moonslav59

Soxprospects.com summary on Arias: Potential everyday regular at shortstop. Ceiling of a quality regular who provides value with his glove and contact ability. Hit tool is a standout tool, but lack of power and speed limits upside. Defensive profile provides him a solid floor. High baseball IQ; actively seeks to learn more and improve. Needs to get stronger and continue to physically mature to reach his potential.

Yup. Agreed. If some were before he was called up, then they are not really ST'ing games, but I'm not sure about that 2023 season.

I agree. My point was that the best spot for him to help the 2026 Sox win starting on opening day would be the MLB pen.

Bichette has been very consistently between a 121 and 129 OPS+ since 2020, except for the outlier 2024/Kapow 68. He would be a nice RHB addition to replace Bregman's bat, but he doesn't have the power we need and that Breggie did not give us, either. If we got Bichett for 3B, we'd need Suarez/Alonso/Schwarber for 1B- not Yandy Diaz as notin suggests. Diaz at 1B and Suarez at 3B would be fine, also, except for the 3B defense

They said, "We're not quite dead, yet!"

It's 75 GS, if you count the 4 farm starts in '23 and another 4 in '25, but those were rehabs, so...

Yes. I pointed that out on my last post. He may be similar to Crochet in some ways, but Crochet did not miss as much time due to injury. It was just because of not being a starter for so long. I'm not sure I want to tie so much into another oft-injured pitcher. This guy is damn good, though. I know Hunter Brown is not on the market, but he'd be a get. Lodolo is probably a safer (and cheaper) get. I'm not as high on Ryan as I was before. I'm getting a bit hooked on the Merrill Kelly idea, because I doubt he will cost much and won't get 3-4+ years. Trade for K Marte.

Castillo will pitcha gem.

TOR and Vladdy with a big statement game, tonight!

If Mayer is better at SS and Story at 2B, that would help the team win more, right? I'm fine with Mayer at 3B. I'd rather have Story at 2B than Mayer. I'd like Bichette, but he'd be too costly and his D is sketchy at SS. Mayer is probably better on D than he is.

The claim was offensively. It's close, but edge to S & O OPS+ 126 Suarez 125 O'Hearn ____________________ 128 Bregman 114 Duran

I guess we can't count on Cora to knock some sense into Marte, but I'd roll the dice on him. He just turned 32, and he's had 2 of his best 4 seasons in the last 2 years and 3 of his top 5 in the last 3 seasons by OPS+ (3 of his top 4 bWAR seasons.) We'd go from easily the worst 2B position for nearly a decade to maybe the best in one stroke. We'd add a power bat and improve the defense. Add a corner IF'er via free agency, the only strong category of this FA class and then maybe sign a Merrill Kelly or make a second trade for M Keller and call it a winter.

Real Facts: Narvaez was a decent batter on the farm and di very well his rookie year. He did not fade. His OPS up to AUG 28th was .719. It was .756 afterwards. You love to bash Cora for absurd things like not playing KC at SS and Duran in CF, but overlook the fact that Duran should have been platooned- not Abreu. Yes, Mayer is injury prone, but why overlook that Greene is, too? 24, 22, 26 and 19 GS the last 4 seasons. (Only 19, this year. He missed about 1/3 of the season- same as Mayer.) I'd love to get Greene and would overpay to get him., but facts are facts are facts.

Maybe it would shut up the fldg% freaks.... NOT! I would not give the award to Narvaez. I would for Rafaela (4th in CF errors) & Abreu.

Duran is in decline. I didn't forget about all star designations. I did not mention it. I agreed that Duran had better 2024 and 2025 seasons, and his all star was a reward for that. BTW, Duran missed time in 2023, too, but I will give you the iron man part of value goes to Duran. Abreu players more games than Duran's 2023 number both of the last 2 years. Much of his missed games were due to Cora choosing to platoon the wrong OF'er, not because of injuries. You can assume Abreu will keep getting hurt, but that doesn't make it true. Iron Man: Duran Speed/Running: Duran Power: Abreu OBP: Abreu Age/Trending: Abreu Defense (glove & arm) Abreu Cost: Abreu Years of control: Abreu Least games missed due to suspensions and wimping out of a vaccine: Abreu. When we are trying to straddle the tax line, $8M could mean teh difference between Suarez and Hoskins on AAV, It's a lot closer than this breakdown shows, but I'm keeping the GG RF'er with more power and better splits. I'd be okay trading Abreu and keeping Duran, or even trading Rafaela, instead.

I'm talking 2026 and beyond. Duran is in decline and is worse vs LHPs, now. Abreu is improving and is now better vs LHPs. Abreu is a GG RF'er in a park that needs one. Duran is now a negative on D. Duran costs $8M in 2026 with 2 more arbs for 3 years of control Abreu is pre arb with 3 arbs making 4 years of control. Duran is a much better baserunner, who even saw that decline in 2025. Duran was better in 2024 and 2025. Abreu has more value, now. Yoshida could be traded, if we pay all but $3-4M a year x 2. Hicks for all but $2M a year x 2.

There is no roster crunch.

Masa and Casas are untradeable. Abreu is better than Duran and cheaper w more control.

They probably are not in teardown mode. They only traded away FAs-to-be. K Marte has had some issues on the side, but like Cincy, they'd want MLB ready players in return. Mayer would probably top the asking list, along with Tolle or Early, but maybe if they like Duran or Abreu, we could probably save one one of those guys. I doubt they'd view Campbell as a 2B replacement, and DHam would be just a throw in. They might take Duran, Campbell and Crawford or Duran, DHam and Tolle. Maybe they'd insist on Duran, Mayer and Sandlin. If we could get them to take Hicks, I still don't know if I'd give this much. I do thin they'll entertain offers.

The fWARs were: 3.9 Abbott in 166 IP 2.9 Greene in 108 2.9 Singer in 170 2.8 Lodolo in 157 2.1 N Martinez in 166 Greene is clearly the best fWAR per IP, but Lodolo is pretty good, too. I'm intrigued by both. Cincy seems to always demand too much in return. I still think Joe Ryan or Pablo Lopez are more likely obtainable. Keller even more so, but he's not as good. ERA- rankings among 127 SP'ers with 100+ IP in 2025: 12. Greene 62 (Best of all Cincy SP'ers) Crochet at 61! 24. R Suarez 74 25. Lodolo 75 35. Giolito 80 (Bello is at 32) 39. Ryan 83 40. M Kelly 84 48. Valdez 90 51. Singer 91 54, Castillo 92 69. Keller at 98 96. Cease 112 98. Gallen 114

I like Arias on D, a lot, but I don't even trust MLB defensive awards, so I'm not sure he is the best infielder on the farm. He's good enough for me.

I think we basically have to, and I am convinced we need to add two power bats, hopefully 1 RHB & 1 LHP or switch hitter. I think the rest of the line-up has enough secondary power that we can get by with "2-3 power bats." The league ISO was .159 in 2025. The Sox were 10th as a team at .167. The Yanks were first at .204, but .178 puts a team in the top 5. We are not that far away, and losing Bregman is not a big hit to our ISO. (Losing 2 months of Devers is.) When you set the PA sample size at 300, here is how our current players and targets ranked in ISO in 2025: 5. Schwarber .323 6. Suarez .298 15. Alonso .252 _________________________ 26. K Marte .233 29. Polanco .229 30. Grisham .229 (Devers was at #32 with a .227 ISO) 35. Abreu .223 (I think he has legit power and should no longer platoon.) 38. B Lowe .221 ______________________ 50. S Murphy .210 52. Bellinger .207 58. Paredes .204 (Talk of trading him down here.) _____________________________ 63. Tucker .198 (Yes, Abreu is higher) 76, Bregman .189 84. Duran .185 87. Naylor .184 91. Y Diaz .182 95. Narvaez, Hoskins & J Bell .179 100. Romy .178 _______________________ (Vladdy was at .175 in 2025!) .171 Anthony at 122 out of 300 .170 Story at 123 .165 Rafaela at 140 (still top half and better than the league .159 mark) Less than 300 PAs: .214 Ref in 209 .173 Mayer in 136 .140 Lowe in 119 .122 Yoshida in 205 I think if we add Suarez and KMarte, we'd be okay with Abreu, a higher number from Anthony, along with some decent power from Story, Narvaez, Rafaela and Romy/Ref/Casas.

When you see how bad Casas and Alonso are at 1B defense, can Schwarber really be all that much worse? He need not be our DH in light of these facts. I'm not sure Suarez would be any better at 1B than the three I just mentioned, but again, he can't be worse- or much worse. I know I sound like a broken record, but Suarez will cost less and get less years than Alonso & Schwarber. I am afraid of steep decline from a 34 year old, but these guys will be these ages for most of 2026: 28-29 Naylor 31 Alonso 32 O'Hearn 33 Schwarber, Hoskins. Josh Bell Suarez turns 35 in July 2026.

I could be wrong, but KC showed me he is not a 2Bman. I see him as a LF'er, DH or maybe 1B with 2B as an emergency role. I do not think $7.5M a year is a big turn off, but certainly some GM would not be interested, unless we took salary back. A couple month slump is not as devastating to a player's value as some might think, IMO, but when his value was so speculative to begin with, it's hard to know anything. I kinda feel like trading KC would be "selling low," but I might be in the minority on that one. If we needed a DH or LF'er, I'd be less inclined to look at trading him. I'm not for adding him as a throw in. I only trade him, if the other GM asks for him and will give back real value for him. For that reason, he will likely not be traded. Maybe Jh Garcia is the add-on, despite his better defense and known position..

Tolle needs to greatly improve his secondary pitches to become a #2 SP'er. The reason Early did better was due to the higher quality mix of pitches. That's not to say Tolle will never pass Early, but for now, I do not see Tolle as a top 5 SP'er going into 2026. I understand the worry of putting him in the pen, which might stunt his starter potential, but in terms of giving the 2026 MLB Sox their bast 13 man pitching staff, he'd be in the pen and not the AAA rotation. I'm not certain I want them to do that, if they feel it significantly hurts his growth at becoming a 2/3 slot MLB SP'er. Right now, I have 7-8 pitchers ahead of Tolle for starting with the big club: Crochet, Bello, Sandoval Crawford, Dobbins, Harrison, Early Maybe even Perales, Fitts & Criswell. (These last two are more likely pen guys, despite Criswell's much better success as a starter.)