moonslav59

I'm pretty sure there will be more additions to the 26 and 40 man rosters, but here's how I see it now: 1. L Yoshida LF 2. R Kike SS 3. L Devers 3B 4. R Turner DH 5. L Casas 1B 6. L Verdugo RF 7. R Refsnyder CF 8. L McGuire 9. R Arroyo 2B Bench: Wong C, EValdez 2B/1B, Duran OF, Dalbec 1B SP1 Sale SP2 Kluber SP3 Whitlock SP4 Bello SP5 Pivetta SP6 Paxton Closer Jansen RP2 Martin RP3 Houck RP4 Schreiber RP5 Barnes RP6 J Rodriguez RP7 Brasier Other 14 on the 40: Story to 60 day IL Hamilton Rafaela Abreu Crawford Winckowski Mata Walter Murphy Mills Taylor Kelly German Ort

MLBTR.... The 2023 signing period for international free agency is set to begin on Sunday, January 15th. This period, which has been moved to January in recent seasons after years of July signing periods, gives all 30 clubs the opportunity to inject their farm systems with fresh talent. While these players are all almost assuredly several years away from impacting the major leagues, many of the biggest superstars of today’s game were acquired by their clubs through the IFA signing process. Most top prospects in a given IFA class likely unofficially made handshake agreements with clubs long before the official opening of their IFA signing period, so most of these top prospects already have publicly available expected landing spots. MLB and the MLBPA tried to come to an agreement on an international draft this summer following CBA negotiations but were unable to do so, leaving the current system in place for the foreseeable future.

To me, Kike is too good in CF to jump through hoops moving people around. There are enough SSs on the trade market that won't cost much in return, or we could just sign Iggy or better yet, Andrus. I'd prefer we add one year fixes at SS and 2B, keep Kike in CF, Arroyo & refsnyder on the bench and Duran and maybe even Dalbec in AAA.

A simple look at Bloom's team vs what he inherited: https://theathletic.com/3992437/2022/12/12/red-sox-roster-changes-bloom/

From masslive... (They add Houck to the mix at SP'er, which makes 7 plus the depth I mentioned.) Boston currently has Chris Sale, Nick Pivetta, Corey Kluber, James Paxton, Garrett Whitlock, Brayan Bello and Tanner Houck in its rotation mix and feels confident that it will be able to have a representative starting five from those options once the season begins. To that end, chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom said Tuesday, adding rotation depth is no longer a priority. The addition of Kluber, which is expected to become official this week, has the Red Sox feeling like they are covered in terms of rotation arms with young pitchers Kutter Crawford, Josh Winckowski, Connor Seabold, Bryan Mata, Chris Murphy and Brandon Walter providing added depth. The Red Sox, Bloom said, are still interested in adding an impact arm. “You never have as much depth as you need but I wouldn’t say we’re looking to add more depth to the rotation as much as making sure we’re in play when there are impact guys available, especially if they are impact guys that can be part of this group for a long time,” Bloom said. “Generally speaking, most of our focus has been on the position player side of things. With that said, there are starting pitching targets that we’ve stayed engaged with,” Bloom said. “Just the way that things have played out for us, we feel like we’ve been able to give ourselves a lot of different options in our rotation. It’s something we wanted to do, especially knowing there’s some different kinds of health histories with some of the guys we have. “I think position player-wise, the roster is less complete and that has been more of our focus,” he added. “But it would be a mistake to disengage from the starting pitching market.”

My brain hurts just thinking about this.

Why wouldn't we just start Refsnyder FT, despite the poor splits over Duran? He's better on defense and offense, even vs RHPs.

Today is the deadline day for both clubs and players to submit figures to MLB for salary arbitration. Does this mean we are pretty much locked into Brasier being on our opening day roster, barring a trade?

With Kike maybe playing IF, are we sure Dugo starts RF? Could it be: LF Yoshida CF Dugo RF Refsnyder/Duran

My guess is Bloom will add 3-4 of those 5 slots you mentioned with a closer chance at 2 than all 5. Certain: SS or 2B CF Near Certain: 2B or SS (whichever one he does not get above) Maybe: Catcher (Wong starts in AAA) Doubtful: SP or RP (I think he feel the 6 SP'ers we have: Sale, Paxton, Kluber, Whitlock, Bello and Pivetta will provide 5 on opening day.) I think Bloom also likes Crawford, Winckowski, Mata, Walter and Murphy as SP'er depth more than what he had in 2020, 2021 and 2022. IMO, he's more likely to add RP'er than a SP'er before opening day., unless Sale or paxton hurt themselves opening a loaf of bread.

Perhaps, to try real hard to not finish in last place? Apparently, that matters to a lot of fans.

On this point, I will say, it took 6 years for Jake to turn around his D. Again, I have just about no hope an Duran's D and not much more on his O, but some players do improve after 5 years. I'm only saying he's not in my top 2 for DFA'ing. That's more of sign on positions the bottom feeders play and how many options they have than skill or hope levels.

Really sticking your neck out, here.

I still think we should wrap Sale up in bubble wrap and cut a hole for him to breathe.

Nothing bad or new.

My point was to just say improvement is possible. Jake was never horrific, so yes, it's not a fair comp, but he improved a lot- enough to be a clear plus on D. If Duran can improve as much, he might reach close to average or below average but not horrific. (I don't see any signs to indicate he will.) Jake in CF: -13 DRS '07 to '09 and -0.9 UZR/150 +25 DRS '10-'13, including +13 his last season with the Sox. +8.0 UZR/150 Duran's numbers are off-the-chart bad: 631 innings -14 DRS and -20.5 UXR/150 It took jake almost 2,000 innings to reach -13 DRS. it looks like Duran is 3 times as bad as Jake looked early on. The comp is not a good one, but improvement was my point.

I think it is safe to say Turner is our starting and FT Turner DH, but yes, this point is an eye-opener.

A look at Bobby Dalbec For all the issues with Bobby Dee's strike outs and defense, it's hard to totally give up on this 27 year old. The 35% K-Rate is awful, and it wasn't much better in the minors. I doubt he ever rids himself of high K-Rates, but the question has always been, "Can he hit, hit for power or get on base enough to make up for the Ks?" We hoped his defense would improve when moved from 3B to 1B, but it's really only gotten worse, and to the point where it is a clear drag on his value as a non DH. His .360 career OBP in the minors did not translate well to the bigs, where it sits at .318. The SLG has faired better but still dipped from .507 to .456. The 45 HRs and 85 XBHs in 814 career ABs is decent, and would normally be enough to keep anyone in the bigs for a while, but the horrific D and lowering OBP makes him a big question mark on being good enough to outweigh the massive K totals. Let's face it: this guy looks pathetic at the plate for super long periods of time. It's his streakiness that bugs the hell out of us, but those hot streaks have been good enough and sometimes long enough to keep some hope alive. Here are his numbers by cherry-picked time periods: .959 first 92 PAs of career (the 2020 season) .595 first 173 PAs of 2021 .881 next 78 PAs in '21 .487 next 55 in '21 1.104 in last 147 PAs of '21 (0.00 in 12 PAs in the 2021 playoffs) .578 first 164 PAs of '22 .715 last 189 PAs of '22 Overall, if you look at his 650 PA average for his 898 career PAs and think this is just his start to MLB, one might think the guy looks very promising: .232 33 96 (62 XBHs) He has options left, so giving him another chance to work his way back up into another change in the bigs makes sense, to me. Previously... A look at Josh Taylor I've always liked this guy, but the injury bug has bit him hard, of late. His 2019 and 2021 seasons are two of the best seasons we've seen from our pen in the last 4-5 years: 2019 (47 IP) 3.04 ERA 3.11 FIP 1.18 WHIP 11.8 K/9 and 3.0 BB/9 2021 (48 IP) 3.40 ERA 2.83 FIP 1.43 WHIP 11.3 K/9 and 4.3 BB/9 He may never recover from his serious injury, but I can understand why we are holding onto him on the 40. (He still has 2 options remaining, so why not?) A look at Ryan Brasier Many of us wonder how this guy is still on the 26 and 40 man roster year in and year out. No doubt, he has look good and very good, at times, but that seems to be fewer and fewer times or so long ago, it's almost forgotten. He's had some stretches of very good pitching, and his 34 IP in 2018 were excellent (1.60 ERA/ 0.772 WHIP), but since then his numbers have been: 155 IP (4 yrs) 4.82 ERA 1.32 WHIP 9.5 K/9 2.8 BB/9 3.92 FIP (which might be the answer to why he's still here) It was 3.61 in 2022 & 3.07 after May 17th. I keep thinking he might be the next guy DFA'd or traded for scraps, but it never happens. Maybe, this will be the year.

I'm think we can expect... 28-33 GSd from Pivetta 25-30 Bello & Whitlock 23-28 Kluber 0-24 Sale & Paxton The good thing is all 6 are seemingly healthy, right now. ??? Winckowski, Crawford, Mata, Walter, Murphy

RIP Lee Tinsley. He was 53.

You don't have to. I just thought the word "extremely" was over the top. You don't. That's fine. To me: Extreme >> Substantial.

When Ellsbury came up, he struggled on defense, especially getting bad breaks and taking wrong routes to fly balls. He ended up doing okay and even pretty good on D. It's not yet time to give up on Duran, but he shouldn't be our starting LF'er, let alone CF'er. He needs to re-earn a starting slot.

It wasn't in a flattering way...

Agreed, but we have 18 first basemen/DHs and 3 OF'ers, one of which might be starting at middle IF. I also said, I'd trade Dalbec not DFA him before DFA'ing Duran. Again, it's not out of any love or hope for Duran. We have Turner and Casas. Even Arroyo can play 1B better than Bobby Dee. Yoshida might, too, someday.

I see it as having less faith in Brasier and Ort and liking our pitching depth way more than our OF depth and middle IF depth which may force Kike to 2B or SS. If we added Andrus and Michael Taylor, I'd think a bit differently about who goes next. People gave up on Dalbec and look what happ... oh, wait!