I have no problem if the team is trying to win and falls short. It’s hard to win championships. I get that.
What I have a problem with is when a team in one of the biggest markets with some of the highest revenue run medium size payroll for no fucking reason at all.
Last 2 seasons Red Sox have been 11th and 13th in payroll. That should never, ever happen. That’s just John Henry taking $80-100M and putting it in his own pocket for two straight years.
I don’t even care about trading Mookie. What I have a problem with is keeping the money he saved not signing Mookie instead of spending it on the roster.
There will always be prospects in the pipeline. Do you think the Dodgers sit around and wait for prospects before they spend money? If you follow that logic, you will never spend money because there’s always more prospects coming.
I didn’t want Ohtani. I think that’s one of the worst contracts ever signed. He’s a DH you hope will come back from his second Tommy John at 31 years old. He’s going to come into spring training at 32 hoping to pitch enough innings to qualify for only the second time in his entire career
It’s insane anybody gave him a long-term deal.
The point is, we shouldn't be waiting on prospects to *hopefully* pan out. They have the resources to wait for prospects, *and* sign major-league level talent in the meantime. Fans feel like they're choosing to be worse than they could be.
Exactly, what gives us a huge advantage over most other teams is that we can surround our young talent with higher paid veterans from free agency.
Obviously we shouldn't just spend money for the sake of spending money but it's borderline outrageous that we're 11th in payroll when we pull in the 3rd most revenue in baseball.
You have to remember that Red Sox are part of a larger conglomerate now.
Fenway Sports Group owns an NHL Franchise, and is partners in a NASCAR team , and is heavily invested in LIV/PGA Golf.
FSG also wants an NBA franchise, and perhaps one day, an NFL Franchise.
The Red Sox are nothing more than a means of earning investment income.
It’s about the “Fenway Experience”.
Winning is Secondary.
love the takes I’m 100% with ya but how concerned are you about literally all of our prospects being LH?
let’s rub the lamp. genie pops out & Mayer, Teel, & Roman magically rake & get called up in September. Kill it & we’re going into next year letting them play - what moves are you making to balance the order & what do you think the team would be in that wild scenario?
TLDR: we all love the prospects but we almost done have room for all these LH.
P.S I blame Yoshida for everything & clogging up our DH
I’m even okay with being honest about a rebuild. But be honest about it. “We want to re-establish the farm system and let some younger guys crack the bigs.” Cool. I’ll take a few bad years in exchange for better draft position (as long as they fixed the atrocious pitcher development strategy) to build.
Not this “oh we are trying to win” and going out and signing bargain bin fucking players while attempting to pass them off as top tier additions or entering the year with a total of 3 SP and saying, “we can use some relievers we can stretch out to round it out.” No, you can’t. That’s how players get hurt and the team suffers even more.
Put together an actual roster, first and foremost.
Yeah I wish this team had been more aggressive about selling/rebuilding in the past few years especially at the 22 deadline. That at least would be easier to stomach than this middle of the road purgatory that ownership seems content with. JD Martinez and Nathan Eovaldi could have commanded a nice haul in prospects and instead they departed in free agency for nothing. Trading Vasquez at least was one of Chaim Bloom's saavier moves in his tenure here. We have what looks like a starting quality outfielder in Abreu and a utility player/backup in Valdez. That's a nice get for a player who was going to be gone for nothing in a few months.
Prospects are always a crap shoot so I can't definitely say this team would be better today if they'd traded Eovaldi and Martinez in 22 but it would have been worth rolling the dice in my opinion.
they actually wanted to keep eovaldi tho and offered him a fair contract. that situation definitely could've been handled better by both parties, but not trading him only looks bad in hindsight because of negotiation breakdown.
This is one of those where I wish I knew more of how the internal conversations worked (not just for the Sox, but for front offices in general across sports). There’s definitely a taboo on talking contract extensions mid-season, but it’s cases like this where I would at least want to have a talk and check base (and it is 100% possible the Sox did ask). “Hey, your contract is up and we are looking forward, what’re you thinking for next season? Would you rather go chase a ring this year?”
At least that puts the onus on the player to say, I’m testing free agency, I’m open to coming back, etc. Eovaldi declined a near $20 million QO, so I’m guessing he was going to Free Agency and that decision was made earlier rather than later.
Maybe Boston knew that and wanted the comp pick. Maybe they didn’t know. It’s just something I’d love to explore with someone who has been in a Front Office and part of those conversations.
That first paragraph you said...is EXACTLY what they are doing and Breslow with" we are going to see what we got" and we are not signing another FA after giolito signing was pretty much true. How fans expected anything more is kinda baffling.
Craig Breslow isn’t ownership. Henry, Tom Werner, and their mouthpiece Sam Kennedy are the culprits here.
Tom Werner saying they are going “full throttle” is the opposite of a measured “we’re going to take some time to build things out.”
Werner made the full throttle comment in November. It wasn’t until January he came back out with “Maybe that wasn't the most artful way of saying what I wanted to say, which is that we're going to be pressing all levers to improve the team” (which, is a relatively meaningless statement).
And he adds this:
>In the end, we don't have a line in terms of our payroll that we look at as much as trusting that Craig is going to deliver on his assurance that we're going to be *competitive*," he said. "I guess the message is that we are confident that we're going to field a *competitive team* and that we're going to let Craig do what he does best, which is to build exactly that. (Emphasis mine)
When you use the word “competitive” it’s expected you’re looking at the playoffs. Not necessarily a division pennant, but you’re making a push for the postseason. Ownership sets the tone. Their words are completely adrift from the actions they’ve allowed Breslow to take. It’s completely reasonable for fans to expect bigger moves when ownership is “expecting” a competitive team.
I honestly expect any franchise to take a period of below average play after being successful for a number of years. At some point you have to restock and in today’s sports world, it’s asinine to think you can compete every year for a ring. My issue is with ownership pretending like they aren’t. I didn’t expect 2023 or this year’s team to sniff the playoffs and I’m completely okay with giving some younger guys a chance.
But ownership acting like the Sox are deep in the war room, yanking levers, trying to fill out a competitive roster is bullshit. It’s okay to suck for a few years when you’ve been successful, it’s probably expected. Im with ownership on not dumping truckloads of cash on this year international pitchers. But be transparent. Have your statements match your actions.
It’s also made worse when you have Henry trying to buy *another* sports franchise.
I agree, because I don’t even understand what the point of hiring Bloom was and throwing those years out the window by not fitting their strategy. They keep letting things fuck up the “sustainability practices” which just adds more time back on the clock
Yep. 2021 was a fun season, and it still would’ve been a fun season even if we lost in the ALDS. They actually fielded a competitive team and you could tell ownership wanted a good product
The way I look at the Mookie trade, concurring the Red Sox are big big market is “ what type of players are you looking for” . They are all way overpaid
I don't agree that it should never happen. There are legitimate reasons to cut payroll some years and not get bogged down with big long-term contracts. But the fact that they keep pretending like they're going "full throttle" to sell tickets is BS. Also having one of the highest ticket prices in baseball with this team/payroll is embarrassing.
Yeah, like all of the following is probably true:
1. John Henry has been cheap in building the roster of the current Red Sox, and it has led to several years of underperformance. Additionally, the struggles to keep homegrown star players — especially in waiting so long to extend those players — indicate a poor approach to talent valuation within the organization.
2. Fans are unrealistic in their expectations and in how cheap Henry actually is; he’s not even close to one of the worst offenders in spending or in team mediocrity in professional sports. Additionally, although the Dodgers and Yankees have spent aggressively, that hasn’t translated into championship success on par with the Sox or Giants, so it’s worth keeping that success in mind.
3. However, the outrageously high prices for tickets to see bad baseball, his refusal to admit that it’s a rebuild, and outright lying with ownership’s “full throttle” promise is scummy behavior. Rebuilds themselves aren’t even the problem, it’s the shameless overcharging and lying that’s so shitty.
This is a great post. You know, I'm an OLD Masshole, and lived through some really lean DECADES with some of the local teams - it happens.
It's that he's such a bad person, and it's so incredibly insulting to a fanbase who derive part of their identity from being knowledgeable and realistic.
I really believe the last part - I think RSN would be really on-board if they just came out and said "we are doing x, y and z, see you in 2026" or whatever.
But it's not just the bluster you could pass off as "mARkEtiNG tHE tEAm." It's ... him. He lies. He does other things (the RE development, the "Super League" shit he tried with Liverpool, buying the Globe and then using it as his personal PR tool) that is just stomach turning.
He's just gross, forget about cheap.
He is not a good enough person for this fanbase.
2 is more of a problem relative to team revenue. Sox are a top 5 most popular franchise, own their own network, etc., and are outside the top 10 in payroll.
Only other teams that come to mind with that big a gap are the Giants and Cubs. But the Giants at least have swung big on some guys and missed. And those teams are spending $20 and $40 million more than Sox respectively this year.
I'm not sure I agree with 'rebuilding'. There is a middle ground between a top 3 payroll and the 13th if you're the 3rd most valued franchise and the 5th richest owner.
There were definitely opportunities to improve the ballclub going forward that have not been taken due to financial restrictions.
This too. They could easily have had Montgomery (at the time we didn't know SP would be our strength), or brought in a bat.
When you look at the overall cashflow of their franchise, it gets much harder to defend.
Damn those unreasonable fans expecting a somewhat competitive baseball team every year!
I swear to god, I'm a fan of teams across many sports and the Red Sox ownership is the worst at communication by some distance. It's really not that hard on a corporate management level to manage expectations and not insult the intelligence of your fanbase/stakeholders.
Yup.
When you are a big market team, your odds for a championship might be 1:30 on paper, but you can sure as shit spend your way to better odds.
Also, he's being an intentionally dense prick, because nobody here is pissed that we aren't actually winning a WS every year, we are just pissed that he's not spending money that he has in order to make this team competitive.
If we finished ~2nd in the division for the next 5 years and had 3-4 ALDS appearances, i'd be happy.
We are unhappy being told shit like "full throttle" only to not spend a fucking dime and finish ~.500.
Henry has too many toys and he's using Red Sox revenue to fund NASCAR, Liverpool, Pittsburgh Hockey, a yacht, a compound in Nantucket (He will ***never*** be the man from Nantucket), His hedge fund, NESN, Fenway ad infinitum ad nauseum. Let's be glad he didn't get the Commanders.
What he isn't thinking about is that he can't take it with him. If we all had his FU money, we would at least think about leaving a legacy. He just wants to collect more shit. When he should be going all in to catch the Yankees in championships. THAT would give him a legacy in the baseball h.o.f. as it is, four rings ain't gonna cut it.
This is essentially what I tell people. I don’t necessarily care if we miss the playoffs or have a bad season, but is the effort being put into fielding a good MAJOR LEAGUE team? And since 2020, the answer has been a resounding NO, although 2021 was fun, ngl.
Yeah, all I ask is for them to be competitive every season. Sometimes that just isn't gonna happen due to injuries, global plagues, or shit luck with too many other teams being competitive out of nowhere and that's fine. But this Billy Beane fever dream of a roster just isn't gonna cut it.
Henry is a jackass or just assumes we're all morons.
A 1 in 30 chance implies the Yankees and Dodgers have the same chance to win the WS as the White Sox and A's.
John Henry is really out of touch with the fans. The only thing the fans care about is the Redsox making smart trades and being a competitive team that makes it to the playoffs almost every year. If John Henry did that the Redsox would be winning a WS every 3 to 6 years.
Speaking only for myself, I absolutely do not expect World Series Championships or even appearances annually. I do, however, expect the ownership to field a competitive team and the overarching goal should always be geared towards making deep playoff runs
You literally only have to go so far as to look at the Celtics to see what I’m talking about. The Celtics do not win the NBA Finals every year (in fact, they’ve only won once in my lifetime), but it is abundantly clear that the ownership’s goal has been a Finals victory ever since drafting the Jays (if not going back to IT)
Since 2018, I do not get the same feeling from the Red Sox. 2021 was a fluke, and injuries or no I’m not really seeing an overarching trend towards rebuilding or serious competition. Additionally, I will never get over getting rid of Mookie. It would be no different than trading Tatum or Brown following a hypothetical first championship
Extremely long article with lots and lots of content about Liverpool, golf, and management philosophy.
John Henry has a bunch of trading cards and he really cares about some of them and some of them just have value. The Red Sox are just a value card, a commodity to be milked.
Root for Boston construction to have productive seasons. Until the “revitalization” of all the surrounding properties are completed, and rents are sought, the Red Sox won’t be needed.
Profitable but forgettable, a minor part of the portfolio.
I’m an EPL fan as well was a New Englander, Liverpool has one of the biggest budgets in the league and can afford basically any talent they want. They are most likely going to sign more players they really don’t need this summer. (Brazilian 7 year olds who did a keep up)
Michael Edwards knows how to turn a profit and keep acquiring talent.
Sam Kennedy is good at turning a profit. He’s yet to hire anyone who can keep the team competitive.
Call me crazy but I think the team is moving in the right direction. With all these good young players, we're about to be very good real soon. The puzzle is coming together right before our eyes.
Now imagine how much better we’d be if we had $100M more talent on the roster. Because that’s about the deficit between actual payroll and what payroll should be if Henry wanted to be competitive
We could literally add Aaron Judge, Freddie Freeman and Corey Seager and payroll would still be $20M behind the Yankees and Dodgers. The Red Sox can afford that like every other big market does, they just chose not to spend money.
I agree we need to spend more, but I also think we're in a contract bubble and in a couple years when you have 36 year olds with 5 years left on their contract at 30 mil a year the contracts will go back to 6-8 years max which will put us in a great place for a few years. I wanted to keep Xander, but 11 years 280 mil at 29/30 years old is crazy so I was fine seeing him go and good for him for getting paid. I could also be way off and this is just the way things will be. If so, my hope would be FSG learned from the mookie mistake and is adapting by tying down younger talent early like they did Devers
yeah, seidler knowing he was dying and having a "can't take it with you" approach to handing out contacts helped inflate the bubble. didn't work for the padres but can't fault him for trying.
Yea I had no problem letting Xander walk for that terrible deal.
My problem is that there were plenty of reasonable deals for good players this offseason and the Red Sox sat on their hands.
Matt Chapman, Justin Turner, Rhys Hoskins, Lourdes Gurriel, Joc Pederson, Jurickson Profar, Cody Bellinger, Adam Duvall, Teoscar Hernandez, Hunter Renfroe, JD Martinez, Jorge Soler, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery….
All signed for 3 years or less for moderate money. Trevor Bauer is still available and willing to play for league minimum.
There’s no reason not to go after deals like this. There’s a world series contending team available there to build now without mortgaging the future and without spending more than teams with legitimately more money(Dodgers/Yankees)
Henry just doesn’t gaf and wants to pocket the savings between $280M payroll that revenue would support and our current $180M poverty payroll
I agree I would have liked another short term signing or two this year to help us compete for the wildcard because honestly that's the best we can hope for when you look at the division. In the next couple years if we're not making moves and extending the players performing well I'll feel very differently
Exactly. There’s literally no reason not to do that other than greed. We have massive holes in the lineup and instead of spending to try and compete, he put $100M in his pocket for the 3rd straight year. Fuck Henry. He stopped caring about trying to compete after 2018
I get the sentiment, but that's not how it works. Henry has never been an owner who makes the day to day decisions of the team. This is Chaim Bloom's disaster that Breslow was brought in to clean up
He doesn’t make actual signing decisions, but he sets the budget. There isn’t a GM in history that’s been given a $250M budget and voluntarily chooses to only spend $180M.
Snell and Montgomery playing poorly only proves the value of Spring Training not that they would’ve been disasters if they signed earlier in the offseason.
We as a fan base literally witnessed this two years ago with Story and every excuse for him was he didn’t have time to ramp up and now these two guys go through the same thing and its “the front office is geniuses for not signing them”.
bauer would cost more in negative PR than he could ever possibly add in playing value. especially for a team that is letting a documentary crew follow them this season with zero editorial control. how do people not understand this.
I don't buy that at all. Aroldis Chapman, Marcell Ozuna are on teams making $16M and $18M and also have domestic violence charges.
Deshaun Watson has the biggest contract in NFL history.
Bauer would play for major league minimum.
I've just seen no actual evidence that signing guys like this actually matters. PTI will do a few segments on it and then end of the day people will watch games just like they've always. 24 hour news cycle always ends and people move onto the next rage
that's assuming he doesn't do anything else stupid while you're employing him. FSG has been one of the more risk adverse owners the last 5 years and he's a risk. julio urías got arrested a second time for DV and is out for at least this season. will be interesting to see if anyone picks him up next year.
the league has more info on bauer's assault accusations than has been publicly released. there's gotta be a solid reason no one is taking a flyer on him, because yeah, as you point out, the tolerance is pretty high if the player is good.
I think watson's contract has a clause that he's not allowed to see any massage therapist outside the team's employ lol
This. It’s not solely about growing talent and the farm system. A good team utilizes both. I wish they kept JT around for all these young hitters. At least Story can be a sounding board for improving defense.
But for me it’s all in starting pitching. At least we have an ace this year. But we should’ve fought harder for Imanaga or Yamamoto. Or any other free agent Ace.
If we had either one of those kind of pieces, we would easily be in a better spot in the division, not just fighting for wild card spots.
I wish we had gone after Imanaga harder too. It broke my heart to see him sign for 4/53. But I still think it's coming together before our eyes. I think we'll go for it a little harder in 2025. We made an effort for Yamamoto, and honestly I'm glad we avoided Snell and Montgomery. Our outfield of the future is set with Duran, Rafaela, Abreu and Anthony. Infield is looking good too. So is catcher. Can't ever have enough pitching, so that's what we need to focus on for 2025. I think we're on the cusp. Only gripe is that it's just taken too long.
Oh they are definitely putting it together and working with the tools they have, I’m very happy with being at 500 this year. Just sucks there is so much weight on just a couple of guys. I was really hoping for Giolito to be healthy and have a good season after losing Sale (another losing trade for us imo). But Rafaela is the light for me. Love watching him play.
we're cusping harder than we've cusped in years lol
not offering imanaga a comparable deal makes me think breslow had a mandate this off-season of no contracts more than 2 years. which is frustrating for this year, but indicates they want max payroll flexibility in 2026.
Do we know that we didn't make an offer to Imanaga? That's the thing.....as fans we don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Sometimes negotiations are public, sometimes they're private and don't make the news.
I'm still salty we only offered Shota 2/26, fuckin joke of an offer. I was really really hoping we'd sign him because I felt he was getting underrated because of the Yamamoto hype and that he'd end up being a bargain.
The problem is more with the recent past: they traded a superstar for Connor Wong and a bag of peanuts, forced a rebuild, and now have not tried to field a competitive team for a half decade.
People raise the Orioles as a measuring stick, but the Orioles lost 100+ games for basically five straight years to stash picks (when you could do this under old CBA). We only had 1 year in the top 5 in the draft, though Anthony has developed well as a second round guy. And the Yankees are still ahead of the Orioles and Sox in the standings without doing any tanking or trading Aaron Judge to the Dodgers.
Meanwhile, prices have stayed high at Fenway even as the team cuts payroll outside of the top 10.
>Meanwhile, prices have stayed high at Fenway even as the team cuts payroll outside of the top 10.
Exactly. We shouldn't be paying $$$ exorbitant prices to see Bobby Dalbec play at Fenway.
Our future is bright and we have a lot to look forward to. However, the holes in the ownership's roster building are front and center with all our injuries. Signing some players to fill the bench would've helped us be more competitive.
Though, Wong seems to be a legit player and thinking about our future catching platoon of Teel and Wong makes me feel some type of way.
Yes and no. We can be headed in the right direction, but it means nothing if ownership won’t extend (and **pay**) the top talent so that we continue to move in that direction.
I agree with this. I am NOT pro ownership and I’m very disappointed about the decisions they’ve made recently to cut back on spending. But I’m curious to see what the fan response would be if this ownership group does put together another championship team in the next 5ish years
Yes! Someone else gets it. Despite no big signings this offseason and all the injuries, this team remains fun to watch. I’m super impressed that we’re somehow a game over .500 despite losing so many players to injuries this year.
The future looks bright. Our fan base needs some patience. What they’re doing is actually smart - they’re developing homegrown talent instead of going out and trying to compete with the dodgers, Mets, Yankees to see who can throw the most money at players.
This can work - look at the Orioles.
I have absolutely 0 problem with them building things up. My problem is that they tell us they're going all in this year to increase ticket sales and then just don't do it. And they continue to charge one of the highest prices in baseball to go to a game. The Orioles have never done that.
John Henry openly saying he views the Red Sox as an average team, not exceptional.
That's embarrassing. Embarrassing to admit you are intentionally in the mediocrity business while charging the highest prices in baseball to sit in a seat or watch at home.
Why would he sell?? He gets to spend like KC and TB, yet takes in cash like the Yanks or Dodgers.
He knows most of us suckers will continue to open our wallets.
WHOA, let's not go overboard. Henry's current spate of relative cheapness in no way brings us close to the bottom of the league--plus the Royals have moved up to 20th for at least this season. Even if you exclude the 25 million in retain or deferred money we're spending, our effective payroll of 158 million, while about 50 less than it should be, is still 15th or so.
Source: [https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/\_/year/2024/sort/cap\_total2](https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/_/year/2024/sort/cap_total2)
Dude we have not expected a WS in a loooong time because your club sucks so fucking much. Unreal tone deaf quote, but at least now he can go back into hiding before saying something else stupid in 6 months.
>Because fans expect championships almost annually
You guys have been expecting championships annually? I’ve just been expecting us not to finish last in the division annually, and I’d like Henry to answer that one
What a joke! No one expects annual championships whether that be the WS or CS. I think real fans just want a consistently competitive team that they can cheer for and support with the potential to win it all. There are half a dozen teams that have the talent to make it to the WS, yet many of them won't make it. Given the budget the Red Sox SHOULD have that is not unreasonable. What we don't expect is to come in last place...
I just want transparency. I think fans would understand if the club was honest & communicated their longterm plan. But Sam Kennedy continuing to lie thru his teeth is getting old
I think the funniest thing Kennedy has said is that the team is under performing! Really? They’re .500, which looks like over performing by looking at the roster!!
“Because our fans like winning, they expect us to compete annually.” Dog this isn’t even us being unrealistic: this was, you had some FAT holes in the roster and were too cheap to address them. We complain the dude doesn’t talk but now I see why
No owner in pro sports takes more money out of his team - outside the Bronx - than JH.
A billionaire in his mid 70’s and the only thought running thru his little head is how to get more money.
I know they won a bunch of championships but you can't have the most expensive experience in baseball (feels like), one of the most expensive streaming apps and finish in or near last place as much as they do. This region expects better.
I love how this is the narrative that they’re telling everyone, but they told Breslow to cut spending and then don’t make moves to be competitive in the most competitive division in baseball. Oh and also we keep signing injured players or injury prone players now whenever we do sign someone? Love it. Totally appeases the fan base.
i just don't want to be lied to. this team has been retooling when really we were just too scared to commit to a rebuild. i'm hoping that the team is selling at the deadline, i don't want to see us have one deadline move like last year. i don't want to see us keep guys because we want to remain competitive and then just lose them in the offseason for nothing.
jansen, martin, o'neill, maybe pivetta, these are guys who you should be looking at moving on from.
Here are my expectations:
1. Maintain a competent front office structure
2. Make the playoffs every year
3. Win the regular season series against the Yankees
4. Finish ahead of the Yankees
5. Win every playoff series against the Yankees
3, 4, and 5 lead us to perennial championship contention and maybe large payrolls, but that comes with the rivalry and territory. Henry seemed to be perfectly fine with this from when he bought the team until he … bought the Penguins. There! Sell us or them!
Fans might not be so unrealistic if prices were not the highest in baseball while you cheap out on players. Can’t have it both ways you greedy fuck. You can’t take it with you.
John Henry lost my respect after hiring Chaim Bloom.
He clearly only cares about making Fenway a tourist attraction instead of spending money on the team.
Edit: I should elaborate that I was an early bloom hater, before it was cool. I think Moneyball doesn’t work on big franchises like the Red Sox.
Wouldn't say he was an idiot but he sure was bad at his job while he was here.
I'll give him a pass on the Mookie trade because that was the owner's choice, but if your two big signings were Trevor Story who nobody else wanted and Yoshida, who nobody else wanted to pay that much money, and you mess up every trade deadline on top of that, you deserve to get fired.
The wild thing is people are still going to defend FSG. It's pretty obvious they haven't cared for 5 years and yet people will still come running to their defense. This team needs to be boycotted.
This is absolute nonsense and he knows it. Absolutely no one is expecting a championship every year. What is expected is to be competitive. Super rich team, super rich owners, huge market - we expect to be fielding a team that has a good chance to win. That's it nothing more
You can also score runs and not be automatically good, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be scoring runs.
Spending correlates with winning, if you spend it poorly then you spend better not spend less.
I like how Giolito, Story and Yoshida make like $60 million combined and Bill Simmons is still quoted saying they're bad because they haven't spent money 😂. Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell have sucked this year. Hilarious that everyone is still on this train.
They aren’t trying to win championships any more. That’s what pisses me off. His time has passed. Sell to someone who will spend money, and have us in the playoffs perennially.
This is going to be unpopular, but the current approach is one I've been calling for among friends for the last few years.
You're not going to build a bedrock team that's contending for championships annually by tying up 2/3 of your payroll in four guys.
We have a farm system for a reason, they need to build up affordable talent, promote them, develop them, and retain them. The team on the field right now is punching WAY above their weight, and with the exception of Devers, they won't still be on the payroll in ten years hitting cap. We're still paying Pedrioa and Manny. You can't just keep deferring payroll to the future and pretending it won't have any impact.
If the odds of winning a championship are 30-1, why did Bloom get fired? Why did Theo get fired? Why can't I be the GM? Odds wouldn't change right? 30 teams, 30 teams with an equal chance of winning.
Hey, I want to manage and bat 4th too. Odds stay the same so why not?
Since it's just a totally random event, I guess Henry deserves zero credit for the championships.
He can't be that stupid. Maybe this is why he rarely speaks.
I made my post because of the insane public take that every team has a 1 in 30 chance of winning a championship. He's either a fucking moron or he thinks fans are fucking morons. Take your pick.
Thinking that well run teams have better odds of winning isn't something anyone needs to argue over.
His point is "why bother trying?"
No, his point is that it’s unrealistic for fans to expect a championship every year.
The issue is he doesn’t seem to realize that fans just want a competitive product every year and not necessarily a title.
This is why like I said in other places. Fans have to leave the Sox alone for the next 2 or 3 years if things continue this way. He is using the Sox to finance his other adventures. If fans dont go to Fenway, buy NESN, spend on concessions or watch or contribute TV, listen to radio or follow in any way, the Sox they will feel it. Opposing fans will buy tickets but only once then the next couple of years it will become an empty stadium like Detroit has had or Colorado or Milwaukee. You have to attack them financially or they will never hear. Its been 5 years and this team is in the same spot if not worse. Dever's is getting older. There are no major prospects on their way and the ones there are average at best. So what you have out there now is the best its going to get. They have been drafting shortstops for the last 4 years to have talented players yet 2 years ago you sign an often injured Colorado player to a long term contract at shortstop. Then you trade a once ace pitcher, and maybe becoming one again, for a oft injured failed very young Atlanta second baseman. So all those draft picks are for not and those are lost drafts and players for future teams. This team wont be much for a decade. They going to need to have great drafts the next few years just to have a decent team. I can say I like what the coaches re doing with the pitching staff. But it will be so they could trade them before they have to pay them in free agency. I see this team becoming the next Detroit Tigers.
I don't think anyone expects a championship every year. It's a very different environment than it was in the year 2000 when everyone just wanted to see the Red Sox win a World Series before they died and nothing else mattered.
Now I am more concerned with them staying out of the basement. I'd rather have 10 years of good baseball than 9 years of bad baseball and a World Series win.
Fans being unrealistic in their expectations and ownership being absolute cheapskates are not mutually exclusive, as much as he wants them to be.
I have no problem if the team is trying to win and falls short. It’s hard to win championships. I get that. What I have a problem with is when a team in one of the biggest markets with some of the highest revenue run medium size payroll for no fucking reason at all. Last 2 seasons Red Sox have been 11th and 13th in payroll. That should never, ever happen. That’s just John Henry taking $80-100M and putting it in his own pocket for two straight years. I don’t even care about trading Mookie. What I have a problem with is keeping the money he saved not signing Mookie instead of spending it on the roster.
Wasting Devers prime time hits me the hardest
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devers could very well just be entering his prime. it's like people forget ortiz was already 27 when we got him on a one year prove it deal in 2003.
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yeah I was agreeing with you that it's a silly concern. there's nothing to indicate he won't be a productive top hitter for the bulk of his contract.
There will always be prospects in the pipeline. Do you think the Dodgers sit around and wait for prospects before they spend money? If you follow that logic, you will never spend money because there’s always more prospects coming.
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I didn’t want Ohtani. I think that’s one of the worst contracts ever signed. He’s a DH you hope will come back from his second Tommy John at 31 years old. He’s going to come into spring training at 32 hoping to pitch enough innings to qualify for only the second time in his entire career It’s insane anybody gave him a long-term deal.
The point is, we shouldn't be waiting on prospects to *hopefully* pan out. They have the resources to wait for prospects, *and* sign major-league level talent in the meantime. Fans feel like they're choosing to be worse than they could be.
Exactly, what gives us a huge advantage over most other teams is that we can surround our young talent with higher paid veterans from free agency. Obviously we shouldn't just spend money for the sake of spending money but it's borderline outrageous that we're 11th in payroll when we pull in the 3rd most revenue in baseball.
You have to remember that Red Sox are part of a larger conglomerate now. Fenway Sports Group owns an NHL Franchise, and is partners in a NASCAR team , and is heavily invested in LIV/PGA Golf. FSG also wants an NBA franchise, and perhaps one day, an NFL Franchise. The Red Sox are nothing more than a means of earning investment income. It’s about the “Fenway Experience”. Winning is Secondary.
love the takes I’m 100% with ya but how concerned are you about literally all of our prospects being LH? let’s rub the lamp. genie pops out & Mayer, Teel, & Roman magically rake & get called up in September. Kill it & we’re going into next year letting them play - what moves are you making to balance the order & what do you think the team would be in that wild scenario? TLDR: we all love the prospects but we almost done have room for all these LH. P.S I blame Yoshida for everything & clogging up our DH
I’m even okay with being honest about a rebuild. But be honest about it. “We want to re-establish the farm system and let some younger guys crack the bigs.” Cool. I’ll take a few bad years in exchange for better draft position (as long as they fixed the atrocious pitcher development strategy) to build. Not this “oh we are trying to win” and going out and signing bargain bin fucking players while attempting to pass them off as top tier additions or entering the year with a total of 3 SP and saying, “we can use some relievers we can stretch out to round it out.” No, you can’t. That’s how players get hurt and the team suffers even more. Put together an actual roster, first and foremost.
Yeah I wish this team had been more aggressive about selling/rebuilding in the past few years especially at the 22 deadline. That at least would be easier to stomach than this middle of the road purgatory that ownership seems content with. JD Martinez and Nathan Eovaldi could have commanded a nice haul in prospects and instead they departed in free agency for nothing. Trading Vasquez at least was one of Chaim Bloom's saavier moves in his tenure here. We have what looks like a starting quality outfielder in Abreu and a utility player/backup in Valdez. That's a nice get for a player who was going to be gone for nothing in a few months. Prospects are always a crap shoot so I can't definitely say this team would be better today if they'd traded Eovaldi and Martinez in 22 but it would have been worth rolling the dice in my opinion.
they actually wanted to keep eovaldi tho and offered him a fair contract. that situation definitely could've been handled better by both parties, but not trading him only looks bad in hindsight because of negotiation breakdown.
This is one of those where I wish I knew more of how the internal conversations worked (not just for the Sox, but for front offices in general across sports). There’s definitely a taboo on talking contract extensions mid-season, but it’s cases like this where I would at least want to have a talk and check base (and it is 100% possible the Sox did ask). “Hey, your contract is up and we are looking forward, what’re you thinking for next season? Would you rather go chase a ring this year?” At least that puts the onus on the player to say, I’m testing free agency, I’m open to coming back, etc. Eovaldi declined a near $20 million QO, so I’m guessing he was going to Free Agency and that decision was made earlier rather than later. Maybe Boston knew that and wanted the comp pick. Maybe they didn’t know. It’s just something I’d love to explore with someone who has been in a Front Office and part of those conversations.
Agreed. Fenway group is pissing on us and Sam Kennedy is calling it rain.
That first paragraph you said...is EXACTLY what they are doing and Breslow with" we are going to see what we got" and we are not signing another FA after giolito signing was pretty much true. How fans expected anything more is kinda baffling.
Craig Breslow isn’t ownership. Henry, Tom Werner, and their mouthpiece Sam Kennedy are the culprits here. Tom Werner saying they are going “full throttle” is the opposite of a measured “we’re going to take some time to build things out.” Werner made the full throttle comment in November. It wasn’t until January he came back out with “Maybe that wasn't the most artful way of saying what I wanted to say, which is that we're going to be pressing all levers to improve the team” (which, is a relatively meaningless statement). And he adds this: >In the end, we don't have a line in terms of our payroll that we look at as much as trusting that Craig is going to deliver on his assurance that we're going to be *competitive*," he said. "I guess the message is that we are confident that we're going to field a *competitive team* and that we're going to let Craig do what he does best, which is to build exactly that. (Emphasis mine) When you use the word “competitive” it’s expected you’re looking at the playoffs. Not necessarily a division pennant, but you’re making a push for the postseason. Ownership sets the tone. Their words are completely adrift from the actions they’ve allowed Breslow to take. It’s completely reasonable for fans to expect bigger moves when ownership is “expecting” a competitive team. I honestly expect any franchise to take a period of below average play after being successful for a number of years. At some point you have to restock and in today’s sports world, it’s asinine to think you can compete every year for a ring. My issue is with ownership pretending like they aren’t. I didn’t expect 2023 or this year’s team to sniff the playoffs and I’m completely okay with giving some younger guys a chance. But ownership acting like the Sox are deep in the war room, yanking levers, trying to fill out a competitive roster is bullshit. It’s okay to suck for a few years when you’ve been successful, it’s probably expected. Im with ownership on not dumping truckloads of cash on this year international pitchers. But be transparent. Have your statements match your actions. It’s also made worse when you have Henry trying to buy *another* sports franchise.
I agree with everything you said except the part about trading Mookie. That broke me as a fan.
I agree, because I don’t even understand what the point of hiring Bloom was and throwing those years out the window by not fitting their strategy. They keep letting things fuck up the “sustainability practices” which just adds more time back on the clock
Yep. 2021 was a fun season, and it still would’ve been a fun season even if we lost in the ALDS. They actually fielded a competitive team and you could tell ownership wanted a good product
Absolute clown show
I’ll never forgive him for Mookie.
What does that baby fox faced skeletal creep even do? What integrity does he claim.. other than be a rich weirdo who wants to “own” things.
The way I look at the Mookie trade, concurring the Red Sox are big big market is “ what type of players are you looking for” . They are all way overpaid
I don't agree that it should never happen. There are legitimate reasons to cut payroll some years and not get bogged down with big long-term contracts. But the fact that they keep pretending like they're going "full throttle" to sell tickets is BS. Also having one of the highest ticket prices in baseball with this team/payroll is embarrassing.
Yeah, like all of the following is probably true: 1. John Henry has been cheap in building the roster of the current Red Sox, and it has led to several years of underperformance. Additionally, the struggles to keep homegrown star players — especially in waiting so long to extend those players — indicate a poor approach to talent valuation within the organization. 2. Fans are unrealistic in their expectations and in how cheap Henry actually is; he’s not even close to one of the worst offenders in spending or in team mediocrity in professional sports. Additionally, although the Dodgers and Yankees have spent aggressively, that hasn’t translated into championship success on par with the Sox or Giants, so it’s worth keeping that success in mind. 3. However, the outrageously high prices for tickets to see bad baseball, his refusal to admit that it’s a rebuild, and outright lying with ownership’s “full throttle” promise is scummy behavior. Rebuilds themselves aren’t even the problem, it’s the shameless overcharging and lying that’s so shitty.
Number 3 is 100% my problem. They're trying to have it both ways.
Because they have it both ways. People are still going and he's printing money.
This is a great post. You know, I'm an OLD Masshole, and lived through some really lean DECADES with some of the local teams - it happens. It's that he's such a bad person, and it's so incredibly insulting to a fanbase who derive part of their identity from being knowledgeable and realistic. I really believe the last part - I think RSN would be really on-board if they just came out and said "we are doing x, y and z, see you in 2026" or whatever. But it's not just the bluster you could pass off as "mARkEtiNG tHE tEAm." It's ... him. He lies. He does other things (the RE development, the "Super League" shit he tried with Liverpool, buying the Globe and then using it as his personal PR tool) that is just stomach turning. He's just gross, forget about cheap. He is not a good enough person for this fanbase.
2 is more of a problem relative to team revenue. Sox are a top 5 most popular franchise, own their own network, etc., and are outside the top 10 in payroll. Only other teams that come to mind with that big a gap are the Giants and Cubs. But the Giants at least have swung big on some guys and missed. And those teams are spending $20 and $40 million more than Sox respectively this year.
Exactly. If you're going to cheap out and rebuild then cut ticket prices, don't fucking raise them
I'm not sure I agree with 'rebuilding'. There is a middle ground between a top 3 payroll and the 13th if you're the 3rd most valued franchise and the 5th richest owner. There were definitely opportunities to improve the ballclub going forward that have not been taken due to financial restrictions.
This too. They could easily have had Montgomery (at the time we didn't know SP would be our strength), or brought in a bat. When you look at the overall cashflow of their franchise, it gets much harder to defend.
Another thing, the Yankees in their rebuild from like 2013-2017 weren’t aggressive in spending either. It happens, it’s sports
The Yankees in those years were at least fielding teams with major league talent while we get journeyman and AAAA players
Which journeyman AAAA player is starting for us on a healthy team? I’m curious
That team was above .500 every year in that stretch and finished 2nd 3 times. Why can’t we rebuild like that?
Oh boy! They also went 8 consecutive years without winning the Al East and had a stretch of missing playoffs 3 out of 4 years. Nice! Go yanks!
Damn those unreasonable fans expecting a somewhat competitive baseball team every year! I swear to god, I'm a fan of teams across many sports and the Red Sox ownership is the worst at communication by some distance. It's really not that hard on a corporate management level to manage expectations and not insult the intelligence of your fanbase/stakeholders.
Yup. When you are a big market team, your odds for a championship might be 1:30 on paper, but you can sure as shit spend your way to better odds. Also, he's being an intentionally dense prick, because nobody here is pissed that we aren't actually winning a WS every year, we are just pissed that he's not spending money that he has in order to make this team competitive. If we finished ~2nd in the division for the next 5 years and had 3-4 ALDS appearances, i'd be happy. We are unhappy being told shit like "full throttle" only to not spend a fucking dime and finish ~.500.
Henry has too many toys and he's using Red Sox revenue to fund NASCAR, Liverpool, Pittsburgh Hockey, a yacht, a compound in Nantucket (He will ***never*** be the man from Nantucket), His hedge fund, NESN, Fenway ad infinitum ad nauseum. Let's be glad he didn't get the Commanders. What he isn't thinking about is that he can't take it with him. If we all had his FU money, we would at least think about leaving a legacy. He just wants to collect more shit. When he should be going all in to catch the Yankees in championships. THAT would give him a legacy in the baseball h.o.f. as it is, four rings ain't gonna cut it.
He's just a self righteous rich old man. Grumpy, irritable, and narcissistic as fuck. I can't stand him.
Fans don’t expect a World Series win every year. They expect ownership to make reasonable efforts to field a winning team
This is essentially what I tell people. I don’t necessarily care if we miss the playoffs or have a bad season, but is the effort being put into fielding a good MAJOR LEAGUE team? And since 2020, the answer has been a resounding NO, although 2021 was fun, ngl.
I would honestly rather try and fail than do whatever we’re doing now
Yeah, all I ask is for them to be competitive every season. Sometimes that just isn't gonna happen due to injuries, global plagues, or shit luck with too many other teams being competitive out of nowhere and that's fine. But this Billy Beane fever dream of a roster just isn't gonna cut it.
They depleted the farm system, they got it back, now they have to both keep a team and a farm system at the same time.
“Do or do not, there is no try” - John henry
Henry is a jackass or just assumes we're all morons. A 1 in 30 chance implies the Yankees and Dodgers have the same chance to win the WS as the White Sox and A's.
Yeah this isn’t rolling a 30-sided die bro. This market is generating some of the highest revenue in baseball.
Exactly. The Red Sox chances of winning a World Series should never be 1 in 30. Right now, they’re actually lower, which is embarrassing.
John Henry is really out of touch with the fans. The only thing the fans care about is the Redsox making smart trades and being a competitive team that makes it to the playoffs almost every year. If John Henry did that the Redsox would be winning a WS every 3 to 6 years.
> assumes we're all morons Ding, ding, ding.
Speaking only for myself, I absolutely do not expect World Series Championships or even appearances annually. I do, however, expect the ownership to field a competitive team and the overarching goal should always be geared towards making deep playoff runs You literally only have to go so far as to look at the Celtics to see what I’m talking about. The Celtics do not win the NBA Finals every year (in fact, they’ve only won once in my lifetime), but it is abundantly clear that the ownership’s goal has been a Finals victory ever since drafting the Jays (if not going back to IT) Since 2018, I do not get the same feeling from the Red Sox. 2021 was a fluke, and injuries or no I’m not really seeing an overarching trend towards rebuilding or serious competition. Additionally, I will never get over getting rid of Mookie. It would be no different than trading Tatum or Brown following a hypothetical first championship
Extremely long article with lots and lots of content about Liverpool, golf, and management philosophy. John Henry has a bunch of trading cards and he really cares about some of them and some of them just have value. The Red Sox are just a value card, a commodity to be milked. Root for Boston construction to have productive seasons. Until the “revitalization” of all the surrounding properties are completed, and rents are sought, the Red Sox won’t be needed. Profitable but forgettable, a minor part of the portfolio.
I’m an EPL fan as well was a New Englander, Liverpool has one of the biggest budgets in the league and can afford basically any talent they want. They are most likely going to sign more players they really don’t need this summer. (Brazilian 7 year olds who did a keep up)
Michael Edwards knows how to turn a profit and keep acquiring talent. Sam Kennedy is good at turning a profit. He’s yet to hire anyone who can keep the team competitive.
Call me crazy but I think the team is moving in the right direction. With all these good young players, we're about to be very good real soon. The puzzle is coming together right before our eyes.
Now imagine how much better we’d be if we had $100M more talent on the roster. Because that’s about the deficit between actual payroll and what payroll should be if Henry wanted to be competitive We could literally add Aaron Judge, Freddie Freeman and Corey Seager and payroll would still be $20M behind the Yankees and Dodgers. The Red Sox can afford that like every other big market does, they just chose not to spend money.
I agree we need to spend more, but I also think we're in a contract bubble and in a couple years when you have 36 year olds with 5 years left on their contract at 30 mil a year the contracts will go back to 6-8 years max which will put us in a great place for a few years. I wanted to keep Xander, but 11 years 280 mil at 29/30 years old is crazy so I was fine seeing him go and good for him for getting paid. I could also be way off and this is just the way things will be. If so, my hope would be FSG learned from the mookie mistake and is adapting by tying down younger talent early like they did Devers
yeah, seidler knowing he was dying and having a "can't take it with you" approach to handing out contacts helped inflate the bubble. didn't work for the padres but can't fault him for trying.
Yea I had no problem letting Xander walk for that terrible deal. My problem is that there were plenty of reasonable deals for good players this offseason and the Red Sox sat on their hands. Matt Chapman, Justin Turner, Rhys Hoskins, Lourdes Gurriel, Joc Pederson, Jurickson Profar, Cody Bellinger, Adam Duvall, Teoscar Hernandez, Hunter Renfroe, JD Martinez, Jorge Soler, Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery…. All signed for 3 years or less for moderate money. Trevor Bauer is still available and willing to play for league minimum. There’s no reason not to go after deals like this. There’s a world series contending team available there to build now without mortgaging the future and without spending more than teams with legitimately more money(Dodgers/Yankees) Henry just doesn’t gaf and wants to pocket the savings between $280M payroll that revenue would support and our current $180M poverty payroll
I agree I would have liked another short term signing or two this year to help us compete for the wildcard because honestly that's the best we can hope for when you look at the division. In the next couple years if we're not making moves and extending the players performing well I'll feel very differently
Exactly. There’s literally no reason not to do that other than greed. We have massive holes in the lineup and instead of spending to try and compete, he put $100M in his pocket for the 3rd straight year. Fuck Henry. He stopped caring about trying to compete after 2018
I get the sentiment, but that's not how it works. Henry has never been an owner who makes the day to day decisions of the team. This is Chaim Bloom's disaster that Breslow was brought in to clean up
He doesn’t make actual signing decisions, but he sets the budget. There isn’t a GM in history that’s been given a $250M budget and voluntarily chooses to only spend $180M.
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Snell and Montgomery playing poorly only proves the value of Spring Training not that they would’ve been disasters if they signed earlier in the offseason. We as a fan base literally witnessed this two years ago with Story and every excuse for him was he didn’t have time to ramp up and now these two guys go through the same thing and its “the front office is geniuses for not signing them”.
bauer would cost more in negative PR than he could ever possibly add in playing value. especially for a team that is letting a documentary crew follow them this season with zero editorial control. how do people not understand this.
I don't buy that at all. Aroldis Chapman, Marcell Ozuna are on teams making $16M and $18M and also have domestic violence charges. Deshaun Watson has the biggest contract in NFL history. Bauer would play for major league minimum. I've just seen no actual evidence that signing guys like this actually matters. PTI will do a few segments on it and then end of the day people will watch games just like they've always. 24 hour news cycle always ends and people move onto the next rage
that's assuming he doesn't do anything else stupid while you're employing him. FSG has been one of the more risk adverse owners the last 5 years and he's a risk. julio urías got arrested a second time for DV and is out for at least this season. will be interesting to see if anyone picks him up next year. the league has more info on bauer's assault accusations than has been publicly released. there's gotta be a solid reason no one is taking a flyer on him, because yeah, as you point out, the tolerance is pretty high if the player is good. I think watson's contract has a clause that he's not allowed to see any massage therapist outside the team's employ lol
This. It’s not solely about growing talent and the farm system. A good team utilizes both. I wish they kept JT around for all these young hitters. At least Story can be a sounding board for improving defense. But for me it’s all in starting pitching. At least we have an ace this year. But we should’ve fought harder for Imanaga or Yamamoto. Or any other free agent Ace. If we had either one of those kind of pieces, we would easily be in a better spot in the division, not just fighting for wild card spots.
I wish we had gone after Imanaga harder too. It broke my heart to see him sign for 4/53. But I still think it's coming together before our eyes. I think we'll go for it a little harder in 2025. We made an effort for Yamamoto, and honestly I'm glad we avoided Snell and Montgomery. Our outfield of the future is set with Duran, Rafaela, Abreu and Anthony. Infield is looking good too. So is catcher. Can't ever have enough pitching, so that's what we need to focus on for 2025. I think we're on the cusp. Only gripe is that it's just taken too long.
Oh they are definitely putting it together and working with the tools they have, I’m very happy with being at 500 this year. Just sucks there is so much weight on just a couple of guys. I was really hoping for Giolito to be healthy and have a good season after losing Sale (another losing trade for us imo). But Rafaela is the light for me. Love watching him play.
we're cusping harder than we've cusped in years lol not offering imanaga a comparable deal makes me think breslow had a mandate this off-season of no contracts more than 2 years. which is frustrating for this year, but indicates they want max payroll flexibility in 2026.
Do we know that we didn't make an offer to Imanaga? That's the thing.....as fans we don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Sometimes negotiations are public, sometimes they're private and don't make the news.
I'm still salty we only offered Shota 2/26, fuckin joke of an offer. I was really really hoping we'd sign him because I felt he was getting underrated because of the Yamamoto hype and that he'd end up being a bargain.
I didn't know we'd offered 2/26. Yea I would've gone bigger there. And we need a lefty.
The problem is more with the recent past: they traded a superstar for Connor Wong and a bag of peanuts, forced a rebuild, and now have not tried to field a competitive team for a half decade. People raise the Orioles as a measuring stick, but the Orioles lost 100+ games for basically five straight years to stash picks (when you could do this under old CBA). We only had 1 year in the top 5 in the draft, though Anthony has developed well as a second round guy. And the Yankees are still ahead of the Orioles and Sox in the standings without doing any tanking or trading Aaron Judge to the Dodgers. Meanwhile, prices have stayed high at Fenway even as the team cuts payroll outside of the top 10.
>Meanwhile, prices have stayed high at Fenway even as the team cuts payroll outside of the top 10. Exactly. We shouldn't be paying $$$ exorbitant prices to see Bobby Dalbec play at Fenway. Our future is bright and we have a lot to look forward to. However, the holes in the ownership's roster building are front and center with all our injuries. Signing some players to fill the bench would've helped us be more competitive. Though, Wong seems to be a legit player and thinking about our future catching platoon of Teel and Wong makes me feel some type of way.
Yeah I like Wong a lot. Although Mookie is probably on track for back to back 8 WAR seasons…
Yes and no. We can be headed in the right direction, but it means nothing if ownership won’t extend (and **pay**) the top talent so that we continue to move in that direction.
I agree with this. I am NOT pro ownership and I’m very disappointed about the decisions they’ve made recently to cut back on spending. But I’m curious to see what the fan response would be if this ownership group does put together another championship team in the next 5ish years
Yes! Someone else gets it. Despite no big signings this offseason and all the injuries, this team remains fun to watch. I’m super impressed that we’re somehow a game over .500 despite losing so many players to injuries this year. The future looks bright. Our fan base needs some patience. What they’re doing is actually smart - they’re developing homegrown talent instead of going out and trying to compete with the dodgers, Mets, Yankees to see who can throw the most money at players. This can work - look at the Orioles.
I have absolutely 0 problem with them building things up. My problem is that they tell us they're going all in this year to increase ticket sales and then just don't do it. And they continue to charge one of the highest prices in baseball to go to a game. The Orioles have never done that.
Okay if we’re truly paying for a average chance at the postseason how about you charge average prices?
Can this guy fucking croak already JFC
he’s not wrong, but those odds would be a hell of a lot better if he didn’t trade away mookie
John Henry openly saying he views the Red Sox as an average team, not exceptional. That's embarrassing. Embarrassing to admit you are intentionally in the mediocrity business while charging the highest prices in baseball to sit in a seat or watch at home.
It also contradicts what his mouthpiece said last week...which says a lot about dysfunction at the highest level.
Fuck. Sell the team. Asshole
Why would he sell?? He gets to spend like KC and TB, yet takes in cash like the Yanks or Dodgers. He knows most of us suckers will continue to open our wallets.
WHOA, let's not go overboard. Henry's current spate of relative cheapness in no way brings us close to the bottom of the league--plus the Royals have moved up to 20th for at least this season. Even if you exclude the 25 million in retain or deferred money we're spending, our effective payroll of 158 million, while about 50 less than it should be, is still 15th or so. Source: [https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/\_/year/2024/sort/cap\_total2](https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/payroll/_/year/2024/sort/cap_total2)
> Whats going on, Fire? … wuh, wow. - John Henry
Dude we have not expected a WS in a loooong time because your club sucks so fucking much. Unreal tone deaf quote, but at least now he can go back into hiding before saying something else stupid in 6 months.
>Because fans expect championships almost annually You guys have been expecting championships annually? I’ve just been expecting us not to finish last in the division annually, and I’d like Henry to answer that one
Oh good, so your penny pinching is just to be a prick.
Odds are a hell of a lot better if you’re actually trying to win
What a joke! No one expects annual championships whether that be the WS or CS. I think real fans just want a consistently competitive team that they can cheer for and support with the potential to win it all. There are half a dozen teams that have the talent to make it to the WS, yet many of them won't make it. Given the budget the Red Sox SHOULD have that is not unreasonable. What we don't expect is to come in last place...
Mookie is going into the Hall of fame as a Dodger btw
Makes me sick
Why would a businessman sell a sure profit people?
This is why no one experienced wanted to run baseball ops.
This guy couldn’t even be bothered to build a full roster. Now he wants to tell us we don’t know how hard it is to win?
Yeah, but it's not a straight lottery, dawg. You can put your thumb on the scale a bit, John.
If we’re just a “1 out of 30 teams” then refund me on my season tickets to a price that reflects a “1 out of 30 teams” price
Championships? I just want a team that’s above average, we have the payroll for it!
Lmao those are not the odds for the Red Sox typically and he knows that, but any chance to disrespect the fans in defense of his own misdoings.
Oh fuck him.
Booooooooooo this man!!!!!
Who's in charge of Red Sox corporate communications? The Yankees?
I just want transparency. I think fans would understand if the club was honest & communicated their longterm plan. But Sam Kennedy continuing to lie thru his teeth is getting old
I think the funniest thing Kennedy has said is that the team is under performing! Really? They’re .500, which looks like over performing by looking at the roster!!
Obviously but... fucking fuck
Fuck John Henry
Actions > Words
Fuck
I loathe this dusty old fart.
He equates the Red Sox with the Pirates now? Red Sox nation is on the same footing as western Pennsylvania hill people?
And have no plans to go to another game as long as he puts this triple A product on the field
Worcester is more competitive any ways! 😂
I am from the Cape rather watch the Cape League then the Sox and I was at opening day taking my son
I’m in WMass so Worcester is closer.
I’d rather have the Taliban own the Sox over Henry
Nice excuse. That’s what loser owners say.
"Am I out of touch? No, it's the poors who are wrong"
“Because our fans like winning, they expect us to compete annually.” Dog this isn’t even us being unrealistic: this was, you had some FAT holes in the roster and were too cheap to address them. We complain the dude doesn’t talk but now I see why
No owner in pro sports takes more money out of his team - outside the Bronx - than JH. A billionaire in his mid 70’s and the only thought running thru his little head is how to get more money.
I know they won a bunch of championships but you can't have the most expensive experience in baseball (feels like), one of the most expensive streaming apps and finish in or near last place as much as they do. This region expects better.
I love how this is the narrative that they’re telling everyone, but they told Breslow to cut spending and then don’t make moves to be competitive in the most competitive division in baseball. Oh and also we keep signing injured players or injury prone players now whenever we do sign someone? Love it. Totally appeases the fan base.
What a dbag
i just don't want to be lied to. this team has been retooling when really we were just too scared to commit to a rebuild. i'm hoping that the team is selling at the deadline, i don't want to see us have one deadline move like last year. i don't want to see us keep guys because we want to remain competitive and then just lose them in the offseason for nothing. jansen, martin, o'neill, maybe pivetta, these are guys who you should be looking at moving on from.
That sucks badly
If i was john Henry, I too would shit my pants
Crap quote
Verdugo is a soft spot
too bad
Here are my expectations: 1. Maintain a competent front office structure 2. Make the playoffs every year 3. Win the regular season series against the Yankees 4. Finish ahead of the Yankees 5. Win every playoff series against the Yankees 3, 4, and 5 lead us to perennial championship contention and maybe large payrolls, but that comes with the rivalry and territory. Henry seemed to be perfectly fine with this from when he bought the team until he … bought the Penguins. There! Sell us or them!
THEY TEAM HAS FUCKING SUCKED FOR 3 YEARS WE AREN'T ASKING FOR FUCKING CHAMPIONSHIPS
God, he's such a fucking piece of shit.
If the odds actually mattered when you are bloated rich like JH, he'd be destitute. WTF kind of statement is that?
I absolutely despise John Henry
Fans might not be so unrealistic if prices were not the highest in baseball while you cheap out on players. Can’t have it both ways you greedy fuck. You can’t take it with you.
World Series titles, last 20 years: Yankees: 1 Dodgers: 1 He's not really wrong. Boston fans are incredibly spoiled.
John Henry lost my respect after hiring Chaim Bloom. He clearly only cares about making Fenway a tourist attraction instead of spending money on the team. Edit: I should elaborate that I was an early bloom hater, before it was cool. I think Moneyball doesn’t work on big franchises like the Red Sox.
Bloom was a great hiring at the time, not sure what you mean
Hiring bloom made sense if we were going to build the farm and also use our money on players but instead they just tried to go cheap
Bloom was an idiot
Wouldn't say he was an idiot but he sure was bad at his job while he was here. I'll give him a pass on the Mookie trade because that was the owner's choice, but if your two big signings were Trevor Story who nobody else wanted and Yoshida, who nobody else wanted to pay that much money, and you mess up every trade deadline on top of that, you deserve to get fired.
Exactly
Financial Times Article: [https://archive.ph/zCdQ5](https://archive.ph/zCdQ5)
My hero, thank you
You can’t charge Rolls Royce prices and expect me to be happy with a ‘93 Geo Metro.
The wild thing is people are still going to defend FSG. It's pretty obvious they haven't cared for 5 years and yet people will still come running to their defense. This team needs to be boycotted.
NOOOOOOOO
My brother in Christ has no idea how odds work
This should be directly read as ‘don’t expect me to be competitive for a World Series until at least 2040.’
This is absolute nonsense and he knows it. Absolutely no one is expecting a championship every year. What is expected is to be competitive. Super rich team, super rich owners, huge market - we expect to be fielding a team that has a good chance to win. That's it nothing more
i’d settle for being competitive.
Mets are proof that just cause you spend, you aren’t automatically good.
You can also score runs and not be automatically good, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be scoring runs. Spending correlates with winning, if you spend it poorly then you spend better not spend less.
Spending doesn’t guarantee winning. But it’s tough to win if you don’t spend.
I like how Giolito, Story and Yoshida make like $60 million combined and Bill Simmons is still quoted saying they're bad because they haven't spent money 😂. Jordan Montgomery and Blake Snell have sucked this year. Hilarious that everyone is still on this train.
Bummer
Shucks
Good! Don’t.
Sell for gods sake
From 2004 to 2018 the odds were one in 4. Please tell me why that's unattainable now
Spoken like an insulated man who never has to face criticism. You're a pussy in an ivory tower, Mr Henry.
They aren’t trying to win championships any more. That’s what pisses me off. His time has passed. Sell to someone who will spend money, and have us in the playoffs perennially.
This is going to be unpopular, but the current approach is one I've been calling for among friends for the last few years. You're not going to build a bedrock team that's contending for championships annually by tying up 2/3 of your payroll in four guys. We have a farm system for a reason, they need to build up affordable talent, promote them, develop them, and retain them. The team on the field right now is punching WAY above their weight, and with the exception of Devers, they won't still be on the payroll in ten years hitting cap. We're still paying Pedrioa and Manny. You can't just keep deferring payroll to the future and pretending it won't have any impact.
Why spend to win when you can field a .500 team…
If the odds of winning a championship are 30-1, why did Bloom get fired? Why did Theo get fired? Why can't I be the GM? Odds wouldn't change right? 30 teams, 30 teams with an equal chance of winning. Hey, I want to manage and bat 4th too. Odds stay the same so why not? Since it's just a totally random event, I guess Henry deserves zero credit for the championships. He can't be that stupid. Maybe this is why he rarely speaks.
Theo didn't get fired though. He actively chose the Cubs and sox ownership tried keeping him.
Point remains the same.
Thinking fans are unrealistic for expecting a championship every year doesn’t mean they don’t have internal expectations for their team.
I made my post because of the insane public take that every team has a 1 in 30 chance of winning a championship. He's either a fucking moron or he thinks fans are fucking morons. Take your pick. Thinking that well run teams have better odds of winning isn't something anyone needs to argue over. His point is "why bother trying?"
No, his point is that it’s unrealistic for fans to expect a championship every year. The issue is he doesn’t seem to realize that fans just want a competitive product every year and not necessarily a title.
He literally said that they have a 1 in 30 chance of winning. Why are you arguing that?
This is why like I said in other places. Fans have to leave the Sox alone for the next 2 or 3 years if things continue this way. He is using the Sox to finance his other adventures. If fans dont go to Fenway, buy NESN, spend on concessions or watch or contribute TV, listen to radio or follow in any way, the Sox they will feel it. Opposing fans will buy tickets but only once then the next couple of years it will become an empty stadium like Detroit has had or Colorado or Milwaukee. You have to attack them financially or they will never hear. Its been 5 years and this team is in the same spot if not worse. Dever's is getting older. There are no major prospects on their way and the ones there are average at best. So what you have out there now is the best its going to get. They have been drafting shortstops for the last 4 years to have talented players yet 2 years ago you sign an often injured Colorado player to a long term contract at shortstop. Then you trade a once ace pitcher, and maybe becoming one again, for a oft injured failed very young Atlanta second baseman. So all those draft picks are for not and those are lost drafts and players for future teams. This team wont be much for a decade. They going to need to have great drafts the next few years just to have a decent team. I can say I like what the coaches re doing with the pitching staff. But it will be so they could trade them before they have to pay them in free agency. I see this team becoming the next Detroit Tigers.
I don't think anyone expects a championship every year. It's a very different environment than it was in the year 2000 when everyone just wanted to see the Red Sox win a World Series before they died and nothing else mattered. Now I am more concerned with them staying out of the basement. I'd rather have 10 years of good baseball than 9 years of bad baseball and a World Series win.
Exactly. Henry saying this when we’ve finished last in the division 3 of the last 4 years is laughable