moonslav59

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.

Yes, I understood and agreed with your point. (Add Springs and a few others to your list.) Maybe Priester, Harrison and or Jordan go on to greatness. Maybe someone as yet to be mentioned does. It happens. Much of the criticism of Brez has been his failure to make in season moves that make a difference, but when he does, we hear about how we let someone like these guys get away. Nobody talked up these three before the trades. Hardly anyone mentioned they hated giving them up, at the time of the trade. (Maybe Priester had some posts expressing minimal worry.) I guess it's natural to second guess. We all do it. It's fine to point out how a trade is looking at the start of the after trade period, but I feel we should qualify these criticisms with the words "so far," instead of sounding like the we have already lost the trade based on 31 PAs, a half season or even a full season.

It doesn't at all. It didn't help for over the 3 decades up to 2004 that the Sox won several rings 50 years earlier. either. In theory, winning 1 ring every 30 years is average. You'd like to see way less last place finishes than we've seen, recently, and starting in 1967, we did not finish last, too often, until 2012. 1 last place from 1967 to 2011 (1992.) We did finish 6th out of 7 teams in 1983, Since 2012 (14 seasons) we've finished 5th out of 5 teams SIX TIMES! We are on pace for 7 in 15 seasons! Looking at these 15 seasons: 2 rings and 4 other playoff chances still beats any 15 year periods before 2004 and after 1918. It still sucks that we've only made the playoffs twice since 2018. However, 2 in 7 years is about the same as 1967 to 2003: nine times in 37 years, but the playoffs were much more restrictive in numbers those years. This is not fun for any of us.

Here is how soxprospects.com projects some prospects' placements for 2027. I'll start with the 2026, 2027 and 2028 ETAs to the bigs, knowing full well, only a few will get the call, barring many injuries. 2026: 4. Bennett, 15. E Rivera, 16. Uberstine Early 2027: 1. Arias, 19. Romero Mid/Late 2027: 2. Eyanson, 3. Witherspoon, 12. Holobetz, 14. Cespedes, 20. Bastardo, 21. Paez, 22. Mullins, 30. Castro (33. Brannon, 34. Garcia, 51 Rogers) 2028: 6. Godbout, 10. Phillips, 26. Monegro, 27. M White, 28. Finley Those who do not make the big club will likely be placed in AAA, with a few at AA. Here are their projected opening day 2027 farm rosters: AAA: SP-Bennett, Eyanson, Uberstine, Wehunt, Holobetz, Anderson/ RP-Samaniego, Rivera, Mullins, Song, Paez, Rogers, Zeihl, Gamboa (? Monegro/ Wu-Yelland?)/ C-Nate Baez, H White (No Garcia)/ 1B Brannon/ 2B B Rodgers, Seigler/ SS Sogard, Ferguson/ 3B Romero/ OF Castro, Ward, Campbell. Turner AA: Witherspoon, Phillips, Brown, Ingrassia, Futrell, Bouchard/ Sprague, Brooks, Adams, Carlson, Bolden, Vogatasky, McShane, Bickerstaff/ Jo Garcia, GRod/ Encarnacion, RMartinez/ Cespedes, Alcantara/ Godbout/Winnay, CRose/ YRod, IJackson, Gonzales, N GTaylor/ MWhite

Good points, and most of the players on the Woo team do look like ML depth, but I do think a player or two is 2-3 players away from a call-up. I think we will trade Wong this summer, but we wont call up a catcher, so promoting Jo Garcia to AAA might wait until 2027. Llyod as the back-up 1Bman probably would never get a call, as others can play 1B. If Romy gets the call when healthy, maybe he adds the depth that makes cutting Lloyd doable. Brannon may be "ready," even without Romy making the roster.There is also room at AAA DH for Brannon or Garcia to get FT play between C/1B and DH. McDonough or Ferguson could probably be let go, so Arias can get the promotion, but no hurry, I guess. The AAA OF depth is thin. As you know, I'm no Castro fan, but no AA OF'er looks all that deserving.