Dojji

There's also the fact that you could get Santana for much less talent than Mountcastle because of the additional money involved. Big market teams like the Red Sox need to be prepared to use their financial advantage to maximize their talent pool. you don't do that by making trades as if you are the Tampa Bay Rays. you do that by making controlled purchases that fill your budget without exceeding it, and by taking good risks with that money. With that said, the Guardians are nearing the point (within the next year and a half) where they need to either extend Santana or see what they can get for him. This is the perfect time to swoop in with a reasonable offer and find out if the Guardians are ready to reposition their roster around youth and let go of some key veterans or not, because we can afford him, we have talent to offer in exchange, and we can carry Santana financially. And especially right now is a good time because it's the offseason, everyone has time to heal from various injuries and we're in no rush to make a trade so the pressure to overpay is low. Frankly I really want Santana. I think Dalbec is a more than acceptable reserve 1B and Santana would give us some bargaining room with Martinez. Besides, he's really good and adds that so-important element of speed we lack currently. Also, if I was going for young cost controlled guys I'd look for talent in areas we need, not areas where we have a glut of talent. The other possibility besides bringing in a big bat from outside is bringing in a big infield glove, the Royals have this great young kid, Nicky Lopez, that I'd give my left arm to get on the Sox, Xander or no Xander. Xander could easily move down the spectrum and play some second if we brought in a defensive specialist at SS, and it might be the way to go moving forward. I'd take Lopez over 5 Mountcastles.

In another 12 months I'd take Cedric Mullens. Smells to much like a 1 year wonder.

Not until we know where his batting average levels out. If Mountcastle stays at around .250, or can improve, he'll be productive. if he drops to .230 or lower then it's gonna be awful hard for him to generate enough power to make up for that. This is obviously true for Dalbec as well, but either way, I can't imagine the Orioles being willing to trade young power hitters when they have so few of them. until they get their absolute disaster of a rotation dealt with Mountcastle is just about the only draw they have. When Mountcastle gets expensive it's another story, but the last thing the Orioles should be doing right now is trading their only cost controlled star. Bottom line, if I'm looking for talent to trade for, I generally don't look for it on a 111-loss team. Ask me what I'd do to upgrade at 1B and I'd look at players with a couple option years left on a team going nowhere. Jose Ramirez from the Guardians is the guy I'd target. His options are starting to get expensive but give the team 2 years of control. We can take the hit of offering Ramirez an extension better than Cleveland can. And Ramirez is a third baseman so that gives the team some roster flexibility.

Because the fact that it worked once means it will always work. And again there's a huge difference between promoting a player to the roster and trading for one in a blockbuster deal.

The difference is we don't have to pay a king's ransom for Dalbec. the opportunity cost for taking a risk on Dalbec is FAR lower than a guy like Mountcastle, and when you add the cost into the equation, a smaller risk becomes a greater risk.

Not actually interested at all in Mountcastle. Feels like a Chris Davis clone. Undisciplined. Swing happy, strikeout happy. The K rate tells me the kid has some big holes in his swing, and with kids like this it can go from Ryan Howard to Willy Mo Pena in a heartbeat if pitchers figure out how to get them out. Fenway Park is a doubles park, a line drive park. We need to favor contact hitters with the ability to drive the ball, over raw power. That's when we were at our best. Papi and Manny were power hitters who had great contact skills and they were the guys who owned Fenway. When we tried to use pure power hitters they tend to struggle in Boston. I'm much more interested in high contact and OBP hitters, guys like Pedroia or youk back in the day, and leave the raw power to teams that need it more. Also this team needs speed. Again, this is a contact hitter's park. We need guys who can run, we need to be able to play smartball and take advantage of that high contact style, and we need guys who can play that style. A few thumpers is alright, but we should be all about putting wood on leather and that means speed really compliments what we're here to do. We've always been at our best when we have speed at the top of the lineup. And right now our 2021 stolen bases leader is the freaking catcher. If I'm looking to bring this team forward next year, I'm bringing in a speed guy, maybe a speedy shortstop if Bogaerts is ready to Ernie Banks himself. Also maybe look to pick up a 4th OF with some wheels, to come in off the bench to run a bit and play good OF defense.

I agree. No one can win the World Series every year. We weren't set up to be a frontrunner. We made it to the CS as a Wild Cart team. That's overachieving. The Red Sox weren't one of the 4 best teams in baseball this year and they won a play-in game and a postseason series, including beating one team (TB) that was way better than us on paper. Since we weren't a frontrunner this year, I'd call that success. I think you'd be had pressed not to be proud of this team. Especially if you're old enough to remember when getting to the CS with a fighting chance was something of a high water mark.

Normal when you're trying to control payroll. The bullpen is the easiest place to save money.

I see. We're in THAT phase of the offseason.

"not long" in this case = less than 4 years. A rapid turnaround is what DD did and we don't want that. This is going to have to be more organic, and it's going to just plain take time to prime the pump and rebuild the pipeline. I think we're in for a bit of a dark time in the short term. We'll see if Henry has the stomach for it.

Pity. He had some real potential

He made himself a legend in Boston in very short order. Amazing reliever. Wish him well in whatever he does next. Oh Kimmy.... ANY closer is going to create drama. That's one of the secrets of the closer's position -- it creates drama, and the ones that can handle drama well are the ones that last in the role. Even Uehara had his down moments. He didn't give up walks but he did get launched from time to time because of that fastball of his. As for Papelbon, he was another one with amazing command. Strikeout-to-walk ratio of nearly 5 to 1. And he was automatic in the playoffs for the first few years of his career, as he lost his fastball hitters did catch up with him a bit but it was never about drama with Papelbon, it was about money.

There are exactly 2 30-30 players in Red Sox history. That's a lot of history. And not a lot of 30-30 players.

Kevin Youkilis. I forgive him because at the time, we'd moved on from him and a fella's gotta work. Ironically though, I feel much less charitable towards Mark Bellhorn. That's because he signed with them the year after the playoffs that made him famous.

They are not backup catchers. Not every catcher who has trouble at the plate is a backup.

ah, I missed that

Because that's totally fair and does justice to the level of thought I put into that post.

JBJ produced 2 oWAR. That's not mediocre. It's not great, but adjusted for position he's reasonably solid, even in a down year.

1: Swihart has not shown any realistic ability to hit better than Leon or Vazquez. 2: Both Vazquez and Leon have produced significant samples of offensive production superior to Swihart's 2015 production. 3: You're talking about a catching tandem that just won the World Series, and the pitchers are effusive in their praise of those catchers' ability. 4: Catcher is one of the two positions, shortstop being the other one, where mediocre offensive production is tolerable as long as the defense is good enough. 5: Between Leon and Vazquez, 70 efforts to steal a base were recorded (and if that seems low considering their combined workload, that's because it hella is) , with 22 of those being caught. That's a 30% success rate, significantly above the league average . So not only were the overall attempts incredibly low (an average year sees somewhre around 120 to 150 attempts to steal on your catchers, and even with Swihart thrown in there were only 89 such attempts on the Boston catching teams which is, again, WAY small, half an attempt per game is TINY) but even those who were brave enough to give it a go, or fast enough to pull it off, were nabbed fairly regularly In other words Vazquez and Leon did a whizzbang job at controlling the running game, they created a fear factor that scared off a lot of first base coaches and even the guys who felt they were fast enough to make an effort (in other words, we're probably talking mostly about elite runners here) were gunned down at a level above the league average. Combine that with the great work our boys did on the basepaths and it's very easy to understand exactly why we had such a competitive advantage against a lot of other good teams. Now let's look at Swihart. He played 33 games and saw 19 steal attempts, of which he caught 5. That's a significant increase in the willingness of baserunners to try something on Swihart comprared to other catchers and he only caught baserunners at about an average level. Bottom line here is that while Swihart isn't bad at controlling the running game he's nowhere near as good as either Leon or ESPECIALLY Vazquez, who is a superstar at this aspect of catching defense. Final analysis baserunners aren't anywhere near as afraid of Swihart as they are of L and V and will try his arm more, resulting in increased scoring chances for the opposing team than if we stick to L and V, regardless of other factors of offense or defense. I'm reluctant to surrender an advantage of that magnitude in the name of a single hitter hitting a few extra hundred OPS points, even if Swihart would definitely hit it might not be worth it -- but to surrender an advantage this huge for merely the CHANCE of a slight offensive uptick -- on a team whose offense is already at juggernaut levels -- is patently ridiculous.

It's not about potential anymore with Swihart. The word you're looking for is "salvage."

I don't want to go the everyone-cheats route. Chavis paid his dues and will be under scrutiny. Hopefully he stays clean from here on in. He's got a lot of talent, hope he gets to use it for us in time. Moonslav: I disagree with you -- muscle mass and muscle density gradually fade over time if not maintained, it doesn't take many months for the effects of PEDs to fade, that's why players have to take the risk of ensuring a constant supply, which is how a lot of them have gotten caught, such as Roger Clemens and Peyton Manning. Assuming he hasn't found another way to dodge the drug tests and is still taking, which I earnestly hope not for his own sake, any benefit from PED abuse per se has probably gone, with the obvious exception of the wear-and-tear that he recovered from more easily while he was taking

Doubt you can contain Chavis in the minors all year. If he's not with the team by the All Star Break I'll be shocked, barring some pretty serious regression to the mean. Good bats are hard to find, especially when they come with a solid glove. I think Devers might eat his way out of the third baseman's role or at least never keep his weight in line enough to be fully productive there, similar to Miggy or the Beltbuster. I would be fine with a move to first base, assuming a moderate uptick in his offensive production -- remembering that a lot of guys who were moderately decent at third flourished at first and wound up improving on both sides of the ball, examples like Jeff Bagwell and Kevin Youkilis spring to mind, so it's hardly unprecedented.

If I had a rookie catcher who I was trying to ease into the league, I'd love a guy like Leon to back up for him. One thing I'm sure about, more people are interested in Sandy Leon as a catcher than were interested 12 months ago. Personally though, there is no controversy. We don't have a problem at catcher right now. Leon and Vazquez are our 2 catchers and they'll split time between them. That was good enough to win a Championship last year -- in a year where both of them produced way below their career levels. Regression to the mean plays out in favor of the incumbents. I for one am happy to leave it at that. Defense is FAR more important than offense at that particular position and both Leon and Vazquez give us reason to be confident in them defensively. If they can shoehorn Swihart into the roster somehow they probably will. If they can't I doubt they'll lose any sleep over having to DFA him.

Xander's quite heavy for a SS and his range took a step backwards this year. The bat still makes it an excellent overall package, but there's a decent chance that Xander does the Ernie Banks/John Valentin/Rico Petrocelli thing and has to move to the corners as he gets older.