A Realistic View at the 2027 Red Sox Part I

[notin]

35 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

If a 1055 OPS gives you a guy who you must play at SS despite the fact that he is bad at SS due to the awesome OPS

 

So… Kyle Schwarber at SS?

[JoeBrady]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Defensive Efficiency is a flawed metric, especially for the Sox.

It measures (outs recorded) / (batted balls in play).   In Fenway Park, a ball striking the monster 30 feet up is considered “in play with no out recorded” and makes the team look less efficient when there was no chance at making that play that doesn’t involve a 22 foot vertical leap.

I can’t trust that metric if teams get penalized for unplayable balls like that…

You also have to count foul territory outs.  If you have more playable foul territory, you will automatically have more putouts.

[notin]

9 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

I'd have to see the trades.  I'm not a fan of CJ since he can't play SS.  But I'm a huge fan of DLC, and SS is likely our biggest upgrade possible.  Let's say we trade Arias + Abreu for DLC.  We've added 6 HRs, and lost 6 years of Arias in return.  And then we have to add a RF.  I'm having a hard time seeing the improvement.

Basically, Arias has to go if we acquire DLC.  If we acquire DLC, I need to see a substantial improvement over his three years of control.  DLC is better than Abreu, but I don't consider it substantial

I see SS as covered.  Story and then Arias.  I’m ok with that.

2b, on the other hand.  Ok Mead might play there, but 1) he plays several positions and 2) he plays most of them better than he does 2b…

[JoeBrady]

20 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

The hardest team to jump is the second best team, ya know?

Its easy to go from 30th to 25th, its absurdly difficult to go from 6th to 1st.  Even though in both cases you are jumping 5 teams.

Similarly, it is harder to go from average to good on offense than it is to go from bad to average.  But going from good to great, thats very very hard and requires to you potenitally trade up some .750 bats to .850 bats.

If you are talking strictly from .750 to .850, then a 100 point jump acts the same at any level, and imho, plays the same.

And if it is that important, then it would be important to know that we have probably improved catching, 2B, and LF by 100 points each.

[JoeBrady]

15 minutes ago, notin said:

So… Kyle Schwarber at SS?

Sure.  I remember in one of the RS sites, the suggestion was to move Youk from 1st to 2nd, move Pedey from 2B to SS, and use Papi as our new 1B.

[drewski6]

Folks, if we cannot get CJ Abrams because then we would not have a SS to play SS, then Durbin needs to go.  You see, Durbin is a defense first guy.  As is Abreu, Cedanne.  And if Catcher and shortstop, we must prioritize defense there as well....Well, this is how you get the easy out , send em home, scored 4 runs last 2 september and octobers combined (thats 1 run/month for 4 months, albeit not in a row)...the noodlebat Red Sox.

See personally, I think many of you are too hard on JH.  Because you blame him for not spending magical dollars on pretend players that dont exist.  There are very very very few guys who are elite on both offense and defense.  And if there are 6 in the MLB, maybe 1 is realistically acquirable.  You have to give up one to get the other, usually.  So what do you do?  You get an elite offense and a bunch of pitchers who can strike guys out.  In the words of the great Billie Eilish: Duh

And MVP was very very very right, generally defense first players are cheaper.   Its because usually the d first players go to teams like the pirates. You know who is not stacking championships? The pirates! The atheltics!  The well we cant afford bats, so we'll get defense first guys.  Yeah, that makes sense, if you cant get OFFENSE FIRST GUYS.

You see some time ago, some of you got so in love with pointing out to your friends things that you think they cant see for themselves , like defensive fundamentals, and so you grew to love such player types.  But if you would only get over the smell of your own farts, you would realize that the issue holding us back. The reason we cant get out of third place or win a playoff series isnt because JH is too cheap to get us 2 way studs.  That makes no sense because 2 way studs are not free-agents. Ever.  

Its not the budget.  Its not the cheapness.  Its the choice to not put the bats first.  Im okay with a few defense first players.  But really, we should be prioritizing good bats who can play a bunch of positions serviceably, so even if we have some injuries or fall-offs, we can still juggle around a bit and be very good offensively without being awful defensively.

defensive versatility > chasing ideal defensive alignment

Offense = Pitching + Defense

[drewski6]

16 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Sure.  I remember in one of the RS sites, the suggestion was to move Youk from 1st to 2nd, move Pedey from 2B to SS, and use Papi as our new 1B.

If Youk agrees to diet , Im in.

[southpaw777]

6 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

Since Yoshida has just 1 year left, maybe it will be easier to spend at DH.

It might be easier to trade Masa, too. (If we can "save" $3-5M by dealing him, I'd do it, otherwise, he has options, so stash him in AAA.)

I'm not sure I'd trade Story, until we see what Arias looks like, and beware of fast starts like KC's.

He doesn’t have the holes that KC does/did. He’s waaaaay more fluid on defense as well. I’d let him take his lumps at SS and move Story and Yoshida if I can. Eat money and add a prospect if necessary without giving up too much. I’d eat Story’s buyout as well as up to around 8m depending on the prospects involved. Same with Yoshida. Just clear them off the roster and save what we can to use elsewhere. 

[drewski6]

31 minutes ago, JoeBrady said:

Sure.  I remember in one of the RS sites, the suggestion was to move Youk from 1st to 2nd, move Pedey from 2B to SS, and use Papi as our new 1B.

We had Youk (1B), Lowell (3b), Papi (DH), Tek (C) and we wanted Vmart, despite the fact that at this point in all of their careers , they were prob all best served as DHs, as Tek was 37, lowells knee was shot, youk had gotten chubby, and vmart was always a bat first guy.  You know how that movie ended? We got Vmart and were better for it.  We didnt stress about who played where. We didnt freak at the d taking a modest step back.  We moved guys around and figured it out.  We used Youks positional versatility to rotate players.  We didnt let not having a place to play vmart stop us from getting a good player in vmart.  Because in those days we tried harder.  Thats why this year(s) 2009,2010 altho not winning it all in those years, the aggressive team building mentality that you saw in that era had 4 world championships in 15 years and this was right in the middle of it.

[drewski6]

So we started giving Tek some days off to get vmart in there more, we started playing youk at 3b and even 2b sometimes to get vmart in there more.  Pedey might have played SS from time to time but the team had a SS (Scutaro?).  But this was like 2010.  In the middle of a 15 year window when we were aggressive about adding quality bats.  In that window we won the series 4 times.  Since we switched to the joe brady model 5 years ago, wwhere we have to be super efficient that every player must have a spot and we cant have any overflow, starter level depth on our bench, and we must prioritize obp, defense, and pitching -  we have never gotten past the first round of the playoffs or finished higher than third in the division.

[southpaw777]

2 hours ago, notin said:

So true.

 

He will be missed.  Probably just by me, but still…

Moon and another poster, Dewey I think, also had a love affair with another defense first SS, Iggy. I remember the Iggy vs Bogey battles. Good times. Iggy turned into a good hitter. No real power, but a good BA and that glove…man, was it good.
Cheng is a good utility defense first guy. Probably an up and down AAAA guy.

 

 

[drewski6]

If they were all 28 years old and you had Ortiz at 1b, Tek at C, Vmart at DH, Youk at 2b, Beltre at 3b, and pedey at ss .....you are prob winning a world series.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, drewski6 said:

The hardest team to jump is the second best team, ya know?

Its easy to go from 30th to 25th, its absurdly difficult to go from 6th to 1st.  Even though in both cases you are jumping 5 teams.

Similarly, it is harder to go from average to good on offense than it is to go from bad to average.  But going from good to great, thats very very hard and requires to you potenitally trade up some .750 bats to .850 bats.

The issue is the pay jumps more from .775 to .850 than from .700 to .775, and with tight wad ownership, we end up trying for exactly nine batters at .775. 

Maybe that's a winning formula with top 5 rotations, pens and defense to boot, but guys who are .775 batters rarely all stay there every year: you end up with 3-4 guys under .725 or even .700 on any given year. Last year, we saw way too many do just that.

The.850 guys seem to be more consistent, although I have zero evidence to back up that claim.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

So Fenway Park with its short wall and lack of foul territory is Defensively Inefficient.

Then again, maybe the pitchers are, for allowing too much contact in the air...

... which just puts more value on guys who induce grounders and guys good at fielding them, like Durbin, Contreras and Arias.

There's more than one way to tailor your roster to fit your ballpark.

[UtahSox]

2 hours ago, drewski6 said:

But right now, its not particularly fair to go on ur RS fans are impossible to please shtick.  Because we havent won a playoff series in 6 years or finished higher than 3rd in teh division.

Fenway hasn’t seen an October baseball game since 2021… pretty unfathomable. 

[UtahSox]

2 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

I'd have to see the trades.  I'm not a fan of CJ since he can't play SS.  But I'm a huge fan of DLC, and SS is likely our biggest upgrade possible.  Let's say we trade Arias + Abreu for DLC.  We've added 6 HRs, and lost 6 years of Arias in return.  And then we have to add a RF.  I'm having a hard time seeing the improvement.

Basically, Arias has to go if we acquire DLC.  If we acquire DLC, I need to see a substantial improvement over his three years of control.  DLC is better than Abreu, but I don't consider it substantial

Did you just diminish DLC to “just” 6 home runs more than Abreu? I respect you Joe, but that isn’t your strongest counter argument. Go look at DLC savant analytics he’s MVP type player and he is only 24 and could be a mainstay in our lineup for the next 10 years. The only reason we could get him is Arias gives the notoriously cheap reds an extra 3 years and DLC wants to be in bigger market. 

[UtahSox]

1 hour ago, drewski6 said:

Folks, if we cannot get CJ Abrams because then we would not have a SS to play SS, then Durbin needs to go.  You see, Durbin is a defense first guy.  As is Abreu, Cedanne.  And if Catcher and shortstop, we must prioritize defense there as well....Well, this is how you get the easy out , send em home, scored 4 runs last 2 september and octobers combined (thats 1 run/month for 4 months, albeit not in a row)...the noodlebat Red Sox.

See personally, I think many of you are too hard on JH.  Because you blame him for not spending magical dollars on pretend players that dont exist.  There are very very very few guys who are elite on both offense and defense.  And if there are 6 in the MLB, maybe 1 is realistically acquirable.  You have to give up one to get the other, usually.  So what do you do?  You get an elite offense and a bunch of pitchers who can strike guys out.  In the words of the great Billie Eilish: Duh

And MVP was very very very right, generally defense first players are cheaper.   Its because usually the d first players go to teams like the pirates. You know who is not stacking championships? The pirates! The atheltics!  The well we cant afford bats, so we'll get defense first guys.  Yeah, that makes sense, if you cant get OFFENSE FIRST GUYS.

You see some time ago, some of you got so in love with pointing out to your friends things that you think they cant see for themselves , like defensive fundamentals, and so you grew to love such player types.  But if you would only get over the smell of your own farts, you would realize that the issue holding us back. The reason we cant get out of third place or win a playoff series isnt because JH is too cheap to get us 2 way studs.  That makes no sense because 2 way studs are not free-agents. Ever.  

Its not the budget.  Its not the cheapness.  Its the choice to not put the bats first.  Im okay with a few defense first players.  But really, we should be prioritizing good bats who can play a bunch of positions serviceably, so even if we have some injuries or fall-offs, we can still juggle around a bit and be very good offensively without being awful defensively.

defensive versatility > chasing ideal defensive alignment

Offense = Pitching + Defense

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, drewski6 said:

Folks, if we cannot get CJ Abrams because then we would not have a SS to play SS, then Durbin needs to go.  You see, Durbin is a defense first guy.  

I agree 100%. The 3 GG winners allow us to go weak on D at a slot or two.

i disagree saying Abreu is defense first. He's good on both.

I'm not sure Rafaela can sustain growth on offense for another year. He likely topped out in 2026.

This from a guy who values SS defense as much more more than anyone, but if we can get Abram, we gotta do it. Move him to 2B eventually, of once Godbout is ready (if and when.) I'm assuming Arias is part of the Abrams deal.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, drewski6 said:

See personally, I think many of you are too hard on JH.  Because you blame him for not spending magical dollars on pretend players that dont exist.  There are very very very few guys who are elite on both offense and defense.  And if there are 6 in the MLB, maybe 1 is realistically acquirable.  You have to give up one to get the other, usually.  So what do you do?  You get an elite offense and a bunch of pitchers who can strike guys out.  In the words of the great Billie Eilish: Duh

You don't blame JH enough. Instead you blame the budget-restricted GMs. (Yes, they deserve blame, too.)

Just one word: Betts.

Elite on O and D and JH wouldn't pay him. (YOu know DD would have, if allowed.)

Betts exists. He wasn't pretend.

The pretending was going after Soto, and that was JH as the pretender.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, southpaw777 said:

He doesn’t have the holes that KC does/did. He’s waaaaay more fluid on defense as well. I’d let him take his lumps at SS and move Story and Yoshida if I can. Eat money and add a prospect if necessary without giving up too much. I’d eat Story’s buyout as well as up to around 8m depending on the prospects involved. Same with Yoshida. Just clear them off the roster and save what we can to use elsewhere. 

I'm not worried about Arias' D. I was about KC.

I didn't know KC's "holes" on batting were going to be unadjustable and fixable.

I have no idea how well/poorly Arias does on O in MLB, especially year 1 or 2, and this is our window. If he hits .580, he may keep us from a ring. Great D won't be enough, and he might be just pretty good on D, anyway.

[moonslav59]

3 hours ago, southpaw777 said:

Moon and another poster, Dewey I think, also had a love affair with another defense first SS, Iggy. I remember the Iggy vs Bogey battles. Good times. Iggy turned into a good hitter. No real power, but a good BA and that glove…man, was it good.
Cheng is a good utility defense first guy. Probably an up and down AAAA guy.

I wanted Iggy at SS and Bogey at 2B (or 3B.)

I love great D at SS, but there are limits. One limit is when you O is not good, you don't add on defense (Arias) at the possible expense of offense.

In the days of Iggy, we had good offense.

[southpaw777]

24 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

I wanted Iggy at SS and Bogey at 2B (or 3B.)

I love great D at SS, but there are limits. One limit is when you O is not good, you don't add on defense (Arias) at the possible expense of offense.

In the days of Iggy, we had good offense.

True. We had bats for sure back then. we absolutely need to pick one up this winter. 
Only one way to find out if Arias can hit in MLB. Let him play. I don’t think he’s got any more development needed in the minors. The rest should be in Boston. He’s hit well and played solid D at AA and AAA so let’s see what he’s got. He’s confident enough to not let a rough start bother him. He’s confident knows he’s good.

[moonslav59]

9 minutes ago, southpaw777 said:

True. We had bats for sure back then. we absolutely need to pick one up this winter. 
Only one way to find out if Arias can hit in MLB. Let him play. I don’t think he’s got any more development needed in the minors. The rest should be in Boston. He’s hit well and played solid D at AA and AAA so let’s see what he’s got. He’s confident enough to not let a rough start bother him. He’s confident knows he’s good.

I'm fine with handing SS to Arias, while keeping Story as depth, but then we need a major bat upgrade somewhere else.

I don't disagree with Drew on upgrading Durbin in a situation like this, but there are other slots, instead or in addition to 3B.

Get Abrams for 2B? (How to do this without Arias in the trade? Anthony + Justin Gonzalez & Valera?) Mead to DH.

Sato for 3B?

Suzuki for LF (Anthony to DH?)