moonslav59

We had way more declines than improvements in 2026 from returning vets, and to me, it gets harder to project improvements after so many players declined. I don't expect Contreras to improve. Story was so bad, it's hard to project further decline, but he may get hurt again, so it won't matter. Mayer and Narvaez are gone. Anthony and Abreu should not continue declining, but how long can Rafaela keep going up and up? Anthony, Mead and Rutschman offer the best chances of getting big boosts from 2025, and I do think they should offset any declines from others, but one injury can swing that the other way. I do agree that while in the past counting on players returning from injuries was not a success, but this year, many of the players out were playing to end the season, so next year looks better. Everybody except maybe Casas, Gasper and Slaten look promising for a 2027 return, and those three are not major pieces going into 2027. When you figure returning IL players and add full seasons from Mead, Rutschman and Miller, it's hard to stifle optimism. We had a pretty decent team when you total all these guys together: SP: Crochet, Houck, Crawford, Oviedo, Early (not returning) RP: Guerrero, Slaten, Kelly, Rivera C: Rutschman 1B: Gasper/Casas 2B: Mead/Romy SS: Story (Arias AAA) 3B: Mayer/IKF (not returning) LF: Anthony CF: White DH: Yoshida That's a lot of players returning or promising more games tha 2025!

He's had a lot of time off on the IL, but point well taken.

I thought that trade was a legit effort. Had Mead repeated his first half with us, our offense would have been significantly better.

I'm eternally grateful for JH coming along. I'm not sure we win one ring without him and the people he hired. One significant playoff run in 8 years sucks bigtime, and it does leave room for criticism. If you look at JH's spending patterns, he often made significant cuts, even during the Theo and DD eras. The one from 2019 to the Devers extension was his longest and maybe most extreme, but the trend has been changing. Just because Buehler & Sandoval sucked and other high priced player have been injured doesn't mean JH hasn't been spending. Of course, the Devers trade undid a lot of that spending, but overall the spending has ticked upwards under Brez.

I liked Bregman for 2027, but I think he declines afterwards and it may be steep. I preferred Suarez over Bregman, despite knowing we'd be short on offense, for that long term reason. It turned out Contreras did about as well as Alonso and Schwarber, and I seriously doubt we ever thought about adding Contreras and Alonso, since we were paying $18M for Yoshida to DH and had Duran-Anthony crowded in LF with no idea Duran was gonna suck. Yes, Bregman and a 1Bman made the most sense for offense, but I honestly think Durbin will out-WAR Bregman over the 5 years. I could be wrong on Breggie. His last couple years (including the partial 2025 season) might show he is aging well, but he had a long downturn in his career: .924 ages 23-25 .795 ages 26-30 .820 ages 31-32 (1200 PAs)

Durbin had a .798 OPS since May 29th, but slumped near the end. He hit ..658 in his last 43 games (cherry-picked at worst I could find,) but he was playing with an injured finger that required surgery after the season.

I'm not for upgrading Durbin. I value defense and was encouraged by his second half offense. I merely mentioned 3B is maybe 3rd on the list of positions where offense could be upgraded significantly. Yes, the cost would be too prohibitive at 3B, but SS and DH/LF maybe not. Another reason I mentioned 3B was that Sato could be the big bat we need and it would not involve trading Arias or Durbin. We could play Durbin at 3B and Sato at DH or LF, and I'd be fine, but he does play 3B and is likely a major upgrade on offense, no matter where he plays. If we get Sato, we can afford to keep excellent defense and maybe subpar offense at SS and 3B. (Also, I don't view Durbin as subpar on offense at 3B. He had a 100 wRC+, which was #15 out of all 3Bmen with 300+ PAs. He was 17th in OPS.)

His +0.3 fWAR? I agree, he was a negative in 2026, but we really want to blame Brez for that, too?

So, he's cueing up 2027? You do know Brez added Contreras (.901), Mead (.851) and Rutschman (.740 in '26, which is about 200 points higher than Narvaez), plus a near .800 second half from Durbin. While I wish he had added Alonso or Schwarber, I think the "blame" lies with all the players that did way worse in 2026 than 2025- not Brez. While Alonso hit .884, Schwarber hit .857- both below Contreras. That's not to say I'd rather have Willson than those two, but it's not like Brez neglected the offense. I guess his mistake as not foreseeing 100+ point drops from Anthony, Duran, Narvaez, Story and other significant drops from Abreu, Mayer and others. He should have traded them all.

Agreed, but maybe we miss the playoffs like Alonso did (BTW, I wanted Alonso or Schwarber- not Bregman or Suarez.)

ZIPS 2027 Projections: 4.8 Crochet 2.8 Suarez 2.1 Bello (2.1 Gray) 1.9 Tolle 1.5 Holobetz 1.4 Oviedo ________________ 4.1 Rutschman 4.0 Anthony 3.3 Rafaela 3.3 Duran (LOL) 2.5 Abreu 2.4 Durbin & Jones 1.6 Story & 1.5 Arias 1.4 Ward & KC (LOL) 1.2 Gasper & White 1.1 Contreras & Mead

Who and what excuses?

How many playoff hits did Alonso get?

I agree that we can't trade Gonzales, despite the fact that he may not make the bigs until 2028 or even later. I'm a big Arias fan and love SS defense, but I think he is the one guy we can trade to get what we need. I get the argument that we can just stand pat and hope for better health (Mead, Crochet, houck Crawford, Oviedo and a full season from Rutschman,) but I have always believed that no matter how good you think we are, you need to make improvements every year, unless you are rebuilding. Counting on much better health does work sometimes, but we also need too many of our players to reverse their downturns from 2025. Asking for both is too much for me to hope for. While Rafaela continued growing, his OPS only went up 56 Points. That's nice but it is greatly overshadowed by thes drops: -189 Narvaez -147 Duran -124 Anthony -120 Story -80 Mayer -13 Abreu Many of these players were on the right side of prime and should not have declined, but if we don't see some reversals, we won't be going far in 2027. (Yoshida and Wong both improved but were back-ups or hurt.)

Yup- just like the Crochet trade and extension, that one poster is now saying is "poor spending."

He's retiring.

I thought my suggestions were shocking!

Since he's not Rule 5, it makes sense to keep him off the 40, unless Story is hurt or looking awful in ST'ing. We could also gain a year of control by leaving him off the 40 for a couple months. I'm predicting Story starts at SS and Mead at 2B. We aren't trading Story or Yoshida. I do think we trade Duran as $10-11M takes up too much room on a tight budget. He's too unpredictable to be worth the risk, IMO. I'm hoping we trade for a big bat SS, but I put the odds somewhere around 10-20%.

Indeed, but Story & Yoshida are on Bloom. Those players on the 60 Day IL hurt us badly. Houck was known to be out. The others were not, including Oviedo & Mead, who you failed to include in your totals. It is "poorly" spent money in hindsight, but were many of us upset we extended Crochet? He's a big chunk of that "poorly spent" money. Ultimately, the bottom line is what production you get for the money, but Crochet has given us a 6.1 fWAR since 2025. Chapman 4.2, Suarez 3.8/1 yr, Gray 3.4/1 yr and Bennett 2.3/1 yr. I know you mentioned the spending on pitching has worked out, but including Crochet seems short-sighted. Yes, 2026 alone was bad, but I'm glad we kept Crochet, Houck, Oviedo & Crawford. I may be in the minority. The "spending" on Contreras & Durbin worked well. Last year, the spending on Bregman, Gio and Narvaez worked well. The spending on Sandoval and Buehler did not.

Good points, and having Harrison, Drohan and Priester for several years helps. They do have some key players nearing loss of control: 1 year left: Wm Contreras .758 (2nd in PAs Andrew Vaughn .834 (10th in PAs) Antonio Senzatela 4.05 ERA (75 IP) Trevor Megill 2.63 (62 IP) Bryse Wilson 3.51 ERA (21 IP) 2 years left: Garrett Mitchell .771 (5th in PAs) Angel Zerpa 3 years left: Yelich .692 (6th in PAs) Turang .816 (1st in PA) Ashby 3.12 (89 IP) Ortiz .730 (7th in PAs) Frelick .614 (9th in PAs) Hamilton .650 (8th in PAs) Hall 1.91 ERA (61 IP) Naylor, Baddoo, Anderson Conversely, the Sox lose Gray, IKF and Sandoval this winter and... 1 yr: Chapman hurts. Houck Story & Yoshida are additions by subtraction. 2 yrs: Rutschman hurts Whitlock hurts Duran (I project we trade him this winter.) Crawford, Oviedo, Romy, White, Casas, Wong 3 yrs Abreu hurts Miller Salten, Weissert, Kelly, Monasterio

I don't disagree, and it's hard to know how much Sato gets offered from one GM, but if he is really somewhere between Murakami and Okamoto, we should be able to compete in the bidding. To me, Sato is a much better projected bat than those two, but neither of them were know for defense either. Murakami was 26 at the start of this season. He had a 1.051 OPS in 2025 but only 263 PAs (less than Mead's 2026 season you question) 24 HRs & 34 XBHs is awesome if projected to 650 PAs. In 2024, his OPS was just .851 with 33 HRs & 47 XBHs. Okay, the guy hit 56 HRs in 2022 but only had 21 2Bs. Two year totals: 57 Hrs & 81 XBHs in 873 PAs. Okamoto had a .992 OPS in 2025 (just 314 PAs) 15 HRs and 39 XBHs projects to about 30 HRs & 78 XBHs, That's very nice! In 2024, he hit .863 with 27 HRs and 64 XBHs, The two year total: 42 HRs & 103 XBHs in 925 PAs. Sato's numbers are mind-boggling. .991 and .924 OPS. Two year totals: 79 HRs and 160 XBHs. 80 XBHs per season is off-the-charts great. If you give Okamoto and Murakami their projected numbers in 2024, they be at: 57 HRs & 105 XBHs Okamoto 83 HRs & 125 XBHs Murakami

You are missing Crawford.

If we sign him at $40M, we don't spend the $10M option for nothing, so yes, it's kinda like we spent $30M to keep him, which is about what he's worth.

Good one, and he kind of drives home the point. It's folly to try and add "clutch players." We need to focus on adding healthy and younger players. I like the age set-up we have now, but the injury part has bit us in the ass. Granted, the Gio signing turned sour with an injury, and trading injury-prone Sale was a kick in the you-know-what, but we've had some bad luck on injuries. Suarez and Durbin were clean additions. Gray and Contreras stayed healthy enough. Crochet and Mead hurt, but Mead's injury was unexpected.

There are many ways to win a ring. A while ago, the mantra was "No way we can ever win a ring with 2-3 black holes in the line-up and a weak rotation reliant on injured pitchers returning to glory." Well, now we have a balanced, though lacking starpower, line-up and a top 3-4 rotation. On top of that, we have a top 3-4 one-two pen combo in Chapman & Whitlock. We should be able to win more than we have, but I do agree we need a big boost in power/SLG. I'm always for identifying our weakest area and focusing on upgrading that area, and not with slight upgrades at 4-5 slots, but major upgrades at 2-3 slots. IMO, Brez did a fine job on major upgrades, least winter and this summer, but the Mead injury and unexplainable declines from way too many returning vets killed our playoff chances. Some may argue Gray, Suarez, Contreras, Mead, Rutschman, Bennett and Miller were not all "major" upgrades, but to me at least 3-4 were, and 7 significant upgrades in one year might be record-breaking for any Sox GM in history. That being said, I think we are done "balancing" the line-up, rotation and pen. We have gotten to a place where no slot sucks or even looks below average. On paper, some pen pieces look shady, but for two years in a row, the pen has exceeded expectations and done better than fine. (The pen actually did better than the rotation in fWAR rankings.) We have the "quantity" but not enough high quality. I think most of us agree on this. It would seem very difficult to slightly upgrade several positions and much easier to just make a huge jump up at one slot- maybe two significant jumps would do, too. That's just theory. Pulling it off is another thing, especially when we've lost many prospect trading chips, recently, and our 2027 budget looks tight. It's easy to say, JH just needs to open his wallet and pay for Sato or Suzuki, but I'll believe it when I see it. I'm not going to plan on it. That's not saying I'm complicitly agreeing with this tight budget strategy, but I'm trying to be realistic. There are some encouraging signs since the Devers extension. The Suarez signing was one of the longest and largest FA deals in Sox history. The trades for Gray and Contreras cost a lot of budget space, too. The Crochet extension was one of the largest in Sox history, too. The $21M spent on Buehler, though a catastrophe, was over double what we spent on Kluber, Richards, Paxton and Sandoval (AAV.) Extending prospects early has been a hotspot of debate, but like it or not, it represented a major shift in Sox spending philosophy. The Tax line budget has gone from $226M in 2023 (Bloom's last season) to $249 in '25 and $273 in 2026. Cots has us projected to be $254M in 2027, before any additions. Spotrac has $297, counting $30M for Gray, so $267M without. We got as low and $207M in 2021 and $184M in 2020- prorated. There has been a change.