Emp9

DD better not trade Swihart for a RP. That would be insane.

Rumored there's a mystery team interested in McCutchen.... ??? Naw, we already have Mookie Betts

Well then, maybe Price can pick up the tab?

Pedro Alvarez was rumored recently. He's put up some decent numbers vs the AL East. 1B, 3B, DH. Not sure how good his corner defense is, but he gives us options at the corners when not DH-ing atleast.

DD can deal. It's the wheeling part I'm worried about.

Notin, good to see you're around. I agree it's not the most pressing need. I think it's the most difficult one to get though. It'd be a move that would definitely put us in a different light and take some pressure off our offense needing to be the best in the league to even have a chance. If there's a way we could upgrade our starting staff with likes of Sale (or Quintana for that matter) after watching Price and Porcello's post-season starts, I'd be all for it. Plus, if there's any time to trade for Sale, it'd be now, not during the season.

Ha! The Yankees beat down the door as soon as I open my mouth. LOL

I said Rangers on an earlier post, but I should've said the Nationals (along with the Sox) are still in on Sale. High asking price creates a lot of attrition and the Sox do have pieces to make a deal yet. Whether we like that deal is another story.

Power hitting-wise, yeah you're right. I guess I'm just looking for good hitters that hit both Lhp & Rhp equally well.

depends on how much he's asking for and what we'd sign him for. obviously. A cheap one year make-good contract. This would be an after thought though. I don't get the sense teams will be knocking down the door to sign him anytime soon.

Sorry, trade-wise... does anyone expect anything crazy? Like Bogaerts for Sale type s***? LOL

Well, the only good news I can come up with this offseason is that Sox picked a good year to not afford going over the LT limit, because this FA market sucks. We all knew that though. We're gonna have to trade our way to a better team. Hope we find a market for Buch, maybe net a half-way decent reliever, maybe even shed a little bit of payroll out of the deal -for a best case scenario. Easier dreamt than done. It looks the Sox are one of the last teams standing for Sale, along with Texas I think. Another long shot. This is definitely a true test for DD, I just hope he doesn't do anything too stupid. I love our current OF, so I hope he doesn't mess with that. Doing the least, which to me wld be to try and sure-up the BP as much as possible under our current financial restraints, wouldn't be soo bad, we were a playoff team after all. Wait and pick-up a bat mid-season. Anyone expect any craziness this off-season?

34 games under his belt and he's already a sophomore?

I still like the chances that Swihart's defense will improve over the chances Vazquez's offense will improve. I could be wrong though. I'm also the one of the few (I've seen on here anyway & in most media) that think Swihart's defense of the first 6 games (out of 7 games was it?) had a lot to do with bad weather and of course Wright didn't help any of our catcher's look good all season (not that I'm complaining about Wright at all). Sure, you can add Swihart's green-ness into it as well, he was rushed after all. It's a whole 'nother argument I know, to begin the season later and end the season sooner, but I never discount the elements and I think those elements played a big role if one were to discuss Swihart's extremely short leash this past season. Playing World Series games in November is just as ridiculous as starting the season in 30 degrees and high wind, winter-like weather... as much as we've all normalized it. Many give free passes to SP's who are "slow Starters" for as much as the first 2 months of a season. So, I still don't think I'm being that outrageous here.

I still think Plan A at the time (Vaz healthy) had much more to do with them discontinuing Plan C than Plan C itself. You're right though, I also think Swihart is still Plan C at least for the immediate future. I've no problems with him working on his defense/intangibles in AAA. Especially now that Beni completes our OF.

The path they took was backto Plan A. Swihart was Plan C in 2015.

Last I read on Swihart was that the RS Organization and FO still view him as a catcher. They wanted to get him in the line-up and continue his development as a hitter vs major league pitching and happened to be the best option for LF at the time. A time when they were trying to win the East. It was not a statement on him continuing or not as a catcher. With Beni in LF now, I think Swihart does indeed focus more on catching.

Like I mentioned, there will be no conspiracy theory from me. People move on. Sawdaye is a big loss though.

I mean long-term, losing (if I had to pick the main dude) Sawdaye is kind of a big deal to me. We wouldn't feel the loss of him right away. Who knows? Maybe they bring in guys that are better at recognizing great pichers than position players... that could be good.

Hmm.. but then there was him cutting-up all those team jerseys a few months later, proving once again he wasn't happy with his team... TalkSox hasn't been the only place where Sale trade rumors exist.

I wasn't too concerned about the GM position. Being President of baseball operations, DD is pretty much the GM. However, seeing this mass exodus of VP of Int'l & amateur scouting Sawdaye (Arizona), Assistant director of amateur scouting Sanders (Toronto) sorta' worries me a little. Senior analyst Tom Tippett is another familiar name who's left. Deeble (who I'm not familiar with) has left as well. I'm not suggesting anything of why, besides promotional positions from other teams they couldn't get here mainly. Plus, I think they've done a great job and ( besides SP which isn't entirely their fault) set us up nicely... all things considered. Does anyone here have an inside track as to who the Sox would or should be looking towards for replacements?

DD was a big fan of Iglesias. Maybe we make a trade to get him back & move XB to 3B? Sorry, just day dreaming here...

LOL. if I could just add that it's not uncommon for RP's have up and down seasons.

Sure, everything's relative... or can be. I'm also thinking we may have to trade some of our SP to get better SP if that makes sense. For obvious reasons Price is here to stay, Porcello isn't going anywhere either. To me Buch & Pom are expendable. I love Wright and ERod if healthy, but they may be expendable in my book as well.

I'd like to see what just Holt and Abad would net us. I'd still like to hold onto Owens. He's still pretty young and things could still "click" for him. I'd use Owens as a throw in for a SP though.