jacksonianmarch

There’s one thing the Sox cannot afford and that’s a slow April start with the bats. Your pitching will be atrocious early on. You’ve got two starters. Houck has never been good at going deep in an order. Hill is f***ing 42 and tops out mid 80s and hasn’t been better than replacement in a long time. Wacha is a disaster. Now if Sale comes back healthy and Paxton is vintage on return, you’ve got the long term makings of a rotation. Goal for the Sox should be to just hang in there enough until reinforcements arrive.

Yanks deal Joely for Castro. I thought the Yanks pen was a little too lefty, but this deal is strange. Castro is enormous, he’s young and he’s heading into FA. He’s learned how to strike guys out the last 2 years (K/9 average last two years over 10), but he walks 5 guys per 9. He’s a ground ball pitcher but for his career he’s a 1+ HR/9IP guy. He’s a conundrum. Fine in middle relief. Unless he shows last year’s sub 1 HR/9IP line is not a fluke, he stays out of high leverage spots

How many times does he need to fade late before you get the label?

Yanks deal for Trevino from Rangers. Defensive whiz, can’t hit at all. Seems like a seasoned backup

How bout after June?

Barnes’ issue as closer is he doesn’t bounce back from failure. Great closers do that. They blow up a game and then come out and dominate next game like it never happened. Barnes has the talent, just not the mental fortitude

A Red Sox rotation of Eovaldi, Pivetta, Hill, Wacha, and Sale. Not exactly iron men here. The issue for the Sox is their depth pulls from their pen, so one guy goes down and you pull Houck. Next guy goes down and you’ll pull Whitlock. It’s not a great formula when the pen is a concern for the Sox. Who is gonna close games do you think?

I really like Nestor for the story. He’s earned the 5th spot with how he pitched last year. He saw a velocity bump from 88-90.7 and really upped the use of his curveball to where he’s no longer a fastball-slider pitcher. I also like the arm angle games he plays with hitters. He reminds me of what Rich Hill used to be once he stopped blowing out his arm trying to air it out. But I honestly have no clue if he’s found something or if he was a one hit wonder. Hoping for the former, clearly, but keeping him up out of camp allows some of the younger guys to get some extra work before they’ll be needed

Just comparing 21’s offense to 22’s. Renfroe’s offense was solid in 21, actually better than Story’s. Schwarber was the catalyst for a late season surge. Guy was awesome. Sub out Renfroe, Schwarber and Arroyo from that lineup. Add in Dalbec, JBJ and Story and it’s definitely not an offensive upgrade.big defensive upgrade, though

You are not wrong. I do not like Boone. I wanted him gone. But apparently he appeases the bosses, which makes me want the bosses gone.

Cole tweaked his hamstring late in the year and just wasnt the same. I think I had debated on here that I didn't want a do or die to be in his hands because the ball just wasnt coming out like it was prior to the injury. Everything was up and hence why Bogey and Schwarber tattooed him

It was last year for sure. Most of the time talent can take you past a bad manager, but that wasn't the case last year. One thing I am very excited about from the spring is Torres has now blasted two opposite field homers. With Thames as the yankee hitting coach, everyone was pull happy and it robbed Torres of his power. He's a really good hitter best when he is going center or right center. If they worked with him to go with the pitch, especially in YS, he could regain his lost shine

You’ve got to get there. This year is going to be a dogfight. I think the Rays might take a step back due to their amazing collection of pitching injuries, but I’ve been saying that for a couple years now and they keep winning somehow. The Jays are better. No question. They are probably the best team in this division on paper. The Yanks got better. Their moves on offense should help generate more runs. Their defensive moves should keep them away from being the second worst defense in all of baseball last year. They’ve got lots of pitching depth, although the question will be how the back end of the rotation holds up and if Sevy has anything left. Also, still one major minus is Boone who seems to push all the wrong buttons Sox didn’t really get better. You lost one top offensive performer in Renfroe and essentially replaced him with Story in the lineup. Story’s D Will help at 2b as will JBJ’s in RF, but you shuffled the chairs here offensively and removed on minus offensive producer (Arroyo) and added another in (JBJ). You lost Schwarber and never replaced him. Offense will still be solid, IMO. Rotation loses ERod who had a weird high ERA low FIP year and replaced him with a 42 yr old shitballer who can’t stay healthy and a former WS Ace who’s fallen on tough arm health times who sucked ass in Tampa and now is supposed to be useful? You start the year down Sale for likely the first month of the season which will pull Houck into your rotation. While Bello and Mata might be in the wings later in the year, your rotation depth involves pulling your best relievers and putting them in the rotation. The pen is a mess of left handlers who had weird peripheral years last year and a fall closer who cannot seem to hold things down when the weather gets hot. Of the 4 teams, the Sox are probably the worst, but with Cora pushing the buttons and Bloom turning s*** into diamonds, it wouldn’t surprise me to see the Sox overachieve again

Cortes will be the 5th starter

Yanks have their own problems. But your rotation is not solid. You don’t have a lights out pen to lean on if your rotation struggles. You better hope the Sox can mash, cause they’re gonna need it.

So right now… Eovaldi Pivetta Hill Wacha Houck Sale returns and Houck goes to the pen? Or if Houck is killing it, boot Wacha? Hard to say really. Wacha and Hill are place holders, IMo

Ultimately, this is about the sox rotation and what is their depth now that Sale is going to be out of action for awhile? Their pen is also kinda awry as well with some upheaval and the possibility that you'll need to move your best pen arms into the rotation

I forgot about Gallo's D. He and Judge are true GG level defenders in the COF spots. Problem is CF and how they play there.

Urshela was pretty good. Donaldson prior to 2021 was pretty good. The question is, was DOnaldson's drop due to age or a blip. We will find out. We will also see how Lemahieu plays the position for a second year

Defense does improve. Having GG caliber SS and 1B for the whole season (theoretically) plus having Lemahieu available as the backup across the infield will help the defense. Add in Higgy behind the dish instead of the butcher and we should save more runs and might even have a pitching staff that doesnt hate their catcher. But I am still concerned about the OF with us still relying on Hicks even though he has proven to be entirely fragile. Also, relying on the depth and promise of our pitching staff with no added veteran presence might bite us in the ass. We shall see.

Bloom bought low and sold high on Renfroe last year. Now it seems he is doing it on JBJ

It is about time to close the Offseason thread as the Yanks have now been in ST for a couple weeks now and we are only 10 days from opening day. Yanks made some moves and got rid of Sanchez, Voit and Urshela. Rizzo was retained, IKF was brought in and Donaldson looks to continue to mash and offer leadership. On the position player side of the ball, the only major question right now is who will be the 4th OFer. Locasto likely has a leg up but the Yanks did bring in Rosario from the sox for a look. Jeisson plays solid D, is fast and can walk, but he cannot seem to make contact and when he does, the ball doesnt go anywhere. He's basically a left handed Tim Locasto. I do think this very expensive team is making a mistake in not shoring up the outfield. Aaron Hicks has been trending towards the below average defensively for the last two seasons and he's now another year older. Plus, the guy hasnt played a full season since 2018. Gallo and Judge can play CF and it sounds like the Yanks will be using Stanton in the OF more than recent years, so maybe the plan is to keep Aaron fresh and rotate the 4 across the 3OF positions and at DH. Either way, the lineup is pretty solid and it seems Boone will use one of the bigger boppers at leadof 1. Donaldson DH 2. Judge RF 3. Rizzo 1B 4. Stanton LF 5. Gallo CF 6. Lemahieu 3B 7. Torres 2B 8. Kiner-Falefa SS 9. Higashioka C On the pitching side, I thought the Yanks would add some veteran presence to their rotation as Kluber's year was a bust. But they didn't and the news on German isn't good, so they went from being deep to being needy at this point with no further FAs out there. They always seem to add a back end pitcher later in the year, so maybe that is the plan and they do have a host of highly touted prospects ready to take the ball if given the chance. On the SP side, I think the following is locked in for the rotation, but word out of ST is that Severino has lost his command. If he doesn't find it, this crew could turn into a minus real quick 1. Cole 2. Montgomery 3. Severino 4. Taillon The 5 spot is between King, Schmidt, Gil, Cortes, and Garcia. Lots of depth, but Cortes was the best in the bigs as a starter out of that group last year, so he probably has a leg up. King has proven to be a deadly swiss army knife option out of the pen, so I doubt we would move him unless he really found a way to dominate when starting. Schmidt has the best stuff of the bunch and is finally healthy. He might end up being the guy who starts in the 5 spot the most by end of year, but I bet they want to take it slow with him in the minors. Garcia might have the highest ceiling of the bunch, but he has to prove he is over the yips which really shelved him last year. He went from a very command focused pitcher to a guy who couldnt find the zone. The pen should be pretty solid, IMO. Chapman CL Loaisiga SU Holmes SU Green SU Peralta MR Luetge MR Those guys above are locks and are all guys who pretty much dominated with the Yanks. Add in King as a multi use weapon and maybe Joely Rodriguez and you've got a deep pen. Throw in the 28 man roster early on and the Yanks will likely carry a couple of the options on the starting side for a bit as well and all can deal. All in all, this team if it was in the AL Central would probably be a high 90s-100 win team. In the ALE, 93 wins is the target. The top 4 teams are gonna beat each other up again and I think whomever gets to 93 will win the division. This team has holes, but it is capable assuming reasonable injury luck, which is never a good assumption in NY.

Durran sent down. Strange. So OF is Verdugo, Kike, and JBJ with a sprinkle of JDM vs lefties. Who is the 4th OFer?

Yanks usually don't make a big deal about making an offer unless it is one they expect the other to accept.

One item her thing the Yanks added here is contact. Look at these K rates Subtracted Urshela 24% Voit 30.7% Sanchez 27.5% Added IKF 13.3% Donaldson 21% Rizzo 15.1% Surprisingly, IKF had a similar walk rate to Urshela, rizzo’s is better than Voit’s and Donaldsons is way better than Sanchez. More contact, more walks, better D