moonslav59

My kind of Sox player!

I'm okay with just picking up a catcher, when you need one as a back-up. It all seems sort of hit or miss when adding a catcher. After Tyler Heineman had a .396 OPS for Sox & TOr in '24 and just 63 PAs in the previous 2 seasons, he hit .777 for TOR, this year. Higgy hit .660 in his final 3 years in NY, then has hit .714 in his last 2 seasons at ages 34-35 with 28 bombs in 590 PAs. Carson Kelly got some talk, here, last winter and signed for $5M with the Cubs: .761 OPS w 17 dingers in 421 PAs. When you hear success stories like these, it make you want to cut Wong loose and roll the dice with someone else, but most catcher additions end up being pretty bad on offense. In MLB, last year, the 15th best catcher team OPS was .689. BOS was #20 at .653, and that could have been way worse, if not for Narvaez. 7 teams were below .615 and 5 below .606. I think Wong bounces back on O. He improved his defense and production numbers from the pitchers he caught. He won't hit like 2024, but he should hit significantly better than 2025. His career OPS is .680 (87 OPS+.) The league catcher OPS was .700 in 2025. .680 is not that bad for a back-up, in this context.

I think Wong comes back as the back-up catcher and Bello binky. SP'ers did better when he caught them. No biggie, if we end up replacing him, but even good back-up catchers are hard to find.

Couldn't stay up for the ending, but man-o-man, Freddie Freeman da man!

They are certainly this centuries' hated Yankees. I'm not sure if losing would cause more spending or not. I still want the Jays to sweep them! At least they are in the NL.

It's highly unlikely- just as any suggested trades are. If he wants to dump salary, he could trade Gray and Contreras for prospects making min wage, and save the whole bundle. Taking back some salary, in theory, would increase the return value. I'm not sure the players I suggested are enough or more than what other team would offer. It would probably take more than what I mentioned. Campbell, Garcia, Arias & Perales or Clarke/Valera/Fajardo if he wants a non 40 man pitcher.

Why do you presume we can trade Yoshida to make room for Duran at DH? Why do we want to play Duran at DH when another team values him way more in the OF? One can argue Abreu is ready to not be platooned, and since he and Duran are LHBs, they are duplicated. Campbell and Garcia are, too. We only need one more RHB OF- not two. The idea is to trade from strength and depth to fill bigger needs. You look at who you replace the traded guy with and measure the value differential and compare the value gained at the position you trade for vs who would have played there without the trade. Here is an example: we trade Duran for Lodolo. How much do we lose playing Rafaela, Abreu, Garcia/Campbell in the OF, instead of Duran? (I'm assuming Anthony plays FT.) Now, how much better is Lodolo over Crawford or Dobbins? (That's who would be bounced from the rotation.) Now, on top of that, adding Lodolo to a rotation that goes 10+ deep, now allows us to trade someone like Harrison, Crawford, Dobbins or Harrison for an upgrade somewhere else (like 2B, 1B, 3B.) I'm fine with not wanting to trade Abreu or Duran, but I think the logic is there to see why. We could also decide to trade Rafaela, Garcia or Campbell and still have 2 RHB OF'ers. The return will not be as great, but we do keep the best 3 offensive OF'ers. I guess trading Rafaela + Crawford/Dobbins/Harrison for Lodolo accomplishes the same conceptual plan, but with better O and worse OF D.

If I'm looking to save $45M and rebuild for the future, yes. I make the deal. I don't see STL looking at a window in the nest 2 years, so why not dump 2 year big contracts? I'm not sure they want Campbell- maybe Garcia and Arias plus Sandlin?

Not sure how realistic this is, but here I go... Sony Gray is owed $35M in 2026 and an option for $30M for 2027 w $5M buyout. Essentially, it's $40M/1 or $65M/2. (The tax hit is $24.8M) Willson Contreras is owed $18M, then $18.5M with an option for 2028 at $17.5M w a $5M buyout. Essentially, it's $41.5M/2 or $54M/3. (His tax hit is $17.5M.) Combined, they total $106.5M/2 with a tax hit at $43.5M x 2.) Masa is owed $37.2M/2 and Hicks is owed $24M/2. Combined, they are owed $61M/2. (Tax hit is $28.2M x 2) By adding $15M to our tax budget line, we could trade Masa and Hicks and add someone else STL wants... maybe Campbell ($7.5M tax hit) and a prospect. or two. We gain our #2 SP'er and a 1Bman and should have some money left over for 2B/3B. STL saves $45M over two seasons and maybe improves their long term outlook.

If Casas is 100% healthy, I'd bet on him being a better DH, but that doesn't mean Cora would choose Casas over Masa.

Realistically, though, we'll be lucky to land one big bopper and trade for someone like Keller.

I'm not predicting he regains what was lost. His injury is a tough one to come back from, but if he gets healthy, I have a ton of faith he's the real deal as a batter. It may take him another year, but Yoshida only has 2 left, so there will be room for him at DH, where he has always belonged.

I think almost all of us want to keep him, offer him arb and give him a shot. His trade value is so low vs his upside potential, and he may have the most proven HR power of any Sox player on the 40. What do we need most, this winter?

It might be too early to be thinking pen bound for Brandon, and blister issues isn't usually a reason to convert a SP'er into a RP'er, so I doubt they make that choice, this winter. He's still just 22.

I have no beef with Kelly. He wanted to move on and thought he was moving up. I think he felt being at ND, with all the high entrance standards, he'd never be able to recruit the talent needed to win it all. He might have been right on that, but to think that was the only difference between ND and LSU was perhaps his biggest misjudgment. (BTW, my father was teaching at LSU, when I was born in Baton Rouge.)

Agreed. LF... maybe 1B or DH, but I doubt 2B.

The Yanks and several other teams need an OF'er, too. I get the point that we aren't likely getting a solid #2 SP'er for Duran or Abreu, but we have more we can offer. We could go lighter and look to trade JG Garcia or Campbell, but an OF'er will be traded, this winter- maybe two. Remember, these guys had (still have?) visions of Yoshida in LF. I think we learn from the mistake of omission last winter. This time we do trade an OF'er.

If you want us to fall short again, yes hold onto 8 OF'ers, while we watch guys like Toro at 1B, DHam at 2B, whoever is Mayer's back up at 3B and four #5's behind Crochet. We may find a one for one trade, like maybe Duran for Lodolo, but most of my suggest OF trades involve Duran + others for a solid #2 SP'er. The idea is that the "step down" from Duran to Anthony might not even be a step down, but the step up from Crawford to Ryan or Lodolo is a major boost. And, we aren't trading Yoshida so Duran can DH. Duran's value on another team as an OF'er is worth more than to us at DH. That's basically the impetus for a trade.

There is a whole article about it.

I'm with you and others on keeping Casas. I'm thinking we need one major trade and one major signing, plus one more pretty big addition... minimum.

When you have 3-4 major need areas and 6+ OF'er, yes, you trade one.

We kinda knew all the hyped kids were not going to bust out, and certainly not in year one- although Casas and a few others are beyond year one. I agree with you on not relying so much on kids being good, continuing being good and getting better. It's okay to count on a certain amount of them to contribute, but we need to have contingency plans in place that are better than Toro, as well as some major upgrades at a minimum of 2-3 key slots. It's just my opinion, but I see 3 major additions needed to be a top 4-5 competitive team in MLB: SP2, 1B and 2B/3B. The last one is betting on Mayer/Romy being able to cover the one not filled. That might be hoping & praying for too much, by itself, but to me, it's an acceptable risk. Alternatively, we could maybe sign a guy like Merrill Kelly, and trade an OF'er plus others for someone like K Marte (1B) and then add a 1Bman AND 3Bman and keep Mayer as a tangible depth asset. ( I suppose we could follow MVP's advice and trade Mayer.) In short, we need to get bold to win. The Crochet, Chapman and Bregman adds were bold. We gained 8 wins. Ideally, we need to add another 8 wins. That won't happen staying status quo, and it certainly should not happen if we don't replace Bregman/Devers and Gio in kind.

IMO, we have a clear window. That window can go on for 4+ more years. I just don't feel like this is the time we establish a plan based on just hopes and a few minor upgrades that you can get by limiting how large and long you go on FAs. Hopes on less injuries. Hopes on younger players improvements outweigh any step-backs. Hopes on hitting on minor signings, when our record has not been too good with them. Okay, maybe we find the next Bregman, who will take a massive overpay on a 1 year deal, but remember, he got the opt out, so if he sucked, we'd have been stuck for 2 more years at $40M each. With all due respect, and I get your point, I feel we just have to go large and long on at least one guy and maybe moderately large and long on a second guy. We can't fiddle around, this winter. We lost Devers, Bregman, Giolito, Wilson, Matz, Refsnyder and maybe Lowe. Yes, we also lost some guys that look like addition by subtraction- like Buehler, but unlike past seasons, the pluses way outweigh the minuses we are losing from the 2025 roster. IMO, we need to do more than just try to get back to status quo and then pray for the kids to carry us farther. To get back to status quo, we need to stay even with 1000 PAs lost by Devers, Bregman & Ref plus the IP's by Gio and a few others. Just doing this almost certainly means adding 1-3 guys on big contracts or trading some of the future for more cost effective replacements. That's before even addressing trying to get better on paper. This is not the time for rolling the dice on just the kids.

Offense was a grave concern in 2025, and losing Devers and Bregman was about 830 PAs or our very best rates. We can count on maybe 600+ PAs from Anthony and hope he matches his 2025 OPS, but that's not near enough to even get us to equal. We have some younger players, but who jumps out as an expected big jump up? Narvaez could step back. Rafaela could, too. Abreu might be our best hope. Mayer? Campbell? Jh Garcia or Campbell?

Imagine subtracting Bregman, Duran and Gio but adding Lodolo & Gore via trades and Alonso, Suarez and Polanco via free agency. 1. L Anthony LF 2. R Alonso 1B 3. S Polanco 2B 4. R Suarez 3B 5. L Abreu RF 6. R Story SS 7. L Yoshida DH/ R Romy DH 8. R Narvaez C 9. R Rafaela CF (If Story opts out, we have Mayer at SS, and we stay under the second tax line.)