Sox Notes: On Theo, The O's, and Bobby Witt Jr.

A lot has happened and yet nothing has happened

Spring Training is coming! (this isn’t a Red Sox picture but who cares Spring Training is coming!) Photo by Megan Ellis on Unsplash

I run. I’m not great at it, but I do try and do it multiple times a week. Sometimes it’s great, I get outside, get moving, see the city, the neighborhoods, the river, and I’m moving and I’m a part of everything and I feel great. Other times there isn’t a bigger chore. My body wants none of it, each step is like swimming in sand, even the downhills are uphill, everything hurts, and there’s really anything I’d rather do.

That’s what writing about the Red Sox feels like now.

It’s not that I don’t like the roster or that I no longer love the team. I do love the team and I actually think they’ll be okay this season. I know that doesn’t seem like the highest of praise, but, considering the toxic discourse around the team right now, it might be.

When the biggest move of the off-season, an off-season that demanded big additions, was adding someone in an advisor role to the front office and/or ownership group, well, it’s bound to make fans unhappy. And hey! It did! They are seriously pissed off! And it’s totally understandable.

So (re-)enter Theo Epstein. “Theo (last name unnecessary, like Pedro or Papi) rejoins the Red Sox” is an amazing headline but the effect on the field is likely to be minimal or even less. I’m not trying to be a downer here but there are issues. The first is ownership’s lack of attention (almost self-admitted at this point) and lack of desire to spend money to add or keep players. Theo might be able to do something about that… maybe. A little bit. On the margins.

But keep in mind, getting John Henry to spend money isn’t Theo’s new job. His job is effectively to be a part of ownership. That doesn’t mean he won’t want to improve the roster, but it’s a very different position than the one he held as head of Baseball Operations the last time he was here. That one was all about winning, about building up the team. This one is about the business, frankly it’s about making money. I don’t begrudge Theo his money, but fans who are expecting him to fly in and magically fix the team are going to be disappointed. Or maybe more disappointed than they were before.

Then there’s Sam Kennedy’s recent description of Theo’s new gig as a “step, maybe a short-term step” which throws into question how long he’ll even be here. The end result of all this is, sadly, probably nothing. Even with Theo in the fold, the same people remain in charge. Henry still has a tight hold on the purse strings, and baseball decisions are still being made by Craig Breslow. Theo might do some suggesting, he might even do some nudging, but that’s at the absolute most. And he might not even be here long enough to do that.

And so we find ourselves back where we started, with a roster crying out for a few big additions and receiving virtually nothing from up above. Theo is a nice story. Heck, he’s a great story, but he’s not the GM and so any positive effect is sadly likely to be minimal.

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It’s worth mentioning that the Baltimore Orioles were sold to a group of billionaires. What this means for the Red Sox is still to be determined, but as far as the Orioles go, there is likely to be at least some additional spending. That’s not really much of a hedge either because under their current ownership, the Orioles don’t spend at all. They’re the A’s with a great farm system. Last season the Orioles were outspent by the Rays, and not by a little bit. So spending more is like a bare minimum.

New ownership doesn’t guarantee success in Baltimore, but if they simply do nothing but increase payroll to a league-average level, the O’s could be in a really, really good place.

Is that bad news for the Red Sox? I guess? It’s not good news. But it’s not as if the AL East was easy to begin with, and Red Sox were substantially behind the Orioles anyway. If Baltimore now decides to extend Gunnar Henderson, Adley Rutschman, and Jackson Holliday, well, A) they should, and B) whatever, those guys are already on the roster right now. If they decide to trade for Corbin Burnes, I have news for you: they already traded for Corbin Burnes!

I may be underselling this from a Red Sox standpoint. Anything that makes other AL East teams stronger is bad for the Red Sox. That said, it feels to me like there is so much in-house the Red Sox need to deal with that worrying about Baltimore increasing payroll to a league-average level before the even do it is just silly.

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Elsewhere, the Royals spent $288 million to keep Bobby Witt, Jr in Kansas City for a long time. If you’re interested in reading more about the Witt deal, I highly recommend Into The Fountains, Craig Brown’s (free) KC Royals newsletter. He’s got you covered on Witt stuff over there.

The particulars aren’t important for the Red Sox, but suffice it to say they should be exploring these kinds of deals for Triston Casas, Brayan Bello, and anyone else they think is a part of future success in Boston.

These kinds of deals don’t tend to get cheaper. Last season Julio Rodriguez signed a rather complicated contract extension with the Seattle Mariners, the upshot of which is that, at minimum, it’s cheaper than the Witt deal. Now Witt has signed and his deal is, at minimum, more money than Julio’s deal.

Casas and Bello aren’t on the same level as Julio and Witt, but that doesn’t mean their deals don’t effect future contracts. They do. A rising tide lifts all boats, and Casas’ and Bello’s boats are headed upwards. The time to sign these guys, assuming you want to do that, was yesterday.

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A little programming note. It’s been too long since I wrote to you here. That’s in part because of the Red Sox inactivity, but really it’s on me. And I was thinking, while it can be hard to find the time to smash out 1400 words on a given topic, I should be able to handle 500 for topics that only require 500. So I’m going to try to give you more writing even if that writing is shorter. Shorts should be easier to read and they should be easier to write. That’s the idea anyway. We’ll see how it goes. Let me know in the comments if you have an opinion.

Spring Training is headed this way quick, so expect to hear more from me in the near future. Hope you all are well. Thanks, as always, for reading.