A Realistic View of the 2025 Red Sox: Part II

[moonslav59]

Just now, Old Red said:

4 years in a row now you’ve been more concerned about tomorrow than today, and tomorrow has never been guaranteed.

Wrong, again.

Does "How Soon Is Now?" ring a bell?

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Mayer, Anthony, and Campbell are still highly suspect SUSPECTS. I should have said the starting lineup on a nightly bases is more journeyman , and the suspects, and Duran being closer to the Butterfly Man.

With Devers dumped and Bregman on the IL, I fully agree.

[Old Red]

47 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Wrong, again.

Does "How Soon Is Now?" ring a bell?

I could care less about 2026 until 2025 is over just like in 2024 about 2025, and 2023 about 2024, and 2022 about 2023.

[moonslav59]

11 minutes ago, Old Red said:

I could care less about 2026 until 2025 is over just like in 2024 about 2025, and 2023 about 2024, and 2022 about 2023.

Just know that championship teams are not built overnight. It takes planning beyond today, only.

It takes a healthy mix of planning for the future and today to win today.

[moonslav59]

So, we put Slaten on the 60 Day to get Murphy off the 60 Day.

Yoshida starts rehab with Woo, tomorrow.

Good to see Bregman in the dugout giving pointers.

[moonslav59]

We'll have this for our OF options for 2026:

LF: Duran, Anthony, Yoshida, Refsnyder, Jh Garcia

CF: Rafaela, Duran, Campbell, Jh Garcia, Anthony

RF: Abreu, Refsnyder, Jh Garcia, Anthony

With players listed more than once, we have a total of 7 OF'ers. We could easily trade 2. If we keep Campbell in the IF and play Yoshida at just DH, we'd be down to 3, so I doubt we do that, unless we see Campbell as a legit OF option.

I'd like to see:

LF: Anthony & Refsnyder (Yoshida)

CF: Rafaela & Jh Garcia (Campbell)

RF: Abreu & Jh Garcia (Refsnyder)

DH: Yoshida & Refsnyder (Romy)

That means trading just Duran. If we trade Duran and Abreu, we'd have:

LF: Anthony & Refsnyder (Yoshida)

CF: Rafaela & Campbell (Anthony)

RF: Garcia & Anthony (Refsnyder)

DH: Yoshida & Refsnyder (Romy)

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

52 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

So, we put Slaten on the 60 Day to get Murphy off the 60 Day.

Yoshida starts rehab with Woo, tomorrow.

Good to see Bregman in the dugout giving pointers.

He's the highest paid coach in MLB history.

[moonslav59]

34 minutes ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

He's the highest paid coach in MLB history.

YUp, and most underpaid!

LOL!

[moonslav59]

Anthony's numbers are finally catching up with his previous peripherals. 

Here is a look at the Sox OPS leaders:

.938 Bregman

.868 Refsnyder

.856 Romy

.819 Abreu

.798 Narvaez

.790 Toro

(.850 Cutoff for top 1/3 tier of batters with 150+ PAs)

.733 Duran

(.728 MLB Mean OPS of 270 MLB batters w 150+ PAs)

.721 Rafaela

(.714 MLB Average OPS)

.709 Mayer

(.690 MLB bottom 1/3 tier cutoff out of 270 batters with 150 PAs)

.668 Anthony

.664 Campbell

.661 Story

.506 DHam

.401 Wong

[moonslav59]

For what it's worth, here is a look at the standings:

48-36 NYY (1st ALE)

47-38 TBR -1.5 ALE (WC1)

46-38 TOR -2.0 ALE (WC2)

44-40 SEA -6.0 ALW (WC3)

_____________________

41-42 LAA -2.5 WC

42-44 BOS -3.0 WC (-7 ALE)

40-42 CLE -3.0

41-44 TEX -3.5

40-44 MIN -4.0

39-46 KCR -5.5

[Larry Cook]

15 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Anthony's numbers are finally catching up with his previous peripherals. 

Here is a look at the Sox OPS leaders:

.938 Bregman

.868 Refsnyder

.856 Romy

.819 Abreu

.798 Narvaez

.790 Toro

(.850 Cutoff for top 1/3 tier of batters with 150+ PAs)

.733 Duran

(.728 MLB Mean OPS of 270 MLB batters w 150+ PAs)

.721 Rafaela

(.714 MLB Average OPS)

.709 Mayer

(.690 MLB bottom 1/3 tier cutoff out of 270 batters with 150 PAs)

.668 Anthony

.664 Campbell

.661 Story

.506 DHam

.401 Wong

Really like Anthony’s at bats lately. He seems to be figuring it out. 

[moonslav59]

June Numbers:

.917 Romy 3 HRs and 13 RBI

.870 Rafaela 6 HRs and 13 RBI

.827 Story 5 HRs and 23 RBI

.788 Mayer 4 HRs and 7 RBI

.780 Narvaez 2 HRs and 9 RBI

.775 Abreu 3 HRs and 16 RBI

.761 Toro 2 HRs and 11 RBI

.742 Refsnyder .364 OBP

.701 Duran (.210 BA and .301 OBP)

.667 Anthony (some tough luck)

.658 Campbell (demoted to AAA)

.509 DHam (3 SB- 2 CS)

.396 Wong (can't get much worse than this.)

(.917 Sogard in 12 PAs and .633 Eaton in 12 PAs, and .835 Devers in 61 PAs.)

ERA (listed in order of most IP)

2.68 Crochet .597 OPS Against

2.87 Bello .603 OPSA

3.04 Giolito .694

(That's a damn good top 3 rotation in June)

11.07 Bueler 1.074

3.60 Dobbins (on IL) .593

2.84 Weissert .678

5.25 Guerrero .538

3.09 Whitlock .385

0.00 Chapman (12 games) .167 : 2 hits and 2 BBs in 37 PAs

2.53 Kelly .825

12.38 Bernardino .943

2.45 Wilson .791

1.80 Alcala .578

 

[moonslav59]

13 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

Really like Anthony’s at bats lately. He seems to be figuring it out. 

Agreed. Mayer looks pretty good, too!

BTW, Anthony was hitting the ball hard, earlier, but many were caught.

[Larry Cook]

6 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Agreed. Mayer looks pretty good, too!

BTW, Anthony was hitting the ball hard, earlier, but many were caught.

Both are going to be great hitters for us. They are great attitudes and both want to excel!!! 
 

really hope Campbell can put it together offensively and defensively as well!!

[moonslav59]

10 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

Both are going to be great hitters for us. They are great attitudes and both want to excel!!! 
 

really hope Campbell can put it together offensively and defensively as well!!

I think Campbell will make the needed adjustments to be a fine MLB hitter. His defense is the bigger question. I'm thinking OF, 1B or DH might be his spots, and if we trade Duran and or Abreu, we can find an OF slot for him. 1B is wide open, as is DH. I don't think he can improve enough to be our 2Bman, sadly. We really need a 2Bman. (Maybe Story/Mayer fix it, finally, once Bregman returns.)

[oldtimer]

21 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

We'll have this for our OF options for 2026:

LF: Duran, Anthony, Yoshida, Refsnyder, Jh Garcia

CF: Rafaela, Duran, Campbell, Jh Garcia, Anthony

RF: Abreu, Refsnyder, Jh Garcia, Anthony

With players listed more than once, we have a total of 7 OF'ers. We could easily trade 2. If we keep Campbell in the IF and play Yoshida at just DH, we'd be down to 3, so I doubt we do that, unless we see Campbell as a legit OF option.

I'd like to see:

LF: Anthony & Refsnyder (Yoshida)

CF: Rafaela & Jh Garcia (Campbell)

RF: Abreu & Jh Garcia (Refsnyder)

DH: Yoshida & Refsnyder (Romy)

That means trading just Duran. If we trade Duran and Abreu, we'd have:

LF: Anthony & Refsnyder (Yoshida)

CF: Rafaela & Campbell (Anthony)

RF: Garcia & Anthony (Refsnyder)

DH: Yoshida & Refsnyder (Romy)

I see Duran, Abreu, Rafaela, Refsnyder, Anthony and Garcia as viable outfield options for 2026. I don't see Yoshida as an outfielder and Campbell should stay in the infield but does add flexibility. I would try to trade Yoshida and also Duran. That approach comes with the risk some of our top prospects don't come through. Refsnyder can be a candidate for PT designated hitter.

Who would I look to get for Duran? A first baseman. Yoshida wouldn't bring much but ridding some salary would help. We do need additional catching help.

Resigning Bregman and planning for Mayer at short and either Campbell or Story at 2nd looks like a team that could compete. 

[moonslav59]

23 minutes ago, oldtimer said:

I see Duran, Abreu, Rafaela, Refsnyder, Anthony and Garcia as viable outfield options for 2026. I don't see Yoshida as an outfielder and Campbell should stay in the infield but does add flexibility. I would try to trade Yoshida and also Duran. That approach comes with the risk some of our top prospects don't come through. Refsnyder can be a candidate for PT designated hitter.

Who would I look to get for Duran? A first baseman. Yoshida wouldn't bring much but ridding some salary would help. We do need additional catching help.

Resigning Bregman and planning for Mayer at short and either Campbell or Story at 2nd looks like a team that could compete. 

I'm not ready to give up on Campbell at 2B, but he has a ways to go to get to just average on defense, there. Maybe 1B is the best option, since we cannot count on Casas or the Toro-Romy platoon for 2026. Filling the 4-6 big holes we have with prospects creates more money to spend on other holes and allows for the idea of one major package deal not two.

I think we could roll the dice on 1B with Campbell, Casas, Toro and Romy, but it's risky.

Bregman has to be our 3Bman in 2026.

Mayer and Story would be fine for middle infield.

We can trade an OF'er and still look great out there.

Narvaez looks like a keeper.

DH could be an OF'er or Yoshida or Casas platooning with Romy or Refsnyder. We could roll the dice on this, too.

Doing this means no addition to the everyday roster- just bring Bregman back. That seems scary. I feel like we'd have to keep Bregman AND add Alonso (1B) or G Torres (2B) or maybe Hoskins & Torres. Maybe make a run at the Japanese stat M-something or other.

Use the rest of the money and trade capital on a second ace and a top closer.

[moonslav59]

I've come out against the idea of trading top prospects for rentals, in hopes we can squeak into the 2025 playoffs, but what can be done?

We've seen us make deals like Beeks for Nate, Espinal for Pearce and Aldo for Schwarber, but I'm not sure we can count on finding deals like that, this July. We've tried trading lower level prospects over the last few years and failed miserably. Many fans loathed the idea of "playing it halfway" and doing "too little, too late."

I find myself thinking I do not want us to try and do more than seeing what we can get for guys like Bleis, Cespedes, Mullins, Tibbs, Sandlin and or course some vets like DHam, Grissom and Wong could be sent packing, if any teams wants them as part of a package.

Here is a look back at our failed attempts to find the next Nate, Schwarber and Pearce:

2024: Bolivar for Paxton, Portes for Lucas Sims, Lugo, Kavadas, Zeferjahn for Luis Garcia, Paulino, Coffey & Batista for Danny Jansen, Yorke for Priester (While these deal almost all flopped, it was actually a valiant effort, involving 9 prospects being shipped out- some Rule 5 borderline guys.)

2023: Sell: Kike for Nick Robertson & Justin Hagenman/ Buy: Blalock for Luis Urias (another vain attempt at fixing 2B.) A very do nothing deadline.

2022: Another Buy/Sell deadline: Sell: Vazquez for Abreu & EValdez. Buy: Groome for Hosmer, Rosier & Ferguson (kinda buy, too) and PTBNL for Tommy Pham. (Turned out to be a nice "buy" deadline with us getting Abreu for a declining Vaz.)

I'm skipping the wildly successful 2021 deadline.

2020: Full scale Buy: Workman & Hembree for Pivetta (a young vet w control) & Seabold. Moreland for Potts & Rosarion. Pillar for Jacob Wallace. Osich for Z Bryant. (Other than Pivetta, we got nothing, but we didn't have much to sell.)

[Larry Cook]

I think we need to use our roster and prospects to find a high quality starter with years of control to fill the #2 hole in the roster, even if we have to overpay!!

we need a quality starter on free agency. (Cease??) 

and we need to put resources in place to develop our own pitching prospects 

 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Larry Cook said:

I think we need to use our roster and prospects to find a high quality starter with years of control to fill the #2 hole in the roster, even if we have to overpay!!

we need a quality starter on free agency. (Cease??) 

and we need to put resources in place to develop our own pitching prospects 

 

Agreed, but those types of deals are usually reserved for winter time, and would be more costly in July, IMO.

So, putting those ideas aside, what are we willing to part with for a rental?

I am saying no to the 4 rookies, no to Dobbins, Arias, Jh Garcia, Tolle, Early, Clarke and Valera. I'd be very hesitant to trade away Perales, Justin Gonzales, Soto & Delzine.

Borderline: Rivera, Bleis & Cespedes

Might for the right piece: Sandlin, Romero, Taylor, Cason, Azocar, Jo Garcia, Ehrhard, D Reyes, H Rivas, Aita & Tibbs

Don't hand away, but yes: Mullins, Guerrero, Jordan, Monegro, Paez, Uberstine, Wehunt, Castro & anybody not listed

[Larry Cook]

24 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Agreed, but those types of deals are usually reserved for winter time, and would be more costly in July, IMO.

So, putting those ideas aside, what are we willing to part with for a rental?

I am saying no to the 4 rookies, no to Dobbins, Arias, Jh Garcia, Tolle, Early, Clarke and Valera. I'd be very hesitant to trade away Perales, Justin Gonzales, Soto & Delzine.

Borderline: Rivera, Bleis & Cespedes

Might for the right piece: Sandlin, Romero, Taylor, Cason, Azocar, Jo Garcia, Ehrhard, D Reyes, H Rivas, Aita & Tibbs

Don't hand away, but yes: Mullins, Guerrero, Jordan, Monegro, Paez, Uberstine, Wehunt, Castro & anybody not listed

I think we have to examine which rentals can help us win and what they are worth to us. 
Peralta for example can definitely help us win. Can he help us win enough to secure a playoff spot?? 
If the answer is yes. Then we have to over pay to get a deal done! 

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

On 7/1/2025 at 5:51 PM, oldtimer said:

I see Duran, Abreu, Rafaela, Refsnyder, Anthony and Garcia as viable outfield options for 2026. I don't see Yoshida as an outfielder and Campbell should stay in the infield but does add flexibility. I would try to trade Yoshida and also Duran. That approach comes with the risk some of our top prospects don't come through. Refsnyder can be a candidate for PT designated hitter.

Who would I look to get for Duran? A first baseman. Yoshida wouldn't bring much but ridding some salary would help. We do need additional catching help.

Resigning Bregman and planning for Mayer at short and either Campbell or Story at 2nd looks like a team that could compete. 

Masa is a ,280+ hitter in MLB. Sounds like a perfect fit for a team looking for a reliable DH.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, Larry Cook said:

I think we have to examine which rentals can help us win and what they are worth to us. 
Peralta for example can definitely help us win. Can he help us win enough to secure a playoff spot?? 
If the answer is yes. Then we have to over pay to get a deal done! 

Are you willing to give up Arias and Clarke for Peralta? How about Jh Garcia & Valera?

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

Masa is a ,280+ hitter in MLB. Sounds like a perfect fit for a team looking for a reliable DH.

The Sox are looking for a reliable DH.

[Larry Cook]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Are you willing to give up Arias and Clarke for Peralta? How about Jh Garcia & Valera?

The brewers should ask for a return that is closer to major league ready. I would give Garcia and Mullins 

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

The brewers should ask for a return that is closer to major league ready. I would give Garcia and Mullins 

I would not give up Garcia.

Bleis or Cespedes plus Sandlin or Mullins, maybe.

Hey, Maybe Chris Murphy is the answer to our pitching woes! He was pretty good, a couple-three years ago.

[Larry Cook]

1 minute ago, moonslav59 said:

I would not give up Garcia.

Bleis or Cespedes plus Sandlin or Mullins, maybe.

Hey, Maybe Chris Murphy is the answer to our pitching woes! He was pretty good, a couple-three years ago.

Maybe they take Grissom off our hands 

[moonslav59]

35 minutes ago, Larry Cook said:

Maybe they take Grissom off our hands 

For nothing.

MIL is 10 games over .500, so I'm not even sure they will be looking at selling.

[Larry Cook]

Weissert appears to have dead arm 

[cp176]

On 6/30/2025 at 4:45 PM, moonslav59 said:

It would take trading away much of "next year's" talent, and then when we fall short, like we likely will, anyway, we can't even say "Wait till next year." We'll be saying, "Wait till 2033."

This team has many superfluous parts that we could live without but nobody likely would want most of them.  Trading the guys that are mentioned often like Abreau, Duran , or any of our young guys would be a massive step backwards in my opinion.  With Bergman and Yoshida coming back obviously some guys will be left without a place to play.  Many of them we just could live without.