moonslav59

Arraez $12M/1 w SFG. Will play 2B.

Just say no to Arraez, Even if he agrees to play anywhere.

You can't even fathom one benefit from Devers playing 1B after Casas got hurt? That's bizarre. SFG played him at 1B because he fit there better than 3B, since they had a 3Bman and a DH. For us, Mayer at 3B and Devers at 1B made some sense. It made sense to Brez, but he knows way less than you, I guess. A player undermines his boss in public, but you see less than 1% blame for that. Again, bizarre.

Nope. 99% Brez. Back to disagreeing with Ole Red.

Well, it sounds like you are predicting coming up short and have already decided we will fail.

Okay, my bad: you said "just about everything," except making excuses, and that sounds like everything done on paper, to me. Breslow is incompetent at just about everything besides making excuses. He’s a master at that.

I'm not sure Brez ever asked Cora to talk to Devers, so I won't place any blame on Cora, unless and until that becomes known. I do think it's odd that if Cora knew his boss wanted Devers to play 1B and did not want to ask or see the need to ask, something is askew between their relationship. Who is to blame for that? It's hard to know. It would not be the first time a manager disagreed with what the GM wanted him to do with the players given to him. I only said that if Brez asked Cora to talk to Devers and he would not, then maybe I'd put some blame on Cora, too. Maybe. Maybe Devers says no to Cora, and nothing changes- he's still gone. Maybe Devers respects Cora enough that he agrees to do what seems to me to be what's best for the team, and he's still here. Maybe. I'm not sure who is most to blame, but it does appear to be mostly on Brez, from what I know and opine.

Signing E Suarez or trading for Paredes will likely have to mean finding a way to cut some salaries. Including Bello, Sandoval or Duran in a trade for Paredes keeps us under line 3. Signing Suarez to over $19M AAV would likely mean we have to trade 2 from that list or find cuts elsewhere. I admit my talk of dumping Masa and or Hicks is far-fetched and even combined may not save $8-9M in AAV, as we will need to pay much of it. There is some variances on how much bellow line 3 we are, but maybe it's just $4M, and that is probably needed to pay for bonuses or deadline additions. It might be safe to say any additions we make going forward has to be offset by equal salary done away with.

It's a close call between Duran and Abreu, and I did not come to my opinion lightly. I like the extra year Abreu has and his age (2 years younger.) Abreu costs less. Abreu is a GG RF'er- a very difficult position to play in Fenway and on the road. Duran is okay in LF and CF but may play more DH in 2026 than many want to believe. To me his value as a DH (vs Masa/Romy/Casas/Campbell) is less than his value as an OF'er to us and every other MLB team. Duran has been a better batter than Abreu, but Abreu passed him in OPS last year. You speak of 30 HRs, but the 2025 ISO numbers were Abreu .223 (best among returning Sox players) and .185 from Duran (barely ahead of Narvaez, Romy & others.) Duran's speed is a game-changer and is hard to place a value on. He blows Abreu away on this. OPS+ Duran: 69 at ages 24-25 121 at 26 132 at 27 114 at 28 (This does not suggest a decline is in place, but is concerning) Abreu: 120 at ages 24-25 116 at age 26 (less than Duran at 26 but more than Duran at 28) It's hard to project who will better, but Abreu has more power and plays better defense. That should continue.

Much of that is still speculative (or suspect as one poster would call it,) but on paper he has made massive overhauls and upgrades from top to bottom on pitching. The everyday players were largely handed to him by Bloom & even DD. His biggest add was Breggie, and now he's gone (O'Neil too). His biggest lasting additions are Narvaez & Contreras. He lost Devers and others. Considering the graduations of Anthony, Mayer, Campbell, Narvaez and others under Brez, having a pretty highly ranked farm is another good thing. Part of that is captured by the pitching upgrade as being the "best."

From what I know, if I had to assign blame on the Devers fiasco & departure, I'd probably put Brez first, but I also think Devers should have moved to 1B w/o public comments. If it's true that Cora refused to even ask Devers to move to 1B, when his boss wanted that to happen, I think that is unsettling, at best and worthy of some blame at worst. 99%, no. Maybe over 50%, yes. I am a bit relieved to see we have spent more than the 2025 budget, but the power gap remains. That's on Brez, because we see he had the budget to spend more on batting than pitching and chose not to do that. That being said, teams can win with different roster constructions, and maybe the pitching will carry us to glory, or the batting will do better than we expected. The winter is not over, yet, either.

Maybe it was understood that when we signed Suarez, Brez was expected to dump some salary (like one from Bello, Sandoval or Duran- all about $8-9M AAV.) Maybe the dumps are not to pay for Suarez, but to help pay for E Suarez or adding the $9M cost of Paredes. That third tax line might be set in stone. Like it or not.

We'd likely be looking to trade shorter term players like Sandoval, Gray or two year guys like Chapman & Whitlock. 3 year guys like Duran would likely be next.

1. He's not done. 2, Tied for 7th on projected total fWAR is subjectively competitive or not. We are 1.1 away from 6th, 1.6 away from 5th and 1.8 from 4th. One could argue that's close enough to call competitive. 3. Adding a 2.4 Paredes or the like would move us to 4th or 5th, assuming the teams ahead of us don't make major additions, too. While I do share your view that we should have improved by more, the winter is not over. If we stop now, or other teams just ahead of us add more than us, I will not be happy, but I won't say "everything" he has done is bad. I understand that might have been hyperbole, since you have admitted some moves are good and have been good. I wish we had gotten Alonso, Schwarber of KMarte, even if it meant one less pitcher or even no Gray & Contreras, maybe, as long as the leftover money was uses on a RP'er or two, or an upgrade somewhere else.

2.5 years in and these are the Brez additions: Crochet, Ranger, Sony, Oviedo, Sandoval Chapman, Slaten, Weissert, Harrison, Watson, Moran, Hicks Contreras, Narvaez, Romy, Eaton Early, Witherspoon, Bennett, Sandlin, Phillips, Eyanson, Holobetz, Samaniego, Delzine & others J Gonzales, Godbout, Soto, Azocar, Ramos, Rivas, Cason, Guzman, Heyman, Primera, Silverio & others Others he added but are now gone: Bregman, Giolito, O"Neil, Buehler, Wilson, Grissom, Criswell and others

We are logjammed at DH & OF. Unless we play Rafaela at 2B, Masa only plays if an OF'er sits, and since 3 of our 4 OF'ers are LHB, it's not complicated. It would be better to offload Masa over Hicks (with Duran) even if we paid enough money to even it with Hicks. The flex we give Cora is a big plus: DH: Vientos/Casas/Romy/Campbell 3B: Baty/Vientos/Mayer/Eaton 2B: Mayer-Romy/ Baty/DHam 1B: Contreras/Vientos.Casas Yes, we lose OF depth, but we still have Campbell to play LF. (If we trade Hicks not Masa, we'd have Masa as LF depth.)

So, 78 to 81 to 89 wins was just blind luck by an incompetent GM? "just about everything" is a phrase I fully disagree with. He refocused the pitching from the farm, to 40 man and 26 man rosters. He has extended our best young players beyond their last arb year like no other Sox GM, thereby lessening the chances we lose our stars to free agency- something that has been a huge thorn in our side since DD's departure. He has made several unquestionable good trades and signings/extensions that automatically brings into question your "everything" statement all by itself. He's made mistakes- some big ones. He's not a good communicator. He's at worst, partially responsible for the Devers fiasco and ultimate trade. The Sale trade might have made some sense, at the time, but backfired on both ends in spectacular fashion. The Priester trade looked bad, last year but is still TBD. The Buehler signing was bad and twice the cost of Kluber or Richards. There are some lesser deals that were bad or look bad, so far, but there have been many good to great deals and signings and extensions. Not everything has been bad, and we have clearly improved.

I see Vientos as close to even with Masa but with more power. I see power as the bigger need. I do prefer a RHB Masa vs a LHB Masa, in theory. I think Baty + Vientos > Duran + Masa, since Duran and Masa are both our DH's. We fill an open position and replace out two DHs with one, and yes he's a RHB. (We still have LHB Casas to DH, if needed.)

Who are you arguing with? I keep saying I agree he should spend more. I point out he's spent $50M more than 2024, but that is not enough, since he had cut so much from 2019, that context is needed. However, do you really think a top 6 spending team can never have a significant hope of winning a ring, especially a team with several lower paid pre-arb and arb players? A team with several young players locked up for many years at what will eventually be below market costs. (Right now, for example, K Campbell's $7.5M looks like an underwater deal.)

My whole point of the trade is that it frees up the money that might be currently keeping us from signing E Suarez, now. There were reports we have talked to ESuarez's agents. We might also be waiting for the Suarez price to drop. We may be waiting on a trade to reach a yes point before pivoting to Suarez. Suarez has not signed elsewhere, either, so we have no way of knowing if we are the front-runner or not- or a top 2-3 frontrunner. I'm not as high in ESuarez as I was earlier in the winter. He glove sucks and we added a 1Bman. We have 4 -5 DHs, now. Trading Duran takes away our best DH option, so that dynamic changes because of the trade. The budget relief from adding Masa or Hicks allows for a significant addition, whether it's ESuarez or some higher priced trade target. Maybe it allows us to trade for Paredes and sign a RP'er or two. There is merit to the idea of trading Duran plus Hicks/Masa to allow us to add 2 key pieces.

I'd only do it if the $10.3M AAV for Hicks plus the $7.7M saved on Duran allow us to add someone like E Suarez. Duran & Hicks <<< Baty & Suarez (with the $21M saved) I do think Duran is better than Baty, but I see Duran as our 2026 DH or mostly at DH. His OPS maybe be marginally better than Masa/Romy/Casas/Campbell. The gain we see from Baty vs DHam/Romy is larger than the loss from Duran vs Masa & Co, Now, if you want to say Masa=Suarez, then okay.

Does that show budget vs revenue? (It would have to be projected 2026 revenue, too.) I applied this year's budget to last year's revenue and it bumped us up a few slots, but I'm not sure how accurate that methodology is. I'm not sure how many teams have jumped their spending by $26M. My guess is our ranking from 2024 to 2026 will improve but still be under #16. I'm not sure being near the middle of the pack is something to get irate about.

That all makes sense, but we are projected at 23rd in everyday player fWAR, which includes defense. While I don't put total faith in fWAR nor projected anything, it is so low that even if they said 15th, I'd be worried our offense is worse than 2025 and maybe even below average. fangraphs has our batting projected to be ranked 16th, as far as I can tell. If we added a Paredes or even Donovan, we'd likely be above average, but maybe not top 10. Last year our offense was ranked 11th with out OPS at #9. We were 7th in Runs but the home field advantage needs to be factored in. That being said, we were 6th in road runs and 8th in runs scored at home.

You do know that when negotiations are ongoing, the Cubs and Sox are not in the room together. The other team's offer is not known. Posturing, bluffing and lines in the sand are the nature of the game. It's very frustrating to watch us miss out, time-after-time, and Breggie was a key piece to the 2026 team's needs. It sucks we lost him due to misjudging the "bluff" or turning Breggie off with our attitude and negotiation tactics. To me, we already went past the limit of a fair offer, and I prefer Suarez, anyway. This isn't as bad as missing out on Alonso by a mile. This isn't as bad as the decision to add a #2 SP'er AND a #3, instead of spending more on hitting, and this one is not on JH, for once. It's on Brez. While there is still time for him to add a bat (2B/3B) I'm not seeing a bat that meets out needs being mentioned.

Saying there is not enough facts known to say Brez was at fault of not in not giving him the benefit of doubt. It is holding off assigning blame until such facts are known, if they ever are. I have agreed he is a very poor communicator. I agreed that at best he looked "funny" in the way he called the Cubs bluff that turned out to not be a bluff. I agree Breggie wanted to play for us, and we wanted him with us. I suggested Brez mistakenly spent the money he could have used on Bregman on Suarez, Sonny Gray & Contreras to get both Suarez and Bregman, with some left over for another key addition. I have said the Sale trade backfired, but it's hard for me to roast Brez, when I liked the trade at the time. If that is always giving Brez the benefit of doubt, then I guess I'm guilty under your criteria. How about the posters that view everything he does in a negative light? When he trades for Crochet, they say that was a no-brainer. The extension, too, right after they say JH won't allow large and long contracts. (They said that before the Suarez signing, too.) Why not call them out? I try to be balanced and fair. Not that you are not trying to be fair. I don't thin it's fair to bash Brez, if the facts turn out to be we never could have signed him due to either the NTC, the deferments or the top dollar amount that was allowed to be given. It's not taking Brez's side. If he could have offered what it took to get him but chose not to, fine- blame away. I thought the offer we gave Bregman was a gross overpay to begin with and I prefer the Suarez signing 100%. If you view that opinion as being a giving Brez the benefit of the doubt, then I'll have to firmly disagree with your opinion. I wish we had Bregman not Gray. The money is not equal, so I'm not sure that was a choice. I'd rather have Gray and Contreras than Bregman, and I know that was possible, because it happened. Their AAV is much higher than Bregman's but their years of control are 1 (Gray) and 3 (Contreras.) I think Brez went too heavy on pitching and too light on batting, but I never saw Bregman as the "big bat" we needed. I see Contreras as about equal to Breggie's offense. I'm usually all about adding top SP'ers, but I did not see this winter as the monet we needed to add two. I'm critical of that choice. If we end up getting some slouch to play 3B or 2B, I will be very vocal against the choices Brez has made, this winter. I do think we are better than 2025, but like Fred and others, I had much higher hopes than just getting a little better.