moonslav59

I'm with Hugh on this. I'd love Schwarber on our team, but he'll be 33 and is pretty much a SH only guy. It looks like Alonso should DH, too, but he's a RHB and turns 31, soon. It is hard to ignore these numbers per 162 games from '22-'25: 48 HRS 112 RBI .350 OBP & .500+ SLG (134 OPS+) Schwarber vs 40 HRs 118 RBI .335 OBP & .500+ SLG (134 OPS+) Alonso

That seems like the best choice in a vacuum, but if Breggie bolts Mayer cannot play SS and 3B. As you have said, he may not be able to even play 150 games if the season was 300 games long. I guess trading for a SS or 3Bman is a possibility, but I doubt we do that. Even if Breggie returns: 3B Breggie SS ______ (Mayer?) 2B Story

I hope they keep him and Cashman forever. Boone Forevers!

YANKS LOSE!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not sure what "fits my narrative" means since I'm not trying to blame anyone singularly. I'm the guy you keep saying everyone was saying "Devers Forevers." I didnt want him traded. I wasnt happy we traded him. If anything, making Devers out to be the bad guy goes against my narrative. I think everyone missed his offense but were glad the drama was over. It doesn't matter who caused the drama. It was all 3, I guess.

Well, usually when a team's best batter for the last 5 years is traded, you hear players speak up in praise, best wishes and sometimes in confusion and with regret. At times, someone might speak out in anger or with concern about the direction the team is taking, especially during a season that still had promise for going farther that we've gone in years. I will say I'm surprised we didn't hear more "We're gonna miss him" talk. Maybe it doesn't mean anything, but it did seem pretty clear nobody went out of their way to say how much they were going to miss him or wonder what the team was doing. I'm not trying to read much into this, but I did find it a bit interesting.

A look at the 2026 Red Sox Pen: Many of us went into 2025 deeply dissatisfied with the quality of our pen. While it appeared to have depth, the quality of the expected high leverage pitchers was highly in doubt. The pen became one of our strengths, thanks in large part to a stunning season by Chapman and a strong year from Whitlock. The depth came through, despite not really drawing from the expected depth of SP'ers we had lined up over the winter. We may get to use more SP'ers in the pen in 2026, but I will start with the known pen arms on the roster: Chapman had a legendary season, and that is no hyperbole. 61.1 IP with just 28 hits (3 Hrs) and 15 BBs (0 HBP.) He K'd 85. His OPS Against was a mind-boggling .387! It's hard to expect anybody to repeat numbers like that, and for a guy who will be 38 to start the '26 season, it would be miraculous. Brez extended him, so we'll find out. I'm happy he's here. Whitlock had his first start-free season since his rookie year in 2021. Some might say it was no coincidence we made the playoffs in just these two seasons. If it wasn't for Chapman, we'd be marvelling at his .543 OPS Against for 2025. In 72 IP, he let up less HRs (2) than Chapman. I'm hopeful he can run back these numbers in '26. Slaten missed a lot of key time in 2025, and perhaps the most important thing for him is to just stay healthy for the full 2026 season. His rookie 2024 season was pretty amazing. He had a .576 OPS Against in 55 IP with a 6.4 K/BB. Although most of his numbers looked worse in 2026, he still logged a .580 OPS Against over 34 IP. Perhaps we can count on him to counter an expected regression from Chapman. I gotta say, I think we have an impressive top 3 RP'ers. Weissert caught some grief over the season, much of it during game thread lash-outs, but he did the job in 2025. He very well may outshine Fitts as the prize from the Dugo trade. He put in 67 IP with a decent .647 OPS Against. I'm hoping we can count on him, again in 2026. Bernardino had a second straight decent season. His .569 OPSA was impressive. He missed some time, near the end of the season, but I think he's locked into a sure slot on the 2026 26 man roster. Guerrero .530 OPSA in just 17 IP could still win a big role on the '26 roster. Murphy .598 OPSA in 35 IP looks great, but he walked too many batters and was inconsistent. He was coming off a long time off with injury, so maybe there is till hope for a significant role in 2026. Winckowski missed most of 2025, but was a decent pitcher for a few years, beforehand. His 2023 saw a 2.88 ERA, but he's never really had great numbers in other areas or measurement. Moran could be a surprise pitcher for 2026. Kelly did not impress but will likely get another long look in 2025. Hicks might have an inside shot at a slot on the 26, but only because he's out of options, gets paid $12M a year and throws near 100 mph. I won't go into all the SP'ers who may be converted to pen arms or used in the pen temporarily, but there could be some impressive skillsets available. I'm pretty confident in our 2026 pen outlook, despite losing Wilson, Matz and a few others.

"Can Cora." Geeesh.

Trade Duran & Campbell. Bring back Ref for one more year, despite the promise Jh garcia brings from the right side of the plate. Good bye to the others.

The differed money is something that Bregman may want changed. There is a reason his $40M/yr only counts as $31.7 AAV. it's not voodoo economics. If he banked $40M now, he'd likely have more money than what he'll get with all the differals. He's been paid $26M out of the $120M total. That means he's still owed $94M with 2 opt out seasons. it's hard to know what sort of "fair" alternate offer would be and whether he'd take it. He could just play the next 2 years w BOS, still get all the differals plus another big contract in 2 years. He could just opt out sand hope to get $150M/6 or $130/5. Maybe he gets that from us. I doubt we go 5 with him, and maybe nobody does. If nobody does, he may come back to us for... $100M/3 paid in the 3 years with no differals. That is more than I'd pay, despite his leadership value. I might offer $94M/3 with no differals, which is what he owed for 2 years of control, now. I doubt he'd take that, so I'd probably just say good bye or offer a take or leave it $70M/2 with no differals. Even that seems high, if we can get Alosno for $100M/3 or $120M/4.

I get that, but I think it would be a sad fact to find out we would not have extended Anthony but for the Devers trade and JH calls it even. One could also say the Devers money pays for the Crochet extension, despite that happening before the trade. Anthony + Campbell costs $23.75M AAV until 2033 or 2034. I'd hate to think JH call that a push and has no further spending plans based on the freed up Devers money. If he spends up to the tax line and goes over it, every so often, I guess we can assume he spent it or most of it.

There was also no player complaints after we traded our best hitter in the middle of the season.

If we never spend his money, the "ridding of the contract" benefits only JH.

It was meant to be, but yes, my question was would he be okay at 3B. I think his glove would be a plus- his arm a minus. I think he might be barely acceptable, but that would be much better than the Devers years at 3B and any other option we might have in the system, right now, which could really be all that matters. If you had to choose? SS Mayer & 3B Story SS Story & 3B Mayer

Your counting skills needs some work.

It was strange how he had an island of plus D right after the Story trade, then went on to be barely okay by the metrics... Bogey DRS: -18 previous 3 seasons, +5 in '22, then -8 last 3 seasons OAA: -22 previous 3 seasons, +5 in '22, then +7 last 3 seasons Story: DRS: +10 previous 2 seasons (just 550 innings) and -7 in 2025 OOA: +10 previous 2 seasons and -9 in 2025.

That very well may be true. Personally, I can't think anyone would think Casas is a better 1Bman than devers could be, but that is all speculation on my part. We do know Cora has had certain strong opinions on players and positions and is fiercely loyal to many players. He once called Kike one of the best defensive SSs in MLB. He resisted moving Bogey off SS, when we signed Story. I do think he did not want to upset Devers by moving him off 3B, but he ended up asking him to DH, so I can't help but raise an eyebrow over not just telling him it's 1B not DH. The fact that he apparently never even asked Devers to play 1B, let alone tell him to, supports your opinion. It was strange that Cora initially floated the idea of Bregman at 2B and devers at 3B and even Bregman okay'd the idea, but he did move off that position- perhaps with a nudge from Brez. It looked like a "nudge" was not going to be enough to convince Cora to get Devers to try 1B. The whole situation was weird, to me. How often do you see a GM going to speak to a player s about a position move? Then , some reports said Brez never even asked him to play 1B; he just told him they'd like him to play there. Seems like there were just too many unknowns to throw most of the blame on one guy. I know some say 50+% is on Devers, while some seem to think Cora is the main guy to blame. I'm not sure I need to know. I'm kinda glad we moved on, but only if we can add a mega bat to take his slot, and no, it's not Anthony. Anthony is the boost we need to improve- not the boost we needed to maybe stay even.

Like Sandoval and the SFG.

No doubt, and look no further than the Astros over the last few years and all their top pitcher injuries and defections You can't go into a season thinking the only way we can win a ring is for our top 3 pitchers to get 90 GS'd. I also agree with you on the idea that you can't go into the season thinking all our young bats will be healthy and improving from 2025 to 2026. You actually have to plan on a couple regressions from the kids as well as some age regression from Story, Yoshida and maybe more regression from Duran, too. We need more surety. Maybe "surety" should be the theme of this winter. That being said, I think it is also realistic to expect some jumps from a few kids. We have so many pre-prime and early-prime players, that it makes sense to think most will likely improve. Age Pre-prime 21 Anthony 22 Mayer, Jh Garcia 23 Campbell 24 Rafaela 25 Casas Early prime: 26 Narvaez 27-28 Duran, Romy, DHam & Sogard Prime: 29: lowe & Wong 30-31: Yoshida Ending prime: 32: Story Nobody over 33, unless Refsnyder returns. It's also okay to project improvements.

The other consideration is that since Houck will miss 2026 and sucked in 2025, his last arb year in 2027 will not be much. He'll be about as cheap as Paxton, Henricks. Kluber and Richards were.

I'm all for shooting for top 3, and I think we can get there With Alonso and one other significant bat. Just Alonso would need too much else all going rgiht at the same time, and I don't like plans like that, either. I'd like to see Alonso plus Bregman, Suarez, KMarte or maybe Polanco or Torres. Alonso at DH, Hoskins at 1B and Torres/Polanco at 2B would be fine. Find a taker for Yoshida or have him play some LF, once we trade Duran for Ryan. (There, I said it again.) I don't want just one. I'm expecting zero to one, and the one might be just Hoskins or Torres.

If the bar is Devers, DHam, Romy or Eaton, I'd agree.

I do think Bloom knew what he was getting into and accepted the challenge. I doubt he actively pushed hard to get a bigger budget, but I have to think he'd have wanted more. The guys was forced to sign Martin Perez, Peraza and other clowns in 2020. He was later allowed to "splurge" on Richards and Kike. I gotta think he'd have wanted better, if able, but I also see your point. He was hopi ng he could do what the rays did, but maybe be able to keep some of their good additions. While he literally wrote the book on the "Rays Way." it turns out, he wasn't the mastermind behind it. The guys who went to the Dodgers and Astros were.

League average is .719.