Dojji

Said motley crew played over their own heads and should not be expected to reprise their performances. Forgive me for thinking that leaving the kid to live the rest of his life with his finger in the dam is an inappropriate solution to the problem before us.

If I had to guess, it's because the Sox did not expect to need a 2B in the offseason and Betts had not worked out at the position in years. I will note that it was still tried a couple times, mostly at Betts' own instigation, and that while there was some obvious rust, it went OK. An interesting wrinkle on all this is if Betts wants to play 2B. If it's something he cares about, moving him might be part of the key to keeping him. Andrew Benintendi. In a broader context, I actually would use the JD-JBJ-Beni outfield and pick up someone like Denard Span to come in as a late inning defensive replacement. In my opinion the upgrade at 2B, which is probably the third most important defensive position after catcher and shortstop, would be worth the downgrade defensively to the outfield that would still leave our outfield well above average as a unit.

That's fair but I would like to point out that if we did move Betts, he would be instantly superior to any of these options. I keep hearing that moving Betts to second would somehow weaken second base defensively. That's pretty laughable. Assuming Pedroia is a nonfactor, which is the only situation in which moving Betts could even bs considered, Nunez is only barely competent at second and Holt is roughly average. They're both reasonable options, especially in the absence of a better option, but if a decision was made to move Betts to second, none of these people are going to be getting in the way of that. Betts was a pretty decent defensive 2B when he was tried there, although I'm sure he's rusty he ought to be able to get back to the level he showed when he first came up. He's an excellent defender wherever you put him. I get that it would weaken right field, that's what happens when you move an elite player off a position, but I absolutely reject the idea that Betts would struggle defensively at second, there is nothing at all to suggest this other than rust, and rust is a temporary problem. The primary reason we moved Betts at all is because we had Pedroia. With Pedroia nearing the end of his career the question of whether to move Betts back to his old position is a valid one, at least in my opinion. He would instantly become one of the best second basemen in the league if we did.

To a point, yes, but a lot of teams rely on first base to stock one of their most important bats, and first base is cheap shot city, so again, it's a minor concern at best

Personally I think Eovaldi is going to sign with one of the mid tier franchises like the Phillies or the Nationals for more money than either of the big Eastern teams are willing to pay. Personally, I don't actually want him. I look at his track record and I see Clay Buchholz with a slightly better fastball. He had a good run with us, but the history suggests that expecting it to continue would be foolish. I'd rather spend Eovaldi's money on a somewhat more dependable option such as Dallas Keuchel. But I personally expect we sign exactly zero free agent starters and that the plan at the moment is to break camp with Sale, Price, Porky, E-Rod, Wright if he's healthy, Johnson if he isn't. You could go to war with that rotation and expect to win any division in baseball.

Anyone can get hurt at any time, for any reason. Injury paranoia is nonproductive.

Betts to the infield is about maximizing Betts's own value, and putting a better hitter in a position where we've been weak for a long time. Speaking as one of the few people in favor of the idea the reason I'm in favor of it is simple -- second base has been a bit of a sucking chest wound in the last few years with Dustin Pedroia's issues. If it wasn't for Holt's miraculous utility we would have been badly exposed several times already there. Meanwhile we know Betts can get the job done if put in that position, and outfielders are a lot easier to find than infielders. Put simply, it's always going to be easier to find a better than replacement level right fielder and move Betts to second base, than it is to find a better than replacement level second baseman. Since I have every confidence that Betts would develop/would have developed into an above average defensive second baseman, the decision to move him to second and look for another answer in the outfield (JD-Beni-Bradley for example) seems to make sense to me.

Harvey over santana for me

Slow down champ, may want to make sure I'm on the Eovaldi bandwagon before going there. My position on that subject is more nuanced. Instead of knee-jerk wanting to resign Eovaldi, I'm in favor of shaking Eovaldi's hand, thanking him for his execllent service, and then evaluating him on an equal footing compared to other potential free agents. if I had the choice to sign either Eovaldi or Dallas Keuchel, I'd sign Keuchel 15 times out of 10. Nothing personal intended to Eovaldi, Keuchel is just a pitcher that conforms more closely to what I think a good starter looks like. What Eovaldi did in the playoffs for us is amazing, but his career suggests both fragility and undependability and tells me to look elsewhere. At least Keuchel is not fragile. Now if I had the option to bring Eovaldi in out of the bullpen, sign me the heck up, I think he'd make an absolutely perfect closer but he doesn't want to close, he wants to start, and Eovaldi's never done a great job of standing the test of time over a full season as a starter, and he's not likely to begin now. So no thanks. We can do better.

Resetting the tax resets the penalties. If you don't reset the penalties they do tend to build up on you, so resetting it now and again might save tens of millions of John Henry's money. That said, I expect Henry to make the calculated decision to reset the cap around the time that the core is likely to diminish anyway. We still have a strong chance at competing for trophies this year, I think Henry's going to look at the projected window in 3 years when everyone is projecting a serious roster crunch as a good time to take a step back and reset the cap.

Eh. If Pearce is outright bad, that contract won't prevent him from being cut, but I don't actually think Pearce is gonna suck. However he was on another level towatds the end of the year last year, and I don't expect him to actually climb quite that high next year, as I said, something in the .750 range is more or less what I expect out of him, any more than that is gravy.

Fine, then put Beni in center and JBJ in right and swap JD over to left field. Beni's a CF too, if you'll remember, even though he doesn't get the opportunity to show it off with Betts and JBJ on the roster.

Betts was a very solid defender when he first came up. He had a good arm and excellent range, just like he has now in the outfield. He's out of practice so there might be a few initial mistakes but I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that if called upon to do so, he would get the hang of it again. Of course the ideal is always Pedroia retaking the job, but if that doesn't happen and other holes open we need Holt to fill... don't rule it out.

We all know Pearce is not going to bat entirely against lefties.

LF: Beni CF: JBJ RF: JD 2B: The MVP He was a pretty solid 2B before he was moved to the outfield, he's still got all the athleticism he ever had. If Pedey can't come back and the replacements are struggling, this is absolutely an option. Give him a few weeks to get used to doing it again and I have no doubt in my mind that Betts could transition admirably back to second base. What's more, with his bat, if he could play 2B every day it would probably raise his stock as a player. An elite infielder > an elite outfielder most of the time.

One thing I'd be careful about, as a fan. Steve Pearce played well above his career ability last year and he'll be 36 this year. I don't think it's fair to expect a WS MVP level performance for 1 year at 6.5. If he puts in the kind of year we got from Johnny Gomes in 2013, that's more or less what I actually expect from him. Something between .740 and .780 OPS. If he does much more than that, that'll be fantastic, but it's not what I expect out of him.

No. durability is probably the second most important attribute for especially a st arting pitcher, second only to actual pitching ability. Remember, the question you have to ask about any player who's guaranteed to miss time, is who plays that time. 120 innings of ace type work and 80-90 innings of replacement level work rounds down to mediocre. That's besides the fact that you have to pay for that replacement either with a free agent contract or with starting a prospect's clock earlier than you might have wanted to and/or using up option years. And if you have a replacement that can take that half a season or so of workload at at above replacement level, why aren't you just using them instead?

They don't because they don't have to. They have an owner with a very high level of financial security. Insurance is for situations where you can potentially incur losses you can't possibly cover out of pocket. If you have the financial security to take big losses on the chin without destroying your financial cushion, insurance is actually a losing proposition.

That's true for most owners, especially of middling franchises, but if Henry had been all about the big sale, he'd have had dozens of opportunities to secure it. The man is playing for keeps, and as the owner of one of the 2-3 most lucrative franchises in major professional sports, it's a fair bet to say that he is making money, even if most sports franchises don't.

The problem (which isn't a problem for us) is that Henry is probably still making money, even with the cap penalties. All we see is team payroll, and we worry about the money side of the game based on that, but Henry's thinking based on the entire balance sheet, and from his perspective, the penalties are just another expense. As long as he's profiting, and believe me as long as the team wins he WILL profit, I doubt he'll have any compunction sinking money into a winning team. He's an investment guy, and owning one of the best franchises in major professional sports and keeping its prestige topped up are an investment worth making, every time, even if cap penalties do offer a small diminishment in return.

Doubt it. Not for a team with obvious ambitious to repeat in the World Series. We may or may not bring back Kimbrel, but DD isn't going into the season without a plan for exactly who he wants to close. The answer might surprise us, but there will BE an answer.

Good for him, he more than earned it. Hopefully he sticks around awhile.

This kid is going to fly under the radar if guys like me don't toot his horn from time to time so permit me to do exactly that He wasn't part of the recent World Series success, and our rotation is stacked right now which makes it hard for him to fight for a job here, but let's give the guy some love anyway, because what he's done has actually been moderately impressive. This year Johnson pitched just short of 100 innings with an ERA+ of just a tick over 100. For a replacement starter that's fantastic work, and exactly what we needed him to be this year. And he did it for a medium sized sample of innings, no SSS here, especially for a guy who is still learning how to be a big leaguer and isn't a feature of the regular starting rotation. The reason I want to bring this up is that if Johnson can pitch at approximately the same level over a full season workload, he's not a tweener or a fringy starter. if this is the real Brian Johnson he could replace Rick Porcello tomorrow. In fact unless something disastrous happens to him next year, such as an injury or major regression, I might expect that to be the plan in 2020. It's been a long time since this team developed a competent, homegrown starting pitcher. Wright came close but health issues put him in the gray area, but Johnson's looking like he might be the one. Right now he's a mediocre #3 starter or a great #5. If he can take one more step forward he could be a fixture in the rotation for years to come.

I'm really not worried at all about Jar Jar Beeks. Once we got rid of him we were able to put Brian Johnson out there and Johnson was much better. it's not like Beeks had worldbeating stuff, he's a project for the Rays right now and I wish them all the luck in the world.

Probably because Pearce is covering for a lot of his flaws, and Moreland is a good bet to get Job #1 done. Offensive expectations notwithstanding the first job of any player is to defend their own position. Offense can come as a result of everyone's combined work, with elite players picking up the slack for everyone else, but the only player who can defend first base is the first baseman. Moreland is an above average defender which covers a multitude of sins.