A Realistic View of the 2025 Red Sox: Part I

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Griss better get something going soon.  13 trips to the plate and one single thus far.  SSSS, I know, but if anybody needs to show they can hit a little it's him.

We know he can't field, so yes.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

We know he can't field, so yes.

 

[Larry Cook]

9 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

This defensive alignment -- Breg 3B, Mayer SS, Story 2B -- is putting the best gloves and arms in the best spots for the best starting rotation since the last championship.

As for the question of Mayer proving he can hit lefthanded offspeed stuff, are Triple A teams really loaded with such specialists, and will they be lining them up to face Worcester on a nightly basis?

I agree 100 percent. This is the best defensive lineup. 
I know a lot of people have concerns about Mayer, but I do not! On the job training has growing pains regardless of when he starts!!!

I do not believe any team can win a world series in April, but I strongly believe a team can lose a World Series in April!!!! Pitchers that have confidence in their defense, give us a better chance to win!!!!

let’s put our best 9 out there from day 1! 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

 

Good to know. I wondered how he might end up being okay at 2B, after not looking good at SS, so maybe there is still some hopes.

[mvp 78]

10 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Good to know. I wondered how he might end up being okay at 2B, after not looking good at SS, so maybe there is still some hopes.

I haven’t noticed a difference, so I’m just reporting Stat Masterson’s perspective as I found it interesting and contrary to what I’ve said in the past.

[moonslav59]

15 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

I haven’t noticed a difference, so I’m just reporting Stat Masterson’s perspective as I found it interesting and contrary to what I’ve said in the past.

Any good news on his D helps.

[moonslav59]

It's been reported that Cora has said that Whilock is "100% going to be part of Boston's roster on Opening Day."

[mvp 78]

28 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

It's been reported that Cora has said that Whilock is "100% going to be part of Boston's roster on Opening Day."

It seemed like it to me from early indications. Glad to hear it.

[Old Red]

10 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

It seemed like it to me from early indications. Glad to hear it.

Hopefully he stays in the BP this time.

[moonslav59]

4 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

It seemed like it to me from early indications. Glad to hear it.

He hasn't pitched in ST'ing, but his rehab has been right on target.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

Not sure this should be on the realistic thread:

Yesterday, two Boston radio personalities predicted the Red Sox' win totals for 2025...

"Hitting is Boston's strength, but now pitching is even better than their hitting," said one guy. "So they should win at least 92 games."

"I'm thinking even more," said his partner. "I've got them winning 100."

FanDouche promises a 150 in bonus bets.

[moonslav59]

Every team needs "things to go right" to have a good year. It seems we more questions than answers, but what I like about our predicament is that we have so many options that if a few key things go wrong, we have other players that could go off and have better seasons that the ones having negative issues.

The number one question, to me is Story, and I'm not sure Mayer is the best depth guy on the team, but he does have enormous potential to be really good- perhaps even better than Story in 2025, even if Trevor is healthy.

Campbell offers another gigantic promise to fix the 2B issue that actually started looking okay over the second half of 2024. DHam and Romy are okay as a platoon, and Grissom is still clinging onto the hopes he showed a few years back.

Our OF was a big plus in 2024-both on O and D, and that was with Yoshida & Ref DH'ing, alot, and Rafalela playing more SS than CF. Add Anthony to the mix, and we can afford to have one major let-down and still be okay, if not better.

Narvaez does not offer great hope at fixing our issues at C, but he does show promise on defense, and his bat was not awful on the farm (some pop and OBP numbers.)

Our rotation is as deep as I think I have ever seen, and that is assuming Whitlock (1.96 in '24) and Winck (2.42 as a SP in '24)  start zero games. Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Gio, Bello, Crawford, Fitts, Criswell, Priester and maybe Dobbins offers tremendous depth.

The pen has nothing but depth, although mostly mediocre or with faint hopes of upticks, resurgences, regaining past glory or just plain finally getting their act together. I count 14-17 RP'ers with some level of actual promise or skillset.

I think 92 wins is very doable. 100 would need a confluence of career years or near-sos. With so many players nearing or in prime, maybe that's not such a long shot.

[Bellhorn04]

Vegas has our over/under at 86.5.  Take the over and make a killing! 😉

[Bellhorn04]

I still think our number one question mark health-wise is Devers and his shoulders.  

[Old Red]

40 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Every team needs "things to go right" to have a good year. It seems we more questions than answers, but what I like about our predicament is that we have so many options that if a few key things go wrong, we have other players that could go off and have better seasons that the ones having negative issues.

The number one question, to me is Story, and I'm not sure Mayer is the best depth guy on the team, but he does have enormous potential to be really good- perhaps even better than Story in 2025, even if Trevor is healthy.

Campbell offers another gigantic promise to fix the 2B issue that actually started looking okay over the second half of 2024. DHam and Romy are okay as a platoon, and Grissom is still clinging onto the hopes he showed a few years back.

Our OF was a big plus in 2024-both on O and D, and that was with Yoshida & Ref DH'ing, alot, and Rafalela playing more SS than CF. Add Anthony to the mix, and we can afford to have one major let-down and still be okay, if not better.

Narvaez does not offer great hope at fixing our issues at C, but he does show promise on defense, and his bat was not awful on the farm (some pop and OBP numbers.)

Our rotation is as deep as I think I have ever seen, and that is assuming Whitlock (1.96 in '24) and Winck (2.42 as a SP in '24)  start zero games. Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Gio, Bello, Crawford, Fitts, Criswell, Priester and maybe Dobbins offers tremendous depth.

The pen has nothing but depth, although mostly mediocre or with faint hopes of upticks, resurgences, regaining past glory or just plain finally getting their act together. I count 14-17 RP'ers with some level of actual promise or skillset.

I think 92 wins is very doable. 100 would need a confluence of career years or near-sos. With so many players nearing or in prime, maybe that's not such a long shot.

To me Story is way down the list of questions. Pitching both the rotation, and the backend of the BP is still the biggest questions to me.  The rotation may be deep, but still lots of question mark. Crochet is vastly unproven with ONLY 146 innings under his belt as a starter. Buehler did not have a good season last year, and who knows what Gio has to offer. HR derby balls? No one knows. Who’s the closer? That’s a big question mark to me. You can say the Red Sox have all the depth, but that doesn’t mean the depth is all that good. That will be determined on the field, and Not on paper.

[moonslav59]

41 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I still think our number one question mark health-wise is Devers and his shoulders.  

Good point. He has to be the # question.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

36 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I still think our number one question mark health-wise is Devers and his shoulders.  

It seems like Raffy has had aches and pains since 2021, when he was swinging with one arm down the stretch and still carrying the club. There's no reason to think Devers will be healthier as he ages, so maybe Sox fans should accept that he's not Big Papi, and just take what he gives us as a Big Guy.

My biggest question marks are 2B and C, as in which second baseman is going to be best at blocking throws in the dirt from Wong -- and will a dominant closer emerge, because very few modern teams win 90+ games with a bullpen by committee.

As a tangent to Moon's summary, good teams always seem to have a player or players every year who are surprise contributors that exceed the expectations of more hyped guys. It's one of the things that makes it fun to be a fan.

[moonslav59]

13 minutes ago, Old Red said:

To me Story is way down the list of questions. Pitching both the rotation, and the backend of the BP is still the biggest questions to me.  The rotation may be deep, but still lots of question mark. Crochet is vastly unproven with ONLY 146 innings under his belt as a starter. Buehler did not have a good season last year, and who knows what Gio has to offer. HR derby balls? No one knows. Who’s the closer? That’s a big question mark to me. You can say the Red Sox have all the depth, but that doesn’t mean the depth is all that good. That will be determined on the field, and Not on paper.

Of course, it will be determined on the field, but the idea is to build up the best team you can, on paper, and hope the "paper" translates to "on the field."

Yes, much of the depth I spoke of are question marks, and that is precisely what I was saying. If one question mark is a let down, we have hope the next on the depth chart will do fine. We haven't even had that on paper for a long time. Better on paper than not at all.

No team, other than BOS has 6 SP'ers with a projected fWAR of 1.2 or higher. Not many teams have a guy like Criswell 7th or 8th on the depth chart. Could he suck in 2025? Sure, but I'd rather have him than almost every other team's 7th through 10th SP'er depth. (Criswell, Fitts, priester & Dobbins.) I'm not even counting on 1 start from Whitlc=ock or Wink, and I hope we don't see one, unless it is as an opener.

In short, we have a lot of question marks, but we have a lot of promise in those that are on our depth chart, and at some positions that goes 3-4 deep. One reason I mentioned Story as the first big question is that we don't really go 3-4 deep, there. It's Mayer and then a big drop off, and Mayer may not do well, year one. I don't want Rafaela at SS in 2025. DHam and Grissom suck on D at SS. That leaves Romy or Campbell, if Mayer falters or gets hurt.

[Old Red]

If Campbell is in the running to fix 2B why is he playing in LF so much in ST?

[Old Red]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Of course, it will be determined on the field, but the idea is to build up the best team you can, on paper, and hope the "paper" translates to "on the field."

Yes, much of the depth I spoke of are question marks, and that is precisely what I was saying. If one question mark is a let down, we have hope the next on the depth chart will do fine. We haven't even had that on paper for a long time. Better on paper than not at all.

No team, other than BOS has 6 SP'ers with a projected fWAR of 1.2 or higher. Not many teams have a guy like Criswell 7th or 8th on the depth chart. Could he suck in 2025? Sure, but I'd rather have him than almost every other team's 7th through 10th SP'er depth. (Criswell, Fitts, priester & Dobbins.) I'm not even counting on 1 start from Whitlc=ock or Wink, and I hope we don't see one, unless it is as an opener.

In short, we have a lot of question marks, but we have a lot of promise in those that are on our depth chart, and at some positions that goes 3-4 deep.

Projections mean absolutely nothing. The Red Sox had 11 players play 2B last year. Is that depth? Definitely a revolving door.

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, Old Red said:

If Campbell is in the running to fix 2B why is he playing in LF so much in ST?

Because he needs more improvement there, maybe?

There is no way we have Campbell on the Opening Day roster unless he plays near FT, so maybe Cora's plan is to get him 150 games at 2B AND LF.

Who knows?

[Bellhorn04]

5 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

It seems like Raffy has had aches and pains since 2021, when he was swinging with one arm down the stretch and still carrying the club. There's no reason to think Devers will be healthier as he ages, so maybe Sox fans should accept that he's not Big Papi, and just take what he gives us as a Big Guy.

In his last 27 games Raffy hit 172/265/212 for a 478 OPS, with 1 HR and 6 RBI.  That's a whole new level of being affected by aches and pains.

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, Old Red said:

Projections mean absolutely nothing. The Red Sox had 11 players play 2B last year. Is that depth? Definitely a revolving door.

I'd rather have good projections than bad ones, but yes, we need to see it work on the field.

Our 2B was way better after we stopped playing EValdez & Reyes there, so your example is not beefing up your point. The depth at SP and 2B and even SS with rafaela, kept us in the race,

[Bellhorn04]

5 minutes ago, Old Red said:

If Campbell is in the running to fix 2B why is he playing in LF so much in ST?

Because he's in the running for both positions now or in the future, I'd say.

[Old Red]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Because he needs more improvement there, maybe?

There is no way we have Campbell on the Opening Day roster unless he plays near FT, so maybe Cora's plan is to get him 150 games at 2B AND LF.

Who knows?

Playing LF does not help him 1 iota as a 2B. If didn’t help Raf Man going back, and forth between SS, and CF last year, and he said as much that it took him a few games to adjust after moving back. If Campbell was to make the team, and play FT one position would be the way to go. Either he’d be a 2B, or not, and if he was FT why move him?

[Old Red]

5 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Because he's in the running for both positions now or in the future, I'd say.

2B is the biggest need RIGHT NOW , and not LF is it not?

[moonslav59]

16 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Playing LF does not help him 1 iota as a 2B. If didn’t help Raf Man going back, and forth between SS, and CF last year, and he said as much that it took him a few games to adjust after moving back. If Campbell was to make the team, and play FT one position would be the way to go. Either he’d be a 2B, or not, and if he was FT why move him?

I'm not Cora, but I'm guessing maybe this could be a way he can get 150 games played. Maybe, he will show this plan is not workable, and Cora learns that now and not during the regular season.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

49 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

In his last 27 games Raffy hit 172/265/212 for a 478 OPS, with 1 HR and 6 RBI.  That's a whole new level of being affected by aches and pains.

My biggest concern isn't that he insisted on playing when obviously debilitated last year, but that he had all offseason to heal -- and obviously didn't, at least to the point where he was game-ready at the same time as everyone else.

The whole affair reeks of a major disconnect -- insisting he was healthy enough to play down the stretch, management using him (despite their advanced college degrees) on a team going nowhere, and then the offseason: if no corrective surgery, what was the compromise... where was the high tech Driveline reconditioning program to reshape his body and career? 

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

My biggest concern isn't that he insisted on playing when obviously debilitated last year, but that he had all offseason to heal -- and obviously didn't, at least to the point where he was game-ready at the same time as everyone else.

The whole affair reeks of a major disconnect -- insisting he was healthy enough to play down the stretch, management using him (despite their advanced college degrees) on a team going nowhere, and then the offseason: if no corrective surgery, what was the compromise... where was the high tech Driveline reconditioning program to reshape his body and career? 

From what I remember hearing, shoulder surgery was not an option, but I feel the same way.

WTH?

[Old Red]

2 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I'd rather have good projections than bad ones, but yes, we need to see it work on the field.

Our 2B was way better after we stopped playing EValdez & Reyes there, so your example is not beefing up your point. The depth at SP and 2B and even SS with rafaela, kept us in the race,

11 different players played 2B last year, so that was more than EValdez, and Reyes.