moonslav59

Thanks to JH for hiring him.

Also, RISP: Alonso 174 times (23 BBs) and 143 ABs .259 and 60 RBI Contreras 146 PAs (22 BBs) and 115 ABs .304 and 52 RBIs RBIs are largely a result of opportunities. Willson did very well when given the chance. Our 1-2 batters had OBPs below .307. He was not given enough chances. It's not his fault.

How is this different than when I mentioned playing in the toughest division.

I didn't see any posters making that claim or prediction. Of course, almost all of us expected more than what we saw, but as far as I can remember, nobody was predicting greatness. Many felt the chances were high he could have an excellent season, but that's not how it's worded when people make claims about unreasonable high expectations.

It sucks that Mead got hurt day one. AR starting out slowly was not really a big surprise, but even ay .700, he was a big improvement over Narvaez. It hurt giving up Early, Eyanson and Witherspoon, and IMO, Azocar could be the one we regret trading the most, but Brez identified the needs, looked at where we had the most depth, and made a strong effort to get us over the hump. The best part about those two deals (and the Miller one, too) was than none were for rentals. Mead and Miller have 3 years left and AR one. Maybe AR gets extended. Those three additions should help our 2027 outlook, but I'm not seeing much optimism in those three or our team's chances. It's understandable after that putris September and post season performances.

I'm not counting on most of them as anything more than very nice depth. We have a solid core and deep foundation despite a weakended farm. We need to work on improving top quality, even if it comes at the expense of lessening the decent quantity aspect of the team. We should not attempt to slightly improve several slots: we need to greatly improve 1-2 slots.

I figured that much, but felt it needed to be said. I applaud the effort Brez made, especially in light of Bloom's lack of a spine at every deadline except 2021.

To me, the most interesting part of that 32-5 stretch was who was playing at the time. We has Monasterio, IKF and Cheng at SS, IKF and Seigler at 2B and Narvaez catching. In some ways those line-ups look worse than our playoff ones. Amazingly, our leadoff hitter for most of those games was Seigler, but we also saw Eaton, Yoshida, Gasper and Jones. Our #2 batter was almost always Rafaela. Abreu 3rd and Contreras 4th was the norm, but look who batted 5th mostly: Duran, Durbin, Yoshida and even Romy. 6th was mostly Durbin with Monasterio and Romy getting some time.

I'm not sure how many fans have faith in the offense returning as is it was ending the season, but with a healthy Anthony and Mead and maybe a return to age progression trends of our core foundation of everyday players, who are mostly pre-prime and prime ages, the O should be significantly better. The issue, to me is the "significant" is a loaded word that could mean moving from bottom 5 to 15th, which is not enough. Maybe a few fans and posters project us to be as high as 10th in runs scored with no changes made, but I'll disagree with them. If everything goes right, maybe we can approach 10th in runs, but basing a winter plan on 99% health and no serious declines is a losing plan. Let me ask you and others this: would this be enough to have a good enough offense to combine with a top 3 pitching staff and top 8 defense to advance in the playoffs? .850 OPS Contreras (50 point drop from '26) .850 Mead over 600 PAs (his OPS last year) .800 Abreu (a career high but not by much) .800 Anthony (.859 in 2025 do less but over 550+ PAs) .775 Rutschman (might be my biggest ask here) .775 Rafaela (stops improving and just repeats '26) .750 Durbin (a 40 point gain over '26) .750 Yoshida (what he did in 2026 but for 450+) That's 8 of 9 batters. No way they all do this, but none are unreasonable suggestions. I've not even listed ... .993 Jones in '26 .826 Romy in '25 .823 Gapser in '26 .800 Casas in '24 (.856 in '23 with 500 PAs) .774 Duran in '25 (I won't bring up '24) .741 Story in '25 (led team in HRs, RBI and SBs) .727 Seigler & Sogard in '26 There is some room for optimism about the offense as is, but I'm never for being complacent. We need to strive to continuously improve, and I've always felt improving your weakest spot is the best place to focus on. To me, that is the lack of a take charge, big bopper bat.

The game has changed but you'll never convince me we can win by leading the league in solo homers. We need a healthy mix of OBP and SLG, and IT DOES HELP to have high OBP up before your high SLG batters. We had too few of both, and your focus seems unbalanced to me.

Agreed. The Reds notoriously demand overpays, but he's worth it.

I was right with you, and the blast back was "How can we trade away our top 3 offensive weapon, when we need to upgrade offense?!?!?"

I never understood this line of talk. When you ask for names of posters who claimed Anthony, Mayer and or KC would be studs in year one, you get no reply. Sure, many of us had high hopes, but we knew it might take a few years, and that maybe 1 or 2 of the 3 would be letdowns or outright flops. I don't think anyone penciled all 3 in as all stars, particularly year 1 or 2. I really like Arias a lot. I'm not going to hide my optimism, but I have not seen a single poster say they expect even good offense from him year one or two. Many think he's a plus of defense already, and while that means little to some posters, I love a great defensive SS. (I'm not sure Arias is "great" on D, yet.)

I disagree. With a limited budget, to plan an offseason to go from 28th to 1st would mean decimating the pitching staff via trades. The theory makes sense, but the reality is JH is not going to let Brez sign Sato, Suzuki, B Lowe and a trade for DLC.

Yes, we failed to change with the times. One major change came about with the emphasis on having strong and deep pens. Working counts to get to the pen earlier no longer made much of a difference. OBP is still one of the best correlations with run scoring. SLG is too, but it's not like OBP should be thrown in the dumpster. One reason we sucked on offense is that nobody was on base for our middle order batters. Sure, the lack of power and XBHs was a major reason for low run totals, but this is also a MAJOR reason we sucked. .307 OBP from 1 slot .303 OB from 2 slot (the modern most important slot) (.325 from the 3 slot is also lower than needed.) Granted, a .431 SLG from the 3 slot, .428 from the 4 slot and .421 from the 5 slot is horrible, but a bunch more solo homers wasn't going to jump our rankings either.

We don't need to be first, but point well taken. Story's collapse and injury were foreseeable, but to me the others were not. The Contreras add, counting more PAs than what Bregman or Devers had in 2025 made up for losing one of them. Together, Bregman and Devers had just 834 PAs, so in a sense, we only lost 1.3 stud batters, and Willson made up for close to a full season. We need Anthony to play more and take up the slack. He played less than 2025 and did worse. The Mead and AR additions should have made up for that other .3 batter lost, but they did not, and in reality, we need to improve on 2025 not just stay even. It may sound like I'm disagreeing with you a lot, but I'm not by as much as it might seem. We needed more batting. Our attempts to fix it worked with Willson, but not with Durbin, Mead, AR, Monasterio and IKF. We seem to agree on needing a major bat addition for 2027.

I think one could argue our first rings were greatly influenced by the shift in philosophy to pitching, improved OBP and working counts to force the earlier arrival of RP'ers. We never won a ring with just one ace: Tiant, Clemens & Pedro. We won, when we added Schilling. We won with Schilling, only after we added Beckett. We couldn't win with just Lester, so we added Lackey. We almost won with just Price until we added Sale. I'll go to my grave believing it's much harder to win rings with big offense and not-so-good pitching. I lived those type of teams from 1972 to 2003. That's not to say winning with a crappy offense is easy: it isn't, but I'm glad we have a top 3 pitching staff in MLB and will be seeing Crochet, Houck, Crawford, Oviedo and some pen arms returning. We did improve the offense on paper, but the game is played on the field, and we scored less runs than the year before. That is a clear and present danger. I hate to cry injury, when we just lost to a Judgeless Yankee team. It wasn't just the injuries that caused a cliff dive by our offense. Can we lay some blame on the actual players for once? We saw some massive declines and some by player pre-prime or in prime. You may blame the GM for not seeing that coming and for not trading away these guys right before their dives, but nobody wants to trade a player after a good year just because we have a gut feeling a decline is coming. Take the Duran example. He showed serious decline in 2025, but when some of us suggested we trade him, we got our head blasted off with claims that a team in great need of offense should not tarde away a top 3 offensive player. That is one example I was actually for doing, but in nor way did I foresee these declines: Romy was 7th in PAs in 2025 and dropped 254 OPS points and was hurt for much of the year. Narvaez dropped 191 points beforr being traded away. Anthony dropped 124 points and missed time both seasons. Mayer dropped 80 points and got hurt, too. Abreu dropped just 13 points These guys are all pre-prime and should have improved. Story was just past prime, but he should not have been expected to drop 120 points. (He missed time, too, which might have been helpful.) Only one regular improved: Rafaela (+56.) Yoshida improved by 50, but missed half the season, again. Wong got better on offense, but is the back-up catcher, If you think this is Brez's fault, fine. I disagree, but can understand the rational. Despite my disagreement, I feel it's easier to look at this area to lay blame on Brez than his trades and signings. We all look at the subtractions of a half year of Devers and 2/3 of a season by Bregman and see that adding Contreras & Durbin fell woefully short. Point well taken. I agreed, at the time. I was critical of Brez, too. I do think the additions of Mead and AR should have made up for that winter omission. I also think that when you look at the player subtracted from the 2025 team, you can't just look at Breggie and Raffy and to a lesser extent Refsnyder. We also lost... 284 PAs from Toro .659 263 PAs from KC at .664 (These two combined had more PAs than Bregman in 2025.) 194 DHam .590 Breggie+ Raffy had 829 PAs total. Toro+KC+DHam had 741 PAs. The offense had several issues beyond starting the season short a big bopper: 1. Too many declines by pre-prime & prime players. 2. Injuries to Anthony, Mead and others. 3. A September collapse that bled into October. 4. The bench did very well, and many were playing during that 32-5 stretch, but when you have tor ely on back-up to the back-ups, you are doomed to fail.

That's gonna leave a mark.

Of course you need to score some runs to win, but you know as much as anyone that many teams have won with worse offensive teams than the 2026 Red Sox. That's not an argument against needing more offense: you and I and many others agree on it now and felt we needed more last winter and spring. We put all our eggs in the Bregman basket, which I thought was a mistake, but he did have a great 2026 season. When we failed to overpay for Breggie, we fell back on Durbin and Suarez. those two did help the team, but the hole on offense remained. The summer additions of Mead & Rutschman was a valiant attempt at fixing that issue, and on paper those two should have given us more than just Bregman would have. The Mead injury and not-so-good AR production plus no real return of Anthony was the final straw. I think we need to add a star/elite bat this winter, but with the pitching and defense we have, I can understand fans thinking Mead, Rutschman, a healthy Anthony and maybe some turnarounds by some of the returning vets who declined last year can and should be enough. Yes, Mead's half season of greatness leaves questions. Yes, AR's last 2-3 years have not been great, although he still represents a major upgrade from Narvaez/Wong. Yes, we have no idea which Anthony we will get in 2027, or if he even plays. Yes, we worry the long improvement trend by Rafaela may finally end. Yes, the long-awaited bust out season from Abreu has never materialized, and we have to think it may never happen. Yes, Contreras turns 36. Yes, depending on Story, Yoshida and Duran is foolish. Yes, a rookie SS may not work out well. Yes, yes, yes, but there is a lot to be optimistic about with just general, average health in 2027. The 4-5 returning pitchers- all healthy at the end of 2026 could help improve an already very good staff or be used to trade for better offense- like the Mead & AR trades were meant to do. It's not unrealistic to project growth from 24-27 year olds, peak or career years from 27-30 year olds and decent seasons from 30-33 year olds. If we get just that, we could see a significant improvement in the offense. Full seasons from Mead, AR and Anthony could easily be the same as adding someone like Alonso or Schwarber. Yes, the key word is "could." I fully realize it could all go south, again. I had high hopes for our younger players improving in 2026, and most did not. The worst part was how many declined by 100-150 points in OPS. That's the same difference as a .710 Durbin vs an .860 Bregman. (Bregman actually hit .820.) If we do nothing or very little to upgrade the offense, I'll be pissed, but I'll still have some pretty high hopes. I'll be praying for good health, mostly. Maybe another summer trade, but one that works.

Is Drewski saying just adding de la Cruz is not enough? I cannot accept Duran in LF or even a Duran platoon with Jones or White. I'd almost rather have Yoshida/Jones than Duran, and that's not even counting the $10-11M paid to Duran. I'm thinking some $11M OF'er can be signed as a FA. Would Ian Happ (Switch hitter) cost much more than $11M? RHB Taylor Ward on a rebound? Is RHB Laureano better than Duran?

We could certainly add Romero or even Moansterio or Seigler, if they want a 2Bman. (Romy?) My main issue with this trade, which I'd do, is how to replace Abreu. RF is very important in Fenway and I don't want Anthony in RF and a Duran-White/Jones platoon in LF.

AAV on Pitching vs Everyday Players: ($3M+) Everyday: 23.3 Story (Bloomer) 21.3 Contreras 18.0 Yoshida (Bloomer) 16.3 Anthony 10.8 Duran 10.3 Rutschman 7.5 KC 6.3 Rafaela 4.8 Abreu _______________________ Pitchers: 28.3 Crochet 21.3 Suarez 13.3 Chapman 9.2 Bello 7.3 Whitlock 4.8 Houck

I don't think that is "too much," but we'd have to sign Suzuki or Sato to make up for the OF loss. We simply cannot go with Duran FT or even as a platoon in 2027.

Romy had a massive decline and was 7th in PAs in 2025. (-154) Mayer (-80) went down a lot, too and got injured and traded. He only had 136 PAs in 2025, so this was not major. Abreu went down a little. (-13, but +1 in OPS+) Yoshida did better but missed a lot of time, again.

Mead is not known for defense, either, but Sato at DH or LF makes the most sense. Anthony is likely better on LF defense than Sato, but keeping Anthony healthy is a consideration. I'd be fine with... 1. L-Anthony LF 2. R-Mead 2B 3. L- Sato DH 4. R-Contreras 1B 5. L-Abreu RF 6. S- Rutschman C 7. R- Story SS 8. R- Durbin 3B 9. R Rafaela CF Bench: R-Wong, S-Sogard, L Yoshida and 1 from L- Romy, R-Jones or R-White (Romy has an option) AAA on the 40: S- Gasper (IL) L- Romy S- Seigler R- Monasterio R- Campbell L- Cheng R- Eaton (out of options) Rule 5: Barnnon or Jo Garcia? Arias?