jacksonianmarch

I agree with Bellhorn. The sox minor league system was stocked with position player talent. Ben let Lackey and Lester walk out the door and his idea to replace then was to give Rick Porcello a giant contract, which has worked for 33% of his seasons in Boston so far. Outside of Espinosa, the rest of the sox pitching prospects were not panning out and the upper levels were devoid of good pitching talent. Dan had to build the staff, and quickly. The only way to do that is to spend money and prospects. He's clearly done a good job. You're 14 games away from clinching your second consecutive ALE title. But in doing so, the gap in the minors has widened tremendously. With Devers in the Bean, you've got no further reinforcements at the ready. This is your team for now and for awhile. Any other reinforcements will either come from surprise progressions in the minors or via FA. Major additions without big monetary expenses will be tough as the best sox prospects are so far away that most teams aren't gunning for them in deals for major players. And the sox are going to have smaller draft pools at th back end of the draft, so adding further talent will be harder than during Ben's run when the pool was a lot bigger. Also, your current talent is about to get expensive. This is why there's a cliff. If the sox were LA or NYY, then they'd just pay the price to keep the talent. But the sox aren't keen on leading baseball in salary, especially with the penalties added in the new CBA. Hence, the cliff

The Yankees have the second best Pythagorean in the AL to the Guardians and are 4 runs back of the dodgers for second place in all of baseball. We have underperformed our pythag mostly because our pen has the most blown saves in baseball and our offense has the tendency to explode for a few games then go silent. This team will stay together, for the most part. I expect Tanaka to opt in. Holliday and CC are probably headed out the door, but we haven't gotten anything out of Holliday of late and we have internal options for CC. Frazier is redundant as well with Headley having a good year, Bird looking healthy and Andujar ready for the bigs. I expect that our team could take an Guardians type explosion next season and run away with the ALE. One can hope

His swing is beautiful and if he gets going, this team will be hard to pitch to for sure. Good to see Judge rebounding as well.

Judge goes deep twice. He's quietly pushed his OPS back over 1.000 and is 4 RBI from 100

UCL tears can heal, just depends on the degree of the tear and the strength of the ligament going forward. Small tears (like Tanaka's) can heal back to nearly 100% of the integrity of the ligament. Larger tears, maybe not. What you do with a UCL tear, if you aren't operating, is you sit the player out for a few months and if symptoms recur, you operate. That didn't happen with Price. He'd be off the mound for a few weeks, try to throw again, then stiffen up, shut down, wash rinse repeat. Makes me wonder if his issue is UCL or something else (like the flexor bundle, although those injuries mask UCL tears plenty of times). Regardless, he's been shut down 3 times. Once at the beginning of the season, once after his return and once while he was ramping up to return. There is something in there

It's not always best to forgo surgery if the injury itself necessitates surgical intervention

Kimmi's honety is refreshing. Nick, cmon now. I am so glad Sandy Leon or Christian Vasquez tipped the scales for you, lol. The Core is the most important thing. Your core is Beni, Betts, Bogaerts, Bradley and Devers. Devers and Beni will be around for awhile. The other three B's, for 2-3 more years. The Yankees core has more time together and is staggered, meaning we don't have to sign everyone within a two year window. Also, NY isn't afraid to lead the league in salary if they had to. Our core Gregorius FA after 2018 Sanchez FA after 2022 Judge FA after 2022 Castro after 2020 Severino after 2022 We have 3 2022 guys on there, but the reason why we don't have a cliff is that our farm is absolutely stocked top to bottom. We might replace Castro by next year. Our 3b of the future could be a guy who's around for 6-7 seasons. Who knows?

I think the sox don't want to face the Guardians and we don't want to face the astros.

His best chance to play everyday and pitch is the AL. He can DH 4 days a week and pitch the other. Nobody is going to let him play the field four games then pitch the fifth

Don't want him. Bird is a very good player. He just has to be healthy

Severino is one of the best pitchers in baseball, as is Gray. We also hit Ervin well and with the dogfight for spot #2, they might not be able to line him up

It might be. I don't think SD or MIN will be able to. The Yankees have effectively their entire slot to work with. Otani is said to love the spotlight. Here's what I think happens. NYY signs Otani for $4 mil. After year 1, we sign him to a 7 year contract with 2 option years. MLB will be upset, but the players union will argue that NY is extending him and not circumventing the rules. Eventually, the Yankees are slapped with a minor INTL signing penalty for a season

Shohei Otani, the white whale, the Japanese unicorn, the slugger who can throw 100mph with a sick slider, will be coming to the bigs this offseason. He will not wait two more years and get the big contract. He will be posted and be subject to the MLB signing rules. This will limit his earnings significantly. That being said, he will still require some money to sign. The Yankees are considered the favorites, although they cannot allocate the most money his way. NY has slowly and quietly acquired extra bonus money in deals. Thy dealt Yefry Ramirez and Matt Wotherspoon to BAL for money and they got $1.5 mil in bonus money in the Gray trade. They've spend around $3.5 mil on their INTL FA's this year and should be able to offer what will amount to their full pretrade slot (about $4.5 mil) to get him. MLB had said it will crack down on any attempts to bypass this rule, but the unioj would have a field day if the MLB tries to punish any signing team from "extending" Otani early in his career. It will be interesting for sure. Masahiro Tanaka was quoted as saying Otani is a really good hitter, but he is a pitcher in the end. Either way, a DH that can be a front line starter is an interesting thing for sure. I'd love to see him in the Bronx

If we have a chance to line up Severino or Gray, we should be good. We should slaughter the Twins

Here's what I predict to happen. Sox play the Stros and lose in 5. Yankees win the WC playin game and upset the Guardians. Astros beat the Yankees in 7 behind 3 wins from Dallas Keuchel. Stros to the World Series. I will tell you right now, if the Yankees could play the sox or the Stros, I pick the sox all day long. We cannot beat Dallas Keuchel

Sonny Gray pitches a gem and gets no support

Lynn has been far worse than his ERA suggests. I hope you get him. He'd be another Clement type signing

Another win, I'll take it. I wonder how many times in baseballs history has a team had two players 25 or under hit 40+ and 30+ in a season?

So be it. You dealt with that with Papi for years and didn't mind

JD played 1b in the minors. It isn't difficult to teach a COF 1b. JD is an abysmal OFer. He only has a 2-3 WAR in 2017 and he has an OPS over 1.000. That shows you how bad he is in the OF

And for every Gary Sanchez ($3 mil signee), there is a Luis Severino ($225K signee). It is difficult to predict how a 16 yr old will develop

I think Abreu and Guzman are in my top 15. I just think Solak has been so consistent at higher levels that he edges the hard throwing lower level pitchers

That wasn't necessarily called for. We are rebuilt and looking to be damn good next year. We also have a ton of money to spend this offseason

Hanley is untradeable. Also, you want to avoid Hanley's option from kicking in and the only way you can do that without pissing off the union is bringing in a suitable replacement

Moustakas is an interesting idea. Yes, he offers power, but is this year an anomaly or a predictor of future performance? He makes a lot of contact, doesnt walk much, and has 65HRs in his last 1148ABs. He's an average defender, who probably moves to 1b at the end of the deal he will sign. I dont think hes the guy you go for, though. I think you will sign JD Martinez and either put Hanley back at 1b or convert JD.