A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[moonslav59]

39 minutes ago, norbit said:

I think people overall are too down on Mayer.  Less than 350 PA, has already improved his K% from 30% to 19% and well above average bat speed.  The body type appears to be able to add significant amount of strength.

Welcome aboard.

[UtahSox]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

BLowe is way cheaper than KMarte.

KMarte was better a few years back. He turns 33 this October. BLowe turns 32 in a couple days.

OPS/OPS+

2026: .818/121 BLowe (20 HRs)/ .811/120 KMarte (17 HRs)

2025-2026: .798/117 BLowe (51 HRs)/.860/136 KMarte (45 HRs)

2024-2026 .793/119 BLOwe (72 HRs)/.887/143 KMarte (81 HRs)

On Marte- He will make what? I thought it was around 15m AAV through 2030. Marte is an amazing hitter at a very reasonable rate. The ONLY reason he is even being mentioned for a trade is all those thorns on his sides…. He is DURABLE, when in lineup mashes……. I’d trade Mayer and either Tolle or Early + a young OF prospect for him. 

On B Lowe- He will be a free agent and with the scarcity of bats, I’ll bet you he gets 4-5 years 100-125m. Definitely won’t be cheaper than 14m AAV (Marte) IMO. Even if he costs RS 5yrs 125m I think he would still be my preferred option just because that way you could use the other assets for another Bat. 

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, UtahSox said:

On Marte- He will make what? I thought it was around 15m AAV through 2030. Marte is an amazing hitter at a very reasonable rate. The ONLY reason he is even being mentioned for a trade is all those thorns on his sides…. He is DURABLE, when in lineup mashes……. I’d trade Mayer and either Tolle or Early + a young OF prospect for him. 

On B Lowe- He will be a free agent and with the scarcity of bats, I’ll bet you he gets 4-5 years 100-125m. Definitely won’t be cheaper than 14m AAV (Marte) IMO. Even if he costs RS 5yrs 125m I think he would still be my preferred option just because that way you could use the other assets for another Bat. 

By cost, I meant $$$ and players/prospects in trade vs just $$$ for BLowe.

BTW, KMartes AAV gets adjusted when traded.

[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

10 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Not many poster put almost all the blame on one guy, and certainly what has happened after the trade has shifted some views on the percentages of blame each guy gets. I'm not sure any of the big 3 (Brez, Cora and Devers) should even get over 50%. They all messed up, and we lost a big bat as a result of it.

To me, a player needs to do what is asked of him to do, whether he agrees with it or not. Whether he thinks its best for the team or not. Whether other fans and baseball "experts" agree with him or not. He needs to do what management thinks is best for the team. This is coming from a union guy who hardly ever sides with management. Devers deserves 33%+ blame. I put it near 40%.

Although I blame Cora for not even talking to Devers about it, manager often disagree with the GM and play who they want and where they want him. Not supporting or doing what Brez wanted has a little more gray area, but he still wimped out and made the situation worse. (It might be one reason he is gone, too.) I would not put 33% of the blame on Cora. Maybe 20%.

Brez has some serious issues, and one is interpersonal relations and communication, in general. The minute they signed Bregman, he or Cora needed to talk to Devers about the plan. He should have foreseen the possible need at 1B and told DFevers to prepare to DH and be the back-up 1Bman. This is on Brez. If Cora disagreed with that plan or was too chicken to talk to Devers about it, then Brez needed to deal with that issue and or communicate with Devers himself. To me, that gives him 33%+ of the blame. I'd put him at 40%- same as Devers.

I happen to agree that the best plan was Bregman at 3B, but I also felt Devers would be better at 1B than Casas in the long run, so the idea of Devers at 1B was more appealing to me than several posters, here and more importantly more appealing that it was to Devers. Who knows: maybe if they told Devers he was going to be the first option at 1B and maybe DH some, from day one, he'd have been more accepting of the idea than the way it ended up going down.

Bloom should never have promised 3B to Devers, and Brez & Co should never have told him to put his glove away and be the FT DH. Casas has been hurt enough, and we've needed to add a 1Bman mid season for like 10 years in a row. Not seeing that was a major mistake by management, but injuries happen, and players are asked to move positions for the benefit of the team. It shouldn't matter if you agree that it was the best idea or not- a player is asked/told to play a position- he needs to do it.

For Devers the name on the back of his jersey was more important than the name on the front..

Good bye & Good riddance.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, SPLENDIDSPLINTER said:

For Devers the name on the back of his jersey was more important than the name on the front..

Good bye & Good riddance.

Becoming a .780 hitter makes it easier to swallow.

[moonslav59]

MIA is up 7-1 on ATH in the 9th. Assuming the A's lose...

___ TEX (Last WC)

-2.0 HOU

-2.5 MIN

-3.0 TOR

-3.5 BAL

-4.0 ATH

-5.0 BOS

-6.0 DET

The Sox are closing some gaps, but it's been a long time being a bottom 4 team in the worst league in recent history.

[Bellhorn04]

8 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Becoming a .780 hitter makes it easier to swallow.

Devers has really been hot lately.  

[notin]

3 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Devers has really been hot lately.  

His bat was never the problem…

[notin]

15 hours ago, UtahSox said:

On Marte- He will make what? I thought it was around 15m AAV through 2030. Marte is an amazing hitter at a very reasonable rate. The ONLY reason he is even being mentioned for a trade is all those thorns on his sides…. He is DURABLE, when in lineup mashes……. I’d trade Mayer and either Tolle or Early + a young OF prospect for him. 

On B Lowe- He will be a free agent and with the scarcity of bats, I’ll bet you he gets 4-5 years 100-125m. Definitely won’t be cheaper than 14m AAV (Marte) IMO. Even if he costs RS 5yrs 125m I think he would still be my preferred option just because that way you could use the other assets for another Bat. 

Actually more than AZ reportedly asked for him. 
 

Rather have Tolle and a lesser hitting 2b at the backend of his contract….

[moonslav59]

5 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Devers has really been hot lately.  

So has Durbin.

My guess is Devers hits .825-.875 a couple more years, then starts declining slowly. Maybe he hits .900 again.

When we extended him, I expected .900 for a few years, or the high .800's.

He's a streaky hitter, so it would be foolish to write him off. He could end up over .850 or even .875, this season.

[moonslav59]

5 hours ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Devers has really been hot lately.  

Look how all the talk on Bogey has stopped on a dime.

I'm not predicting a Devers decline, but him not hitting .890 helps when thinking "what if?"

[Bellhorn04]

55 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

So has Durbin.

My guess is Devers hits .825-.875 a couple more years, then starts declining slowly. Maybe he hits .900 again.

When we extended him, I expected .900 for a few years, or the high .800's.

He's a streaky hitter, so it would be foolish to write him off. He could end up over .850 or even .875, this season.

Durbin has been great lately.

I do feel for Breslow to some degree.  It's weird to take an 89 win team, make a number of good offseason moves and be 9 games under in July. 

 

[moonslav59]

19 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Durbin has been great lately.

I do feel for Breslow to some degree.  It's weird to take an 89 win team, make a number of good offseason moves and be 9 games under in July. 

 

Basically, the only thing a GM can do is make good moves to try and improve the team.

Nobody disagrees on Gray, Suarez & Contreras being good to great moves. None were overly costly in money or players traded. (We got Gray & Contreras for less than what we gave up for Crochet, and we even got the other team to pay us money, for once.)

IKF, Durbin & Coulombe have worked out pretty good, too. Those were the second tier moves.

This doesn't ignore the mistake "non move" on adding a big bat, but it should have more than made up for it.

[vegasbob]

29 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Durbin has been great lately.

I do feel for Breslow to some degree.  It's weird to take an 89 win team, make a number of good offseason moves and be 9 games under in July. 

 

I  cannot explain the lineup wide slump to open the season , though it started over the final 10 or so ST games, culminating in Cora and coaches massacre, BUT

I do think the injuries to Crochet, Anthony and even Story  contributed heavily to the season to date failure to get to .500

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, vegasbob said:

I  cannot explain the lineup wide slump to open the season , though it started over the final 10 or so ST games, culminating in Cora and coaches massacre, BUT

I do think the injuries to Crochet, Anthony and even Story  contributed heavily to the season to date failure to get to .500

Good points, but have we really had more injuries than most other teams, especially on offense?

Anthony & Romy hurt.

Story's replacements have hit better than he did.

[Old Red]

36 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Durbin has been great lately.

I do feel for Breslow to some degree.  It's weird to take an 89 win team, make a number of good offseason moves and be 9 games under in July. 

 

Breslow failed to get anther big bat. He botched the Bregman negotiations, which I remember a certain poster saying just get the deal done, which at present has turned out for the best. After failing on Plan A he shifted the money to Ranger instead of getting another bat. If this wasn’t a year where the league was so weak the Sox most likely would be 15 under right now.

[vegasbob]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Good points, but have we really had more injuries than most other teams, especially on offense?

Anthony & Romy hurt.

Story's replacements have hit better than he did.

Not an advocate for Story, but apparently he was trying, ill advisedly. to play through the hernia.

Romy was also a significant loss.

[moonslav59]

10 minutes ago, vegasbob said:

Not an advocate for Story, but apparently he was trying, ill advisedly. to play through the hernia.

Romy was also a significant loss.

A healthy Story could have hit better than his replacements have done, especially if he hit like 2025, but his SS defense was a minus, and there was no sign of moving him to 2B in 2026.

I don't view his loss as a sure negative to the team.

Anthony & Romy, yes.

IKF was hitting well, when he got hurt, too.

I don't think our everyday player injuries has been overly excessive or even above the norm. Losing Anthony seemingly hurt, but we don't really know how well he'd be doing.

Our injuries to the rotation were extreme, even within the context of all the league wide injuries to SP'ers. We lost 5 of out top 9-10 SP'ers, including our ace.

Crochet was a clear #1 going into 2026.

Houck was our ace 2 years ago

Crawford was widely viewed as having a real chance to be a solid #2/3

Sandoval was a solid 2.5 to 3.5 type a few years back.

Oviedo was projected by some to be our #5 to start 2026.

(Bello was demoted.)

It's hard to say we were severely hurt by these injuries, in light of the results given by Tolle, Bennett & Early, but one could argue we could have bolstered our pen with some of these guys (Crawford/Bello/Sandoval/Bennett/Early/Tolle)

[notin]

18 hours ago, UtahSox said:

On Marte- He will make what? I thought it was around 15m AAV through 2030. Marte is an amazing hitter at a very reasonable rate. The ONLY reason he is even being mentioned for a trade is all those thorns on his sides…. He is DURABLE, when in lineup mashes……. I’d trade Mayer and either Tolle or Early + a young OF prospect for him. 

On B Lowe- He will be a free agent and with the scarcity of bats, I’ll bet you he gets 4-5 years 100-125m. Definitely won’t be cheaper than 14m AAV (Marte) IMO. Even if he costs RS 5yrs 125m I think he would still be my preferred option just because that way you could use the other assets for another Bat. 

I wonder if Austin Riley might be a good target for Boston after the season.  
 

He’s been league average (101 OPS+) over the past 3 seasons and is seeing his OPS drop for the fifth consecutive time since his .898 in 2021 and is currently under 700.  He is also owed $132mill over the next 6 years.  Big gamble for a hopeful change of scenery candidate, but he’s also still 29…

[moonslav59]

Just now, notin said:

I wonder if Austin Riley might be a good target for Boston after the season.  
He’s been league average (101 OPS+) over the past 3 seasons and is seeing his OPS drop for the fifth consecutive time since his .898 in 2021 and is currently under 700.  He is also owed $132mill over the next 6 years.  Risjly if any buys a change of scenery candidate, but he’s also still 29…

We'd have to insist on them taking Yoshida and or Story as just a partial money balancing aspect to this trade, but I'd consider it.

I'm not sure taking on a declining high-priced player ia good gamble, though, but a change of scenery may help.

[notin]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

We'd have to insist on them taking Yoshida and or Story as just a partial money balancing aspect to this trade, but I'd consider it.

I'm not sure taking on a declining high-priced player ia good gamble, though, but a change of scenery may help.

And again - still only 29.  
 

They may not be opposed to a healthy Story, if such a thing exists.  Lately their SS has been Mauricio Dubon, and they save about $99million…

[moonslav59]

18 hours ago, UtahSox said:

On Marte- He will make what? I thought it was around 15m AAV through 2030. Marte is an amazing hitter at a very reasonable rate. The ONLY reason he is even being mentioned for a trade is all those thorns on his sides…. He is DURABLE, when in lineup mashes……. I’d trade Mayer and either Tolle or Early + a young OF prospect for him. 

KMarte is owed just $12M for 2027, so maybe AZ will want to wait a half year or a full year to trade him, Afterwards, he's owed $20M, $22M and $22M with a player option for 2031 at $11.5M.

That's $76M/4 or an AAV of $19M, if he's traded this winter. That is likely more than what BLowe gets or about the same.

[moonslav59]

4 minutes ago, notin said:

And again - still only 29.  

Yup, just barely turned 29. He's also a RHB with 20 HR power- maybe more in Fenway.

Who says no?

Mayer & Story or Yoshida for Riley

How about:

Mayer, Yoshida & Story for Riley & Murphy

[notin]

15 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Yup, just barely turned 29. He's also a RHB with 20 HR power- maybe more in Fenway.

Who says no?

Mayer & Story or Yoshida for Riley

How about:

Mayer, Yoshida & Story for Riley & Murphy

Boston.  Breslow wouldn’t deal Mayer for Marte.  Doubtful he deals him for Riley.

[moonslav59]

Just now, notin said:

Boston.  Breslow wouldn’t deal Mayer for Marte.  Doubtful he deals him for Riley.

I thought it was about Tolle or Early than Mayer for Marte,

Maybe Mayer's stock has fallen as viewed by Brez.

[Old Red]

26 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Yup, just barely turned 29. He's also a RHB with 20 HR power- maybe more in Fenway.

Who says no?

Mayer & Story or Yoshida for Riley

How about:

Mayer, Yoshida & Story for Riley & Murphy

You guys. Crack me up. You’re always trying to unload players you don’t want like Story, and Masa, and think other teams will want them. If you were suggesting a trade for the Braves do you think you’d offer that same trade, because you wanted Story, and Masa? 🙈

[moonslav59]

While BTV has the value of Chapman $2M + Gray -$1.3M as about equal to Paez, Gamboa or Cheng, the money owed aspect is what brings their value down. Teams in contention don't worry so much about what is left one their contracts. Their playing values are listed as:

$20.5M Chapman (owed $18.5M)

$13.7M Gray (owed $15M)

Their on the field value is worth over $34M

Others:

$48M KC (owed $56M)

$21.5M Bello (owed $47M)

$5M Story (owed $41M)

$3.3M Yoshida (owed $26M)

$3.1M IKF (owed $2.7M)

$2.2M Sandoval (owed $6M)

$0.4M Watson (owed $0M)

(Coulombe is not listed on BTV.)

 

 

[moonslav59]

I doubt Brez will go into this winter thinking he will add 3 significant everyday players with 2-3 being big bats or important upgrades on offense. He might be thinking 1 major bat or two really good ones.

He might view Catcher, Middle Infield and DH as the areas most likely to upgrade on offense.

He probably will count on Mayer and Durbin, and maybe Story, Romy & Co to fill all our infield needs.

I think he will try to upgrade Catcher offense. (Sign Jeffers or trade for William Contreras?)

I think he trades Duran and adds an OF/DH. (Jeffer? BLowe as 2B/DH or _____?)

[moonslav59]

How about this assembled team of ex-Sox players on just 3 teams- CWS, MIL & STL:

C Teel

1B

2B Meidroth

3B Jordan

SS DHam

LF Benintendi

CF

RF Braden Montgomery

DH 

SP Harrison, Drohan, DMay, Dobbins, Priester (IL)

RP Newcomb, Chris Murphy, Hicks, Paez

Add LAD (Betts in CF and Kike to infield/Jordan to 3B) and PHI (Schwarber at DH) and that's not a horrible team.

[mvp 78]

1 hour ago, moonslav59 said:

I thought it was about Tolle or Early than Mayer for Marte,

Maybe Mayer's stock has fallen as viewed by Brez.

Breslow can’t value any internal guy correctly: Harrison, Duran, Mayer, Sale, etc.

I don’t trust his models.