mvp 78

The Braves 2025 amount in the new contract is less than the Sox' club option for 2025, plus they get an option for 2026.

@redsoxstats Numbers Grissom 5 O'Neill 17 Campbell 44 Giolito 54 Weissert 57 Castillo 61 Slaten 63 Criswell 64

Henry can't afford him. He's going to LA for the largest manager contract in MLB in '25 if the Dodgers don't win the WS this year.

Roberto Perez - great defensive catcher, injured a lot Mark Kolozsvary - solid defensive catcher, would fill in as 3rd catcher if Perez is injured Mickey Gaspar - obligatory former Yankee signing, capable catcher and fields multiple spots, good clubhouse guy, AAA ceiling

When you are neck and neck with Rich Hill for Innings, it's not a good thing.

Rafaela CF Abreu RF Duran/O'Neill LF Masa DH Refsnyder only appears against tough LHP and then is sent to the showers whenever a RHP warms up. There, it's settled.

The bench isn't really the problem with this team at the moment. 1. Rotation 2. Catching 3. Defensive deficiencies overall 4. LHB heavy 5. OF rotation questions, Masa to DH fulltime? 6. Health of Duran, O'Neill and Story 7. Expecting bouncebacks or improvements from Raffy, Story, Grissom, Casas, Masa, O'Neill, Rafaela, McGuire

Dalbec did get substantial run in the OF in the second half in WOO (36 starts in RF). Some astute posters were calling for that for a long while.

Abreu can play all 3 OF spots. Duran is CF/LF. Rafaela is CF. O'Neill has a strong arm and decent speed. He could probably play RF/LF. Refsnyder really is LF only with that horrible glove.

Valdez can only play 2B. They now have a fulltime 2B. Where would Valdez play to even get parttime AB's? Most of the other DH options are LHB as well. He's either gone or languishing in AAA. Why worry about a 0.3 fWAR guy like Valdez though? Right now, the option is Dalbec. They need to find a better option somehow. They had that guy last year in Justin Turner and they haven't replaced him.

If they need a backup 1b and 3b, it would be Dalbec. Maybe they move one of the OFers and make room for Dalbec out there as well.

Right now, the picture is still unsettled, but it looks like Reyes would be the bench UTIL guy. He played 1B last year for a few innings. It's better than nothing. Reyes has much more usefulness throughout the diamond too so he makes more sense for the 26 man roster than Valdez. Yes, Reyes is listed as shorter than Valdez, but his arms are much longer.

It'll be Pablo Reyes for now. Valdez is in AAA or traded.

Compares favorably to Richards, Seabold and Kluber. Ok? Those pitchers flat out sucked.

If Crag extended Sale this offseason, I'm sure we'd all be very rational about it!

I was willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt until the Mookie stuff went down. That really broke my brain. I wanted to believe that Bloom could pick up the pieces after the fact and that ownership was just in dire need of resetting for the great good. However, it just seems to me that they are resetting just to save tax $$$. Henry sucks. I don't care about his checkbook. The Rays are the exception to the rule. Every team wants to be the Rays, but haven't figured it out. It's easy enough to say "let's do it that way" but they never got close even using the Rays Way guy. To me it just makes more sense for a bigger market team to follow what works for other big market teams, namely the Dodgers. Henry is just obsessed with how good Brad Pitt looked in the movie adaptation of Moneyball and can't get beyond it. Crag seems to have a certain set of skills that Bloom didn't have (pitching development, willingness to trade players). I'm somewhat hopeful, but will remain dubious about the overall ceiling going forward.

@BRWalkoff Blake Snell has privately expressed an interest in playing for the Yankees, per @martinonyc

I hope that Crag can be a better CBO than Bloom. I'm unsure how much money Henry will pump into the Sox going forward. Unfortunately, everything changed when they dealt Mookie.

Plus a club option for year 3.

We don't have anything better to do right now though. There's nothing else going on. Nobody is in Ft Myers working out. No games. He's one of the most recent transactions so he'll be the hot button topic for a little while.

If you need to use Richards, Kluber and Seabold to bolster your claim that Wacha is a good pitcher, I don't know what to say.

Nope, but can you blame us?

Just make sure to exclude any years that corrupt your sample into looking bad for your argument!

I know.

It would be the worst possible outcome. I don't think there's a chance though. It's more "interest kings" type nonsense.