moonslav59

I really want to avoid giving up top talent for one year players. The Sonny Gray trade gave up good talent, but not really top talent, and we didn't know Suarez was going to be added, later. Shaw interests me more, but I'm afraid of a Grissom repeat. He hit .690 in his rookie year. His value is almost all speculative. I guess it depends on who they want, but I'm not giving up one of our 4 OF'er for him. I'd hesitate to give Bello, but I view the step down from Bello to the mix below him as relatively minor compared to the step up in hope on Shaw vs hopes on DHam/Sogard & Co. I think someone like Baty is more of a sure thing. I may be too hung up on the need for a RHB, but I think I'd prefer the LHB Baty over the RHB Shaw. Close call, I guess. Of course, my first choice was KMarte, and I'd prefer Paredes, despite just 2 years vs 4+ on those other two guys.

One of my biggest beefs with Sox management goes back years: they should have had Devers learn 1B over the offseason, back when Bloom was the guy. Instead, he's the one who apparently promised Devers he'd be the 3Bman forever. I'm fine with people disagreeing on his capabilities to play 1B, but when you have one of the worst defensive 1Bmen (Casas) in Sox history playing 1B, you automatically should be thinking, "What do I have to lose by trying Devers at 1B?" Okay, we had Masa at DH, so no room for Casas there, but all along they kept claiming they had no issue with Masa in LF, and this was before Duran, Rafaela and Abreu were even in MLB or were just starting to prove they belonged. Here was my thinking: one of the major issues with Devers' defense was his inaccurate arm. His glove was not great, but he seemed to be pretty quick for a "big guy." I felt his strengths might translate well to 1B, or at least be better than Casas. So, moving Devers to 1B should improve the defense over Casas, and almost anyone you put at 3B would be an improvement. Plus-Plus: no brainer. If Cora disagreed with my thinking, I may have an issue with that, but I trust he knows what he's doing. Maybe the "issue" was not so much he disagreed with my take, but that he felt trying to get Devers on board with the idea was too risky. It appears he knows his players very well, as we saw what happened when the attempt was made by Brez. This doesn't take Devers or Cora off the hook for any fraction of blame, IMO. Apparently it is enough for some to say it's all on Brez. He shoulda known he had a selfish player on his team and pampered him, instead. (note: that is sarcasm.) Bad- bad Brez!

I've given up clicking on these sites that headline "Sox make a trade for all star 2Bman."

So, you know Devers is not making an effort to learn or speak English? Maybe he tried hard and gave up. It is not and should not be mandatory. Sure, it's nice and comfy for Sox fans who refuse to learn the language of the player who is "the face of the franchise" to hear him talk in flawless English, but holding it against him is not anything I would do. The fact that Ohtani is "getting better and better" does not matter. As a matter of my own personal perspective, I teach English as a Second Language. I took beginning French 3 times in my life (MS, HS & college.) I had to drop French after one semester, our of fear of failing Sem 2, and I took Sem 1 Latin to meet my graduation requirement. I took Spanish lessons before moving to Mexico to like for almost 4 years. While there, I took 6 levels of Spanish at a university and then hired a personal tutor to help me with conversational Spanish. After all that, my Spanish might be as good as Devers' English. The point? It's just not easy for some people. I might even say near impossible once you get past a certain age, where some your brain paths have shut down in some areas. I do admire Bregman for learning Spanish, so he could relate to his teammates.

Yes, it's telling that Cora would not talk to Devers and force his boss to do it. Yes, anyone can say what they want to their boss, but expect consequences when you basically call him out on not doing his job, worse yet, he did it publicly. How many employees do that and keep their jobs? BTW, nobody is trying to change your opinion, despite the absurdity of it.

Who wanted him to speak English or even asked him to? Who insisted on that? While I do feel like some of the translated statements he made might have missed some nuance and cultural aspects of what he said, he clearly was upset that the team asked him to do something they felt would help the team, and he wanted to call the shots. He thought he was a good defensive 3Bman, which alone disproves his skill at evaluating what is good or bad for the team. Yes, he was a bad teammate. This isn't the first time a star on a team tried to make GM or manager decisions. Many of these incidents where the team followed what the player asked or wanted done, that I recall, rarely worked out well. Some even were fully involved in roster construction choices (see James Harden w the Rockets.) We got a guy who was clearly the better defender at 3B and told Devers he'd be the DH. He hated that. That is understandable, but he reluctantly made the move- crying the whole way. Then, our 1Bman gets hurt. You can agree or disagree that Devers was the best option at 1B all you want, but if the team thinks you are, and you say no, how is that not an issue to some? All because you don't agree Devers was the better choice at 1B, you're okay with a player being insubordinate and then calling out the GM to "make a move?"

He was living under the delusion that he was a good defensive 3Bman. Maybe that explain something- maybe not. I totally understand blaming Brez for some or most of what happened, but to be fine with a player being blatantly selfish and calling out his boss for wanting him to help the team, whether you agree it was going to help or not, is just plain weird to me. Hell, some even blame Brez for signing Bregman as the move that ignited this whole thing, and some are the same guys who blame Brez for not signing top talent. It was mishandled, so everything Devers said and did was excusable. Less than 1% of all the blame goes to Dvers + Cora- not even a comment, like "sure he should have done what was asked of him, but..."

So, he's basically depth that can only be used once.

Sox sign Matt Thaiss to a minor league deal, Catcher depth signing with MLB experience. He's "out of options," but signing a minor league deal makes that a bit interesting. If he makes the MLB team, at anytime, does that mean they can't send him down? https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/t/thaisma01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&utm_campaign=2026-01-31_br

The one guy in MLB with less power than Masa.

It's deals like this that make me think Masa is not worth nothing.

Arraez $12M/1 w SFG. Will play 2B.

Just say no to Arraez, Even if he agrees to play anywhere.

You can't even fathom one benefit from Devers playing 1B after Casas got hurt? That's bizarre. SFG played him at 1B because he fit there better than 3B, since they had a 3Bman and a DH. For us, Mayer at 3B and Devers at 1B made some sense. It made sense to Brez, but he knows way less than you, I guess. A player undermines his boss in public, but you see less than 1% blame for that. Again, bizarre.

Nope. 99% Brez. Back to disagreeing with Ole Red.

Well, it sounds like you are predicting coming up short and have already decided we will fail.

Okay, my bad: you said "just about everything," except making excuses, and that sounds like everything done on paper, to me. Breslow is incompetent at just about everything besides making excuses. He’s a master at that.

I'm not sure Brez ever asked Cora to talk to Devers, so I won't place any blame on Cora, unless and until that becomes known. I do think it's odd that if Cora knew his boss wanted Devers to play 1B and did not want to ask or see the need to ask, something is askew between their relationship. Who is to blame for that? It's hard to know. It would not be the first time a manager disagreed with what the GM wanted him to do with the players given to him. I only said that if Brez asked Cora to talk to Devers and he would not, then maybe I'd put some blame on Cora, too. Maybe. Maybe Devers says no to Cora, and nothing changes- he's still gone. Maybe Devers respects Cora enough that he agrees to do what seems to me to be what's best for the team, and he's still here. Maybe. I'm not sure who is most to blame, but it does appear to be mostly on Brez, from what I know and opine.

Signing E Suarez or trading for Paredes will likely have to mean finding a way to cut some salaries. Including Bello, Sandoval or Duran in a trade for Paredes keeps us under line 3. Signing Suarez to over $19M AAV would likely mean we have to trade 2 from that list or find cuts elsewhere. I admit my talk of dumping Masa and or Hicks is far-fetched and even combined may not save $8-9M in AAV, as we will need to pay much of it. There is some variances on how much bellow line 3 we are, but maybe it's just $4M, and that is probably needed to pay for bonuses or deadline additions. It might be safe to say any additions we make going forward has to be offset by equal salary done away with.

It's a close call between Duran and Abreu, and I did not come to my opinion lightly. I like the extra year Abreu has and his age (2 years younger.) Abreu costs less. Abreu is a GG RF'er- a very difficult position to play in Fenway and on the road. Duran is okay in LF and CF but may play more DH in 2026 than many want to believe. To me his value as a DH (vs Masa/Romy/Casas/Campbell) is less than his value as an OF'er to us and every other MLB team. Duran has been a better batter than Abreu, but Abreu passed him in OPS last year. You speak of 30 HRs, but the 2025 ISO numbers were Abreu .223 (best among returning Sox players) and .185 from Duran (barely ahead of Narvaez, Romy & others.) Duran's speed is a game-changer and is hard to place a value on. He blows Abreu away on this. OPS+ Duran: 69 at ages 24-25 121 at 26 132 at 27 114 at 28 (This does not suggest a decline is in place, but is concerning) Abreu: 120 at ages 24-25 116 at age 26 (less than Duran at 26 but more than Duran at 28) It's hard to project who will better, but Abreu has more power and plays better defense. That should continue.

Much of that is still speculative (or suspect as one poster would call it,) but on paper he has made massive overhauls and upgrades from top to bottom on pitching. The everyday players were largely handed to him by Bloom & even DD. His biggest add was Breggie, and now he's gone (O'Neil too). His biggest lasting additions are Narvaez & Contreras. He lost Devers and others. Considering the graduations of Anthony, Mayer, Campbell, Narvaez and others under Brez, having a pretty highly ranked farm is another good thing. Part of that is captured by the pitching upgrade as being the "best."

From what I know, if I had to assign blame on the Devers fiasco & departure, I'd probably put Brez first, but I also think Devers should have moved to 1B w/o public comments. If it's true that Cora refused to even ask Devers to move to 1B, when his boss wanted that to happen, I think that is unsettling, at best and worthy of some blame at worst. 99%, no. Maybe over 50%, yes. I am a bit relieved to see we have spent more than the 2025 budget, but the power gap remains. That's on Brez, because we see he had the budget to spend more on batting than pitching and chose not to do that. That being said, teams can win with different roster constructions, and maybe the pitching will carry us to glory, or the batting will do better than we expected. The winter is not over, yet, either.

Maybe it was understood that when we signed Suarez, Brez was expected to dump some salary (like one from Bello, Sandoval or Duran- all about $8-9M AAV.) Maybe the dumps are not to pay for Suarez, but to help pay for E Suarez or adding the $9M cost of Paredes. That third tax line might be set in stone. Like it or not.

We'd likely be looking to trade shorter term players like Sandoval, Gray or two year guys like Chapman & Whitlock. 3 year guys like Duran would likely be next.

1. He's not done. 2, Tied for 7th on projected total fWAR is subjectively competitive or not. We are 1.1 away from 6th, 1.6 away from 5th and 1.8 from 4th. One could argue that's close enough to call competitive. 3. Adding a 2.4 Paredes or the like would move us to 4th or 5th, assuming the teams ahead of us don't make major additions, too. While I do share your view that we should have improved by more, the winter is not over. If we stop now, or other teams just ahead of us add more than us, I will not be happy, but I won't say "everything" he has done is bad. I understand that might have been hyperbole, since you have admitted some moves are good and have been good. I wish we had gotten Alonso, Schwarber of KMarte, even if it meant one less pitcher or even no Gray & Contreras, maybe, as long as the leftover money was uses on a RP'er or two, or an upgrade somewhere else.