Bellhorn04

Not only that but his defense has seriously declined, which makes him kind of a one-trick pony. And he seems like a guy who will always have trouble staying on the field.

I don't know what it means. Last year I thought when we traded a certain left-handed starter it meant we were going to acquire a TOTR stud. I do know if they run back the same rotation as last year it will not be the ideal scenario for Sox fans.

Nice article, Dan. I think I'll always look on Dalbec as a testament to how hard it is to make that final leap to be able to hit MLB pitching, even when you have consistently proven you can do a lot of damage against AAA pitching.

Houck and Crawford are majorly late bloomers. They won't reach free agency until ages 32 and 33 respectively.

Yeah, who was that Ted Williams guy anyway?

The Boras Four will attest to the last part. But it didn't seem to work out very well...

Me either, but I have a feeling the dude is heavily involved...

Sure is. Is he worth $600 million plus? I think it's gonna be an irrational contract.

They can have all the coaches they want. But the Red Sox seem to be a team that makes a lot of mental blunders the last few years, so it becomes questionable what the coaches are actually achieving.

I'm not really in favor of trading Casas, but if the team decides to do something dramatic and move Devers to first, that's obviously a different story.

Just looking at Lopez's numbers, and there's not much to dislike. About as solid and consistent as you could ask for in this day and age.

So we're already seeing trades and FA signings. Personally I like. Wake up Brez and Sammy! 🙂

Wacha is the Rodney Dangerfield of baseball.

Here's a hilarious but true thing I didn't know until I performed this exercise. The 1918 Red Sox won the World Series 4-2. There were a total of 19 runs scored in the 6 games. The Red Sox scored 9 of them. The biggest blowout was Game 5, won by the Cubs 3-0.

There's been a lot of doom and gloom about the current state of the Sox and I've been one of the contributors. I thought it might be nice for a change to talk about something fun and frivolous. Some time during the just-completed World Series and our talks about the 2004 team and so on, a fact I had never really noticed before hit me: the Red Sox have an amazing record in their World Series appearances. Of course the team had that nasty little stretch of 85 years without winning a single title. They made 4 World Series appearances during that period and each time they lost in the seventh game. And of course those heartbreaking near misses contributed heavily to the talk of a C____. What occurred to me recently was the flip side of the heartbreaks, which is that they managed to win 3 games each time. And then I added in the fact that in their other 9 appearances they won them all. So I thought "hey, they must have a pretty good overall W-L record." And I crunched the numbers. In their 13 WS the Red Sox played 78 games. One of them was tied. I'm going to ignore that for the purposes of calculating the W-L record. 48 wins 29 losses = .623 winning % - the equivalent of a 101-61 regular season. 312 runs scored 254 allowed = +58 run differential The really incredible numbers of course are for their 2004-2018 appearances. 16 wins 3 losses 108 runs scored 52 allowed = +56 differential So what does this prove? Absolutely nothing, of course. And yes Yankee fans, I know - you have 41 appearances and 27 wins. But unlike the Sox, you've really been hammered in some of the losses!

When we're feeling really pessimistic we tend to engage in hyperbole. I read almost all the posts here, and I really don't think there's anyone actually saying, in seriousness, that they expect our payroll to keep going down until we're the Pirates.

Obviously this is mostly about Anthony, but since you also brought an extension for Casas into it a couple of times, I think he's fair game too! Casas might actually be more of a case for caution in these early extensions. There's plenty to like about Casas's power and his patient, methodical approach at the plate. But now for the reality check: In 840 MLB PA's, Casas has an fWAR of 2.7, which makes him roughly an average player on a rate basis. His WAR gets hammered by poor defense and lack of speed - as it should. The other issue of course is that Casas had a long and troubling stint on the IL due to an injury in his rib cage area. No one really knows if this is an injury that will continue to hinder his career. For those reasons I think the Sox may have lucked out in Casas turning down their first extension offer, and he might not get a second. I like him because he's homegrown, he has a personality and he has the aforementioned power and excellent approach at the plate. But the hard cold reality is that the rest of his game is weak, and overall he's probably an average MLB first baseman with injury concerns. All of which just illustrates that it isn't always a slam dunk to tie up the kids, with some you're better off to get the cheap production while it lasts.

Yeah, I'm not really interested in Crochet. Lots of question marks. With guys like Burnes and Fried, they have at least proven themselves over multiple seasons.

moon, I just don't think you're placing enough emphasis on where we stand payroll-wise compared to other teams and compared to our revenues. Those are the most important barometers IMHO. None of this happens in a vacuum. It's just a point of disagreement, that's all. I do think you generally try to be fair all the way around.

They're telling some of us we're a bunch of tools who are so starved for entertainment that we might actually find this worth talking about. More importantly, they're telling the gambling addicts they can start betting on this for real, even though there will be a ton of changes before games actually start. 😛

Sam Kennedy's announcement back in January that the payroll was probably going to be lower than the previous year didn't get the attention it deserved. That was Sam saying the quiet part out loud. After all the stuff about how the budget isn't set in stone and it was being left up to Breslow, and with plenty of unsigned free agents still out there, Sam was fessing up to the reality of the situation.

But the Red Sox rankings in payroll have never been lower than they were in 2023 and 2024. It's clearly new territory. You keep attributing this to other teams "going nutty", while ignoring the context of rising revenues. No one is accusing Henry of going Carl Pohlad on us. But things are not the same as they were, for reasons none of us are privy to. We know the Sox reached out to RedBird Capital for a major cash infusion because of COVID losses, and that is one of the possible explanations. RedBird has a 10% stake in FSG, and they are strictly venture capitalists, and they probably command a hefty dividend on their investment. There's also the massive new investment in real estate, of course. Henry is pinching the payroll and he has his reasons.

Seeing Mookie Betts win a second ring in Dodger Blue, with a few more possibly yet to come, serves as a reminder of John Henry's colossal failure to do the right thing, and that the Harry Frazee-Babe Ruth comparisons are still very much in play. Betts had a phenomenal postseason, doing big things and small things in equal measure. What a player. Seeing Juan Soto and Alex Verdugo is a reminder that the Sox also failed spectacularly in the return for Betts. One year of Soto brought back Michael King and Drew Thorpe, who was traded for Dylan Cease. 2024 fWARs Cease 4.8 King 3.9 Wong 1.1 Verdugo 0.6 What a disaster. Fitts may turn out to be a decent back-end starter, so Breslow did his best to salvage something.

There's nothing wrong with being optimistic, and the optimism may prove well-founded. But there's a lot of uncertainty attached to many of those names. Or in some cases, they're just not that good at this point (Wong and Rafaela were 1 fWAR players). O'Neill, Pivetta, Jansen and Martin totaled 6.8 fWAR. How many of the names you listed had an fWAR of 2 or higher in 2024? I think as it stands, everything depends on a) the kids and b) significant pitching additions.

Nope, he's just another wishcaster.