moonslav59

True. Not many trades are done around this time, but maybe one has been on the burner for a while, but one team is waiting something else out. Some big contracts that are near zero on BTV at positions we need: Salary (BTV) Player (Some are very likely not trade bait) SS $120M (-14.4) Javier Baez $150M (-7.2) Marcus Semien $10M (-5.9) Nick Ahmed $16M (-0.7) Brandon Crawford 2B $46M (-11.7) Yoan Moncada $10.5 (-9.1) David Bote $73M (-1.8) Ketel Marte (OF) $20M (-1.8) David Fletcher (SS) $10M (+0.1) Kolten Wong $7.3M (+2.0) Whit Merrifield (OF) $5.2M (+3.9) Jorge Mateo (OF) P $46M (-4.9) Marcus Stroman $14M (-4.7) Carlos Carrasco I'm sure there are more.

Let's compare 2021's rotation to 2023's: GS 2021 ERA> 2023 32 Nate 3.75> Kluber 31 ERod 4.74> Whitlock 30 Pivetta 4.53 >Pivetta 22 Richards 4.87+13 Houck 3.52> Bello 22 Perez 4.74+9 Sale 3.16+ 3 Peacock/Seabold/Crawford> Sale + Paxton + others Note how 4 of the 5 rotation slots from 2021 had ERAs over 4.50.

There are various ways to look at and compare the 2023 Sox rotation and the 2022 rotation, and even the 2021 one. I like to look at GS'd and what is returning vs being replaced. With so many moving parts there are a number of ways to mix and match the comps. Matching pitchers to come to 33 GS'd method: 2022> 2023 33 Pivetta 4.56> 33 Pivetta (equal) 26 RHill 4.27+5 Seabold 11.29 + 3 Davis 5.47 > 33 Kluber (???) 23 Wacha 3.32 + 9 Whitlock> 32 Whitlock 3.45 (???) 20 Nate 3.87 + 11 Bello 4.71> 31 Bello (???) 14 Wink 5.89+ 4 Houck 3.15 + 2 Sale 3.18? 31 Sale+ Paxton + others (???) Or like this: 69 GS (Nate, Wacha, Hill= 2 FT SP'er) > 29 Kluber and Bello/Whitlock 20GS to 50GS 34 GS (Wink, Craw, Seabold, Davis= horrible!)? 34 Sale, Paxton, Mata, Walter, Murphy (Wink/Craw) Any way you shake it, I don't see a worse rotation, unless Sale and Paxton give us close to nothing and Mata, Walter, Murphy and second year men, Wink & Crawford, all suck. Pivetta should be about the same. Bello, Whitlock and Kluber need to produce, but is that really asking much? Are they bigger question marks than pitchers on other teams? It's easy to look at the ERAs of Wacha, Nate and Hill and say, that will b e hard to replace, but they only started 69 games, last year. Wink, Craw, Seabold and Davis started 34. Our SP'er ERA of 4.49 was just 0.10 better than our horrific pen (4.59.) WHIP: 1.352 SP 1.356 RP OPSA .763 SP .722 RP I'm not sure showing how bad our rotation was last year helps make the 2023 one look good, but I do think it can and will be better in 2023. I realize there are some major what ifs, but there was last year, too, and this year we have added Mata, Walter and Murphy to Wink and Crawford and removed Seabold and Davis from the mix. In a sense, we also added Sale & Paxton to the mix, too. It sucks having so many questions, but we only need 3 to 4 out of 10 to come through. Pivetta is our solid #5. We need 3-4 from this list to do well: Sale Kluber Whitlock Bello Paxton Mata Crawford Walter Winckowski Murphy (We could even add Houck to make this list 11.) Those odds do not look bad, to me.

Is Kyle Gibson (35) somehow better than Kluber? He's the guy the O's signed to replace Jordan Lyles. Is Cole Irvin better than Bello and Whitlock? They signed big stud Adam Frazier and who else? James MCCann & Michael Givens? lmao! This is the team that traded away their best pen arm (Jorge Lopez) and club house leader Trey Mancini, last deadline. Mancini had the 3rd best OPS+ on the team. Now, the O's are stacked with young talent who should be improving, but they got worse. How did the Rays get better? The Jays added some and subtracted some. The Yanks lost their closer!!! LOL

Could they really be saving all that wiggle room for deadline trades? I don't see anything to spend it on, now, except Andrus, and he'd not even eat up half of what we have.

You keep saying the Sox got worse, and we lost our ace. If Nate was our ace, you lost your closer (Chapman) We got better at 1B, LF, RF and CF and look to be about even at 3B, C and DH. We lost major ground up the middle. I'm not sure what you saw in our rotation, last year, because you said it sucked, all year, and now you act like we are replacing a stud rotation. Wacha, Hill and Nate pitched as much as 2 durable SP'ers, so we are not replacing 3. We are replacing two. Nate, Wacha & Hill with Kluber and 16 more starts from Whitlock and Bello. The other slot we are replacing with Sale, Paxton and a few more starts from Whitlock & Bello (beyond the 16 used above) are 4 guys that did not come close to doing well: 5.89 Wink in 14 GS 5.47 Crawford in 12 GS 11.29 Seabold in 4 GS 5.47 Davis in 3 GS That's 33 GSd easily improved on. It's not hard to see the 2023 should do at least as well as 2022's, but let's call it even. The pen is vastly better, even with no Whitlock. Since Houck should not be used as a SP'er, this year, he may make up for losing Whitlock, by himself. We added Jansen, Martin, Rodiguez, Bleier and Mills. We may see Mata, Walter and Murphy give us some pen time. It is vastly better, on paper. Did the O's get better? Did the Rays get better? I'm not even sure the Jays got better. The Sox got better. The only questions are injuries (like the Yanks) and by how much more will they win.

Position by Position 2022>2023 Catcher: .694 in 617 PAs in 2022 .735 Vaz 294 (.685 OPS 2021-2022) .588 Plawecki 171 (.652 OPS ’21-’22) .834 McGuire 100 (.666 OPD ’21-’22) .524 Wong 52 (.651 OPS ’21-’22) We may not match the 2022 OPS of .694, but I think we can come close and more than make up for it with better catching defense and pitcher-catcher mojo. 1B: .683 in 631 PAs .606 Dalbec 270 (.732 ’21-’22) .806 Cordero 160 (.629 ’21-’22) .787 Casas 91 (.766) .631 Hosmer 50 (.725) (.504 Arroyo 26/ .1.031 Vaz 21/.000 Shaw 10/.333 Chang 3) I can’t imagine Casas and Turner not blowing .683 away. 2B: .724 in 665 PAs .737 Story 396 (.775 ’21-’22) .886 Arroyo 136 (.749) .546 Kike 44 (.721) .322 Sanchez 44 (.581 Downs 23/ 1.125 Chang 10/.000 Arauz 9) I can see Arroyo, Mondesi and Kike coming close to .724, but the D takes a hit. 3B: .856 in 700 PAs .890 Devers 601 (.885 ’21-’22) .827 Dalbec 55 (.732) (.615 Arroyo 32/.000 Downs 12) Devers and Turner should improve on .856. SS: .815 in 697 PAs .844 Bogey 621 (.848 ’21-’22) .861 Arroyo 34 (.749) (.544 Kike 19/ .231 Chang 13/.250 Dalbec 4/.000 Arauz+Downs 6) Kike should not come close to .815, but the combined D from him and Mondesi should gain some of that loss back. LF: .694 in 706 PAs .677 Verdugo 418 (.754 ’21-’22) .681 Pham 225 (.703) .760 Cordero 38 (.629) (1.182 Ref 11/ .733 Almonte 10/1.000 Davis 4) Yoshida maybe beet .694 by 100-150 points. CF: .671 in 680 PAs .647 Kike 338 (.721 ’21-’22) .679 Duran 195 (.622) .466 JBJ 65 (.530) .966 Ref 54 (.875 Almonte 16/.804 Davis 8/ .833 Cordero 4) Duval hit .677 in 315 PAs in 2022 (.738 ’21-’22) I think he beats .671. RF: 661 in 661 PAs .620 JBJ 222 (.530 ’21-’22) .839 Dugo 221 (.754) .677 Ref 79 (.778 ’21-’22) (.444 Arroyo 50/ .341 Cordero 50/.435 Duran 23/.717 Davis 12) I think Dugo might beat .661 by over 100 points. DH: .763 in 702 PAs .790 JD 596 (.829 ’21-’22) (.810 Arroyo 19/ 1.367 Ref 18/ .432 Cordero 12/ .258 Devers 12) Turner hit .788 in 532 PAs in 2022 (.811 ’21-’22) This is a tough call. I call it close to even. PH: .738 in 91 PAs .982 Dalbec 17 .932 Ref 17 Batting: Better Maybe the same at C & DH Better at 1B, 3B, LF, CF, RF Worse at SS & 2B Defense: about the same Maybe the same at 3B & LF Better at C, 1B & SS Worse at 2B, RF & CF

I think if we put up the exact same numbers vs good and bad teams, next year, we win 3-4 more games, just with the schedule. I think the team got better, and we had so many injuries, last year, I'm not counting on more of those, so I think we win some more by getting better and deeper. Our division is so tough, we may not finish above 4th, even if we improve by 8-10 wins, but I really doubt we get worse.

tI liked the guys you liked. None made a ton of money or got long deals. Let's see how they end up doing.

Maybe we should have traded Renfroe for Beni.

Chafin signs for $5.5M with AZ with 2nd year option at $7.5M with $750K buyout.

I don't think it is as simple as taking winning% vs ALE and outside and pro-rate the change, but if you did, it would add 7 wins. I was thinking maybe 3-4 might be more like it- just by the schedule change alone. I also think we are a better team, so I'm thinking 7-8 more wins is very realistic and 9-12 more wins is entirely within reason. That being said, we could also, realistically, end up with less wins than 2022.

Conversely, we had a .605 winning % outside the ALE. That would be 6th best in MLB. The Yanks were at .611 overall. I think the whole ALE will benefit, but if the 2022 numbers mean anything towards projections, the Sox probably benefit more than any team in MLB. We were .342 vs ALE. Take away 24 games at .342 (8-16) and add 24 at .605 (15-9), and...[ maybe we add 7 wins just from the schedule change. I put it at 3-4. Is that unrealistic, too?

ZIPS Projected wins 91 NYY 89 TBR 88 TOR 82 BOS 78 BAL 83 CLE 83 MIN 80 CWS 74 KCR 72 DET 90 HOU 84 SEA 83 LAA 82 TEX 71 OAK

Nice spin. The AL East was and still is the best division. Dream on! Remember, when we play the AL East, we don't get to play the 5th place team.

Increasing your odds at more wins has to help, even if it helps 3-4 other AL teams. The other 10 AL teams will have tougher schedules. Our record vs non AL East teams, last year was 52-34! How can that not look like a major help to not play them as much? (24 less gms) The other way to look at it: what team played worst vs the AL East in 2022? 9-24 TEX 11-23 LAA 26-50 BOS 11-21 DET 13-22 KCR 13-20 OAK 34-42 BAL 15-17 CWS & CLE 16-17 SEA 40-36 TBR- .526 is slightly lower than overall 17-15 HOU 43-33 TOR .566 is slightly lower than overall. 47-29 NYY ..618 % is slightly better than overall

I'm glad you mentioned the 2013 team, because that team had a lot of new players and many of the new ones were older... Uehara 38, without him, we don't win Dempster 36, retired after 2013 w 1 more yr on his contract Vic 32, it was his last good year Napoli 31, never came close to his 2013 .842 OPS again Gomes 32, seriously declined after 2013 S Drew 30, .777 OPS/ .652 over rest of career D Ross 36, pretty damn old for a catcher Breslow 32 Peavy 32 (traded for him) Carry-overs 37 Papi 34 Lackey No AGon, Beckett, Crawford and several others from the 2012 team, and then Middy, Nava and Salty were replaced late in the season or in the playoffs.

The AL East is still the best division in MLB, especially the top 3. We will play 24 less games vs the AL East, including 18 less vs NYY, TOR & TBR. We will play almost the same vs AL West and AL Central opps. We will play 26 more games vs the NL. I see this alone as adding 3-4 wins, in theory. It's not wishful thinking. It is data supported.

His career best was .916 in 702 PAs (2019.) That was pre-prime, which often career bests occur, but I'm banking on Devers having a career best at age 26, 27 or 28- maybe all 3.

I'm sticking with the best deal being Dugo & Maeda.

In all fairness, he's the only guy I said "significantly over," but I don't think over .925 or even .950 should be called unrealistic, which I inferred harmony implied.

Yes, I did say "within 50-75," so that means below, too. In reality, since I think these guys guess low more often than not, maybe a 50-75 range above and 25-50 below might be more to my liking for anybody, not just Devers. Also, one boost Devers will be seeing is no shift.

You almost always use last year's fWAR or projected fWAR, not career. You also hardly ever use OPS. It's no big deal. I appreciate you input on this site. I disagree that it being optimistic or as I inferred from your "optimistic thread" comment was out of the realm of realism to think Devers will be significantly higher than .887.

Khalil Lee passed through waivers. To those who thought we should have gotten him in the Beni trade, instead of others, it appears he'd have been no better.

The fact is any personal projection within .50-75 points of these services falls within "realism" and does not have to be "optimistic" or "pessimistic." Are you projecting .870 for Devers? (about the avg of those you listed?) Throw out the shortened 2020 season: .916 at age 22 (2019) .890 at age 24 (2021) .879 at age 25 (2022, including injury stretch) At age 26, they are projecting .870, so you have to believe them?