Pivetta vs Plesac
Duran CF,
Refsnyder DH,
Verdugo LF,
Bogaerts SS,
Vázquez C,
Cordero 1B,
Dalbec 3B,
Bradley RF,
Sánchez 2B
NGL, if you gave me this lineup at the end of 2020, it may have sounded intriguing.
@alexspeier
Red Sox signings of first rounder Mikey Romero and second rounder Cutter Coffey are official. Romero gets a $2.3M bonus and Coffey gets $1.8475M.
Romero is amost $700k under, Coffey about $50k under.
The problems:
Dalbec never got hot.
Kiké got hurt.
JBJ is still terrible.
Verdugo has a good statcast, but the hits aren't falling in.
The starting pitching that had injury question marks became injury exclamation points.
Story didn't acclimate to the AL quickly.
Barnes didn't get fixed in the offseason.
Whitlock/Houck weren't given fixed positions.
Xander/JD/Raffy/Vaz were good.
Yes, Refsnyder not being a FT player right now is the only odd decision. He's at least capable out there. Cordero can really shove your nose in it from time to time.
SB's in the low minors are really easy. His 813 OPS in Low A is fine at 19. From a physical standpoint, he's not going to get any more developed as any additional weight would push him to corner OF. Top 50? I'm not going to get overly upset about. I just am not sold on him having a huge ceiling. I'd be quick to sell on him before something happens. I don't think he's a prospect who gets dealt and then has a HOF career elsewhere.
@BostonStrong_34
From The Sports Business Journal; The Boston Red Sox and MassMutual are in agreement on a 10 year deal worth $170-200 Million to be the official patch on the Red Sox jersey starting next season.
But how can they afford Xander and Raffy??????????????????????????/
Also, Duran's bad defense has been a known issue. I've been saying he sucks in CF for a long time, but some posters wanted to just put him there anyway.
Hard to blame him for having Cordero at 1b or Downs at 3b. Downs hadn't played 3b at all in his professional career until this month. Cordero is just a bad fielder. Cora can't fix that.
Xander and Devers both made big strides in the field this year. If we're going to beat up Cora for bad defense, need to at least thank him for turning those two around.
I'm not sure it matters what JH cares about. Just give the Sox a certain amount of $$$ and let someone else handle it. I don't want him getting in the way.
And the early word is that Raffy is going to be out longer than 10 days. When the narrative is that Xander and Raffy have played their last game together, it's hard not to be slightly upset. Sorry for not being a baseball automaton.