moonslav59

Yes, and $79M/5 was not much AAV added, and no Wacha $7M, Hill $5M and Strahm $3M might have been enough to balance it enough for JH. Then, we don't add Yoshida in 2023 and make up for the bad pitching or no Story signing from 2022 by signing a SS/2Bman.

I love this one almost as much as the DHam- pining posts.

Yup, and since nobody wanted him Rule 5, the year prior, I'm not sure any GM saw the 400 foot bombs as a kid as anything that special.

Yes. I seriously doubt JH would have allowed Kyle & Trevor signings in 2022.

He stayed much more healthy with PHI. His pre-PHI numbers were very good: ,836. Per 650: .237 38 90 w PHI: .869 but... er 650: 229 45 100

That came after the 2022 budget, but yes. (It was just 1 year later.) He was much less costly than Story & Kyle, too.

I did not mean it as revisionist or a knock on Story. I liked the Story signing, at the time. I was just speaking to the point of having a limited budget from DD's last season to today. The major signings from the Sale/Bogey/Nate deals to the Devers deals were Story and Yoshida. I doubt we'd have signed Schwarber and Story.

Assuming the budget demands remained somewhat the same, it would have meant no Story signing. Yipee!

Yup. Not 22.

soxprospects.com says Arias in early 2027 "ready."

I'm not an expert on when minor league players are "ready." I keep hearing how we destroyed KC by rushing him. (I don't agree, BTW.) I'm pretty much done with Story, especially at SS, but I doubt Brez is. A Story-Mayer platoon at 2B could be acceptable, if we add 2 big bats somewhere else (SS, DH, C, 3B?) I'm not seeing a major winter 40 man roster crunch or Rule 5 worry, so adding Arias before we need to for Rule 5 purposes is fine by me, but I think we have other players we need to evaluate as possible 2027 bench pieces.

Good points, but other teams cant even come close and then lose. They have negative run diffs and are ahead of us. I think that adds context when saying we are worse than they are. I'm not saying it's enough to say we are better, but we are very close to being equally as bad as several teams ahead of us in the standings. A Crochet and or Anthony addition could jump us over a few teams. I know... who cares, if we finish 9th or 10th in the AL vs 14th or 15th? Even 6th, 7th or 8th is no great achievement in a crappy league. I get it.

June trades do happen. (See: Devers)

That's an excellent point that could also be applied to several other players on the 40 or close to being added to it. We could make trades of MLB players for ML ready or near ML prospects & players and then give these guys a long look to see who we keep as depth for 2027: Infield: (Trade IKF?) Seigler, Monasterio, Eaton & maybe Cheng. (Add Capra or Romero? IMO, no on rias in 2026.) Catcher: (Trade Wong?) Narvaez/Gasper (Thaiss & Delay are not on the 40. They may not deserve a look-see in MLB.) OF: (Trade Duran?) Anthony (returns?), Rafaela, Abreu, Yoshida. I'm not sure promoting KC would be beneficial. (Add Ward?) Pitching (Trade Gray, Coulombe & TGuerrero) Give Weissert, Kahnle & Watson more looks? YUK! See if Moran can handle high leverage situations. Slaten? Try Bello in the pen? Start Bennett more? Let kelly, Samaniego, E Rivera & Uberstine pitch in the bigs? (Add Bastardo or Paez?) Jump the gun on DEC '26 Rule 5 players? 1B/DH: Brannon (Hickey?) C/DH: Jo Garcia (not ML ready now, so probably no. Wait until DEC) IF Romero OF Ward Longshots: P Wehunt, Mullins, Rogers C Baez

The MLB depth of Romy at 1B, Several players at DH and Mayer/DHam at 3B may have prevented the need for a minor league call-up. Jordan started the 2015 season in AA (at 1B.) We did have issues at 1B in 2025 with the Casas injury. We ended up adding D Smith and later N Lowe (after the Jordan trade) rather than promoting Jordan from AA or keeping him over adding Lowe, later. Players ahead of him on the depth chart were.... MLB: 1B Casas & Romy 3B Bregman, DHam, Romy DH: Yoshida, Refsnyder, Romy & 4th OF'er AAA: 1B : Toro, Hickey, Binelas 3B: Toro, Mayer, Sogard, Grissom DH: Toro, Anthony, Hickey, T Thompson

Great discussion over the last couple pages! I'm loving it! I'd like to add to the points being made about a few players traded away who have had instant or recent success- some in small sample sizes/ some in not-so-small ones. Breslow has made a shocking amount of trades in less than 3 years at the helm. Two of the players being talked about (Priester & Harrison) were actually traded for and traded away. Several others fit that bill, too- like Fajardo, Tibbs, TGray & probably more. He also traded away many players he drafted. This makes it harder to judge, since he may have done well or poorly when acquiring these players then well or poorly when he traded them away. How do we count them? Of course, what we got back in value is the ultimate judging aspect vs what we traded away value. Here is a partial list of major non Brez players/prospects traded away: Sale, Devers, Teel, Meidroth, Montgomery, Verdugo, DHam, Jordan, Perales, Dobbins, Jh Garcia, Travieso, Schrieber, Wikelman, Elmer Rodriguez, Booser, Yorke, Clarke, L Guerrero, C Murphy, Bernardino, Hoppe, Luis Urias, EValdez, Aita, M Lugo, Kavadas, Zeferjahn, Vargas, O Portes, Paulino, C Coffey, Batista, Bolivar, Nick Robertson, V Santos, Ehrhard, Reimer, Ammons Players acquired and traded: Fitts, Priester, Harrison, Sandlin, V Grissom, Hicks, Drohan & Newcomb Player acquired: Crochet, Contreras, Suarez, Chapman, Gray, Bregman, Slaten, O'Neill, Romy, IKF, Durbin, Monasterio, Seigler, Coulombe, YRod, Holobetz, Phillips, J Wilson, Giolito, Bennett, Matz, Narvaez, Oviedo, Guzman & Samaniego, Weissert, Moran, Gasper (traded away then re-acquired) Ziehl, T Guerrero, N Baez, D Jansen, Criswell, N Lowe, Dominic, Eaton, Watson, Paxton, DMay, Hendriks, Buehler, Sandoval, Fulmer, L Garcia & L Sims, I Campbell, Ro Hernandez, L Heyman, B Ward, McShane, J Bello, Judice, I Jackson, Vogatasky + many drafted/IFA prospects including Eyanson, Witherspoon, Gonzales, Godbout, Azocar, Primera, Soto, Delzine, Rivas and many more. This is an amazing roster flip from top to bottom. Some players traded were bound to do better than expected. How many have not?

Jordan was not the next 3B/1B/DH call-up in our system, when we traded him. I doubt he was even 2nd or 3rd on the farm to MLB depth charts.

True. What makes this season odd is our 6th place in AL Run Differential. That adds another context that suggests we are having bad luck or have some sort of mental issue in close games.

Most fans and posters were optimistic about 2026 on opening day, too. Not so much in previous years, when Kennedy & Co were smiling and saying "full throttle." (BTW, minor note: Gray and Willson were trades. Durbin, Oviedo & others were also trades. Suarez, IKF & Coulombe were signings.)

Another horrible trade! LOL

I'm not sure JH & Co. agree, but yes, GMs are judged by results and not paper wins on trades and signings.

Who said we should expect average results? I expect a ring more than 1 in 30 years. I expect the playoffs more than 2 in 7 years or 9 in 37 years. I think we all do. For a team spending 6th in AAV and 9th in payroll, we should make the playoffs half the time. We should spend more and make the playoffs maybe more than 2 in 3 years, IMO. When have I ever even hinted at the idea that we should not spend more? Last place sucks, and it's more embarrassing when we finish last while spending 8th to 15th most, depending on what budget you use. I place a big chunk of the blame on ownership's lack of spending. They have spent more recently, post Devers extension, but it hasn't been enough. Contracts like Buehler, Sandoval, Hendriks and even Giolito creates a situation where the GM shares part of the blame, too. The players not improving as they near their prime years deserves some blame, too.

Actually, it lasted a bit longer. He hit a decent .792 in 2021 (453 PAs) but did poorly in those playoff games. He was still at .821 after 558 MLB PAs- a much larger sample size than Jordan. By 581 PAs, he was under .800 and never got any better.

YUP! Had we advanced in the 2025 playoffs, the Matz trade would not be criticized, unless he melted down and cost us a playoff game.

Great post, Hugh. I counted the DD trades once and found he traded over 20 prospects that were once ranked in the top 20 on soxprospects,com. That's not meant to be a knock on him, and I always pushed back on statements like, "He emptied the farm" or "left the farm barren." He did trade away many highly ranked/rated prospects who mostly did squat after the trades. That was "lucky" but one can also view that as him thinking they were not worth what other thought they were. The ones he kept did much better, but they were mostly unknowns or low-ranked during his era. The highest ranked prospects he kept were: end of 2019 sps.com's rankings 1. Casas 2. Mata 3. Groome 4. Jimenez 5. Dalbec 6. Duran 7. Houck 8. Song Others: 10 Ward, 12 A Ramirez (Bloom traded for Schwarber) 13 Chris Murphy, 17 Bello, 19 Rafaela Pre-2019 prospects not traded (ranking when DD took over listed): 2 Devers, 8 Brian Johnson, 11 Chavis Notable others from 2016-2018: 1 Beni, 8 Scherff, 9 Feltman & 17 TBall DD did very well in trades and signings.