moonslav59

It aslo took VTek until his 30's to be considered one of the best defensive catchers in the game.

If the reports are accurate, hell no!

It does not ignore D, at all. It does weight some positions more so than others, but defense is a major part of their WAR. They also count baserunning. Verdugo is ranked 7th on their offense score: 16.3 Duvall 14.2 Casas 13.9 Duran 13.4 Turner 12.1 Devers 6.7 Yoshida 6.2 Verdugo His D is the reason they have him tied with Devers and ahead of the others on this list. It's not his baserunning. Conversely, it is bWAR that ranks Dugo higher based on his O and NOT his D. OWAR 3.6 Devers 2.7 Duran 2.5 Duvall 2.4 Dugo 2.3 Casas & Turner 2.1 Yoshida It's bWAR's O score that has him higher than fWAR, and not the D score.

The Dodgers sure pick some winners. THey are the Raiders of MLB.

He can still improve, especially with getting the best out of our staff, as McGuire needs to do, even more so.

No doubt. Sox OPS Leaders on the Farm: (45+ ABs) 1.056 K Campbell (.500 OBP) .993 Teel (.493 OBP) .983 Cespedes (25 XBHs in 191 ABs) .944 Dalbec (31 HRs) .933 Asencio (.457 OBP) .930 Abreu (22 Hrs and 34 XBHs in 299 ABs) .893 Arias (.440 OBP) .886 Brannon (.583 SLG) .874 Hickey (40 XBHs in 329 ABs) .874 G Rod .869 Rafaela (54 XBHs in 444 ABs and 36 SBs .869 Scott .860 Fitzy .855 EValdez .855 Anthony (40 XBHs in 362 ABs) .847 Musett .844 Salazar .841 Asigen .832 Jordan (47 XBhs in 441 ABs) .828 DHam (32 XBhs and 53 SBs in 348 ABs) .818 RHern (17 Hrs in 286 ABs) .818 Bonaci .815 Joh Garcia .809 Yorke .802 Rosier (48 SBs in 103 gms) .792 Castro .782 Meidroth .770 Sogard .769 Kavadas (.378 OBP)

I agree, and while I do think the Sox top brass expected or hoped for better W-L results in 2023, their eyes have, IMO, always been on improving the foundation of the 26 and the farm more than making the playoffs in 2023. I know some or many disagree, but to me, the foundation of young players has greatly improved from 2020, 2021 and 2022. Many are DD guys, but it seems clar to me, our foundation is much better: Years of control: C: Wong 4+ and McGuire 2 1B: Casas 4+ 2B: Urias 2 and Reyes 3 SS: Story 4 3B: Devers 10 LF: Duran 4+ and Refsnyder 2 CF: Rafaela 5+ RF: Dugo 1 and Abreu 5+ DH: Yoshida 4 and EValdez 4+ (These are just the players with MLB experience, already.) Bello 5 Crawford 4+ Wink 4+ Bernardino 4+ Kelly 4+ Mills 4+ Murphy 4+ Walter 4+ Houck 4 Whitlock 3 Schreiber 3 Joely 2 Jansen 1 Martin 1 Pivetta 1 Sale 1 The farm is harder to quantify, but on paper, it certainly looks stronger than 2017-2021. Recent grads might make 2022's look better, but here is a breakdown of our farm by position: C: S Scott, Teel, Hickey & Brannon 1B: Dalbec, Kavadas & Jordan 2B: Yorke, Bonaci, Ravelo 3B: Meidroth, Coffey, Anderson, Paulino SS: Mayer, Cespedes, Zanetello, DHam & Romero OF: Anthony, Bleis, Rosier, Castro Forgive me for being optimistic, but I see plenty of reason to be so. Add 2-3 players via free agency or trades, and we can be a contender. Add 3-4 top players and we can be top contenders in 2024.

Someone mentioned the idea of pouncing on the second tier SP'er we like the most first, and then waiting to pounce on the leftover first tier SP'er, despite an expected gross overpay. Maybe Gray would be the choice, as he will likely settle on less years than the others in the top tier, due to his age.

SEP 23 Ohio St at ND We better not be looking ahead, but I am.

We can take steps to fix some of the D without sacrificing offense, and some moves don't cost us a cent. If Story can just hit over this year's SS OPS of .634, we will greatly improve our SS D, while likely greatly improving its O, too. NO ADDED COST. If we move Yoshida to DH and not replace JT's salary with a bat, we actually save money. Yoshida's ,813 OPS is an improvement over the 2023 team DH OPS of .778. Gain on O while saving money. With Yoshida at DH nearly FT, we can play a Duran-Refsnyder platoon in LF that should improve the LF defense, significantly without adding a cent to the budget. Duran's .828 OPS is better than Yoshida's .813 OPS and Retsnyder's splits vs LHPs have been among the best in MLB from 2021-2023, combined. Plus on O and D at NO COST. Playing Rafaela in CF adds no cost and improves the CF D astronomically, again at no cost or by saving $7M, if we do not replace Duvall. One can assume a drop in O in CF by not bringing Duvall back, but we can bring him back with a raise, or sign another RH'd OF'er who can hit and play decent D. That would be a slight increase in cost while improving D and maybe keeping the O close to even. Keeping Duvall in RF can be counted as staying even in O and D at no cost. Abreu represents better defensive back-up support with unknown offensive input. Call RF even. 2B rates to be a significant improvement on O and D. Reyes and Urias are capable defenders, unlike what we saw, this year. They also should be able to beat ,640 2B OPS in 2023, easily. PLus-plus at just the arb raise cost for Urias. That leaves 1B and catcher, where I have to think improvement on D should come with more experience, and the O could improve, too. No cost and possibly better O and D. Why isn't trying to fix the D without changing the O such a bad idea? Let's say we lose JT but keep Duvall, Urias and more play Story, Reyes, Rafaela and Abreu more. Is that a big loss on O? I would argue we should have a higher OPS than 2023. Improve the O AND D with minimal additions. (keeping Duvall can be viewed as no added players.)

On Kike, I said Cora thought he was the best defensive 2B in MLB not that he actually was. On Duvall, good point, but signing a guy who was GG just 2 years ago can be viewed as wanting to upgrade our OF D. Our D before the signing was Yoshida in LF- yuck, Duran in CF- double yuck as we thought in March and Dugo in RF- who was highly suspect on D in RF, before this season. I'm just talking about the thought process of the additions, when they were made. No, I don't think we are not paying JBJ. He had a 2023 option. I assume it has been paid, already.

All the more reason to trade him while his stock is highest. LOL BTW, fWAR: 2.6 Devers 2.6 Dugo 2.4 Duvall (in about 40% less games) 2.3 Duran 1.8 Turner 1.5 Casas 1.0 Wong 0.9 Yoshida 0.6 McGuire & Reyes Pitching 1.8 Sale 1.6 Crawford 1.4 Bello 1.3 Jansen 1.1 Martin 1.0 Pivetta & Paxton 0.9 Houck & Bernardino 0.7 Winckowski 0.5 Whitlock

I'd say the odds of Yoshida playing DH more than 81 games is over 50-50. The odds of Casas playing DH 81 or more games is over 500:1. (The same odds as Devers at 1b in 2024.)

JBJ was all about D. Kike was about D and flexibility of his D (just not SS) Chang was just D. Duvall was about both.

It is likely that Bloom bids on the pitchers left over after the Mets and Dodgers choose who they want most.

Yes, I forgot that one, and that 4 years ended up longer than Bogey's with that 3 year opt out. Good catch. In all those 3 cases, it was just DD keeping what he had, and all seemed like team friendly contracts, at the time. I do think not bringing Kimbrel and Kelly back, and not replacing their contracts in kind was the beginning of the friction between DD and top brass. There were also no major prospects traded after the Nate trade at the 2018 deadline.

He did trade for JBJ, which looked like it was all about D. He also added Kike, who he felt was the best defensive 2Bman in MLB, and who turned into a pretty decent defensive CF'er. He added Chang and Mondesi- thought to be good glovemen. He signed GG winner Duvall for our OF, this year. As it turned out, moving Dugo to RF was not as bad as many of us thought, so the Pham deal should have improved our D. The McGuire and Abreu deals looked more about D than O. Bloom's biggest signing was Story, whi has always been a great defender. The Yoshida deal was clearly not about D.

I get how pen building costs less, is usually a safer bet, and shorter commitments, but to me, we have so many pitchers we have used as SP'ers who belong in the pen. We can make our pen one of the best in MLB without adding a single player to our roster, except SP'ers. This pen blows me away: Closer: Jansen Set-Up: Martin RP3: Houck RP4: Whitlock RP5: Crawford RP6: Pivetta RP7: Scheiber RP8: Winckowski/ Bernardino/Joely/Murphy/Walter/Kelly/Robertson Now, I fully realize at least 2 from Houck, Crawford and Pivetta will be in the opening day rotation, and all 3 will likely start a lot of games in 2024, but if we add 2-3 solid SP'ers, we can minimize those starts and maximize their time in the pen. If Sale can start 15+ games in 2024, it would add to t heir pen time, too, but I'm not counting on even 1 start fro Sale in '24. This is likely a pipe dream, and it's only adding 2 SP'ers: SP1: Gray or Urias SP2: Yamamoto SP3: Bello SP4: Houck SP5: Sale/Pivetta/Houck

The Sale and Bogey extensions notwithstanding, the drop in spending and trading of prospects started right after the trade deadline of 2018, which was about 1.5 years of DD and 4 years of Bloom.

Lmao. At the time, that money and those years were about the max any RP'er had ever gotten.

I'd put the odds of Bloom signing Chapman at greater than 1,000:1. My hopes is over 90% of all money spent or prospects traded for are for starting pitchers.

Of course- same with HS pitchers, but what is the traditional norm? 2-4 for most college draftees? (3-4?) 4-6 for most HS draftees? (5-6 or 5-7?)

I can't tell what you wrote vs what I wrote. My point was 4-6 years by HS drafted pitchers vs 4-5 by college, but maybe the college numbers should be 3-5 or 3-4. It seems like more took 2-3 years than I imagined.

Multiply by 2.25 and you are way under Theo's numbers. DD is in a class by himself.

Counting inflation?