mvp 78

Carl Crawford DRS per year: 03 10 04 14 05 12 06 5 07 -2 08 11 09 19 10 8 "glorified platoon bat"

David Ortiz's OPS against RHP was 200 points higher than vs LHP, CC's was only 100. Is he a glorified platoon bat?

If we're lumping Wikelman, Perales and Monegro that close together, it's bad news for Perales. It's not the first time I've heard him called a bullpen arm. That bb rate is bad. Him and Wikelman have work to do this year.

"Abreu had a weird 2022 season, walking and striking out at very high rates so that 46 percent of his plate appearances ended in one or the other, and without a ton of other production as a result. His approach ticked up in 2023 as he moved to Triple A — the automatic ball-strike system (ABS) may have helped, although scouts saw a real difference here — and he got to way more power, enough that he’s probably going to be a regular for someone in an outfield corner. He’s got a cannon of an arm for right, and while I think he’s overstretched in center, if he plays there he might end up a 4-WAR player." The guys on the SoxProspects podcast have said as much from time to time about certain players. Umpiring at the lower levels is so awful that it really hurts players with good batting eye. A player like Abreu may take a bunch of called third strikes that would be balls with ABS.

@JustinMLB Steamer projects Yoshida to be a 120 wRC+ hitter in 2024 .292/.362/.461 with a .354 wOBA 18-20 homers as well. That would be tremendous. This would be similar to how Seiya Suzuki and Matsui both had second year bounce backs that I've noted before. Their bounce backs were a little higher than this projection, but I'd take it.

Did you want to see Giolito throwing at ST? https://twitter.com/alexspeier/status/1757067736012738624

CC was fine. The signing just didn't work out. Excessive was signing Hanley AND Panda because it made no sense.

Shake him down for some $$$.

I've heard that Brannon has "light tower power" but that his defense is still a work in progress. Seems like the other catchers just passed him by. I'm not sure I've even seen any highlights of Castro, but he's a guy that some evaluators are getting high on. We'll see how he develops this year.

If he was a versatile defender, he'd be closer to a top 10 guy.

None of us know what the budget is or why it is the way it is. Maybe Theo will be able to right that ship.

I don't think Sam makes any decisions. He's just the mouthpiece for Henry. Henry just isn't around, so he's there to play the telephone game for everyone.

After getting the 2nd WS, I think he started chasing the dragon. That 2007 team was home grown that included a trade for an ace pitcher for a prospect. I don't think he really got out of whack and it's really overstated what happened in 2011. I think some of the players just aged out and there were a few bad drafts 08-10. I think it was all fixable. Just signing Crawford wasn't the end of the world. Even trading for AGon is something that a big club like the Red Sox should be able to do. We saw that they were able to compete for a WS two years later with basically the same team and a few FA's. The next core was the 2011 draft class. Theo would have been fine. He just got in his head and probably needed Larry out of the equation.

I don't think Theo will be cooking, but letting Theo being the sounding board for Crag. Maybe Crag gets more of a chance to run with stuff and can work directly with Theo rather than having to worry about going to Henry? IDK. It's hard to know what the inner workings will be. I doubt Theo will be doing any day to day stuff aside from Executive Mgmt.

I think the budget is supposed to be 215M, or that is what was suggested. Cots has them at 190M as of today.

And then Henry passing the buck if it fails after the fact. "It was them, not me."

@tylermilliken_ . @keithlaw with some serious praise for Yoeilin Cespedes in his Red Sox farm system rankings: “Cespedes might be their next superstar hitting prospect if what we saw in the DSL carries over to the US.” Some view him as the best bat since Devers to come through the DSL.

I think Abreu at 5 is high, but he showed a lot in his big league debut. Who knows? Maybe he continues to impress? Hamilton is probably about right because of his success at AAA and his overall running game. He probably could settle in as a bench spot somewhere in MLB. He seems to have a high floor because of that one tool.

The biggest fault we saw last year was that nearly every pitcher sucked once they got to AAA. The AAA catchers were all awful (Scott, Afaro, Hamilton, Hernandez). This year, they are going with some defensive first guys that can actually work with the pitchers and help them develop (Perez, Heineman, Kolozsvary). They also have new pitching and bullpen coaches for AAA in '24. For reference, there were no changes for the pitching coaches at Portland or Greenville.

They had a really great thing going under Theo, but trashed the whole enterprise after one bad season. It was the dumbest decision Henry ever made. He should have overpaid to keep Theo around and kept Tito as well. Ben single handedly set the org back 5 years with his bad drafting and IFA shenanigans. After a season and a half of bad baseball, Henry decided Ben's build from within approach didn't work (even though we saw additions of Xander, Mookie, JBJ, etc.). DD came in and used all the leftover assets to make a push to compete at the MLB level and ignore the farm. This blew up everything that Theo had originally built. Expecting Bloom to come in and fix the farm while competing was kind of foolish. The farm depth has gotten better, but the pitching is still a mess. I'm hopeful that Crag can push the pitching development forward and that the org is back to what it was in the Theo days. You're right, it's like Henry is bipolar or whatever. He just needs to stay out of it IMO. There are too many voices in the FO. Maybe that settles down now that it's Theo and Crag?

I agree, it's just why some evaluators may have him higher than the prospects we like. It just seems like an impossible task for someone to have to rank every 40 FV prospect from every team. Even if that's your full time job, that's a herculean task. Some of the quibbles with Kiley: Castro is LOW I'd have Garcia higher Arias at 15??? Brannon at 16 ahead of Garcia???

Probably 75% this season and 25% the future of the ballclub, as in how most fans apportion their feelings towards what they care about.

They have sold us on sustainability since the Theo days. We're still waiting on that pipeline to be built. We're past the point of "a couple of bad seasons" when it's 4 of 5 seasons below .500 potentially. Sox haven't been this bad since before 1967!!! The dark days that everyone talked about pre-Impossible Dream are back. They knew a tear down was coming. It should have happened completely and suddenly, not over the course of 4-5 seasons. Just rip the band-aid off. The roster doesn't "suck" but it's not good enough to be a playoff team. It's good enough to be around .500. That's fine for the Marlins, not for the Red Sox.

Matt Dermody?

The thing with Blaze is that he'll be 21 this year. He's very young as he was drafted as a 17 year old. He still has time to develop the monster power people anticipated. Best fit for him going forward may be LF though. He had an 899 OPS vs LHP in AA. I'm not super high on him, but he still has a ceiling he can get to.