moonslav59

I still have some hope- more than I do for Downs & Duran (and Seabold).

The Sox rarely have a pick as high as the Mayer one, and many industry people felt he was the best of a pretty strong draft class. It would seem rash to then trade him away before he even reached AA. I doubt we trade a possible once-in-a-lifetime prospects like Mayer, but it may come down to how much we like Romero and our choice to sign or not sign a SS, longterm, this winter.

Five to seven years ago, our top prospects were mostly traded away and never got a chance to step foot on a ML field in a Sox uniform. That farm was ranked highly- higher than this one, but I don't think we ever reached a point where 20+ prospects or very recent grads were all ML ready at the same time. I agree, many on this list project as bench or pen players, but we do have quite a few very promising young players: Bello Casas Rafaela Mata Kelly, German, Walter, Wong and EValdez to a lesser extent

I'm a big fan of building the farm up and keeping it strong, but I'd trade Mayer for Lopez and Berti or Rogers and Berti, right now, especially if it meant we were going to sign Bogey or Correa, long term.

I'm more hopeful about Devers staying than I was for Betts and am now for Bogey, but losing all three would rival the loss of Fisk, Lynn and Burleson- not to mention Lee, Cooper & Tiant. I'm not so sure Bloom will be so reluctant to trade a top prospect or two. I felt the same about Ben, but we never found out about him doing that. Bloom has been in systems that have farm building as a top priority his whole career, including the first 3 years with the Sox. I'm not sure that priority is still number one, right now, but I think it might still be #1 or #2 on the top brass list. I think, if the right deal comes along, Bloom might be told or made to pull the trigger, of he may not have to be talked into it, at all. It's hard to know. I, for one, am glad we have chose to strengthen and deepen the farm. I think it is the plan most likely to keep us winning more consistently than we have seen. We can see, first hand, what happens to a team that has a farm that produces only Houck over a 5 year period. We can't win by keeping that up. Will many or most of these promising prospects produce as we hope? Nobody knows, for sure, but I'm excited by the sheer number of promising or semi-promising ML ready or recent grads on our 40 man roster or just a year or two away. I'm also excited about our further-away prospects. We are likely to see all or almost all of these guys get a look, this season: Bello Casas Kelly German Crawford Winckowski Seabold Mata Walter TWard (if not selected by rule 5) Murphy, Ort, Politi, Wallace, Fernandez Wong Rafaela E Valdez W Abreu R Hernandez, Downs, Duran, Koss, D Hamilton When is the last time the list has been this large and long? It's not hard to imagine close to 26 players getting a chance to play on the 26 man roster, this year, and not because the team is sucking and in total rebuild mode, but because they deserve a shot or injuries have become an issue.

I read somewhere that Rogers is the guy the Marlins prefer to trade- not Lopez, but I'm sure the right offer might get any one of their SP'ers. Must be nice to have 6-7 solid SP'ers and the ability to trade one (or lose one to free agency like the Astros likely will with Verlander.) I think the Marlins seem like the best fit for a big trade, but maybe 12-15 teams are thinking the same thing. If we could somehow pry Berti from them, too, I'd be thrilled, but maybe we'll end up taking on Garcia or Soler to lessen the return package needed. Here are BTV's numbers: Marlins: 140 Alcantara 69 Perez (Prospect) 39 Lopez 37 Rogers 27 Luzardo 23 Garrett 10 Cabrera (Other natabales: 7.5 Berti, -33 Garcia, -21 Soler, 0 Stallings) Brewers: 78 Burnes 64 Peralta 38 Woodruff 34 Williams 33 Ashby 6 Houser (-126 Yelich) Astros (won't be trading a SP'er, except maybe Urquidy)) 69 Valdez 51 Javier 46 Garcia 28 Brown 4 Urquidy -29 McCullers

I don't think a single fan or poster would be okay with adding just Kluber to our sketchy rotation, even if we beefed up the pen and spent to fill the SS and RF holes adequately. No doubt, we cannot count on Sale and Paxton. Maybe counting on the two combined to start 33 games would be more dream than reality. Maybe planning on 33 from the two is not a terrible idea, but maybe they both start 16 in the same time period and leave two holes for the other half of the season. We need to plan accordingly, and if we want to strongly compete in 2023, not with other 5 slot pitchers like Heaney or Lugo. Even if 2024 is deemed "the year" we start to become meaningful top contenders, we can still start building up a solid rotation in 2023. The fans would appreciate it, and maybe show their appreciation by buying more tickets and NESN subscriptions. I don't see us signing a QO SP'er, so I think a trade, at some point, will need to be made. I see two likely choices: 1. Put our hopes on Mayer, go cheap and short at SS, and beef up the rotation and OF. Trade Rafaela and others not named Mayer, Bleis and Bello for a SP'er. 2. Put our hopes in Rafaela, Abreu of some prospect moving to the OF and go large and long at SS (Correa & Bogey both have no QO.) Trade Mayer for a SP.

Agreed. I hope T Ward is not selected. Maybe there are better options elsewhere. Wikelman might be the best of the 4 that may be selected, but he probably would not pitch for the big club that selects him.

That's the best way I see us building a solid winning team: spend on a SS and the pen. Maybe skimp/bridge on RF in hopes Rafaela or Abreu can shine, soon enough. Trade for an ace, like we always have.

My hopes on Wink are pretty low. The trade was nothing much to complain about, IMO. One could argue we used the money saved by trading Beni to sign Renfroe. One could then argue, we got JBJ back because of Renfroe. (Or, one could argue the money saved was spent on Marwin.) Trades like this could be twisted and turned into whatever we want it to be, I guess.

Had we gone 11-7 and not 7-11 in extra inning games, we'd have finished over .500 at 82-80.

He's a graduate from the Ole Red School of Vagaries.

So, Beni for Beni + prospects. LOL

...and three other prospects: de la Rosa, Valdez & Gambrell Also, Beni's team control is over, so his side of the trade is completed.

Some of the cheap teams will never ask about a few higher priced players. Some higher spending teams may not inquire about a few good players that just don’t fit their roster.

We may be losing some top batters, but I have to think we will be adding some good bats to replace the ones we lose. We are also losing some pathetic bats, too, and it is hard to imagine almost anyone we get not doing better than Dalbec, JBJ, Duran, Plawecki and others. Here is a breakdown of our OPS in order of most PAs in 2022. The ones in red may not get any or much fewer PAs in 2023/ the ones in Blue should get more PAs in 2023: .732 Dugo .833 Bogey .879 Devers .790 JD .629 Kike (hopefully at more like 2021 numbers than 2022 .737 Story (hopefully at a better OPS than 2022 .652 Dalbec .759 Vaz .736 Arroyo .578 JBJ .697 Cordero .672 Pham .645 Duran .881 Refsnyder .574 Plawecki .877 McGuire .766 Casas .585 Wong (needs to improve or be replaced) .631 Hosmer .322 Sanchez, .427 Downs, .697 Almonte, .782 JDavis, .596 Chang, .000 Arauz & Shaw (200+ PAs from these last scrubs, alone) Bogey, JD and Vaz (especially for a catcher) will not be easy to replace, offensively, but we may be able to improve on defense with there replacements and make up the offense with blue players. It's 1545 PAs lost by Bogey, JD and Vaz, but the total of bad offensive players lost or likely sharply declining in playing time is actually a higher number (over 1700): 353 Dalbec .652 290 JBJ .578 275 Cordero .697 235 Pham .672 223 Duran .645 175 Plawecki .574 200+ from scrubs Note: I make this same point every winter, and the following year has a new list of players doing poorly, so I'm not saying it is a cinch we replace all the bed OPS guys with better ones, but my point still stands. We have opportunities to improve in many areas without spending or making any major moves. Guys like Kike, Story, Casas, Refsnyder, McGuire, Arroyo and Dugo might show improvement enough to take up more than enough slack, but we need to not lose much at SS, DH and C.

Take away the top 3 game scores from every team, and it might not change the run scored differentials all that much.

Yes, I do. Before the Story signing, he had never come close to such a deal. The step from Story to Correa is less than the step he just took with Story. It's hard to know what Bloom will do when handed $80-90M to spend and only have 5-6 significant holes to fill- 2 of which are usually inexpensive RP roles. He's never been given this much, so we can't know what or how he will do. Here's the barrier: He can't spend $85M on 12 slots, b ecause we don't have that many roster slots to fill. He has to go quality over quantity, this year- a first for him.

USC had the best weekend, as they beat a top 20 team and watched a team ahead of them lose (TN) and a couple others struggle. I think they are in, if they beat ND. Yes, Mich or Ohio St have to lose. The SEC playoff game could know one out or put an extra one in. Lots to go.

It's really going to be interesting to see the effects of these shift and baserunning rules. I'm normally against rule changes that seem to be knee jerk in nature, but I think I may like the baserunning rule changes.

Then, maybe we should just trade Bello and the rest, before they show how much our system sucks.

That would have been nice from us.

The guys at SPs seemed to like Politi more than Wallace. Brasier is expected to make $2.3M on arb- time to cut ties.

Correa, Nimmo, Fulmer and Kluber would be inspiring.

He did not choose to have a tight budget, and many roster slots to fill that dumpster diving had to be part of his actions. When you dumpster dive and settle for lower paid FAs, one shouldn't expect many productive signings. Some of the good: Pivetta trade Renfroe & Kike signings Wacha, Strahm and Hill signing Arroyo, Schreiber, Refsnyder, Kelly signings and waiver claims McGuire trade Farm building trades (TBD) How Story turns out might be what most defines Bloom- that and this winter's moves.