mvp 78

According to BTV, Masa is an overpay for Kim and Darvish. I'd do it though.

Sox should eat zero cash in any deal if they are hard up for money.

I think Masa has a solid year 2, but that's really just flushing Bloom down the toilet.

Sox need to "reduce payroll" and look into other areas before signing someone like Teoscar according to Rosenthal. Also need to "reduce payroll" before they sign another pitcher according to other reports. Who else is going to go?

Rosenthal states that Sox are open to trading Yoshida and have heard from a few teams about him.

Brad Keller projects at 0.2 fWAR. He doesn't get put on the list.

After Snell and Monty, it was last year's fWAR and then some guys tacked on at the end. I'd go (factoring in contract costs): Monty Stroman Woodruff Paxton Ryu Snell Clevinger Imanaga Kershaw German Greinke Lorenzen Bauer Urias Y Rodriguez Junis Manaea

@tylermilliken_ According to @JimBowdenGM, the finalist for Shota Imanaga are the Red Sox, Cubs, Angels, and Giants. He has until January 11th to make a decision on which big league team to sign with.

FA SP: Snell - rarely goes 130 innings Monty - horse, but is going to be overpaid, Sox should be able to afford Stroman - used to be Mr. Reliable but less innings the past two years Kershaw - LAD or TX only most likely Clevinger - injuries, character issues, high xFIP, low whiff rate Lorenzen - poor man's Seth Lugo Woodruff - sign to Paxton rehab deal? Urias - may spend time in jail over the course of the contract Manaea - entire statcast page is blue, Bailey worked with him and put him in the pen, not mention of them being linked says a lot Greinke - back end starter, not much meat left on the bone Paxton - health concerns we all know about German - glug glug glug, lots of hard contact Ryu - left of TOR playoff squad, injuries piling up for 37 year old Junis - elite velo, probably more of a bullpen arm Imananga - led Japan in HR's given up, goes well with HR's given up by Gio! Bauer - all around great guy, no PR concerns, more often than not was a 4 ERA guy until playing with sticky stuff Y Rodriguez - reports are he's a bullpen guy

I wouldn't want to sign Soler. Teoscar? Sure. Duvall? Sure. Duvall can at least backup 1B too!

His ass got sacked.

Feel free to read the article.

Not yet!

Sox are reportedly interested in Soler too. I would rather Teoscar. Soler has had some really horrible seasons recently and he's probably a DH only guy IMO.

Luis Robert needs to be rescued from that Purgatory.

Probably lateral move. He's not playing CF.

Crag is not attached to these prospects and has made a few trades already. I'd be more concerned about the $$$ constraints.

I don't see them bringing in 2 more pitchers. One? Sure.

They initially made money by spending money. Now they are going to make money by saving money. Fun! "It's a bold strategy Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em."

https://blogs.fangraphs.com/wall-ball-for-all-examining-the-new-righty-red-sox/ This is saying what we’re all thinking: if you hit the ball hard enough, Fenway doesn’t help much. If you hit the ball low, Fenway doesn’t help much. If you hit it fairly hard and fairly high, you’re looking at a parade of doubles and homers instead of lazy outs. O’Neill doesn’t hit as many of those balls as you’d think. In his career, he’s hit 15 more Fenway-friendly batted balls than your average right-handed hitter would have based on his number of balls in play, but after you add in all his non-contact events – he either strikes out or walks fairly often – it’s a negligible amount. Relative to your average right-handed hitter, O’Neill isn’t getting much of a Fenway boost; it’s on the order of four extra batted balls a year hit where the park hands out extra-base hits. On the flip side, he also hits the ball hard and low more often than your average hitter; call that three batted balls a year. And these estimates are for if O’Neill played every game at Fenway. I don’t think he’ll be a huge beneficiary of the park, in other words. That could have been where my analysis left off, except that the Sox turned around and traded for Vaughn Grissom. Now this is the kind of guy who seems like a good fit for Fenway, I told myself. He doesn’t strike out very frequently, which means more balls in play. He has average power, which means fewer screamers that Fenway either does nothing for (no-doubt high homers are still gone) or hurts (a missile off the wall). When he puts the ball in the air, he pulls it fairly often. That’s not to say the Grissom is a perfect fit. He hits more grounders than you’d like for a player who should be taking advantage of a unique stadium. But that’s fixable. Grissom has never played in Fenway before, so it never made much sense for him to develop a swing perfectly tailored for the park. He has tremendous bat control, which suggests to me that he has more ability than your average player to change his batted ball mix. One final aside: while researching O’Neill’s batted ball mix, I decided to figure out which player would be the most Fenway-optimized hitter in baseball. To no one’s surprise, that’d be Isaac Paredes. He makes a living on those lofted pulled fly balls that are decently struck. Per 600-PA season, he hits nearly three times as many balls that Fenway boosts as your average righty.

I didn't say Steamer was a stat GOOBER. I said there was an exception to almost EVERYTHING. Nice to know that you couldn't help yourself with another post though....

I have no control over the Juggernaut. He just wants to run people over.

At least there are less divisional games now!

Tampa also lost Franco. I think NY will add another pitcher. Not sure what TOR will do.

It's a mild upgrade. It helps out the bullpen, but doesn't help out the overall team in a meaningful way. Team still feels like last year if not worse. Need young guys to step up and be difference makers.