moonslav59

I'm extremely concerned about Anthony's ability to stay on the field- about as much as I finally was with Sale. Of course, Sale had a much longer record of success when healthy, but he also had 3 times the length of time with injury concerns. When we traded Sale, many asked why. Many more asked why after Sale rebounded.

Yup, and who wasn't concerned before the series? Nobody was deaf to the problems. When you ask them who specifically they can't find even one example.

You do care, and it does cause concern for you.

Kinda like 2004, when the Yanks scored 32 runs in the first 3 games. If this series was just 7 games!!! LOL

My comments have nothing to do with my Anthony expectations. In fact, I just posted I'm counting on nothing from him in 2027. Once again, you misunderstand what people post and think. Your "different way of looking at things" is often just plain wrong, and that's why it's so different.

I'm only concerned about Roman's health. That's not the same as saying he'll be great if healthy, but he has done nothing to show he's not good, when he's healthy. One more note. He has an .803 OPS while playing hurt some of the time.

The jury is out. Expecting greatness on day one was unrealistic. This whole overhype argument rings hollow to me. Nobody expected greatness year one. If they did, they should be called out, but I don't recall anyone having or stating that opinion. Sure, we had hopes. It's natural. Afterall, there are times rookies do well from day one, and we had three, so the odds were pretty good one might.

He's barely got 500 PAs and still has a decent career OBP of .371 and an .803 OPS. Harsh. The injuries suck.

I forgot that- yes!

He's played with STL, and maybe they'll up their budget again, after doing better than expected this year. If he wants to win, he'd avoid Cincy. ATL is not far from TN, but with airplanes being invented recently, I'm not sure distance is all that meaningful anymore.

Was "getting ahead" a good idea" with Rafaela? Bello's deal looked okay, then bad, and now maybe okay again.

If someone likes Monasterio or Seigler enough to offer Brez something useful, I could see trading one and keeping Cheng. Chengs plus of those two plus Sogard and Mead is he can play SS. (I'm not happy with Story's D at SS, too, so keeping Cheng and the Arias back-up make sense to me, too. Sogard might get the most return value, and maybe the "step down" to Seigler, Monasterio, Cheng and Gasper is not that much. I agree, we need to shed at least one. Funny, how we shed DHam but added 3 infielders in that deal. Since Arias is not Rule 5, we don't really have to add him over the winter. We may wait until opening day for that call. I'd like to hand him the job, but have someone capable in the wings. I suppose Story as a back-up SS is fine. He could play 2B in the meantime while Mead DHs.

I for one was impressed with Anthony's OBP and liked him as the lead-off batter.

I agree. He makes my 40 man roster not my 26. He's a career .800 batter with over 30 Hrs per 650. Isn't that what everyone wants us to go out and get? No way should we count on him, but we don't have to cut him loose, either.

I know a certain poster who thinks Rafaela is a minus on offense, and CF could be upgraded on offense, but consider this: Out of 270 batters with 300+ PAs (9 batters x 30 teams=270) Rafaela places: 102 in OWAR (Fangraphs) 104 in wRC+ (109) 80th in SLG (.442) 147th in OBP (.319) He placed 30th in overall fWAR thanks to his defense (15th best in DWAR.) He should not be someone we look to trade, unless we see a decline coming. (I could see a drop off, but he has not been up and down like Duran was. He's younger than Duran was when he declined.)

Yes, they won't hand Contreras away. The idea is we get someone back at another position. Maybe we add a piece or two and get a much better player. Then, we move Mead to 1B. I don't see Romy getting a FT role, but I doubt we gave up on him as a top platoon bat vs LHPs. He could platoon with Gasper or Yoshida at DH. Gasper-Romy at 1B would be a big ask. (Casas would be the depth.) I think the Sox really like Sogard, but asking him to play 1B and hit like one is too much. Plus, he's not a great hitter vs RHPs, which happens to be about 70% of all pitchers.

Too many think admitting you are wrong is a sign of weakness, when actually the opposite is true.

Every year, we say, "We'll get _____, ______ and ______ back." Half the time we don't. The other half we do and they suck, then as Yogi might say, the other half of the time, others get hurt or unexpectedly decline. I'm thinking we might see a Contreras trade. I'm not sure how they viewed his antics and attitude. I'm sure if he sucked or was meh, they would not have liked them. They could go with... 1B: Mead, Sogard, Romy, Casas 2B: Story, Mead, Seigler, Romy SS: Arias, Story, Monasterio, Cheng That's big drop in offense, and we are looking for ways to boost the O, so this seems counterintuitive. I think it's likely Contreras declines some at his age. 2026 was also his 3rd most PAs in his career, but he was a catcher before. I think we keep Bennett but might trade Suarez. His big raise may scare too many teams away. I'm sure we'll hear trade Duran- trade Yoshida- trade Story all winter long, but we might get lucky to trade just one- likely Duran. I know many will view a Duran trade as a hit to the offense, but not if you look at just his 2025 numbers. Just non tendering him should/could be addition by subtraction. Replacing his PAs with more from Anthony, Yoshida, Jones and White should be a plus. Adding a LF'er or DH could see an even bigger boost. Brez seems to swapping out pitchers every winter, so maybe we see Weissert, Slaten, Moran (out of options) or even Guerrero dealt away. Look at last winter: Clarke, Fitts & Galle for Gray Perales for Bennett Hicks and Sandlin for Ziehl. ______________________ Trades of bats for pitchers: Jh Garcia and Travieso for Oviedo & Samaniego Mayer for Miller (and Gutierrez) ______________________ Trades of pitchers for bats: Hoppe for Heyman Bernardino for Ward Murphy for Ro. Hernandez L Guerrero for Tristan Gray Dobbins, Fajardo & Aita for Contreras Harrison & Drohan for Durbin and others. Early for Mead Eyanson, Witherspoon & Azocar for AR That's a lot of dealing.

Agreed. I'd have rather we left them in too long that that.

Amazingly, the Sox pen had better numbers than the starters, but we had lost too many middle men, like the two you mentioned, and Miller fell apart in September.

Sounds about right. Before the last game, I thought Gray would want to come back. I'm not sure how long he holds a grudge, but the grudge was well founded. He only had 70 pitches, was on extra rest and had not been hit all that hard- other than the HR. No BBs.

It should also be mentioned our SP'ers let up just 3 runs in 2 games.

The bad offense was more than 2 games- granted.

I will say, no two games should ever determine a change in strategy or evaluations of high ve moderate vs low need areas.

It can't hurt to let Casas play in ST'ing. Handing him a starting slot is another thing.