mvp 78

They aren't signing Ohtani.

I don't think the other Fenway Sports Group entities get in the way of the Red Sox. If Bloom was left to run things on his own, the Sox may be in a better place. He probably wouldn't have gone over the CBT last season.

No.

I don't think the Evil Empire stuff came from Henry. I think all that stuff was from Larry and Tom.

I want Henry to stop railing against Steve Cohen and to spend money like a big market club. Baseball players are expensive. If he doesn't want to pay them and blame the CBA that he agreed on, he needs to finds something else to do. He has never complained about the small market teams pocketing millions of dollars and not paying players or fielding AAAA teams. I'm not sure he really sees what is wrong with MLB today.

Verdugo is already mediocre. OFer fWAR 2020-22: 16th Mike Yastrzemski 17th Chris Taylor 18th Trent Grisham 19th Whit Merrifield 20th Kyle Schwarber (basically a DH, so loses value) 21st Julio Rodriguez (one year) 22nd Alex Verdugo 23rd Dylan Carlson 24th Myles Straw 25th Jesse Winker 26th Christian Yelich 27th Hunter Renfroe 34th in HR 29th in BB% 37th in ISO 23rd in wOBA

But he provides such great insight!

They are going to piggyback two of the starters somehow. Whitlock and Paxton? Most likely, one of the guys has an injury by the time Paxton or Whitlock is ready to take on fulltime innings.

Well, every offseason there is more and more turnover. A good chunk of the core left this offseason.

I thought that last year.

The 2021 Sox had a lot of same players from a team that won 108 games and the WS in 2018.

To get under the CBT, they only needed to dump JD at the deadline for a low A guy.

Luis Robert: Injury held him out of most of the past two years Eloy Jimenez: Injury held him out of most of the past two years Yoan Moncada: Is blaming last years struggles on an injury Grandal: Won't play over 100 games at his age going forward Giolito: Needs to get his walk rate back down, but is likely to rebound With Robert and Jimenez, it will be about staying healthy for a full season. They are great players WHEN HEALTHY. I think the ChiSox caught fire in 2021 and everything came together for them. I don't see it happening again this year. Last year was a mess and they should be a bit better though. Maybe 84ish wins like the Red Sox.

Barrel % 19 5.7 20 6.4 21 7.3 22 6.0 EV 19 89.4 20 87 21 90 22 89.1 Launch Angle 19 9.0 20 5.4 21 7.7 22 8.4 After bulking up (against Red Sox orders), he still was only in the 50th percentile in Exit Velo in 2022. If he wants to get to 20 HR's, he may have to switch home ballparks.

A unique ranking of the Sox Prospects. Has a good breakdown for 30+ guys above DSL. If you want to read more about Philip Sikes than you have before, give it a shot. https://samfederman.medium.com/2023-boston-red-sox-top-30-prospects-245637cce08d Also of note, I do not rank players who have only appeared in the Dominican Summer League, as there’s simply too little information. Freili Encarnacion would likely find his way into the top 15 if he were being ranked. Ages are listed as of July 1st, 2023.

Ignoring 2020, which we all like to do anyway. He's a 2 fWAR guy. Why aren't the Sox treating Alex Verdugo similarly? Help me understand it!

I think they'll end up in 4th place, but be close enough to the WC that viewers are interested in mid-September. I don't think they will be a boring 4th place team, just a weird one full of guys that we'll look back on and say "remember when HE was a Red Sox that one year? Weird!"

Kiké was a good player before he came to the Sox. Refsnyder plays horrible defense and people shouldn't expect a 146 wRC+ this season (394 BABIP). Strahm was fine, but he was just an adequate middle reliever. He wasn't some godsend. What did Hill do that was unexpected? Why did he dump Renfroe? It doesn't make sense. Wacha was a 1.5 fWAR guy last year. What was so great about it? I don't understand.

Most likely to happen, the importance of, or what their actual expectations are? They aren't going to be 1st in tickets or tv viewers, just because of the stadium size and market. It's close to an impossibility, but they can be towards the top. I'll try to order based on their expectation for the season I guess? 4th Place > Wild Card > Sales Top 3 > TV Top 3 > 2 wins from WS > Ring > #1 Draft Pick

That doesn't even make sense. C'mon man. Chang would be the 2B if Arroyo was injured. The other 2B on the 40 man: Hamilton Valdez I honestly would have moved Duran back to 2B last Spring Training because of how bad his defense was progressing. I don't think it's going to happen at this point though. Turner has played 2B, but that's basically ancient history at this point, but about as ancient history as the 1B innings as we are also banking on. The idea of Connor Wong fielding 2B has a little merit, but Sox also may just want him to just strictly focus on receiving. He has played 2B in the minors. I'm not saying Bloom's plan is great for 2B. I think he's trying to make a bridge to either Story getting healthy or Rafaela getting promoted. I don't think this sets up the Sox for success in the short term. Relying on oft injured Arroyo and Mondesi seems like a bad bet. Why not just pair Iggy and Chang rather than Arroyo and Mondesi? There is less upside, but at least you'll be able to field the position and the floor will not be as low. Bloom seems to get stuck on waiting for a player's upside. It's a fools errand IMO.

C - McGuire/Wong - ok 1B - Casas - ok 2B - Arroyo - ok SS - Kiké - ? 3B - Devers - ok RF - Verdugo - ? CF - Duvall - should be corner OF LF - Yoshida - ? The only guy really out of position is Duvall. I definitely don't count 5 guys out of position even if you question Kiké at SS (who plays a decent SS), Verdugo in RF (was the Opening Day RFer in 2020) and Yoshida is a LFer. Yoshida DH'd in Japan because their defensive standards are much higher than ours. He'll be better than some of the defensive scrubs we've thrown out there (Manny, Schwarber, et al). He won't be terrible, he'll be ok.

Those puppies were some bad hombres. It wasn't safe for the neighborhood.

The only surprising turn of events for me recently is that Tom Werner is no longer on my list of Red Sox villains. I'm glad to know that he's constantly pushing for a higher payroll and wants to win the WS every year.

Red Sox only need a few weeks of distractions. Bill O'Brien may make a few teams surprised early on. The offense was pretty good the last time he was around.

@SmittyOnMLB Red Sox’s Sam Kennedy on 2023 projected standings: ‘They’re usually wrong’ They were right in 2020 and 2022. So I guess Sam Kennedy is usually wrong?