A Realistic View at the 2027 Red Sox Part I

[mvp 78]

58 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Sounds about right, but nobody was happy with Ceddanne's first full season on offense.

It's still a better offensive season than Duran '26. If 85 OPS+ is the ground floor for Arias, it's not the end of the world. That was Mayer in '25 and people were ok with it. Mayer in '26 was well under that. 

[mvp 78]

Also, when Ceddanne first came up, people were still comparing him to Mookie because he had a 1000 OPS in AAA in 50 G. He wasn't that guy. People had false hope. 

[drewski6]

18 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

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.

Good point on the $$ differential.

[drewski6]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

It's still a better offensive season than Duran '26. If 85 OPS+ is the ground floor for Arias, it's not the end of the world. That was Mayer in '25 and people were ok with it. Mayer in '26 was well under that. 

85 OPS+ is not the end of the world, unless Roman gets hurt, Durbin and Cedanne stay around .700, Willson regresses from age to .800s from .900s, and we have another noodlebat season when entire months we cant hit like at all.

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, drewski6 said:

85 OPS+ is not the end of the world, unless Roman gets hurt, Durbin and Cedanne stay around .700, Willson regresses from age to .800s from .900s, and we have another noodlebat season when entire months we cant hit like at all.

If all that happens, even a health Story at 104 OPS+ doesn't get the Sox to the playoffs. At that point, who really cares what Arias is hitting? At least he'd be getting MLB experience in a lost season. 

[Old Red]

1 hour ago, mvp 78 said:

Also, when Ceddanne first came up, people were still comparing him to Mookie because he had a 1000 OPS in AAA in 50 G. He wasn't that guy. People had false hope. 

Comparing him to Mookie, because of build, and versatility also. It was more than his bat.

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, Old Red said:

Comparing him to Mookie, because of build, and versatility also. It was more than his bat.

Bzzzt... 

[drewski6]

14 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

If all that happens, even a health Story at 104 OPS+ doesn't get the Sox to the playoffs. At that point, who really cares what Arias is hitting? At least he'd be getting MLB experience in a lost season. 

If any of that happens, we would be in a bind because our lineup is not deep.  We have 7,8,9 hitters in Cedanne, Durbin, and now we want to add in ARias.  Okay.  But this means we are 1-2 injuries away, which are likely, from having a mostly noodlebat lineup, and we are literally writing the playbook to repeat the last 2 years

 

[drewski6]

If you think that the team is overrated this year and we are still kind of in a rebuild, then okay, build for the future.  But its like year 7, and Im even okay saying we are going to focus on integrating youth and waiting for some contracts to expire and really make our move in 2028.  If thats the plan , Im good with it. 

But when 2028-2029 comes we cant then be talking about not wanting to sign expensive players because then wed be stuck in 2023 and we need to think about 2032 in 2028.

If you are always thinking 4-5 years out, you are the pirates.  Eventually there needs to be a shift.  I dont need it to be this year.  But if its not this year, then the previous 7 years have failed.  Maybe it was strategy, maybe it was execution.  But its been a long rebuild already.  And if you are telling me we need to do it again, I can get behind that - but it cant be perpetually folding the present due to fear of hamstringing the future.  

Eventually, we got to move some chips in.  We are still trying to be too efficient as an organization.