moonslav59

I was a big Cespedes fan, but he has fallen a lot, and with reason. I actually think he, Bleis and Castro are over-rated, now.

Nice breakdown on these three interesting and exciting prospects. I think the Sox drop in farm rankings will be short-lived.

But I love spaghetti!

If there was, maybe Devers is still here.

It does show the actual potential of this roster as a whole. There is not much flash, but there is a large quantity of good to very good talent and potential.

The Casas and Campbell questions are among the most intriguing and perhaps meaningful questions we have, besides who plays 3B. Apparently Campbell has bulked up and is ready to explode on the scene. The silence on Casas is deafening. I'm thinking May 1st might be too wishful. With Contreras at 1B and Masa's contract being what it is, giving him a long look to start the season makes the Casas wait not so urgent. I am very far from giving up on Casas, and we should not trade him, right now. I still think the guy can hit over .825 and hit 30+ bombs a year. What's not to like about 30+ bombs and a .350 OBP? (Okay, but we can ignore his horrific defense by DH'ing him.)

Indeed, and many have perfected the art of moving back and forth, yearly. I hope to retire, soon and plan on summering in Maine and wintering somewhere with very mild or short winters. Maybe NC, Georgia, Northern Florida or the like.

Yes, I understood your point and the context. To go further, the one who never predicts anything, very often claims he was right on open-ended non predictions.

The best players available as FA or Trades -in terms of helping the Sox roster: 1. Tucker (We could trade 2 OF'ers for 2B/3B and SP2) 2. KMarte (Trade) T3. Bregman or Bichette 5. Okamoto 6. E Suarez 7. Joe Ryan (Trade) 8. Paredes (Trade) T9. F Valdez or Ranger Suarez T11. T Imai or Lodolo (Trade) T13. Donovan (Trade) G Torres (Trade) or Hoerner (Trade) 16. Seager (Trade) T17.. Vientos (Trade) or J Jung (Trade) T19. Ragans (Trade) Gore (Trade) Bubic (Trade) Alcantara (Trade) S Imanaga, S Bassitt, N Martinez T26. Alcantara (Trade) P Lopez (Trade) L Castillo (Trade) L Giolito, Z Littell, S Dominguez 32. Realmuto (borderline) I'm not interested in these highly rated players: Gallen or Bellinger (I would not trade 2 OF'ers, so we could get him.)

If we do nothing else, this winter, maybe this is the set up: 1. L Anthony LF 2. R Story SS 3. L Duran DH 4. R Contreras 1B 5. L Abreu RF 6. R Romy 2B (S Sogard) 7. R Narvaez C 8. L Mayer 3B (R Eaton/ S Sogard) 9. R Rafaela CF Bench: Wong, Yoshida, Sogard/Eaton, Campbell) SP: Crochet, Gray, Bello, Sandoval, Oviedo (Tolle/Early) RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Slaten, Crawford, Harrison, Weissert, Kelly, Hicks/Watson

They even have a tunnel under the city, so people can walk around without ever going outside! The city is growing a lot. It's amazing how people flock to an unlivable place.

Of course all that won't happen at once, but none are outlandish, and some will do better. This is expecting good results from all key players- not great- but all decent to good.

GMs have to try and build the best teams they can on paper, and projecting production plays into that task heavily. Projecting health is not easy and often domms a GM, and a team, but some players are clearly more likely to get hurt than others. Age progression and regression is just one aspect of projection outcomes. To me, the age thing is working in the Sox favor, as we have very few key players past prime. Only Chapman and Gray are significantly past prime, and bot have key roles, but the rest of the 24 players on the 26 are all close enough to prime to not expect major regressions. Most of our key players are on the upswing or in peak prime. That might be the best hope we have for 2026. It's super hard to project players like Mayer, Campbell, Early, Tolle and Anthony. It's not much easier figuring out how well Narvaez, Romy and Rafaela will do. Story's health is a worry, but he, Duran, Abreu, Contreras, Crochet and Gray seem like the only players we can reasonably guess how well they will do. I get the argument that we lack true major stars, beyond Crochet and maybe Chapman, but teams can win with balance, too.

From May 1st to Nov 1st it is almost always hot to extremely hot. There are such long stretches with not a single day of relief. Here are the numbers for 2024: April: Only 1 day with the high temp below 72. May: 2 days below 81 (77 & 72) June: 81, 82 and 84 on three days (24 days over 90.) July: 19 days over 90. August 26 days (lowest hi was 86,) Sept: 17 days over 90 (never under 81 for high temp) It took to OCT 16th to get below 80 for a high temp. It took to NOV 14th to get below 77. NOV 26th was the only day under 72. It was in the high 50's a couple days in DEC, but between 61-81 the other days. This year it was 57 on April 6th, 66 on the 7th then poof. 77-84 the rest of the month.... another 5-6 month brutal stretch. Pretty much from DEC to mid April is the only time there is change to the weather.

This is not a projection, but would these numbers be enough to get us real close to a ring season? C: .700 Narvaez (450 PAs) .650 Wong (200) 1B: .790 Contreras (600) .790 Casas (200) 2B: .725 Mayer (550) .750 Romy (150) SS: .725 Story (650) 3B: _________ (E Suarez .800 in 650 PAs? LF: .850 Anthony (700) CF: .725 Rafaela (650) RF: .800 Abreu (650) DH: .800 Duran (700) OPS+ SP 150 Crochet 200 IP 110 Gray 185 110 Bello 175 105 Sandoval 170 100 Oviedo 165 SP/RP 100 Crawford 150 100 Harrison 120 110 Early 100 110 Tolle 100 RP: 150 Chapman 60 140 Whitlock 70 130 Slaten 80 120 Weissert 70 100 Kelly 60 100 Watson 60

37 players have signed contracts with an AAV of $30M or more: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2025/12/the-largest-mlb-contracts-by-aav.html Bregman T6 Devers 24th Price T25th

When you should expect improvements as player approach prime or reach peak prime, some of the numbers look low... Our projected fWAR for 2026: 3.1 Anthony (2.7 in less than half a season) 2.9 Rafaela (3.8 in '25) 2.2 Abreu (2.4 while missing a month) 2.1 Duran (3.9 in '25) 2.1 Narvaez (2.4 as a rookie) 1.9 Contreras (2.8 in '25, 2.7 in '24 & 2.8 in '23) 1.9 Story (3.0 during a fully healthy '25) 1.8 Mayer (0.4 in 1/4 a season) 1.5 Romy (1.5 in 96 games) 0.5 Casas (-0,4 in about a month) 0.4 Campbell, Sogard & Yoshida 0.3 Wong & DHam Pitchers 5.7 Crochet (5.8 in '25) 3.9 Gray (3.6 in '25, 3.8 in '24 and 5.4 in '23) 2.0 Bello (1.9) 1.6 Sandoval (3.5 '23-'24 in 244 IP and 3.7 in '22 in 149 IP) 1.5 Chapman (2.6) 1.1 Whitlock (2.2- they cut him in half) 1.1 Crawford (1.8 in '24 and 2.4 in '23) 1.1 Early (1.1 in just 19 IP) 0.7 Tolle (-0.2) & Oviedo (2.0 2023+2025 in 218 IP) 0.6 Harrison (0.4 in just 12 IP) 0.4 Slaten (0.4 but 1.5 in '24) 0.2 Weissert (0.7- they show no love here) I realize other teams can make similar claims abut their estimates looking lower than 2025 numbers and recent trends.

We shouldn't write Rodon off, nor Cole, but we need to question them like we question our own. I'm kinda bummed at our 2026 outlook, so far, but the rotation is our bright spot- on paper. Of course, the games are played on the field, but it helps to have your pitchers lined up as best as can be, when possible. I'm pretty confident our offense will be good enough, but I'm assuming we add a good 2B/3Bman. If we can add a very good one, we should be better in 2026, assuming good health and expected progressions and regressions all around. I like the Contreras addition more and more, but there is a chance he declines due to age. Maybe the park helps him put that off a couple more years. The vast majority of our everyday players are on the upswings of their careers, by following the normal age bell curve, but we all know most players rarely follow the curve perfectly. We will likely need some luck on the confluence of good years by just enough players to make a serious run at a ring, but we have enough pieces to think it "could happen." Our returning players are listed here by most PAs in 2025 with their ages listed (OPS in '25): 696 Duran 28 .774 654 Story 32 .741 587 Rafaela 24 .708 446 Narvaez 26 .726 417 W Abreu 26 .786 The top 5 have nobody over .786, but none below .708, and only Story is over 28. The next group is where much of the hope lies... 341 Romy 28 .826 (maybe an outlier) 303 Anthony 21 .859 (enormous upside, here) 263 Campbell 23 .664 (could bounce back bigtime) 205 Yoshida 31 .696 (should hit over .750) 194 DHam 27 .590 & 188 Wong 29 .500 (hard to imagine they do this poorly and get these PAs numbers, if they do.) 136 Mayer 22 .674 (another guy with upside) 112 Casas 25 .580 (could be the wildcard in '26) Contreras hit .791 in 563 PAs in '25 at age 33. 7 key players will be under 27: Anthony, Abreu, Rafaela, Narvaez, Casas, Campbell &, Mayer 2 key players will be 28-30: Duran & Romy 3 key players will be 31-33: Story, Contreras & Yoshida No batters will be 34 on opening day. (Contreras turns 34 in May.) Normally, it makes sense to project overall improvement when your batters slot in these age groups.

There is no reason to expect any pitcher to repeat their best season from the last 4 years in 2026, but here is what we would see if that happened: ERA+ (GS/IP} BOS 159 Crochet in '25 (32/205) 157 S Gray in '23 (32/184) 138 Sandoval 'in '22 (28/149) 123 B Bello in '25 (28/167) 121 Oviedo in '25 (9/40) 110 since '22 in 49 GS 113 Crawford in '23 (23/129) 101 Harrison in '25 (6/36) Early 179 in 4 GS in '25. Tolle's numbers were not good in '25. There is some reason for hope with this rotation. I'm sure the Yankee and Jays SP'ers would have some nice looking best seasons, too!

Why do you think so highly of the rest of the Yankee rotation? Rodon will start the season on the IL, and if thatw as a Sox pitcher, we'd all be writing him off, completely. Fried is damn good. He's probably the second best SP'er in the ALR to Crochet. Fried turns 32, soon. Some expect decline at age 30-31, so... The rest are... Schlitter is 24 and has 73 career IP in MLB. You'd be calling him a "suspect," if he was on the Sox. Warren started 33 games, but pitched just 162 IP with a 4.44 ERA, His career ERA is 5.16. Why is he better than Bello, Sandoval, Crawford, Harrison and Tolle/Early? Gil turns 27 in June, but has only gone over 57 IP once in MLB. His 3.50 career ERA is very nice, and he's a good pitcher, when healthy. Where have we heard that before? Schmidt turns 30, soo. He's decent. 3.83 Career ERA and 3.07 in the last 2 years, but just 34 GS & 186 IP. They certainly have some promise, and they have shown some success, but I see no reason to think they are or will be better than ours. Now, if Cole and Rodon find their form, we could be in trouble, but we could say the same about Gray, Bello, Sandoval, Crawford, Oviedo, and we have some hopeful suspects, too.

If we don't get a big bat at 2B or 3B, I'd rather trade Rafaela and keep our biggest 3 bats in the OF.

I'm sure GMs rank our OF'ers differently than we do, and more importantly than how Brez does. BTV has this: 61 Anthony 46 Duran 36 Rafaela 27 Abreu (4 of our top 7 values are OF'ers.) 19 Campbell (ranked 13th on team)

TOR's pen is not great, but their lowest slot is 2.0 in LF and 2.1 at DH (Springer/Santander share DH & RF.) That's pretty solid and balanced. Their 5th starter is also 2.1, which is great!

Not sure about meaningless, but I think they look pretty accurate as a snapshot of where teams are right now. Yes, rosters are not set, and my guess is the Yanks add more than we do, going forward- maybe TOR, too. I do think we currently have the best rotation and rotation depth in the ALE and maybe the whole AL. That's a nice thing to have.

While I had wished we did better than Sonny Gray, this point is subjective. fWAR Projections in the ALE #1: Crochet 5.7, Cease 3.8, Fried 3.6, Bradish 3.1, McClanahan 2.9 #2: Gray 3.9, Gausman 2.8, Rasmussen 2.8, Rogers 2.4, Rodon 2.2 ***As you can see, these projections have Gray as the second best ace in the ALE- ahead of Cease, Fried, Bradish and McClanahan! Hell, Bello is just 0.2 away from Rodon as the 5th best #2 in the ALE! #3: Bieber 2.5, Pepiot 2.1, Bello 2.0, Baz 2.0, Cole 1.9 #4: Ponce 2.2, Schlitter 1.8, Matz 1.7, Sandoval 1.6, Kremer 1.3 #5: Yesavage 2.1, Warren 1.5, Crawford 1.1, Boyle 1.0, Wells 0.9 *** Our 3-4-5 slots are all middle of the pack. SP Depth: Early 1.0, Berrios 1.0, Gil 1.0, Povish 0.8, Seymour 0.8, Tolle 0.7, Oviedo 0.6, Harrison 0.5 ***We are the only ALE team with more than 1 depth starter over 0.5, and we have FOUR! As much as having a better #2 SP'er would have been nice, our rotation and rotation depth is solid from top to bottom, and even below the bottom with Uberstine, Drohan, Sandlin, Mullins, Gamboa, Bennett, Holobetz & Rivera on the arm. Our pitching is fine. We need a big bat- RHB would be best or one with good splits vs LHPs. I've given up hoping for 2, and I guess Contreras is good enough to equal Refsnyder and Lowe's losses. We need to replace the Devers/Bregman loss. We need a 2Bman or 3Bman. It can be 2B/3B big bat- all in one add. To me, we are one huge addition away from being better than 2025. KMarte would do it for me. Bregman or Bichette would get us close to even- maybe better. Suarez, Viento or Donovan would need a Lodolo to make us better.