moonslav59

Bauer suspension reduce to time served. Since we are the new Oakland Raiders: Devers for Bauer.

The issue with signing Andrus is likely he wants 2-3 or more years. Wasn't Rojas talked about, at one point? I'd prefer him over Wendle, and why not get a SP'er from the Marlins, while we're at it.

Sox apparently has trade talks with the Marlins on Joey Wendel. (Seems the plan is to play Story at SS rather than acquire a short term SS and keep Story at 2B) He's pretty good on D at 2B and 3B, and I guess he's viewed as a bounce back offensive choice. https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/12/red-sox-marlins-have-discussed-joey-wendle-in-trade-talks.html

We can argue till the cows come home about the Sox having or needing to have a budget, but the reality is they do, and even during the years they go over, it seems there is an upper limit. We may not recognize "a plan" or even some obvious direction the team is heading towards, but there does seem to be some hints that lead me to believe... 1. We will never go over the tax line 3 years in row. (We never have.) 2. We are in a farm-building mode and have been since 2019. (We have not traded any top prospects since before 2019, and have traded for many, since then.) 3. We seem to be averse to signing any large and long contracts or extensions. (The Story $140M/6 signing and Sale $145M/5 extension are the largest since Price in 2015.) 4. As of now, the plan seems to be to build up the 40 man roster in a balanced and deeper way- not top heavy. We can disagree with these strategies or plans, or even whether my interpretations of our plan is correct or not, or incomplete, but it seems to me, we are have been in this mode, since even before DD left. If you look at the bottom 10 and 20 of the 40 moan rosters from 2020 to 2021 to 2022 to now, I'm pretty sure we'd all agree those groupings have greatly improved, even if it hasn't helped us win more consistently or more often. To me, it's not a bad plan to build up roster depth and farm potential, at the same time, perhaps in preparation for a FA spending splurge when the reset tax cycle turns in our favor. That could be 2024, but we've been known to stay under the tax line for 2 and even 3 straight years, before. The upcoming top prospects and recent grads seem to be times, just right, for 2024 or 2025. Whether we "splurge" or not remains to be seen. I was thinking (hoping) that time might be this winter, even with a reset, but it looks like we stayed in the "spread the wealth" mode on FA signings.

... and no half-Price attached.

It doesn't seem like the return packages are what they used to be years ago for a year of a guy like Devers or even 2 months, but we should get something significant. I hope we signing him, but if we don't, he needs to be traded before opening day. Who knows what the highest bidder offers, but it should help that a few teams should be heavy into getting him. If a team like the Giants don't have the right return package, maybe a 3rd team gets involved.

Certainly, a possibility. Giving a team a window for the rights to negotiate an extension could up the return, as well.

I get it, and don't disagree, but if we spend $50M more, and 5 other teams spend $40M more, 10 teams $30M more and 5 teams $20M more, I'm not sure we'd be much better off. IMO, JH will spend big, again. Just not this winter. The plan may be to wait until the younger players get established and are starting to mature before he pounces bigtime. It's just speculation, and if correct, I'm not sure when "that time" will be. He has spent in cycles, before.

I'm think some team would want Downs and would grab him off waivers, if he's not traded, first. Hosmer is gone. (I's have traded Dalbec.)

I guess it comes down to the age.

Again, I've said I wish he would spend more and "should," but so should every team other than the ones that already are, and if that happened, we might be even worse off. I'm not understanding why every owner not already spending more should not, but the Sox owner should. Being the third most valuable does not make much of a difference to me. Many team owners who are raking in tens of millions of dollars a year, some on revenue sharing spend zero on free agents. To me, in the grand scheme of things, what they are doing is much worse than JH deciding to be the 6th or 7th highest spending team vs 3rd or 4th among madmen spenders. Yes, we should spend more, but so should 24 other teams to varying degrees, and most by a higher percentage increase in budget than what we are asking JH to do.

"LOWBALL! LOWBALL!" If he settles for that little, it would remind me of the VTek situation on his last contract. Nate shoulds taken the QO.

If we offer $350M/10 or $375M/12 and he walks away, we'll still never hear the end of "we could have gotten him for cheaper had we offered it a year or ___ ago." Not that this point does not have merit, but if we offer him something like that and he walks, I'm not sure what more could be done? $400M/13 or 14? (Would MLB disallow a contract that long?)

When is the time frame up on trading Hosmer and Downs?

My eyes are worse than I thought. Signing him would not have surprised me.

Guess who signed Wil Myers to $7.5M/1 with incentives and a mutual option?

Yes. The big difference with this trade vs the other big Dodger trade was we spent the money saved by dumping Crawford and also losing the AGon & Beckett deals.

Sox sign Wil Myers to $7.5M/1 with bonuses to get to $9.5M and a mutual option in 2024.

That was why I answered "Yes."

Two questions: How many recent prospect grads and prospects will see playing time in 2023? How many will see significant time in 2023? Recents Grads 1. Bello 2. Casas 3. Wong 4. Crawford 5. Winckowski 6. Duran 7. Ort Prospects (current ranking) - have seen some MLB action 8. Kelly 26 9. German 24 10. Seabold 22 Should/might see playing time in 2023: 11. Rafaela 4 12. Mata 6 13. Walter 8 14. Murphy 13 15. E Valdez 17 16. R Hernandez 27 17. D Hamilton 32 I'm thinking 13-14 get a chance- 14 if I had to pick one number and maybe 10-12 get a good look- I'll go with 11. I have the highest hopes, from these 10 of the 17... Bello Casas Mata Kelly Walter Crawford Wong German Winckowski E Valdez Pretty amazing, after about 5 years of seeing just Houck as an impact prospect on the big club, we may see 10 to 14 get a shot and maybe 5-7 that may win key roles on the 2023 team.

The O's acquired James McCann + $19M of the $24M still owed over 2 years for a PTBNL.

RIP Denny Doyle

He could have extended Bogey and traded him with Price- perhaps to LA.

I doubt Bloom would have been able to dump Price's contract by himself. Maybe he trades Bogey and Price combined. Unless JH spent way more than he did in 2020, 2021 and 2022, I'm not sure having Betts and Price is anywhere near a lock on us being better. That's $60M a year, which was more than we spent before 2020 and 2021 and about what we spent before 2022. We'd basically add nobody. Also, during that time, the only call-ups were Houck, Duran, Downs, Crawford and worse.

Yes. soxprospects.com has him being ML ready "late 2023."