Red Sox interest in Eric Thames wasn't a factor for Brewers

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In what was an already complicated contract valuation attempt, the Brewers weren’t worried about the Red Sox when it came to Eric Thames.

The Sox never made an offer on the Brewers slugger this winter, but did follow him closely. 

While the Brewers were aware Thames could go elsewhere, the Sox’ interest was not a factor in their own pursuit, Brewers general manager David Stearns said.

In general, the Brewers didn’t get bogged down trying to price Thames based on other teams’ interest. Coming off dominating seasons in Korea, the Brewers gave Thames three years and $16 million.

“We thought we had an idea what other teams might be pursuing him as well,” Stearns said on the CSNNE Baseball Show Podcast (listen below). “We also knew that there were international teams both in Korea and Japan that were pursuing him quite aggressively. We knew we had a level of competition. Frankly as went through our process, we just determined what we thought was appropriate value. And we understood that there was a chance that we could potentially be outbid. And if that was the case so be it.

“But we tried to stay pretty strict to our own process and understand how we valued the risk. … Certainly, if you had complete information and you knew what other teams’ level of interest was and you knew what they were bidding or proposing for a particular player it would make our jobs a lot easier to determine what an appropriate value is. And you can have those conversations internally and you can try to figure it out, but it’s not an easy thing to predict, and so generally, the safer alternative is to really focus on your own situation and what you think the appropriate value for the player is.”

 

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