A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[notin]

15 hours ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

You may be one of the only posters to agree that players' stats for one team and home park against division rivals may be different than for/in/vs. other teams, ballparks and foes.

"We dodged a bullet not signing that guy!" can only ever be just an assumption. Even if he gets hurt elsewhere.

Oh i dont think stats translate - even OPS+
 - but I do believe struggling isn’t always just because of new geography.  Stats do convey that struggle.  Plus Theyre facts, while “he’d hit if he were here” is an alternate reality pipe dream.

And I certainly don’t give ex-Sox or players the Sox avoided a pass for their new locations while holding new Red Sox players to a completely different standard. 
 

Some injuries are probably inevitable regardless of geography.  We call them elbow injuries…

[Old Red]

13 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Too funny.

🤣

If you can’t get to 500 you can’t get to anywhere else. Kind of like if you keep getting to the fork in the road, and you keep looking for the 3rd option you can’t get anywhere else.

[notin]

14 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

The Red Sox media i awful.  I like DHam, but he basically had one good day and it set the media ablaze.

Hamilton wasn’t that bad when he was here.  He basically filled a role and got relied on too much due to the failures of others.  
 

Of course in both cases, that other “failure” had a bad stretch of 100 or so PA very early in their career.

And yes, the Boston media has always been horrible about magnifying ex-Sox players.  I’ll start the bidding with Bob Lobel, the most annoying sportscaster in media history, and his oft-repeated “Why can’t we get players like that?” for every highlight wuth a former Sox players.

Gee, Bob, maybe because you whined about him endlessly when he was here…
 

[mvp 78]

16 minutes ago, notin said:

Hamilton wasn’t that bad when he was here.  He basically filled a role and got relied on too much due to the failures of others.  
 

Of course in both cases, that other “failure” had a bad stretch of 100 or so PA very early in their career.

And yes, the Boston media has always been horrible about magnifying ex-Sox players.  I’ll start the bidding with Bob Lobel, the most annoying sportscaster in media history, and his oft-repeated “Why can’t we get players like that?” for every highlight wuth a former Sox players.

Gee, Bob, maybe because you whined about him endlessly when he was here…
 

DHam was fine as a platoon 2b who hits 8th/9th. They weren't really willing to try him out as a UTIL guy, MIL is. 

[moonslav59]

51 minutes ago, Old Red said:

If you can’t get to 500 you can’t get to anywhere else. Kind of like if you keep getting to the fork in the road, and you keep looking for the 3rd option you can’t get anywhere else.

That's not what is funny.

[moonslav59]

10 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

DHam was fine as a platoon 2b who hits 8th/9th. They weren't really willing to try him out as a UTIL guy, MIL is. 

That's because he sucks on D at SS and 3B.

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

That's because he sucks on D at SS and 3B.

His metrics at 3b have been good so far. 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Some injuries are probably inevitable regardless of geography.  We call them elbow injuries…

But Anthony... built like a Roman god, invincible 21-year old with 101 MLB games under his eight-pack belt -- hurt three times already by merely doing the one athletic motion that is supposed to elevate him to superduperstardom?

What in the name of Tris Houses is going on with the Red Sox young studs?

Is this just a bad trend or a reflection of a part of the organization that Breslow forgot to fire?

Will the Italian Rapscallion ever be able to swing as hard as he can again for an entire season in the decade he's expected to dominate? 

Hopefully, no Red Sox historian will ever write a book someday called The Curse of the Gambino.

[moonslav59]

21 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

His metrics at 3b have been good so far. 

I think he had only 1 inning at 3B for the Sox, so my statement was unfounded.

MIL has used him more at SS (106 innings) than 3B (101)  and 2B (26.) He's been negative at SS about at the same level as w BOS.

[notin]

17 hours ago, drewski6 said:

Understood adding all that up and its significant.  And the Duran turnaround is significant on its own laurels (sp?) and it pulled a W out of a would be defeat just yesterday.  Still, it would be nice to have one elite hitter and Im going to keep pining for one until we get one externally or internally.  And of the list of elite hitters, lets say top 20 wrc+ , Devers is one of the least likely to obtain.....So not pining for him, but I am saying that I consider Devers when I justify my disgust for Breslow.  Not because I think Breslow can go get him back, but because the issue was smoothed over when Devers was traded....And I do think that he would have helped in the yankees series last year and thus far this year, even though his SF numbers may stink.

Trading Devers was part of the problem, but Devers is not part of the solution.  If Hous firesales, Im very interested in Yordan.

Most fire sales don’t involve corr players with multiple years of control left.  If Houston has one, I would expect them to keep Alvarez, Peña, Hunter Brown, and very likely Cam Smith.  Priority moves will be Walker snd Hader….

[moonslav59]

28 minutes ago, notin said:

Most fire sales don’t involve corr players with multiple years of control left.  If Houston has one, I would expect them to keep Alvarez, Peña, Hunter Brown, and very likely Cam Smith.  Priority moves will be Walker snd Hader….

Hader has 2 more years after this. Walker has one.

Bryan Abreu is a FA after this year, but he has sucked, so far,

Paredes and Pena have 1 more year, after this, so if the rebuild is coming, they could be valuable trade chips.

The Astros were known for their complete tear down many years go, when the stockpiled top draft picks for many years, but that might not be the plan, this time.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

He'll have 3-4 decent seasons left.

Probably not.  In 2025, these are the players that had an fWAR of 2.5 or higher, by age group:

• 32 (Marte's current age) 10 altogether
• 33 Judge, Suarez, Diaz, Contreras
• 34 None
• 35 Springer, Freeman
• 36 None
• 37 None

Past the age of 32, you enter into the area of 'possible, but less than likely'.  From the age of 34-37, the only ones you get are by random outliers.

ps-I do agree on the SSS.  He should be better than he has shown this year.  But that's the same for most FA.  They usually have a good 1st year.  If they don't, you are usually doomed.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, notin said:

Hamilton wasn’t that bad when he was here.

He wasn't bad at all.  He had one great year, and one bad year.  In 2024, he had 8 HRs and 33 SBs in about a half-season of ABs.  But too many RS fans take a binary approach that dictates that a player is either a star, or he should be cut.

[JoeBrady]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

I think he had only 1 inning at 3B for the Sox, so my statement was unfounded.

MIL has used him more at SS (106 innings) than 3B (101)  and 2B (26.) He's been negative at SS about at the same level as w BOS.

The net negative at SS is not a negative at all.  When you have Util's, you expect some weaknesses.  DHam's mildly negative -3/year at SS, is almost meaningless.

[moonslav59]

5 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Probably not.  In 2025, these are the players that had an fWAR of 2.5 or higher, by age group:

• 32 (Marte's current age) 10 altogether
• 33 Judge, Suarez, Diaz, Contreras
• 34 None
• 35 Springer, Freeman
• 36 None
• 37 None

Past the age of 32, you enter into the area of 'possible, but less than likely'.  From the age of 34-37, the only ones you get are by random outliers.

I searched on fangraphs 33-36 year old players from 2023-2025 (100+ PAs)

15 times someone had 3.0+ fWAR

33 times 2.0+

43 times 1.5+

There were 154 sample size of 100+ PAs per season.

Context:

29-32 year olds:

75 over 3.0

119 over 2.0

146 over 1.5

Sample size 386.

Go by percentage, as there are more players at 29-32 than 33-36:

Over 3.0

9.7% ages 33-36 

19.4% ages 29-32

Over 2.0

21.4% age 33-36

30.8% age 29-32

Over 1.5

27.9% ages 33-36

37.8%

Certainly the disparity is significant, but I expected a bigger gap by percentage.

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

The net negative at SS is not a negative at all.  When you have Util's, you expect some weaknesses.  DHam's mildly negative -3/year at SS, is almost meaningless.

-3 with a small number of innings is really bad.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

-3 with a small number of innings is really bad.

DRS over a small sample size is very unreliable. 

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I searched on fangraphs 33-36 year old players from 2023-2025 (100+ PAs)

15 times someone had 3.0+ fWAR

33 times 2.0+

Just for fun, let's call 2.5 fWAR the lowest possible threshold for success.  That requires 7.5 fWAR for 2023-25.  Only 3 players achieved that-Freeman, Altuve, and Springer.  That's poor odds.  And there are three years after that period to consider.  The highest average for those three years is Goldschmidt with a 5.4/3.  No one else exceeded 2.9.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

-3 with a small number of innings is really bad.

 -3/year

[mvp 78]

8 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Just for fun, let's call 2.5 fWAR the lowest possible threshold for success.  That requires 7.5 fWAR for 2023-25.  Only 3 players achieved that-Freeman, Altuve, and Springer.  That's poor odds.  And there are three years after that period to consider.  The highest average for those three years is Goldschmidt with a 5.4/3.  No one else exceeded 2.9.

Is Marte in the Freeman/Altuve/Springer tier of players? Yes. Ok, then me saying 3-4 decent seasons isn't out of the realm of possibility. ⚖️

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

 -3/year

-3 in 1200 innings is not bad.

-3 in 600-700 is pretty bad.

DHam was -4 in 433 innings at SS for the Sox in 2024. That's a pace of -10 to -12 for a FT SS.

 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

Just for fun, let's call 2.5 fWAR the lowest possible threshold for success.  That requires 7.5 fWAR for 2023-25.  Only 3 players achieved that-Freeman, Altuve, and Springer.  That's poor odds.  And there are three years after that period to consider.  The highest average for those three years is Goldschmidt with a 5.4/3.  No one else exceeded 2.9.

Good points. Only about 100 players go over 2.5 in a given year, so that is a decent bar to set. That's top 3 players for each 30 teams. Fair enough.

78 players went over 7.5 from 2023-2025 combined.

KMarte would have been age 32 to age 36

[mvp 78]

18 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

-3 in 1200 innings is not bad.

-3 in 600-700 is pretty bad.

DHam was -4 in 433 innings at SS for the Sox in 2024. That's a pace of -10 to -12 for a FT SS.

 

Famously, Sox internal metrics believe DHam would be a good SS for some reason. 

[moonslav59]

5 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Famously, Sox internal metrics believe DHam would be a good SS for some reason. 

They did play him at SS way more than anyone else, when Story sat in 2025.

1371 Story

69 DHam

5 Sogard

3 Mayer

2025:

647 Rafaela

433 DHam

228 Story

80 Romy

51 Sogard

14 Reyes

[mvp 78]

 

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

DRS over a small sample size is very unreliable. 

Agreed, but you shouldn't say a player is not bad because of just a -3 over 600 innings.

[mvp 78]

10 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Agreed, but you shouldn't say a player is not bad because of just a -3 over 600 innings.

Did I say that? 

[moonslav59]

9 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Did I say that? 

no. Joe implied it.

You responded to my answer to him.

[mvp 78]

7 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

no. Joe implied it.

You responded to my answer to him.

His implication was that a -3 DRS for a UTIL player at one position wasn't a problem at all. He was there as a backup or injury insurance. He said you can live with that deficiency because the player is able to move around the field. Again, if he's a plus at 2B/3B (maybe) then you can ignore him being a slight minus at SS. He's not saying that defense is good at all, just that you can live with it.

You said "it's really bad" which I disagree with for sure. Small sample sized DRS doesn't extrapolate well over 162 games. For example, Rafaela had a -4 DRS due to one or two plays early on. Was that indicative of his defense? Probably not! He's already at a 1 DRS a few weeks later. If DHam played SS fulltime, the additional reps could get him more comfortable to fielding the position such that his -3 may only be a -4 for the full season. That's Xander Bogaerts-esque. Better than Story or Bichette were last season. 

[moonslav59]

6 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

His implication was that a -3 DRS for a UTIL player at one position wasn't a problem at all. He was there as a backup or injury insurance. He said you can live with that deficiency because the player is able to move around the field. Again, if he's a plus at 2B/3B (maybe) then you can ignore him being a slight minus at SS. He's not saying that defense is good at all, just that you can live with it.

You said "it's really bad" which I disagree with for sure. Small sample sized DRS doesn't extrapolate well over 162 games. For example, Rafaela had a -4 DRS due to one or two plays early on. Was that indicative of his defense? Probably not! He's already at a 1 DRS a few weeks later. If DHam played SS fulltime, the additional reps could get him more comfortable to fielding the position such that his -3 may only be a -4 for the full season. That's Xander Bogaerts-esque. Better than Story or Bichette were last season. 

Agreed.

When I replied, I thought the -3 was over about 100 innings, but when I looked it was 600, which is not real bad, as I mentioned in the foillow-up.

His -4 in 433 IP is pretty bad, but yes, for a Utility guy, it's passable.