF currently playing. His defense although at times spectacular can be replaced at a reasonable cost. So there are options other than JBJ for Boston.

[notin]

The only real disadvantage for the Sox in resetting after 2020 and then re-signing Betts is the free agent market beyond Mookie right now actually looks fairly weak. This has pluses and minuses.

The big minus is that any team looking to drop some serious coin won;t find anything in the way of alternatives. The flip side to that is, those same teams obviously won't have a $20mill player coming off the books, so we won't know who has available budget, and a lot of them have their own internal star players to worry about, such as the Dodgers. (Sign Mookie or extend Bellinger?) That is, unless Giancarlo Stanton opts out of his Yankee contract, which would be a move his agent will be screaming at him not to do. Much like Price, I don't think Stanton is going to find a comparable offer from the non-Yankee teams out there. I doubt anyone else will top the 7 year / $218mill he will still have left on that deal (which could also turn onto an 8 year / $233mill deal if his option gets exercised). The remianing years for Stanton are the higher paid ones on thta contract.

Now I do expect JD Martinez to be more likely to opt out, a his last 2 years are the lower paid ones on his deal. But he might find staying to be the better move, since his last bout with free agency didn't play out the way it was supposed to in the public story (which might have been nothing but a marketing ploy by Boras).

So that leaves only George Springer as a consolation prize, and likely a considerably cheaper one than Betts as Springer is 3 years older and not nearly as good. Or the Sox and the other suitors will have to wait another year for Kris Bryant...

[notin]

The point is that JBJ is NOT the best defensive CF currently playing. His defense although at times spectacular can be replaced at a reasonable cost. So there are options other than JBJ for Boston.

And even if you only get 90% of JBJ out there, is it really so bad? We did win a title with Johnny Damon in CF at one point, and compared to JBJ, it really was like leaving CF vacant for a season. We are talking about a CF who once used the LF as a cutoff man...

[Elktonnick]

I think the Celtics had 3 different owner groups during their glory years, so I guess none qualify?

Brown was the sole owner until his death. Henry's accomplishments although outstanding pale in comparison to what Walter Brown did for Boston Sports which include six world titles, being the original owner of the Celtics, co founding the NBA and literally saving the Boston Bruins. Like I said he is in BOTH the hockey and basketball halls of fame as well as having made the Boston Marathon one of the world's premier sporting events. Henry may be one of the best current owners in professional sports but his accomplishments for New England by any objective analysis don't measure up to Walter Brown's, at least not yet.

[moonslav59]

The only real disadvantage for the Sox in resetting after 2020 and then re-signing Betts is the free agent market beyond Mookie right now actually looks fairly weak. This has pluses and minuses.

The big minus is that any team looking to drop some serious coin won;t find anything in the way of alternatives. The flip side to that is, those same teams obviously won't have a $20mill player coming off the books, so we won't know who has available budget, and a lot of them have their own internal star players to worry about, such as the Dodgers. (Sign Mookie or extend Bellinger?) That is, unless Giancarlo Stanton opts out of his Yankee contract, which would be a move his agent will be screaming at him not to do. Much like Price, I don't think Stanton is going to find a comparable offer from the non-Yankee teams out there. I doubt anyone else will top the 7 year / $218mill he will still have left on that deal (which could also turn onto an 8 year / $233mill deal if his option gets exercised). The remianing years for Stanton are the higher paid ones on thta contract.

Now I do expect JD Martinez to be more likely to opt out, a his last 2 years are the lower paid ones on his deal. But he might find staying to be the better move, since his last bout with free agency didn't play out the way it was supposed to in the public story (which might have been nothing but a marketing ploy by Boras).

So that leaves only George Springer as a consolation prize, and likely a considerably cheaper one than Betts as Springer is 3 years older and not nearly as good. Or the Sox and the other suitors will have to wait another year for Kris Bryant...

I've been pushing for trying to make the rebuild last just one year (reset after this year and be back 2021), but it is likely we will need at least one more year.

As much as I hate to say it, maybe 2022 is the earliest we can reasonably expect to be back near the top- assuming a reset is in the works.

I hope we can keep Betts and be back by 2021 or 2022, but it just may not work out.

[notin]

I've been pushing for trying to make the rebuild last just one year (reset after this year and be back 2021), but it is likely we will need at least one more year.

As much as I hate to say it, maybe 2022 is the earliest we can reasonably expect to be back near the top- assuming a reset is in the works.

I hope we can keep Betts and be back by 2021 or 2022, but it just may not work out.

I am thinking of more of a Reload than a Rebuild. To me, "rebuilding" is a really nice way of telling your fans "we aren't spending any money, so keep those expectations low."

The White Sox have been in a rebuild fo a while, and the expectations have been low, but the White Sox are actually a fairly smart organization. I go to their games plenty of times because, well, you should see how cheap the Sunday ticket prices are. An "expensive" ticket sometimes costs all of $7. That's like the price of a fast food value meal. And for the cheaper, "less interesting" games - $4 per ticket. These are not typos.

This means on some Sundays, I can take my entire family to a White Sox game and spend less on tickets than I would if I were to go by myself to watch the Schaumburg Boomers or the Joliet Slammers. (These are baseball teams.)

But if the Sox rebuild, will they be so generous to their fans? How do you get people to go?

[moonslav59]

I am thinking of more of a Reload than a Rebuild. To me, "rebuilding" is a really nice way of telling your fans "we aren't spending any money, so keep those expectations low."

The White Sox have been in a rebuild fo a while, and the expectations have been low, but the White Sox are actually a fairly smart organization. I go to their games plenty of times because, well, you should see how cheap the Sunday ticket prices are. An "expensive" ticket sometimes costs all of $7. That's like the price of a fast food value meal. And for the cheaper, "less interesting" games - $4 per ticket. These are not typos.

This means on some Sundays, I can take my entire family to a White Sox game and spend less on tickets than I would if I were to go by myself to watch the Schaumburg Boomers or the Joliet Slammers. (These are baseball teams.)

But if the Sox rebuild, will they be so generous to their fans? How do you get people to go?

Call it what you want, but even if resetting, we'll still be near or over $200M and a top 6 or 7 spender, so we should never be the worst team, like The Astros were for a while.

I'm not sure how having the 10th to 20th draft pick and a little more international pool money will help to improve the farm, but any significant step forward there could help our extended future.

If we reset after 2019 and spend up to but below the max line in 2021, we should have a nice team for the fans to watch.

"Highly competitive" might be another issue, especially if we guess wrong on our signings and extension.

[jacksonianmarch]

Being willing to spend typically lessens the blow, but willingness to spend and ALREADY spending big money are two different things. It isn’t like Henry is able to provide a clean slate here. He’s got over $500 million dollars in future commitments when you consider Pedroia, Eovaldi, JD, Bogaerts, Sale, and Price. And the only one that looks like plus value is Bogaerts’ deal. The Astros were down for many years because they refused to spend to speed up the process and what it allowed them was a considerably larger window with the ability to use their finances to secure their players long term or bring in guys with big contracts to stay on top. That will crash down eventually, but they refused to fully raid their farm which allowed them to keep guys like Alvarez, Tucker and Whitley who are their next wave. The Sox are in a pickle. They need to decide if they should spend and give the gang another chance or sell off some pieces and have an aging roster of high priced players on a bad team.

[kenmeister]

Price, Sale, and Eovaldi really do need to provide significant ROI over the next few years for us to compete, I agree.

[Bellhorn04]

Brown was the sole owner until his death. Henry's accomplishments although outstanding pale in comparison to what Walter Brown did for Boston Sports which include six world titles, being the original owner of the Celtics, co founding the NBA and literally saving the Boston Bruins. Like I said he is in BOTH the hockey and basketball halls of fame as well as having made the Boston Marathon one of the world's premier sporting events. Henry may be one of the best current owners in professional sports but his accomplishments for New England by any objective analysis don't measure up to Walter Brown's, at least not yet.

It's an apples and oranges comparison no doubt.

If you're a Red Sox fan it has to be Henry. He took over a team that had not won a title since 1918 - arguably the most famous drought in sports - and not only delivered that long-awaited title but now 4 of them.

[dgalehouse]

I am thinking of more of a Reload than a Rebuild. To me, "rebuilding" is a really nice way of telling your fans "we aren't spending any money, so keep those expectations low."

The White Sox have been in a rebuild fo a while, and the expectations have been low, but the White Sox are actually a fairly smart organization. I go to their games plenty of times because, well, you should see how cheap the Sunday ticket prices are. An "expensive" ticket sometimes costs all of $7. That's like the price of a fast food value meal. And for the cheaper, "less interesting" games - $4 per ticket. These are not typos.

This means on some Sundays, I can take my entire family to a White Sox game and spend less on tickets than I would if I were to go by myself to watch the Schaumburg Boomers or the Joliet Slammers. (These are baseball teams.)

But if the Sox rebuild, will they be so generous to their fans? How do you get people to go?

Stop being such a small time Charlie . Spend a buck . Take your family to a Cubs day game at Wrigley . They will have a lot more fun .

[notin]

Stop being such a small time Charlie . Spend a buck . Take your family to a Cubs day game at Wrigley . They will have a lot more fun .

Done that. Trips to Wrigley are a comparative nightmare.

First of all, while it isn't cheap, at least Guaranteed Rate has parking lots. The train ride in can be fun, but getting back is a lot easier driving if my daughter is all worn out and can't stay awake. We'd all rather she not sleep on a train.

And GRF is less crowded, and the concession and rest rooms are less packed (and the rest rooms have been updated since 1912).

And Cubs fans have been crazy the last few years. A few years ago they put in the new scoreboard, which blocked some of the rooftop bleachers across the street. There was all kinds of lawsuits from the rooftop owners, apparently angry and complaining they could no longer steal gate money from the Cubs. One game I was in RF foul territory facing the scoreboard sitting next to my daughter, who was maybe 8 or 9 at the time. As she was reading the scoreboard for pitches and velocities, I could see on the rooftop across the street underneath it. In giant letters, someone had painted "BITE ME" so large it could be read by someone sitting in the RF foul seats several hundred yards away. I spent the whole game hoping my daughter wouldn't drop her eyes down just enough to notice it...

[moonslav59]

Brown was the sole owner until his death. Henry's accomplishments although outstanding pale in comparison to what Walter Brown did for Boston Sports which include six world titles, being the original owner of the Celtics, co founding the NBA and literally saving the Boston Bruins. Like I said he is in BOTH the hockey and basketball halls of fame as well as having made the Boston Marathon one of the world's premier sporting events. Henry may be one of the best current owners in professional sports but his accomplishments for New England by any objective analysis don't measure up to Walter Brown's, at least not yet.

Thanks for the info.

I'm not a Celtics fan, so I knew little about their ownership history before the 70's.

[Elktonnick]

It's an apples and oranges comparison no doubt.

If you're a Red Sox fan it has to be Henry. He took over a team that had not won a title since 1918 - arguably the most famous drought in sports - and not only delivered that long-awaited title but now 4 of them.

The following statement was made: "John Henry is the greatest owner in New England sports history and its not even close." So it wasn't just confined to baseball. Most Native New Englanders are fans of teams other than the Red Sox as well. The original statement was pertinent to the entire scope of New England Sports history. While John Henry did end the baseball drought the New England Sports landscape is much broader and richer than just baseball. The man who did more than anyone else to ensure that broad rich landscape was Walter Brown. Simply put neither the Boston Bruins nor the Boston Celtics would exist at least not in Boston if it hadn't been for Walter A. Brown and Boston and all of New England would be a lot less interesting to local sports fans.

[Slasher9]

perhaps...but in New England...
Baseball >>>>>>>>>Football/Hockey/Basketball > Soccer/shooting animals