moonslav59

The Luxury tax only affects a very small amount of teams, so I'm not sure it makes much of a difference for 26-27 teams each year. The vast majority of teams are way below the first luxury tax line. I think it is obvious the owners have realized paying huge contracts for guys like Pujols hardly ever pays off. Maybe there's some collusion going on, too, but I think owners have wised up, thanks, in part to all the new value data (metrics) available these days.

...and if we really had an unlimited budget, signings like Pablito would not matter.

No way I want Kimbrel over Eovaldi. I doubt anyone would take Nunez and his contract, so option 2 is not really and even money choice.

I don't see a battle at catcher. Vaz will catch Porcello, ERod and Eovaldi (about 60%) and Leon will ctch Sale and Price (40%). Swihart catches in an emergency and only makes the 25 man roster, if someone in on the DL (most likely Pedey) or we trade Moreland, Nunez or Holt. .

Yes, I get it, but the league rules have become harder and harder for rich and good teams to rebuild their farms. Draft slot penalties, draft slot money, Int'l signing restrictions and just plain poor draft choices due to never being bad enough to get a high round pick from time to time (like Beni). We do have some promising prospects, but to me, most are far away. I don't agree that Chavis is our best prospect, and although I like D Hernandez and Dalbec, they are not top 100 prospects. Houck and Chatham look like role players, at best. Our best prospects, IMO, are these by age: 19 Casas 19 Mata 21 Feltman 20 Groome 18 Flores, Jimenez & Danny Diaz 19 Decker, Northcut & Howlett 17 Eduardo Lopez .

Well, it worked and we won a ring that year (2013). Back then, I was in favor of keeping Iggy and having Bogey play 3B almost FT, but I was miffed by just 10 games of practice at 3B.

We're not the worst, but we're not getting better either. It will be hard to replace departing free agents when the farm is this low, and the best prospects in the current farm are more than 2 years away.

Isn't one day into the season deep enough for tax purposes?

My guess is he'd be fine, but certainly it's not a good idea to start the year with him as our platoon 1Bman. As an aside, we did play Bogey at 3B after only 10 games there in AAA.

I think it will come down to whether DD thinks the total cost, counting the tax, is reasonable or not. To me, his cost would have to drop a lot for that to happen.

What's not to like? These guys are a tight unit. They pick each other up. (BTW, I love stats but never play any stat games or fantasy baseball. The game "on the field" is what I love most, and baseball is the best game ever invented.)

If he's willing to take a one year deal, doubtful, in hopes that the market changes, he'll still cost us so much in taxes. I just think his contract will be prohibitive. I wonder, if he's even had a serious offer, yet.

Some of that Pythagorean differential can be attributed to the two managers. That has not changed.

I do think Kelly can be replaced from within. I just hope we don't have to go through 5 guys to find the right one. Yes, Kelly and his comp (JBJ) were great in the playoffs.

As you get older and older, time flies faster and faster!

Yes, and it worked for the Astros.

I'm not sure where I got the $300K number. I tried to google it. My apologies.

His career is more like a rollercoaster... 3.53 2.69 4.20 4.82 5.18 2.79 4.39 He has a career 3.87 ERA but has only been within 0.34 of that twice (year 1 and 3). He's been over 0.52 from his norm in 5 of his 7 years. He's been over 0.95 from his norm in 4 of 7 years. People who dislike JBJ's in consistency should be happy to seee JK go.

I like to look more at a player's last 2-3 years than his career numbers or just last one year or half year. Age plays into it. Normally, one would expect someone to stay even or improve on their recent 2-3 years, if they are 26 or younger, stay about the same, if they are 27-29 and maybe decline a little, if they are 30-32. Once a player is 33 or older, I count on a decline, but nothing is automatic. That being said, here are the 3 recent year numbers and ages of our current Sox players. 26 and under (normally expect improvement on these numbers) 26 Betts .917 26 Bogey .808 24 Benintendi .801 22 Devers .760 27-29 (in Prime, so usually expect about the same) 28 Bradley .763 28 Vazquez .635 30-32 (expect some decline) 31 Martinez 1.003 31 Nunez .745 30 B Holt .705 33+ (decline is expected) 33 Moreland .750 36 Pearce .830

Stockpiling number one draft picks is one way to rebuild. It just really sucks for those 2-3 years of total despair.

I don't but there were reports that MLB released the numbers and it showed the Sox just barely went over the max line. This article shows we went over the $40M line by $2.5M not the $300K I thought I read some where else. https://www.cbssports.com/mlb/news/only-red-sox-nationals-owe-luxury-tax-in-2018-as-mlb-teams-combine-for-smallest-bill-in-15-years/

Of course, wait for the pythagorean differential to be introduced (BOS 103- NYY 100).

My point was that our pen was viewed as weak last February and into March, including myself calling it "our weakest, but not weak area" going into 2018. Certainly, I view our pen as being weaker this February than last February, but maybe I will be surprised again by an over-performing pen.

He is and was a useful part, but not someone who is all that hard to replace. We have a lot of iffy pitchers that could have a better year than 3.87 or 4.39. Thornburg might offer the best hope. A whole year from Brasier could help, if he can repeat 2018 or even come close for the full season, we'd see a big gain there. Barnes really came into his own last year. Can he take a step back? Of course, but so can Kimbrel, Ottavino and Britton. Hembree and Workman are probably long shots, but if you go by your stat, ERA, there's a good chance at least one can come in between 3.90 and 4.40. Hembree's career ERA is better than Kelly's (3.46), and his 4.20 ERA in 2018 was better than Kelly's. He also did well in the playoffs. in the 81 IP Workman has gone over the last 2 years, his ERA is 3.22. His 4.38 career ERA was better than Kelly's 2018 ERA. These numbers show some hope. Velazquez had a 3.18 ERA last year in a pretty large sample size of 85 IP, and Johnson's was 4.17 in 99 IP)- both better than Kelly's 2018 ERA. If just one can repeat or improve, we'll have someone (or two) who can pitch 2 innings at a time every few games. Wright's injury is a big question, but his numbers blow away Kelly. His 3.69 ERA from 2016-2018 was brought down by his 2017 partial season plagued with injuries, but he's a good hope, if he stays healthy. Carson Smith, Poyner, Lakins, Walden, Feltman and our resent signees all offer long shot hopes, but the sheer number of hopeful pitchers increases the odds that just the 2-3 we need can come through. Of course, the big risk is we burn a few games finding the best 2-3, and finish in second place by a game or two. Certainly, that's a risk. That being said, I like our top 8-9 RP'ers enough to think we will not need to spend a long time going through our options to find the best 7. Most teams use 9-11 RP'er pretty significantly.Last year, we had 8 guys with 33+ IP and 12 guys with over 20 IP. Kelly led all RP'ers in IP with 65.2.Here's the list: (RED= no longer with the Sox) 65.2 Kelly 4.39 62.1 C K 2.74 61.2 Barnes 3.65 60.0 Hembree 4.20 54.2 Velazquez 2.63 (Maybe he can add 30-40 IP in relief.) 41.1 Workman 3.27 (Maybe he can add 10-25 IP.) 38.2 Johnson 4.19 (If he doesn't have to start much, he could add 35-50 more relief IP.) 33.2 Brasier 1.60 (He's the big wild card. He could suck, of he could gives us 30 more IP.) 29.2 Wright 1.52 (Another wild card with huge upside potential to add IP and help.) 24.0 Thornburg 5.63 (More huge upside potential) 22.2 Pomeranz 5.56 (Addition by subtraction/ his numbers help offset the good numbers lost.) 15.0 Cuevas 7.20 (More addition by subtraction) 14.1 C Smith 3.77 (A long shot hope & prayer) 7.2 Haley 4.70 6.2 Scott 8.10 2.1 J Beeks 11.57 (ERod 6.1/4.26 & Eovaldi 3.2/ 4.91) Total numbers for RP'ers who are no longer with us: ER/IP 32/65.2 Kelly 19/62.1 Kimbrel 14/22.2 Pomeranz (RP only) 12/15.0 Cuevas 4/ 7.2 Haley 6/ 6.2 Scott 3/ 2.1 Beeks (RP only) 90/182.1 4.47 ERA Total Take away Kimbrel's numbers: 71 ER in 120 IP (That's a lot of IP to be improved upon!) 5.33 TOTAL Replacing Kimbrel is not going to be easy. Replacing the others should not be hard at all.

It's a drop off, but that doesn't mean it is weak pen. If our starters stay healthy, we'll have Wright, Johnson and Velazquez to eat multiple innings each appearance and maybe minimize the need for Thornburg, Workman and Hembree to pitch as much as Barnes and Brasier needed to pitch last year. We have lots of "ifs", no doubt, but so does every team, including the Yanks.