Red Sox/MLB 2024 Off-Season Part 3: Full Throttle Edition: Sale Dealt to Braves

[DKH]

Slave to sample sizes- well

Not a great defensive outfield by any means but it’s certainly better than an outfield sending both Sheets and Vaughn out there. I do wonder if the new pitching infrastructure appealed to him as well.

I also think Yoshida will be the DH personally but we’ll see on that

Abreu is pretty decent or was in Worcester plays all 3 positions

 

[EverettMike]

He’s been good 3 years

He’s lefty he’s good and he’s a character

I want him and if they have to overpay by 5-6 M a year I could give an F they are all billionaires

He’s at BC everyday working out catching a Celtics and Bruins game while his wife is doing her internship at a hospital a Ortiz Homer from Fenway

I’ll be pretty pissed if they don’t get him because they got the need they charge the highest prices and he’s right here

If they sign Paxton and let Montgomery go it will be repeating Kluber over Wacha

They need a lefty and Montgomery is there

I’m hoping they got Giolito because they know Boras is going to wait

If they overpay him they will then use his "bad" contract as a reason not to sign anyone else. I'm not saying he sucks. I'm saying it'll be absurd, after the last five years, if they pay him for an outlier performance versus who he is. He's not there guy from last year. He's a midget of the rotation innings eater. Those guys have tremendous value, no doubt, but he's not a top of the rotation guy.

 

[CDJ]

Breslow specifically cited that he wants to work with pitchers that can miss bats in the zone. Giolito does that pretty well. They need to refine his command and perhaps have him start throwing a cutter to get guys off his 4seamer that got hit hard last year

 

[N o o d l e s]

I will say if the follow up move is Paxton, no bueno

 

[EverettMike]

I no longer think Red Sox ownership cares about winning. I think they are fine selling tickets to tourists while hoping they get lucky and the team is competitive like it was three years ago. But they don't actively care about winning and don't care if they lose.

Until they do something to show me otherwise this is where I'm at, which is a 180-degree turn from where I was a year ago when I defended both them and having some patience.

 

[McGarnagle]

 

[DKH]

If they overpay him they will then use his "bad" contract as a reason not to sign anyone else. I'm not saying he sucks. I'm saying it'll be absurd, after the last five years, if they pay him for an outlier performance versus who he is. He's not there guy from last year. He's a midget of the rotation innings eater. Those guys have tremendous value, no doubt, but he's not a top of the rotation guy.

They already blew it last year when they let Eovoldi & Wacha walk. They’d be lookin for no one in the rotation if they just gave them 3 year deals

Right now the best guy for this team is Montgomery. He’s more Derek Lowe then Bruce Hurst but he’s better then what’s out there’

No one wants to hear about their money issues - they need to realize ‘baseball players are expensive’ and ‘Full Throttle’ will be shoved down their throats

Montgomery like Charlie Morton came back from Tommy John surgery better

I’m not waiting for Mr Right with this ownership- give me something good if I can’t get great

If it’s Giolito & Paxton not good

 

[bbfan419]

Can't say I'm a fan of that

Too much $$$ for Giolito at this point.

 

[LSCII]

It will be genuinely hilarious if the Sox spent years being frugal to avoid bad contracts only so they could turn around and overpay Montgomery for an outlier of a career season.

Nah, it would literally be right up their alley. They’d then use those shit ass signings as an excuse to not sign actual worthy players going forward. It’d be panda 2.0

 

[Chevalier du Clavier]

 

[Mr Cartmenez]

Don't want to pad myself on the back, but I predicted that contract (I thought 2 /40 with an opt out). Giolito kind of bets on himself with insurance.

And while I don't really like Giolito, that contract isn't all that horrible.

But I wonder what their thinking is. If they want to bring in another SP, where are the openings?

1. Sale (lock)
2. SP #1 - ??? (lock)
3. SP2 - Giolito (lock)
4. Bello (lock)

So 1 spot left for Pivetta, Crawford, Houck and Whitlock + Winck. Yes, you need depth over a long and stressful season, but stashing these guys in the pen would be a waste of resources.

If they are seriously after Teoscar (as reports suggest), I'd say the other SP will be coming via trade. The other team would get a cheap SP back (Crawford/Houck) and another OF (Duran/Rafaela/Abreu).

 

[Mione134]

I no longer think Red Sox ownership cares about winning. I think they are fine selling tickets to tourists while hoping they get lucky and the team is competitive like it was three years ago. But they don't actively care about winning and don't care if they lose.

Until they do something to show me otherwise this is where I'm at, which is a 180-degree turn from where I was a year ago when I defended both them and having some patience.

Maybe they'll buy us a brick!

 

[GatorMike]

I'm not a huge fan of Giolito based on his results the last two seasons. I also wasn't aware of his off-the-field issues that may or may not have had a bearing on his horrible, awful, no good, very bad 2nd half of 2023.

But prior to that, he had three very good seasons.

And the first half of 2023 shows that there's clearly something left in the tank. It's up to Breslow/Bailey to figure out how to get him back to being the #2 starter he was between 2019-21.

If they succeed, then it's a pretty good signing.

If they fail... well... it's only money, and it's only two years.

 

[Johnnyduke]

Red Sox Sign Guy Who Used To Be Good

"We're hopeful it'll work out this time, even if it hasn't yet with the other guys who used to be good," said Tom Werner.

The consensus on here before Giolito signed is that people didn't want him. So now it's gonna be real interesting to see who spins this into being a good move.

The Red Sox handing out a 2 year 38m deal as their full throttle move...yay!

 

[Smitty93]

Have the Red Sox considered signing players that are a) good and/or b) are reasonably expected to remain good rather than going after reclamation projects or guys that haven't been good in a couple seasons? Why is every f***ing guy they sign or trade for a question mark? Why are they operating like a mid-market team? WHAT THE f*** IS THIS BULLSHIT?

I think we basically got bamboozled into believing hiring Bloom was an attempt to copy the Dodgers, since he was the closest thing to Friedman available, when really it was that they thought they could copy the Rays cheap reclamation pitching development (so they wouldn't have to give out those big 30+ pitching contracts) and after four years identified the problem was simply that the CBO wasn't a former pitcher, who'd be more qualified to fix all of those reclamation pitchers.

 

[EverettMike]

Saw someone say Gioloti hasn't been good since they cracked down on the sticky stuff and I'm staring into empty space like a demon ate my soul.

 

[Johnnyduke]

Sorry if already posted but this is glorious.

 

[CDJ]

Don't want to pad myself on the back, but I predicted that contract (I thought 2 /40 with an opt out). Giolito kind of bets on himself with insurance.

And while I don't really like Giolito, that contract isn't all that horrible.

But I wonder what their thinking is. If they want to bring in another SP, where are the openings?

1. Sale (lock)
2. SP #1 - ??? (lock)
3. SP2 - Giolito (lock)
4. Bello (lock)

So 1 spot left for Pivetta, Crawford, Houck and Whitlock + Winck. Yes, you need depth over a long and stressful season, but stashing these guys in the pen would be a waste of resources.

If they are seriously after Teoscar (as reports suggest), I'd say the other SP will be coming via trade. The other team would get a cheap SP back (Crawford/Houck) and another OF (Duran/Rafaela/Abreu).

Speier now reporting they are considering trading one of the young OF

 

[dugg133]

I like the Giolito signing if we're still trading for a top of the rotation arm. If he's the biggest name we get then f*** that.

 

[N o o d l e s]

This from MLBTR makes it sound much more promising:

“It’s a modified pillow contract for the 29-year-old. That reflects a dismal final few months of last season. Giolito looked on track for a nine-figure deal early in the summer. Over his first 21 starts with the White Sox, he carried a 3.79 ERA while striking out more than a quarter of batters faced. Chicago’s fall out of contention made him one of the top starters available at the deadline.

A trade sending Giolito alongside reliever Reynaldo López to the Angels looked like a boost to his market value. Joining a fringe contender gave him an outside shot at a playoff berth. More meaningfully for his free agency, it took the qualifying offer off the table, as players who change teams midseason can’t be issued the QO.

That’s not how things played out. Giolito was one of the worst pitchers in MLB from the deadline onwards. He made only six starts for the Halos before they placed him on waivers, dumping the remainder of his salary after the team fell from contention to help limbo underneath the luxury tax line. Giolito was hit hard for both Los Angeles and the Guardians, who snagged him off the waiver wire at the end of August.

Over his final 12 appearances, he was tagged for a 6.96 ERA through 63 1/3 innings. He was staggeringly prone to the longball, allowing 21 homers (nearly one in every three innings) over that stretch. His walk rate also spiked. He handed out free passes to nearly 11% of opponents after issuing walks at a manageable 8.3% clip in Chicago.

Short of a major injury, it’d be hard to draw up a more frustrating final two months before free agency. That said, there’s a lot in his career résumé that made him arguably the top reclamation target in the rotation class. Giolito turned in upper mid-rotation results between 2019-21, combining for a 3.47 ERA with an excellent 30.7% strikeout percentage despite the hitter-friendly nature of Chicago’s Guaranteed Rate Field.

He has allowed nearly five earned runs per nine in each of the past two seasons, albeit for different reasons. His 4.90 mark in 2022 was attributable largely to a .340 average on balls in play, by far the highest rate of his career. That dropped to .274 last season, and his early-season results again painted the picture of a solid #3 starter. Then came the late-season homer barrage that left him with a 4.88 ERA at year’s end.

The longball has always been a bit of a problem for Giolito, but his second-half home run rate is unsustainably high. Boston is betting on positive regression in that department, hoping that’ll result in mid-rotation results. While Giolito’s whiffs are down from his 2019-21 peak, he still misses bats at an above-average level. Opposing hitters have swung through 12.2% of his offerings in each of the last two years, which tops the 10.8% league mark for starting pitchers. His fastball sits around 93 MPH and he misses a decent number of bats with both his changeup and slider.“

 

[Shaun]

can’t be spending money when marcelo mayer is going to be a free agent in 2035 and needs a contract

 

[Mione134]

can’t be spending money when marcelo mayer is going to be a free agent in 2035 and needs a contract

And then have him not get offered a contract and he leaves for the Dodgers for 300 mill

 

[DKH]

Too much $$$ for Giolito at this point.

No that was his protection - what was good was the term

So he pitches well enough he opts out wanting more

So they in THEORY have seven guys who they could categorize as starters

Sale
Pivetta
Giolito
Crawford
Bello
Whitlock
Houck

Are they going to stop here ?

Concerning if so

Whitlock & Houck would be ideal to me for 8th and Close but Jansens & Martin have that right now

So they either go
A. Something significant (Montgomery or Imanawa)
B. Bring back Paxton
C. We already got the seven

I want A, they probably do B, they spin C

 

[DKH]

Speier now reporting they are considering trading one of the young OF

my view is sign Hernandez and keep Abreu & Rafaela

Duran should interest SD who has lost 2/3 of their OF to Yankees

Duran could be very good there

Package a deal around Kim & Duran - he’s a SS so with Story here maybe they don’t want to dick around there

can’t be spending money when marcelo mayer is going to be a free agent in 2035 and needs a contract

They need Casas, Mayer, and Teal to specifically be very good and sign long term if so

Mayer liking Led Zeppelin is a huge plus

 

[DKH]

Saw someone say Gioloti hasn't been good since they cracked down on the sticky stuff and I'm staring into empty space like a demon ate my soul.

Then he’s not bright because the Astros guys figured it out between games 3 and 4 in 21 playoffs vs Red Sox