moonslav59

That's how I see it, and if reports are true, we are looking at Baez or Taylor, it's hard to imagine us missing out on the two and not signing someone else to play 2B/SS (Iggy?) I think Arauz may be DFA'd, soon.

If reports of Baez or Taylor are true, we must really not trust Arroyo. I admit I don't know much about Taylor's defense, but if he's good, I'd think about him as a lesser costing middle infielder than Baez. I don't like losing a draft pick on Taylor, unless he's way cheaper than Baez. All of this aside, if we are spending so much on 2B and possibly a SS solution beyond 2022, then we better have enough budget space left for pitching- or some trades line up. We need 3 pitchers before we need a 2Bman, IMO.

Trade him while his stock is high! LOL

Rule 5 Players to be protected will be announce by tomorrow. Here is a breakdown of Sox eligible players: Certains: Bello Downs Near Certains: Winckowski Santos Borderlines: Feltman Crawford Cottam Jimenez Ward Long Shots: Fitzgerald German Kelly Rafaela Ort T Reed Granberg

Yes, the "P" is essential.

I think Wong has trade value, but who is looking to add borderline roster players, right now? Nobody!

I'm often wrong on who I think the first to be DFA'd will be, but I'm pretty certain it will be one or two from thse 3: Plawecki Potts Rosario I'd put Arauz next, but including him in a pool of 4 makes sense, too. I could be wrong, but isn't it pretty rare to protect a Rule 5 kid, then DFA him for a FA signing or Waiver/Rule 5 draftee?

True. I'm really not sure how highly Bloom or other GMs value Feltman.

They should just rename the award: MWGMOC "Manager Who Gets the Most Out of Crap"

Yes, but is it more riskier giving Correa $320M/10 or Baez $110M/5?

It's not easy finding players that can maximize this "one year window" while also helping longer term. The very best players want deals that take them beyond prime- some by a lot. Trading for cost-effective and younger players means giving up good prospects, so that is not going to help the longer term outlook. It's not easy. The 2 year deal given to Kike might be what Bloom tries to repeat.

There will be players DFA'd in the next 24 hours that have very similar profiles. 5.4 BB/9 1.5 HR/9 1.453 WHIP .768 OPS Against Only Richards and Perez pitched more innings and had a worse OPS Against on the Sox than Hirokazu. Can he do better? Sure. Did he have some nice stretches? Yes. Is he easily replaceable? Indeed.

I don't think we protect Ward. I could see flipping Fitzy for Arauz. I think Kelly for Valdez is a longer stretch.

He's not that good.

My list of 8 was not intended to imply we might DFA (or trade) 8 of our borderline roster players. The list was meant to show we have 8 players that might be discussed, if we need to open up a roster slot or two. I'm not very good at predicting who gets DFA'd first. For months I had Marcus Wilson #1, but he ended up being like #5 or 6. No way we DFA all 8. I do think Bloom might value a player another team DFA's more than he values some of the players on this list, and could, essentially, flip one for another.

Are these guys you think another team might select? I can't see us protecting any of these promising prospects. They may not even protect the 7 we've talked mostly about.

He was pretty far down on my list, but do you really think he is clearly better than Valdez or Davis? I doubt we get below #3 or #4 on my list, anyway.

Yes, but to varying degrees. I'd say more teams are looking to make 2 or 3 for 1 deals and close to none are thinking the reverse, but might be talked into it with a quality offer.

If we want to claim a player or two off waivers, we do.

I don't think everyone felt "everything" had to break right to win significantly more than 86 games. We had a ton of big question marks, and the interesting thing is, some of the bigger ones did not actually come out all that well, and we still beat expectations by a lot. Some of the biggest questions before opening day were... 1. Can Sale come back in June or July and get near his former self? (He eased into the rotation mid-August, faced some lower teams, early, and did pretty well, but I would not say he fulfilled our hopes.) 2. Can Eovaldi stay healthy for a full season and pitch well? (He did both.) 3. Can Franchy, Verdugo & Renfroe fill the shoes of JBJ and Beni? Remember, Kike was widely viewed as our 2Bman. (I'd say our OF did very well.) 4. Can the rest of our rotation pitch well enough to get us close to 90 wins? (Perez started out very well, Richards did well as a RP'er for a stretch, and Houck missed some time and was used in the pen a lot. Pivetta really helped.) 5. Can the pen cobble together a fine season? (I'd say they did, despite some very rough patches at 2-3 points in the season.) 6. Can Devers, Bogey and Kike/Arroyo improve on our infield defense of 2019-2020? (I'd say they did not.) 7. Was Dalbec a fluke? (Most of the season, it looked like 2020 was a fluke, but then the last 2 months, he was one of MLB's best hitters. Do we know anymore, now?) 8. Can Vaz repeat his near .800 OPS from 2019-2020 to help make up for some short-comings on staff-handling? (He did not.) 9. Can our bench help? (Marwin, Franchy, Santana and Duran were near to total disasters. Plawecki, Iggy, Shaw, Schwarber and maybe a couple others helped a lot, near the end.) 10. Was 2020 a sign of JD's decline, and if yes, how steep? (I'd say JD showed he is not done being productive, but he did not approach his peak numbers.) 11. Could Cora bring back the "magic?" (I think he did.)

One could argue one window closes after 2022, as Bogey has an opt out and JD, Eovaldi, Kike and Vaz all can be free agents. I could see an approach where we try to go somewhat big, this winter, to maximize our "1 year window" but while also looking beyond 2022. That might mean no contracts the bring a player beyond age 35, which might greatly restrict which of the best players Bloom could add. Trading top prospects or young players for 1-2 year players goes against the long term view, but maybe Bloom feels he can part with one of two that may be bottle-necked at a position, or one that some other GM values more than he does. I'd sure like to know what the budget is for this winter and next year.

Rule 5 eligible players need to be placed on the 40 man roster by tomorrow. We will be seeing a lot of players DFA'd today and tomorrow. Bloom is famous for snagging waived players, but we need to make room for 4-7 Rule 5 players, ourselves. We may DFA a few players and claim one or two from other teams as we add our Rule 5 players to our roster. (Note" most teams are crunching their rosters, too, so trading borderline players, now, to make room on your roster is not as easy at it might seem.) He is my list of DFA candidates: 1. Plawecki (Maybe, we trade Wong or Cottam.) 2. Potts 3. Rosario 4. Arauz (Trade?) 5. Sawamura (Trade?) 6. Locastro 7. Valdez (Trade?) 8. Davis (Trade?) We could also trade a bigger name or two to clear roster space, but those trades are not common at this time of the year.

In large part, we don't know what Bloom would or will do with a big winter spending budget AND not many roster slots to fill. He's never had either one of those two key components to off season moves. It's not furious typing: it's been a reality. We don't know, if the budget restrictions will remain through this winter or even longer, but it's not like spending up to the tax line every year is a severe restriction. Over time, Bloom should be able to leave his mark on this team, even if he never gets just one open wallet off season. We can already see the improvements to to 40 man roster depth and the farm finally getting back to respectability and balance. We've seen the 26 man roster improve greatly over 2020, but Bloom had over $40M to spend, last winter. We are not sure he'll have near that, this winter. If he does, and he only has 3-4 slots to fill- not 8-10, like last winter, we should get an idea on how he handles larger contractual signings or trades. If he's only given $20-28M to spend, then we'll still not really know what Bloom would or could do with winter spending budgets given to every GM from Theo to DD. I'm thinking he'll do fine, but it's hard to know. Even GMs with good records at spending large, often had bad signing seasons.

While this thread is about 2022, plans are always made with the future in mind. Here's a quick look at 2023's budget/roster: -$16M Price Free Agents after 2022 (Lux Tax): $22M JD $20M Bogey (Opt Out) $17M Eovaldi $7M Kike $7M Vaz While that's a lot of money ($90M) coming off the books, it's also a lot of talent walking out the door.

Do we know what any other teams offered for Taillon?