A Realistic View at the 2027 Red Sox Part I

[notin]

15 hours ago, NHNative said:

I like the logic behind bringing Mauricio Dubón back.

I don’t.  Utility infielder is hardly an issue for this team. Sogard, Siegler, Monasterio, Gonzalez.  We have that more than covered

[NHNative]

1 minute ago, notin said:

I don’t.  Utility infielder is hardly an issue for this team. Sogard, Siegler, Monasterio, Gonzalez.  We have that more than covered

Noted.

[Old Red]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Agreed.

The Sox’ mistake wasn’t choosing Contreras over Alonso; it was beginning the season with far too many players where the upgrades were easy.   Mayer, Narvaez, Durbin.  Throw in injuries to Story and struggles from Duran and you’ve marginalized 55% of the starting lineup.

But we need more comments about the possibility of Alonso being an upgrade over Contreras…

The Red Sox chose Con Man over Alonso? Let’s dig into that a little bit. The Red Sox offered Alonso a contract first, and when he turned them down the Red Sox went to a CHEAPER option, and picked up the Con Man, so I guess we agree the Red Sox choose the Con Man, because he was a cheaper option. As for the possibility of Alonso being an upgrade over the Con Man the stats speak for themselves career wise, and other wise, and they’re not taking to the Con Man.🤭👋

[Randy Red Sox]

2 hours ago, notin said:

I don’t.  Utility infielder is hardly an issue for this team. Sogard, Siegler, Monasterio, Gonzalez.  We have that more than covered

with nothing but AAAA players

[notin]

19 minutes ago, Old Red said:

The Red Sox chose Con Man over Alonso? Let’s dig into that a little bit. The Red Sox offered Alonso a contract first, and when he turned them down the Red Sox went to a CHEAPER option, and picked up the Con Man, so I guess we agree the Red Sox choose the Con Man, because he was a cheaper option. As for the possibility of Alonso being an upgrade over the Con Man the stats speak for themselves career wise, and other wise, and they’re not taking to the Con Man.🤭👋

The entire point being both solutions worked, and saying “Alonso would have been marginally better” as if that was anywhere near a solution is ridiculous, since the Sox had 5 (or more?) other spots that weren’t working.

Repeatedly propping up Alonso over Contreras as some sort of pivotal mistake is just stupid.  And which one was first is just ridiculously immaterial…

[notin]

10 minutes ago, Randy Red Sox said:

with nothing but AAAA players

Most (all?) utility infielders fit that category.  The ones that surpass it are called “starting infielders“…

[Old Red]

36 minutes ago, notin said:

The entire point being both solutions worked, and saying “Alonso would have been marginally better” as if that was anywhere near a solution is ridiculous, since the Sox had 5 (or more?) other spots that weren’t working.

Repeatedly propping up Alonso over Contreras as some sort of pivotal mistake is just stupid.  And which one was first is just ridiculously immaterial…

First of all NNN is certainly NO judge on what is stupid. You’re the one who said the Red Sox picked the Con Man over Alonso, and I was just providing context, which is something you didn’t do. Now if you want to say it was stupid the Red Sox picked Con Man over Alonso, because he was cheaper I agree 100%. You guys can poo poo Alonso’s stats all you want, but like I said his stats speaks for itself career, and other wise, where as Con Man’s does not, which isn’t immaterial.

[notin]

49 minutes ago, Old Red said:

First of all NNN is certainly NO judge on what is stupid. You’re the one who said the Red Sox picked the Con Man over Alonso, and I was just providing context, which is something you didn’t do. Now if you want to say it was stupid the Red Sox picked Con Man over Alonso, because he was cheaper I agree 100%. You guys can poo poo Alonso’s stats all you want, but like I said his stats speaks for itself career, and other wise, where as Con Man’s does not, which isn’t immaterial.

I’m saying it’s stupid to harp on this one roster decision.  I don’t care who was first choice or who was cheaper.  If the Sox signed Alonso over trading gor Contreras, what’s the difference?  Maybe they win 88 games? Maybe their team grade at 1b goes from an A- to an A?  It’s not a difference maker…

[moonslav59]

4 hours ago, NHNative said:

But, but--he can handle a fast ball and he can get men on base.

Who?

Dubon:

.261 BA

.301 OBP

.379 SLG

Last 3 years: .264/.305/.375

.262/.299/.418 Romy (but .278/.321/.440 last 3 years)

.260/.333/.364 Sogard (.342 OBP in 2026)

.231/.317/.344 Seigler (.327 OBP in 2026)

.229/,315/,398 Jones (.334 OBP last 3 years)

.243/.311/.358 Monasterio (OBP on decline)

.

[JoeBrady]

4 hours ago, notin said:

it was beginning the season with far too many players where the upgrades were easy.   Mayer, Narvaez, Durbin.

1-Teams don't typically upgrade over 2nd year players, if they had a good rookie year.

2-We had already spent money.  To get an upgrade, that costs money.  It's not like I won't trade a prospect, but we can't make our model one where we trade away all our kids.  Between Crochet, Gray, and Contreras, we traded away a lot of prospects.

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, JoeBrady said:

1-Teams don't typically upgrade over 2nd year players, if they had a good rookie year.

2-We had already spent money.  To get an upgrade, that costs money.  It's not like I won't trade a prospect, but we can't make our model one where we trade away all our kids.  Between Crochet, Gray, and Contreras, we traded away a lot of prospects.

It's easy to have hope in players right after a decent rookie year. While we kept some that declined, we also traded for Durbin, who did not decline, and who actually had a nice second half, despite an off September.

I liked Narvaez, and remember a few posters warning of his second half collapse. 

I remember poster thinking Mayer did okay for a rookie year and had high hopes for improvement that never materialized. (It may at some point, just not for us.)

Anthony looked better last year, and that was also cut short to injury.

We traded Dobbins after a pretty decent rookie year, where he was 5th on the team in GS.

We did part with a lot of top prospects for one year of Gray and multiple years of Crochet & Contreras, but perhaps even more shocking were the summer trades that furthered the trend.

Here are the soxprospects.com rankings of the big trades from Brez & Co:

4 Teel, 5 Montgomery, 8 Meidroth & 18 Wikelman for Crochet

(#23 ERod for Narvaez, scrubs for O'Neill, 12 Yorke for Priester, 13 Lugo & others for L garcia, 19 Jordan for Matz, 28 Coffey + Paulino for Jansen, 29 Portes for L Sims)

 

Just since less than 1 year ago...

4 Perales for Bennett

6 Jh Garcia & 20 Travieso for Oviedo

8 Clarke & previously #8 Fitts for Gray

10 Fajardo plus previously #11 Dobbins (+ Aita) for Contreras

12 Sandlin (+Hicks) for #21 Ziehl

(Summer)

2 Eyanson, 3 Witherspoon & 6 Azocar (+Rivas) for AR (+Rogers)

3 Early for Mead

Previously #2 ranked Mayer for Erik Miller (+14 Gutierrez)

13 Uberstine for Eli White

 

 

[moonslav59]

I want  to add that I am not for trading Duran to save $11M, so JH can pocket it. I'm only for doing it, if we use it to add to whatever winter spending budget Brez is handed in order to get a higher quality player or two.

The reason I think HOU might go for the foundation of Duran for Paredes is the 2 years vs 1 year of control, and HOU's need for OF additions.

[moonslav59]

7 hours ago, notin said:

I don’t.  Utility infielder is hardly an issue for this team. Sogard, Siegler, Monasterio, Gonzalez.  We have that more than covered

Dubon can play OF, too, but we really don't need him for that either.

[moonslav59]

I know almost every team is looking at their 40 man roster and not thinking of making a 1 for 2 trade. Perhaps they might trade one good player plus a salary dump type player for two 40 man players. Maybe we can find a team that values our "depth" players more than their 39th and 40th guys, but they have to really like them to downgrade at one slot to add two.

We seem to have a couple bottlenecks:

Infield, despite not many who can play decent SS:

Mead (2B/DH/3B) Durbin (3B/2B) & Contreras (1B/DH) are likely keepers. Arias or Story would not be traded unless a SS is added. Then, we have...

Infield: We don't need all these on the team....

1B/DH/2B Romy

1B/3B/2B Sogard

2B/3B Seigler

3B/2B/SS Monasterio

1B/DH/C Gasper

1B/DH Casas

2B Rodgers

(Romero)

Outfield, despite not much AAA OF depth:

Rafaela & Abreu are fine. Anthony is likely not being shopped.

Duran could be traded. One from White or Jones will likely be gone. Yoshida is a 5th OF'er, at best.

KC and Ward are AAA depth.

[notin]

5 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

1-Teams don't typically upgrade over 2nd year players, if they had a good rookie year.

 

Teams also typically don’t have 4 second year players in their starting nine…

[moonslav59]

1 hour ago, notin said:

Teams also typically don’t have 4 second year players in their starting nine…

That was a rarity.

We also had some 2nd year SP'ers get a bunch of starts.

[Randy Red Sox]

13 hours ago, notin said:

Most (all?) utility infielders fit that category.  The ones that surpass it are called “starting infielders“…

well we mostly had those same  AAAA players starting at the 2 middle IF spots most of the year.  I guess you don't see that as a problem ? 

[Randy Red Sox]

8 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

I want  to add that I am not for trading Duran to save $11M, so JH can pocket it. I'm only for doing it, if we use it to add to whatever winter spending budget Brez is handed in order to get a higher quality player or two.

The reason I think HOU might go for the foundation of Duran for Paredes is the 2 years vs 1 year of control, and HOU's need for OF additions.

we are still waiting for JH to spend the Devers $$ and the Mookie $$ and the Bogaerts $$ just to name 3.

[Randy Red Sox]

8 hours ago, moonslav59 said:

It's easy to have hope in players right after a decent rookie year. While we kept some that declined, we also traded for Durbin, who did not decline, and who actually had a nice second half, despite an off September.

I liked Narvaez, and remember a few posters warning of his second half collapse. 

I remember poster thinking Mayer did okay for a rookie year and had high hopes for improvement that never materialized. (It may at some point, just not for us.)

Anthony looked better last year, and that was also cut short to injury.

We traded Dobbins after a pretty decent rookie year, where he was 5th on the team in GS.

We did part with a lot of top prospects for one year of Gray and multiple years of Crochet & Contreras, but perhaps even more shocking were the summer trades that furthered the trend.

Here are the soxprospects.com rankings of the big trades from Brez & Co:

4 Teel, 5 Montgomery, 8 Meidroth & 18 Wikelman for Crochet

(#23 ERod for Narvaez, scrubs for O'Neill, 12 Yorke for Priester, 13 Lugo & others for L garcia, 19 Jordan for Matz, 28 Coffey + Paulino for Jansen, 29 Portes for L Sims)

 

Just since less than 1 year ago...

4 Perales for Bennett

6 Jh Garcia & 20 Travieso for Oviedo

8 Clarke & previously #8 Fitts for Gray

10 Fajardo plus previously #11 Dobbins (+ Aita) for Contreras

12 Sandlin (+Hicks) for #21 Ziehl

(Summer)

2 Eyanson, 3 Witherspoon & 6 Azocar (+Rivas) for AR (+Rogers)

3 Early for Mead

Previously #2 ranked Mayer for Erik Miller (+14 Gutierrez)

13 Uberstine for Eli White

 

 

still early but IMO we lost many of those deals