Red Sox
COMMENT
The Red Sox did something on Wednesday night. Capital letter-S Something even. You don't see that each off season anymore, especially here.
The formula for determining this threshold is an anecdotal formula that I feel most comfortable with considering I’m 30 years faraway from teaching math. One thing can be clear: a move that might actually save franchise CEO Sam Kennedy's post-Mookie face just a few boos Not a winter weekend in a month.
Aroldis Chapman, for slightly below $11 million? Uh. Even without the ugly features of his past and despite his talent as a setup man, he’s 36 years old and might have been a way more exciting baseball player five years ago. (Another trademark of the era of the Interest Kings.) The Chris Martin-Kenley Jansen of 2024 will now be Chapman and Liam Hendriks.
Who was Boston's 2024 Garrett Crochet of the Year? Which starter achieved his 12.9 strikeouts per nine innings, 7.6 hits allowed per nine and a FIP (an ERA-like measure designed to eliminate the impact of his teammates, crucial in a 121-loss disaster) of not more than 2.69?
The Red Sox didn't have one. They haven't had one since 2018.
When Chris Sale did it for the second time in a row.
The parallels were already obvious: The Red Sox got one other South Side southpaw as a key starter, one they still hadn't produced because the Lester/Buchholz era. Then, in late 2016, it was Dave Dombrowski – who already had David Price, Rick Porcello, All-Star Stephen Wright and an up-and-coming Eduardo Rodriguez within the rotation – leaving little question as to who was the favourite within the American League.
“When he targets a guy, he gets him,” manager John Farrell told reporters. “There’s something to be said for his boldness.”
You said it, we notice eight years in the long run, but we digress.
It was a win-now move – to the purpose where they didn't do it in 2017 when Dombrowski fired Farrell – with attendant costs. Yoan Moncada, last 12 months's record national player. Michael Kopech, one of the best pitching prospect they’d within the system. Then, like Wednesday, no major league players, but two of the most important names the Sox had beyond Boston.
You've never missed her. And if Sale merely gave up the three years during which the Sox gained control on that December day, Dombrowski might still be here.
Unfortunately, that extension in 2019, whose waves led us to Chaim Bloom, to Full Throttle, to Wednesday Morning and to Craig Breslow's sudden departure.
We can safely assume that Max Fried was Plan A, given the speed with which the Sox traded after he selected the Yankees and a record-breaking $218 million contract for a left-handed hitter , the . . . David Price.
If John Henry's relative stinginess has a reason that has to do with baseball, then Sale and Price take center stage. Juan Soto's blank check from the Mets forced the Yankees to reply. When they gave the soon-to-be 31-year-old Fried — who has been on the injured list 10 times since 2018 — eight years, it drove up the marketplace for Corbin Burnes, who would have been an ideal alternative to the Red Sox.
Burnes will sign a contract the Red Sox never dreamed of offering him. And so Plan C. The left-handed hitter Breslow tried to land on the trade deadline is now here for the subsequent two years, on the expense of Boston's last two first-round draft picks.
“It was very clear,” White Sox GM Chris Getz said told reporters on Wednesday concerning the speed at which the Crochet deal solidified “that they were ready to get something done.”
The costs are high, but deliberately not astronomical. Kyle Teel, the fourth of the Big Four, a catcher who does all of it. Braden Montgomery, the No. 12 pick in July. Chase Meidroth and Wikelman Gonzalez, talented pieces which might be probably missing that certain something.
It is uncomfortable (unless it's you Connor WongI assume). But I dare say that the return is the more unpleasant part.
Crochet's 2024 was, as mentioned, ridiculous. Ninety-eighth percentile of pitchers last 12 months in strikeout rate. Low 90s in pursuit rate, whiff rate and fastball velocity (97.2 mph). Batters missed his sweeper on 43 percent of their swings and every part else a couple of third of the time.
However, it's all now we have to do. He was a reliever in 2020-21, missed 2022 after Tommy John surgery, battled shoulder soreness in 1923 and pitched 146 of his 219 major league innings last season.
And about that. . . that's over 32 starts. Crochet pitched not more than 4 innings an evening over the ultimate three months of the season, with Chicago limiting his workload to guard each him and, clearly, his value as trade bait.
I'll cite his poor end to the 12 months – the Red Sox destroyed him in September, amongst other things – and these reports he has wanted a contract extension before committing to open the playoffs with a brand new team to defeat the 2024 White Sox.
But durability? It seems like it’s going to never be an issue.
“I didn’t like Crochet’s performance straight away in the video I saw before the 2020 draft, and I have to admit I still don’t,” says The Athletic’s Keith Law wrote in September. “He could be injured again – not a bold prediction as he has been injured several times. But he will get the Cy Young Award votes, and rightly so. . . He was one of the best starters in baseball this year.”
Breslow, as is his habit, says the correct things. This clearly doesn't mean the tip of his work, and with about $50 million left from a primary luxury tax line, that's the case shouldn’t be that punishable for them As in previous years, he has some resources for this.
“This is the type of change — and Garrett obviously brings two years of control — that I think screams that we need to compete in 2025 and that we need to put a better team on the field,” Breslow told reporters Wednesday.
It's been years because the Red Sox earned the advantage of the doubt within the offseason, and it’s going to be years before they get it back. They could pay the worth Burnes is asking, but they won't. They could persuade Roki Sasaki to sign here, but I doubt it.
There's still Jack Flaherty, who just had sniff, strikeout and walk rates in Crochet's neighborhood during his 28-year-old season. Sean Manaea impresses me less and is 32, but at the correct price? He held hitters to a .181 average because the Mets went 15-3 in his final 18 regular-season starts.
Luis Castillo and George Kirby in Seattle. Alex Bregman. Pete Alonso. Nolan Arenado. Teoscar Hernandez. Anthony Santander.
To various degrees they might all be something. Some might even get the capital.
Combined with Garrett Crochet? Maybe we’d like to get one other “S” out of the Boston baseball mothballs.
Serious. So serious competitors.
image credit : www.boston.com