Shocker! It Is Cheaper to Have Cost-Controlled Guys Than to Not Have Them

I got into a very odd Twitter back-and-forth last night starting with a strange quote response from MassLive’s Sean McAdam, who I thought was a good egg, re: Chaim Bloom’s trade priorities:

Long story short: Sean believes that rentals are ultimately more expensive that cost-controlled players, which I have a difficult time stomaching, because I understand what “cost-controlled” means. Or I thought I did. In my world, it meant the costs... are controlled. Normie shit, I know.

Anyhow I didn’t think this was controversial but apparently McAdam didn’t love it and was, subsequently, a penis on Twitter about it. For what it’s worth, I think Sean and I would get along very well in different circumstances, but right now it sucks because he’s full of shit and I have to call him on it. If I had to narrow it down to a simple but ultimately false choice, I would ask: Which is cheaper: A team fully of expiring contracts, or a team full of cost-controlled players? And no, it’s not a trick question because “cost-controlled” is in the name. They’re plainly the cheaper ones! They cost less because they... cost less. It’s a not doozy. It’s not a trap. It’s just words meaning what they mean.

Anyhow halfway through writing this I got this Tweet...

... which I get, to a point, but not so much beyond that. The entirety of the discussion is “What does Chaim Bloom value?” The answer is “team control.” And it’s “team control” because team control saves them the most money. So for a beat writer like McAdam to turn around and suggest that it’s not relatively valuable is... odd. Having more cost-controlled players saves more money than having fewer of them, right?

Long story short, the Red Sox are pointed up because they know that signing cost-controlled players is more valuable than trading for expiring contracts. They are locked into more cheap players for longer than they otherwise would be. There is not rocket science here even if someone (Sean McAdam of MassLive) is angry and, plainly, out in metaphorical space, accusing the Sox as much. I truly don’t even know what we’re arguing about, but I do know who truly, truly wants to show their asses, and have named them. These are not asses I want to see, for what it’s worth. I want to see cost-controlled Red Sox asses running the bases. It’s only when they’re not doing so that I’ll know something has gone wrong, and I think that day is a long way off.