Dojji

He was an amazing pitcher, generational talent, and I always wished he could come pitch for us. This is so sad, he deserved a comfortable and long retirement.

Rest in piece, Doc Halladay.

We learned the hard way that not everyone can transition to first base when we tried to get Hanley to do it.

No interest whatsoever in Lucas Duda. Check his WAR numbers. Over the last 2 years Duda has been good for 0.1 and 1.1 WAR, the dude is pure fools gold at this point. I might bring him in as a DH or as a bench hitter, but his actual value is nowhere NEAR what the offensive numbers suggest it is

Martinez is a red herring if the question is about upgrading 1B. We reset the cap penalty, so we can probably afford Martinez and a good 1B if we really wanted to.

You know what? The Red Sox did the right thing in building this team. We didn't do it all that differently from the Astros, with the exception of our really bad luck/judgment/mojo/whatever about developing starting pitching. We've got a good team that we built largely from within, the Astros just got a little luckier with player development. I think it's important to avoid the grass--is-greener mentality. Ben Cherington did a really good job at getting the rebuild kicked off, and DD is doing alright in trying to finish it off. I doubt Ben would have been aggressive enough to get us the rest of the way, I doubt DD will be patient enough to muster a rebuild of any strength. Both types of GM serve a purpose. The Astros played the small market strategy. Built entirely from within, supplimenting with veterans while a few years go into the tank until the young strength can take over. We played a large market strategy, trying to compete with mercenaries while the youth grew into place. Both can work. Both can fail. It comes down to execution and identifying talent. I think it's obvious that Cherington wanted to play the small market strategy. Just as obviously, Henry disagreed, which is why we have DD now. The small market strategy does not work with big markets and skittish owners. Cherington's failure was not tailoring his strategy to ownership and failing to execute well when ownership put its foot down.

You're right they're not, but there's at least 5 teams out there that could buy Stanton straight up if they decided to. See above about moving pieces. Anything we could acquire for JBJ that we could then use to acquire stanton, someone else could simply use to acquire Stanton. I mean hey, if they can spare the prospect, why shouldn't they be the ones aiming high? At least until Jarrod Dyson is off the market, i have doubts in JBJ's market being that strong anyhow, as Dyson's value isn't that far short of Bradley's based on last year's performance and he can be had for just dollars.

I don't want to throw stones at Mike Moustakas. He's a great player, a very good third baseman and a strong hitter. But the man has only had 2 years of solid WAR production in his entire life by fWAR, and only one by bWAR. Even with the weak 2016 performance Hosmer has been WAY more consistent in his career than Moustakas offensively. Again, I love the idea of signing Moustakas, but if the idea is to upgrade the offense first and foremost, Moustakas is the lesser upgrade. Moustakas only ever had one year with a higher OPS+ than Hosmer, and that was his injury-stunted 2016 campaign.

Too many moving pieces. Anything we do is going to be an elaborate process involving either so many moving parts the points of failure approach infinity, or Flora taking a risk of winding up with diddly out of the trade of the best player that has graced their roster since Miggy. Florida doesn't want low-floor high ceiling prospects and a guy whose clock has started. There are plenty of teams that can deal from a position of strength and give up the kind of prospects the Marlins will want without deviating from their strategy that much. We simply are not one of those teams. Stanton isn't coming here, Votto surely isn't coming here. We'll all enjoy the happy fantasy and then eventually people come back to earth and hopefully DD will have snagged an actual 1B by Opening Day while the fans whiled away the hot stove season chasing fairytale trade proposals like usual. I'd hate to have to rest the franchise on Sam Travis's back during a year when we're supposed to be contenders just because someone in power got infested with toxic brain fluff and couldn't let go of the Don Quixote fantasy of landing a guy like Stanton in this offseason. Not like it's gonna happen, we'll probably just sign Hosmer as long as DD is prepared to make a competitive offer. The fact that Sam Travis is the alternative should encourage him to be appropriately generous, anyhow.

You're very wrong about Jarrod Dyson. He's so good defensively he makes a lot of wins with his glove, enough to justify his job. By bWAR Dyson has averaged between 2.2 and 3.1 wins a year. fWAR the same, 2.5-3.1 with 1 outlier at 1.8. For point of reference, a solid contribution to the team is 2 WAR. Only 8 Red Sox players exceeded that value this season. If Jarrod Dyson had done his thing for us this year, his 2.6 bWAR would have tied him with Andrew Benintendi for 6th highest on a division-pennant team and only 0.2 bWAR behind JBJ. Dyson is a GOOD player, VERY good if you add up everything he does. He just doesn't hit that much. Long story short, if some team doesn't make a starting CF out of Jarrod Dyson, all that talk about the age of analytics is so much nonsense. He's got what it takes to add value to any team in this league that has a hole there.

It's a sellers' market. Anyone we pick up is going to be expensive. The question we need to be asking is which player is likely to pay off. What's worth more, sinking a lot of money into a 27 year old hitter just coming into his prime, or the only alternative 1B I've seen (Duda) who's a 24 year old hitter just leaving his prime. I mean do a bWAR comparison between Duda and Hosmer and there is no comparison, Hosmer is far better, he's the best available FA 1B and also the youngest. The only thing muddying the water is the fact that the idea of grabbing Moustakas and sliding Devers over has a potentially higher upside. Moonslav is right, that would be a savvy move, and it would probably give us a substantial improvement in overall infield defense to go with the modest offensive upgrade. The issue with Moose is, the offensive upgrade would be very modest indeed. Moose isn't nearly the hitter Hosmer is at his best, and we struggled all year long at generating offense, which is why we're looking for a big FA upgrade in the first place. If goal #1 is to improve the offense first and foremost, Hosmer is the best option -- you can call him the least bad option if it makes you feel better, but the FO is absolutely right to go after him.

I like it, actually. Devers is young enough to adapt. It's a solid plan if the FO go for it. NFW. Cobb just 12-10 3.66 over 180 innings. He has some injury concerns that knock his price down a bit but if you want him because you want to roll the dice on him being a solid #3 starter, you pay #3 money, and in this day and age, that doesn't start at 12M. Try 18. Maybe as low as 15 with his injury history, but the market for pitching is always a buyer's market, and the market has gone up by leaps and bounds because of the league revenue bubble, that is going to affect the price of pitching. On board with the idea in general. Cobb will be in demand though, definitely, you're not going to get him for 12M/year. Looking at Shaw's innings load over the last 4 years, there's a voice in the back of my mind saying "DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!" Really concerned about a guy like Shaw being allowed to hit the market. Midmarket teams don't usually let their workhorse relievers test the market unless they think the arm is just about used up. The scrapyard guys yeah, but not the meat-and-potatoes guys like Shaw. Middle relief is too critical. There's something about this situation we don't know and Shaw is about to make a sucker of someone IMHO, hope it isn't us. Used to be all over Dyson, but we've already got one of the fastest outfields in the league. Not seeing the need. I'd rather have a thumper on the bench. Besides, check Dyson's bWAR. Dyson is averaging well over 2 WAR a year. Someone who's paying attention is going to sign that man cheap to be their starting CF

Hosmer averaged just under 3 WAR a year for the last 3 years... not seeing the angst. Stanton and Votto are not walking through that door people. We don't have the assets to make the best offer for either one of those two men, that's just a fact. Pick your poison from the next tier down, and of those guys (Duda/Alonso/Hosmer) Hosmer is the best overall choice. If you don't go after one of those FA first basemen then you're leaning the fortunes of the entire franchise on Sam Travis making that next step on demand next year, and I just don't see it. If we don't sign someone, Travis is your guy, you're not gonna put Hanley out there everyday and we have. NO. ONE. ELSE. I think Travis is close to being a productive first baseman, but I sure as heck wouldn't count on him to hold down the job full time next year, sight unseen. We gotta get someone, and that means we have to set our sights on attainable guys. If we had a secure plan B I could see going hell for leather in the pursuit of a fantasy, but we need to be pragmatic now and secure our position at first base. That means Duda, Alonso, Hosmer, or improbably Moustakas (improbably because I think he can make more dosh as a third sacker), is coming through that door. Take your pick. Of that group of players. I really do feel that the safe money is on Hosmer, with Duda as Plan B.

Don't like it at all. Everywhere that man has gone, PED accusations have followed.

Dombrowski is doing exactly what the ownership hired him to do. He's here to maximize the team's chances to win next year, and rinse and repeat until all the ammunition in the shot locker is depleted. That's Dombrowski's MO, and Henry hired him in full knowledge of this. If you don't like that style of baseball, your problem is with Henry, not DD.

that's not as true as it was 10 years ago, and either way, the Mariners seem likely a likely destination for Stanton to me, they have money to spend, have a young core, have an ace, need the offense, and have some prospects to move IIRC. Also they could really use to make a splash to excite the fans. If I had to pick one team to go get Stanton, it would be the M's.

In other words, the TOS Klingon triad who reprised their roles in DS9 would be Q'ang, Qor, and Qol'oth. Interesting. Never realized that. I guess what we get is the Federation spellings, Wouldn't be the first time someone from a different language group spelled a name differently. Beijing/Peking, Mumbai/Bombay, etc

Do yourselves a favor and interview DeMarlo Hale. If you're looking for new blood in the managerial game, Hale has to be one of the most experienced guys out there who's never managed, and he's lived in the AL East for most of his career. If there's a non-yankee coach out there who's intimitately familiar with who the Yankees are as an organization, it's Hale. I have no problem with Cora, I understand and endorse him as a good managerial candidate, but Hale is the guy I was hoping the Red Sox would hire because he's just that much more experienced as a coach. I just want to see the guy move up and see what he does with the job. He's got the seniority and the experience, I think he deserves a good look as a manager.

One interesting possibility that might warrant a slightly longer look, is Miguel Chavis. If we have a young player that's anywhere near the class that you'd look to trade premium talent for, it's probably Chavis. Unfortunately I think his ceiling isn't considered premium elite, but he's still performing at a high level at a young age, especially if he can make a bit more contact. Chavis handled the transition to Portland reasonably well, but clearly has at least another year in development before you seriously consider moving him up. And again, this WMB/Mark Reynolds redux is literally the best offensive prospect we have just now. That's sad. In a strong farm, he's maybe the #5, #6 prospect. In Boston he's #2 by most measurements, after Groome. That's how week our upper echelon is right now.

No complaints on either Sale or Kimbrel so far, but the fact remains that we blew our wad on those two in particular. Groome is not a premium pitching prospect right now -- he has the potential to become one, but it's gonna take a few more years and a bit of luck. We do not have an awful lot of ready or nearly-ready talent without ransacking our big league roster, and the price of a Stanton or a Votto is usually measured in exactly what we don't have -- high minors premium talent, usually from AA or AAA, who are ready to go right now and whose arb clock hasn't started, or has barely started. We don't have anyone like that right now outside of Devers, and Devers could be as big a thing as Stanton in a few years. Until we know one way or the other, he goes nowhere. Anyone who thinks we can nab Giancarlo Stanton for one young outfielder and a bunch of A ball schlubs who need years of seasoning to get to the big show, hasn't been paying attention.

Benintendi alone isn't bringing Stanton if I'm the Marlins GM. What else ya got?

There is no plausible way Giancarlo Stanton winds up in a Red Sox uniform. Absolutely none at all. Just putting that out there to remind people. You can say "get Stanton" until you're blue in the face. He is not coming to Boston unless he hits FA. We've spent our resources elsewhere. We do not have the assets required to land such a player at this time. Votto is more plausible if the Reds decide to rebuild, but he'd also be one of the last players I'd trade if I was Cincinnatti's GM and I had any thought of a fighting chance in the next few years. If I decided to trade Votto as Cinci, then what I got for Votto would determine whether I still had a job next year, so I'd be looking to bleed the buying team white. Also even in Votto's case, the shot lockers are looking pretty empty to land a player of that caliber. What they need most is pitching and we don't have any to spare. So unless you think you can sell them Price to cover a large part of Votto's value, and that's a pretty ridiculous proposition on the face of it, "more plausible" and "actually plausible" are not the same thing in this case. If we bring in any offensive upgrades, it will be by FA, and it will be a second tier player. Hosmer, Duda or Moustakas. That's what we can afford right now, so that's what's coming through that door. Not Stanton, not Votto. Even with their warts every one of those players would represent an upgrade for us. Premium offensive talent is not coming to Boston right now so something in this stratum is what you can expect, and that's if we manage to win the bidding on one of these players. We might not.

I don't get this push for Papi as a coach. He was a leader as a player but there's a big difference between that and being able to do the same thing as a coach. Besides, nothing tarnishes a great player's legacy like failing as a coach. Is the risk really worth it from Ortiz's perspective? How much are Marco Hernandez and Christian Vazquez supposed to learn about hitting from a guy who hits in a completely different way? Ortiz made a big study of how to hit his way, but has he really got stuff to share with guys who have to get on base in a completely different way? Not sure. And neither are you. And the idea of putting a guy in at bench coach with no prior coaching experience is absurd. You want a guy there who can run the team if the manager is ejected. It's not a figurehead position, the bench coach is the XO of the whole damn team, often handles more of the nitty gritty decisions than the manager does. You absolutely want a veteran, experienced coach there. As in experienced *at being a coach.* Especially if we're going to have an untried manager running the show.

Larry Cook isn't wrong. Dombrowski has a flair for the dramatic that gets the best of him at times. This team needs minor adjustments rather than a major overhaul, but DD has shown he likes to make a splash.

it was not a slam dunk decision, but Jacko's right, by trading Sale the Chisox clearly made the decision to rebuild, and thus were a rebuilding team. The definition feels a bit circular, but the team's actions bear out their depiction as rebuilding. That's one of the reasons I think a team like the Royals would be a good one to try to trade with/poach from. They're clearly coming back to earth, I mean holy crap check their pythag this year, there's not so much cracks in the foundation as no foundation at all, especially if they lose their FAs Either of Hosmer, Moustakas or Cain would be good additions to this lineup if we can grab them and I think they're *all* FAs. One of the prices they pay for winning the World Series by trying to time their core players to peak at the same time. The fact that their 3 best hitters are all up for FA at the same time is a pretty good indication that nothing is sacred for the Royals right now and someone who offers a fair deal can pretty much take their pick. In their place the only guy I protect is Danny Duffy.