A Trade, An Extension, And Spring Training Starts!

When I started this newsletter I wasn’t sure there would be a 2021 let alone a 2021 baseball season, but here we are, in actual 2021. We’ve made it that far and even better, today, Thursday, is the start of Red Sox spring training! I want to jump up and down but I’m afraid I’ll break my backpack and drop my lollipop. Also, I’ll probably hurt my knees because I’m old. Some people poo-poo the start of spring training, but for me, pitchers and catchers reporting is a holy day. The baseball season isn’t “coming,” it’s not some gleam in Xander Bogaert’s eye, it’s here, dammit, right here. In the words of Van Halen, right now!

This spring has the added strangeness of COVID, as does every aspect of life right now, so I’m not sure how things will work from a media perspective. Will we get grainy photos of players stretching on Twitter? Will we get cell phone videos of players answering mundane questions with phrases like, “I’m taking it one day at a time,” and “I’m excited to get going”? I can only hope! But I can promise you that I’ll be following along as closely as I can and reporting back to you from the relative safety of my living room. I say “relative safety” because without warning, our kittens occasionally leap over the couch and collide with whatever is on the other side which is occasionally me. But the point is, here at Sox Outsider, I’m willing to brave anything up to and including potential kitten-related injury to get you the Red Sox news and opinions you’ve signed up for.

I appreciate you reading. Thank you. Sincerely.

Tatis Signs

In other baseball news, the San Diego Padres signed all-everything shortstop Fernando Tatis, Jr. to a 14 year, $340 million contract. It’s the third largest contract in terms of total value ever given out in Major League Baseball, only behind Mike Trout and Mookie Betts. Uh oh…

Matthew Kory @mattymatty2000

[desperately trying to not make this about Mookie Betts]

It’s great Tatis is getting paid, and it’s great he’s getting paid by the Padres, who aren’t a big market team known for holding on to their stars. [takes deep breath] The Tatis deal is its own thing, as all big money contracts are, but man, it’s hard not to think about how this is exactly what the Red Sox should’ve done with Mookie Betts when they had the chance.

Tatis has played two seasons with the Padres, but really it has been far less than that because in 2019 he missed all of May, September, and October, and half of August with various injuries. He played 59 out of the 60 games in 2020 but that was a 60 game season. All told Tatis has played 143 major league games in his career. Not even one full season’s worth! Yet the Padres saw enough to know they wanted him around for the next 14 years and were willing to guarantee him $340 million for the privilege.

If the Red Sox had offered something that long to Betts on the same timetable, it would have come after Betts’ second season, before the 2016 season. At that point he had played 197 major league games. With the benefit of hindsight we know that would have been a good idea, but would it have been a good idea at the time?

Duh. Yes. The better question is would Mookie have signed such an offer? With Mookie’s strong desire to test the free agent market, a desire that he held to when ever the Red Sox approached him about a contract extension and one he maintained even after his trade to L.A. and was only altered by a worldwide pandemic, there seems to have been only two specific times when Boston might have been able to get his signature on a long term deal. The second was if a worldwide pandemic hit, an opportunity the team could have used (like the Dodgers did) if it hadn’t dealt him away a month prior, but the first was probably right at that time, just before the 2016 season.

Of course it takes two to agree, but it’s just silly to say that Betts was going to leave regardless. It’s true he did want to test the market, and planned on doing so (there was nothing stopping Boston from making the best offer in free agency), but everyone has their price. Making an offer to Betts that would have made him, still two years short of his first arbitration year, one of the highest paid players in baseball would be extremely difficult to turn down. Would Betts have signed a 14 year deal for $340 million back in 2016? Who knows. Maybe not. But it’s sure not out of the question, and, this has been my contention from the beginning, the Red Sox erred criminally by not offering it.

This and maybe every contract extension signed by a young star player from here to kingdom come brings to mind how the Red Sox had a preeminent player, lucked into him really, and let him slip through their fingers. They could’ve paid Betts, but instead they’ll be paying for their failure for far longer.

Red Sox Make Trade

The Red Sox made a trade yesterday with the Rays. They sent recently DFA’d relievers Chris Mazza and Jeffrey Springs to Tampa for catching prospect Ronaldo Hernandez. Neither Mazza nor Springs were more than roster depth, which isn’t to say neither had anything to offer. Both were (and are, they’re alive, I’m glad to report) reasonable bullpen options with various aspects to recommend them. But neither figured much into Boston’s 2021 bullpen plans, and both were (and are!) eminently replaceable.

Hernandez was a top 100 prospect in baseball a year ago and was caught on the Rays wave pool permanently set on “Kauai” of a 40 man roster. He was a 23 year old catcher with no experience above High-A ball on a team that doesn’t like inflexibility in their 40 man roster (thus the wave joke above). Also the Rays picked up some catching depth this off-season, most notably Francisco Mejia from the Padres in the Blake Snell trade, and there just wasn’t room for Hernandez anymore, I guess. Tampa’s loss is Boston’s gain.

The fact that the Red Sox got Hernandez, a highly rated if somewhat raw prospect, for two guys they’d effectively just cut off the 40 man roster seems like a bit of a coup. The Boston Globe says Hernandez was recently ranked as the 13th best prospect in Tampa’s farm system, though I should point out that FanGraphs has him 23rd and MLB Pipeline has him 21st. Baseball Prospectus has him outside the their top 10, but ranked as a 55 prospect, which is scout speak for above average. Regardless of which grade you look at, Hernandez has promise but also has some work to do to make the majors. He needs to improve behind the plate and he’s apparently a bit of a free swinger which could work against him in the higher levels of the minor leagues. Still though, this is a quality prospect, a potential impact bat at the catcher position, one where the Red Sox farm system lacks depth.

Hard to be upset about this deal. I guess they’re all not bad.

Last thing: check out the latest episode of the Sox Outsider Podcast. I talked all things Red Sox with Chris Hatfield of Sox Prospects. We covered the Benintendi trade, the Red Sox going “cheap” this winter, the state of the team, and the state of Boston’s farm system. It was a wide ranging and really fun conversation with Chris who really knows what he’s talking about. Definitely check it out! Also, I debuted a new and in my humble opinion absolutely hilarious intro song, written by my friend Ian who wrote the previous intro song. Thanks for listening and reading, everyone.