Red Sox Spring Training

[Old Red]

7 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

 

Also saying that more, and more it sounds like Abreu won’t be ready to start the season.

[Larry Cook]

4 minutes ago, Old Red said:

He is taking live BP, and batting practice, but the date keeps getting pushed back. Very interesting as Artie would say.

I see no reason to rush Giolito, bello, Crawford or Devers. We have guys on the 40 man that can fill in for a month while they recover properly and build up strength and timing 

the only guy who hope recovers by the 27th is abreau! 

[moonslav59]

22 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

I see no reason to rush Giolito, bello, Crawford or Devers. We have guys on the 40 man that can fill in for a month while they recover properly and build up strength and timing 

the only guy who hope recovers by the 27th is abreau! 

Why not "hope" the others do, too? (Without rushing them.)

[mvp 78]

26 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

I see no reason to rush Giolito, bello, Crawford or Devers. We have guys on the 40 man that can fill in for a month while they recover properly and build up strength and timing 

the only guy who hope recovers by the 27th is abreau! 

Gio is going to be pitching in the next few games and is on track for the start of the season supposedly.

[Bellhorn04]

28 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

I see no reason to rush Giolito, bello, Crawford or Devers. We have guys on the 40 man that can fill in for a month while they recover properly and build up strength and timing 

the only guy who hope recovers by the 27th is abreau! 

As somebody once said, you can lose the World Series in April.

[mvp 78]

9 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

As somebody once said, you can lose the World Series in April.

This team lost this WS in the offseasons of '23 and '24. It doesn't take one offseason to win a WS. Even the 2013 team (one hit wonder) had a pretty strong foundation from the farm and prior offseasons. 

[Bellhorn04]

11 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

This team lost this WS in the offseasons of '23 and '24. It doesn't take one offseason to win a WS. Even the 2013 team (one hit wonder) had a pretty strong foundation from the farm and prior offseasons. 

If the '25 team has a lot of things go right they could make a run IMHO.  A postseason rotation of Crochet, Buehler, Houck and Bello or Giolito or Fitts or Crawford would be pretty decent.  But that's a lot going right.

[mvp 78]

5 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

If the '25 team has a lot of things go right they could make a run IMHO.  A postseason rotation of Crochet, Buehler, Houck and Bello or Giolito or Fitts or Crawford would be pretty decent.  But that's a lot going right.

This is camel through the eye of a needle type stuff to me. 

[moonslav59]

21 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

This team lost this WS in the offseasons of '23 and '24. It doesn't take one offseason to win a WS. Even the 2013 team (one hit wonder) had a pretty strong foundation from the farm and prior offseasons. 

One weird thing I noticed is that the off season before 2021 did not look any better than before 2022 and 2023.

[Old Red]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

One weird thing I noticed is that the off season before 2021 did not look any better than before 2022 and 2023.

It didn’t have to. There was still a Lot of talent on the 2020 team despite what their record showed.

[Bellhorn04]

10 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

This is camel through the eye of a needle type stuff to me. 

So was 2013.  So was the Rangers winning it in 2023.  

Maybe the Sox will actually add something at the deadline this time.

[moonslav59]

9 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

If the '25 team has a lot of things go right they could make a run IMHO.  A postseason rotation of Crochet, Buehler, Houck and Bello or Giolito or Fitts or Crawford would be pretty decent.  But that's a lot going right.

We could do well without everything going right, but I agree, we will need "a lot" going right.

I have seen an uptick in the amount of players on the roster where we can legitimately have some hope of "things going right" than from 2020 to 2023, and that may include 2021 (on paper the winter beforehand.)

If Crochet, Buehler or Houck struggle or get hurt, we have more choices of somewhat promising replacements in Gio, bello, Crawford and then Fitts, Priester, Criswell and maybe even Dobbins.

The pen has a mess of question marks, but there may be 15-17 pitchers with some sort of decent promise or history.

If Story gets hurt, I feel better about Rafaela, Mayer and Romy than I did with others, over the past 2-3 years.

If an OF'er gets hurt or declines, we have several options that look better than past years.

2B has so many wishful thinking players, it's hard to keep track. This position has been god-awful for a couple years and not-so great for 3-4 years before that. I know we'd all rather have one known, great 2Bman, and having 5 mediocre players can be viewed as no better than having 1 fully healthy mediocre 2Bman. I get that, but my point is, if some of the guys we think we need to do great do not, we may find someone else who surprises us, of just repeats what they have done in years past.

We do need Devers and Casas, IMO. We don't have anyone to take their place and role.

Our catcher position is the exception to my depth point. There is not hope in anyone beyond Wongand Narvaez, and with those tow, my hopes are not very high.

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, Old Red said:

It didn’t have to. There was still a Lot of talent on the 2020 team despite what their record showed.

True. One could argue we just needed Sale and Erod to play a full 60 game season.

We did not have much depth, though, as we found out. That was what I was focusing on with my point about this roster construction. (2024 was better than '22-'23, too.)

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

So was 2013.  So was the Rangers winning it in 2023.  

Maybe the Sox will actually add something at the deadline this time.

Yes. One could argue that was the major difference about 2021. What we did that deadline (and afterwards with the Iggy & Shaw additions.)

[moonslav59]

On Abreu....

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/03/wilyer-abreu-red-sox-opening-day-virus-illness.html

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, Old Red said:

It didn’t have to. There was still a Lot of talent on the 2020 team despite what their record showed.

The 2021 team used 5 starters. The 2020 opened the abbreviated season with 3-4 starters and a nightmare pen. 2020 also had a broken down Beni, Chavis at 1b and Peraza at 2b. 

[mvp 78]

15 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

So was 2013.  So was the Rangers winning it in 2023.  

Maybe the Sox will actually add something at the deadline this time.

They had a Lester/Lackey/Bucholz/Dempster/Dubront rotation which is playoff worthy and had underperformed in previous years. They got a bunch of relief arms and lucked into Uehara. Signing Napoli/Drew/Gomes/Victorino/Carp/Ross greatly improved the offense/defense over the short term. However, Pedroia/Papi/Ellsbury were still leaders of that team. 

This team won't win 97 games like the 2013 team. 

[Bellhorn04]

24 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

If Story gets hurt, I feel better about Rafaela, Mayer and Romy than I did with others, over the past 2-3 years.

Not ideal though.

I'm hoping for a healthy Story until such time as he's not...  

[Old Red]

10 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The 2021 team used 5 starters. The 2020 opened the abbreviated season with 3-4 starters and a nightmare pen. 2020 also had a broken down Beni, Chavis at 1b and Peraza at 2b. 

I know there was a lot of rift raft on that team, but I was talking more about the nucleus of Bogey, JD, and Raffy. Dugy was just starting out, and Sale, and ERod was coming back. 

[Bellhorn04]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

They had a Lester/Lackey/Bucholz/Dempster/Dubront rotation which is playoff worthy and had underperformed in previous years. They got a bunch of relief arms and lucked into Uehara. Signing Napoli/Drew/Gomes/Victorino/Carp/Ross greatly improved the offense/defense over the short term. However, Pedroia/Papi/Ellsbury were still leaders of that team. 

This team won't win 97 games like the 2013 team. 

These things are always very clear looking back.  I still think 2013 was a miracle.  

I certainly agree we're not winning 97 this year.

[moonslav59]

12 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

They had a Lester/Lackey/Bucholz/Dempster/Dubront rotation which is playoff worthy and had underperformed in previous years. They got a bunch of relief arms and lucked into Uehara. Signing Napoli/Drew/Gomes/Victorino/Carp/Ross greatly improved the offense/defense over the short term. However, Pedroia/Papi/Ellsbury were still leaders of that team. 

This team won't win 97 games like the 2013 team. 

Uehara has some very nice seasons right before BOS got him. They knew they got a good RP'er, but yes, nobody expected THAT GOOD!

[moonslav59]

22 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

The 2021 team used 5 starters. The 2020 opened the abbreviated season with 3-4 starters and a nightmare pen. 2020 also had a broken down Beni, Chavis at 1b and Peraza at 2b. 

They did only get 9 GS from their ace (Sale,) but yes, they mostly used just 5 SP'ers (all with 22+ GS)

Houck got 13, Sale 9, Peacock, Seabold and Crawford 1 each. (Richards was demoted to the pen.)

[notin]

1 hour ago, Larry Cook said:

I see no reason to rush Giolito, bello, Crawford or Devers. We have guys on the 40 man that can fill in for a month while they recover properly and build up strength and timing 

the only guy who hope recovers by the 27th is abreau! 

Abreu over Devers?

[notin]

26 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

They had a Lester/Lackey/Bucholz/Dempster/Dubront rotation which is playoff worthy and had underperformed in previous years. They got a bunch of relief arms and lucked into Uehara. Signing Napoli/Drew/Gomes/Victorino/Carp/Ross greatly improved the offense/defense over the short term. However, Pedroia/Papi/Ellsbury were still leaders of that team. 

This team won't win 97 games like the 2013 team. 

94?

[mvp 78]

10 minutes ago, notin said:

94?

Less.

[moonslav59]

Good to see Story Time showing signs of changing his genre from Fantasy and Dystopian to Thrillers & Suspense.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Dewey 78 errors

Baines 47 errors

Dewey said his biggest error is that he didn't play 58% of his career at DH.

[Bellhorn04]

Some guys fattening their small samples today! 😀

[mvp 78]

7 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Some guys fattening their small samples today! 😀

They need to save these hits for the regular season! 😭

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

29 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

They need to save these hits for the regular season! 😭

Conserve! Preserve! DEFER!