A Realistic View at 2024: Part III

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, notin said:

So the Sox should dial back the search for pitching until a future Hall of Famer hits the market?

And that doesn't always work out, either (see Price.)

[Bellhorn04]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

And that doesn't always work out, either (see Price.)

Good call.  Price was on a Hall of Fame track until crashing to a halt after joining us.

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Good call.  Price was on a Hall of Fame track until crashing to a halt after joining us.

HOF? Probably not. He was one of the Hall of Very Good guys even if his career didn't fall apart. 

1 CY

2 seasons over 5 bWAR

At age 30, that's not necessarily HOF material. Not comparable to Johan Santana who was on a HOF track. Maybe more of a Ron Guidry track? 

 

[moonslav59]

27 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

HOF? Probably not. He was one of the Hall of Very Good guys even if his career didn't fall apart. 

1 CY

2 seasons over 5 bWAR

At age 30, that's not necessarily HOF material. Not comparable to Johan Santana who was on a HOF track. Maybe more of a Ron Guidry track? 

 

He had 189 GS in the 6 years from 2010-2015, before we signed him. That's over 31 per season. He had 1300 IP, which was 216 per season.

2.97 ERA (130 ERA+)

3.05 FIP and 1.11 WHIP (4 K/BB)

If he had an after 30 career like Scherzer or Verlander, he'd be a cinch.

BTW, Scherzer from 2010-2015: 32 GS/yr and 207 IP/yr

3.38 ERA/ 3.22 FIP/ 1.15 WHIP and 4 K/BB

Is Scherzer HOF?

[moonslav59]

This would be a nice weekend to pick up some ground.

We play at DET (We are better on the road.)

KCR is at HOU, a hot team.

MIN plays TOR, who we just helped get kinda hot.

BAL is at COL and NYY hosts STL.

We are 3.5 behind MIN, 5.5 behind KCR and 7.5 from BAL.

 

[moonslav59]

Current fWAR Leaders

9.8 Judge

9.4 Witt

7.4 Soto

6.7 Lindor

6.6 Duran & Gunner

6.3 Ohtani

5.8 de la Cruz

5.6 Sale

5.4 K Marte

5.0 J Ramirez

4.8 Skubal

4.5 Devers & Ozuna

Other Sox fWARs

3.4 Houck

2.8 Abreu

2.0 O'Neill

1.7 Crawford

1.6 DHam

1.5 Bello

1.3 Pivetta, Slaten, Jansen

1.1 Criswell & Ref

0.9 Rafaela & Yoshida

0.8 Booser

0.7 Casas

0.6 Wong

 

 

[moonslav59]

Our 2B position, this year...

-2.1 fWAR (30th)

.534 OPS (30th)

We've seen 11 players at 2B (all for 9 or more innings)

396 EValdez -7 OAA/ -6 DRS

267 DHam +3 OAA/ +8 DRS

186 Grissom -2 OAA/ +1 DRS

102 Westbrook 0/0

83 Romy -2/-2

78 Sogard -1/+1

39 Reyes 0/-1

30 Gasper -1/+1

14 Rafaela 0/0

11 Wong 0/0

9 Short 0/0

Team: -8 OAA (29th in MLB)/ 0 DRS (t 15th) /-2.5 UZR/150 (23rd)

Worst offense and bottom 5 defense. You can see why Brez tried to fix the 2B problem. It did not work.

DHam turned into our best 2B for 2024, and I think that was a big surprise. He might have been 5th or 6th on our depth chart in March:

1. Grissom

2. EValde

3. Reyes

4.  Westbrook

5. Sogard/DHam

(We acquired Romy and Short during the season.)

What does our 2B situation look like for 2025?

Is Story or Mayer and Campbell in the picture?

Is a DHam-Romy platoon good enough? (As back-ups, I'd say yes.)

 

[moonslav59]

Our SS position, this year:

2.1 fWAR (20th in MLB)

.756 OPS (11th in MLB)

-12 OAA (29th in MLB and 1 ahead of WSH)

-7 DRS (24th) and -8.5 UZR/150 (26th)

Innings at SS:

606 Rafaela (-8 OAA/-4 DRS)

433 DHam (-3 OAA/-3 DRS)

75 Romy (0 OAA/+1 DRS)

68 Story (+1/+2)

19 Sogard (0/-1)

14 Reyes (-2/-2)

While Rafaela brought some stability to the SS position, after Story went down, he was not a net plus. DHam is okay at 2B but not SS. Romy & Sogar should be just emergency depth.

We need a healthy Story, which would greatly improve our SS and CF defense. We will likely need Mayer to be a force, or count on DHam-Grissom to do well in 2025.

 

 

[Larry Cook]

9 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Our 2B position, this year...

-2.1 fWAR (30th)

.534 OPS (30th)

We've seen 11 players at 2B (all for 9 or more innings)

396 EValdez -7 OAA/ -6 DRS

267 DHam +3 OAA/ +8 DRS

186 Grissom -2 OAA/ +1 DRS

102 Westbrook 0/0

83 Romy -2/-2

78 Sogard -1/+1

39 Reyes 0/-1

30 Gasper -1/+1

14 Rafaela 0/0

11 Wong 0/0

9 Short 0/0

Team: -8 OAA (29th in MLB)/ 0 DRS (t 15th) /-2.5 UZR/150 (23rd)

Worst offense and bottom 5 defense. You can see why Brez tried to fix the 2B problem. It did not work.

DHam turned into our best 2B for 2024, and I think that was a big surprise. He might have been 5th or 6th on our depth chart in March:

1. Grissom

2. EValde

3. Reyes

4.  Westbrook

5. Sogard/DHam

(We acquired Romy and Short during the season.)

What does our 2B situation look like for 2025?

Is Story or Mayer and Campbell in the picture?

Is a DHam-Romy platoon good enough? (As back-ups, I'd say yes.)

 

in two days, we should bring up Campbell and stick him at 2b. Dude can hit. 
total nonsense to think Grissom is a better hitter. 
I do not know how Campbell is successful, but he can put bat to ball better than the rogues galley listed above 

[moonslav59]

9 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

in two days, we should bring up Campbell and stick him at 2b. Dude can hit. 
total nonsense to think Grissom is a better hitter. 
I do not know how Campbell is successful, but he can put bat to ball better than the rogues galley listed above 

Who said they thought Grissom was a better hitter than Campbell.

I don't disagree that Campbell might be ready to be called up, now. I do, however, trust the Sox organization to know when he is ready, and how to maximize his years of control on the big club, when he is at a point where he will be playing his best.

Why waste a year of control having him learn and adjust, when we can have a year added in his prime, on the back end?

Calling someone up is not such a simple task. That being said, if they called him up, today, I'd be happy. I'd be thinking he must be ready.

I've not given up on Grissom, but he has to earn his way to the 26, and earn his way to being a starter. His only "leg up" on Campbell is that his years of service clock has already begun.

[moonslav59]

Sox SP'er after their first 4 starts, then since then...

ERA/FIP

0.42/2.19 Crawford (4.71/5.07 since) Was at 2.17/2.91 after 10 & 3.00/3.78 after 20.

1.35/2.01 Houck (3.46/3.59 since) Was at 1.91/2.24 after 13 & 2.79/2.93 after 21.

1.75/3.61 Criswell (includes 1 RP gm) 5.20/4.23 since, not counting today.

1.96/3.34 Whitlock N/A (on IL)

3.92/4.72 Bello (4.80/4.32 since) Was at 3.04/4.07 after 5 & 3.52/4.27 last 9 GS.

 

[jgar658]

Sox 3-7 last 10.

Royas 3-7 last 10.

Lost opportunities!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Larry Cook]

11 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Who said they thought Grissom was a better hitter than Campbell.

I don't disagree that Campbell might be ready to be called up, now. I do, however, trust the Sox organization to know when he is ready, and how to maximize his years of control on the big club, when he is at a point where he will be playing his best.

Why waste a year of control having him learn and adjust, when we can have a year added in his prime, on the back end?

Calling someone up is not such a simple task. That being said, if they called him up, today, I'd be happy. I'd be thinking he must be ready.

I've not given up on Grissom, but he has to earn his way to the 26, and earn his way to being a starter. His only "leg up" on Campbell is that his years of service clock has already begun.

we need to have open competition for the 2nd base position! And the best guy needs to play, we cannot let service years dictate, 

[moonslav59]

48 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

we need to have open competition for the 2nd base position! And the best guy needs to play, we cannot let service years dictate, 

An extra year makes a hug difference, when you figure it's at age 27-29, in most cases.

I do agree, the job should be open, but unless one guy clearly wins the job, other aspects factor in- like who needs to be on the 40, who is out of options, and starting the clock on years of control and how many arb years you get.

I see a stiff competition, unless there are injuries.

I see whoever does not play SS, out of Story and Mayer, will be the best odds on player to win the 2B job.  (The other will also be the back-up SS.) That makes the back-up 2Bman a pretty crucial job, given the injury histories to Story and Mayer. 

I do not doubt that Campbell looks like the best player, right now, and maybe he wins the job, but if he is a back-up to healthy Mayer and Story, he will not be even added to the 40, until needed... let alone the 26. 

I see DHam having the best odds to win the 2B back-up job with a RHB winning the utility role: that would be Grissom vs Romy.

Campbell will likely start the year in AAA, unless Mayer or Story are on the IL. Even if one is, I do not think it's a given he will be the guy we call up or make the FT 2Bman. I'm not against the idea, at all, but he'd have to be impressive, while other look lacking, for us to make him an early season FT 2Bman.

I could see us trading Abreu and DHam to give more room for Anthony, Mayer and Campbell to win a FT role. If they are not going to play everyday or near everyday, they will not be called up early and start their clocks just to have a better utility or back-up player on the bench. Also, our bench is not our weakness.

If we trade Abreu and DHam for a pitcher, maybe we see this by May or June:

C- Wong & Teel

1B: Casas (Devers)

2B: Campbell & Story (Romy)

SS: Mayer & Story (Sogard)

3B: Devers & Story (Meidroth?)

LF: Duran  &Ref (Campbell)

CF: Rafaela (Duran)

RF: Anthony & Ref (Jh Garcia)

DH: Yoshida (Ref & Campbell)

 

[jgar658]

I hear Ref may retire this year.

 

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, jgar658 said:

I hear Ref may retire this year.

 

He may even have gotten a head start on it. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

23 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Why waste a year of control having him learn and adjust, when we can have a year added in his prime, on the back end?

I've not given up on Grissom, but he has to earn his way to the 26, and earn his way to being a starter. His only "leg up" on Campbell is that his years of service clock has already begun.

I know "control" is important when we're talking about superstars, because of the big paydays they can demand when they approach/hit free agency. But for average big leaguers, does it really matter that much? Do that many guys even last that long with the same franchise or get paid more than market rate? 

Nowadays, the smart strategy or goal for clubs that like young star players is to lock them up with extensions, anyway... for even more control.

I guess what I'm wondering is if a team fighting for the postseason can upgrade by promoting a good but not necessarily MLB TOP 10 prospect, why not shoot for this year -- when who knows where half your roster will be a half decade from now?

[Bellhorn04]

36 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I know "control" is important when we're talking about superstars, because of the big paydays they can demand when they approach/hit free agency. But for average big leaguers, does it really matter that much? Do that many guys even last that long with the same franchise or get paid more than market rate? 

Nowadays, the smart strategy or goal for clubs that like young star players is to lock them up with extensions, anyway... for even more control.

I guess what I'm wondering is if a team fighting for the postseason can upgrade by promoting a good but not necessarily MLB TOP 10 prospect, why not shoot for this year -- when who knows where half your roster will be a half decade from now?

Agreed.  All good points IMO.

[notin]

2 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I know "control" is important when we're talking about superstars, because of the big paydays they can demand when they approach/hit free agency. But for average big leaguers, does it really matter that much? Do that many guys even last that long with the same franchise or get paid more than market rate? 

Nowadays, the smart strategy or goal for clubs that like young star players is to lock them up with extensions, anyway... for even more control.

I guess what I'm wondering is if a team fighting for the postseason can upgrade by promoting a good but not necessarily MLB TOP 10 prospect, why not shoot for this year -- when who knows where half your roster will be a half decade from now?

Isn’t that what the Sox have been doing?  Guys like Hamilton and Abreu got the call while the Mayer and Anthony stayed on the farm..

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

I know "control" is important when we're talking about superstars, because of the big paydays they can demand when they approach/hit free agency. But for average big leaguers, does it really matter that much? Do that many guys even last that long with the same franchise or get paid more than market rate? 

Nowadays, the smart strategy or goal for clubs that like young star players is to lock them up with extensions, anyway... for even more control.

I guess what I'm wondering is if a team fighting for the postseason can upgrade by promoting a good but not necessarily MLB TOP 10 prospect, why not shoot for this year -- when who knows where half your roster will be a half decade from now?

Extending arb and even pre-arb players has become more common, but not every player gets extended or agrees to one offered.

The years of team control matters, a lot. There are ways for teams to fix it so a player gets 4 arb years, not three. There are way to start the clock on arbs a year or more, later with the idea that you can have a player on the big club from ages 25-29 or 30, instead of 24-27 or 28/29. That makes a lot of sense, as most players are better at ages 28-30 than from 22-24. Not all, of course.

I'm only saying this is and should be one of many factors involved in deciding who and when a player is added to the 40. Most teams hold off adding someone to the 40, until it is Rule 5 time, and sometimes they delay beyond that date, if the determine the player is too far away to be selected, even if very promising.

We currently have several minor leaguers, who are not on the 40, but are very close to being ML ready. Some might be ML ready, already. We also have a pretty deep returning player roster, and despite losing 4 big names to free agency, we have 4 guys on the 60 day IL that will fill their slots. Of course we have a few players like Dalbec that can easily be DFA'd to make room, or we could trade some bubble players for prospects not needing 40 man protection, but when winter rolls around, there doesn't seem to be much trade demand for "bubble players," as many teams are trying to squeeze their Rule 5 guys onto their current 40 man roster. I think we were proactive on this front, at the deadline, and "cleaned out" a lot of "bubble players" and players eligible for Rule 5, this winter. I do not see a major crunch to the roster, unless we add several non Rule 5 players to the 40, and this is where I think choices made on a guy like Campbell might be heavily influenced by wanting to keep other options available on the 40, for as long as possible.

I do not think we choose to protect these players, but I am often wrong on who we choose to protect: Angel Bastardo, Nathan Hickey, Blaze Jordan (although we could DFA Dalbec and add him), JJ Liu, Wyatt Mills, Noah Song, Jeremy Wu-Yelland

Bubble protectees: Alan Castro, Grant Gambrell, Luis Guerrero

Certain protectees: Richard Fitts, Hunter Dobbins, Michael Fulmer, Jh Garcia

As you can see, several prospects knocking most loudly on the MLB door are not on the Rule 5 list for Dec 2024:

2025: Marcelo Mayer, Chase Meidroth, David Sandlin, Miguel Bleis, I Coffey, H Mullins, J Paez

2026:  Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, Kyle Teel and many more.

These 5 underlined players all seem like they will be "ready" by opening day of mid-summer. I doubt we add even 3 or 4 of them before Sept call-ups.  I will do a more indepth post on next year's 40 man roster and Rule 5 situation, later. Again, I don't see a big crunch. We can add some of these 5, even on opening day. If we see Anthony as being opening day ready, we could trade Abreu. If we see Mayer as ready, we could trade DHam, Romy or Sogard, of if there are any takers, Story. The back-up catcher situation is fluid, so it would be easy to add Teel over someone like Heineman, but I think adding Mayer and Campbell might be too problematic for roster construction, unless several deals are made.

[moonslav59]

56 minutes ago, notin said:

Isn’t that what the Sox have been doing?  Guys like Hamilton and Abreu got the call while the Mayer and Anthony stayed on the farm..

And, the way they played shows why you don't cut these guys loose to see what some highly touted prospect may or may not do- not that the choice was to DFA Abreu or DHam, others would be DFA'd before them, but keeping them at AAA would have meant we missed out on what they ended up giving. Hell, we may have just upped their trade value, to make it easier to make room for the kids.

Anthong, Mayer, Teel, Meidroth and Sandlin all are at least a year away from Rule 5. I think this matters. I would not be surprised if none of them are on the 40 on opening day, but some may be added during the year, but only when they have a starting MLB slot ready for them to assume. We are not adding them to the 40 to ride the ML bench. (Also, we have a pretty decent bench, unless Ref retires, but even then, moving Rafaela to CF still leaves us with a solid 3 FT'ers, where adding Anthony would squeeze one out.

[notin]

8 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

And, the way they played shows why you don't cut these guys loose to see what some highly touted prospect may or may not do- not that the choice was to DFA Abreu or DHam, others would be DFA'd before them, but keeping them at AAA would have meant we missed out on what they ended up giving. Hell, we may have just upped their trade value, to make it easier to make room for the kids.

Anthong, Mayer, Teel, Meidroth and Sandlin all are at least a year away from Rule 5. I think this matters. I would not be surprised if none of them are on the 40 on opening day, but some may be added during the year, but only when they have a starting MLB slot ready for them to assume. We are not adding them to the 40 to ride the ML bench. (Also, we have a pretty decent bench, unless Ref retires, but even then, moving Rafaela to CF still leaves us with a solid 3 FT'ers, where adding Anthony would squeeze one out.

After his first 12 games, Hamilton was looking pretty DFA-able.  .553 OPS. Couldn’t catch or throw.  I’m all about giving players a legitimate chance and not making snap judgments on small sample sizes.  But with Hamilton, I wasn’t sure there was anything else to see.  Yet the Sox kept him and it’s worked out so far…

[moonslav59]

8 minutes ago, notin said:

After his first 12 games, Hamilton was looking pretty DFA-able.  .553 OPS. Couldn’t catch or throw.  I’m all about giving players a legitimate chance and not making snap judgments on small sample sizes.  But with Hamilton, I wasn’t sure there was anything else to see.  Yet the Sox kept him and it’s worked out so far…

Great point. I felt the same way, at the time, despite the tiny sample size. 

His D is still a major issue at SS, but he's okay at 2B. With Mayer and Story both looking like SSs, having DHam on the 26 for 2025 looks very close to a given, IMO, even if Mayer is on the 26 and 40 on opening day. He's better than Romy and Sogard. Grissom might be able to give him a run, and he's a RHB, but he has to win the back-up job from DHam, IMO. DHam is clearly above him on the depth chart at 2B, and probably SS, too.

His base stealing skills are amazing, and that gives the team a whole new dimension, when coupled with Duran's abilities.

I know we are going through a very rough patch, right now, but I can't stop myself from being excited about our 13 everyday players for 2025. Just about every one of the 13 are pre-prime through peak prime. This does not mean all will improve, next year, but most players follow a somewhat bell curve on production that peaks around age 27-29.

Ref is 33 and may retire. Story is 31, which is still within prime years (26-31.) Yoshida is 30. The other 10 are all under 30:

28: Wong

27: Devers, Duran, Romy

26: DHam, Sogard

25: Abreu & EValdez

24: Casas

23: Rafaela, Grissom

[moonslav59]

Nobody has more PAs and a higher OPS than Duran.

(Only Lindor has more PAs, so that is a major reason, but still...)

[moonslav59]

Maybe you think the MLB Power Rankings are a joke, or worse, but here is an interesting tidbit of information that highlights how bad many of the best teams in MLB have looked at some point this season.

Lowest season rankings of the top 10 teams, right now:

1. LAD 6th

2. NYY 7th

3. PHI 8th

4. MIL 19th

5 . BAL 5th (most consistent) 

6. HOU 26th!!!

7. AZ 8th (pretty consistent)

8. CLE 21st

9. SDP 9th (consistent)

10.  KCR 24th

11. MIN 23rd

5 of the top 11 teams were once viewed as 19th best or worse, at some point. If KCR or MIN play like they are 24th going forward, maybe we'll have a shot.

[Old Red]

Right now the Red Sox are LLL. Lifeless, listless, and LOSING. Three years in a row now the Red Sox have been like this at the end of the season. Underdogs, underwhelming, and undeserving of the fan base, and all under the leadership of Cora. This team has been a bad fundamental team also for the last three years, and yes under the leadership of Cora. I know he walks on water to some on here, but he has to get some of the blame for what’s gone on the last 3 years. Bloom, Henry, Brez, and yes Cora has all had something to do with it. 

[Bellhorn04]

10 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Right now the Red Sox are LLL. Lifeless, listless, and LOSING. Three years in a row now the Red Sox have been like this at the end of the season. Underdogs, underwhelming, and undeserving of the fan base, and all under the leadership of Cora. This team has been a bad fundamental team also for the last three years, and yes under the leadership of Cora. I know he walks on water to some on here, but he has to get some of the blame for what’s gone on the last 3 years. Bloom, Henry, Brez, and yes Cora has all had something to do with it. 

Yeah, I'm a Cora fan, but it is starting to become troubling that his teams seem to fall apart after the ASB.  I'm not sure how much of that is on him and how much on the bunglers who give the team no help at the trade deadlines.   

[Bellhorn04]

If we focus on this year's team, they were widely projected before the season to be about .500.  We had a couple of bursts of hope, one from the great start by the pitchers, another from a hot streak that pushed them 11 games over .500.

Now it looks like they'll end up right around where they were projected to be.  

So does Cora get credit for keeping them afloat as long as he did, or blame for letting them sink.

I'm still going to put most of the blame on those who assembled the roster and set the budget. 

[Old Red]

5 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Yeah, I'm a Cora fan, but it is starting to become troubling that his teams seem to fall apart after the ASB.  I'm not sure how much of that is on him and how much on the bunglers who give the team no help at the trade deadlines.   

There is plenty of Blame to go around, but three years in a row now is more than just coincidence, or bad luck at the end of the season, and Cora is at the helm of a sinking ship once again, and Cora just saying we got to do better just doesn’t cut it.

[Old Red]

2 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

If we focus on this year's team, they were widely projected before the season to be about .500.  We had a couple of bursts of hope, one from the great start by the pitchers, another from a hot streak that pushed them 11 games over .500.

Now it looks like they'll end up right around where they were projected to be.  

So does Cora get credit for keeping them afloat as long as he did, or blame for letting them sink.

I'm still going to put most of the blame on those who assembled the roster and set the budget. 

Cora has walked on water around here pretty much since 2018, and while I like Cora even though I was called a hater, because I said I would have never hired him back for the cheating scandal I think he is way overrated especially on here. John Farrell won a WS in his first year too, so it’s not like Cora is extra special that some make him out to be. They can win with him, and they can finish in last place, and out of the postseason with him too.