The Los Angeles Dodgers bought their way to a World Series championship.
It’s a common retort whenever a team like the Dodgers does exactly what they’re expected to do and win a title after spending more than a billion dollars the prior offseason. “Oh, [insert team] didn’t really earn that championship, they just bought it.”
My response… so what?
When did caring about and investing in your team become something to be ashamed of? It takes the same 11 to 13 postseason wins to win a championship for a team that spends $60 million as it does a team that spends $300 million.
Is the Dodgers’ World Series win any less significant an accomplishment than that of a team like the Royals in 2015 or the Nationals in 2019? Nope, not in my book. A World Series title is a World Series title.
Frankly, it’s a loser’s mentality to think otherwise. Teams that spend a lot are playing the same game, on and off the field, as everybody else.
In the same light, though, the reverse can also be true. Kansas City’s $126 million payroll in 2015 ranked 21st while Washington’s $172 million payroll in 2019 ranked 27th.
You can win by spending a lot, but you can also win through developing your own talent. It doesn’t happen as often. The answer is somewhere in the middle. The ideal marriage in baseball is spending to supplement your homegrown talent.
So let’s look at the Red Sox, who were once like the Dodgers of today and Yankees of yesteryear, willing to spend without limit to get the job done. That obviously is not the case anymore, so we can readily rule out the “Dodger way.”
That leaves the “mix and match” approach as the Sox’s only realistic hope. We think these Sox have already done the first part in generating some homegrown talent in Brayan Bello, Ceddanne Rafaela, Triston Casas, Jarren Duran and so on. Now it’s time to supplement with some free-agent talent.
Except this time, no one is realistically expecting the Sox to go out and commit $200 million this offseason. But with a current 2025 payroll of around $107 million and a luxury tax figure of $241 million, how about spending just $100 million this winter?
Boston’s $176 million payroll in 2024 ranked 12th in baseball. If the Sox only spend to get back to that level (about $70 million) for next season, that will tell you all you need to know about this front office’s commitment to winning.
So, in lieu of actually spending near the top of the league, I’d settle for just getting back over that $200 million payroll mark.
Baby steps, John. Baby steps…
Bronx fallout
Less than one week after losing to the Dodgers in the World Series, the Yankees’ roster is on the verge of looking drastically different.
New York has already officially moved on from Anthony Rizzo after opting not to pick up the veteran first baseman’s option. Now, the Yanks could be on the verge of losing their top pitcher: Gerrit Cole.
Gerrit Cole has opted out of his contract
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) November 2, 2024
The Yankees can void the opt-out by adding one year and $36 million to the four years that Cole had remaining on his deal pic.twitter.com/axNWmAU4aP
Rizzo’s time in the Bronx had run its course. But losing Cole would obviously be a big blow for the Yankees and a move that would reverberate throughout the AL East.
It’s clear the Yankees’ roster wasn’t good enough to get them over the hump, so change is needed. Re-signing Juan Soto is the obvious priority, and that’s going to take a lot of money. But parting ways with your ace — who gave a valiant performance in the World Series-clinching Game 5 loss — doesn’t seem to be the best way to do that on face value.
Personally? I think Cole has been overrated and doesn’t have that “winner” make-up. Yes, he’s a Cy Young winner with a strong 2023 campaign, but he hasn’t been the guy to routinely elevate you and put the team on his back.
That being said, I’d be shocked if New York lets Cole walk at this point…
Laying down the Law(son)
The Red Sox mostly cleaned house with the firing of six coaches in the early stages of this offseason.
Of the key figures that remained, one was hitting coach Pete Fatse — a curious decision given the Sox’s offensive inconsistencies during his tenure.
Boston’s .252 team batting average (blech…) did rank sixth in the majors (the Dodgers, by comparison, had a .258 average), and they ranked sixth in team hits, seventh in OPS, ninth in runs scored and ninth in RBIs.
But numbers don’t tell the full story. How often did the Sox bats come up bone-dry when the team needed them most down the stretch? Spoiler alert: frequently.
So Fatse is here to stay, and the team is bolstering his staff with the addition of assistant hitting coach Dillon Lawson.
Who exactly is Dillon Lawson? In short, he’s a former college catcher and first baseman with a healthy amount of experience coaching in college and lower-lever leagues before getting his shot in the bigs.
Lawson’s first big league gig came with the Yankees as a minor league hitting coordinator in 2018 and became the team’s hitting coach in 2022. His stay was short-lived, getting the boot in July of 2023. He then joined the Sox organization in a minor league hitting coordinator role in December of 2023 before getting his promotion this week.
In his lone full season as the Yankees’ hitting coach, the results were mixed. New York ranked smack dab in the middle of the league with a .241 batting average and 16th in hits with 1,308, but the Yanks’ 907 runs scored led the AL and ranked second in the majors. They ranked fourth in the league with a .751 OPS and led the league with 254 home runs — with an AL-record 62 of them coming from Aaron Judge.
I’d say that’s a thoroughly mixed bag, but in line with what the sport has become. It ain’t about hits, it’s about power.
That being the case, I welcome the addition of Lawson to the staff — more so because of who is already there than for what Lawson himself would bring as a standalone hitting coach. I don’t think Fatse is anything special, so why not bring in another coach who has done his job and had some success that could help the cause?
If nothing else, it might be a move designed to put a little heat on Fatse…
Gio’s back
Lucas Giolito isn’t going anywhere.
Are we really surprised? Of course not.
Giolito assured that his Red Sox tenure would not be one-and-done when he picked up his $19 million player option to return next season.
So we’ve got that going for us…
To this point, Gio has made more of an impact off the field than on it as he continues his free-agent recruitment tour of Max Fried and possibly Jack Flaherty, too.
Happy Halloween from Lucas Giolito and Max Fried.
— Beyond the Monster (@BeyondtheMnstr) October 31, 2024
(📸Giolito IG) pic.twitter.com/GSdTxGC4q0
Giolito hasn’t pitched in a meaningful game since October 1st, 2023 after missing all of last season recovering from a right elbow procedure.
We had serious questions going into last season if Giolito could resume his All-Star form of 2019 — which will be six years ago come next season. Now? I can’t say I’ll be expecting much from Giolito next season.
Perhaps taking a year off to reset will be just what he needed, but remember, we’re talking about a player who’s pitched to a 4.31 ERA with a 1.25 WHIP in his last four seasons…
If Gio could give you double-digit wins and an ERA in the very high threes next season, I’d take that and run with it…
Say it ain’t so…
The Bobby Dalbec Era is over. Long live the Bobby Dalbec Era.
The man with a million lives is likely taking his talents elsewhere, as the 29-year-old is reportedly electing to test his value in free agency.
Dalbec’s tenure in Boston was a failure, no doubt about it. After an impressive power showing as a rookie, major league pitchers figured him out pretty quickly and he was never able to adjust.
The power is still there, as we saw from his years in Worcester. But every time he would get another chance in Boston — and boy, they were too many to count — we would soon be reminded that Bobby D was the ultimate “Four A” player.
I feel badly for the kid. I do. To have the kind of success he did in his rookie season and then never be able to come anywhere close to replicating it has to be tough. Baseball is as much mental as it is psychical, and I don’t know that I’ve seen anyone else struggle so much with that side of the game in a long time… maybe since Daniel Bard.
I don’t think this is necessarily the end of Dalbec’s ride, though. I think another team will take a flyer on him, and who knows, maybe the right situation and a good hitting coach can help him figure things out and give him a chance at a productive major league career.
It just won’t be here, and it’s too bad that it worked out that way…