A Realistic Look at the 2026 Red Sox: Part I

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Most of us realize BTV has some serious flaws, but I ask which of these groups of players are the most overvalued and undervalued?

Group A: 73 Rafaela, 66 Tolle, 54 Arias, 39 Suarez, 38 Mayer, 35 Abreu, 34 Early. (My choices: Mayer over/Abreu under)

Group B: 24 Eyanson, 23 Anthony, 18 Crochet, 17 Narvaez & Soto, 16 Duran (Duran over/Crochet under)

Group C: 15 Gonzales & Azocar, 14 Durbin, 12 Witherspoon, 11 Romy, 10 Valera (Durbin over/Azocar under)

Group notables: 9 Godbout, 8 Contreras, 4 Chapman, 3 Whitlock, 2 Wong, 0 IKF, Oviedo, Moraan, Watson (Wong over/Chapman under)

Group Negatives: -1 Casas, -2 Crawford, Houck & Gray, -5 Sandoval & KC, -22 Bello, -26 Yoshida, -39 Story (Casas & Sandoval over/Gray & Crawford under)

To think that the Sox would put up Garrett Crochet in a trade and they'd get the same value as a trade with Duran is laughable. 

Who would the Sox get a bigger offer for: Roman or Suarez? I think it'd be Roman TBH. 

That Romy has the same value as Chapman PLUS Contreras??? Crazy. If that's the case, I'm fielding calls on Romy all day!!!

[moonslav59]

5 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

To think that the Sox would put up Garrett Crochet in a trade and they'd get the same value as a trade with Duran is laughable. 

Who would the Sox get a bigger offer for: Roman or Suarez? I think it'd be Roman TBH. 

That Romy has the same value as Chapman PLUS Contreras??? Crazy. If that's the case, I'm fielding calls on Romy all day!!!

All great points. The money and years of control matter a lot to BTV, but in reality, it matters to many teams, too.

Half the teams might not trade for Crochet due to their budgets, so there is an aspect of truth to BTV's flawed set-up.

Many teams would rather have Romy than the expensive Chapman+ Willson, especially teams already out of it and or on tight budgets. That is part of the reality of trades, too.

[notin]

11 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

All great points. The money and years of control matter a lot to BTV, but in reality, it matters to many teams, too.

Half the teams might not trade for Crochet due to their budgets, so there is an aspect of truth to BTV's flawed set-up.

Many teams would rather have Romy than the expensive Chapman+ Willson, especially teams already out of it and or on tight budgets. That is part of the reality of trades, too.

While it’s unlikely any teams use BTV itself, they all do something similar - projected production vs projected salary.   The biggest variable is what site(s) each uses for projections…

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, notin said:

While it’s unlikely any teams use BTV itself, they all do something similar - projected production vs projected salary.   The biggest variable is what site(s) each uses for projections…

I think teams may have their own systems and not rely on FanGraphs or Bref for the calculation of WAR. That could be the issue the Sox are running into with their internal models. 

[notin]

2 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

I think teams may have their own systems and not rely on FanGraphs or Bref for the calculation of WAR. That could be the issue the Sox are running into with their internal models. 

That could be as well.  Do the Sox call theirs “FenWAR”?

But the BTV bottom line of projected production vs salary/projected salary is probably very common…

[moonslav59]

43 minutes ago, notin said:

While it’s unlikely any teams use BTV itself, they all do something similar - projected production vs projected salary.   The biggest variable is what site(s) each uses for projections…

True, and while they might not assign a number value to every player in MLB, they do have their ways for assigning and comparing them. Of course team needs and budgets have roles, too.

[moonslav59]

I doubt the Sox have had more major injuries than most other teams, especially with everyday players, but here is a breakdown of the ones we have had:

Anthony: missed 40 games and counting

Romy has missed all 72 games and counting

4 SP'ers essentially missed the whole season, so far. Houck, Crawford, Sandoval: all 72 games (13 GS) and counting. Oviedo started no games and wnt on the IL after 3 IP.

Crochet: 7 GS and counting. All-in-all, we've missed over 45-50 GS out of 72 games from our top 7-8 Sp'ers, when healthy.

The pen has been rather healthy, except for Slaten and some scattered games missed by others.

[L J]

36 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I doubt the Sox have had more major injuries than most other teams, especially with everyday players, but here is a breakdown of the ones we have had:

Anthony: missed 40 games and counting

Romy has missed all 72 games and counting

4 SP'ers essentially missed the whole season, so far. Houck, Crawford, Sandoval: all 72 games (13 GS) and counting. Oviedo started no games and wnt on the IL after 3 IP.

Crochet: 7 GS and counting. All-in-all, we've missed over 45-50 GS out of 72 games from our top 7-8 Sp'ers, when healthy.

The pen has been rather healthy, except for Slaten and some scattered games missed by others.

 

37 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I doubt the Sox have had more major injuries than most other teams, especially with everyday players, but here is a breakdown of the ones we have had:

Anthony: missed 40 games and counting

Romy has missed all 72 games and counting

4 SP'ers essentially missed the whole season, so far. Houck, Crawford, Sandoval: all 72 games (13 GS) and counting. Oviedo started no games and wnt on the IL after 3 IP.

Crochet: 7 GS and counting. All-in-all, we've missed over 45-50 GS out of 72 games from our top 7-8 Sp'ers, when healthy.

The pen has been rather healthy, except for Slaten and some scattered games missed by others.

 

[Randy Red Sox]

On 5/30/2026 at 12:38 PM, notin said:

Breslow and Tracy need to.

They can’t keep playing station-to-station baseball.  If you’re going to try to be the Rays, which has been the goal for like 6 years now, you can’t stop at payroll; you need to play the game like them, too.

Right now the Sox have a small market lineup that’s trying to play a big market game…

my math could be off but i believe the Sox W.L record since DD was fired is 471-471.  is anyone surprised??

[moonslav59]

2 hours ago, Randy Red Sox said:

my math could be off but i believe the Sox W.L record since DD was fired is 471-471.  is anyone surprised??

I thought it would be worse.

[cp176]

19 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

We do need a SS. It is one position you don't just slap a poor defensive player there. That being said, we have all 9 positions we can add a big bat to. I'd avoid CF, but if we trade or sign one, we can move him to LF or RF, so big bat additions are not restricted to positions, under my view.

If we add 2 big bats anywhere but SS, I'd be okay with Mayer at SS. If we add a SS, we'd have Mayer at 3B or 2B, but we'd have Durbin, Romy and others to choose from. We don't have that choice at SS.

I'm just saying my preference for big bats is at SS and either 2B or 3B. I realize those two slots don't have a ton of .900 potential guys that are available, so we'd likely have to look at my next tier of preference: DH or C.

The last preferences are 1B (assuming no Willson trade) and OF, unless we trade Duran and move Anthony to DH.

I'm not limiting the addition of a .900 bat by any position- just offering preferences.

I actually agree with your point that the 2 big bats is the top priority- not positions.

I will add that your ",900" point makes it a near impossible ask for this coming winter. There are only 5 batters in MLB with a .900+ OPS from 2025-2026 combined, and which one is available?

600+ PAs

1.078 Judge

.999 Ohtani & Kurtz

.937 Soto

.925 Schwaber

Okay, assume you meant near .900 or someone with strong promise to be near .900...

.892 Buxton, .891 Rice, .890 Carroll, .882 Acuna, .881 Springer

There is a big drop to...

.867 Wood, .865 Olsen & Langeliers, .864 Yandy Diaz & Muncy, .862 Freeman & Raleigh

Drop the PAs to 300 to try and find promising players or players who got hurt...

.968 Yoran, .886 Stanton, .876 Canzone, .841 Colsen Montgomery

I'm not seeing many opportunities to find two big bats at your level of greatness.

 

I’m in the very small camp of do not trade Mayer.  He would be one or two of the actual position players that I would not trade.