moonslav59

I meant it to mean a solid #1 or 2 like traded for Pedro, Schilling, Beckett, Lackey, Sale and Nate. Not Pivetta, Winckowski, Paxton, Wacha, Hill, Richards, Perez...

Maybe, but I was not specifically referring to Wacha. The poster boy might be Mark Buehrle, who had a career 5.1 K/9 rate, but he pitched 16 seasons in MLB with a 3.81 ERA. His xFIP was 4.22. From 2000 to 2015, he was 7th in fWAR at 42.8. Out of 400 pitchers with 400+ IP in that period, he placed: 83rd in ERA- at 84 (near or tied with Lester, Harden, Cole) 117 ERA+ 134th in ERA T156th in WHIP at 1.28 .291 BAbip 238th in xFIP He might be the extreme case, but I do believe some good but low K pitchers suffer from xFIP focus- just not to this level. I also don't think BAbip is 100% luck. Sometimes, when a pitcher has a better year than his norm, his hard hit% and LD% are down, significantly, too. Wacha's best 4 ERA years: 2014 .288 BAbip/ 32.1 HH%. 21% SH%, 22.1 LD% 2015 .272 BAbip/ 29.7 HH%, 20.6 SH%, 22.2 LD% 2022 .260 BAbip/ 30.3%, 18.9%, 20.5% 2023 .266 BAbip/ 30.0%, 15.4%, 22.5% Career: BAbip: .295 Hard hit %: 33% Soft hit %: 17.3% LD %: 22.6% Wacha beat his career stats in 11 of these 12 indicators of pitching better, so of course his BAbip should be lower to some extent. Maybe some was luck, but not all of it.

One of the main reasons given for always drafting and signing IFA non pitchers is that you can trade them later for more known pitching commodities. That really has not happened for frontline pitching since Nate and Sale, before him. (Some did not view nate as "front line," when we acquired him, and only giving up Beeks is evidence of that position.)

I like Cease, but I prefer traing even more prospects to get a young pitcher with 3-5 years of control, not 2 like Cease. Since it looks like we may never go large and long on a 30+ pitcher ever again, we would not be extending Cease.

I can understand that feeling, but I can't see getting myself to that point. I love the game, a lot. I actually enjoyed watching many aspects of this team since 2021. I'm liking some of DD's unsung prospects doing well. The long stretch of HS players drafted kinds helped prolong the gap left b y trading so many top prospects, but a few are getting real close to the bigs. As you pointed out, tough: no quality young pitchers, except maybe Bello and one or two from Crawford, Houck, Whitlock and Wink.

We have some so-so to decent young arms on the big club and a couple longshots on the farm, but no "top quality:" I agree. 24 Bello, Max Castillo 25 Wink, Murphy 26 I Campbell, Walter 27 Crawford, Houck, Whitlock, Criswell 28 Kelly, Weissert 29 Schreiber Note: I listed all with a sliver of hope. Some a teenie-tiny sliver. Farm: 19 Paez, Soto 20 Perales, E R-C 21 Wikelman, Monegro, Early 22 Bastardo, Rogers, I Coffey, Sena, Judice 23 Guerrero, Cepeda, Olivarez, Mullins 24 Fitts, Mata, Dobbins, Troye, Liu 25 Hoppe 26 Slaten, Gambrell, Penrod, Song Sure looks like an unpromising group on the farm!

I'd be shocked, if we sign Snell. Slightly shocked, if we sign Monty. No Matt Chapman. (Sorry notin, but you knew that.) I have zero expectations, but I'm holding out hope for Imanaga. Stroman might work out, okay, but I'm not high on him or anyone else. Duvall or Teoscar might be signed, but I'm not high on them, either. A big trade is probably the best hope for a major improvement to the MLB team, but I've all but lost hope on that happening.

True. Many of the best players from 2018 are not close to the same level, now, but the best of that young core are all gone, except Devers. Had they kept Betts, Bogey, Devers and vet Nate, we'd be better. JD is still good, but so was JT. ERod was a good one, but had some issues with DET. Letting Kimbrel & Kelly go was the start of this decline, but neither is great, now. Keeping Sale proved to a mistake. Keeping Beni would not have helped. JBJ sucks. Vaz is in decline. Barnes? LOL Price & Porcello are out of baseball, so losing them was inevitable. Time has passed many of the old guard, but I'm with you. You gotta lock up your young studs as early as possible, even if you get a couple wrong.

I'm not suggesting it's the best idea, and I'm certainly for trying to build a winning team in 2024, but my point was this: If all we do for the rest of the winter is make a big prospect trade for one young, controllable pitcher, we likely will not be winning in 2024. I'd prefer we wait until we are actually ready to go "all in." If that day will never come, then yes, I agree. Just do the best we can do under the constraints set by JH & Co, and see what happens. I'm all for trading Mayer, Yorke & Wikelman for Luzardo (3 yrs) or Garrett (5 yrs.) If we end up spending more, next year, or not, it should be a better Sox team to watch.

It just seems like more of Kluber, Richards, Perez and more.

Top Remaining Free Agents: Snell, Monty, Bellinger, Matt Chapman Imanaga, Stroman Teoscar, Kershaw (?), A Chapman, JD Martinez, Soler, J Hicks, Hoskins Stephenson, YRod, Paxton, Clevinger, Lorenzen, Manaea, Duvall, Urshela Merrifield, J Turner, Belt, Ryu, Nerris, Junis, L Hendricks, T Anderson, Joc Pederson D Robertson, G Sanchez, R Stanek, M Taylor, Votto, P Maton, M Moore, T Pham,

There should be a sizable mob with you, unless the Kool-Aid has kicked in.

Agreed, but I'm feeling more and more like this is all about 2025 or 2026, and fattening JH's wallet, along the way.

Another option is trading from our everyday unbalanced farm for a young pitcher, but again, if we are not going to try to win in 2024, why waste a year of said pitcher? Just punt, and do something splashy, next winter.

You are not alone.

Why bring up an old one to add yet another thread?

Exactly. This is not the first time, either. We cut salary bigtime with the Betts & half-Price deal. We cut salary and got 4 prospects and min wage Franchy for Beni. The Pivetta deal saved us money and got us a prospect (Seabold.) We saved money with Vaz for prospects. We dumped salary in the Diekman for McGuire trade. Even when we took on salary, like Ottavino and JBJ, we got prospects, too. (Hosmer as well.) This is our M.O., now.

Imanaga has until 5 pm Jan 11th to sign, so we know one is less than a week away.

I don't think any of us are fixated. I see guys like Wacha, Giolito, Lugo and a few others as afterthoughts or secondary types of signings to the hoped for top end SP'er, we have yet to add or may never add. There isn't much to talk about. Giolito is not much different from any of the others I mentioned plus a few more I can't think of, right now.

Some players who signed with the Sox went on to get significant contracts after leaving, but yes, Beltre was atop or near the top of the list. Strahm: $3M/1 > $15M/2 R Hill: $5M/1 > $8M/1 So many others flopped and flailed and never made as much as they did with their one and done with us.

I agree, but if we were looking at the 2024 budget plus the next few years, I could imagine a thought process like this, with any team, except BOS: 1. X is the limit for this winter's budget. For argument's sake, say we had $20M to spend. Trading Sale made it $30M for 2024, only. 2. X is the budget for 2025 and beyond, and the Sale contract comes off the books, allowing us to afford that higher level pitcher we ended up signing, instead of Paxton.

I thought this poster was against big FA pitcher signings, in the first place. Now, that's what we should have used 1 year of Sale's money to do.

It misses the pitchers who consistently get outs without K's. I get how that is an issue with a team that fields like we do, but there is a hole in xFIP, as with any stat. Do you think xFIP outweighs ERA- and WHIP, combined?

They did have EValdez as their 10th ranked prospect, last summer before he graduated. He hit better than Rafaela in small sample sizes in MLB, last summer. Over the past 3 years, only 8 players in all of minor league baseball had a higher OPS and more PAs than Valdez. (One was Grisson.) He does have two weaknesses: - He sucks on D, and has very little experience at 1B - His splits are wide, but he has not been below .700 v LHPs in any of the last 3 seasons. I'd rather have Rafaela as the OF and utility IF'er over Valdez. With Reyes, we do not need Valdez and Rafaela. I guess the Sox are not worried about back-up 1B, as Teoscar has never played 1B. Think of all the 1B/OF guys out there.

Of course all prospects are a gamble, but who among us thinks Sale was not a big gamble, and at least Grissom has a few years to show value. I started out wondering why a team in such high need for SP'ing would ever trade away, even a big gamble pitcher like Sale, even with the addition of an innings-eater like Gio, but I like the move, now. If we add a good SP'er (or two,) it will look even better. If we actually spend the $10M "saved" (note the quotes,) it could be a great trade.