moonslav59

It's the $27.3M x 8 years that scared Brez. He'd rather pay $28M AAV for Buehler + Sandoval, and think he's smart.

You do know there are 4 infield positions. Story plus 2 equals 3. And, that's if we get lucky and 2 of those 3 do well enough. IMO, Campbell is likely best suited for LF/DH not the infield. Casas may start the season on the 60 Day IL. I like Mayer, but 150 games seems like a big ask. I'm not even all that sure Story will stay healthy and come close to 2025 numbers. I'm begging for 2 major infield additions, and you think we need none. I'm fine with your position on not spending, but we have to at least sign Josh Bell and Rengifo. Even that is a major step backwards.

No man is an atoll.

Cease & desist!

I'll be pissed if we sign Cease over a big bat. I would not spend on Cease, even if we get a big bat. xFIP or no xFIP.

Good thing positions don't matter to you! (Gotcha!)

Exactly. The players who sign for 1 or 2 year deals do so for a reason. They usually are not the tried and true high quality players. Bregman was a bit of an exception, but the one and done means we just bought time for 1 season.

He has an option left, and maybe his bat is not totally pathetic, just because it was for most of 2025. His career .680 OPS is just 20 points below the league catcher OPS in '25. He played hurt in '25 and was .374 first 33 games and .627 last 30 games. .667 last 16 is nothing to celebrate, but it is not as pathetic as the start of the season. I do think 2024 was not sustainable. His last 10 games: .500, so it's not like he ended on a high. AAA would be great, but at $1.4M, maybe not.

Yes, it is, and it wasn't even status quo, IMO. Expecting a returning Bregman to do as well as the 2025 Bregman plus 2 months of Devers is not equal to status quo. (Bregman+Devers= 830 PAs.) Bell may do as well as Lowe. Upgrading Catcher might add, but Narvaez was not a weakness, last year, and who knows if the guy you like will do better than the 2026 Wong. We could see 2025 Wong D with 2024 Wong O and do better with status quo, there. Losing Gio and expecting Belo to repeat 2025 is a lot to ask for Joe Ryan to make up, and he showed worse and longer issues than Bello to end 2025. I'm fine with expecting the kids to pick up some slack. I'm a believer in thinking age progression is likely, and we have far more pre-prime and early-mid prime players than post prime ones, so that may help us step up, IN SOMEAREAS, from status quo without outside additions, but we need some high quality over an excess of decent depth. I really believe we need to focus our resources and pinpointing 2-3 highest need areas and go for broke on 2-3, rather than continuing the spread the wealth plan of adding 5-7 promises and hoping 4-5 do well. We can roll the dice with in-house options at one questionable slot: 1B: (Lowe) Casas/Campbell/Romy 3B: Mayer, Romy/Eaton/Sogard 2B: Mayer, Romy/DHam/Sogard SP2: We have 9-11 number 4/5 slot pitchers. (One might include DH) But, we need to upgrade with some serious quality at 2-3 and stay even with the one we don't address. Bregman is barely staying even at one. Okay, go with Mayer at 2B, but then go mega size at 1B and SP2. Go with Mayer at 3B, but then go large at 2B (Polanco, Bichette, Castro, KMarte) and 1B (Alonso, Suarez) and SP (Ryan, Lodolo or maybe Keller.) Mega large at 2 or large at 3 is my idea of the best plan. Again, I seriously doubt JH & Co. move from their established trend on no large and longs. I'm not even sure they go to $45M AAV on 4-5 short deals, this winter. The large is in doubt. The long is likely a pipe dream.

Since Wong has one option left, maybe, but I'd probably trade him. This looks like something Brez might do, but I would be very disappointed. We did nothing to replace Devers. We replaced Bregman with an older Bregman. We replaced Lowe with Bell. We improved at catcher. Ryan may end up giving us what Gio gave in '25. Kinda status quo, to me. No thanks.

$45M is getting close to the non reset line. We have no way of knowing they closely approach it or surpass it.

Agreed, and my suggested trade included money and prospects.

Sounds about right. He has way too much upside to cut loose, especially when one of our biggest needs is power. His decent OBP is a bonus.

I'm not sure this would happen, but the theory looks good. Pitchers often pitch to the park.

I accept the fact that the Sox will not spend the money as I suggest. I also doubt they trade any top prospects. I give my suggestions, anyway.

I do not think we spend large and long one 2 players, as well. I won't be surprised if we don't go L & L on anyone.

If they have $45M, they might be able to get Suarez for $14-5M AAV x 2-3 yrs- maybe $13-14M, if we go 3-4 yrs. I don't think Alonso gets much more than $30M AAV. We may have to go an extra year or lower the AAV with an option year with buyout, but I think we can get two for $45M. If we trade Duran for Losolo, we'll save $3.5M. We could also look to trade Hicks + $4M x 2 years and save $8M. If we trade Bello or Campbell, we'd save more AAV.

If that happens, keeping Wong becomes less advantageous, but I still do not think upgrading our back-up catcher is a significant need. If something comes up, sure. It's a long winter, and Brez can work on multiple things and should look for an upgrade, but my thought is that so many teams want catching that the cost will likely be too high. If we can trade a bubble player or borderline Rule 5 guy, fine, but I'm not thinking we should give up a lot for a slight upgrade.

He got great results from the staff he caught- better than Narvaez got. There is something of value to continuity and comfort between catchers and the staff.

I'd be fine with some sort of upgrade, and just because I don't see it as a major need, doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. I think I'm more okay with Wong than others. I don't think his bat is as bad as it looked, this year. His defense and results with with pitchers improved a lot in 2025. I guess I'd have to see who we'd need to give up for a promising catcher. I also have seen many highly regarded catching prospects fizzle out and moderately considered prospects, like Narvaez, shine.

I think we may just add one more MiLB depth signing at catcher. We have bigger needs. Much bigger.

He will likely settle before the arb- maybe for around $1.5M. That's not much more than the min wage.

Not a big assumption when you see the state of catching depth in MLB.

They would trade Wong before letting him just go for nothing.

Tristan has had more proven success and wildly more upside potential. (More downside, too.)