Article: Red Sox Trade for St. Louis Cardinals' Steven Matz

[FredLynn]

20 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

He has been in BOS since '22. He has played in over 250 G. To say he has never been given a chance is ridiculous. 

I meant he wasn't given a chance in 2025. Looking at his stats his career OPS is .800 and his career OPS+ is 118. He's not 40 years old. Next year I would expect his numbers to be closer to his career stats.

[FredLynn]

23 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Sure, he's got over a decade to spend that money to make up for it.

He needs to get started this offseason. That amount of money can buy a very good player and a long contract. If he pockets most of it I am going to be very disappointed, though not surprised.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

15 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Sure, he's got over a decade to spend that money to make up for it.

On screen, $250 million is only a few decimal points away from being 25 cents on the dollar.

And one quarter of Raffy's average of about 32 home runs per year is 8 dingers. 

Sorry, just preparing myself for when Breslow announces the acquisition of Connor Joe as the new right-handed hitting first baseman.

"We know Joe has zero HRs this season," Craig will say. "No-rated, that might not seem like much... but he's hit 35 bombs the past four years -- combined."

[mvp 78]

12 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I meant he wasn't given a chance in 2025. Looking at his stats his career OPS is .800 and his career OPS+ is 118. He's not 40 years old. Next year I would expect his numbers to be closer to his career stats.

He is a guy that has a trend of not staying healthy throughout his career. Not a guy I'd give a long term contract too or trust for a starting position without a good backup. 

[mvp 78]

11 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

He needs to get started this offseason. That amount of money can buy a very good player and a long contract. If he pockets most of it I am going to be very disappointed, though not surprised.

They will use the 30M AAV towards internal extensions most likely.

[FredLynn]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

He is a guy that has a trend of not staying healthy throughout his career. Not a guy I'd give a long term contract too or trust for a starting position without a good backup. 

The fact is that his numbers are good. You cannot count on someone getting injured as a reason to plan to replace him. Thats just dumb. If he gets hurt you deal with it. It could happen to anyone.

[FredLynn]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

They will use the 30M AAV towards internal extensions most likely.

They can sign a very good player or two AND extend people worth extending. This is not a small market franchise like Henry would like to see it as. In total payroll the Flops are middle third, #12. We can do better.

[mvp 78]

7 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

The fact is that his numbers are good. You cannot count on someone getting injured as a reason to plan to replace him. Thats just dumb. If he gets hurt you deal with it. It could happen to anyone.

It could happen to anyone. It just happens more often to Casas than other players. And when it happens to Casas, he stays out longer too. 

[Nick]

56 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I wouldn’t be giving up on Casas at 1B. He had a slow start this year before he blew out his knee but he really never got a chance to show what he has, if anything. 

My ONLY issue with Casas is that he probably won't be ready in April/May. And if he has his traditional slow start, well....now we're at trade deadline in 2026. This injury really set him back.

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

They can sign a very good player or two AND extend people worth extending. This is not a small market franchise like Henry would like to see it as. In total payroll the Flops are middle third, #12. We can do better.

He already has 4 rings. There clearly is no sense of urgency anymore. The budget is far more important than it was when Larry Lucchino was around. 

[FredLynn]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

It could happen to anyone. It just happens more often to Casas than other players. And when it happens to Casas, he stays out longer too. 

So you want to plan the future on the possibility that once he is recovered he'll likely be injured again? You cannot plan for every eventuality. If he gets hurt the team will need to deal with it, just like they would need to deal with anyone else getting injured.

[FredLynn]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

He already has 4 rings. There clearly is no sense of urgency anymore. The budget is far more important than it was when Larry Lucchino was around. 

So four rings is enough. Time to hang it up? As a fan thats not an acceptable attitude. This is a team that should compete for a ring nearly every year. Its not KC or Tampa. More effort should be put into doing so.

[FredLynn]

4 minutes ago, Nick said:

My ONLY issue with Casas is that he probably won't be ready in April/May. And if he has his traditional slow start, well....now we're at trade deadline in 2026. This injury really set him back.

How do you know he won't be ready in April or May? Have you read something that indicates that is true? An AI search produced this: 

Triston Casas, first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, suffered a season-ending ruptured left patellar tendon in May. He is expected to make a full recovery, with a target return date around Opening Day 2026

[moonslav59]

10 hours ago, Nick John said:

The platoon of Romy/Abe right now, plus the fact that they're teaching Campbell first who they just signed to that extension, plus Casas will be back some point next season. He was never going to play in Boston

That's how I see it, even if we trade Casas or he never wins back the 1B job. (He may/should be our next DH.)

Blaze was a Rule 5 guy, who likely would have been selected, since he is ML ready. We'd have traded him for somebody. Matz is that somebody.

[mvp 78]

6 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

So you want to plan the future on the possibility that once he is recovered he'll likely be injured again? You cannot plan for every eventuality. If he gets hurt the team will need to deal with it, just like they would need to deal with anyone else getting injured.

I'm planning for the future to have a better option than Casas at 1b. 

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

How do you know he won't be ready in April or May? Have you read something that indicates that is true? An AI search produced this: 

Triston Casas, first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, suffered a season-ending ruptured left patellar tendon in May. He is expected to make a full recovery, with a target return date around Opening Day 2026

Your mistake was letting the AI do your research for you. 

[FredLynn]

Just now, mvp 78 said:

I'm planning for the future to have a better option than Casas at 1b. 

And I am fine with him there, given his career OPS and OPS+. Defensively he has some work to do, but his production you can't rationally question. I haven't seen any timelines for recovery that are over a year with this kind of injury, especially in a young healthy athlete.

[FredLynn]

5 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Your mistake was letting the AI do your research for you. 

I also reviewed some medical literature on the subject. I can produce it if you want, but in the interest of brevity the AI was a summary. Casas has also stated that he hasn't been given a recovery timeline longer than a year.

Here you go: https://www.webmd.com/men/features/patellar-tendon-recovery

[moonslav59]

15 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

He already has 4 rings. There clearly is no sense of urgency anymore. The budget is far more important than it was when Larry Lucchino was around. 

I think the pendulum has swung towards the here and now, but the future is still a high enough priority that I doubt we try and empty the farm for a 2025 ring.

Crochet, Bregman, Chapman, Buehler and Sandoval were not cheap. (Wilson was.)

True, we traded Devers, so the huge outlay of cash was mitigated by a huge salary dump, but I think we will continue to build up the 26 for a strong run at ring #5. It may not be for 2025, but I think we keep adding more than we subtract.

We don't have a lot of expensive arbs coming up, even beyond 2026. Cots has us about $74M under the tax line in 2026, and I would not be surprised if we went over by up to $19M. That could mean we have $75-90M to spend on...

SP2

Closer

3B

(some on 1B and 2B)

In theory, we could spend $30M AAV on 3 players or $35M on 2 and $20M on a closer.

We have a ton of cash coming off the books, and much of it does not really need top replacements, including Devers at DH (1B/3B.)

We will need to extend or replace Bregman at 3B (Suarez?)

We will need to extend or replace Chapman.

We will need to replace Giolito, but we have Gio + Buehler's money to do it.

We should add some more depth and fix the 1B issue. Maybe, we need to add a better 2B depth choice than DHam. Maybe counting on Mayer to stay healthy is a mistake.

[FredLynn]

11 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

That's how I see it, even if we trade Casas or he never wins back the 1B job. (He may/should be our next DH.)

Blaze was a Rule 5 guy, who likely would have been selected, since he is ML ready. We'd have traded him for somebody. Matz is that somebody.

We already have a FANTASTIC DH in Yoshida. And he's not going anywhere.

[moonslav59]

8 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

We already have a FANTASTIC DH in Yoshida. And he's not going anywhere.

If we do anything this offseason, I hope we can find a way to dump some of Yoshida's salary on another team.

Take back a big salary dump in return, if needed.

We should be looking at Casas, Campbell, Romy and Ref as DH options for 2026.

[Nick]

25 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

How do you know he won't be ready in April or May? Have you read something that indicates that is true? An AI search produced this: 

Triston Casas, first baseman for the Boston Red Sox, suffered a season-ending ruptured left patellar tendon in May. He is expected to make a full recovery, with a target return date around Opening Day 2026

Do you want to bet $100? I'm willing to....

[mvp 78]

19 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

I also reviewed some medical literature on the subject. I can produce it if you want, but in the interest of brevity the AI was a summary. Casas has also stated that he hasn't been given a recovery timeline longer than a year.

Here you go: https://www.webmd.com/men/features/patellar-tendon-recovery

Recovery timeline of a year would bring him back next May/June. He won't be playing for BOS on Opening Day. With Casas's known issues of being a slow healer, he'll take the full 12 months if not longer. 

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

If we do anything this offseason, I hope we can find a way to dump some of Yoshida's salary on another team.

Take back a big salary dump in return, if needed.

We should be looking at Casas, Campbell, Romy and Ref as DH options for 2026.

If they had moved on from Casas and Yoshida last offseason, the Sox would have been better off in '25. 

[FredLynn]

6 minutes ago, Nick said:

Do you want to bet $100? I'm willing to....

Define “around opening day” and I’ll think about it

[FredLynn]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Recovery timeline of a year would bring him back next May/June. He won't be playing for BOS on Opening Day. With Casas's known issues of being a slow healer, he'll take the full 12 months if not longer. 

You don’t know that. The medical literature I reviewed FOR THIS INJURY says 6-12 months. Your “slow healer” assumption I presume is based on his rib cage injury. That’s a different injury. Based on medical literature I’d assume he’ll be back around opening day. There’s no rational reason to assume otherwise.

[moonslav59]

8 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

If they had moved on from Casas and Yoshida last offseason, the Sox would have been better off in '25. 

Agreed. 

I must have suggested dozens of Casas & Yoshida trades, last winter.

Depending on the return, trading an OF'er and calling Anthony up earlier might have been a great idea, too.

[notin]

52 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

They can sign a very good player or two AND extend people worth extending. This is not a small market franchise like Henry would like to see it as. In total payroll the Flops are middle third, #12. We can do better.

Not all for $30mill, which was the subject at hand…

[FredLynn]

Just now, notin said:

Not all for $30mill, which was the subject at hand…

There’s more money available if Henry wants to spend it. Middle third in team salary for a big market team isn’t acceptable.

[notin]

16 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Recovery timeline of a year would bring him back next May/June. He won't be playing for BOS on Opening Day. With Casas's known issues of being a slow healer, he'll take the full 12 months if not longer. 

I hope they make other plans.  This guy keeps injuring himself with routine baseball activities.  That’s ok for someone like me, whom did not make his living playing baseball.  But for Casas, it’s a concern…