Thoughts Amid Another Winter Weekend Shitshow
On the opening day of free agency, I wrote:
If the Red Sox don't exceed the CBT threshold significantly heading into next season, it seems like we'll be facing an ownership crisis with the franchise.
The Red Sox are roughly $35M under the tax, and they will need to spend well beyond that to field a highly competitive team in 2024 without gutting the farm system. With young players starting to make impacts again at the major league level, the rebuilt farm system looking strong, and a substantial amount of money coming off the books again next winter, this seems like an optimal time to spend heavily.
Spring training opens in three weeks, and the Red Sox are currently $35.1M under the first tax level.
To me, we are now in an ownership crisis until further notice. Many reached this point before I did, but I could see the vision of what Chaim Bloom was building, I knew Red Sox ownership had followed resetting with spending to top payrolls. This was a pivot point, and it’s been a disaster. They have now deviated from their historical path, in my opinion, and are no longer doing business as business is being done by elite MLB franchises. This is incredibly disturbing. And to make matters worse, it feels like we’re now in a multi-year run of being gaslit by ownership, even as every new quote and inaction from them is being instantly countered with old receipts being thrown back in their face all over social media.
Such a bizarre feeling this winter. I loved the Craig Breslow hire. I love all the hires he’s subsequently made. Going down the list of transactions, and it feels like As and Bs across the board for grades. And yet, the overall grade of the winter feels like a D, if we’re being kind.
If you lump the Alex Verdugo and Tyler O'Neill trades together, it was a nifty piece of business.
Lucas Giolito in a vacuum is an intriguing upside play with a long history of durability. Though he looked a lot better as a second or third rotation piece upgrade of the winter, not the only addition.
Even if Chris Sale has a healthy bounce back, I still make that trade 10 out of 10 times. Vaughn Grissom is basically what we were praying Nick Yorke would look like by the time he got to AAA.
Trading Luis Urias for Isaiah Campbell seems fine. Trading for Justin Slaten during the Rule 5 draft got the Sox maybe the most coveted player in the process. The Cooper Criswell signing gives the Sox another depth arm with interesting pitch characteristics.
And yet, overall massive disappointment to this point.
If the Red Sox are on a strict budget, how will that effect possible Triston Casas and Brayan Bello contract extensions this spring? You really want them to be tied into their arbitration years, lowing their long term hit against the CBT. But if they get signed and tied into 2024, that would shoot both of their AAVs way up. Is that even an option now? Of course, you don’t have to link new deals to this season, they would still play for the minimum, but to save ownership payroll now would push millions on to future CBT calculations.
Over the past few years, I’ve got the impression/was told that the Red Sox organization was not exactly thrilled with the level of attention prospects were receiving and the scrutiny they were under for their nightly performances on social media. It feels like there has been a shift, with a ton of internal pressure now dropped squarely on the shoulders of the Sox top prospects. The team might as well replace the CITGO sign with an arrow pointing in the direction of wherever Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony, and Kyle Teel are playing and a sign reading, “looks what’s coming, we’re waiting for them.”
Speaking of prospects, the draft is six months away. The Red Sox hold the 12th pick, which will have a slot value of a little over $5M. With the organization tooling up to try and build a fruitful pitching pipeline, and with the recent hiring of Driveline’s Kyle Boddy as a consultant to Breslow, I wonder if we are going to see a mass influx of pitching prospects through the 2024 draft.
If they go that route, an interesting strategy would be to take a pitcher at a huge discount with the 12th pick — Hurston Waldrep was drafted 24th and signed for $3M last year — and then use the saving to sign 5-6-7 more pitchers in the first 10 picks to deals in the $1M to 700K range.
This would keep the talent level fairly high, while spreading the risk of pitching prospects around.
In 2021, with Brian Bannister as their director of pitching, the Giants drafted pitchers with their first 9 draft picks. That same year, the Angels used each of their 20 selections on pitchers, and the Guardians took pitchers with 19 of their 21 selections. Maybe the Red Sox are next for this kind of shot in the arm.
With the big pitching targets missed out on, and the remaining expected to be passed on (Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery), we turn our attention to other pitching options that could provide solid innings in 2024. The obvious target is a mid-rotation or better starter with 3+ years of team control remaining. After that, I’m a James Paxton believer and like his upside for this season, but as an older guy, is he searching for a team more invested in immediate contention? What’s left for pitching after that, well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
If the Red Sox owners even allow any further spending, a pitcher that is starting to make more sense to me given how this winter has unfolded is Jakob Junis.
There are a lot of tentacles connecting Junis with the Red Sox. He revived his career pitching for the Giants the last two seasons with Andrew Bailey as his pitching coach. His brother was recently hired as the Worcester bullpen coach after a quick rise through the pitching development ranks, where he helped coach his brother and Logan Webb, among others, in their offseason programs. While plenty different, 2023 Baseball Savant metrics have Tanner Houck as the MLB pitcher that Junis is most similar with based on speed and moment of their pitches.
Junis’ changes after leaving Kansas City following 2021, and playing with San Francisco in 2021 and 2022:
Source: mlbpitchprofiler.com
Junis would join the handful of other swingman-types that will battle in spring training, and could then be used out of the bullpen. He threw 86 innings over 40 appearances last season. 1+ innings six times, 2+ innings eleven times, 3+ innings eight times, and 4 innings on four occasions.
172 pitchers threw 80+ innings in 2023, Junis:
30th/172 Strikeout percentage
26th/172 Walk percentage
22nd/172 K-BB percentage
9th/172 highest BABIP against
25th/172 limiting Hard Hit percentage
29th/172 xFIP
38th/172 xERA
Junis’ 2023 season line was inflated by an appearance in Mexico City (elevation: 7,349 feet) where he allowed 4 home runs and 5 earned runs over 2.2 innings, in a game that finished with a score of 16 to 11. Bogaerts and Soto got him for 455’ and 448’ back-to back homers, Machado hit one 442’, and Tatis hit an opposite field shot 376’. Coors on steroids.
I hate the idea of Alex Cora managing on the final year of his contract throughout this upcoming season. The decision has been placed in Breslow’s hands, and a contract extension should be hammered out over the next couple of months. This is not a hard decision and will look instantly worse when top teams start lining up.
The current staff is very impressive and should be locked in long-term to grow with the program being built. If things inexplicably don’t get worked out with Cora, after interviewing for the Yankees’ bench coach position this winter, I wonder if Andrew Bailey would be the overwhelming favorite to be the next Red Sox manager. Hopefully we don’t find out.