A Realistic View of the 2025 Red Sox: Part I

[Duran Is The Man]

46 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

STEAMER projects 4.9 fWAR (He was 4.7, last year.)

Maybe, I'm too hung up on the risk of trading for a guy who has only pitched over 65 innings once, including college and the minors.

yep. Crochet is seriously overrated IMHO.

[Larry Cook]

4 minutes ago, Randy Red Sox said:

why should we consider trading Mayer for Castillo.??  We can get Sasaki for nothing but $$ and keep our SS of the future.  No chance in the world I make that trade.

What are our realistic chances of getting Sasaki with the dodgers and Mets out there 

[Duran Is The Man]

2 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

What are our realistic chances of getting Sasaki with the dodgers and Mets out there 

there is no way he isn't going to the Dodgers.

[harmony]

8 minutes ago, Randy Red Sox said:

why should we consider trading Mayer for Castillo.??  We can get Sasaki for nothing but $$ and keep our SS of the future.  No chance in the world I make that trade.

Has anyone proposed trading Marcelo Mayer for Luis Castillo?

That's a highly unlikely trade from the Red Sox perspective.

[moonslav59]

7 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

why should we consider trading Mayer for Castillo.??  We can get Sasaki for nothing but $$ and keep our SS of the future.  No chance in the world I make that trade.

Mayer and Castillo makes the Castillo contract chump change.

We do not have an unlimited budget.

[mvp 78]

16 hours ago, drewski6 said:

This is baseball, did anyone expect the WS to be Rangers vs Dbacks 2 years ago?

The Rangers had loaded up on FA's in previous offseasons. That it worked out a year later than expected shouldn't be a complete surprise. 

[mvp 78]

8 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

What are our realistic chances of getting Sasaki with the dodgers and Mets out there 

Less than 5%. 

[mvp 78]

8 hours ago, harmony said:

Has anyone proposed trading Marcelo Mayer for Luis Castillo?

That's a highly unlikely trade from the Red Sox perspective.

Terrible trade for the Sox IMO.

[drewski6]

9 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

STEAMER projects 4.9 fWAR (He was 4.7, last year.)

Maybe, I'm too hung up on the risk of trading for a guy who has only pitched over 65 innings once, including college and the minors.

He straight up misses bats, man

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, drewski6 said:

He straight up misses bats, man

Misses bats and starts. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Get more start makers and not more start missers.

[Bellhorn04]

7 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

He straight up misses bats, man

Great stuff but a lot of question marks too.  

Probably the biggest issue is that it's only 2 years of control.  

Some would say "well just sign him to a big extension right away".  But then he's not much different from a big-risk big-money free agent. 

[moonslav59]

10 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

why should we consider trading Mayer for Castillo.??  We can get Sasaki for nothing but $$ and keep our SS of the future.  No chance in the world I make that trade.

I'd love to get Sasaki, but I am not convinced he can step right in and be a better SP'er than Bello.Gio/Craw.

I also included Yoshida in with Mayer, which would bring Castillo's cost to about $3M a year.

[mvp 78]

13 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I'd love to get Sasaki, but I am not convinced he can step right in and be a better SP'er than Bello.Gio/Craw.

I also included Yoshida in with Mayer, which would bring Castillo's cost to about $3M a year.

How do the Sox go about enticing Sasaki? It won't be with money as all the bids will be about the same. He basically gets to pick and choose where he wants to go solely based on the org and not finances. 

[moonslav59]

19 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

How do the Sox go about enticing Sasaki? It won't be with money as all the bids will be about the same. He basically gets to pick and choose where he wants to go solely based on the org and not finances. 

True, so it may not be such an "easy" choice for the Sox.

[moonslav59]

MLBTR on catchers....

With teams like the Rays, Orioles, Cubs, Blue Jays, and Padres all potentially in the market to add behind the plate, Danny Jansen and Carson Kelly are the top names ahead of an assortment of mid-30s veterans such as Gary Sanchez, Elias Diaz, and James McCann. The lack of quality options behind the plate could create a seller-friendly trade market for catchers, but few obvious trade candidates at the position exist. Minnesota’s Christian Vazquez stands as the most logical name available, but the $10MM he’s owed in 2025 eclipses his market value by a few million. Could the upcoming Winter Meetings involve a mad dash to lock up the remaining catchers on the market?

[harmony]

The Red Sox reportedly sign lefty reliever Aroldis Chapman to a $10.75 million, one-year contract:

https://x.com/JeffPassan/status/1863972109803741244

 

[notin]

2 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Great stuff but a lot of question marks too.  

Probably the biggest issue is that it's only 2 years of control.  

Some would say "well just sign him to a big extension right away".  But then he's not much different from a big-risk big-money free agent. 

Except that he’s only 25 years old and doesn’t even turn 26 until late June.  Can’t say that about Fried or Burnes…

[Hitch]

That would be depressing.

 

The Chapman news.

[notin]

1 minute ago, harmony said:

The Red Sox reportedly sign lefty reliever Aroldis Chapman to a $10.75 million, one-year contract:

https://x.com/JeffPassan/status/1863972109803741244

 

It’s not official until MLBTR reports it.

 

That said

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/red-sox-progressing-in-talks-with-aroldis-chapman.html

[moonslav59]

Makes me think Scott is not coming to BOS. Maybe, we can still add Hoffman, Estevez or Holmes (who may be signed to start.)

[mvp 78]

43 minutes ago, Hitch said:

That would be depressing.

 

The Chapman news.

Yuck!

[Bellhorn04]

52 minutes ago, notin said:

Except that he’s only 25 years old and doesn’t even turn 26 until late June.  Can’t say that about Fried or Burnes…

True but OTOH Crochet is not the proven commodity those two are.  Crochet really only has 1 good year under his belt and even that was a truncated one. 

 

  

[harmony]

1 hour ago, notin said:

It’s not official until MLBTR reports it.

 

That said

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/red-sox-progressing-in-talks-with-aroldis-chapman.html

MLB Trade Rumors is a parasitic aggregator that lives off the hard work of real journalists.

The real journalists don't object to MLB Trade Rumors if MLBTR provides only a brief summary and a link that increases the traffic at the original source.

That's why a link was provided to Jeff Passan, a real journalist who deserves the credit.

In recent years MLB Trade Rumors has expanded into some analysis of the underlying reported events.

[Bellhorn04]

1 hour ago, harmony said:

MLB Trade Rumors is a parasitic aggregator that lives off the hard work of real journalists.

The real journalists don't object to MLB Trade Rumors if MLBTR provides only a brief summary and a link that increases the traffic at the original source.

That's why a link was provided to Jeff Passan, a real journalist who deserves the credit.

In recent years MLB Trade Rumors has expanded into some analysis of the underlying reported events.

So who are they hurting, exactly?

[harmony]

8 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

So who are they hurting, exactly?

On- the-ground news gathering requires resources. Jeff Passan does not work for free.

information is a commodity with a certain value. The traditional media and their journalists expend resources to produce that commodity.

MLB Trade Rumors pilfers that commodity, sometimes taking consumer traffic away from the original! source. Less traffic means less advertising revenue … unless, of course, the MLBTR links increase the traffic to the original source.

[Bellhorn04]

6 minutes ago, harmony said:

On- the-ground news gathering requires resources. Jeff Passan does not work for free.

information is a commodity with a certain value. The traditional media and their journalists expend resources to produce that commodity.

MLB Trade Rumors pilfers that commodity, sometimes taking consumer traffic away from the original! source. Less traffic means less advertising revenue … unless, of course, the MLBTR links increase the traffic to the original source.

So what they're doing is bad unless it's good.

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, harmony said:

On- the-ground news gathering requires resources. Jeff Passan does not work for free.

information is a commodity with a certain value. The traditional media and their journalists expend resources to produce that commodity.

MLB Trade Rumors pilfers that commodity, sometimes taking consumer traffic away from the original! source. Less traffic means less advertising revenue … unless, of course, the MLBTR links increase the traffic to the original source.

Passan will earn millions over his career from working for ESPN. MLBTR isn't taking money out of his pocket. People don't go to ESPN.GO.COM or whatever anymore because half the site is paywalled on the most banal articles. 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

True but OTOH Crochet is not the proven commodity those two are.  Crochet really only has 1 good year under his belt and even that was a truncated one. 

 

  

The other worry is that he has only pitched over 65 IP, once- counting college.

[moonslav59]

On the budget, now... AAV (Only 15 players above min wage or near min wage.)

29.1 Devers

23.2 Story

19.3 Giolito

18.0 Yoshida

10.8 Chapman

9.2 Bello

6.3 Rafaela

5.0 Hendriks

4.7 Whitlock

2.3 Wilson

2.1 Refsnyder

Arb Est...

4.5 Houck

4.3 Duran

3.0 Crawford