A Realistic View of the 2025 Red Sox: Part I

[moonslav59]

It comes down to who is he playing instead of. Compare their offense, defense and whatever else they do better or worse, but also the related positional moves that created the choice to decide on Yoshida (and dont forget Refsnyder) in LF.

If we get Bregman to play 3B and greatly improve our 3B defense, and push Devers to 1B/DH and Casas to part time DH, then I can stomach Yoshida downgrading the LF defense. He hist better than Rafaela. He hist better than Ref v RHPs and Abreu vs LHPs, so his offense looks better than someone who sits. His defense will always be worse, but by how much, and how much better is is offense. (We can also bring in a defensive replacement, late in some games.

In a sense, adding Bregma would replace Rafaela's bat vs RHPs and Abreus vs LHPs. Another way to see it is, he replaces O'Neill's bat and Devers glove at 3B.

Better RH'd hitting.

Better 3B defense.

Maybe better 1B defense, if Devers ends up better than Casas.

More rest for Devers and Casas as they DH 80 times a year.

Worse LF defense. (Yoshida sucks at baserunning as a DH as much as a LF'er. He is going to be in the line-up... somewhere.)

[moonslav59]

I'm reading projections we sign Bregman, Alonso or Grichuk, or trade for Arenado. We are mentioned as "having interest" in several RP'er. You can't trust all rumors, but I gotta think we end up with something significant. (I'm not sure I'd call Grichuk "significant.")

My top choices:

1. Scott

2. Bregman

3. Estevez and a few others like him.

No thanks for Alonso.

[Larry Cook]

I think that unless any of the 3 has the best spring training ever, bres-slow intends to leave them in Worcester to start the year 

[moonslav59]

9 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

I think that unless any of the 3 has the best spring training ever, bres-slow intends to leave them in Worcester to start the year 

They are stingy. They will seek the extra year of control on all of them.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

8 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

I think that unless any of the 3 has the best spring training ever, bres-slow intends to leave them in Worcester to start the year 

If so, then better prepare for the Sox to "contend" with the same roster of position players -- minus their home run leader... and hope that Carlos Narvaez is at least a better catcher than McGuire and Jansen.

It's been over half a decade of expecting Bloom/Breslow to follow through on their public intentions of acquiring a first baseman, or second baseman, or impact bat that's a keeper (and not a Renfroe-Duvall-TO clone), and authentic MLB rotation help for Chaim or bullpen primetimers for Brez.

Nope and nope and nope and nope.

Start praying for healthy comebacks from Casas and Story. Does anyone recall Boston opened '24 by winning 7 of 10 on the road...? If the Red Sox just broke even over the final 152, it would've been a winning season -- but they couldn't even do that.

From April 9 through the end of September, the Red Sox had a losing record. That's almost six straight months of losing more games than they won.

So who will be the difference in the batting order to help us win five more games in '25 and reach the playoffs -- like the 86-win Tigers and Royals did last year? It must be Yoshida and Rafaela -- two guys due for vast improvements!

 

[Bellhorn04]

47 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

If so, then better prepare for the Sox to "contend" with the same roster of position players -- minus their home run leader... and hope that Carlos Narvaez is at least a better catcher than McGuire and Jansen.

It's been over half a decade of expecting Bloom/Breslow to follow through on their public intentions of acquiring a first baseman, or second baseman, or impact bat that's a keeper (and not a Renfroe-Duvall-TO clone), and authentic MLB rotation help for Chaim or bullpen primetimers for Brez.

Nope and nope and nope and nope.

Start praying for healthy comebacks from Casas and Story. Does anyone recall Boston opened '24 by winning 7 of 10 on the road...? If the Red Sox just broke even over the final 152, it would've been a winning season -- but they couldn't even do that.

From April 9 through the end of September, the Red Sox had a losing record. That's almost six straight months of losing more games than they won.

So who will be the difference in the batting order to help us win five more games in '25 and reach the playoffs -- like the 86-win Tigers and Royals did last year? It must be Yoshida and Rafaela -- two guys due for vast improvements!

 

I think some prayers are needed for Devers's shoulders as well.

But as to your main point, if Breslow does nothing further, and neither Anthony or Campbell start the year with the team, this will be a worse team position player wise than the one that ended the year so feebly last year, and probably deserving of the projection of being the second worst group in the American League, ahead of only the White Sox.

Which once again screams malpractice.  

Having said all this I'm thinking that maybe for PR purposes alone one of the kids might be in the opening day lineup.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

6 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I think some prayers are needed for Devers's shoulders as well.

But as to your main point, if Breslow does nothing further, and neither Anthony or Campbell start the year with the team, this will be a worse team position player wise than the one that ended the year so feebly last year, and probably deserving of the projection of being the second worst group in the American League, ahead of only the White Sox.

Which once again screams malpractice.  

Having said all this I'm thinking that maybe for PR purposes alone one of the kids might be in the opening day lineup.

You mean like promote Top 10 prospects like other teams do? 

I dunno - we only have THREE...

But you may be right -- imagine the PR if one of them came up and actually helped improve our record, like Top 10 prospects do for other teams.

[mvp 78]

16 hours ago, Hitch said:

Which isn't enough of a reason to play him out there. His bat is nowhere near good enough.

He's a career 111 OPS+, including his year long injury. You're really diminishing how good his bat is. 

[mvp 78]

10 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

I think that unless any of the 3 has the best spring training ever, bres-slow intends to leave them in Worcester to start the year 

What leaves you to believe this? 

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

They are stingy. They will seek the extra year of control on all of them.

And if they come up and one wins a ROY? Bye bye PPI.

[mvp 78]

15 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

You omitted the terrible baserunning. 

Oh no, not that! There are so many great baserunners on the Red Sox!

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

10 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Oh no, not that! There are so many great baserunners on the Red Sox!

It's ok -- we have new coaches!

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

It's ok -- we have new coaches!

The manager will get the right coaches this time! 

Is Masa a perfect player? No. Is he good enough to play in LF once a week? Yes. 

[Hitch]

16 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

He's not historically bad out there by DRS standards. 

The following players were WORSE than -4 DRS in LF last season: 

Benintendi

Profar

TEOSCAR who everyone wanted to put there

Arozarena

Austin Hays

MJ Melendez

Jack Suwinski

James Wood

Nick Gordan

Austin Martin

Yelich

Bryan Reynolds who everyone wanted to trade for in a recent offseason

Yordan Alvarez

Honestly, if the Sox traded for Bryan Reynolds to play everyday in LF, most people wouldn't bat an eye. However, he's horrible at defense (per above) and his OPS the last two seasons was 790. If you gave him fulltime reps, Masa could likely hit 790 when healthy and play bad defense. I think we overstate the negative value he brings to the team because of his lack of power, handedness and size of his contract. I think he's low key a decent player who was just injured all of last season. 

You're doing yourself no favours by including Alvarez and Teoscar on that list. There's a reason you can forgive poor defense when players hit 30+ home runs a season and deliver 4 and 5 WAR seasons. Even Buxton with his limitation is a superior player to Yoshida. His fielding cost the Sox 12 runs - the 5th most in all of baseball. 

Yoshi can hit a bit. That's it. Can't field, can't throw, can't run. And as much as you'd like to divorce the conversation from the contract, unfortunately, all that needs taking into account and we are hugely overpaying for a one dimensional (and decent at best) player.

All this is moot anyway, Cora is not putting him in the outfield bar an emergency, no matter the quotes coming out.

 

 

[Hitch]

21 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

He's a career 111 OPS+, including his year long injury. You're really diminishing how good his bat is. 

And you're overplaying it. His bat does not make up for the rest of his game in which every facet is well below average. Especially on that contract. 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

If so, then better prepare for the Sox to "contend" with the same roster of position players -- minus their home run leader... and hope that Carlos Narvaez is at least a better catcher than McGuire and Jansen.

It's been over half a decade of expecting Bloom/Breslow to follow through on their public intentions of acquiring a first baseman, or second baseman, or impact bat that's a keeper (and not a Renfroe-Duvall-TO clone), and authentic MLB rotation help for Chaim or bullpen primetimers for Brez.

Nope and nope and nope and nope.

Start praying for healthy comebacks from Casas and Story. Does anyone recall Boston opened '24 by winning 7 of 10 on the road...? If the Red Sox just broke even over the final 152, it would've been a winning season -- but they couldn't even do that.

From April 9 through the end of September, the Red Sox had a losing record. That's almost six straight months of losing more games than they won.

So who will be the difference in the batting order to help us win five more games in '25 and reach the playoffs -- like the 86-win Tigers and Royals did last year? It must be Yoshida and Rafaela -- two guys due for vast improvements!

 

It's easy to focus on the loss of O'Neill and no added bats, so far, but there is some needed context:

1. We heard over and over how unproductive those 31 HRs were, with just 61 RBIs in 113 games.

2. We lost more PAs from other players that more than cancel out the loss of O'Neill's 473 PAs and 132 OPS+: D Smith 96 OPS+ in 278 PAs, 16 from Dalbec in 93 & 28 from Cooper in 75 (more from Casas) 74 from E Valdez in 223 PAs, 27 from Reyes in 64 & 60 from Westbrook in 48(more from DHam/Romy/Grissom or Campbell call-up) 61 from McGuire in 158 & 75 from Jansen in 96(Naravez) 

3. Why should we not expect growth and improvement from our pre-prime and peak prime players, at least when all combined?

Pre-Prime: Rafaela, Guerrero & Grissom 24, Crochet, Bello, Casas & Fitts 25, Abreu, Wink & Narvaez 26, Slaten & DHam 27

Peak Prime: Devers, Duran, Houck, Crawford, Whitlock, Wong, Criswell, Sandoval & Romy 28, Kelly & Weissert 29, Giolito, Buehler 30, Yoshida 31

Nearing the end of Prime: Story 31

Past Prime but not showing it: Refsnyder 34

Past Prime: Hendriks 35, Chapman 36, Wilson 37

When you look at the 4 players past prime, none have a major role on this team, except 1: we need Chapman or hendriks to be the closer or top set up man, maybe both

[Bellhorn04]

34 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Oh no, not that! There are so many great baserunners on the Red Sox!

He's the worst though. 

Yoshida's only real offensive strength is getting on base, but once he gets there he's a liability.

His OPS+ is respectable but every other aspect of his game detracts from it.

That's why FanGraphs pins him at about a 1 WAR player.

[Bellhorn04]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

It's easy to focus on the loss of O'Neill and no added bats, so far, but there is some needed context:

1. We heard over and over how unproductive those 31 HRs were, with just 61 RBIs in 113 games.

That's not context, that's just a bunch of message board guys squawking about questionable points.

[moonslav59]

17 minutes ago, Hitch said:

And you're overplaying it. His bat does not make up for the rest of his game in which every facet is well below average. Especially on that contract. 

His bat is what it is. As a DH, who cares how bad his D is? How important is baserunning? Yes, his D and running subtract from his overall value, but he a better hitter than half the everyday batters on the opening day 13.

If he is forced to play LF, too much, his overall value will take a hit, but his added offense may make up for that, and if we improve 3B defense and or get another bif RHB that forces him to play LF, the gains made there can more than make-up for minor losses on baserunning and a significant loss on LF D.

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, Bellhorn04 said:

That's not context, that's just a bunch of message board guys squawking about questionable points.

It's "context" to me. Why only bring up losing O'Neill, like he's the only bat we lost from the 2024 team? The others, who totalled more PAs don't matter as much?

Did we lose a great defender and baserunner in O'Neill?

Granted, there is a drop from O'Neill to Yoshida, especially if Yoshida is in LF, but maybe it's not as great as we think, and we can make that up by doing better than the others who left.

[Bellhorn04]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

His bat is what it is. As a DH, who cares how bad his D is? How important is baserunning?

More important than you're giving it credit for, maybe?  Big pluses for Duran and Hamilton, big minus for Yoshida.  The deltas are large. 

Grounding into DP's, not able to take the extra base - this is what Yoshida brings.

[Bellhorn04]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

It's "context" to me. Why only bring up losing O'Neill, like he's the only bat we lost from the 2024 team? The others, who totalled more PAs don't matter as much?

Sorry moon, it might be context on this message board, but it's not serious baseball analysis.  Serious analysis shows that RBIs are not a skill.

What's more pertinent is that O'Neill was 3rd on the team in offensive fWAR.

 

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Sorry moon, it might be context on this message board, but it's not serious baseball analysis.  Serious analysis shows that RBIs are not a skill.

 

That was one aspect of the context, and what he produced was real. We could get 61 RBIs with a less skilled player: it's still 61 runs produced.

The #1 point was not the most important context, but it still matters, just as the unmentioned 49 games missed due to injury and rest days by O'Neill.

I'm not downplaying O'Neill's loss. I still hope we add a RHB w power, but I do think we can come close to our 2024 ranking on offense, as is. That is not how a team should try to improve their record, and maybe we are not done. Our name is linked to Bregman, Alonso, Grichuk and Arenado. I'm not sure how much Arenado adds to the offense, even vs LHPs, but he would add to the defense in a big way.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

We all know the real reason the Red Sox don't want Yoshida to play any more left field:

The owners are so cheap that they're afraid they'll have to keep replacing light bulbs on the Green Monster from wall balls that Masa misses.

[Hitch]

17 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

His bat is what it is. As a DH, who cares how bad his D is? How important is baserunning? Yes, his D and running subtract from his overall value, but he a better hitter than half the everyday batters on the opening day 13.

If he is forced to play LF, too much, his overall value will take a hit, but his added offense may make up for that, and if we improve 3B defense and or get another bif RHB that forces him to play LF, the gains made there can more than make-up for minor losses on baserunning and a significant loss on LF D.

The conversation is around whether his bat is good enough to make up for how bad he is in every other facet while playing left field. It's not a discussion around whether he is good enough at DH.

[Bellhorn04]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

That was one aspect of the context, and what he produced was real. We could get 61 RBIs with a less skilled player: it's still 61 runs produced.

I would hope you're kidding.  

O'Neill was 3rd in runs scored.

[moonslav59]

11 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

More important than you're giving it credit for, maybe?  Big pluses for Duran and Hamilton, big minus for Yoshida.  The deltas are large. 

Grounding into DP's, not able to take the extra base - this is what Yoshida brings.

Baserunning matters as does GIDPs, both minuses for Yoshida. He sucks at both. He also does no K a lot, and maybe all those weak grounders to 2B does move runners over to 3B.

You do know O'Neill hit into 13 DPs in 473 PAs, while Yoshida hit into 6 in 421, and if Yoshi plays a lot of LF, that's the guy's PAs he's replacing.

[Bellhorn04]

Just now, moonslav59 said:

Baserunning matters as does GIDPs, both minuses for Yoshida. He sucks at both. He also does no K a lot, and maybe all those weak grounders to 2B does move runners over to 3B.

You do know O'Neill hit into 13 DPs in 473 PAs, while Yoshida hit into 6 in 421, and if Yoshi plays a lot of LF, that's the guy's PAs he's replacing.

fWAR takes it all into account.  I'm trying to stick with fWAR here as a reasonable measurement.

O'Neill was comfortably 3rd in offensive fWAR.

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, Hitch said:

The conversation is around whether his bat is good enough to make up for how bad he is in every other facet while playing left field. It's not a discussion around whether he is good enough at DH.

Yes, I get that, but he is not likely going to be the FT LF'er, so we are probably only talking about the negative he brings in just a few games in LF.

Also, let's assume he plays 60-90 or more games in LF, because we sign Bregman to play 3B, and casas and Devers take up all the 1B PAs and most of the DH PAs. Does the 3B defensive improvement outweigh the loss we see in LF D?

It's my guess that if Bregman or Arenado is at 3B, at worst, Yoshida platoons LF w Refsnyder, so that might be 120 games, assuming Bregman, Casas and Devers play 155+ games, each. Whenever one is out, Yoshida would DH.

I'm not happy with Yoshida in LF. I wish we could dump him, and have tried to find numerous ways to do it, but it looks almost impossible, so we will end up trying to play him in ways the minimize the overall team's hit on D and running while maximizing the little plus he brings on offense vs guys like Rafaela, and Abreu v L only.

[moonslav59]

5 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

fWAR takes it all into account.  I'm trying to stick with fWAR here as a reasonable measurement.

O'Neill was comfortably 3rd in offensive fWAR.

Okay, and Yoshida was 7th- while playing hurt, so worthy of staring, right?