mvp 78

We'll see. They were planning on SS to start the year. Depends on what the rest of the roster looks like in June/July.

Who would they realistically sign this offseason to put them over the top? Starting Pitchers Matthew Boyd (33) Carlos Carrasco (37) Mike Clevinger (33) Alex Cobb (36) – $10MM club option with a $2MM buyout* Johnny Cueto (38) – $10.5MM club option with a $2.5MM buyout Zach Davies (31) Jack Flaherty (28) Chris Flexen (29) Kyle Gibson (36) Lucas Giolito (29) Sonny Gray (34) Zack Greinke (40) Andrew Heaney (33) – $13MM+ player option with a $500K buyout Kyle Hendricks (34) – $16MM club option with a $1.5MM buyout Rich Hill (44) Jakob Junis (31) Brad Keller (28) Corey Kluber (38) – $11MM club option Clayton Kershaw (36) Michael Lorenzen (32) Seth Lugo (34) – $7.5MM player option Lance Lynn (37) – $18MM club option with a $1MM buyout* Kenta Maeda (35) Tyler Mahle (29) Sean Manaea (32) – can opt out of remaining one year and $12.5MM German Marquez (29) – $16MM club option with a $2.5MM buyout Nick Martinez (33) – two-year, $32MM club option; if declined, two-year, $16MM player option Wade Miley (37) – $10MM mutual option with a $1MM buyout Frankie Montas (31) Jordan Montgomery (31) Charlie Morton (40) – $20MM club option (no buyout) Aaron Nola (31) Jake Odorizzi (34)* Shohei Ohtani (29) James Paxton (34) Martin Perez (33)* Eduardo Rodriguez (31) – can opt out of remaining three years and $49MM* Hyun-Jin Ryu (37)* Luis Severino (30) Max Scherzer (39) – can opt out of remaining one year, $43,333,334* Blake Snell (31) Ross Stripling (34) – can opt out of remaining one year, $12.5MM Marcus Stroman (33) – can opt out of remaining one year, $21MM* Noah Syndergaard (31)* Jose Ureña (32) – $4.5MM club option with a $500K buyout Julio Urias (27) Vince Velasquez (32) Michael Wacha (32) – two-year, $32MM club option; if team declines, Wacha has $6.5MM player option (contract also contains $6MM player options in 2025-26) Luke Weaver (30) Alex Wood (33) I don't see them getting Nola out of Philly, outbidding everyone on Ohtani, or the Dodgers on Urias. Maybe they can get Giolito? He's still the #2 IMO and not a true ace like Pedro, Roger, early Sale.

The Astros had a good rotation long before Vaz showed up.

Maybe the pitchers are just sucking eggs early on in the season and it's not the catchers' fault?

He'll get CERA bombed by McGuire!

To play 2b, right?

No idea.

At least Ben Cherington had the decency to trade expiring contracts of a last place team.

If this is a directive from Henry, why have the most recent Sox drafts been hitter focused at the top of the draft? 2022: Romero, Coffey, Anthony 2021: Mayer, Fabian, McDonough 2020: Yorke, Jordan

I would like to trust one source, but I don't know what it would be right now. Oh well.

The pen has been good (aside from DFA candidates Brasier and Ort) and the offense has been good. Maybe he needs to focus on the rotation at some point? IDK, it just seems like a plan that isn't working well.

You said: You can't do that for bWAR. Only FanGraphs assigns a $ value to fWAR. There is no $ value to bWAR. Even the fWAR one isn't really meant to be taken seriously IMO. When you factor in injury prone pitchers, you also have to factor in the replacement level pitchers that will fill in for them.

Projected Total Tax Allocations: $214M (11th) Tax Threshold: $233M (7 teams are projected to be over: Mets, Yanks, Jays, Phillies, Pads, Doyers, Braves) It's interesting because the SoxProspect guys were saying they only had a few million to spend before they hit the cap and that's part of the reason they didn't want to add Alfaro. Not sure how accurate Spotrac's projections are.

NL East Standings: Braves 3-1 Mets 3-2 Nats 1-3 Marlins 1-4 Phillies 0-4

It certainly doesn't treat Hill very well! Where's the value on that signing?

Placekeeper for who? There's nobody close in the pipeline! It's not like they are waiting on the pitching version of Rafaela or Mayer or even Bleis.

Didn't moon have all these CERA stats to show that Vaz was a bad catcher? That's why he didn't like him?

On April 4, 2023, this appears to be correct. There is time for it to turn around, but it's UGLY right now. Crawford has a low ceiling. He is just an injury filler. He can be sent to AAA. Sale hasn't pitched competitively in a long time. He needs to figure out how to be a pitcher again. Kluber's velo was down in his first start. If it doesn't come back to what it was just last season, he could be toast. I think there's a better likelihood of him figuring it out than Sale or Crawford.

I disagree that his two signees did well. The average starting rotation had 12 fWAR. A team of 5 Hill's (the better fWAR player between the two FA's) would only have 9 fWAR. That's still basically the bad rotation the Sox had last season (8.6 fWAR).

He spent $18.5M and got 3.3 fWAR or $26.4M in value. WOW! He still didn't acquire a pitcher that had 2 fWAR! He still had a rotation that was 18th in the league and last in their division! He needs to be able to use his budget to build a competitive rotation. To this point, he hasn't been able to. It looks like he lucked into 2021.

They were 18th in fWAR. If they are injured throughout the season, it's partially due to roster construction. Not one starter last season had 2 fWAR. You can't build a rotation out of 1.5 fWAR guys. That's not good enough.

That doesn't fix what Brasier, Sale and Kluber did in the Orioles series. They would be on the roster if the other 5 pitchers were healthy.

Offense: 9th in K% 18th in BB% 5th in HR 1st in R 20th in SB (only 1) 4th in wRC+ Pitching 8th in K/9 24th in BB/9 28th in ERA 19th in xFIP Starting Pitching 2nd in K/9 27th in BB/9 30th in ERA 30th in xFIP

WOOSox game in Buffalo postponed due to bad field conditions. Bison's tarp ripped this weekend. They were gifted a secondary tarp by the Rochester Red Wings, but last night's rainwater leaked through it. Is McCoy available?

Bring back the 1985 Cardinals!