2026 Red Sox Injury Updates

[notin]

34 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm not for signing 30+ pitchers to 5 year deals.

Just because Lester did well, doesn't mean all of them do.

Ok you lost me.

Your premise was to avoid those 1-2 year flier deals and sign one pitcher to a big deal, right? But now you’re opposed to it?   
 

Most free agent pitchers are 30 or older.  Any worthwhile free agent under 30 seems unlikely to settle for a mere 5 years (source: history).  And very few free agent pitchers have as many as 5 good years left.  Hopefully Suarez does, and his non-reliance on velocity might help but it’s not any sort of guarantee…

[mvp 78]

11 minutes ago, notin said:

Year two of an 8 year deal that costs more than all the Sox one year fliers combined…

🤩

[moonslav59]

6 minutes ago, notin said:

Ok you lost me.

Your premise was to avoid those 1-2 year flier deals and sign one pitcher to a big deal, right? But now you’re opposed to it?   
 

Most free agent pitchers are 30 or older.  Any worthwhile free agent under 30 seems unlikely to settle for a mere 5 years (source: history).  And very few free agent pitchers have as many as 5 good years left.  Hopefully Suarez does, and his non-reliance on velocity might help but it’s not any sort of guarantee…

Well, I'd rather we sign a 30 year old to 5 years than sign 5 34-36 year olds to 1 year deals- five times, but there are chances to sign under 30 guys, too.

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Well, I'd rather we sign a 30 year old to 5 years than sign 5 34-36 year olds to 1 year deals- five times, but there are chances to sign under 30 guys, too.

You want a high ceiling ace for 5 years over a string of low ceiling 4th starters??? WTH?

[moonslav59]

5 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

You want a high ceiling ace for 5 years over a string of low ceiling 4th starters??? WTH?

I never said ace. You don't get an ace at $10M x 5 years, but it's more likely you get a better pitcher than 5 x $10M/1 yr guys.  That's my theory.

It's not a sure bet.

[JoeBrady]

4 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Max Fried is on his way.

And on the IL.

[JoeBrady]

3 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I'm not for signing 30+ pitchers to 5 year deals.

Just because Lester did well, doesn't mean all of them do.

Lester isn't the slam-dunk that folks think he is.  He cost $155M for 12.2 bWAR.  He's worth it because they won a WS, but in his final 4 years, he averaged 1 bWAR/season.

[JoeBrady]

2 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I never said ace. You don't get an ace at $10M x 5 years, but it's more likely you get a better pitcher than 5 x $10M/1 yr guys.  That's my theory.

It's not a sure bet.

It's not an either/or situation.  You need an ace + a #1 + a #2.  If you can do that, you can add a couple of aging league-average SPs for $10M.

[mvp 78]

26 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Lester isn't the slam-dunk that folks think he is.  He cost $155M for 12.2 bWAR.  He's worth it because they won a WS, but in his final 4 years, he averaged 1 bWAR/season.

Per FanGraphs, he wasn't quite worth it (135M value), but I think the Cubbies take that contract every time since it helped win the WS.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

It's not an either/or situation.  You need an ace + a #1 + a #2.  If you can do that, you can add a couple of aging league-average SPs for $10M.

Of course.

We need and ace, and MAYBE a $50M/5 pitcher would have given us more than $10M/1 x 5 pitchers did.

Maybe. It's just a theory.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, mvp 78 said:

Per FanGraphs, he wasn't quite worth it (135M value), but I think the Cubbies take that contract every time since it helped win the WS.

I think the Sox & their fans would have been happy with his results, too. (Ring or no ring.)

Not many 30+ pitchers do that.

[mvp 78]

15 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I think the Sox & their fans would have been happy with his results, too. (Ring or no ring.)

Not many 30+ pitchers do that.

And TBH, I don't think buying a FA means you have to extract every $ out of the contract for it to be worthwhile. You have to overpay to make your team better. The last two seasons are probably just written off anyway. 

If Story wasn't a mess of injuries, we probably look at his contract differently.