mvp 78

https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/gl.fcgi?id=verlaju01&t=p&post=1 Seems like he has a 13-11 record?

Personally, I'd rather they not rely on an oft-injured guy like Paxton. As we saw in 2022, there is value in just going out there and being able to take the mound every fifth day. Blake Snell is an interesting guy, but he usually misses a few weeks every year too. I'm all in on getting a young starter in here.

I agree that Bloom would be better suited to be active in the trade market. It's just harder to project those types of acquisitions. A guy like Cooper would make sense. Miami could also use Hosmer at the vet minimum for a few years plus whatever else the Sox hand over. Kim would be a nice addition. I think he'd cost more than the Sox would be willing to give up for only 2 years of service.

This did not work as planned.

Good call, he could have latched onto a team that didn't end up in last and the Sox could have gotten a better draft pick since their rotation would have been even worse.

Biggest changes to this forecast were Sale -19, Houck -19 and Eovaldi -10. That's a lot of starts to hand over to Winckowski +14, Crawford +12, Bello +11 and Seabold +5.

JD ended at 789 for those keeping track at home. iOrtiz: 1 ZiPS/Steamer: 0

It's a good thing we're not paid to run the Red Sox then.

None of us has insider knowledge. We're all in the dark. We can make educated guesses about what the Sox may do, but even people in the media who have direct access to Bloom barely have more of a clue than we do. This is all just for fun and nothing to take seriously.

I've already said that the Sox would do the Sale trade again 10/10 times. That's not the question.

How many playoff series has he won?

Sox starting pitchers that saw significant time on the IL: Sale, Eovaldi, Wacha, Hill... I don't think every postseason team can claim that.

They added pieces, but had much more IL time in 2022 (Story, Eovaldi, Wacha, Hill, Kiké, Devers, Houck, Whitlock). In 2021, they had a largely injury free year. https://www.overthemonster.com/2021/10/26/22746015/boston-red-sox-starting-pitching-injury-nathan-eovaldi-eduardo-rodriguez-nick-pivetta-tanner-houck Rotation health was the engine that drove Boston’s surprising success It was the biggest surprise and provided key stability. I’m not sure if you heard the news, but the Red Sox were a much better team than anyone expected before the season. The projection systems largely saw this team maxing out their win total somewhere in the mid-80s, and speaking personally I was even lower, predicting they would finish the season below .500. We know what happened instead, and there were a lot of reasons for it. We’re surely going to dig deeper into some specific points where real life diverged with the projection systems for the 2021 Red Sox, but to me there was one big picture quality that led them to their heights above all else. The starting pitching health for this team was both the biggest surprise for this roster as well as the most important factor for their surprising overall success. Even before the season with my low prediction, it was with the specification that there was no way this rotation was going to stay healthy. That is not to pat myself on the back because my prediction was still extremely wrong, but rather to illustrate how it was essentially a foregone conclusion that this team was going to suffer blows to their rotation hitting the injured list. Instead, none of their main five starting pitchers hit the non-COVID injured list. That certainly is not a reason the team can care a little bit less about starting pitching depth, something that presumably would not enter their mind. It’s hard not to give the organization some credit here for succeeding where so many other teams did not in 2021, and where they really didn’t have any right succeeding given the injury history of the pitchers in question. But even if it was just a lucky year, at the very least it played a major role in giving us much more entertainment than we were expecting in the late summer and into the fall.

The only guys in the organization from your list aside from Devers when Kopech was here were Mata and DHern. I'd trade both of them for Kopech. Aside from Devers, the rest of that group is still largely a bunch of question marks. What do you think DD's thoughts were on 26th round Walter right before he was let go in 2019? Do you think he even knew what position he played?

I'm not saying he's going to win the CY tomorrow, but which pitcher that was in the organization at the time Kopech was traded is better than Kopech right now? The top 20 at the time: Groome Kopech B. Johnson Raudes Ball Ysla Shawaryn Martin Seems like the pitching depth at the time was bad and they traded the only guy in the organization that could have helped them in the near future.

If Margot was still in the organization, they wouldn't have felt the need to bring JBJ back. Did they have to? Of course not. But they needed to fill those roles with players outside of the organization. They just chose the wrong player in that instance. Margot made $5.6M in 2023, has a good glove and isn't an embarrassment at the plate. If they put Story's money into pitching, who plays 2b? If Arroyo is out for half of a season, are they going to give Downs 80 games of run? They did sign 3 Starting Pitchers last offseason: Paxton, Hill and Wacha. Their relief acquisitions were less than ideal, but I'm guessing you're throwing money at Jansen or Iglesias?

Bloom only has a top 10 farm because he hasn't traded prospects and lucked into the best prospect in a recent draft. I don't think anyone thinks he has a magical touch. They just prefer his philosophy. DD was exactly what the Sox needed at that point in time. They had a young core that were in a window and ready to explode. He made the great Red Sox team of all time. The biggest problem was what he did after the WS win (Eovaldi contract and Sale contract). We spend time talking about him trading off prospects because this is a baseball forum and we don't have anything else to talk about. He made some bad deals (Thornburg) and had a propensity to throw in an extra prospect at the end of a deal just to push it over the finish line. This isn't an issue short term, but it's part of the reason the Sox have struggled recently. Again, flags fly forever and you can't diminish what DD did in 2018.

It's a little from Column A and a little from Column B.

Which pitching prospect did we hold onto that was desirable at the time that is now better than Kopech?

We probably could have started this thread earlier in the season, but whatever. What are the moves you are expecting? Is Xander going to re-sign? Is Bloom going to get a good corner OF? Who gets a QO? Which FA's are going to be targeted? C - Sox are probably good with McGuire and Wong 1B - Sox stick with Casas/Hosmer/Dalbec, maybe one gets traded 2B - I think this is Story's position for the next few years SS - I want to say that the Sox do the right thing and figure out a way to keep Xander, they can move him off position (3B/LF) if Mayer ever earns the spot 3B - Sox MUST extend Raffy this offseason RF - Sox fans want Nimmo, I think Bloom targets Haniger CF - Kiké LF - Verdugo DH - I don't think they replace JD with a fulltime DH, I think they rotate it with Dalbec/Hosmer/Arroyo/Refsnyder/et al SP - Sale/Paxton(Sox pick up the 2 year option)/Pivetta/Whitlock/Hill/Bello RP - High Leverage FA/Houck/Schreiber/Barnes/Kelly/FA/FA/German So my assumption seems to be 3 RP's (one high leverage/late inning guy), Haniger in RF, re-sign Hill and pick up Paxton's option. The only thing I can't pin my finger on is whether of not they re-sign Xander. I think they should, but it's probably 50/50. If they don't re-sign him, they'll need to either sign Swanson for similar money or trade for a CF/SS. The remaining FA options are either out of their price range or just not interesting IMO.

Yankees fans count the ones from before they were born too.

It's not "major" losses, but the totality of it is what causes the Sox to have to bring JBJ back, find a bunch of pitchers off the scrap heap, etc. Not having appropriate depth at the upper minors and younger cheap talent really hamstrung the Sox from 2020 - 2022.

Also, NESN will be much worse without Remy and Eck.

Brooms.