jacksonianmarch

There is a way to make it quick, but it will be painful. I doubt JH is willing to do that. Yeah, I could see Betts and JD going elsewhere, but he could deal Beni, ERod and others to speed up the process

Faced the minimum through 5. Really good job by Tanaka to keep them off their toes

What a f***ing play!!!!

We need one more inning before he goes batter to batter.

Garrett Richards was an ace when healthy. Eovaldi hasn't been healthy nor an ace

Tanaka is dealing. Greinke has been bailed out by the at 'em ball and one great play from Bregman. Gleyber with an RBI double.

hw many more missiles can we hit right at guys. Jesus Christ

Greinke getting lucky. Judge almost takes him deep. Single by Stanton, rocket DP by Gardner. We gotta get them to fall in

The day he was hired, everyone knew what he was going to do. There was no question. Henry even publicly stated that the goal was to win immediately. He did. Whether you like what he did or didn't do, you cannot argue with the results. He took a team with a good farm and a last place finish into 3 straight ALE titles and a WS title. Henry knew what was coming. Only the blindest of sox fans couldn't see what was coming. The party was good for you guys. But it's over. Turn off the lights. Henry did the right thing in firing him now. The rebuild is here

If Eovaldi was a FA after this year, he would get a heavily incentivized 1 yr deal with a base in the $3 mil range and likely up to $7 mil in incentives

Might be a pen game

Tanaka-Paxton-Sevy is the lineup. I liked the idea of a 2-6 Tanaka better just due to the extra rest. But he’s going with his best postseason pitcher first. Tanaka is on the level of Koufax in the postseason (not lying, they put a graphic up and he’s that good) so going game 1 makes sense. But he’s far better on longer rest and he isn’t gonna go game 4 on short rest, so the point seems moot. Maybe he really wanted a home game out of him. Either way, we are gonna go out there and try to match zeros. Huge game tonight. Can’t wait

They are, but he’s absolutely unhittable on extra rest. If he goes game 3, he’d have to come back on short rest for game 7.

So the Rays may have done us a favor, or not. With the Rays extending this thing out, it eliminated the possibility of seeing either Verlander or Cole three times in the series. That being said, short rest Verlander kinda sucked vs the Rays. I also highly doubt they go to Greinke on short rest twice. This inserts Wade Miley into the mix, who has been a house of horrors the last couple months. Plus, it likely inserts him into the situation in Yankee stadium where he is gonna get blown up. For the Astros, they just need to win the games Verlander and Cole throw. I’d presume those are games 2, 3, 6, and 7. For the Yankees, we have to come out of Houston with a split or better. We cannot be in a spot where we need to win 2 of 3 of our home games just to extend into Houston. And we need to be ahead in the series heading back to Houston. The idea of beating Cole and Verlander in Houston is daunting to say the least. So this makes game 1 almost absolutely necessary. Greinke is a great pitcher. He’s not a great postseason pitcher. And of their three headed monster, he’s the one guy who can be on his game and we can still run his pitch count into the 100 range after 5 and expose the soft underbelly of the Astros pen. We don’t hit Osuna, ever. Never have. So expecting us to rally in the 9th on the regular is not gonna happen. Gotta hold serve vs their pitching, grind out ABs, drive their starters out early and feast on their middle relief. I love Tanaka in the 2-6 slot for the series. Tanaka is nails in the post season but he’s also deadly with extra rest. Having him go 2-6 gives him an extra day’s rest built into the series and means he can go toe to toe with Verlander in Houston if the series gets that far. We need to hope Paxton can avoid his first inning issues and is fully ready to roll in game 1. This is gonna be a great series. Go Yanks

The Giants are in the tank phase. Danny Dimes will be a good QB, IMO. He’s accurate and has a good arm. He’s just suffering from what all rookies suffer from and that’s bade decisions. His reads are where he’s in trouble and that’ll get better with time. They badly need more help at LB, corner and on the O line. They’ll spend this offseason upgrading those areas and DJ should be better for 2020-2021. Giants could be a surprise PO team next year

Astros taking care of business. It’s gonna line up like this most likely Game 1. Paxton at Greinke Game 2. Tanaka at Verlander Game 3. Cole at Severino Who knows from there. Go Yanks

Duran, Chatham and Mata will not see the majors in 2020

Nats would give us problems with their rotation. I’m hoping for a TB-NYY ALCS and a NYY-STL WS

Dumpster was physically able to play, just didn’t want to. Pedey would give his left nut to play, he just isn’t physically able

I don’t think people here killed DD for losing Kelly and Kimbrel. I think people here killed him for not replacing them, and they were right. It seemed everyone here wants to keep ERod, but you’re staring at the same predicament with him as you are with Betts, just a year sooner. And if your team is getting under the cap for 2020, chances are that you’re gonna punt 2020 and hence only have one year of ERod before he hits the market and can be had by anyone. If Henry is giving a mandate to get under the first lux tax line for 2020, then you have to deal ERod

If the Rays win tonight, the Yanks will have home field throughout. Let go Glasnow!

Boom! I called Nats in 4, but it took one more

To go with the theme I started in the Go For It thread. JH gives you the keys to the kingdom. He mandates a reset and says he is fine with a couple years of losing, just once the Price, Pedroia, Martinez contracts are up, I want a winning window again. Rebuild this, ie get the most of our dealable assets 1. Mookie Betts gets dealt. 100%. I look in two places. The Cincinnati Reds painted themselves in a corner with the Bauer deal. They are all in for 2020. They have the pitching prospect you need to target in Hunter Greene. I start the deal around him and add in some other top 100 or fringe top 100 talent. But Greene is the guy to build your rotation around. If the Reds deal doesn't materialize, I look at Cleveland. No, they probably don't want to spend $30 mil on an OFer, but their OF was awful and they were close to the postseason. With their window closing soon, they need to maximize it and what better way than to get an MVP level player for a year. For the Guardians, I would look at Nolan Jones and Tristan McKenzie. Yes, they're their top 2 prospects, but that would be a good haul for a year of Mookie 2. ERod needs to go. There is one team I call first. Minnesota. Odorizzi, Gibson, Pineda, and Perez are all leaving. Minnesota likes short term deals, and the 2 yrs for ERod would be perfect. Since I have two years of control, I would ask for a lot. I like Graterol and Kiriloff and would go that route. Graterol looks like a future closer. Kiriloff struggled this year, but has all the makings of a Beni style player in the OF. 3. JBJ dealt for IFA money or non tendered 4. Call the White Sox on JDM if he doesn't opt out. The White Sox want to contend and they have the money. Abreu is a FA and the white sox were in hard on Machado. I absolutely call the White Sox and offer to pay down some of the contract for JD. I would go for Dane Dunning, who is coming off TJS. With Cease jumping over him in the pecking order, there is a chance the sox could snag this guy away from Chicago and finish his rehab in Boston 5. I would dangle Workman and Walden. Workman isn't as good as his 2019 says and Walden may have just had his career season. I would see what I could get for them. 6. I do not deal Barnes. Selling low on him would be dumb. Don't work him back to back, keep him out of the closers role and find someone else to take him at the deadline 7. I extend Devers. Make it known that he and Bogaerts are part of the solution, not the problem 8. Pump Beni up as more than an ancillary piece in Boston. Push him to the middle of the order. If he thrives, deal him for a king's ransom. He isn't worth much as a .800OPS corner OFer. If he can push that to .900 and look the part, then he could bring back a lot with 3 more years of control 9. Don't deal Chavis. Develop him in AAA, work on the upper end of the K zone and see if you can hone his swing to the heat. He has a skill not many do with breaking pitches.

The sox have two different paths for 2020. Go for it or Reset/possibly rebuild. This thread is about going for it. The sox as it stands have about $26 mil to play with before hitting the top threshold. This includes arb estimations and keeping everyone together. This would eschew what Henry said about resetting. This is a "push the chips to the middle" thread. No garbage about dealing off guys for prospects. So, Henry hires you as the GM. Says the directive is to win as many games as possible without incurring the draft penalty, what do you do? Me, first thing I do is either deal JBJ or non-tender him. This will free up about $12 mil on the budget. That now leaves me with $38 mil to spend. First order of business will be to sign a new CFer, one that can play defense. I don't really care about the offense. If I really need offense, JD can move to LF and Fat Beni can go to CF. But the guy I sign is Juan Lagares. Yes, he isn't healthy all the time. Yes, he had a downturn in defense due to a leg injury. But when the guy is healthy, he plays JBJ level defense and he should be available for almost nothing. This will give you a starter in CF for maybe 100 games. He will bat 9th and will probably hit around .230 with no pop. But his defense, if healthy, will help the team. And you sign him for league minimum which is essentially free. I know Cameron Maybin is a name everyone loves, but someone will overpay him and you cannot afford a lot of money spent here. You need defense and Lagares will give that to you The next thing I do is turn to the staff. I need a starter to replace Porcello. Absolutely no way you can enter 2020 trying to win with the rotation having just one guy who is healthy at season's end in ERod. You need less an ace and more a durable innings eater. I would absolutely kick the tires on Odorizzi. Yes, he had a career year, which may inflate his cost. But the reason why I like him is he has started at least 28 games 6 years in a row. He conquered his HR issue, saw a velo jump, improved his K rates and dropped his walk rates. My guess is his mediocrity prior to last year will suppress his value. I would offer him a swellopt contract. A "3" year deal with a 4th yr option that needs to be picked up after year 1. If not picked up, year 3 turns into a player option at a higher rate. This gives Odorizzi (who turns 30 in March) the chance to get a long term deal, but control his own future after 2 if the sox don't commit to the 4th year. I'd do a 3 yr $50 mil contract with a 4th year option for $15 mil. The third year player option is $20 mil as opposed to the $16.7 mil he would earn on a standard year 3 if the option is picked up. This would give the sox a rotation that starts ERod-Odorizzi then the injured or unreliable 3. If one of the three comes back well, then you've got a reasonable rotation. With the money left ($22 mil or so), I turn my attention to the pen. The first person I call is Dellin Betances. Outside of Chapman, he is the best reliever on the market. You probably just incurred a draft penalty signing Odorizzi, so you don't want to do it twice and Betances won't be getting a QO. I would offer him a 2 yr deal with a vesting option for year 3. Coming off an Achilles injury, I think Dellin will be hard pressed to find a multi year deal. The sox could nab him with a 2 yr deal. I'd offer $14 mil total (Ottavino money) with escalators for games finished and games pitched with total value per year of $10 mil. The option would be another season at $7 mil with $3 mil in escalators triggered if Betances pitches in 100 games in the first 2 seasons (easily attainable). This would leave the sox with $15 mil to play with come the deadline. It allows the nucleus to stay intact and reinforces the areas of concern. I would be on the lookout for a salary dump situation to use the $15 mil on come the deadline.

There are a multitude of sins. The sin that will be remembered is the dearth of farm talent. The sin that I think cements the cliff is the expenditures on Eovaldi and Sale. Think about it. The sox wave goodbye to Eovaldi after 2018 and he signs in NY or Houston. The sox, in turn, go out and get Keuchel for the same money. They now have a less flashy but more consistent starter they can rely on every turn in the rotation. Sale doesn't get extended when he had a known shoulder issue. Sale goes down with diminished stuff and with an elbow injury and hits FA with his market uncertain. The sox now have $30 mil more to play with and can probably go out and get another consistent arm (Odorizzi) and have money to spend on a good pen arm (Betances). Now you have a rotation of Keuchel, Odorizzi, ERod, Price and ??? for 2020 with Betances and Workman finishing off games. Far better. Instead, DD tries to extend a good thing, adds guarantees to frequently injured players and the rotation dies and he is fired.