moonslav59

I can see the reasoning for buying, but it also makes a lot of sense to sell now and buy heavily, this coming winter.

Nice start from Sandoval. Maybe he can be this year's Giolito. The pen held on tightly. The staff K'd 9 and walked just 1, while our line-up drew 4 BBs. Big boom by Durbin. He's been coming on strong after a little lull. It looks like he might have 15-20 HR pop, too. We are 2.5 GB the WC. We are just 2 losses behind the 4th best AL team.

Sounds about right. Add Coulombe. Maybe Whitlock.

The chance at making the WS, due to the weak AL, is not as far-fetched as we may think. While I do not think we are close enough to be a top 3-4-5 team in MLB, we might be close enough to be a top 2-3 AL contender. Not sure if needing to be a top 3 MLB team is the bottom line on buying vs selling, but selling does make a lot of sense, as of now.

I think the Astors (and other teams) would grossly overpay to to get Abreu back, but would they give what we need? Do they even have what we need?

Are the Rays beyond our reach? (As in having a realistic shot at beating in the playoffs?) (As of now, the Rays are 5-1 vs BOS.)

The time to be buyers in the winter, and we've done pretty well with those trades, in totality. It does seem like selling makes more sense, but I'm not sure about a wholesale rebuild, plus I don't think the fanbase would handle it well.

Then we cue how Brez is an idiot for trading away so many studs.

I've been waiting for him to "bust out," but it never happens. I do hesitate to trade GG RF'er who is still the 2nd or 3rd best batter on the team, though. You are talking total tear down to go this deep.

Maybe 6:30. The deadline is August 3rd, this year, and we have 21 games to play by then. We play many of the teams ahead of us, and they play each other often enough, that if we win at a 60% rate (13-8,) we will probably be in the 2nd or 3rd WC slot by then. I know some think, so what, but to me, unlike other recent seasons, every AL team is very beatable. Maybe the Rays don't look like that, now, but I think they hit a skid, at some point. They don't look like a WS team to me, either. The Rays have 9 batters over 170 PAs (actually over 210, too.) They have two guys over .900! That's awesome. They have Aranda ar .832, but then there is a massive drop-off: The next 6 are all between .620 and .676, with 5 between .620 and ,639! Imagine the Sox having 5 guys in the line-up under .640. We'd all be saying "non contender!" Hell, we're saying it now with better than that. Like us, they have a nice rotation, but their 5th starter Matz (6.28) is on the IL and Seymour is at 4.11. 2.61 Nick Martinez (pitched over 143 IP only once in career) 2.78 Rasmussen (has never gone over 150 IP) 2.83 McClanahan (never pitched over 167 IP and missed last year with an injury.) rivals our top 3. Griffin Jax is at 3.60. (He's never pitched more than 81 IP) Why are we viewing the Rays so highly going into the last 75 games of the season? Baker & Kelly have done very well in the pen, but are they household names as high leverage guys? Their pen has a 4.30 ERA and .721 OPS Against. Ours is 3.35 and .664, and we call our pen a "weak area Brez neglected." The AL is anybody's for the taking. Even the Tigers could win it, and they are behind us!

The point about Tolle and IP also applies to Early and Bennett. BTW, Suarez has never gone more than 158 IP, and he's on pace for 175. Gray & Chapman seem closer to 50 years old than 25. (Note: Chapman is, but Gray is not.) Anthony & Crochet's returns seem eerily like Hendriks, Crawford and Casas. I'm still leaning sell, and even if we go 14-7 in the next 21, we might need too much to go "all in." I hesitate to say "pretenders," but we are not top "contenders," right now, for sure. Can 1 or 2 big deadline moves get us there? I'd say doubtful, unless Anthony or Crochet return and do very well, too.

Good post. When I look at 2027, I see 3 major adds needed, so we really need those same 3 now: 2 big bats from 3 positions (assuming Duran is traded.) SS Catcher DH/OF (Anthony plays the other) or 2B/3B (Durbin plays the other) To fill even two of these needs to the quality we'd need to be top contenders would be very prospect-costly and maybe money-wise, too. We'd basically have to trade Arias and or Eyanson. If just one, then count on 2 or 3 from Witherspoon, Gonzales, Valera and Azocar/Phillips/Primera. Are we at that position? I think not.

Agreed. Maybe even Florida does no deserve one. I once suggested MIA & TB share a team (40-41 games played at each city.) North Carolina loves baseball and deserves a team, but they don't really have a big enough city, and trying to build a stadium between population centers, makes it too difficult for everyone to vitis. San Antonio? Sacremento? Indianapolis? Buffalo? Maybe it would just be best to go back to 28 teams, instead of looking at 32.

I try to avoid the personal issues, but you make a good point. His personality has interfered with getting the job done, and even if I'm happy about the botched Bregman deal, it's not a good sign for the GM going forward. How the Devers situation unfolded is also a strike against Brez and a reflection of his personality getting in the way of being a top GM. I do think Devers & Cora played major roles, too, but the man in charge mishandled it. I'm okay with GMs making mistakes, as long as the net gains outweigh them, but these are different kinds of mistakes than the Sale trade, which incidentally, I did not view as a mistake, at the time. (Same with the Harrison and Priester deals.) Can Brez listen and learn from the criticism? I'm never one to believe someone can change that much, so I'd guess no. I will say, I think he has made way more improvements to the 26, 40 and farm than mistakes. We still have a long way to go, but he seemingly fixed the major pitching and pitching pipeline issue and for years to come. The sin of omission for the missing big bat weighs heavily, but given the resources he had, it's hard to imagine filling every need. Fixing the bat issue might have whack- a- mole'd another weak area.

I could see the Sox doing neither (again) or just a little of both. Like sell on Duran and Whitlock, but keep Gray & Chapman. Buy on an infielder & bat (maybe the same guy) without giving up a top 5 to 7 prospect.

You said you cared about competitiveness. Right now, only the Rays look out of our reach. One could argue the Yanks, but 4-14 kinda shows a kink in their armour.

"Compete" includes the strength of other teams, right? The Yanks ar 4-14, recently, but now recent sample sizes don't matter as much to you, anymore. 6 out of the 9 teams ahead of us have worse run differentials- some way worse- like 4 of 9 have 19 or more net runs worse. Here is a good one: All 8 teams above us minus the crappy Yanks have a net run differential of -50 and we are +17. Add the Yanks, and the 9 teams combined are +27 to our +17. Can it be possible we just are not as bad as you think? Can you even entertain that idea?

Since June 19th, the Sox are 11th in runs scored. That's not great, but it's a huge improvement over 28th to 29th. With pitching and defense like we've seen almost all year, maybe 11th is enough... maybe not. We have been 13th in OBP and 15th in SLG, so I'm not talking great offense, but maybe mid tier is enough. Since June 23rd: 10th in OBP & SLG 10th in runs

I'm a big Whitlock fan, and our pen is weak and not deep. To me, pen arms go up and down, and Duran has been headed down for too long. I'm no expert on other team's player values, but I'd consider trading Duran & Whitlock. If we do sell, we should sell Gray, Contreras, IKF, Coulombe and maybe maybe 2-3 year players. I'm on the fence with Contreras.

Watch it, and tell me you dislike it. I dare you.

It wasn't expecting more from Story than 2025, it was expecting better than his 2026. I think everyone knew or expected he might/would do worse, but not this badly. Same with Narvaez. Thank God Wong had flipped the script to about the same degree, but with less PAs. I, for one, did expect more than 2025 from Abreu. I expected more than what we've gotten in 2026 from Durbin, Duran , Narvaez, Story, Abreu, Mayer, Yoshida and Anthony. Maybe I expected too much. I knew all would not improve, but I never expected all these guys to decline. The only true over-expectation everyday guys are Contreras, Wong and Rafaela, and just a little on Ceddanne. Brez wasn't the only guy around who expected better.

That's "piling on Perales?" I haven't heard you say the same about YRod, Holobetz, Jose Bello, and the guy we got for Meidroth.

Yup, they needed Romy, Anthony and another big bat.

In some posters' minds, maybe. I was thinking more like players some posters have talked up like they will be HOF'ers with numbers that look far from HOF'ers. Okay, Sale & Harrison, Sale & Harrison, Sale & Harrison- that's 6 in some minds.

Umm, they already started improving. 30th to 16th over the last month. Haven't you been the small sample guy, recently?