Give me Casas and Abreu back, Grissom finding his swing, and one prospect at the end of this year and Iāll have enjoyed watching this mid baseball team
I agree, and with Houckās evolution, if they actually added another starter like everyone wanted and another righty bat, like Teoscar, hell, weād actually be hunting a playoff berth all year
Plantation owner?
I despise Henry and all of FSG as much as anyone. He should sell this team because he's become a total piece of shit.
But paying athletes to play a kids game doesn't make him a "plantation owner"
John Fisher didn't do anything to the A's. Oakland is a bad sports town and has had the worst attendance for decades, even when the team is really good.
I'm so tired of people making excuses for Oakland and taking away all the blame. All 3 teams have left Oakland in the last few years. Can we please admit that sometimes team owners are greedy shit heads that steal teams away from good fans (Sonics leaving Seattle). And sometimes a town has bad fans and the owner is right to leave (A's leaving Oakland)
I mean both can be true. Fisher is a greedy moron, as shown pretty clearly by the absolute Shipshewana (autocorrect what the fuck) of his handling of this move.
I haven't followed the details of how he's handling the move, so you might be right on that. But it's impossible to argue that he's wrong to move to the team. The city of Oakland just doesn't give a shit about the team. You can't be last in attendance and local TV ratings even when the team is winning 97 games back to back seasons.
When you play home games at the Oakland Colosseum you can absolutely be last in attendance when winning 97 games back to back seasonsā¦ Youāre spot on about the TV ratings though
Yeah, the stadium is terrible but the TV ratings tell me that this is just an excuse and not the reason their attendance is so bad.
Like the rays also have bad attendance with a good team, but their local TV ratings are pretty solid which tells me fan do support the team. It really is just a shitty stadium problem.
I still blame Fisher and The Aās for the move though. It seems the city was in favor of a new ballpark deal and voted accordingly. But the deal fell through after the Aās missed deadlines.
Thereās something to be said about Oakland when they lost the Warriors, Raiders, and Aās in a (I think) 7 year span though.
By the time they voted on that, Fisher had 2 decades of evidence that Oakland wonāt support a team. I donāt blame him at all for sabotaging that and getting out of town.
Then why would he bother proposing multiple stadium sites, entering into an agreement on one, etc? I hear what youāre saying, but it doesnāt make sense.
Itās also the Aās so doing things ass backwards is par for the course for them
My father made a great point. If before this season you couldāve gotten the Dodgers or Braves at 30/1 you should have been jumping all over that shit.
Thereās a reason thats not how odds worksā¦
This is the thing that irks me the most with Henryās comments. 1/20 or 1/30 (+1900 if Iām understanding right)are actually really good odds. Looking at the current betting lines, that puts you around the 7-8th favorite to win the series.
In reality, our odds are probably north of 1/100.
I can live with 1/20 odds. That makes you a contender. We absolutely are not contenders. We are mid.
John Henry made his money trading commodities so he should understand odds better than the average person. Henry just needs to hire a better PR person because some of the shit he says is just bizarre.
John Henry thinks probability works like I thought it did did in high school math class - something is either going to happen or it wonāt so 50/50 odds. 30 teams in the league? Sounds like Sox have a 1 in 30 chance to win.
The sad part is that John Henry doesnāt actually believe that, he just thinks us Sox fans are stupid enough to buy his bullshit.
God this FO pisses me off. For years now there's been schisms with them and the players. Under Chaim I feel like we regularly heard stuff like "were playing as well as we can, why dont we get reinforcements come the all star break, it's kinda discouraging" which would seemingly break the camels back in the latter half of the season. Now we're seeing this with our owner apparently disparaging the team and the fans at the same time which now *players* are responding to. It's one thing when fans shit on the ownership - that will nearly always happen. But to lose the faith of the players and folks in the org whew boy.
Because they are trying to coast off of those WS. They care much more about their other investments and know that this one is going to churn out money anyways.
Yeah his comments like that were the last straw for me. Itās clear any former wish to win has been replaced with how much money can he make before he dies.
As the billionaire owner of one of the highest valued teams in sports, it would be really easy not to become the villain. Invest in the team. Project a desire to win. Allow your front office to make the team better.
Er this mentality is almost a 180 degree change from when he was a "hero."
Nobody forced him to buy Liverpool, Pittsburgh, and invest in the PGA. He made this choice now he's whining that his complete reversal is not loved by the actual people who create revenue.
The Red Sox should have a 1 in 10 chance. While the Marlins have a 1 in 100 chance until they get a chance and go for it then they're chances because 1 in 5 or 1 in 3
I have a $1,000 bet to win $150,000 if the sox win the world series. Sir, you arenāt even close to 30:1 odds with the bullshit you put on the field right now because youāre a cheap pos pocketing more fanās money than any team in the league
Youāre not gonna believe me but I pulled up the odds a few weeks ago and plugged in $1,000 to see the payout (yes end of day my brain was fried and I wasnāt going to math the zeroes myself). My wife started talking to me so I put my phone down. When I picked it up I submitted the bet accidentally
You do you man, youād be better off taking that $940 back or whatever it is now and buying all scratch tickets than betting on the Sox to win the World Series
Please take the bet back
Edit: since you mentioned āsuicidalā - if $1k doesnāt matter to you, let the bet play. If $1k matters in your month-to-month, definitely cancel it. If $1k makes a big difference in your month-to-month, having that money available is far more valuable than not, REGARDLESS, of if the bet were to pay out (highly, highly, highly unlikely)
Well I usually put $500 on them to win and didnāt this year because of how pessimistic I was for the season. Thereās always a chance! And I would honestly say a better chance than 1/150 so I do think I gotta keep it š¤·š»āāļø
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy
Next time, please give your cash to me, give to charity, or burn it in your backyard instead of donating it to Fanduel/DK.
Cotillo is a moron. Heās saying the odds in the Premier League are 1/20 and the odds for MLB are 1/30.
Point remains and is valid but careless on his part.
They aren't 1in 20 in the EPL. In 32 seasons, only 7 teams have won the EPL. And, three of those teams won it once. So, 4 teams have won 29 of the EPL titles. It's more 1 in 4 for five teams and gtfo of here to the rest.
I mean look Henry is the villain here but the point of playing is because youāre a professional baseball player being compensated to play baseball.
My second little league team sucked and everyone knew we would lot win much but man did we show up every game and play anyway.
We expect them to go out and play 162 competitive games. They expect the same. Ownership doesnāt give a fuck about the game, about the guys out there who have dedicated their lives to this. John Henry has finance brain and FSG sees the Red Sox as a financial instrument. Something to borrow against. Itās just business, and while thatās not inherently a bad thing, it sucks to know you care more than the people in charge.
Letās look at other owners in town: Wyc Grousebeck fucking loves the Celtics, when he put his investor group together he said, āThis is going to be about winning, not turning a profitā¦ youāll be paid in championships and parades.ā Great attitude, and a sound strategy: if you win, business is great. Bob Kraftās only real āflawā over nearly 40 years of Patriots ownership is that he develops personal attachments to the players, he literally cares too much. And we never even talk about Jeremy Jacobs, because he has owned the Bruins for 50 years and has given no one a reason to doubt his priorities.
Anyway. Fuck John Henry
They're compensated to show up and play the games, yes. But an implied part of the job description is not just to play, but to compete, to try to win games, and win championships. If your owner has the mentality that winning doesn't matter, why do anything besides just show up? As a fan, what's compelling about that? If I want to watch baseball where the outcome doesn't matter, I'll go watch banana ball...
yes there's a 1 in 30 chance you win the WS, yes the red Sox look like they are going to be .500, yes, the red sox shouldn't be loading up for the world series. you still don't say the quiet part out loud, every team, every coach should be playing their guys like they have a chance to win the world series.
it's just such a bad look even if he's technically correct.
Except he isnāt technically correct. There being 30 options to win the Series does not mean those options are weighted equally. If sports were a random number generator nobody would give a shit.
When this FO thought they had a legit chance to win, theyāve invested aggressively. There is no rational person who looks at this roster and thinks theyāre title competitive. Trade anyone over 28, try to acquire a core LT piece or two and see who you can trade for or buy in the offseason.
The dumbest part is CLEARLY with 1 or 2 other names they ARE in it because the league is trash like them and that is immediately better than 1 in 30 chance.
If you know you are a playoff team, teams are eliminated. The playoffs isn't a 30 team bracket
I get Henry doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, but am I the only one that realizes he just meant only one team can win the WS every year? He didn't actually mean the odds of winning are 1-30.
Iām not a Henry glazer, but I agree with a lot of what he and the FO says. Itās easy to just say go out and spend money in free agency, but what pieces would have fans liked to see them sign? Montgomery? Snell? Spending in free agency also ties up money for years unless you take a flyer on a 1 or 2 year prove-it deal. Itās easy to say āspend more moneyā but Iām genuinely curious how fans would have liked that money utilized better with specific examples
Itās one thing to not spend because you think itās better for the teamās long-term competitive success. Itās an entirely different thing to not spend because āitās a crapshoot anyway lol so why bother trying?ā
Suppose we heard this from Henry instead: āWe believe that the players we have coming up through the system are our ticket to the highest level of long-term success on the field, and we feel over-investment in the big league club at this moment could jeopardize that future. We get why everybody is frustrated right now, but winning multiple World Series is and has always been the goal. We are just asking for your patience as we put the pieces together.ā I might disagree with their approach but I could at least begin to trust that they have the teamās best interests at heart.
But we have increasingly heard the opposite. Nothing Henry has said or done since 2018 gives me any confidence that he gives a shit, and thatās the problem.
Very well said, Iām just not too far on either side of the argument. I think both ownership being cheap fucks and fans being unrealistic are both true to an extent, I donāt think itās one or the other. Outside of making a real offer for Yamamoto, Iām not really seeing any specific whiffs that would have turned this offseasonās roster into Postseason contenders
They are two losses out of the playoffs now. There have to have been moves that could have helped them win one more game a month.
It is not my job to scout the league and find those players for posters on Reddit. It is the FOs job to do that for real. If they don't want to be tied to a long term deal, overpay on a short term one.
Imanaga. Nola. Yamamoto.
Josh Bell and Bellinger could have helped. Hell, JD Martinez could have helped, or Turner.
They committed to this cheap young team, and now with a few injuries, weāre trotting out triple A heroes out to Fenway every night and have a losing home record as a result. Ownership is insane with how they think this roster should be performing.
Putting a competitive bid in for Yamamoto would have been neato, but Nola didnāt reach free agency. Imanaga would have been nice in hindsight, but definitely a gamble at the time. The other players mentioned wouldnāt really fit on the roster short of playing Masa in the outfield or platooning Casas. This is what Iām talking about, Iām just not seeing these glaring misses in free agency that everyoneās crying about. What I would have liked to see is a real push for a couple trades, which we have no idea how those negotiations went
He was never coming to Boston. He wants to be in the best spot to win and the dodgers have been World Series contenders like every year for like the last decade
Okay, so a couple points: the FO could have made offers and not worried because he never would have signed, and we all wouldāve been happy they tried to get a once in a lifetime talent.
The Dodgers pretty much have the Red Sox roster from 2018. This whole narrative is that they had the team then and let it disintegrate because ownership.
Thing is, he knows this business better than anyone else who has posted here including me. And his odds are right.
Whatās the point of playing? Youāre fucking getting paid. Who is this piece of crap player?
God why does everything have to be so dumb. There are 30 teams. What does everyone think the odds are?? jfc John Henry just lays out the literal math based on the size of the league and people still find a way to get upset.
I am well aware of baseballs parity, but if you think the As come into a season with a 1/30 chance to win the WS then I donāt know where to start this type of a conversation. Again, roster talent has a significant impact on your chances. Fenway makes money as long as a team goes out on the field, so I donāt buy Henryās sentiment that Cotillo is megaphoning.
Nobody is arguing about his ability to make money, thatās the frustrating part of this whole thing. Iām not claiming I know odds better than him and his team of statisticians, Iām saying heās greedy like Scrooge McDuck.
Problem here is that using this language almost makes the fact that Boston winning 4 championships in 15 years is almost *luck*. And while there of course is an element to that (2013) the fact of the matter is that the Red Sox definitely won 3 of those championships based on major investments into the team which increase those odds.
When Henry says this type of stuff itās almost like him saying āeh, itās really hard to win one so whether we add a little extra money or not it wonāt make that big a differenceā and thatās what the takeaway has become because of everything heās shown us these past few years.
If Henry made this comment after winning the World Series, no one would bat an eye, but itās the density of his mindset on the franchise as a whole that makes everything become something.
Lol only like 6-8 or so teams have a real shot any given year and with our resources we should be in that range every few years. Iām not upset as most people cause thereās too many holes on this roster that free agency wouldnāt fix and Iād rather fill out our roster out more with top prospects before we push for big signings.
12 teams make the playoffs. The dbacks won 84 games last year, snuck into the playoffs and made the WS.
There are like 3 teams that you can for sure count out, everyone else has a shot.
You're missing the "and people" part of the equation you just laid out. The Dodgers have a better chance of winning the World Series each year compared to the A's because they field a team that's expected to win more games.
Obviously it's not just a dice roll but even good teams don't have significantly better odds than 1/20. You might get a few that can get to 1/10 but even that I don't really buy all that much.
Weekly reminder that John Henry is a cheap bastard.
Daily reminder that the only talent worth watching in town is playing in the Garden
It's gonna suck when the Celtics season is over, a summer with only red sox baseball could be rough
We managed last year! š Casas and Abreu coming back will make us a smidge happier, hopefully š¤²
Give me Casas and Abreu back, Grissom finding his swing, and one prospect at the end of this year and Iāll have enjoyed watching this mid baseball team
I agree, and with Houckās evolution, if they actually added another starter like everyone wanted and another righty bat, like Teoscar, hell, weād actually be hunting a playoff berth all year
Happy Cake Day (only nice thing other than Celtics winning).
Was about to say thatās not fair to the bruins and then I realized Iām an idiot
Iāll watch Drake Maye, and BU/BC hockey are both great too! Itās just this cheap bastard that drags it down. Many options here
No one becomes a billionaire spending their own money
The plantation owners are gettinā bold after seeing what the league let John Fisher do to the Aās
Plantation owner? I despise Henry and all of FSG as much as anyone. He should sell this team because he's become a total piece of shit. But paying athletes to play a kids game doesn't make him a "plantation owner"
The more apt analogy is wealthy Roman Patricians buying and selling gladiators
I hope the Roman Patricians were better coordinators than that fucker with the pencil
Those terms are acceptable
John Fisher didn't do anything to the A's. Oakland is a bad sports town and has had the worst attendance for decades, even when the team is really good. I'm so tired of people making excuses for Oakland and taking away all the blame. All 3 teams have left Oakland in the last few years. Can we please admit that sometimes team owners are greedy shit heads that steal teams away from good fans (Sonics leaving Seattle). And sometimes a town has bad fans and the owner is right to leave (A's leaving Oakland)
I mean both can be true. Fisher is a greedy moron, as shown pretty clearly by the absolute Shipshewana (autocorrect what the fuck) of his handling of this move.
I haven't followed the details of how he's handling the move, so you might be right on that. But it's impossible to argue that he's wrong to move to the team. The city of Oakland just doesn't give a shit about the team. You can't be last in attendance and local TV ratings even when the team is winning 97 games back to back seasons.
When you play home games at the Oakland Colosseum you can absolutely be last in attendance when winning 97 games back to back seasonsā¦ Youāre spot on about the TV ratings though
Yeah, the stadium is terrible but the TV ratings tell me that this is just an excuse and not the reason their attendance is so bad. Like the rays also have bad attendance with a good team, but their local TV ratings are pretty solid which tells me fan do support the team. It really is just a shitty stadium problem.
I still blame Fisher and The Aās for the move though. It seems the city was in favor of a new ballpark deal and voted accordingly. But the deal fell through after the Aās missed deadlines. Thereās something to be said about Oakland when they lost the Warriors, Raiders, and Aās in a (I think) 7 year span though.
By the time they voted on that, Fisher had 2 decades of evidence that Oakland wonāt support a team. I donāt blame him at all for sabotaging that and getting out of town.
Then why would he bother proposing multiple stadium sites, entering into an agreement on one, etc? I hear what youāre saying, but it doesnāt make sense. Itās also the Aās so doing things ass backwards is par for the course for them
My father made a great point. If before this season you couldāve gotten the Dodgers or Braves at 30/1 you should have been jumping all over that shit. Thereās a reason thats not how odds worksā¦
This is the thing that irks me the most with Henryās comments. 1/20 or 1/30 (+1900 if Iām understanding right)are actually really good odds. Looking at the current betting lines, that puts you around the 7-8th favorite to win the series. In reality, our odds are probably north of 1/100. I can live with 1/20 odds. That makes you a contender. We absolutely are not contenders. We are mid.
Iām seeing +12500 on my book lmao
Time to hop on the Caesers app! Iām gonna be rich!!!
20/1 or 30/1 if you use the UK numbering style. 1/20 would be 'odds on', ie very likely. If you put Ā£20 on, you'd get Ā£1 back (plus your stake).
We're not in the UK so what the hell is the point of this comment
Just for interest.
John Henry made his money trading commodities so he should understand odds better than the average person. Henry just needs to hire a better PR person because some of the shit he says is just bizarre.
He made his money using other people's money, in other words.
John Henry thinks probability works like I thought it did did in high school math class - something is either going to happen or it wonāt so 50/50 odds. 30 teams in the league? Sounds like Sox have a 1 in 30 chance to win. The sad part is that John Henry doesnāt actually believe that, he just thinks us Sox fans are stupid enough to buy his bullshit.
God this FO pisses me off. For years now there's been schisms with them and the players. Under Chaim I feel like we regularly heard stuff like "were playing as well as we can, why dont we get reinforcements come the all star break, it's kinda discouraging" which would seemingly break the camels back in the latter half of the season. Now we're seeing this with our owner apparently disparaging the team and the fans at the same time which now *players* are responding to. It's one thing when fans shit on the ownership - that will nearly always happen. But to lose the faith of the players and folks in the org whew boy.
Genius, it's such a sbitty roster that it's easy to swap out dissenters for supplicanrs.
How is this the same FO that won us 4 WS?
Because they are trying to coast off of those WS. They care much more about their other investments and know that this one is going to churn out money anyways.
Great point. I'd love to know what caused JWH to flip the bit in 2019.
He was already increasingly disinterested over the decade prior, if not longer. Remember how shocked he was when Theo left in a gorilla suit?
Yeah his comments like that were the last straw for me. Itās clear any former wish to win has been replaced with how much money can he make before he dies.
Wyc is the best owner in Boston. John Henry/FSG is the king of suck balls mountain
Which is really damning considering the Jacobs exist
If you can't win, don't play.
I think this qualifies as a "you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" situation.
As the billionaire owner of one of the highest valued teams in sports, it would be really easy not to become the villain. Invest in the team. Project a desire to win. Allow your front office to make the team better.
Er this mentality is almost a 180 degree change from when he was a "hero." Nobody forced him to buy Liverpool, Pittsburgh, and invest in the PGA. He made this choice now he's whining that his complete reversal is not loved by the actual people who create revenue.
The Red Sox should have a 1 in 10 chance. While the Marlins have a 1 in 100 chance until they get a chance and go for it then they're chances because 1 in 5 or 1 in 3
Fuck John Henry.
This dude is such a tool
I have a $1,000 bet to win $150,000 if the sox win the world series. Sir, you arenāt even close to 30:1 odds with the bullshit you put on the field right now because youāre a cheap pos pocketing more fanās money than any team in the league
Why would you waste $1000 lolol
Youāre not gonna believe me but I pulled up the odds a few weeks ago and plugged in $1,000 to see the payout (yes end of day my brain was fried and I wasnāt going to math the zeroes myself). My wife started talking to me so I put my phone down. When I picked it up I submitted the bet accidentally
So you can still cancel it and get most of it back instead of losing it all
I donāt cash out bets. Iād be like suicidal if I did that and they somehow pulled off a miracle
You do you man, youād be better off taking that $940 back or whatever it is now and buying all scratch tickets than betting on the Sox to win the World Series
It's actually the full $1,000 I could get back... odds have gone down to +10000 instead of +15000 so they'd just let me cancel my bet essentially
Please take the bet back Edit: since you mentioned āsuicidalā - if $1k doesnāt matter to you, let the bet play. If $1k matters in your month-to-month, definitely cancel it. If $1k makes a big difference in your month-to-month, having that money available is far more valuable than not, REGARDLESS, of if the bet were to pay out (highly, highly, highly unlikely)
Well I usually put $500 on them to win and didnāt this year because of how pessimistic I was for the season. Thereās always a chance! And I would honestly say a better chance than 1/150 so I do think I gotta keep it š¤·š»āāļø
https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/the-sunk-cost-fallacy Next time, please give your cash to me, give to charity, or burn it in your backyard instead of donating it to Fanduel/DK.
should of donated it
Technically still did to just the shareholders
Thank you for thinking of them. No one ever does
Cotillo is a moron. Heās saying the odds in the Premier League are 1/20 and the odds for MLB are 1/30. Point remains and is valid but careless on his part.
They aren't 1in 20 in the EPL. In 32 seasons, only 7 teams have won the EPL. And, three of those teams won it once. So, 4 teams have won 29 of the EPL titles. It's more 1 in 4 for five teams and gtfo of here to the rest.
I mean look Henry is the villain here but the point of playing is because youāre a professional baseball player being compensated to play baseball. My second little league team sucked and everyone knew we would lot win much but man did we show up every game and play anyway.
We expect them to go out and play 162 competitive games. They expect the same. Ownership doesnāt give a fuck about the game, about the guys out there who have dedicated their lives to this. John Henry has finance brain and FSG sees the Red Sox as a financial instrument. Something to borrow against. Itās just business, and while thatās not inherently a bad thing, it sucks to know you care more than the people in charge. Letās look at other owners in town: Wyc Grousebeck fucking loves the Celtics, when he put his investor group together he said, āThis is going to be about winning, not turning a profitā¦ youāll be paid in championships and parades.ā Great attitude, and a sound strategy: if you win, business is great. Bob Kraftās only real āflawā over nearly 40 years of Patriots ownership is that he develops personal attachments to the players, he literally cares too much. And we never even talk about Jeremy Jacobs, because he has owned the Bruins for 50 years and has given no one a reason to doubt his priorities. Anyway. Fuck John Henry
They're compensated to show up and play the games, yes. But an implied part of the job description is not just to play, but to compete, to try to win games, and win championships. If your owner has the mentality that winning doesn't matter, why do anything besides just show up? As a fan, what's compelling about that? If I want to watch baseball where the outcome doesn't matter, I'll go watch banana ball...
Social contract theory--you sign with the team in expectation that the team will reciprocate your trust and effort.
yes there's a 1 in 30 chance you win the WS, yes the red Sox look like they are going to be .500, yes, the red sox shouldn't be loading up for the world series. you still don't say the quiet part out loud, every team, every coach should be playing their guys like they have a chance to win the world series. it's just such a bad look even if he's technically correct.
Except he isnāt technically correct. There being 30 options to win the Series does not mean those options are weighted equally. If sports were a random number generator nobody would give a shit.
In Henry's thinking, the White Sox are just as likely to win the World Series as the Dodgers, which is obviously correct.
When this FO thought they had a legit chance to win, theyāve invested aggressively. There is no rational person who looks at this roster and thinks theyāre title competitive. Trade anyone over 28, try to acquire a core LT piece or two and see who you can trade for or buy in the offseason.
He needs to sell the team if he has lost his commitment to winning. It appears he has.
Fun with statistics.
Who thinks FSG's formula is working.....? I'll wait....
Meanwhile in Phillyā¦..DD is all smiles.
F*ck John Henry.
The dumbest part is CLEARLY with 1 or 2 other names they ARE in it because the league is trash like them and that is immediately better than 1 in 30 chance. If you know you are a playoff team, teams are eliminated. The playoffs isn't a 30 team bracket
Well, it's not like they are the Yankees or anything.
Yet pink hatters still flock to Fenway to watch this trash can team.
BOYCOTT!
boycott the sox!! don't buy shit don't go to games. all Henry cares about is money! fuck him!! boycott!! hit where it hurts!!
I get Henry doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, but am I the only one that realizes he just meant only one team can win the WS every year? He didn't actually mean the odds of winning are 1-30.
Hopefully Devers demands a trade soon. Deserves better than this.
Iām not a Henry glazer, but I agree with a lot of what he and the FO says. Itās easy to just say go out and spend money in free agency, but what pieces would have fans liked to see them sign? Montgomery? Snell? Spending in free agency also ties up money for years unless you take a flyer on a 1 or 2 year prove-it deal. Itās easy to say āspend more moneyā but Iām genuinely curious how fans would have liked that money utilized better with specific examples
Itās one thing to not spend because you think itās better for the teamās long-term competitive success. Itās an entirely different thing to not spend because āitās a crapshoot anyway lol so why bother trying?ā Suppose we heard this from Henry instead: āWe believe that the players we have coming up through the system are our ticket to the highest level of long-term success on the field, and we feel over-investment in the big league club at this moment could jeopardize that future. We get why everybody is frustrated right now, but winning multiple World Series is and has always been the goal. We are just asking for your patience as we put the pieces together.ā I might disagree with their approach but I could at least begin to trust that they have the teamās best interests at heart. But we have increasingly heard the opposite. Nothing Henry has said or done since 2018 gives me any confidence that he gives a shit, and thatās the problem.
Well said.
Very well said, Iām just not too far on either side of the argument. I think both ownership being cheap fucks and fans being unrealistic are both true to an extent, I donāt think itās one or the other. Outside of making a real offer for Yamamoto, Iām not really seeing any specific whiffs that would have turned this offseasonās roster into Postseason contenders
They are two losses out of the playoffs now. There have to have been moves that could have helped them win one more game a month. It is not my job to scout the league and find those players for posters on Reddit. It is the FOs job to do that for real. If they don't want to be tied to a long term deal, overpay on a short term one.
Imanaga. Nola. Yamamoto. Josh Bell and Bellinger could have helped. Hell, JD Martinez could have helped, or Turner. They committed to this cheap young team, and now with a few injuries, weāre trotting out triple A heroes out to Fenway every night and have a losing home record as a result. Ownership is insane with how they think this roster should be performing.
Putting a competitive bid in for Yamamoto would have been neato, but Nola didnāt reach free agency. Imanaga would have been nice in hindsight, but definitely a gamble at the time. The other players mentioned wouldnāt really fit on the roster short of playing Masa in the outfield or platooning Casas. This is what Iām talking about, Iām just not seeing these glaring misses in free agency that everyoneās crying about. What I would have liked to see is a real push for a couple trades, which we have no idea how those negotiations went
Nola did reach free agency, but the Phillies offered him a big contract very quickly and he signed without really considering any other teams
Ohtani.
He was never coming to Boston. He wants to be in the best spot to win and the dodgers have been World Series contenders like every year for like the last decade
Okay, so a couple points: the FO could have made offers and not worried because he never would have signed, and we all wouldāve been happy they tried to get a once in a lifetime talent. The Dodgers pretty much have the Red Sox roster from 2018. This whole narrative is that they had the team then and let it disintegrate because ownership.
Who they got other than Betts and a shitty kike lol who Iām not sure was even on that 2018 team
A substantial amount of players went there. Theyāre like the west coast Red Sox.
Who?
JD Martinez, David Price, Ryan Brasier, Joe Kelly, James Paxton
Paxton wasnāt on that 2018 team and all those guys are mediocre at best and hella overpaid. Betts is the only player youād want back
Also JD Martinez is on the Mets and David Price is no longer in the Dodgers org. This guy's brains are smooth lol
Look, the point I made stands. You look at nearly 20% of the active roster being on the west coast. Betts was worth the money.
yamamoto
Thing is, he knows this business better than anyone else who has posted here including me. And his odds are right. Whatās the point of playing? Youāre fucking getting paid. Who is this piece of crap player?
God why does everything have to be so dumb. There are 30 teams. What does everyone think the odds are?? jfc John Henry just lays out the literal math based on the size of the league and people still find a way to get upset.
Roster talent is a significant variable in the equation of odds.
Even the best teams on paper entering a season won't have a much better than 1/10 chance. There is way more parity in baseball than fans realize.
I am well aware of baseballs parity, but if you think the As come into a season with a 1/30 chance to win the WS then I donāt know where to start this type of a conversation. Again, roster talent has a significant impact on your chances. Fenway makes money as long as a team goes out on the field, so I donāt buy Henryās sentiment that Cotillo is megaphoning.
John Henry made a billion dollars trading commodity futures but he clearly doesn't understand odds as well as you do I guess.
Nobody is arguing about his ability to make money, thatās the frustrating part of this whole thing. Iām not claiming I know odds better than him and his team of statisticians, Iām saying heās greedy like Scrooge McDuck.
Problem here is that using this language almost makes the fact that Boston winning 4 championships in 15 years is almost *luck*. And while there of course is an element to that (2013) the fact of the matter is that the Red Sox definitely won 3 of those championships based on major investments into the team which increase those odds. When Henry says this type of stuff itās almost like him saying āeh, itās really hard to win one so whether we add a little extra money or not it wonāt make that big a differenceā and thatās what the takeaway has become because of everything heās shown us these past few years. If Henry made this comment after winning the World Series, no one would bat an eye, but itās the density of his mindset on the franchise as a whole that makes everything become something.
His comments about ābaseball players are expensiveā comes flashing back.
Lol only like 6-8 or so teams have a real shot any given year and with our resources we should be in that range every few years. Iām not upset as most people cause thereās too many holes on this roster that free agency wouldnāt fix and Iād rather fill out our roster out more with top prospects before we push for big signings.
12 teams make the playoffs. The dbacks won 84 games last year, snuck into the playoffs and made the WS. There are like 3 teams that you can for sure count out, everyone else has a shot.
I think you need to look into what statistically significant implies.
You're missing the "and people" part of the equation you just laid out. The Dodgers have a better chance of winning the World Series each year compared to the A's because they field a team that's expected to win more games.
Obviously it's not just a dice roll but even good teams don't have significantly better odds than 1/20. You might get a few that can get to 1/10 but even that I don't really buy all that much.