Chapter 1: What are the Red Sox's offseason plans after missing out on Bregman?
Yeah, there should be some passion. This doesn't have to be boring.
You don't get bored by baseball.
One thing the game needs is more people like you. You. You. You. You. You.
You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You. You.
You.
If you're just waking up, though, the huge lead of the sports world today is one Bo Nix out for the AFC Championship game and for the foreseeable future. Broken ankle. Jarrett Stidham, your starter for the Denver Broncos in the AFC Championship game. I'm sure our next guest, Rob Bradford, is all over that. He's all over everything lately.
He was the one who told you the Red Sox were pivoting and going to starting pitching, and he was right.
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Chapter 2: How does the addition of Ranger Suarez impact the Red Sox's rotation?
Rob Bradford, W-E-E-I-W-E-E-I.com. Take a bow, Rob.
Well, first of all, there's no people I'd rather be talking with in the planet right now than you guys, and I appreciate it. My Twitter feed, I would say this, is the only one that has a photo of a young Jared Stidham with Brock Holt blowing out a birthday candle. So, yes, we're morphing the world of football and baseball on social media this morning. Yeah, let it be said, let it be done.
Well, well done. I did not know that, but I learned something new from you all the time. Ranger Suarez, five-year contract. All right, great. We gave them applause. They bolstered in the rotation. Rob, the cynic in me says, where the heck is the offense? You meet Tim. We've all talked about this. What are they doing offensively?
Yeah, well, I don't think you have to be – the cynic wouldn't even have to come out with you. I think just a logical person would have to come out with you and just say, hey, you went into this offseason. You professed that your goal was to get top of the rotation pitching and a middle-of-the-order bat. And they can say, well, Wilson Gutierrez is that guy.
That's fine, but I don't think he's necessarily that guy, especially when you go after your plan A. I mean, this is the thing. Their plan A, undeniably, was Alex Bregman. Undeniably. So you can miss out on Pete Alonso, have the excuse for that. You can miss out on other guys, or Bo Bichette, you can have the excuse for that.
Alex Bregman was your plan A. And if you're the Boston Red Sox, and you know that you have to get plan A via free agency, and you do not get him, then that's a problem, as we saw. Because their pivot immediately was, something that definitely was not their plan A, which was to double down on run prevention. So, yeah, I'm totally with you.
They'll get somebody, but certainly I don't think it'll be a dilemma.
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Chapter 3: What offensive strategies are the Red Sox considering this offseason?
I mean, I don't know. Maybe they'll trade for somebody out of nowhere, but right now it doesn't seem like it's going to be close to as effective as a guy like Bregman was.
Are you hearing any rumblings about who that next guy is? Is it Iggy Suarez? Which right-handed bat is a possibility?
Yeah, so you hear Isak Paredes from Houston. That's a guy, as you mentioned, Suarez. The problem is, and you could go Brennan Donovan, obviously, with the Cardinals. The problem is that there's no really perfect solution here for what they would need. So you want to go run prevention? Well, Paradis and Suarez aren't run prevention guys.
And so you have a ton of ground ball pitchers all of a sudden. You need guys to field ground balls. That would seem to be important. But you also need home runs, and that's where a guy like Suarez comes in. A guy like Donovan isn't a guy who's going to hit home runs. It's just there isn't right now seemingly the ideal fit. What's interesting to me is
we're trying to piece this together with free agency and who guys are available or guys that are obvious trade candidates. Well, we've got to start thinking outside the box a little bit. And one place maybe we should start looking at a little bit is the Mets. And the Mets, whether it's Mark Vientos or Brett Beatty, all of a sudden places that you have surplus of guys.
So I think that that's worth looking at. And here's the other thing, Peter, is that you look outside the box because that's where they're looking.
Right before the Suarez deal, I mean about two hours before, I got word that the Red Sox were very, very aggressively for the last few days really, really looking at pitching that you would almost not expect them to be looking at in terms of trade, like high-end, controllable guys. So when we look at where the bat's going to come from, maybe it's not so obvious.
All I know is that they're going to get one.
Rob football Sunday. Let's talk some baseball. Thanks for coming on.
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Chapter 4: Who are the potential trade targets for the Red Sox's lineup?
First of all, happy six year anniversary of the, of the Danny Hurley. Uh, you better get us now press conference. So, yes.
I thought that was Ed. I thought you were going to talk about the Jim Calhoun ran. It's been more than six years for that. I get reminded of that. Fox put it up on their Twitter account the other night because, uh, Mecca Okafor was broadcasting the game and Ryan Gomes was on the bench. So what better, not a better time in the world than just to bring that up. The old Jim Calhoun.
It does make me smile every time I hear it. But anyway, speaking of smiling, John, John Henry, the rest of that box of the Cohibas, I've got some friends at work country club that like to pop, Puff them out on the back deck in the summertime.
If you can find a way where the rest of that box is of those Cohibas, send them down, and we'll pay a good price for them because it was one and done for Alex Bregman. So one Cohiba, one year, and you're out. I mean, what the heck happened there? I mean, it was out of smokescreen. Did they really want him? It seems to me like maybe they didn't want him, all this other stuff.
You know, it's like, yeah, you know it, Rob. The offer is not real. You know, we want to make like it's real, but then all this deferred money and can't give the guy a no trade clause. Come on. He's been around forever. Give him a no trade clause. What the hell? Why would you bring him back if you're going to trade him? And certainly he brought so much to the team off the field.
That's a guy you want around even if his production goes down.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does the Red Sox face in improving their offense?
But anyway, having said all that, what happened?
Yeah, well, first of all, John Henry 0 for 2 in memorable social media clips. Because if you go back, this is going to take a deep cut back 17 years before where they don't sign Mark DeShera and the Red Sox sweep the Yankees in June after they don't sign Mark DeShera. And he tweets out, it must be the curse of MT. And next thing you know, the Yankees are winning the World Series.
And now you have this post saying, of smoking a cigar, and as you point out, I didn't see the cigar for Adrian Beltre a few years ago. That's ultimately what it became. So I do think that, as I said, I do think that this was their plan, but this leads to the problem I have with how they approach things. You're right. I mean, you're right about everything with Bregman.
I mean, he was a perfect fit. He was a perfect fit last year. This is why they wanted to prioritize him. But at the same time, the one thing that they had to prove in free agency was that they could win these battles, that they could get into the big game stakes like the Max Freed, the Juan Soto, these other guys, and actually win the guys that they really want.
Because before, the years before the Theo Epstein era, and even after that, if the Red Sox identified a guy they wanted, they were going to get him. But now things have changed so much that And I was always skeptical because the way that they've been doing things is they have a model. They said, this is our model. This is what we're willing to do and what we're not willing to do.
And in this case, what they're not willing to do is not do this no-trade clause, even though you get somewhat close on the financials. So if you're the boss at Red Sox and you are close to your plan A, then you have to understand free agency is uncomfortable, and you have to do things that are uncomfortable. They did it last year by giving him the opt-outs, and it came back to bite him. So what?
You move forward. You've got to get the guy. You cannot let another team beat you for your plan A if you're the Red Sox. And, you know, we had Zach Scott on the podcast. Zach Scott, obviously, he was assistant GM of the Red Sox, GM for the Mets, and he'd been with the Red Sox for a long time, and he lived through a lot of those conversations about no trade clauses.
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Chapter 6: How is the Red Sox's approach to free agency evolving?
It's like, listen, we gave no trade clauses. We just called them something else. You know, Pedroia, Dale, Daisuke. We just maneuvered around the verbiage of it a little bit. But I think that they just are so dug in on their models, and that's never going to win you in free agency.
No, especially when you're dealing with Scott Boris and some of the other dudes out there that, you know, they've been around. They know this. They know how it works. And if you don't play the game, if you don't step up, it's like NIL in college basketball, college football. If you're not ready to play the game, you're going to lose. You're going to lose. The times have changed.
Right.
And not to interrupt you, but we keep surfing this Andrew Friedman comment from 2016, but it rings true. It's that if you try to be logical about every free agent, you're going to finish third on every free agent. And the NIL thing is a perfect example.
It's all right to lose out on certain guys, but you can't lose out on the guys that you know are the be-all, end-all that you're going to build your whole system around.
Right, and you already know Fitz can play in this city and environment and everything else. So now, Rob, now the $170 million question. Who plays third? Where's the third baseman? What's going to happen now?
Yeah, I mean, there's two different ways it can go. They can obviously, like guys that we mentioned, Paredes or Suarez or trade for a guy, or you can move Marcelo Meyer over there and then find another second baseman. It's, you know, there's not that logical, no doubt about it guy, as I said. I mean, Quetel Marte would have been that guy.
But as I said early in the offseason, everyone's screaming and yelling, it's close on Marte. No, it was never close on Marte. It was never. It was like Arizona didn't have to trade him, and they weren't going to trade him unless they were blown away.
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Chapter 7: What are the implications of the Red Sox's current roster on their competitiveness?
So right now, there's not an easy answer. I know that people say the easy answer is, We'll get Gino Suarez and I'll hit a bunch of home runs because you need home runs. All right, I guess, sure, but it'll also swing and miss a bunch. And he also won't play really, really outstanding defense.
As I said, there's no easy answer right now in terms of what we're looking at, what's right in front of us. If they can pull something up, great. All I know is this. We're sitting here, you know, almost in the last week and a half of January looking And this Red Sox offseason has undeniably still yet been undefined. I mean, that is kind of crazy to me.
The Ranger Suarez signing, I was surprised by the length. You, amongst others, have said that they're hesitant to do five-year deals with anybody. But bottom line for us, people have said he's not going to start 35 games. He's going to start 22, get used to that. He's too injury-prone. But oh, by the way, he's a great playoff performer. So what do you think you are getting in Suarez?
I think that. Really, you look at it, there's no way around it. It's weird to say that you have to be careful with a guy you just gave $130 million for. But if he was with the Dodgers... You'd be like, all right, I get it. Because the Dodgers, they understand it's all about October. They can protect their starters. They can give them 25 starters. No problem.
Because we do know Ranger Suarez, when he gets to the big stage, he's not going to shy away from it. That's a good thing. We do know that Ranger Suarez is a good pitcher.
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Chapter 8: What are the key factors that will determine the Red Sox's success this season?
But we also know the last two Septembers, Ranger Suarez has not been good. And so you have to manage that situation. I'm not going to be a hypocrite and say, like, oh, my, what a terrible signing, and you paid too much, because he's a good pitcher. You're a better team because you have Ranger Suarez, undeniably. And now maybe you can deal from your starting rotation even more than you could.
But, you know, still, we have to go in with our eyes wide open, that this team right now, you have to compete with some pretty big boys in the American League East, And until you get that bat, it sure seems like you might be swimming upstream a little bit.
What did you make of Toronto losing out on Tucker? They offered him supposedly 10 years, and Tucker took the $60 million per year, the highest AAV ever given to a free agent, despite the shorter length. Where do the Blue Jays go there?
Well, you know, I think that, you know, the Blue Jays obviously are really, really good. The Blue Jays, we all came into this, or as we went through the offseason, they're sort of like the Dodgers of the American League. People don't understand how much money they have to throw around, and they're trying to throw the money around, and they had done a pretty good job up until Tucker.
But if they get Tucker, no doubt about it, they're the favorites in the American League East. Now, where do they pivot? Cody Bellinger is the obvious one, but I was just talking to some people up in Toronto. They're like, yeah, they'll monitor the situation. But if I'm a Toronto fan, I'm like, okay, where are we spending that 10 years, $350 million now? Let's go. Let's keep the momentum going.
But I will say this, is that if Toronto isn't able to pull off a Bellinger signing or even a Frambois Valdez signing, if you do compare their offseason to the Red Sox, the Red Sox probably had a better offseason. But still, that doesn't mean anything because the Blue Jays made it to the World Series. The Blue Jays have all kinds of momentum.
And the Blue Jays, once again, aren't going to be shy about adding their team, whether it's now or the trade deadline, because they are one of the most financially mighty teams in all of baseball, actually.
Rob, what's your take now on this ball club as a whole moving forward as they are constructed as of today? You spoke about the third base, the infield, the pitching. Do you think they're a team that's built to win? Do you think they're as good as last year? Do you think they can battle teams like Toronto? Are they good enough because of that really good starting rotation?
Yeah, I think they're good enough, but there are a lot of things where the half has to go right, and they're sort of an incomplete. Because you even look at their bullpen, you know, they had four, they carried four lefties at one time last year in the bullpen. I mean, they really don't have hardly any right now, maybe one besides Chapman.
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