moonslav59

I guess it depends on who other teams left unprotected, but with a high pick in the draft and such a weak bottom of the roster, it seems like we will be taking someone- maybe even two. A lot depends on how many ML level free agents we plan on signing, too.

Like you said, all these guys are very close. To me Lakins and Weber are/were slightly better than 6-7 guys on my bottom of the list.

So, Weber snuck in over Stock and Springs, but fear not, they will be among the first to go, once trades and free agent additions are made.

Our current 40 man roster: Pitchers(21)Sale, ERod, Eovaldi, Pivetta, Houck, Seabold, Mata, Groome, Mazza, D Hernandez, Barnes, Brasier, Taylor, Brewer, Valdez, Bazardo, Aybar, Brice, Walden, Springs, Stock Catchers (4): Vazquez, Plawecki, Grullon, Wong Infielders(10): Devers, Bogaerts, Dalbec, Arroyo, Munoz, Chavis, Potts, Arauz, Chatham, Pedroia Outfielders (5): Verdugo, Benintendi, JD Martinez (DH), Rosario, Wilson

Kyle Hart cleared waivers and is headed to AAA. Matt Hall and Ryan Weber DFA'd. We added the expected 7 players: Seabold, Mata, Wong, Groome, Rosario, Potts & Bazardo.

Hunter Renfroe DFA'd by TB. He has averages about 40 Hrs per 660 PAs and is only 28 (.776 career OPS). Orioles designate Renato Nunez. He has a 35 HR per 650 PA rate over the last 2 years combined (.783 OPS)

The complete list: Roldani Baldwin Eduard Bazardo Garrett Benge Seth Blair Gary Calvo Pedro Castellanos Kutter Crawford Ricardo Cubillan Enmanuel De Jesus Chad De La Guerra Jerry Downs Jose Espada Raynel Espinal Michael Gettys Rio Gomez Stephen Gonsalves Jay Groome Hunter Haworth Matt Kent Jose Larez Adam Lau Dominic LoBrutto Everlouis Lozada Bryan Lucas Charlie Madden Alan Marrero Joan Martinez Bryan Mata Tate Matheny Kevin McCarthy Joey Meneses Johan Mieses Alexander Montero Oddanier Mosqueda Brendan Nail Brett Netzer Tanner Nishioka Josh Ockimey Michael Osinski Yorvin Pantoja Jhonny Pereda Antonio Police Hudson Potts Bobby Poyner Roniel Raudes Austin Rei Denyi Reyes Jeisson Rosario Jagger Rusconi Yasel Santana Zach Schellinger Alex Scherff Connor Seabold Mike Shawaryn Caleb Simpson Kervin Suarez Jake Thompson Connor Wong

The guy had a whole analytics team in his head before we even called it "analytics.".

Would that be next week?

The next day or two will see a lot of trades and signings of DFA's players cut to make room for rule 5 players. Let the fun begin!

So, the team (the Dodgers) didn't really make out on the opt-out.

We may end up claiming several players DFA'd by other clubs, forcing us to DFA more than the 3-4 needed to clear space for rule 5 protectees.

I'd add Springs to your list of 3.

That pay could be raised, also. My step raise idea, by itself might create a situation where the Pirates only have 1 year players for 20 slots, saving the $700K per players reaching 2nd year status. They'd DFA or trade players as soon as they reach 1 year of service. A large percentage of players never reach arb or their arb years are the most they ever get in their careers. If they all pulled together to demand the low end pay be raise significantly, I think it would have to be done.

I thought of that, too- or create a minimum team budget with serious penalties for not spending a set amount. (Make the penalty worth more than what the cost would have been to meet the low threshold.)

VTek did not have an opt out, but he did refuse a big offer and ended up settling for way less. (The team made out.)

Very few FAs had "opt out" clauses.

He had an opt out?

...and maybe 5-6 players to protect. Who goes? Pedey? or Stock Springs Hall Brice Hart Walden Wilson

Looking at our 40 man roster hurts. Even some of our "keepers" are thought of as "trade bait" or are over-priced or close to the end of their team control. Yes, we have some promising players not on the 40 man roster, yet, but here is one way to look at the 40 man roster, as is right now (actually 36 players): 3-5* True keepers (3 or more years of team control) Devers (3) Verdugo (4) D Hernandez (5) *Dalbec (6) largely unproven (could be place in lower category) *Houck (6) largely unproven, too. 2 True Keepers with qualifications: Bogaerts (opt out could remove him from this category) Sale (overpaid due to injury?) 3-5 Keepers with just 1-2 years of team control/some qualified*(untradeable) *JD (2) overpaid *Eovaldi (2) overpaid Vazquez (2) Beni (2) Erod (1) 3 Serviceable players (3 or more years of control) Pivetta (4) Brasier (3) Taylor (5) 1 Serviceable players (1-2 years of control) Barnes (1) 3 Borderline serviceable: Chavis (5) Munoz (4) Arroyo (4) Add the 5 or 6 Rule 5 protectees, and it doesn't help all that much!

To raise the minimum wage from around $800K to $1.5M may only mean adding about $5-10M to the Sox payroll and maybe $10-15M to low payroll teams. I'd suggest a graduated pay scale based on years in the bigs. Maybe $1.5M year 1, $1.75M year 2, $2M year 3, then arbs...

But when you add them all up, it's a pretty large percentage (or way too large) of the 2020 team IP. We had 11 guys with an ERA- of above 150 and another 4 guys between 121-129. We had 17 guys over 102. We had 6 below 80 and only 9 below 90. That Zack Godley character at 28.2 IP was 6th on the team in IP'd! 28.2 Godley 25.2 Brewer (7th) 20.1 Springs (10th) 19.2 Brice (11th) 15.2 Osich (13th) 14.0 Covey (14th) 14.0 Kickham (14th) 13.1 Stock (16th) 13.1 Walden (17th) 11.0 Hart (18th) 8.2 Hall (21st) 9.2 Hembree (22nd) 7.1 Taylor (24th) 4.2 Leyer (26th) 1.0 Lin, 0.2 Plawecki & 0.1 Peraza should not be counted. Looking at this list, we had 10 of our top 18 pitchers by IP over 5.00. 202 total innings combined! The team had 524 IP total! That's almost 40% of all the Sox IP, last year.

This is a great post, and it's an area we can improve upon without major financial investments. I'm not usually one to suggest rebuilding the bottom of the roster. I normally suggest building from the top, and through attrition the other players move down slot by slot until all the deadweight players are replaced by mediocre ones- not other replacement level players (or worse). One hope with Bloom was that he could find these gems, at low costs. He's not perfect in this area, and sometimes through quantity signings, you end up with a few that stick and suffer through the trial and error process as some, like those on your list, fail miserably. Hopefully, next season's bottom feeders will be at a much higher level that we saw, this year and even some in 2019. Here are the ERA- for all 25 Sox pitchers with 20+ IP from 2019-2010: 202 Shawaryn 176 Godley 153 Springs 129 Cashner 125 Johnson 120 Josh Smith 114 Porcello 113 Velazquez 106 Eovaldi 104 Mazza 100 Weber 97 Perez, Walden & Brewer 96 Brasier 91 Sale 89 Price 88 Hembree 83 Taylor 82 D Hern & Barnes 80 Lakins 79 ERod 71 Valdez 43 Workman

Yes, and drastically increase the minimum wage.

There must be a case of someone opting out, then getting hurt or cliff-diving.