Rusney Castillo is one of the few mega-millionaires I actually kind of felt bad for over the years. The Red Sox signed him to a gigantic contract based off of a And1 Mixtape workout video (which seems to have been scrubbed from the internet) and he shockingly never really lived up to the hype. Well because of their seemingly never ending luxury tax issues, the Sox stashed Castillo in Pawtucket for the last 4 years. The reason John Henry is fine paying Castillo $11 million a year to play in the Ocean State? Because AAA player salaries don’t count against the major league payroll of course! So rather than maybe work his way into a 4th outfielder role, Castillo has been stuck in Pawtucket so the Sox can hide his money like it’s an offshore bank account. He’s been pretty good too with a minor league career batting avg of .293 in 467 games and he even hit 17 dingers in 2019.
And if you enjoy players sticking it to owners, it’s impossible not to laugh at Castillo forgoing free agency and the opportunity to play in the majors somewhere. Nope, he had a player option for $13.5 million in 2020 that he happily opted into knowing he’ll most certainly remain in AAA.
After slashing $59 million off the 2020 payroll with the salary dumps of Mookie Betts and David Price, there’s suddenly some breathing room under the luxury tax. So maybe 2020 is the year we finally see Rusney Castillo for a full season? Why the hell not.
98.5 – It’s official: call them the “WooSox.” The Triple-A affiliate of the Boston Red Sox will keep the Red Sox nickname as they move from Pawtucket to Worcester in 2021. The team made the announcement Monday night and will brand themselves as the WooSox for short.
A bit anticlimactic, no?
After all the buzz and hundreds of suggestions from fans they ended up teasing this whole big announcement…only to keep the same exact name. Okay.
It was never a realistic option for the team to go away from the iconic brand that is the Red Sox. Would something cheeky like the Hartford Yard Goats or the Binghamton Rumble Ponies been cool? Yes, but this is a minor league franchise betting $100 Million on the fact that people will come to their games in Worcester. So sticking with the clear association to the Red Sox is no surprise.
What is surprising though is that odd smiley face logo wearing actual Red Sox.
I didn’t realize one person could take credit for something so omnipresent in American culture. Its like Mugatu taking credit for inventing the piano key neck tie.
Ya learn something new every day on this blog. Not sure if I’m dying to buy a smiley face Sox hat (I probably will), but I am psyched to see this new ballpark. As we’ve detailed here in the past, Larry Lucchino is building his magnum opus in this Triple-A ballpark in Worcester. This place is going to be sick.
Just a damn shame that friend of the blog Rusney Castillo, probably the most infamous PawSox player of all time, won’t be around to bear the fruit of his labor since his contract ends in 2020.
Boston.com – “We want a ballpark that really looks like Worcester, tastes like Worcester, smells like Worcester — a ballpark that is really representative of its home town,” Rea, the executive vice president of real estate development and business affairs for the Pawtucket Red Sox, recently told Boston.com in an interview.
Over the last month, PawSox officials have begun to reveal what that exactly could mean.
Rea says they’re currently “knee deep” in the planning efforts for the future home of the Red Sox Triple-A affiliate, who will begin playing in Worcester in 2021. The team announced the move last August, along with plans to build a 10,000-seat stadium in Worcester’s Canal District as part of a development project that includes restaurants, apartments, and a hotel overlooking the ballpark…
…has partnered with Worcester-based craft brewer Wormtown Brewery and beverage distributor Atlas to curate a locally inspired beer menu.
“We want people to be able to have Coors and Miller and Bud, but also have the local flare that I think the Worcester and Central Mass. area is becoming known for,” Rea said.
Welcome to Worcester. Dollar Twenty Five.
Larry Lucchino is most famous for three things: 1.) Designing the beautiful Camden Yards ballpark in Baltimore 2.) Leading the revival and renovations of the modern day Fenway Park and 3.) Running Theo Epstein out of town over a pissing contest. Obviously No. 3 is not ideal, but No. 1 and No. 2 are great legacies, which is why I have faith in Larry building something awesome in Worcester.
At first glance Polar Park seems like just another licensing rights sell out that means nothing. Whether intentional or not, it actually works really well because (at least for the Pawtucket Red Sox) the Triple-A team’s mascot currently is…
Yup, a polar bear. Or “Osos Polares de Pawtucket” if you happened to grab the fire flames hispanic themed hat like myself.
Larry’s even brought in the same architects to design the new park that have been leading the Fenway renovations for the last two decades.
It sounds like they’re being pretty creative with the entrances too, which is great not only for designing a unique experience but also helps with the bottle neck problem so many parks have.
Similar to Fenway, team officials are planning to have entrances all around Polar Park, so that fans can enter from different angles and the “full circumference of the venue is busy and activated,” Rea said. The park will also be built into a hill. So while fans entering the home-plate side on Madison Street would come in on street level, those coming from the direction of Worcester’s lively Green Street restaurant and bar scene would actually walk down into the stadium from center and right field (think Baltimore’s Camden Yards with a Jersey Street-type scene above the outfield seats).
I can’t tell you how many times theres been a massive line at Fenway right when you cross over the bridge to only just bomb down around to the Ted Williams statue and just double back to save a few minutes.
“I think there will be some unique outfield geometry and architecture,” he said. “We’re still putting those final pieces in place. But I think there will be some unique Fenway-esque architecture, if not identical dimensions and identical height walls. But some things will certainly have that sort of feel to it — not just some generic, perfectly symmetrical outfield.”
Fenway-esque architecture? Hell if I know what that means. I would think as the Triple-A team you would want players to get used to the same dimensions that the parent club is using in their home ballpark so that would make sense, but who knows.
Anddd its gonna be pricey!
According to the Worcester Business Journal, it will be the fourth-most expensive minor league park ever built when adjusted for inflation.
“We want a ballpark that has Fenway charm, but with the modern amenities that you expect from a 21st century ballpark,” Rea said.
The “flexible seating and social areas” are a great idea because sometimes you just want to grab a sausage and a couple beers and shoot the shit with your buds.
Around 7,200 to 7,500 of the park’s 10,000-person capacity will be traditional, fixed ballpark seats, Steinberg said at a fan preview night in Pawtucket last month. The rest will be flexible seating and social areas catering toward younger fans and families. Rea thinks such gathering spaces will be key for attracting students from the 13 colleges in the Worcester area, who have reportedly complained about not having anywhere to mingle with each other.
I’ve done this at plenty of Sox games when I stumble onto $10 tickets and its a blowout. The roof deck down the first base line is one of my favorite spots in Fenway. It also reminds me of the open local brewery and picnic table areas I raved about in our Portland SeaDogs ballpark review.
We’ll be heading back to Portland in August for another SeaDogs game and I’ll probably hit Pawtucket again for the seasons over. Needless to say I am a huge fan of minor league ballparks, whether its Pawtucket or Portland or the NH Fisher Cats or even some Brockton Rox games back in the day. Still need to make it to the Hartford Yard Goats who apparently have a sick brand new stadium downtown, but I will 100% be checking out the Worcester stadium once the PawSox move their in 2021.
Until then, please please just don’t ruin the team name with some gimmicky mascot. As Frank Lucas once said, “thats a brand name.”
The correct answer, of course, is “None of the above.”
I know it’s trendy for Minor League Baseball teams to adopt crazy names like Rumble Ponies, Rubber Ducks, and Jumbo Shrimp. Even the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre jumped on this bandwagon a few years ago and dumped the most famous pinstripes in the world to become the RailRiders. I respect the Pawtucket Red Sox for not giving into this trend.
At least Scranton/Wilkes-Barre may have had some Phillies or Pirates fans who didn’t want to go root for the Yankees. Worcester is just as deep in Red Sox Nation as Pawtucket is, though. Why give up that Red Sox brand name? [Unless the big league team has asked you to.] Of course they can’t be called the Paw Sox after they leave Pawtucket, but Woo Sox or Wor Sox would be better than the nicknames some marketing firm came up with. And you could still wear all sorts of crazy uniforms and come up with one-day team names like the Omaha Potholes.
Speaking of which, I feel bad that Larry Lucchino probably actually had to pay money to some marketing firm to come up with names like the Worcester Worcesters. Whatever he paid them was too much. $25 million for three years of Matt Clement’s services was a better deal.
#RedSox recall No. 1 prospect Michael Chavis from the @PawSox. The @RedSox‘s 2014 first-round #MLBDraft pick has posted a .954 OPS with 4 HR in 12 games this season.
The Red Sox are reeling, currently sitting in last place in the AL East, and Dustin Pedroia has once again been placed back on the Injured List with knee issues. This team is in a bad spot right now so it was definitely in need of some changes. One of those will be the promotion of their No. 1 prospect in Michael Chavis to the major league roster. The Sox took Chavis with the 26th overall pick in 2014 so it’s time to see what the kid’s got.
Visual evidence that I watched Michael Chavis play in AA Portland.
As the Eagle Tribune points out, with the lack of production from Pedroia, Eduardo Nunez and with Brock Holt on the shelf,”Red Sox second basemen have combined for a .337 OPS, by far the worst in the majors.”
Chavis is only hitting .250 but he’s got an OPS of .954 with 4 home runs in 12 games. He did blast 31 dingers in 2017 between Single-A Salem and Double-A at Portland. This was of course before he was popped for PEDs last April and suspended for 80 games though. I worried that may be the end of Michael Chavis the Power Hitting Prospect, but he seems to still be whacking the ball around the yard. He actually had a higher OPS in 2018 as well as in 2019 (granted its a small sample size) than he did in 2017 so thats encouraging as well.
Now I’ve learned from the failed careers of super hyped prospects like Craig Hansen and Cla Meradith to temper my expectations when top prospects get called up, but its hard to not be excited to watch the kid play. He’s traditionally been a corner infielder, but has been working at second base too so we could see him split time there with Tzu-Wei Lin, who was also called up today.
They’ll have to pry that second baseman’s mitt (I don’t think this is actually a thing) out of the cold dead hands of Christian Vazquez first though.
The Pawtucket Red Sox, ever in favor of love, will celebrate the engagement of Alex Rodriguez and Jennifer Lopez with a Red Sox-themed party Friday, April 12 at McCoy Stadium, to inaugurate the club’s Legendary Fridays series this year.
For those who recall the events of Saturday afternoon, July 24, 2004, which may have been the most important and most pivotal regular season game in the long and storied history of the Boston Red Sox
The PawSox just changed the game with this promo! As much as I used to hate A-Rod with the passion of a thousand suns, I kinda like him now. I think it’s a direct correlation to when Yankees fans turned on him at the end. He became a flawed human who just wanted to be liked that I think we can all relate to. It just didn’t feel right hating a guy that Yankees fans hated. Plus he is a true A+ talent in the broadcast booth and he charmed my socks off when he appeared at the HubSpot convention last year.
With that being said, times were different in 2004. The Red Sox were still the most popular team in town despite the Pats having won 2 of the past 3 Super Bowls. They were still the team everyone lived and died by whether it was April or October. So everything was magnified by 1,000%.
The Sox had just lost an absolute heartbreaker of an ALCS Game 7 that I will take to my grave. And to top it all off the Yankees had gotten even better. A-Rod was the new despised enemy after a failed arranged marriage was nixed by the MLBPA the winter before. So naturally the Yanks swooped in like the snakes they are and worked out a trade for the slugger. (If you’ve never watched the 30 for 30 short on what if the A-Rod Red Sox trade had gone through that is appointment viewing) A-Rod was a perennial MVP candidate, but he was also a loudmouth, whiny pretty boy who’d never won a damn thing. So when he started talking shit to 135 lbs Bronson Arroyo after getting beaned I think we had all had enough. I still vividly remember standing in my parents living room and shouting FIGHT once Varitek got in A-Rod’s face and served him a piece of catcher’s mitt pie.
And this wasn’t just some heat of the moment thing. There was genuine animosity between the two sides…or at least from Varitek. Seriously Varitek still hates the fucking guy and made A-Rod legitimately uncomfortable on the World Series broadcast last season.
Jason Varitek… the reason I have liked the Red Sox for years. But this clip is amazing, “Hey Jason, don’t punch me.” – ARod. pic.twitter.com/ubj0au6lhI
So for the PawSox to honor this legendary moment in Red Sox history is an incredible promotion. Just look at some of what they have going on!
Fans wearing Bronson Arroyo or Jason Varitek jerseys will be admitted free to Pawtucket’s April 12th game against the New York Mets’ Syracuse affiliate.
Fans by the name of Jennifer will also be admitted for free (Yes… All “Jenny’s from the block” showing valid RI identification will be granted free admission at the PawSox ticket office).
Former Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow, who is expected to be playing with the Syracuse Mets, will walk up to Mariah Carey’s greatest hits for the duration of his series at McCoy Stadium as a salute to one of J.Lo’s greatest rivals.
Long-time Red Sox fan and Cambridge, MA native Ben Affleck has been cordially invited to throw out the game’s Ceremonial First Pitch-for obvious reasons.
I will have my Bronson Arroyo t-shirt jersey ready. to. go. for this game. T-shirt jerseys count, right?
WORCESTER – It’s official. In just a few years, the Pawtucket Red Sox will relocated to Worcester and play in a newly constructed stadium in the city’s Canal District. According to multiple sources, the City will make an official announcement tomorrow. Members of the Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce will be present at the announcement. The Worcester Red Sox will begin play in 2021.
Specifically, the source told TWIW that Worcester’s offer will save the Pawtucket Red Sox owners “tens of millions” if they move to Worcester and build a stadium in the city’s Canal District. Another source told TWIW that it will save PawSox ownership around $23 million to move out of Pawtucket and into Worcester.
On one hand this is kind of sad to see as the PawSox have been in Pawtucket since the early 1970s, depending on how technical you want to get. We all grew up going to those games as it was just an hour down 95 and SIGNIFICANTLY cheaper than my parents taking us to a game at Fenway.
The main reason for the move is a new stadium deal, which the state of Rhode Island had been negotiating, but ultimately were reluctant to foot the bill. A minor league team that charges $5 for tickets is piking for a new stadium? How? Why?
THATS LARRY LUCCHINO’S MUSIC!
Thats right, the guy most famous for driving the greatest baseball mind of our generation out of town over a pissing contest.
He’s why.
He’s also well known for being the driving force behind ballpark projects like the Orioles’ Camden Yards. Lucchino makes me laugh because when people don’t respect his ballpark building game I just imagine him flipping his shit like Mugatu. I INVENTED CAMDEN YARDS!
I have to admit though, all kidding aside, I am starting to soften on Lucchino over the years, but I think that has more to do with the fact that he looks like Jim Leahy than anything else.
Now I can’t blame Pawtucket for balking at building a new stadium for a minor league team that had to let me bring my dog to the game to actually get me to buy a ticket (and meet the legend that is Rusney Castillo).
Even more so when you see some of the details of how much this thing might have actually cost.
“Rhode Island approved an $83 million proposal to build a new Pawtucket riverfront stadium in June. As recently as last week, Pawtucket Mayor Donald Grebien told the Providence Journal he believed his city had a 50 percent chance to retain the PawSox.”
Not to mention, Rhode Island has a bad history with financing the passion projects of the Red Sox.
But the real question here is what do we call them? The PawSox is obviously out. WoSox? WoostahSox? The one I’ve seen in actual print I cannot get on board with; the Woo Sox is a TERRIBLE name. Might as well call them Woo Girls.
So long PawSox, we hardly knew ye. I can’t promise I will visit you often, but it is my moral obligation to film The 300s Reviews: The Worcester Red Sox whenever you do open up shop.
MILB – In partnership with Minor League Baseball, the Pawtucket Red Sox today announced a new initiative with the Latino community. The PawSox will change their name for virtually all of their Tuesday home games to Osos Polares de Pawtucket. The name Osos Polares de Pawtucket, “Polar Bears of Pawtucket” in English, was revealed this morning at a press conference at Ella Risk Elementary School in Central Falls, RI (a school that has about a 78% Hispanic student population)…The PawSox are honored to be selected as one of 33 teams among the 160 in Minor League Baseball to participate in this new form of outreach to the Hispanic Community. This initiative is specifically designed to embrace the culture and values that resonate most with participating teams’ local U.S. Hispanic/Latino communities…To distinctively launch this exciting new program, MiLB and each participating team created culturally-relevant on-field personas that honor their respective U.S. Hispanic/Latino communities. All “Copa” teams will adopt these new personas via on-field jerseys and caps to be worn during designated “Copa de la Diversion” games during the 2018 season.
I’m not quite sure what a Polar Bear in Pawtucket has to do with Hispanic heritage, but I am fully on board if it gets me this fire flames hat and jersey combo.
Minor League sports crushing it per usual with the jersey selection. Being a farm team’s marketing department must be the best job in sports. The players are there to get experience and improve plus oftentimes they’re getting sent up to the next level halfway through the season so winning isn’t really a top priority for the team. Just sell some tickets, bring some families out to the ballpark, and come up with 25 different jersey promotions. I’m in.
Yahoo – Baseball super agent Scott Boras is, in no uncertain terms, upset about the process that’s lead up to Japanese superstar Shohei Ohtani’s arrival in Major League Baseball. Ohtani, after a posting agreement was finalized last week, is set to hit the open market Friday. The catch is: Since he’s an international free agent under 25, the market isn’t as open as it could be. MLB rules put a hard cap on how much teams can spend on international free agents under 25, so the most money Ohtani could possibly get is $3.5 million from the Texas Rangers. Some teams have as little as $10,000 to offer Ohtani. This isn’t about the money for Ohtani, who has long expressed his desire to play on baseball’s most competitive stage. To do so, he’s willing to leave upward of $200 million on the table. Were he over 25, Ohtani could be a true free agent and sign with any team for any amount. Since he’s a two-way star who can throw 100 mph and hit long home runs, getting upward of $200 million on the open market would be entirely plausible.
This guy is INSANE. He is leaving, literally, tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars on the table by coming to the MLB early. Because he is under 25 years old the international rules in place by MLB cap his earning potential $3.5 million. MAX. But if he had waited until he was 25 he could have entered the MLB as a true free agent and would have been free to go to the highest bidder.
Why the arbitrary age of 25?
“picking 25 years old as the cut-off means that a player like Ohtani will hit free agency around the same time as a player from the U.S. who went through the normal draft procedures.”
Just to put this into perspective, the most recent big name Japanese free agents coming MLB earned HUGE pay days. The Yankees signed Masahiro Tanaka for $155 Million. The Rangers signed Yu Darvish for $60 Million. The Red Sox even signed old friend Daisuke Matsuzaka for $51 Million and that was 10 years ago.
So this guy better hope he has the juice and actually performs well in the United States or he just sold low on a winning lottery ticket. Thats half the appeal with international players. You just never know how good (or bad) they’re gonna be. It’s impossible to project how their talent will translate to playing in the MLB. Thats how absolute bums like Rusney Castillo swindled $72 Million out of the Red Sox. Imagine if that guy had come over the US and played for peanuts in hopes of getting a big pay day later? That guy would be working at the Burger King off I-95 in Pawtucket, Rhode Island instead of earning $10+ Million a year to play 2 miles down the road for the PawSox.
Remember the last guy who wanted to pitch and hit in the major leagues? Red Sox super prospect Casey Kelly? Yea, turns out he couldn’t do either one well in the pros. Godspeed, Shohei.
Man time flies. Three years since the Red Sox dumped a 7-year $72.5 million contract in Rusney Castillo’s lap on a whim. And this is why you do not get hyped about a player over a goddamn YouTube video.
Did we learn nothing from Yi Jianlian AKA “The Chairman“? Rusney Castillo looked like he was gonna be a 5-tool stud that the Sox plucked out of Cuba. We’d pair him with Yoenis Cespedes, Hanley Ramirez (and maybe even Giancarlo Stanton?) to form the Cuban Missile Crisis. Right? Well actually not a single one of those guys plays OF for the Red Sox today. Rusney turned out to be a complete bum and has taken up residence as the highest paid player in Minor League Baseball (I chose not to fact check this).
Over parts of 3 seasons in the big leagues Castillo is a career .262 hitter in 317 at bats with 7 HR, 35 RBI and 7 Stolen Bases with a .301 OBP. As a potential 5-tool player, Castillo proved to actually not have a single one of those tools.
Baseball Reference pegs his 162 game average season at .262/.301/.379 with 11 HR 57 RBI 74 Runs and 11 SB. All of that for the cool price of $72.5 Million. And he’s still got THREE YEARS left on his contract at $11M, $11M and $14M. At least Pablo Sandoval made a few DL trips as an excuse. What. A. Disaster.
PS – Rusney Castillo has a .286 career batting average in the minors over 800+ at bats. The $72 Million player can’t even hit .300 playing against kids in Rhode Island.
The 300s 