Red Sox Pre-Offseason Mega Thread

[NHNative]

Cold as Ice.

[jad]

God I hate this team, or more precisely 'how it is run'.  Every f*cking year, the same thing, and see? it's already starting now:   "Who do we get rid of?"  The very notion that fans might get attached to certain players as HUMAN BEINGS (God forbid), and want to watch them over their careers?  Anathema!    So I've watched Betts and Bogey and JBJ and Devers and Benintendi and Sale and yes even Kiki and Bernardino -- some great, some ok, some not so good -- and now, there are more players I care about on other teams than on the RS.  And what now?  Oh yes:   here I'm hearing the same thing:  get rid of Abreu and Anthony and Yoshida and Duran and Gray and Contreras and who knows who else.  So just what human being am I supposed to care about?  John Henry? Some Yalie?  Breaking news:  I don't give a flying f*ck about a-hole billionaires and their lackeys.

[Nick]

Team full of mediocre offensive players will produce mediocre offense. I really don't become attached to players on a bad team. 

It's always can I envision this player on a world series team?

Crochet, yes

Tolle, yes

Chapman, yes

Suarez, yes

Whitlock, not a big fan, I just don't trust him in a must need situations

Abreu, yes

Rafaela, yes

Story, hell no

Anthony, not sure anymore

so on so on.....

We don't have enough pieces right now.

[mvp 78]

All our questions will be answered then! 

[notin]

4 hours ago, jad said:

God I hate this team, or more precisely 'how it is run'.  Every f*cking year, the same thing, and see? it's already starting now:   "Who do we get rid of?"  The very notion that fans might get attached to certain players as HUMAN BEINGS (God forbid), and want to watch them over their careers?  Anathema!    So I've watched Betts and Bogey and JBJ and Devers and Benintendi and Sale and yes even Kiki and Bernardino -- some great, some ok, some not so good -- and now, there are more players I care about on other teams than on the RS.  And what now?  Oh yes:   here I'm hearing the same thing:  get rid of Abreu and Anthony and Yoshida and Duran and Gray and Contreras and who knows who else.  So just what human being am I supposed to care about?  John Henry? Some Yalie?  Breaking news:  I don't give a flying f*ck about a-hole billionaires and their lackeys.

It’s not like we even pioneered it here.

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/4-red-sox-players-most-033500299.html

[NHNative]

I read that yesterday and basically I don't know.

I could see replacing wong for a catcher with a better bat.

We sure need a good man behind the plate to help Adley...who we really should keep.

[Hitch]

On 10/1/2026 at 11:50 PM, moonslav59 said:

 

I'm thinking we might see a Contreras trade. I'm not sure how they viewed his antics and attitude. I'm sure if he sucked or was meh, they would not have liked them. They could go with...

 

Not unless we want to trade him to someone he really wants to play for.

[Hitch]

On 10/2/2026 at 5:07 PM, jad said:

God I hate this team, or more precisely 'how it is run'.  Every f*cking year, the same thing, and see? it's already starting now:   "Who do we get rid of?"  The very notion that fans might get attached to certain players as HUMAN BEINGS (God forbid), and want to watch them over their careers?  Anathema!    So I've watched Betts and Bogey and JBJ and Devers and Benintendi and Sale and yes even Kiki and Bernardino -- some great, some ok, some not so good -- and now, there are more players I care about on other teams than on the RS.  And what now?  Oh yes:   here I'm hearing the same thing:  get rid of Abreu and Anthony and Yoshida and Duran and Gray and Contreras and who knows who else.  So just what human being am I supposed to care about?  John Henry? Some Yalie?  Breaking news:  I don't give a flying f*ck about a-hole billionaires and their lackeys.

I get your point on seeing the players as human beings and wanting to root for them long term, but not many of the current crop are in the Betts. Bogey, Sale and Devers realm. Yoshida, Story, Duran (and Abreu to a much lesser degree) are players I could easily live without over having them to just 'cheer on' next year. 

Not to mention that lineup was terrible for most of the year. Running that back just to be able to support the same guys is insanity. 

[moonslav59]

I am not against trading anybody, as long as I like the return more. DUH!

Guys like Tolle, Chapman, Whitlock, AR, Mead, Rafaela and Abreu would need to be pried away, as their salaries are affordable. I doubt we trade Anthony or Arias. Bello and Bennett offer to much upside to consider trading. Crochet and Suarez have high monetary price tags that would scare away 15 teams right off the top.

Brez has traded away many player he himself added via draft, trade or other ways, so it's not easy guessing what he might do. We do pretty much know two things: 

1. He does not have the prospect trade capital he had in his first 3 winters.

2. He will have a restricted winter spending budget.

He could maybe add some budget space by "saving" $5-6M trading Story, $3-5M trading Yoshida and maybe $7-9M by trading or non-tendering Duran. I doubt we trade the back-end loaded contract or Suarez, and if we did, we'd need Gray coming back or maybe more (Nick Martinez & Morejon?) but that would drain money from the bat acquiring budget.

Realistically, our returning core will be:

C: Rutschman

1B: Contreras

2B: Mead

3B: ______ Durbin??? (I think they are happy with Durbin)

SS: ______ Arias (AAA?)

LF/DH: Anthony

DH/LF: ______ Yoshida???

CF: Rafaela

RF: Abreu

SP: Crochet, Tolle,  _____ (Gray???) ______ Suarez (Trade???) Bennett, Bello & Oviedo

RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Miller, Houck, Crawford, Slaten, Guerrero, _____ (Weissert trade???)

Our roster depth is fine, and may even need to be thinned out via trades, as we have some logjams, most notably:

OF Duran, White (out of options) & Jones (out of options) Eaton & Ward

INF: Sogard (likely kept) Seigler, Monasterio, Cheng, Romero and of course Story (Arias is a big trade chip but we need a SS now and going forward.)

DH/1B: Yoshida, Gasper, Brannon & Jo Garcia (both Rule 5's)

 

 

[JimEd]

2 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I am not against trading anybody, as long as I like the return more. DUH!

Guys like Tolle, Chapman, Whitlock, AR, Mead, Rafaela and Abreu would need to be pried away, as their salaries are affordable. I doubt we trade Anthony or Arias. Bello and Bennett offer to much upside to consider trading. Crochet and Suarez have high monetary price tags that would scare away 15 teams right off the top.

Brez has traded away many player he himself added via draft, trade or other ways, so it's not easy guessing what he might do. We do pretty much know two things: 

1. He does not have the prospect trade capital he had in his first 3 winters.

2. He will have a restricted winter spending budget.

He could maybe add some budget space by "saving" $5-6M trading Story, $3-5M trading Yoshida and maybe $7-9M by trading or non-tendering Duran. I doubt we trade the back-end loaded contract or Suarez, and if we did, we'd need Gray coming back or maybe more (Nick Martinez & Morejon?) but that would drain money from the bat acquiring budget.

Realistically, our returning core will be:

C: Rutschman

1B: Contreras

2B: Mead

3B: ______ Durbin??? (I think they are happy with Durbin)

SS: ______ Arias (AAA?)

LF/DH: Anthony

DH/LF: ______ Yoshida???

CF: Rafaela

RF: Abreu

SP: Crochet, Tolle,  _____ (Gray???) ______ Suarez (Trade???) Bennett, Bello & Oviedo

RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Miller, Houck, Crawford, Slaten, Guerrero, _____ (Weissert trade???)

Our roster depth is fine, and may even need to be thinned out via trades, as we have some logjams, most notably:

OF Duran, White (out of options) & Jones (out of options) Eaton & Ward

INF: Sogard (likely kept) Seigler, Monasterio, Cheng, Romero and of course Story (Arias is a big trade chip but we need a SS now and going forward.)

DH/1B: Yoshida, Gasper, Brannon & Jo Garcia (both Rule 5's)

 

 

too bad Henry is so cheap or we could have had Max Fried instead of his bargain pick of Walker Buehler. 

[moonslav59]

23 minutes ago, JimEd said:

too bad Henry is so cheap or we could have had Max Fried instead of his bargain pick of Walker Buehler. 

Yup. Fried has an AAV of $27.25M, which was just $6M more than Buehler (the cost of IKF.)

The 8 years is very scary, though. He'll be 33 in January and has 6 years left! He just missed 12-13 starts, this year. I'm thinking the 4 years left for Suarez at about the same money looks safer than 6 more for Fried.

Sometimes the short year deals work- just never for us.

2026:

3.10 in 31 GS (180 IP) Nick Martinez at $13M/1 (WOW!)

Woodruff (just 9 GS,) Gallen (huge bust) and Imanaga (3.77 in 32 GS and 174 IP) signed for $22M/1. Bassitt signed for $18.5M/1 (not good) Like 1 in 4 worked, and NM did better than all 4 at less money.

2025: Nick Martinez signed for the same amount as Buehler. Verlander signed for $15M/1.

3.85 in 29 GS (153 IP) Verlander

4.45 in 26 GS (166 IP) Martinez

(Others like Scherzer $15.5M, Morton $15M, Cobb $15M were busts, too.)

2024

Jordan Montgomery $25M/1 (Huge bust)

Montas $16M/1 (bust)

Flaherty $14M/1 (3.17 in 162 IP)

$13M/1 K Gibson (4.24 in 170) , Severino (3.91 in 182)

$11M/1 L Lynn (3.84 in 117 and 23 GS)

When you look at the final results from Buehler (25), Paxton (23 & 24), Kluber (23), Richards (21) and Sandoval (25-26), it's more than $65M over 6 years.

There are some similar $65M/6 type deals made during this time that sucked, but here are some decent comps:

$75M/5 ERod (22)

$63M/3 Bassitt (23)

$26M/4 Wacha (23 w opt out taken, then took $32M/2 in '24)

$75M/3 S Gray (24)

$53M/4 Imanaga (24)

$45M/3 Lugo (24)

$75M/3 Eovaldi (25)

$55M/4 Pivetta

$75M/3 M King (26)

 

[jad]

6 hours ago, Hitch said:

I get your point on seeing the players as human beings and wanting to root for them long term, but not many of the current crop are in the Betts. Bogey, Sale and Devers realm. Yoshida, Story, Duran (and Abreu to a much lesser degree) are players I could easily live without over having them to just 'cheer on' next year. 

Not to mention that lineup was terrible for most of the year. Running that back just to be able to support the same guys is insanity. 

Yes I get that.  But  note that I am EQUALLY attached to players like Benintendi, JBJ, Bernadino.   I could add players like Vasquez too.  They don't have to be great players for me to be attached to them.  They just have to be players  I've had a chance to get to know.   I don't give a crap about players like Bregman who blow through for a year (even though I didn't dislike him when he was here) or the revolving door of pitchers I've never heard of.  I just want to recognize "my" team as the one I rooted for the year before.

[moonslav59]

46 minutes ago, jad said:

Yes I get that.  But  note that I am EQUALLY attached to players like Benintendi, JBJ, Bernadino.   I could add players like Vasquez too.  They don't have to be great players for me to be attached to them.  They just have to be players  I've had a chance to get to know.   I don't give a crap about players like Bregman who blow through for a year (even though I didn't dislike him when he was here) or the revolving door of pitchers I've never heard of.  I just want to recognize "my" team as the one I rooted for the year before.

I think winning a ring erases some of that feeling, though, but I get your feelings.

[jad]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I think winning a ring erases some of that feeling, though, but I get your feelings.

I agree.  But there haven't been a lot of rings under this 'new business model'.   (I realize the RS are not alone in this).

[moonslav59]

23 minutes ago, jad said:

I agree.  But there haven't been a lot of rings under this 'new business model'.   (I realize the RS are not alone in this).

Yes, but changes were going on all through the 2000's and 2010's, but winning made it okay.

[JimEd]

1 hour ago, jad said:

Yes I get that.  But  note that I am EQUALLY attached to players like Benintendi, JBJ, Bernadino.   I could add players like Vasquez too.  They don't have to be great players for me to be attached to them.  They just have to be players  I've had a chance to get to know.   I don't give a crap about players like Bregman who blow through for a year (even though I didn't dislike him when he was here) or the revolving door of pitchers I've never heard of.  I just want to recognize "my" team as the one I rooted for the year before.

there is such a revolving door of players it's hard for me to get attached to any of them. i could hardly tell you the Sox line up from two years ago, but i can name the starting nine (or most of it) of many of the teams of the 1970's.

[FredLynn]

1 hour ago, jad said:

I agree.  But there haven't been a lot of rings under this 'new business model'.   (I realize the RS are not alone in this).

We aren’t winning a ring every year-or even every other year or every four years. But we should be in the conversation nearly every year. Lately it’s be not even close. 
poor management 

Cheapskate owner 

Over and over again 

[FredLynn]

7 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I am not against trading anybody, as long as I like the return more. DUH!

Guys like Tolle, Chapman, Whitlock, AR, Mead, Rafaela and Abreu would need to be pried away, as their salaries are affordable. I doubt we trade Anthony or Arias. Bello and Bennett offer to much upside to consider trading. Crochet and Suarez have high monetary price tags that would scare away 15 teams right off the top.

Brez has traded away many player he himself added via draft, trade or other ways, so it's not easy guessing what he might do. We do pretty much know two things: 

1. He does not have the prospect trade capital he had in his first 3 winters.

2. He will have a restricted winter spending budget.

He could maybe add some budget space by "saving" $5-6M trading Story, $3-5M trading Yoshida and maybe $7-9M by trading or non-tendering Duran. I doubt we trade the back-end loaded contract or Suarez, and if we did, we'd need Gray coming back or maybe more (Nick Martinez & Morejon?) but that would drain money from the bat acquiring budget.

Realistically, our returning core will be:

C: Rutschman

1B: Contreras

2B: Mead

3B: ______ Durbin??? (I think they are happy with Durbin)

SS: ______ Arias (AAA?)

LF/DH: Anthony

DH/LF: ______ Yoshida???

CF: Rafaela

RF: Abreu

SP: Crochet, Tolle,  _____ (Gray???) ______ Suarez (Trade???) Bennett, Bello & Oviedo

RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Miller, Houck, Crawford, Slaten, Guerrero, _____ (Weissert trade???)

Our roster depth is fine, and may even need to be thinned out via trades, as we have some logjams, most notably:

OF Duran, White (out of options) & Jones (out of options) Eaton & Ward

INF: Sogard (likely kept) Seigler, Monasterio, Cheng, Romero and of course Story (Arias is a big trade chip but we need a SS now and going forward.)

DH/1B: Yoshida, Gasper, Brannon & Jo Garcia (both Rule 5's)

 

 

We have several players who could be traded for nothing and we would still come out ahead 

[moonslav59]

59 minutes ago, FredLynn said:

We have several players who could be traded for nothing and we would still come out ahead 

I see Duran that way. His arb makes non tendering a choice. Sign and trade or just trade for a single A player, too.

All teams have bubble players we could trade or just DFA. I've made the point we'll have no 40 man roster crunch precisely because I agree we have several players nobody would miss id traded of cut loose. That's not to say our 38-40th men suck or are worse than most other teams. I actually think they are better, but we have so many 38-40th players we can and should trade as many of them as we can as long as some GM will give something.

Reminds me of NOV 18, 2025, when we traded 4 bubble pitchers: Luis Guerrero, Chris Murphy, Bernardino and Alex Hoppe. We DFA'd Wink and N Lowe on the same day. A few days later we DFAd Criswell and traded Grissom.

[a700hitter]

I was just looking at the upcoming free agent class.  What horseshit. Nam I missing something?

[notin]

1 hour ago, a700hitter said:

I was just looking at the upcoming free agent class.  What horseshit. Nam I missing something?

No.  
 

Teams are extending younger players and this is the impact…