moonslav59

I dont think MN says yes.

Yes, it would, Mayer is 54 and K is 41. We'd still need a 3Bman by trading Mayer.

BTV says his value is about $10M ($5M x 2). I think we might be lucky to find anyone to pay $8M of the $36M owed him ($4M x 2.) We might get someone to pay $3-4M x 2 for Hicks.

BTV accepts Early & Campbell for Keaschall. (Also Early+Arias) Of course I had to go nutty: Tolle, Campbell. Phillips, Wong & DHam for Keaschall & Jeffers Here is a lesser one: Phillips, Sandlin, Wong & DHam for Jeffers and Kody Clemens.

Of course the Twins would want more. I'm not sure Aria and Tolle gets it done. BTV accepts Tolle & Campbell.

They think we'll trade Bello to save some money, and they see Early and Tolle as the guys who move up. One will replace Gray and the other replaces Sandoval. They felt anyone we trade for, other than KMarte will be an imperfect fit. They mentioned Otto Lopez as someone with upside and Royce Lewis, despite the injuries and recent lower O numbers. Their dream guy is Luke Keaschall, but they think we'd need to give up Tolle or Early.

Maybe they just assume inflation and MLB salaries going up and up and...

The soxprospects.com podcast was a real downer. They blasted the loss of Bregman and questioned the signing of Suarez after using so manya ssets to get Gray & Oviedo. They even likened the Suarez signing to a trade, as they will lose their 2nd round pick (61st), 5th round pick (159th) & about $2M in Int'l bonus money in 2027. An ouch listen... https://news.soxprospects.com/2026/01/podcast-ep-398-alex-bregman-is-cub-but.html

Here is a list of the top OPS players from 2024-2025 that could possibly be FA or trade targets for the Sox and I'm throwing in some names of players not mentioned as trade targets: .913 KMarte .861 Seager .806 Suarez .784 Chisholm .769 Vientos .768 Paredes .766 Donovan .762 Bohn (Bichette is at .755 & Masa is at .742) .724 Hoerner Kinda slim pickins.

He's been under .700 two years in a row, and he's 25. He is not the guy we need for offense. Of course, adding Yoshida or Hicks, or both to a deal for him gets me listening, but we need some sort of offensive boost to the line-up, IMO.

I thought about that, too, and for a 2 month catcher rental that the manager decides would be the back-up.

Apparently, PHI offered Bichette $200M/7, but he took $126M/3. Tucker took $240M/4 from LAD. I'm pretty sure he got longer term offers from others, but the trend seems to be moving towards these type deals. That's some high AAVs there!

The vast majority of MLB players make min wage or arb wages. I used to bargain as a union rep, and the company often exploited the fact that the majority of members had seniority, so they had tiered pay schedules, but one the company took off and hired a ton of new workers, they flipped the script and offered the majority newer members jumps in tiers much earlier, and a contract was accepted that gave no raises to the senior most members. It happens. I can happen. Yes, something would have to "give" to get owners to significantly play lower tiered players more money and to establish floor levels for teams' spending budgets, and maybe that would be some sort of limiting higher level contracts of limiting the spending by top teams. Perhaps there are other "gives" the union give to get a more balanced reward system for the majority of their members most likely at the expense of the higher paid players.

Realmuto took $15M x 3.

How is it fair for the Sox to play on away TV and not get a penny?

The hold up on a trade w HOU is likely that we (as well as BTV) values our OF'er more than the value of Paredes, and we are either asking for another piece (RP'er?) or offering a non OF'er of lesser value. I think BTV undervalues Paredes, but I'm not sure by how much. BTV says it is a major overpay to offer Duran for Paredes, B King (RP) and Janek (decent C prospect.) It accepts Abreu or Rafaela for the same. It also accepts K Campbell for Paredes and one of the other two players mentioned.

My guess is Brez likes Gray and Oviedo more than most of us do, but Sandoval & Harrison are "Brez guys," too. I think someone will be traded. I'm thinking Crawford, but after hearing Merloni rave about him, I'm having second thoughts. Since the options for big bat infielders is dwindling, I'm moving away from the idea of trading Duran to someone who values him more as an OF'er than we do as a DH. We need his bat, and probably Abreu's, too. I'm not for trading Anthony, and Rafaela is one of my favorite players. Maybe E Suarez is still an option. We are about $18M under the third line, so maybe we need to free up $5-10M AAV, depending on how much we can defer with ES. Some have suggested Bello or Sandoval's $9M. Those would be easier to move than Yoshida ($18M x 2) or Hicks ($10M x 2), especially Bello, but it would be great if we could dump $18M AAV from Yoshida + Hicks by getting someone(s) to pay $10M/yr total for both. That would save us the $10M needed and keep the best of our depth. It would also open a slot on the 40 for Ranger.

Forget the "only." We pay him $20M more to pitch than to walk. I'm not saying he'll be back. My initial guess was 50-50, if it costs us $20M more, since we paid that for Buehler and essentially for Sandoval's one year, two (pretty close.) I am NOT saying I think we offer it to him.

Realmuto back to Phillies for $45M/3. DD was "in" on some big names, but settled for the "real thing."

I have to think DET was ready to get a comp pick and do without him, also. No, I have not heard his name mentioned. I also think if they were talking about trading Skubal, are they really looking at 2026 as their one year window? Maybe. Maybe not.

These big stars are taking super high AAV deals and not 6+ years.

Any sophomore slums should be, in theory, offset by age progression upticks from Duran, Rafaela, Abreu, Romy, DHam, Wong. It's not unrealistic to expect the same or more from Masa and Story. The only returning rookies are Anthony, Mayer, narvaez and Campbell. They should be outnumbered. That being said, I agree: we need a major boost to the offense to be a well-balanced team.

I see it as wasteful, in terms of his value being higher in the OF for another team than to us as a DH, where I can see Masa batting .775 in 2026. Masa+ Romy might out-OPS Duran as the FT DH.

Imagine Taylor Swift doing a concert on TV but doesn't get paid for it, because it's not on her hometown TV. Sharing TV revenue would go a long way towards partially evening up the playing field while still rewarding team that draw more viewers. The Dodgers still get 50% of their TV revenue, while PIT gets 50% of Pitt's TV revenue- a big difference, but not as big as now. The other 50% gets put in a pot and split 30 ways, so LA still gets 50% of the other 29 team's TV revenue. _______________________________ One area I think the union should go hard after is to bring up the min wage. Shortening the arb years would help the lower/mid-tier players make more. Expanding the MLB roster to 27 would expand their numbers, too. _______________________________ I'm not sure we ever see a hard cap or even a soft one, but demanding a minimum team budget on player salaries would be a big plus. It could be phased in slowly. You could even change how you split the TV revenue money based on giving more money to the lower tier teams that increase their player budgets by the most. _______________________________ Maybe there should be a 1,000% tax on the Dodgers.

If we believed in Campbell and felt Masa was okay as the 4th OF'er...