moonslav59

I will say, after 6 years, the Betts talk has slowed down a bit. Don't hear Bogey's name much, either, but too bad we let Blaze, DHam, Uberstine and Drohan get away!

His crowd has a different way of looking at things.

They sure hit some rocket shots off Crochet... Not! Tracy is fine. The team has holes, but IMO not as many as some seem to think we have. I do see the point that having 7-8 just barely better than average players in the most key 15 roles may not work out well. It seems we've done a pretty good job reducing the black hole elements and building up a bench that appears to not be black holish either, but we last star power. The only key guy we lose (possibly) is Gray. One more control year for Story & Yoshida might make signing a stud to a long range deal look more reasonable- budget wise. These two games were embarrassing. That's being kind.

You don't see Arias as our next FT/long term SS?

Hard to know. At this point, I'd rather roll the dice with Arias than hope for a Story reboot.

He is ready. If not, we still have Story, Mead and decent depth with Sogard, Seigler, Monasterio. I guess we could add a one year fix at SS to bridge to Arias, but next year, you'll say he's not ready. With Mayer, it wasn't about not being ready- it was about not being good enough.

2026 PAs and possible conversions to 2027 PAs>>> 681 Abreu (5.9 bWAR) 117 OPS+ >>> Same (or better?) 608 Duran (0.4) 76 >>> GONE (more from Anthony, Jones, White, Yoshida, DHs) 586 Durbin (4.4) 103 >>> Same (or better?) 576 Rafaela (5.7) 115 >>> Same (maybe a dip?) 535 Contreras (4.6) 158>>> Expect a dip 347 Monasterio (0.6) 87>>> Replaced by MEAD 297 Yoshida (0.7) 113>>> Possibly replaced by several choices 277 Sogard (1.4) 110>>> Hard to expect a 110 OPS+ in 2027, but hey.... 266 Story (0.2) 76>>> Replaced by Arias or maybe he returns about the same or better? 242 Anthony (1.3) 108>>>Hard to project more PAs for him anymore. 238 Wong (0.5) 86 >>> Could be gone/ otherwise maybe the same. (AR) 228 Mayer (-0.1) 69>>> Welcome to Boston, Arias! 225 Gasper (1.2) 132>>> Cant project a repeat. 197 Narvaez (-0.3) 52>>> Gone: Hello AR 183 IKF (1.6) 81>>>Gone (more from Sogard, Seigler and Mead) 173 Seigler (0.5) 105>>> Maybe the same? 126 Rutschman (0.6) 92>>>Maybe hope for better and way more PAs 76 Jones (0.8) 178>>> Maybe the next Refsynder? 73 Romy (-0.4) 62>>> I think he comes back. 60 White (0.3) 91>>> Nice depth 60 Eaton (0.5) 61 44 Cheng (0.0) 73 9 Rogers (0.2) 288 3 Harris (0.0) 6 2 Mead (0.1) 59 How many PAs could be the major factor, here.

The talking goes on long after they leave.

This is sick.

Tracy is not Cora, but you could be right. I'm beginning to think at least one from Story, Duran and Yoshida will not be on the Sox 40 on opening day 2027. To me, the defense is clearly better with Arias at SS and Story at 2B, Mead would offer a solid back-up and could be the DH. That pushes Anthony to LF and makes Duran the one who is gone. Mead at 2B, Anthony at DH and Duran/Jones in LF makes Story the odd man out. Either way, we'd have a DH and no need for Yoshida, but since it's near impossible to move him, maybe we keep him as the back-up DH and LF'er. I get the point about adding a big bat, and am not against the idea. I remember some of us looking at 300 more PAs from Anthony in 2026 as an "in house" boost to the offense, and it turned out he had less PAs in 2026 than 2025. There was also some hopes Story could stay healthy and give us something close to 2025, when he led the team in HRs, RBIs and SBs. NOPE! Some had hopes Narvaez could repeat or improve on 2025: NOPE! Some had hopes our younger players could progress along the age-related bell curve: Rafaela did: Abreu did not. Sogard did: Duran did not. Repeating the same pattern of hoping or projecting growth and better health from more of our players than regressions seems like folly, but I still think there is some logic to expect more growth than decline, as most of our players are pre-prime or prime. Contreras seems like the obvious counterpoint with an expected decline, but when you look at other aged players, most did not give us much this year, so counting on them to repeat is not asking for anything. With Arias we probably don't need Story to give us near 2025 numbers. Withe Anthony, Jones, White and Yoshida, we don't need to count on Duran to repeat 2024 or even 2025. With Yoshida giving us as little as Duran and Story did, what do we need to replace? Plus, we have about 4-5 DHs or DH platoon options.

Fixed it for you.

We can add Gamboa and Olds to the list of players not needing to be on next year's opening day roster, if they weren't already on the list. I'd be fine with Gamboa being #39 or 40, but no biggie if he's gone.

Big boom from Monty, yesterday. Just 1 K.

LOL. Then we hear complaining that we never get a chance to build up teams we can identify with. A team can finish 23rd and not need "most" of the players replaced. Assuming Anthony in LF or DH and Mead at 2B, I see DH/LF as maybe the one easy call to upgrade. 3B and CF could see regression on offense, but Rafaela is our WAR leader the last 2 years. Durbin's D plus a .750 OPS is not a great need kinda situation, but if we really want a top 5-10 offense, I don't see many other slots. We are not getting a big O SS with Arias ready. Replacing Duran, Story and Yoshida might not even mean we are replacing a wire-to-wire full timer in 2027, anyway. Our internal options are just as good or better (some with platoons) in terms of offense.

Total slaughter. Hard to find any silver lining. It was long over before Gamboa and Olds came in, but neither of these two need to be on the 40 next spring.

Looked like a poor grip.

Yup. Never heard of him, I started following baseball in 1967 as I went to a Cubs game, then the Brewers (Pilots) came to Milwaukee, and the rest is history.

LOL.

Moustakas. Hey, the .654 batting Riley bashed a 3 run homer to win it for the Braves. Maybe we need more sub .660 batters.

So, just ignore all the starters who are on the upswing side of prime? I'm going out on a limb and projecting that not only will Duran not be a top 2 team leader in PAs, he might get zero. Here is my projected 2027 PAs and age (now) : 680 (about the same) Abreu 27 650 (75 more) Rafaela 25 650 (400 more) Anthony 22 600 (15 more) Durbin 26 600 (600 more) Mead 25 550 (550 more) Arias 20 500 (35 less) Contreras 34 450 (325 more) Rutschman 28 400 (100 more) Yoshida 32 250 (about the same) Story 33 Sogard 28, Seigler 27, Monasterio 29, Wong 30 Romy 29, Jones 28, White 32, Eaton 29, Cheng 24

Tolle has been a moose. I hope he's on his A game, tonight.

Remember how we used to hear how much a lockdown closer and capable set up menw ere needed to win rings? Now, I just hear hitting is everything.

We had 64 QS, which might be among the league leaders. I'm not sure how many we blew, but we only had 14 blown saves, and some were probably in non GS games and we may have won a game or two after a BS.

No different from you salivating on who we trade. I'll be my left you know what Contreras out OPS's Rafaela- one of your keepers. It's not as simple as you seem to make it out to be. Sure, Contreras could get hurt or hit .735, and we'd be in trouble, but he's not even my 6th or 7th choice to upgrade. Here we are entering the Yankee series worried about scoring more than 2 runs, and you salivating on upgrading our .900 batter as a possible solution. I'm scheming on ways to shed Duran, Yoshida and Story, so we can gain a few bucks to afford a bigger or better bat or higher quality pitcher. I prefer my thought process. Focus on upgrading your weakest slots without creating new ones.

My point is that the budget is limited and we may lose Gray. Mead is out, but we should plan on one big bat out, so that's no excuse for us not hitting now. When we were down Mead, Anthony, Story and few others for shorter stints, that was "an excuse." To me, we had decent depth. I agree we lack starpower on offense. I wanted Schwarber, Alonso or KMarte, last winter. I was okay with the idea of two lesser but still real good bats- like Contreras + Bregman or Paredes/BLowe types. We only got one. That being said, we got Durbin and Suarez instead of Bregman, and that did not seem like a bad trade-off, to me. There are many ways to win a ring that doesn't involve missing one big bat. I thought the efforts to get Mead and AR was a bold and nice attempt to fix the shortcomings on offense, but Mead got hurt and AR has not been great on O. He hasn't really even been good, but he's still 150 better than Narvaez was, so it was a boost. I don't see the big bat like Schwarber/Alonso, this winter, and our trade chips have been cashed in already. I think Mead can be like Contreras was, and I'm hopeful AR can get over .790. Neither is likely to be "starpower" but they both can and should offer a big boost. I'd like to see us get a big bat, but I don't think we have the budget to bring Gray back or replace him plus get the big bat type you want. If we can, sign me up for the front seat on the bandwagon. I'll flip the point you ended with: say we get a big bat and neglect the staff, and lose the next playoff games in 2027 8-7 and 11-9. What will the excuses be then?