mvp 78

Whenever Rafaela is moved into the IF, his season tanks. It's not worth it. He seems to not thrive there. Why keep on forcing an issue than hasn't worked the previous two seasons?

Then keep Duran and deal Rafaela. Rafaela doesn't have MLB value at MIF.

Rafaela career Outs Above Average: 2B: 0 (221 Innings) SS: -8 (692 Innings) CF: 22 (1,167 Innings) Rafaela's only value is playing CF.

Aaron Judge is homegrown. Sox could have signed Fried, Rodon or Cole, but chose not to. LAD and NYY traded or signed franchise level players. BOS trades them away. 🤔

Guarantee they could get rid of Sandoval and have someone take his full contract. Moving Hicks or Masa wouldn't be as big of a deal as people make it out to be. Henry just doesn't want to eat the salary.

I'm not sure they are really protecting themselves as I don't think many people are buy what they are selling at this point. If they are shopping from the bargain bins yet again, people aren't going to feel bad for them acting like they are the Sisters of the Poor.

And fans will be pissed because they all want two bats and believe Breslow promised two bats. This is why he should STFU and stop saying so much gobbledygook.

There are no set cycles, just bad management. In the last 30 years, the Yankees have been below .500 ZERO times. They've only missed the playoffs 5 times. The Red Sox have the same finances but REFUSE to use them. To blame the success of the Yankees and Dodgers on finances is giving John Henry and easy out.

Not in the IF he doesn't.

Trade Sandoval - 9M Trade 1/2 Masa's contract - 9M That saves you more than making the other deal.

Is it really a record number?

I don't know the point in paying for a TJS guy to rehab and have an up and down year afterwards. It'd make more sense to pay cheaply for the year AFTER rehab plus an additional year to get the benefit of a healthy pitcher rather than what they are doing now.

So the cliff was just when they decided to stop spending?

It could have. They CHOSE not to spend from '22 - '24. They CHOSE not to compete or make moves at the deadline. The '22 team was virtually the same team as the '21 team, they just didn't invest in it. When they spent money it was on JBJ, Masa and Story. 🤮

They are just going to sit around and hope a below market guy to fall into their laps. If they are lucky, Ryan O'Hearn is available in February, wants a one year deal and the market for Suarez never developed. Under their dumb constraints, I would have just re-signed Bregman and brought in Hoskins. If another guy has his market crash, you'd be able to grab him too later on.

If that's the case, the Sox should be all in on some of these FA guys and not care about the last 2-3 years of the contract. Pack the guys in now and make the run. It's not what they are doing. Henry seems very hesitant to do much before the dumb 2027 lockout that we all know is coming.

Throw out the book when you are 29 and coming off TJS. The first year back can be a roller coaster.

Last year, the Sox went over the CBT by 4.7M. Sandoval's hit was 9M. They would have been under if they didn't sign him, a guy who provided nothing except take up an offseason 40 man roster spot. 🤔

Bennett will be either before or after Valera. I think the system is definitely not a top 10 anymore. However, they still have Tolle and Early at the top which look like two studs right now. All the rankings calculate differently. They may be higher on FanGraphs because of Tolle and Early and lower on others. There's a chance they could bounce back up midseason due to some of the 2025 college draftees (Eyanson, Phillips, Godbout), but we'll see.

I thought the issue was that DD didn't want to trade Mookie? Once that was the mandate, he was out.

I don't really see the "Justin Gonzales will be the RFer in 2028" on here, so I think those types of posts have kind of become passé. If anything, posters talk about guys that are very close to promotions and when they could contribute in the next year or so (Early, Tolle, etc.). I can be excited to talk about prospects and how a guy is doing in Salem, but it really doesn't mean I'm projecting them for a promotion to Boston at any point. It's two distinct parts of my fandom. Also, it was OWNERSHIP that was driving the youth movement recently and the idea of a Big Three. They put all their eggs in those guys and chose to hold off on acquiring FA's for a few years. They intentionally took a step back in '22, '23 and '24 to let that group develop at the expense of the big club. Should they have? Hell no. There's no reason to when you are bringing in that much revenue. You should be able to have prospects AND acquire FA's. But you can't blame fans for hoping that a youth movement will bring us out of the doldrums when that's all ownership allotted for us.

2020 barely counts as a season. What happened in 2021?

No.

He's a barely adequate 2b at the MLB level. He was an "average" ss in MiLB. Why would he all of a sudden be a better ss now?

Doesn't free up that much money and significantly takes away from the offense.