vjcsmoke

What are the indications that Skenes is even available?

Giolito was another bad signing. Red Sox are going nowhere fast and have assured themselves missing the playoffs again after trading away their best player for peanuts yet again. Giants pitcher Harrison is a decent prospect but who knows how long until he will be ready for MLB action? losing to the blue jays 9-0 is simply embarrassing. 3-7 after devers trade now. My prediction is pain. Nobody looks good right now.

I'm reading that he will be promoted to the 40 to protect him from the rule V draft. Sounds like an interesting prospect. Our only real 'problem' is that our outfield is too full. It's hard enough finding playing time for Roman Anthony. Also Yoshida will be rehabbing next week with an eye for a return to the MLB roster. Unless we trade an outfielder first like Durran or Rafaela, the Password will probably stay in the minor leagues. Maybe he'll get a cup of coffee when rosters expand for September 1st.

Red Sox since trading away Devers, 3-6. 2 wins against the mariners, 1 win against the giants. 6 losses to mariners, giants, and angels combined including a sweep by Angels. They are playing .333 baseball. Great way for the front office to sabotage our season just as we were starting to play winning baseball. I hate them so much. Will FSG ever sell the Red Sox to make way for serious owners?

Those are mostly tight wins. Can we really expect the pitching to stay that good? We have a gaping hole in the lineup. Some are saying Yoshida is the answer. Yoshida was always a mediocre offensive player at best. You're plugging in a .770 OPS bat to replace a .900+ OPS bat. That usually does not save your lineup.

I'm doubtful that Cora will stay long with the Red Sox. It sounds like there are big personality conflicts if a scout would utter an expletive directed at Breslow. Although the Crochett trade looks like a big win, the Devers trade looks like a big loss, especially the way it was handled. Negotiating through the media, creating team unrest before shipping out an established star player. It's not a good look. The communication problems are an issue. You can't rely on analytics alone to run a franchise. You need to be able to lead men and convince them that your project is worthy of passion and belief. I don't get that vibe from Breslow during his tenure so far. AI hiring practices and analytics do not create a ballclub atmosphere. I do like the fact that Bregman appears to be a leader who the players seem to look up to and can talk to. But we've had way more moves shipping OUT that type of player than bringing them in. If Cora hadn't gone to the mat asking for Bregman, I don't think he joins the Red Sox. What happens when the manager who recruited him gets dumped by this front office? Who builds the locker room if Bregman gets the boot in another salary dump? Can't say I feel optimistic in the wake of the Devers trade.

Devers homers against us in his revenge game and we lose to the Giants 3-2. You can't hate this front office and ownership group enough. That's supposed to be our elite player, not the Giant's. Ugh. What a Salary dump trade. Feels bad man.

Yes the Red Sox wisely reinvested that money by signing injury prone pitchers or position players who either were injured often or performed very poorly or at best mediocre when they were actually healthy. Trevor Story 6/140m. 2025 performance: .230 avg .275 obp .363 slg .638 OPS. We don't even need to get into his horrific injury history with the Red Sox, His tepid performance when healthy already makes him a horror show of a signing. Masataka Yoshida 5/90m. .285 avg .343 obp .433 slg .775 ops. They have done worse than this, but feels like very mediocre return for the money. In fact the Red Sox probably want to get out of his contract if they didn't have to eat so much to send him away it's probably not worth it. Lucas Giolito contract 2/38.5m. Performance: 2024 0 games played. 2025 45.2 IP 50 hits 87 ERA+ 1.423 WHIP 6.94 FIP. Yeah that deal was a stinker. Walker Buehler contract 21.05m. Performance: 2025 59 IP 67 hits 69 ERA+ 1.508 WHIP 5.34 FIP. Another 20 million dollars plus well wasted on broken down pitchers. I could go on but you get the point. Opening up 31 m in payroll in the Devers trade doesn't mean they are going to use that money wisely. The Red Sox have been wasteful with that money in free agency more often than not. I would rather pay the elite player that 30m dollar salary than two broken down has-beens that 30m dollars. Let's put it this way would you rather have Betts for 30m or Story + Yoshida for 30m. Or how about Devers for 30m or Giolito and Buehler for 30m? You take the great player every time. Stop wasting money on has-beens or injury-prone reclamation projects that 'might' turn out to be productive.

I only expect Anthony, who is our top prospect and MLB top 5 prospect, to do as well or better than the .280/25/90 pace you theorized. Don't forget these players are all rookies. Campbell and Mayer are just getting their feet wet even if they are talented and might end up good going forward. There's also a question of where they will all play. We have too many outfielders and need to make room for Anthony. We have a 1B issue unless we unexpectedly shift Campbell or Mayer from their natural positions. Trevor Story is going to get games and minutes ahead of them because of his hefty salary even if he is an inferior player to Campbell/Mayer. We'll have to see going forward but I wouldn't put too much pressure or expectation on the rookies to produce. They are not saving our season. Looking back to the past, when the Red Sox were at their best they had veterans to lead the way and added young talent to supplement such as Ellsbury/Pedroia to complete the team, etc.

Devers trade to the Giants feels like another salary dump by the Red Sox. They are allergic to keeping their own stars when large sums of money is involved. It feels like they deliberately sabotaged the relationship to create an excuse to trade Devers contract away. You're telling me they couldn't have handled this quietly in house instead of negotiating through the press and insulting Devers to the point he felt very unhappy? It's all deliberate and calculated. This feels like the Betts trade all over again. Except they are doing it after giving the big contract. If Breslow gets rid of Bregman at the deadline too you will know for sure it's all money motivated. A mandate from the top, get rid of big salaries, we need to go cheap. You can't hate this front office and ownership enough. They dismantled this team's chances in 2025 right as it was heating up and starting to play over .500 ball.

I'm convinced that the Soto courting was all posturing. They never intended to outbid the Mets or whoever the ultimate winner of the sweepstakes were. They just wanted to appear to be making an effort to appease the fans but would always end up a few million dollars short of signing the potential franchise talent player. They just wanted to be able to say, "See, we tried, but we just couldn't get there. You can't blame us for lack of effort!"

The real problem is that our front office is player-hostile. Get Pedro martinez or Big Papi as an ambassador and Devers problem could have been solved quietly and smoothly. Instead it become a war in the press. I strongly suspect that the real motivation was Red Sox salary dump and they wanted an excuse to dump Devers on another team while saving face. They got themselves out from under a 300 million dollar contract they never wanted to give. Never mind that Devers has been our best offensive player the past 3 years since signing the contract.

I'm shocked we dealt Devers. I mean I get his decision to stick to DH and not play the field anymore didn't sit well with management. But he's our best offensive player and hitting his best recently. He banged his 15th homer the other day, his 500th career extra base hit. Now he will play for the Giants and it feels like a salary dump. What haul did we get in return? A starting pitcher Jordan Hicks who has been unlucky with a 6.47 ERA this year. The Giants top pitching prospect in Kyle Harrison who we hope will pan out. And some lesser prospects. No sure fire proven players here. We better hope Harrison turns into a top of the rotation pitcher for the Red Sox or this trade will go down in infamy.

Who do you guys feel will get traded at the deadline? I keep hearing Jurran Duran's name mentioned. I do feel we have an excess of outfielders, especially since we need to make room for our #1 prospect Roman Anthony. The good news is we're not as bad as the Baltimore Orioles but the bad news is we're still the 4th best team in the division. I feel like we have some talent to compete but it's just not 'all there' somehow.

Naah, this ship has sailed. Devers is not going to play first. The manager won't pressure him to play first. He's hitting very well now and there's no need to mess with his mojo. 1st base is probably the least valuable defensive position on the field. We will be able to find a league average player to stick there sooner or later. Maybe near the trade deadline.

I think the Bregman injury opens up an opportunity for Marcelo Mayer to try manning the hot corner. This way we can put Story back at SS and Campbell back to 2B. 1B is still a mess but at least we have solutions for 3B in house imo. The speculation of Devers back to 3rd don't make sense. We don't need to piss him off by temporarily shifting him back only to put him back to DH once Bregman is healthy.

The Red Sox just traded for Ryan Noda. Our 1st base problems are solved! Hopefully... two seasons ago Noda slugged for .770 OPS which is respectable. Last year he was not doing so hot with a .465 OPS. Hopefully he turns it around with a change in scenery. mlb reference noda: Ryan Noda Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com

I'd rather Mayer at SS. That's a bigger impact position. Slide Story to 2nd and Campbell to 1st. I don't think Campbell stays at 1st permanently. Once we move on from Story and/or we get a real 1st baseman we can move Campbell back to 2nd.

I think the real problem was setting expectations. The Red Sox did not talk with Devers ahead of time and say, well we want to improve the team, and if we sign a guy like Bregman we really need you to consider 1B OR DH for the good of the team. If the conversation had gone down like that before free agency I don't think we'd have nearly as much friction now. Whether or not you like Devers reaction, I think you can see his point. You told me, I'm not the 3B anymore, I'm the DH. Now you want me to switch from DH to 1B? To him it feels like 2 position switches. Maybe Papi acting as an ambassador in this situation could help smooth things over, but do Breslow and Red Sox management think the same thing and did they reach out to him for help here? Who knows. Cora at least seems to back Devers staying at DH. He's doing the smart thing by keeping his star player happy.

Yes. It really happened. I guess we were desperate. I've read another rumor that we might be interested in Baltimore's Ryan O'Hearn. He's having his best season yet at age 31. I guess he's a late bloomer? He will be a free agent at the end of the year. So we would be buying a rental. Shouldn't be too pricey considering there's no additional control and I could take him seriously as a 1st baseman replacement. He's currently ripping it for .955 OPS with 7 homeruns.

We signed Rizzo to play 1st base. Not even joking. He's 35 years old and his OPS trend has gone down each year: .817 -> .706 -> .637. I mean he used to be good a few years ago. Maybe he'll have a minor bounce back year and hit a useful .750ish? Anyone hyped about this pickup? I find it hard to get enthused. I guess the only bonus is if he goes off against his former team when we face them head to head. Article source: Red Sox Sign Former Yankees All-Star First Baseman Slugger

Campbell and Abreu have been really nice pleasant surprises. Campbell is the biggest surprise to do that as a rookie. Abreu was not hitting this well last year so he has grown into a really good every day outfielder, arguably our best one right now. Bregman is kind of expected because of the big money we spent on him and how his swing is tailored for Fenway park but it is a big relief that he is meeting expectations and doing well. We definitely did not want to swing and miss with the big contract we paid him in the offseason. Very importantly, Devers is back to being Devers and his numbers are returning to normal. It's so important to have your big bat in the middle of the lineup be a real threat. My main concern is that Casas still doesn't look great. I was expecting more for him. Also our catchers are just bad offensively, like, really really poor. Connor Wong in particular has crashed. Narvaez has won the job by default of not being as sucky as our other catchers who hit for sub .400 OPS. I'm glad the team is over .500 now and getting that big 10-2 revenge win against the Blue Jays was a nice way to show we can compete against the division.

Another Sandy Alcantara trade rumor today. This time the centerpiece of the trade is Rafaela Ceddanne. I think moving a utility player plus prospects for a frontline SP who has a couple years of control is a move worth making. Red Sox give Ceddane Rafaela, Franklin Arias, David Sandlin, and Mikey Romero. Receive: RHP Sandy Alcantara. Who says no to this deal? Would you do it? article: Red Sox could cut ties with Ceddanne Rafaela in trade for $56M AL East-altering star

Story has been a dud no doubt about it. But he's the best we've got at SS until Marcelo Mayer is ready. Also his contract is very untradeable while he is playing badly. I think if he can get back to league average shortstop numbers and when Mayer is ready and called up, the Red Sox might be able to move Story on later near trade deadline without having to lose significant assets.

Campbell has really come on lately. Maybe his new contract motivated him! Maybe his girlfriend is treating him extra nice now, who knows. But certainly seems like he is validating the deal. Very small sample size but an opening season slash line of .400 avg, .500 obp, .750 slg, and 1.25 OPS is extremely encouraging!