moonslav59

I heard that, too, and I gotta think HOU and the CHC are still open for a deal, but maybe Brez is just refusing to "overpay" to get what we need. It's hard to know specifics on what players HOU and CHC want, but at this point, I'd give Bello & DHam for Paredes or Hoerner (and maybe a prospect added.) Initially, I felt HOU should add King, Sousa, Janek or maybe even B Abreu with Paredes, but I'd take a decent prospect, instead. I'm not sure either team wants Bello that badly. Hoerner has just one year left, so it seems like a good deal for them, too. (Paredes has 2 years.) Shaw may cost more due to his 4 years of control, but we could us a 4 year guy at 3B. If we can't make it happen with one of these three guys, I'm guessing it's Brez being stubborn. You gotta give to get and we need a big get.

We do have quite a few players that could take a step up on offense (Anthony, Abreu, Mayer, Campbell, Rafaela & Narvaez) or just repeat what they did 2 years ago (Duran, Contreras, Casas & Wong.) Maybe Story, Romy and Masa give us a decent season. We might not need everyone to step up, and it's unlike they all do, but if a handful do, and the others don't all regress on us, maybe we can cobble together an offense that ranks near 10th or 11th. That could be "enough." Limiting black holes and timely hitting are always the big worries. Last year, we had fewer black holes than most of the best teams in MLB, but we also had fewer big bats. We lost 4 of our top 6 OPS guys from a 2025 team that was already not all that great on offense. We added Contreras, I K-F and expect some rookies and 2nd year men to take up the slack. That's a BIG ASK.

With the Sandlin trade and the addition of Gage Ziehl (slotted #30 as a 22 yr old pitcher,) soxprospects.com has adjusted their rankings: https://soxprospects.com/index.html The top prospects stay pretty much the same: Tolle, Arias, Early & Witherspoon (1-4) I'd put Early #2. Valera, Bennett & Gonzales (5-7) Poised to make jumps? Soto, Phillips, Eyanson & Godbout (8-11) Decent mid tier hopefuls. Romero, Uberstine & Drohan (12-14) May be AAAA types Holobetz & Mullins (15-16) offer more hope, to me than 12-14 do. Watson at #20 is Rule 5, so 2025 is it. Bleis at 17, Cespedes at 18 & Castro at 21 should be nearer to #30 in my book. It's make or break time for them. Azocar (19) Delzine (22) Ramos (23) Rivas (23) & Cason (29) are so far away, it's hard to know how good they can be. Nelly Taylor and #27 Yordanny Monegro offer some hopes of progress. #28 Samaniego is on the 40. We finally added some minor league catchers with some promise: 31 Adonys Guzman, 32 Luke Heyman, 33 Franklin Primera along with holdovers Jorge Rodriguez & Brooks Brannon (1B?) I'll be keeping an eye on: 34 G Silverio, 35 D Brito, 39 M White, 41 Ingrassia, 50 I Jackson, 51 M Martin, 53 B Morgan & 59 M Patton. I think our farm may surprise a few people in 2026.

Soxprospects.com no longer lists an "acquisition" to the infield. They demoted DHam to AAA and inserted I K-F as an infield utility man. C Narvaez 1B Contreras 2B Romy 3B Mayer SS Story LF Anthony CF Rafaela RF Abreu DH Duran Bench: Wong, I K-F, Eaton & Yoshida (Houck, Sandoval & Casas on the IL) I think DHam or Sogard could beat out Eaton for that slot, and maybe we find a way to trade Masa or get him to agree to "rehab" in AAA. The AAA bench, according to sp.com will be K Campbell, DHam, Sogard & Gasper. Non 40 man players that could see time are Matt Thaiss, Mikey Romero, Nathan Hickey and Braiden Ward. The issue with the 13 man pitching staff is measuring quality and need vs players with no options and deciding to move some starters to the pen to start the season. Soxprospects.com lists 14 pitchers, and I think Kelly will be the guy who begins the season in AAA, so Moran & Watson do not need to be DFA'd or sent back on Rule 5 requirements. Crochet, Suarez, Gray, Bello, Oviedo, Crawford (pen?) Chapman, Whitlock, Slaten Weissert, Harrison, Watson, Moran (Kelly to AAA) Others on the 40 but beginning the season in AAA are: Tolle, Early, Uberstine, Drohan & Samaniego (Bennett in AA.) To me, this looks like a very solid 26 and 40 man roster with a handful of decent players not on the 40. The two major weak areas are 2B or 3B and offense (power.) One player, like Paredes can address both of those needs, while someone like Hoerner or Shaw could address one need and help a little with the other. I'm feeling less optimistic about adding another big piece, before the season starts, and counting on Brez to do it mid season up to the deadline is a frightening thought. Without any significant additions, we are left with hoping the youth movement takes center stage, while some vets put up career or near career years. I suppose we could win with pitching and defense with average offense, but that is a new mindset for Sox fans to grapple with... me included.

We really needed a sharp focus on rebuilding our pitching staff, farm, evaluation, acquisition and development systems, and is some ways our everyday player side of the roster looked deep at nearly every position. There were, and still are, a lot of quality young players with 3+ years of control on the 26 and 40. Brez has added some good ones and traded away some players like Verdugo and of course Devers. He basically needed to fill three major everyday needs, and it could have been with just 2 high quality players: Big bat, 2B/3Bman and 1Bman. We had a couple minor needs at catcher and infield depth/defense. He did fill the 1Bman need, well, but not really with the big bat many of us felt we needed, and that was the easier slot to find a big bat, as opposed to 2B/3B. He added the infield depth and minor league catcher depth, but we still need a higher quality 2B/3Bman who can also hit well- hopefully with some power, too. The clock is ticking, and teams are wrapping up on seaking major trades to fill big needs. It might be too late. Brez did a great job filling the pitching needs we had, this winter. Some might say it was overkill, and within the context of not filling one major need on the other half of the roster, the criticism has some merit. We should remember that in 2025, we went into the winter looking like we had about 10-12 capable to quality SP'ers and we didn't really even count Newcomb, Tolle and Early, who all started several games. We ended up trading for D May and using openers for starts and even deLeon for one. 2025's 10-12 Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Bello, Giolito Crawford, Sandoval, Fitts, Newcomb, Dobbins Priester & Winckowski I'm happy we have this depth, but having this with a gaping hole in the infield is a big gamble for Brez to take. He's made some recent moves to boost the infield defense, and when you have great pitching, that's not a bad idea, but we could have used a bigger bat than Contreras. He'd have been great, if we also added KMarte, Bregman or someone like Paredes/Hoerner or maybe Shaw/E Suarez. There may still be time to fill the one and a half needs we have with just one guy but big, mid FEB trades are rare.

Yup. Story looked like another one, until last season. Maybe Masa can give a little value before his time is up.

Yanks resign Goldschmidt $5M/1. They just keep beating us to the best of the best!

Too bad none of them can hit.

You keep posting that old news that surely is incorrect by now.

Yoshida’s 5-year, $90 million contract includes a clause that requires his approval to be sent to the minor leagues. While he can be placed on a rehab assignment (such as after his 2024/2025 injury), these are limited to 20 days for position players. After that period, the team cannot legally option him to Triple-A without his consent.

Damn CHEAP! $41M Gray (STL paid $20M) $28.3M AAV x 6 Crochet (extension kicks in this season) $26M AAV x 5 Suarez $18M x 2 Contreras ($4M x paid by STL) $13M x 2 Chapman (extension) $16.3M x8 Anthony (extension) $7.5M x 8 K Campbell (extension) $6M Kiner-Falefa When are we going to get an owner that is NOT CHEAP?!?!?

Why wait? We need a 2Bman, now. We know we need one. We will need one later, if we don't get one now. Do we trust Brez to overpay at the deadline?

I think MVP found something that states he can refuse a demotion.

IKF and IDK might have the front-runner slot.

That was the rumor, along with hitting on others' wives. 9 teams in 15 years for a plus defensive SS who hit pretty well. Hmmmm...

We have so many with varying degrees of promise that it would go against the odds to think hardly any will trun out to be good, very good or even great. Tolle, Early & Witherspoon Valera, Phillips, & Eyanson Bennett, Uberstine & Dorhan Holobetz, Mullins Samaniego & Watson Delzine, Carson & Ziehl (debuted at #30 on SP.com)

Tsung-Che Cheng claimed off waivers has a 40 man slot.

You and I might be okay with Masa in AAA, but it's up to Masa. He can refuse an option to the minors.

Sox claimed infielder Tsung-Che Cheng. Now we need to clear a slot on the 40 for IFK. 2B by committee.

True, but it's been 9 seasons with nobody starting over 95 games at 2B.

It's not about Romy as a PH'er, to me, it's about DHam getting any ABs, even vs RHPs. vs RHPs Romy .718 in '25 (.616 career) DHam .618 in '25 (.642 career)

Like I'm going to stop it from "playing out" by giving my opinions?

MLBTR called it a "2B volume approach."

I'd rather have Romy FT at 2B than platooning with DHam.

I forgot Story played over 81 games that year- my bad. He was to be the FT 2Bman, if he didn't get hurt, so yes it was not a planned 2B by committee season. Some other seasons, I think we went in with management thinking we had someone they wanted to play FT, but they failed or got hurt and we ended up with a mix. (Like Nunez in 2019. maybe even Arauz, Arroyo and Campbell.