Bregman? Tucker? Bichette? What is going on? Is Bregman still Red Sox "plan A"? Red Sox offseaso

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Bregman? Tucker? Bichette? What is going on? Is Bregman still Red Sox "plan A"? Red Sox offseason: slow. Sox have yet to sign a free agent. Are they playing the market slow or missing out?

Transcript

00:00It's been a very slow offseason, and because of it, the Red Sox are maybe the slowest of offseasons.

00:07They are one of two teams who have yet to sign a free agent, which seems like almost hard to believe.

00:13But I will say this.

00:15I would still, I am still, still, still give, I don't want to say benefit of the doubt,

00:21but when it comes to the Red Sox, it's easy right now to sit here and say,

00:25Hey, you know what? You are one of two teams.

00:28The other team being the Colorado Rockies, who hasn't signed a free agent.

00:32But my lead is, you still got to wait a little bit.

00:35Because what they're doing, and I don't agree with what they're doing,

00:38I want them to do what the Toronto Blue Jays did.

00:41I want them to be the shock and awe team.

00:43I want them to go, we need a guy, Dylan Cease, we're going to sign him.

00:47Hey, we need another guy, we need another pitcher, we're going to sign a three-year guy, Cody Ponce,

00:51to a three-year deal, even though everyone's saying he's going to get two years.

00:54There's not a lot of teams out there.

00:56But as I point out, there's been only, only four contracts of more than three years in this free agency.

01:04So what does that tell you?

01:06It tells you that teams are slow playing this, that they're playing the market.

01:11And really, maybe that's what the Red Sox are doing here.

01:14I don't necessarily agree with it.

01:16I'm of the mind, you're talking about being GM, I think it could be an excellent GM.

01:20But I would lead on the side of the A.J. Preller, the Dave Dabrowski.

01:24You want a guy? Go get the guy.

01:26But still, you have a contract yesterday, in this pitcher from Japan, Tatsua Amai.

01:35And he's 27 going into 28.

01:38And a lot of people thought he was going to get this six-year, $150 million contract.

01:42Everybody was projecting him to get.

01:44He lands with a three-year deal at $62 million.

01:47What does that tell me?

01:49That tells me that the free agent market maybe isn't what everybody thought it was going to be.

01:55And that tells me that maybe, maybe there's a chance that you are going to be able to do what I didn't think you would be able to do

02:03when it comes to Bregman, certainly Bregman, or, you know, maybe a backup plan, anybody else.

02:10Because the free agent market, when you have a guy who is projected to have a six-year deal at 27 going into 28

02:17and lands with a three-year deal, even with the opt-outs, then you have a wake-up call that, hey,

02:23and we had Lucas Giolito on the podcast last week.

02:26And he said, oh, how's it thinking?

02:28He said, crickets.

02:29Crickets.

02:30Lucas Giolito's a good pitcher.

02:32He's a good pitcher.

02:33Like, he's a youthful pitcher.

02:35He'll find his deal.

02:36But when he's, we're sitting here at the end of December at the time, in January,

02:41and that guy is saying, I haven't really got any offers.

02:44It's crickets.

02:45Could you say, though, too, that that's a result of the owners knowing a lockout is coming

02:50and they're not willing to get involved in long-term deals?

02:53Everyone says that, but I don't necessarily buy into that.

02:56You hear Scott Boris, who knows a lot about this stuff, has lived through this stuff,

03:00and I don't think that him say, he actually would have the motivation to say, oh, yeah,

03:06the owners are screwing us because of the lockout.

03:08He's like, no, I've been through lockouts.

03:10This is our lockout situations.

03:13Lockout threatens.

03:14Yeah, but in former lockouts, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, you were the one that was covering

03:18these.

03:18Like, it wasn't battling for a cap, though.

03:21Like, this one is, right?

03:22They're always battling for a cap.

03:23Last one, they were batting for a cap, too.

03:25But the point is with the Red Sox is I gave, when it came to Bregman, because Bregman, I

03:33do believe is their plan A.

03:35I do.

03:36And I think that Bichette is a great fit.

03:38I don't think they'll ever win a bidding war for Bo Bichette because of the way they

03:43do things.

03:44Because they, based on this is what you're worth, we're going to get as close as possible,

03:49but we're not going to get into this uncomfortable world of the shock and awe offer, like, basically

03:54the Toronto Blue Jays will, who also want Bo Bichette.

03:57I don't think you're ever going to win that.

03:59So I'm not even counting Bo Bichette.

04:01If you have Bregman, if you have your plan A, Alex Bregman's your plan A, how do you get

04:05him?

04:06Last year, you had, he fell to you.

04:09Three years.

04:10Good for you.

04:11You played the market right.

04:12You played the market right.

04:14I always said from day one this year in the offseason, you weren't going to be able to

04:18do that this time.

04:19There's no qualifying offer attached.

04:21There's going to be more teams.

04:22Now you have Arizona.

04:23Now you have, um, now you have the Toronto Blue Jays potentially.

04:27Obviously you have the Cubs.

04:28You have these other teams.

04:30You have more competition.

04:31You aren't going to be able to sit there and in February do what you did last year.

04:35I don't think, I don't think, but my point is maybe, maybe, who knows?

04:41Maybe they were right in jumping the gun and trading for Sonny Gray because these other

04:47pitchers, you know, it wasn't worth it.

04:50Maybe it was right for jumping the gun and trading for Wilson Contreras because I, that's

04:55still, I take that back.

04:56That still wasn't right.

04:57You got to get Pete Alonzo.

04:58All right.

04:59But my point is, is that, that there's still a lot of players out there and those players,

05:06it's not like these players are trending to get a lot of money.

05:08So I did not get a lot of money.

05:10Yeah.

05:10I mean, I even look at the Pete Alonzo deal.

05:12It's not like he got a crap load of money.

05:15No.

05:15And I think that's, what's most frustrating and where I still don't necessarily have faith

05:19that they're going to sign Bregman back is that even in a race where you didn't really

05:25have to outbid that much, like you didn't have to spend this exorbitant amount of money

05:30to get Pete Alonzo here.

05:31You had zero interest in doing it.

05:33I am totally with you.

05:33Here's the thing that they haven't done, right?

05:36Good for you.

05:37You had this great off season last year, but what you haven't done, you haven't shown

05:41the ability to win a free agent bidding war.

05:44And don't give me Bregman last.

05:46You're the Boston Red Sox.

05:47Yeah.

05:47Well, exactly.

05:48We said this a million times that you go through that stretch from 2000 during the Theo Epstein

05:53years and even some of the Ben Sherrington years and certainly Dave Dombrowski.

05:58You aren't, you were never, if you wanted a player, you weren't going to lose out on him.

06:02That was a fact.

06:03The Boston Red Sox weren't.

06:04They are doing things differently.

06:05They are going off of models.

06:07That's why they don't get Pete Alonzo.

06:09I'm with you.

06:10I'm like, if you, if you make it off for the guy five years, you're telling me if you don't

06:13give him the same off for the Orioles, he isn't going to the Red Sox and wife from Massachusetts,

06:18like all of this, you give him five, one 50.

06:21He's a, he's a Boston Red Sox.

06:22Right.

06:22So like, I do not agree with the way they go about doing things in that respect.

06:27And they still have not won that, that battle back free.

06:31They didn't want so that they didn't Pete Alonzo.

06:33They didn't.

06:34So now it comes to, even with this market, are they going to be able to win that?

06:40They're going to have to win that battle with Alex Bregman this time more than the last time.

06:43All I'm saying is that the way that this market is trending, when you have that contract yesterday

06:49with Amai, a guy who's 27 going to 28, who gets a three-year deal instead of a six-year deal,

06:55that tells you that that's like a red flag that maybe things, we talked about David's lead about

07:01this dragging out.

07:02It can work both ways.

07:03It can be dragging out because you can't get the offer.

07:06It can be dragging out because you're waiting, because you're playing the market.

07:09If you're a player and you're getting a big offer.

07:11Well, the way it's trending right now, also going off of what Giolito said,

07:15is that there's not a huge market there.

07:18There's not a lot of money.

07:20But the Reds, I will say this.

07:21The last thing I'll say, Chris, is that all that said,

07:25say give the Red Sox a little bit of the benefit of the doubt.

07:28All that said, they better be careful.

07:30Because if it does come down to, hey, Arizona's offering Alex Bregman five years,

07:36and he's your plan A, and you just, well, we only value him at three or four,

07:41four years, then shame on you.

07:43Because that's not how this works.

07:44Because do you think they were involved at all in Amai or no?

07:48No, he's, well, here's the thing with Amai.

07:50Everyone wanted him to be this ace.

07:52But if you talk to people in baseball, they're like, eh, eh.

07:55I said he's, he, when I talk to people about Amai,

07:59the vibe I got was this guy, this is a deep cut,

08:02but you say Kikuchi back in 2018, who ended up getting a three-year deal.

08:07It wasn't, this is not Yamamoto, as much as Boris wanted to say,

08:10this is not that guy.

08:11And ultimately, that's why he got the deal that he did.

08:15Because I don't think baseball thought he was as good as everyone wanted to do.

08:18Anyway.

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