moonslav59

I read the Sox are looking to trade someone like Sandoval to get under the second line, but they may go over it, mid season, if needed.

We got a pretty wishy-washy answer from the higher ups on this. If it was all Brez, than he made what I consider a good mistake by not offering it. I think he knew the risk on how Bregman might age, and didn't want to give it, if he was in fact allowed to give it. I thought our Breggie offer was too much. I'd rather have Suarez. I'd rather have Contreras. had we not gotten Suarez, I'd rather have Gray, too.

Okay. I mistook your point. I do think Suarez was a top choice, unless you count only one top choice. (I think he preferred him to Alonso, Bichette & Schwarber.) I think he really liked and wanted Gray and Contreras and jumped on them early on. Both are no slouches and would have gotten big money as FAs. (Hell, we even got someone else to pay us some salary, for once.)

The Betts loss was totally unforgivable. You just have to make it happen. Period. The long history of Sox and stars reaching free agency under JH has actually not been all that bad, beyond Betts (and maybe Beltre & D Lowe.) We have done well to very well on many departure, especially Jake, Pedro, JD and even getting rid of Manny, AGon, Crawford, Beckett, Price, Beni and others via trade before their times were up. Although Damon did well with the Yanks, I think we did fine without him.

I try to think this is all just hyperbole, but I wonder. Spotrac has us 7th at $256M Lux Tax Dollars in 2025, we were 7th at $249M. In 2024, we were 12th at $226M- about the exact same as 2023. Cots has the opening day player budget only (not AAV) at... $171M 2024 $195M 2025 $191M 2026

The argument many made was that he could have been signed for less or much less earlier, and I wonder why they think that. Maybe DD could have offered more and not given the opt out, but once it got closer to free agency, I'm not so sure the numbers $160M/5 and later $200M/6 were even possible. I made the point, once he left that we may look back, someday and think even $200M/6 would have been an overpay. The weird thing is, his defense has not been bottom 5-10 with the Padres, but his offense sure took a tumble. OPS+ 117 BOS (123 last 7 yrs w BOS) 104 SDP (96 last 2 seasons combined) He's 33, now.

Our bottom of the line-up was better (balanced) than most, last year, and I like our depth better this year. Nobody has a 4th OF'er like ours. Romy, IKF and Monasterio/Sogard/Eaton look like better than average infield depth. Wong may not be an above average catcher, but last year might have been the outlier- not 2024. We also added better ML ready catcher depth with Contreras (emergency only) Seagler & Thaiss.

Here is a summary by slot: 1. Duran .742 (496 PAs), Anthony 1.003 (132) Romy .876 & Ref .873 (both with 39 PAs) 2, Devers .905 (334) Bregman .705 (217) Anthony .782 (61) Story .581 (51) 3. Bregman .893 (276) Duran .862 (112) Anthony .828 (88) Story .818 (58) Toro 1.048 (48)- Anybody & everybody did well up 3rd. (Except Abreu) 4. Story .815 (199) Narvaez .762 (118) Abreu .506 (75) Ref .874 (63) 4 others had 42-55 PAs) 5. Story .754 (175) Abreu .898 (155) seems like his slot! Romy .859 (71) 5 others had 25-69) 6. Story .673 (130) 15 others had 15+ PAs here 7. Nobody had more than 84 PAs here (Ceddanne .513)

Isn't this true for most or all teams? One could argue a team set up for balance and depth is better equipped for injuries than a team like the Yanks, who see an injury to Judge or Stanton & Bellinger. Or TOR with an injury to Springer or Vladdy. or BAL...

We have to hope Contreras replaces Bregman's bat and a half season more from Anthony replaces the half season lost by Devers. Abreu vs LHPs won't make up for the loss of Refsnyder, but maybe Durbin, Mayer and Romy pick up the slack from losing Ref and N Lowe. Lot's of "ifs." It's not chicken little to be concerned and worried. Fangraphs has our batting ranked 16th, but we're only 2.1 from top 10. (2.1 from bottom 10, too.) We will likely have a few regressions, maybe one or two from unexpected players, but with so many players nearing prime and peak prime, it's not hard to think we should have more unexpected plusses than minusses. I don't think anyone would be shocked if Rafaela, Narvaez and/or Mayer hit around .650. Maybe Durbin struggles to stay above .675. Maybe Story shows some decline. We probably can't handle too many of these, but I think it's doubtful most of these guys decline. Maybe 1 or 2. What's the upside on Anthony, Abreu, Mayer and even Rafaela? Is it far-fetched to see Duran, Contreras, Masa, Casas or Romy hit over .800? (again for Romy.)

For years we heard Sox fans lamenting the 2-3 "black holes" we had in our line-ups. Last year we had very few for most of the season, and our worst slots were better than most teams. That was partially the result of seeking our quantity over top quality, but it did help us do better than many expected us to do. We had MLB's second best 9 slot OPS at .730, which is better than the MLB overall OPS of .719! Our 9 guy!!! Okay, our #8 was bad (#26 at .617). Our 7 slot was 4th best at .740. Our 6th slot was 5th best at .759. We did fine at #5, too (5th at .768) Back to the lacking top quality point: we were 23rd at the 4thy slot (.687 was god-awful) 8th place at the 3 slot is not bad at .825. 14th at the all-important 2 slot is not good .777. We were 10th in the one slot at .787.

There won't be either. They could restrict the revenue sharing for teams that are far below the average team budget, of encourage them to spend more by offering higher revenue shares when they increase their budgets, but I doubt the rich owners go along with that idea.

Other than no longer having Ref to platoon with Abreu, the positions that will see the most changes from 2025 are 1B, 3B, 2B and DH. We're hearing a lot of talk about the giant step back our offense took, this winter and with the June trade of Devers, so let's look more closely at the numbers: DH: .823 OPS in '25. No Devers (.905 as DH in about half the PAs at DH) We also saw Anthony at .932 in 79 DH PAs. Masa was second in PAs at 179 (.741 as a DH.) Ref hit .823 as a DH in 74 PAs. Nobody else had significant playing time at DH. Basically Devers was almost half (.905) and Masa/Roman/Ref were aout 40%. This is going to be very hard to match. It looks like Duran will be used at DH more than others. Masa, Anthony, Romy, Casas and maybe even Campbell might get some time there. I'm thinking maybe .773 for the group. That's -50 from 2025. 2B: .670 in 2025. This one area we can improve on, but Mayer is such an unknown- both in terms of health and projected performance level. Campbell had about 1/3 the PAs at .658. DHam had about 1/4 at .633, and Romy had about 1/5 at .870. Ceddanne had 79 PAs at .309. Sogard + Mayer added up to 54 PAs at over .800 combined. This position will see almost all different players as the PA leaders. It'ds hard to project Mayer and the injured Romy, but I'm going to go with .695 and a +25 from 2025. 3B: .777 in 2025, which is hard to believe after Bregman's nutty first half. Breggie ended up with about 5/7ths of the PAs at .821. Mayer was second at 107 PAs and a .629 OPS. Toro, Eaton & Sogard combined for almost 100 PAs and a combined .700 OPS. Since Durnin was a rookie in 2025, and IKF has never hit over .699, I'm going with a .727 positional OPS at 3B, That may be low end, but it's another -50 for a position change. 1B: .691 in 2025. Contreras might offer our best hope to make up for the losses at 3B and DH. If he can hit like 2025, we'd see a 100 Point gain at 1B. -50, -50, +100 and +25 looks like we might break about even. (+25 overall) We can safely say we might see a drop from .736 at SS, especially if IKF gets too much time there. That might take away that +25. Abreu batting vs LHPs could hurt the OF slots, but more PAs by Anthony should make for a plus on offense from the OF as a whole. I'm guessing we stay about the same at catcher (.653) with Wong batting better and maybe Narvaez having a sophomore slump. There is room for improvement here. When you go position by position, things don't seem as bad as it looks. Indeed, we lost 4 of our top 6 OPS guys from 2025: 1. Devers .905 (334) 3. Refsnyder .838 (209) 5. Bregman .821 (495) 6. Lowe .790 (119) But, the combined PAs total about 1150 and not even 2 FT players. We also lost... .590 DHam (194) .659 Toro (284) and maybe less from Campbell at .664 (263) That's one FT player's worth of PAs at under .650. I know this is over simplifying things, and this never seems to work out when looking at one year to the next, and roster and slots end up in flux, but maybe things on offense won't be as bad as some think it will be.

As much as we both dislike the idea of Masa playing LF, I think Cora and Brez are more open to the idea. If there is one good thing out of keeping 4 OF'ers is that it should keep Masa form playing LF, as long as the 4 stay healthy.

Agreed. There is barely room for one. My guess is one outshines the other, of they give Masa the first look, due to his contract. If both are doing poorly, the choice will be easier. If both are doing well, one will be traded or stuck in AAA. I've heard some talk we are looking to cut some salary, so maybe we can save $3-5M a year on a Masa trade. Maybe we trade Sandoval. It makes no sense to have Casas and Masa on the 26. For now, it's okay for the 40, but maybe that day ends, during the season. Since Casas is cheaper and has more years of control, and actually had a 900+ sample size of .800+ batting, I'm leaning towards him. Let's see how the knee looks in a few weeks. He looks pretty limber, right now.

...and Cannon (43) & Lugo (69) in '19 Cutter Coffey (41) in '22 (Meidroth at 129 might have been our best choice) Zanetello (50) & Anderson (89) in '23

I have not given up on Rafaela's continued growth as a batter. The guy was as raw as raw could be when he begin professional baseball. His lack of improvement on K%-BB% over his farm years led many to believe he is what he is, but we've seen a marked jump in the right direction. He's still very bad in those areas, but not historically bad. Yes, he swings at too many bad pitches, but somehow he gets hits on enough of them to end up with decent numbers. The MLB OPS in 2025 was .719. His slow September put him just below that mark for the season (.709) He can have some god-awful stretches, so maybe he takes a step back, but I could see him nearing .750 in 2026. If Duran falls by as much as he did from '24 to '25 and Ceddanne improves, they may end up near each other.

These are the types of things Chicken Littles don't know about.

I doubt we get any kind of cap ceiling or floor. I think the owners can get the players to a yes, if they significantly raise the min wage and maybe further tweak the arb years. I'm thinking the majority of players are making min wage or in year 1 or 2 of arbs.

...and with all the SSs we drafted, why didn't we get one like Neto?

True, even if we added Witherspoon or Valera. Do you think it takes a bigger offer for Neto or KMarte?

The thing about our OF is that all 4 do worse vs LHPs, even our RHB Rafaela. Since Rafaela isn't a good hitter against L or R, maybe we sit him vs some RHPs, so Duran plays some more OF and Masa or Casas get some ABs at DH vs righties. It's a juggling act that was needless. We shoulda done something last winter, and did not learn the lesson, in 2025, either.

Mayer & Harrison for Neto, maybe, but LAA probably says no.

He started over Abreu vs LHPs and was well deserving of it for 3 years. He's a top 5 batter vs L...in MLB! no the team.

If we move Masa, it won't be for anything but salary relief.