Dojji

So in other words, you're the New York Mets. Good to know.

It's a play on his name. Tzu-Wei. Two-Way. And honestly, if you assume the level of production he's shown in his small sample is indicative of his body of work, the offensive market at 2B is so week that Lin actually grades out as average or better for the position

Since JD is not in consideration, Trout is the only non-Betts player who could win the MVP and I wouldn't mind. BTW some people think JD got shafted. Not sure I agree. Betts kept up with JD offensively and the defense made it a slam dunk. If a voter isn't inclined to pick two players from the same team, and one imagines that many aren't, then those voters are going to ignore JD in favor of Betts. JD is a guy in that really awkward "Best of the Rest" category. He had a great year but was not better than either Trout or Mookie. Since he would lose a head-to-head runoff against his own teammate, I think it's fair not to make him a finalist. I'd say JD probably deserved consideration over Jose Ramirez, but positional logic allows one to defend Ramirez' selection. A great hitting guy who can play MIF -> a great hitting COF most of the time.

or to put it another way -- going strictly by listed playing weight, Rafi Devers is already thicker and heavier than David Ortiz. Papi was listed at 6'3" 230, and Devers is 3 inches shorter and 7 pounds heavier. I think it's a slam dunk that he's going to have some mobility issues as he progresses through his 20s.

The concern is that Devers has actually put on a fair bit of weight in the last 18 months. His listed playing weight is 237, and we know that those statistics tend to be understated. If he gets much over 250, he's going to have to switch over. A 6'0" guy is going to struggle to carry that much weight at a position that requires a high level of athleticism and that struggle will lead to injuries. And he's only 22, that weight figure is going to go up slowly but steadily as he progresses through his late 20s and into his 30s, and that's even if he works like mad to stay fit. Hopefully Devers doesn't go full Pablob, but the dude is already heavier than Edwin Encarnacion, and as he fills out, he's going to slow down. He'll be at 1B by age 27 if things go on at this rate.

Funny, Dalbec always struck me as the lowest ceiling of our collection of big third base prospects (Moncada, Devers, Chavis, Dalbec) due to his mediocre contact ability.

If the choices are "Devers gets hurt and misses significant time every year" and "Devers moves to a less physically demanding position," they'll bench Moreland faster than you can say "thanks for your years of service."

I for one am fine with players claiming their share of the massive revenue boom that is sweeping MLB in the last few years. It's not like this salary inflation is coming out of ticket prices. The owners have already been taking in this money for years and pocketing the difference while the players' salaries slowly catch up

BTW Kimmi, I thought you liked prospects and keeping the farm system stocked. Weird. Perhaps I was mistaken. Because as recent history proves, nothing depletes the farm quite like the need to fill holes in the roster. Under the circumstances I think reality-based analysis makes it clear that NOT creating those holes for petty or transient reasons is probably a smarter decision in terms of keeping your player development pipeline stocked, then refusing to meet the market to resign your own players and demanding that the pipeline constantly replace those players through promotion or trade. I mean you do you, I know you've got the Bill James thing going and it seems to be working for you. and at the end of the day we are both rooting for the same team and all, but I can't help but think that James isn't seeing the entire picture because he's looking at baseball like an analyst rather than a businessman. If you don't factor in the business side of things you are going to miss stuff. I feel that both you and Mr. James are missing some critical factors in why certain contracts are signed. Case in point: If you really want to build the best staff you can have, recruit well, train well, and keep your professionals happy. It's really not unlike any other business in that respect. Even a bad signing protects the farm better than a nonsigning does (as David Price proves), and not exposing your pipeline is usually a critical part of building your reserves towards future championships.

And do we have one? Who's in the pipeline? Factor the fact that we have no one who could even directly replace 50% of Betts' value into those opportunity costs, because if we let him go, with no in house replacement within a reasonable 5 year window, we're going to have to pay something to someone for an outside replacement, and that likely in the teeth of a buyers' market. The cost-benefit analysis breaks down pretty quickly at that point.

and yet that analysis ignores the very important factor of opportunity cost. Yes, he can be replaced, in theory, Now compare the time, cost and prospects it will take to replace him, with the weighted risk of that 10 year deal. The value balance shifts significantly when you do that, as we should have realized when the opportunity costs of lowballing Mr. Jon Lester came due. That cost was years of lost production from the top of the rotation on the field and additional off the field costs because we were forced to enter a buyers' market looking for new top of the line starting pitching talent, culminating in a ludicrous contract for David Price that it took some absurd heroics on his part for him to finally manage to rise above. Factor opportunity cost in properly, and you have to say that keeping Lester was a far better deal even though by your frankly flawed analysis, Cherington did the right thing. Similarly, the opportunity costs for not paying what the market will bear for generational offensive talent will be significant, and will likely cost more time, money and prospects than simply retaining his services at a fair price would require. Unless the opportunity costs of keeping a player involve blocking a talented cost-controlled replacement you already have in house, or includes a large expected haul of prospects for moving him, honestly I'm inclined to believe that it's frequently better to bet on the bird in the hand.

Imagine making the same decision about David Ortiz in 2011 when he was 35 years old. When you have an elite talent, pinching pennies is idiotic. We should have all gotten that out of our system when BC lowballed Jon Lester. It's not like we didn't know that would wind up being a mistake. When a player is likely to be worth his contract, haggling over pennies never makes sense. Turns out the hassle of trying to replace an elite player usually costs more in terms of money, time and especially talent, than retaining the original player might have. If we didn't lowball Lester we wouldn't have had to overspend on Price. That represents what's called an opportunity cost which has to be factored into any decision involving changing personnel. The opportunity cost of Lester moving on was needing to make multiple decisive moves to upgrade the rotation, culminating in the Price signing for waaaaaaay more than keeping Lester would have cost. And that's a pretty telling example. It's usually better to go a bit over your spending limit to ensure the talent you need stays where you need it, than to be Scrooge McDuck and sacrifice the primary objective in the name of saving a few of someone else's dollars.

Moreland is a slightly better Doug Mientkiewicz. If the organization decides they need to move Devers to 1B, he's not going to stand in the way. Honestly, I'm about half convinced that that's the whole reason he's here in the first place. I think the organization sees Devers as an absolutely HUGE part of their future and want to keep their options open.

Both of those are actually better than Swihart's current season line, .229/.285/.613 Everyone knows that Vazquez and Leon aren't here for their bats. The fact that Swihart is, and didn't hit better than those two normally would, speaks volumes. How many chances does this guy need? He's had more playing time than most prospect catchers get before "getting it." At a certain point you have to make the most of your opportunities. At a certain point you're not a prospect anymore. He's done. Move on.

Allow me to clarify moonslav's point: Swihart's bat is not sufficiently better to actually justify a spot on the roster when we have two championship-proven defensive catchers ahead of him. As for Swihart's utility... he lost the opportunity to get a job on that basis the second the Red Sox re-signed Eduardo Nunez. You only have so many openings for multirole benchies, and we have Holt and Nunez already, both of which are superior to Swihart in that role. That kind of leaves the only position Swihart could slide into other than catcher, the backup 1B role... and that would rely on Moreland's bat to be big-league-starter caliber, which would be nice but I don't think we can count on it at this point. Moreland is basically Doug Mientkiewicz right now, you need a proper bat to share the duties with a guy like that, and Swihart is just not that player.

I suspect that if the team was even considering this for real, we'd have heard something about it by now. We definitely heard about it the last time they tried something in this category, with the experiments with Hanley at first base. I think there's roughly 10% chance that JD takes significant snaps at first base next year. I think it's actually substantially more likely that Devers moves over to first base in the next year plus given the struggles he's already had to physically handle the demands of third base, I'd put that at somewhere around a 30% chance. With his weight already being an issue at 22, it's probably going to be sooner rather than later that his mobility and range declines enough to force a position switch a la Edwin Encarnacion. For the remaining 60%... well, my actual guess is that Pearce will wind up back in Boston to shoot for another ring and the Pearce-Moreland tandem will be enough to render the 1B position a nonproblem for 2019.

If they had done that, we wouldn't have had Steve Pearce when we needed him. I'm guessing that if we DD hadn't gotten a great deal for Pearce, we might have seen JD take some reps at first. As it was, there was no need to try it because we had a good one-two punch at first base with Moreland providing a high level of offense while Pearce brought a strong bat to the table.

Of course they don't. But Martinez has a way better-than-average chance to age well. He was promoted to starter relatively late, meaning he has less wear and tear on his body than a lot of top guys, similar to Ortiz in that regard, I haven't heard of any major physical issues for Martinez, and he's got the kind of hitting smarts that will allow him to stay competitive as his body slows down the same way it did for guys like big Papi or Frank Thomas. Also quite frankly, Martinez doesn't have the thick core on him that weighed down Thomas or even Ortiz at times. He's in very good shape unlike a lot of bat first thumpers, and that will help him age better than the likes of Big Hurt as well.

BTW, I think of all the lesser known prospects I've championed on this forum in the decade plus I've been here, probably the single one I'm proudest of is Holt. I was all over the Holt bandwagon well before it was sexy. I've missed on far more than my share, but as a penny-stock prospect watcher, it's really fun when one of "your" guys makes it. Holt has now been part of 2 World Series championships, and a really big part of the last one. Not bad at all for a throw-in on the Hanrahan trade.

If Holt is taking up that much time as the full time 2B, it'll be because Pedey is on the DL and we can use the roster spot to promote Two-Way Lin, who I honestly trust more than Hernandez right now. My first infielder up from the minors would be Lin, then Hernandez if Lin isn't available. Either one ought to be able to be a solid option as a utility infielder, but I actually think Lin might be able to transcend the role and fight for the starting job himself, something I don't trust Hernandez to do If Lin is able to do over a full season what he's done in small sample sizes over the last couple years, that's easily a starting 2B level of offensive production, and I'm in no doubt whatsoever about Lin's defense. I think he deserves a chance to fight for the starting 2B job, and while I'm a bit skeptical due to his track record in the minors, I am actually optimistic about Two-Way Lin. I think he has a fighting chance to develop into an above average starting 2B. One thing is definite -- Holt is great insurance when it comes to easing another position player into a new job.

Yeah not to worried about JD going through age 37, he's a kind of hitter that tends to age well, especially as he's being eased off the field defensively. But then I'm the guy who wants the team to sign Adrian Beltre to a rental deal, so take that with the proverbial sodium chaser.

I agree I'd like to keep Eovaldi or pick up an equivalent starter if it can be done reasonably, but I think that it's very possible for some combination of Wright, Johnson and Rodriguez to pick up the slack if we don't.

I don't know why people think we need to add a starter. We could always use a bit of depth but we could compete pretty darn well next year with the horses we already have in the stable. It seems to me that the thing to do at starting pitcher is break camp with what we have and then fill any holes that open with midseason trades.

But because the bat makes up for it, my overall point stands. No MLB team in either league would balk at playing JD in the outfield unless they had 3 better options like we do..

On that I agree. Way back in the dim past, Brock Holt actually came up through the ranks as a 2B. If we had to play Holt for a full season at a single position, 2B is the position I'd be most comfortable trying that. And with Nunez also in the fold, we may not need to get all that creative to cover the position if needed.