Orange Juiced

AL East 1. Tampa Bay 2. Boston 3. New York 4. Baltimore 5. Toronto AL Central 1. Detroit 2. Kansas City 3. Cleveland 4. Chicago 5. Minnesota AL West 1. Oakland 2. Los Angeles 3. Texas 4. Seattle 5. Houston Wild Cards: Boston, Los Angeles NL East 1. Washington 2. Atlanta 3. Philadelphia 4. New York 5. Miami NL Central 1. St. Louis 2. Pittsburgh 3. Cincinnati 4. Milwaukee 5. Chicago NL West 1. Los Angeles 2. San Francisco 3. Arizona 4. San Diego 5. Colorado Wild Cards: San Francisco, Atlanta AL Playoffs: WC: Boston over Los Angeles Divisional: Boston over Detroit, Tampa Bay over Oakland ALCS: Tampa Bay over Boston NL Playoffs: WC: San Francisco over Atlanta Divisional: Washington over San Francisco, St. Louis over Los Angeles NLCS: St. Louis over Washington World Series: St. Louis over Tampa Bay Awards: AL MVP: Mike Trout AL Cy Young Award: Justin Verlander NL MVP: Bryce Harper NL Cy Young Award: Stephen Strasburg

A few roster situations still to work out: Does Sizemore start in CF? Does JBJ go to the minors? Do they deal Carp? Etc. I'm going to assume this roster for the purposes of this thread, though you can certainly weigh in if you think otherwise: C - Pierzynski 1b - Napoli 2b - Pedroia 3b - Middlebrooks SS - Bogaerts LF - Nava CF - Sizemore RF - Victorino DH - Ortiz Bench - Ross, Herrera, Gomes, Carp I assume they'll go with 12 pitchers for now. So here's my ideal lineup: Vs RHP CF Sizemore RF Victorino 2b Pedroia DH Ortiz 1b Napoli LF Nava SS Bogaerts C Pierzynski 3b Middlebrooks Good mixture of L/R, power spread throughout the lineup, less speed than last year with Jacoby gone. Really solid lineup. Vs LHP CF Sizemore RF Victorino 2b Pedroia DH Ortiz 1b Napoli LF Gomes SS Bogaerts 3b Middlebrooks C Ross Lose something offensively with Ross in instead of Pierzynski. Much more RH heavy lineup with Gomes and Ross in there, leaving just two lefties in. Either way, those lineups should produce 800+ runs. Things change if JBJ stays and Sizemore goes for some reason. I'd also consider moving Victorino or Pedroia up and sliding Sizemore down. Grady has more power than speed these days, but he's still a solid OBP guy when right (career .357 OBP). Having Middlebrooks down in the 8-9 slots means he can hit with less pressure; we can live with his low OBP and love his 20-25 homers from deep in the lineup. It gives them a viable threat at the bottom, thus lengthening the lineup.

The Yanks pythag last year was 79-83 last year. They outperformed their pythag by 6 games, which is a lot. Here's what I expect from them: C - Huge improvement. McCann is so much better than the dreck they had last year it isn't even funny. 1b - Improvement. I assume Tex will be pretty solid, though he has been on the decline for years now. 2b - Huge loss. Cano was by far the best hitting 2b in baseball last year. Major drop off. 3b - I guess Kelly Johnson can be better than what they had last year, but ARod is still a better hitter. SS - Probably will be better IF Jeter can stay healthy. Big IF. OF - Improvement. Lose Granderson (who, granted, didn't play much last year), but gain Ellsbury and Beltran. Soriano for a full season should help too. So offensively the Yankees should be much better. Pitching? Well, you lose a TON in the bullpen when you replace Mariano with anyone. And starting pitching? I think CC is just on the way down to begin with, Kuroda is a year older, and as intriguing as Tanaka is, he's (a) unproven, and ( replacing Pettitte. Pettitte isn't Cy Young, but last year he did give them 185 innings of 3.74 era (108 era+) ball. If Tanaka can give them that in year one, I'll be surprised. So the pitching should be worse than it was last year, on the whole. Since they over performed their pythag by 6 games last year, figure the odds are that they'll come back to earth and perform at about what their pythag suggests they should. But I think their pythag should go up from last year. I see NY as winning between 86-92 games this year, and be in the running for the wild card, with a good chance to get into the playoffs. To me, that's a very fair assessment of this team.

We know we'll see the following guys, in some capacity: Bradley, Jr. Bogaerts Middlebrooks Workman Britton (most likely) But who else do you want to see play for the big club this year? There are just so many talented players in the system right now. I know if we see too many of them that means the Sox have likely suffered a lot of injuries, so we don't really want that. But there are some players I'd still like to see up for at least a cup of coffee: Webster, Ranaudo, Brentz. How about you guys?

lol.

What if it was John Henry's wife?

And he's always been a positive-WAR guy his whole career. Seems like a very useful player to have on the team.

Right. I wouldn't pay Tanaka $20 million a year, no. But I'd definitely be in on the posting fee.

I believe Hassan is really a 1b. And he does have some real upside. Not a ton of power, but very good OBP skills.

With the low posting fee, it's almost a certainty that the next wave of guys coming over from Japan will make more than Darvish. And I think the Sox should be in on him. By all accounts, he's very good. He may not be Darvish-good, but he should be #2-#3 caliber SP good. And all it will cost is money - no draft picks, no prospects. It's not every day that you can instantly add a guy of this caliber at his age. Then they can trade even a subsidized Peavy and/or Dempster for prospects. Gives them more ammo to make a major move if they want to do that. EDIT: As for Choo, I like him and think he'd be good here, but not at $18 million.

I wonder if Eric Chavez is a possible backup IF. Lefty bat, last two seasons has a combined ops of .829, and an ops+ of 123. I don't think he can play SS though, but otherwise, might be a nice fit to spell Middlebrooks and/or Bogaerts. That said, I'm not even sure he's available.

Honestly, he seems like a pretty perfect fit for what the Sox might need at this point.

I think Rajai Davis (if he's still available…) is a perfect answer to your bolded point. He's 33, so past his prime, and he has a below-average ops+ (88 in 2012, 87 for his career), but he does offer a little defense, can play multiple OF positions, and has crazy great speed, so even if he doesn't spell JBJ in a given game, he could still be a very nice pinch-runner late in a game. Given his age and ops+ numbers, I don't think he would command a lot, or even necessarily expect to start on a team like Boston. The most he's ever made in a season is 2.75 million in 2012.

Mujica is a good signing at that price. Very good pitcher, outstanding walk rates. Quality pitcher. He'll be very helpful. The bullpen is one area where the Sox can really improve, perhaps offsetting some offensive losses.

I agree, but probably not right away. There will be some growing pains. Honestly, I see 2014 being a year where the Sox win 90-93 games, are very much in the playoff hunt, and probably get in. And from there, who knows? But if they stay on track then this team will be a beast from 2015-2020 as the kids show up, and there are lots of quality kids showing up. The future is extremely bright for them. Ben is doing this right. We just need to let them do their thing and not freak out if they don't win the WS this year.

I'd imagine Ellsbury can do better in 2014 than Granderson did in 2013.

I don't know that I'd have that much confidence that X can match Drew's WAR in 2014, but obviously he has tremendous talent and will be a great SS for many years to come. And it's possible he matches or exceed's Drew's WAR in 2014. I just can't put it down in the + category yet. Much of Napoli's WAR came from his exceptional defense, something Hart cannot match.

Salty (2.9) --> Pierzynski (1.6) = -1.3 Napoli (4.1) --> Hart (2.0 in 2012) = -2.1 Ellsbury (5.8) --> Bradley Jr. (too few plate appearances to gauge) = a net loss, one way or another Drew (3.1) --> Bogaerts (too few plate appearances to gauge) = a probable net loss for 2014, but a big gain eventually Victorino (6.2) = almost certainly will go down Ortiz (4.4) = probably will go down Uehara (2.4) = probably will go down (he can't have a second consecutive historically great season, can he?) However, some places to improve: - 3b, with Middlebrooks playing the entire season - 2b, as Pedroia plays healthy - maybe the rotation, if Buchholz stays healthy On the whole, I see the Sox losing about 6 WAR. They should still be good enough to be competitive in the AL East and in the playoff hunt, while still being set up for a long run of greatness starting in 2015. I'm ok with this.

Makes sense for the Sox. He hits righties pretty well, still has good power, good defensively. They have him and Ross platooning, with Lavarnway as the emergency 3rd guy. This is the bridge to the Vazquez/Swihart era, which, I assume, the FO is very bullish on. Works for me.

8/200 to the Yankees.

Dempster is definitely moveable if you're willing to eat 1/2 or 2/3 of his salary. Which, of course, I'd be willing to do.

I'd love a 1-year deal for Hudson. I think he's terrific. Clearly they'd have to deal away either Peavy or Dempster, or both. Which I'd be fine with. Hudson is better than either of them.

How did we know that the Red Sox did not put up a pretty significant bid for Darvish, but just fell short? The posting fee for Darvish was $51.7 million. Maybe the Sox offered $40-45 million, but it just wasn't enough. Who knows? It's not like teams get to negotiate the posting fee, so the Sox couldn't see what other bids were out there and then make their move. It's a blind bidding process, so you make your bid in a sealed envelope (of sorts) and that's that - either you win the bid or you don't.

Dempster, Peavy, and Lester are all slated to be free agents after the 2014 season. If Tanaka costs $10 million, that's no problem because both Dempster and Peavy will make more than $13 million in 2014. Lose them both and there's plenty of room for both Tanaka and a brand-new Lester contract.

His minor league stats from the last two seasons: 2012: .315/.430/.482/.911, 9 hr, 63 rbi 2013: .275/.374/.469/.842, 10 hr, 35 rbi He has very good on-base skills and his power should continue to develop. He's a decent (not great) base-stealer, and he plays very good defense. Sure his first year might not be all-star caliber, but there will be plenty of worse CF in the majors in 2014, and the money can be used elsewhere.