moonslav59

GMs also see the havoc he causes other teams when he's on base. His value is still much higher than most OF'ers starting in MLB, right now.

Just to satisfy the fans?

He certainly seems to have a better mix. I'd be fine with him starting in the MLB rotation in April. I also think we could use Harrison in the pen, and I would not want to mess with Early in the pen. That being said, I think Brez might have Harrison be the #5.

Do you think 2025 was the same as 2022-2024? Even if it turns out to be a one and done uptick, it was an uptick, nonetheless.

If the issue is that Brez values Duran significantly more than any GM in need of an OF'er, then maybe no match up will ever come to be. If someone values him closely to Brez's value, then we could trade him for prospects. Then, we know some teams will trade a 2Bman, 3Bman or SP for the right mix of prospects. They may not be the same as the ones we get for Duran, but we should be able to find close to even value at a position of higher need. It might be a little complex, but I can't imagine not being able to work something out, whereby we get shut out of trading Duran. I don't know the Reds thinking, but I think they'd do Lodolo for Duran, and it's Brez who would balk. Would they do Duran + Sandoval (or Harrison) for Lodolo and Singer? The money works better for the Reds than the straight Duran>Lodolo suggestion. I'm not sure I'd do Duran for just Lodolo, but in theory, our gain at SP2/3 would be greater than our loss at DH/4th OF'er.

One person's idea of what a competitive offer is does not always mean it's close to what others offered.

He very well might be. Going by the short sample from 2025, he looks way better.

Our 1B was such a mess in 2025, so it's hard to not see Contreras as a significant needle-mover. Do you view the 2026 Gray as being better than the 2025 Gio? Oviedo and the return of Crawford and Sandoval as better than Buehler/Dobbins/Fitts and the 2025 Houck? While I agree on wanting better pitching than Gray and Oviedo, our 2026 pitching projections look better than 2025. 1B looks way better. 3B (Bregman) and DH (Devers/Refsnyder & others) look way worse, for now.

It has nothing to do with how highly I rate Duran, and some here think I am underrating him by continually suggesting we trade him. Team want Duran and want him badly enough to give us something we need- something much better than Sandoval/Oviedo or DHam/Eaton/Sogard. Do you think Duran has equal value as oviedo or Sandoval? How about DHam plus Sogard? If yes, then you undervalue Duran. I've suggested trading him straight up for Lodolo. BTV says that's a "major overpay" by the Sox ($46M for $31M of value.) Does that look like I'm overvaluing Duran? BTV has Paredes worth $11M. I've suggested trading Duran for Paredes and a $7-10M RP'er. Once again, you are wrong about what I think. Maybe just stop pretending to know what I think.

Other than 2013, it failed from 2011 to 2014, too. This is nothing new. It's been a pattern, although the recent down cycle seemed longer than that 4 year period with Ben at the helm, due to the 2013 ring.

No, I merely pointed out that had we given Betts $29M, I doubt we'd have changed our budget plans going forward. More likely, had we kept Betts, we would not have extended Sale or Nate. I'm not assuming the budgets stay exactly the same, but I suggested that in my opinion the decision was made to cut the budget by a lot for the next few years, and I doubt it would have changed much had we kept him. I don't think we let Lester go because the plan was to slash the budget for years to come. I do think that was the case at the time of the Betts, sale, Nate & Boget choices made. I think JH & Co felt we could still win with the 2020 roster with very few big money additions needed. That year, injuries killed that hope. We did okay in 2021, but then the lack of replacing departing talent in kind caught up to us.

You continually confuse suggestions with predictions, no matter how many times we try to tell you there is a difference. I expect you will keep doing this over, and over, and over again.

Certainly two or more. You seriously doubt that?

Of course we don't know, but my guess is the idea was to cut the budget, and that's why we traded Betts & half-Price. I doubt keeping Betts would have changed the budget plans much. Just my opinion.

The Story and Masa signings came a few years later. How do we reach the 2020 and 2021 budgets with $29M from Betts added? First, we'd have likely traded Half Price anyway, but that was already deducted from those budgets, so we'd have had to dump others.... One from 2020....? $26M Sale $22M JD $20M Bogey Maybe 2 from....? $17M Nate $14M Pedey (nope) $11M JBJ $8M ERod

Of course that is an issue, but multiple teams need an OF'er like Duran to "get them" to where they want to be. We should be able to include a third team to help us get a piece that offers a bigger gain at a position of need than we lose by having the DH position shared by 4 guys over Duran as the near FT DH. The foundation is there for a trade that helps 2-3 teams. We may be reluctant to take less in return that what we value Duran at, and that might be what's holding it up, but a trade makes too much sense to not happen. Perhaps we already have a trade or two agreed upon, but we waiting on some FA shoes to drop, first. We may not want to trade away one of our best offensive players, until we have a good bat FA signed. We may be looking at signing a pitcher, instead, and if that happens, we trade an OF'er for a 3Bman.

How much they need Harrison in the pen might be the deciding factor.

I don't either, but paying Betts and keeping the same budgets would have meant trading away some salary in some years, not just no signings.

I no longer trust cots, so here are the spotrac tax budget numbers: Sox placed... 12th in 2023 ($226M) $1M from 11th, $5M from 10th & $32M from 5th. 12th in 2024 ($226M) $1M from 11th, $7M from 10th and $42M from 5th. 7th in 2025 ($249M) $12M from 6th and $3*M from 5th., 8th in 2029 as of now at ($235M) $16M from 7th and $21M from 6th (A Bregman signing away) What is getting farther out of reach? 5th place is about $45M away. We'd have to go $37M over the tax line to pass the NYY, and they are close to signing Bellinger or someone else to big money.

Yes. I didn't mean to sound like I was disagreeing with you.

He wanted to get paid what he felt he deserved to get. Had BOS given him that, or maybe even close to that, I think he would have been happy to stay in BOS. Now, if we had kept the same budgets from 2020 onwards, he'd have been miserable.

I agree, we were better for most o3-19, but I disagree with the other point. I think we are on the upcycle, again. Since the end or 2023: Devers was the largest and longest deal in Sox history and by far. 4 extensions given to young and promising players/rookies. $21M AAV to Buehler was the second highest ever given to a FA pitcher in Sox history. This on the heels of two 2 year deals given to SP'ers (Gio & Sandoval) when we hadn't signed a FS pitcher to more than one year since Nate's semi-extension deal in 2019. $40M AAV given to Bregman blew the Devers' AAV away. The Crochet blockbuster trade and the second largest pitcher extension given in Sox history. (Sale was #1.) Granted, 8 moves/deals does not tell the whole story, but this is a serious uptick in spending and commitment to winning. This offseason is still TBD, so it can easily be undone by inactivity over this winter and season, but we'll see. I certainly wish we'd made a bold signing or two by now. One big signing will barely get us to plus status over 2025, but improvement is not something we've seen since last winter.

Yes. I doubt it was to save a few hundred thousand bucks. So far, I like how our farm has helped this team get better and the pitching outlook looks about as good as I've ever seen our system look. (Please excuse my optimism.)

We shoulda kept Newcomb and watched him do great in the pen.

I guess using the word "bet" was going over the line.