mvp 78

See everyone, the esteemed Vinnie Boombatz found nothing! Rest assured that the starting rotation is in good hands.

Paxton had a 2/10M contract. Giolito's is now 3/52.5 contract if the Sox pick up the '26 option (Gio not pitching 140 innings in '25).

If they can get starting pitching prospects with upside, you jump on those trades. If O'Neillll gets hot, you start asking around. I think I'd be likely to keep Pivetta around at least until the deadline. If he's pitching great, maybe you talk about an extension.

AA Opening Day is April 5th.

+1 great season!

Oh, so most likely the injury is new then? Not something from last year?

As someone who espoused it as a potential cause, I never said it was the sole reason or the clear reason, just a potential reason. Still seems fair for me to say? Still seems fair for me to say that nobody on here was mentioning that there was potentially an underlying injury?

No, going through a divorce is really easy mentally. I'm sure he was fine with it. Plus being sent off to two different teams when he had spent his whole career in Chicago.

No, but I don't see Henry spending a lot of money on a team that has no chance to make the playoffs. I see him spending a little more just to get the team to not wreak some young arms.

Can Henry afford insurance these days?

He also ostensibly throws a ball in the offseason while working out. He knows there is an incentive to coming back stronger and making up for his poor performance last year. He could have injured himself at any point working out this offseason from overthrowing. It's not like pitchers only get hurt in games and then get put in a cryogenic freezer.

No chance for Monty. Greater chance for a lesser buy low arm like Lorenzen or whoever to just get you through the year.

He really just blew up his final two starts. 3 IP, 8 ER 6 IP, 5 ER The three prior starts were fine enough.

I guess. Hoping for a team that is near playoff turns to hoping for a team that is watchable.

From OTM today: Hell, John Henry might be sitting in the owners box at JetBlue Park right now, smugly cackling about his instinct to never give big money to a pitcher over 30 being proven right once again. It’s been reported, going way back to the failed Jon Lester negotiations, that Henry is more scared of aging pitchers than he is of Winter Weekend. But we’re now in year five of John Henry’s grand experiment to limit the risk of pitching injuries by, essentially, not signing any quality pitchers at all, and the results speak for themselves. Because the fact is that you cannot avoid this. It will happen no matter what team-building strategy you employ, and the smart thing for the third-richest team in the sport to do would be to use its resources to be even more aggressive in adding elite pitching, knowing that it can absorb the inevitable injuries better than 27 other teams. But the Sox have chosen a different path. And by being so afraid of pitching injuries, the Red Sox have made themselves more vulnerable to them than any other team in the American League East.

80 wins now turns to 75 wins or whatever? It wasn't looking pretty before.

Hindsight is 20/20. I don't remember injury question marks coming up when he was signed. Easy to do a little dance about it now though.

At least a lot of the games are broadcast on MLB.tv.

I think the rotational depth stinks, but the reliever depth is very strong. With Giolito getting injured, they are relying on Whitlock to stay in the rotation all year. That doesn't seem likely to me. I think we'll end up seeing starts from Murphy, Walter, Criswell and maybe Gambrell before the ASB. Henry isn't adding to this ballclub.

What's left to sell?

Depending on how long Giolito is out, the Sox have a team option for '26 if Gio pitches less than 140 Innings, which could be likely at this point.

Henry ain't spending on that.

Perfect for moon.

It could have been fine before they signed him? Who knows?

DFA Crag.