moonslav59

The O's have many very good young, ML players- more than us, but have you checked out their rotation and pen? We should also have a better offense than they will. RS Projections 4.7 TOR 4.6 BOS 4.4 NYY 4.3 BAL 4.3 TBR RA 3.8 NYY 3.9 TBR 4.3 TOR 4.4 BOS 4.5 BAL Run Differential 0.59 NYY 0.43 TOR 0.40 TBR 0.10 BOS -0.20 BAL I'm not celebrating being projected at 4th place, and some services have us projected last, but I like our chances at finishing 3rd or 2nd. I may be in a small minority, but it's almost spring! .

It hurts that $27M of that $211M is being paid to a pitcher who never pitches, but still think a $185M budget should not be a cellar-dweller, either. I share in your concerns and fears that this team might fail, badly, but I see some serious upside in a lot of the players on the 26 and 40 man roster. As I've said before, I prefer quality to quantity, in a general sense, but having so many promising players has its benefits, too. It sucks we play in the hardest division, but that is what it is, and now, we play them way less with the new schedule. We still need to do better than one or two to not finish last or to make the playoffs, but I'm not seeing any of the other 4 getting any stronger over 2022. One thing that could very well happen: Turner, Yoshida, Duvall, McGuire/Wong, Mondesi and Casas could outplay the 2023 Bogey, JD, Vaz, JBJ/PHam and Hosmer and we could still finish last. Kluber, Whitlock and Bello could knock the socks off the 2023 Nate, Wacha and Hill and our rotation might still get worse. Our 2023 pen could blow away our 2022 pen, and we may still suck. All three could happen and we could still finish last! That's the pessimist view, but certainly possible. Right now, I'm pretty optimistic, and I'm not forcing myself to be so. Honestly, I'm trying to be as objective as I can be. I truly believe all of the following things have a better chance at happening than not- not all will, but most should, and we don't need more than maybe half to happen to get over .500 and out of the cellar: McGuire/Wong to do better than the 2020-2022 Vax/Plawecki Casas > Dalbec/Hosmer '23 Devers? 2020-2022 Devers Yoshida> Pham/Cordero Duvall > JBJ Turner> 2020-2022 JD 2023 RF> 2022 RF (Only 2B and SS look like significant losses.) Sale/Paxton pitch more than 2020-2022 combined Kluber > 2019-2022 Nate Whitlock> Wacha/Wink Bello> 2022 Bello/Crawford/Seabold (Pivetta= 2021-2022 Pivetta) 2023 pen> any Sox pen since the first half of 2018. That's the rosy view, and all certainly possible, as well, right?

We are about $22M under the line. We should do it. Fulmer is off the boards, so why not solidify our weakest area- up the middle? Kike plays 2B and is free to play CF, more often. If Yoshida, Duvall, Dugo, Casas, or Turner get hurt or need a rest, we can shuffle Kike to CF. Arroyo and Mondesi become 2 very nice bench pieces- better than several teams' starters. If Mondesi rakes, we could even platoon Duvall and Dugo.

He also finished with a 1.003 in his last 9 games (35 PAs) and .953 the last 15 games and 64 PAs. Yes, many players would have much better yearly OPS if you took away their worst 4-6 week stretch, but Devers was playing hurt. I don't expect him to have 38 game stretch of .586 like 2022. BTW, he still managed 22 RBIs in those 38 games.

Ummm, yes, very. Ever heard of bell curve into prime years? Here is a beginner's guide: https://library.fangraphs.com/the-beginners-guide-to-aging-curves/ Devers is 26 years old and in the meat of peak prime. He played hurt for a month, last year. I'm thinking he'll be closer to .950 than .887.

The roster seems about set for the start of the season. We could probably add another pitcher, SS or OF depth, but I doubt we do. Here is my guess on the opening day roster, assuming 100% health, except Story (60 Day IL projected.) 1. L Yoshida LF 2. R Hernandez 2B 3. L Devers 3B 4. R Turner DH 5. L Casas 1B 6. R Duvall CF 7. L Verdugo RF 8. S Mondesi SS 9. L McGuire Bench: R Wong C, R Refsnyder OF, R Arroyo IF, L Duran OF (Maybe EValdez) SP 1. Sale 2. Kluber 3. Whitlock 4. Bello 5. Pivetta 6. Paxton RP 1. Jansen 2. Martin 3. Houck 4. Schreiber 5. Rodriguez 6. Bleier The rest of the 40 (Story on 60 Day IL makes 41.) SP/RP: Mata, Crawford, Walter, Winckowski, Murphy RP: Mills, Kelly, Ort 1B/3B: Dalbec 2B/1B: Valdez IF: Hamilton OF/IF: Rafaela, Abreu Add to 40? Goodrum, Tapia, Alfaro, Allen, Crook, Sogard Fangraphs’ OPS Projections (ZIPS) & my over/under: .887 Devers- significantly over .861 Yoshida- about right .805 Turner- about right .794 Verdugo- about right .793 Duvall- about right .792 Casas- about right (maybe under) .791 Story- slightly over .765 Refsnyder- under .742 Arroyo- under .739 Wong- under ERA 3.44 Whitlock- about right 3.60 Martin- over 3.62 Rodriguez- over 3.67 Schreiber- over 3.70 Jansen- under 3.85 Bleier- same 3.95 Sale- under 3.99 Bello- same 4.05 Paxton- over 4.14 Houck- under 4.50 Brasier- over 4.62 Kluber- significantly under Cots has our estimated Luxury Tax budget at $211M. That leaves us $22M under the first line. Here is the link to Part 1: https://www.talksox.com/forum/threads/20473-A-Realistic-View-at-2023-Part-I

Cristian Javier signs 5 year extension with Astros for $64M. Dodgers sign Peralta for $6.5M plus incentives. Cubs sign Fulmer.

The thing about Greenwell's defense that bugged me the most was how he's slowly run back to the wall then jump into it. Many times, the crashing into the wall knocked the ball loose. He often had plenty of time to run quickly back to the wall, then jump straight up and easily catch the ball with no collision. He never learned.

LOL. Actually, if they kept Betts & Price, they'd have not signed a single new player for 2020 AND had to trade away $24M in salary from someone else.

The "head scratcher" comment took on a life of it's own- back in the day....

I believe they mentioned upgrading OF as part of the justification for the trade, but it's hard to believe anything they say. I do think Bloom & Co. were higher on Hamilton and Binelas than most anyone else, too, and at the time, I said that must be the only reason for the trade, because the finances, skill levels and optics of the trade sucked from day 1. (This from one of JBJ's biggest fans and defenders up until he left after 2020.)

Leave that to the IF.

Saying he was the ace of the playoff implieds SSS, so I see no issue saying that. Nate was also our "ace," by default from 2020-2022, 2021-2022, but maybe not 2022, by itself. Hill and Wacha were very close.

That's a big head-scratcher, to me. WE dumped Renfroe to improve our RF D, then avoided playing Dugo in RF, like the plague, until we dumped JBJ and added Pham. Now, Dugo is okay in RF, we signed Duvall to play CF, which is not his natural position, and he replaces our best defensive OF'er in Kike. Yoshida may not be much worse than Dugo in LF, but he rates to be worse. We went from "meh" OF D inh 22 to pretty bad, this year. Our 1B and SS D should improve, but 2B is taking a hit.

"Pick the ball up, when it stops rolling." That's how a friend of mine characterized Mike Greenwell's defense.

I'm gonna leap: Yoshida is going to be a very good signing- maybe great!

My school mascot is the "gators." Yes, they bite. One almost got my dog while we were walking in a park. Lucky, he was on a leash and I pulled him away.

He was also our best RP'er.

We are about 2 weeks away from our first ST'ing game (Feb 25 vs ATL.)

Even Sale and ERod have a higher fWAR since 2018. ERod more since 2019. One reason Nate leads the team in fWAR from 2020-2022 is that only Pivetta has been a SP'er the whole 3 years with Nate. IP 345 Pivetta 340 Nate 176 Perez (2 yrs) 152 Whitlock (in pen) 146 Houck (in pen) 137 Richards 127 Wacha 124 Hill I can see saying he was the "ace" from 2020-2022 due to Sale's injuries, but we were not "replacing an ace."

We replaced JD with Turner, who rates to be better than the 2022 or 2023 JD. We replaced Bogey's bat with Yoshida, who may fall short. We replaced JBJ, Duran and Pham's bat with Duvall and maybe more from Ref. We replaced Dalbec/Hosmer with Casas. Vaz/Plaw with McGuire/Wong. Nate may have been the "ace," but he did not pitch like on in 2022 and didn't rate to going forward. I do agree Kluber looks like a step down but not from the '22 Nate. I think Whitlock & Bello can and will take up the slack of losing Wacha and Hill. Sale and Paxton likely need to combined for a solid 25-33 starts between them for us to have a legit shot, unless someone surprises (Mata, Walter or Bello/Whitlock/Houck bust out bigtime.) It's not as hopeless as you make it out to be. You zero in on 1-2 slots and act like that tells the whole story. Our 26 man roster should have 14 new players or returning players that were not starters start to finish in 2022. The 40 man roster's seniority list has Paxton 17th, so we basically have over half the 40 that weren't on it, all last season.

Morton had a recent history of success and 2 yrs in a row with 25+ GS'd. IMO, they signed Kluber, expecting to trade him at the deadline, but needed him too much, as they were in the WC hunt.

I think a couple teams traded 5 second rounder. My Bucks were one of them, and only because they have no first rounders for 5 years.

Not sure why he doesn't love the 2021 team, then.

Now, we are spoiled.