Sox give Devers lowball offer

[longgame]

Once again the incompetent Red Sox front office is in the process of chasing one of our stars out of town.  Following in the tradition of Jon Lester and Mookie Betts, the Sox lowballed an offer right around the same time Cleveland broke the bank for Jose Ramirez. 

I'm amazed at how this has repeated.  Sox act like a poor team every time the guys that make them successful ask to be paid according to their worth.

[Sea Dog 23]

I've read the counter-argument on how they are trying to put a true value on Raffy.  By the time he becomes a free-agent next year, he will be approaching 27 yo.  I think they are looking at him as more of a DH in a few years, who would appear only 3-4 times in a game.  Are there any DH's making $35 mil?  I've seen they might offer him $300m/10.  However I see Raffy as the face of the franchise in 2022.  I don't see Bogey being with the Sox next year.  For your signature player with MVP numbers,  you might have to give him $40mil AAV regardless of his position.

[SeaBeachFred]

This kind of crap has happened too many times for it to be just a hiccup on the part of the incompetent buffoons we have running our front office, and even with a new bunch of bean counters running the show the philosophy has not changed.  Pile up the offers to guys who have never played for us and are FA but low ball your own FA and expect them to give you a hometown discount.  Doesn't work that way anymore and apparently from Lucchino who lowballed Lester in 2014 leading to two last place finishes in a row, and Henry holding onto his wallet in 2019 and losing Betts, the scene still looks eerie familiar.  OTOH, Sea Dog does b ring up a salient point.  Face it, Devers is a rotten fielder who has not gotten any better in five years and that is not a hiccup but a telling indication he may not get better than he now is at the hot corner.  Still, he would make a lethal DH on the make of Big PAPI.

BTW, I do agree with the team giving that six year deal to Trevor Story.  That to me should be a very good deal for us.

[MongoLikeSox]

Does anyone know what the offer to Devers was? I had heard it was higher than the Ramirez contract. I was wondering the other day what a good $$ number for Devers would be.

[longgame]

Does anyone know what the offer to Devers was? I had heard it was higher than the Ramirez contract. I was wondering the other day what a good $$ number for Devers would be.

Haven't seen anything other than "The sides were described as being “very far off” in negotiations." and that it was “it was lower than he is willing to consider.”

[Sea Dog 23]

With the news of Devers and Bogey rejecting extension offers from the Sox just about leaves me at a crossroads with MLB.  The Sox are excruciatingly trying to meet these guys contract demands, and it may be lowballing again.  But it seems that players like Judge, our guys, Correa want to be in the same livelihood as Trout and Betts, Judge even wanted more than Trout money they said.

If the league continues on the road of multiple greedy stars, I may have to give up MLB.  Or maybe I'll stay with baseball and just adjust my viewing to prospects  like the teams seem to be doing, "ignore the star seekers and develop the younger talent and move on."  The Yankees I think did this with Correa and Story.  They did not want to spend that bankroll and traded for a one-year guy Falefa, knowing that their future SS is their guy Volpe.  I think the Sox may be giving up on Bogey by signing Story with the knowledge of Mayer will be ready in 3 years or so.

[MongoLikeSox]

Judge had better be careful. He's an injury prone big(very big) man. Teams have seen how well the Angels have done building a team around Trout and Pujols a decade ago. 

This is not all on the top tier greedy players. There is a lot of animosity in the air. It is absolutely justified. Yes there are two sides to every argument. The players got more and more and the owners found ways to stop the bleeding. Screwing with seniority.

Just an example. Houck got bent over. He's a whole year behind Dalbec because of that back and forth merry-go-round. They damned near debuted together. It was justified as a means for keeping an extra pitcher on the roster. I bet most the time he got sent down that he never set foot in Worcester. Dalbec is arbitration eligible after the 2023 season. Houck is after 2024. Baseball is riddled with this crap.

That's not even getting into the whole players are evil and greedy propaganda campaign that Manfred employed starting with the lockout. They tried everything and said everything. I couldn't stand to play attention to it anymore, but still saw some crap dribble through here and there. He's such a dumb-ass, because he's thoroughly trashing the players while full well knowing that they are the ones that the league will have to make look great again after the lockout was over. The seats face the field. Always have, always will. Anyone in NY chanting Cashman's name after a clever acquisition of his goes yard against us?

All that said, the Players Association and Ownership group missed yet another opportunity to fix the game. Find a way for teams and players to remain together that want to be together. The solution ain't simple, but it's the absolute obvious biggest problem the league has. Even many big market teams. One could say they did not have enough time. What, with the owners shutting down negotiations for 3+ months as a ploy to break ranks. Some partnership. Welcome to Bankball.

[Sea Dog 23]

Agree with that, Mongo.  The rift between owners and players only grew more jagged during the lockout, and it seems they did not agree on much of anything.  The Judge/Bogey pushback could be the agents telling the players to go for the riches now while you're still young and have the leverage over the owners this year.  Part of that crap lies with the owners, who create their own nightmares like Rangers signing Seager to $325/10 (the first four years AAV at $35m.  That's crazy money as he'll be 37 at the end of that contract.

[longgame]

I find it amazing that these guys can't sort out the massive amounts of money they receive in a manner that makes everyone happy.  I think the problem is that most people would like to have either a passive income that pays them billions, or an active earned income where they can make 10s of millions. 

[MongoLikeSox]

That money needs to go a little further down the totem pole, too. Like the part of the minor leagues that were not 1st rounders or on the 40-man already.

There's probably a gifted financial mind out there that could come up with a plan that would answer all of the needs for both sides, and all parties on each side. 

[Sea Dog 23]

Well the Sox did extend Garrett Whitlock today through 2026 with options, per Chris Cottilo

Source: Garrett Whitlock gets $18.75M guaranteed over four years. 2027 option is $8.25M with $1M buyout. 2028 option is $10.5M with $500k buyout.

Options can escalate by up to $2.5M each per year.

Total max is $44.5M.

[Sea Dog 23]

I read an interesting observation today that theAngels might offer a nice deal for Bogey in about 6-8 weeks.  This year is shaping up as WS or bust for LAA and Trout.  Their SS position is the only real hole in the lineup, with both players hitting way south of the Mendoza line. 

After the Sox insulted Bogey (and Team Boras), their odds at striking a deal may be slim and none. And maybe they have already moved on regardless.

[MongoLikeSox]

Bora$ is a noted Angels fan and season ticker holder type, IIRC. It certainly would fit. They might get really desperate when (not if) Rendon gets hurt.

[SeaBeachFred]

Bora$ is a noted Angels fan and season ticker holder type, IIRC. It certainly would fit. They might get really desperate when (not if) Rendon gets hurt.

John Paul Morosi got into the Bogaerts Derby by saying the Cardinals are the NL team most interested in Bogaerts since they need a SS who can hit and have some players they can trade. Whether it is the Angels or Cardinals makes no difference to me since they have young talented players we an us and it would enable us finally to get rid of Bradley, Vazquez,, Dalbec and Hernandez and get serious about our rebuild.  Tonight showed once again that we cannot win two games in a row, cannot win a series, even a two set one, and we have relievers like Hansel, Barnes and Brasier who need to be shitcanned after this season, if not before.

[longgame]

Next year we'll have a nice low payroll team except for Henry.  Of course nobody will watch, but the payroll will be low and that's all he seems to care about.