Keuchel & Kimbrel: What's your take?

[Peter_Spaeth]

Originally Posted by mckinneyj

Because both were made "qualifying offers" by their prior teams, if they sign with another team prior to this year's June draft, the prior team will be due draft pick compensation from the signing team. Apparently no team is willing to meet both the asking price of these players and also lose a draft pick to do so.

With respect to Kimbrel, if the Sox were to re-sign him they would hit the next level of salary cap overage which would then result in them having their 1st pick in next draft slide down 10 spots lower in the order - this combined with Kimbrel's asking price has kept them from re-signing. There's also that Kimbrel has not performed particularly well in the post season (recall that the Sox used their starters in relief and left Kimbrell on the bench at the end of last year's series) and seems (IMO) to be in general decline (still very good but not what he used to be and maybe risky to sign long term).

I can't stand that quirky delivery of his, and when he's struggling as he surely did in the post-season last year, it's all the more annoying. I don't know if those few games really tell us much about the state of his career, but I have a feeling that career is not going to continue in Boston.