mvp 78

Not horrible, but not great when tied to a 50M contract.

I think it has more to do with his overall unexciting performance in '25 that includes his AAA season as well. For example, Jackson Holliday went back to AAA last season, but put up numbers and had good underlying metrics. That probably didn't affect his value at all. What Campbell is doing this season definitely affects his value negatively (mediocre performance, bad metrics).

The Sox will be in the final game of the second series of the year by the time April comes around. Is Cincinnati a nice place to be outdoors the middle of March?

Zack Kelly!

I think people aren't saying the Sox need someone after Crochet, but a pitcher that is a #2 type (i.e. top 50 starter) that can fit alongside Crochet and Bello going forward. Pitching wins championships, right?

His swing is still ugly as hell and he can't play a lick of defense. AAA stats '24 EV 88.2, 46.2 Hard Hit %, 21.2 k%, 15.3 bb% '25 EV 84.0, 28.1 Hard Hit %, 26.9 k%, 12.6 bb% He still has some value, but a lot of his game is trending in the wrong direction this season.

It shouldn't have been that much of a surprise. Moving Buehler was announced by Cora prior to the game on Friday night. They talked about it on the broadcast and it was posted on here.

Crochet and Bello are sure things. My worry is that the rest of the rotation will be question marks. Sandoval and Dobbins will be both coming off injuries and it's hard to know what you're going to get post rehab. Same story for Kutter Crawford, but he was even a back end of the rotation guy when healthy. Tolle is exciting, but I wouldn't expect him to all of a sudden be a #3 right out of the box. There's usually an adjustment period with young guys no matter how talented. Criswell will be completely out of options next season, so I think he'll no longer be on the team. Fitts has been ok, but isn't a consistent 5-6 innings guy as his stuff slips as he gets later on in games. Houck is out. Harrison has pitched like Buehler for the most part (very high walk rate, doesn't go long). Hard to see what he'll look like coming into next season. Maybe he can figure it out and be a part of the rotation, but it's still a question mark for now. I wouldn't be surprised if Early got quite a few starts next season. #1 Crochet #2 Bello #3 Acquisition #4 Sandoval #5 Tolle Depth: Dobbins, Harrison, Crawford, Fitts, Early I think that looks a lot better than if they don't acquire another starter and have to rely on one of the depth starters for 20+ starts right off the bat.

They can trade Witherspoon once the offseason starts. It's the same way they traded Montgomery to CHW last season in the Crochet deal.

Last year at this time: NY/CLE/HOU - DIV BAL/MIN/KC - WC What changed between that point and postseason? DET went on a crazy run (21-10) and MIN fell off (10-22).

With 400M in debt to pay off, the Twinkies could end up being at the bottom fairly soon. The Pohlads were willing to have the Twins contracted back in 2001 because they didn't believe they could make money off the market they were in.

Seems like the teams behind the 3rd WC spot are further out than they have been in the past few years. CLE just went 1-9. TEX have gone 6-12 to fall under .500. KC is still hovering around .500 and are the closest competitor to the WC race in the AL. Good pitching, but really bad on the other side of the ball.

The broke Twins also don't want to be locked into the MLB salaries of Duran and Campbell.

But they went 1-5 against the Angels! If you exclude blowouts, the Sox have a ZERO run differential and are 1 game over .500. Game over man, game over!

Nobody knows how Crochet will perform in the big market spotlights of the postseason. Nobody knows how any of the current BoSox will perform. It's a completely untested group.

We've seen really bad SS defense the past few years so we get excited at seeing average SS defense. This makes us confused as to why the metrics just look mediocre. His average defense is just a lot better than we've witnessed at the position for several years.

Yup. "But he hasn't even done anything yet."

Duran, Witherspoon and Early?

Never listen to Boston talking heads. They get paid for bad takes and to upset people.

Bernardino opens followed by Fitts.

That's not enough for Ryan TBH.

Clark had a 268 BA in the 80's. He was strictly an OBP guy, back when nobody talked about OBP. 3rd in BB's in the 80's behind Rickey and Dewey. 94 IBB's too!