moonslav59

I'm not for moving a starter to the pen, but lets not forget our pen was largely saved in the playoffs by Eovaldi and a little help by other starters. It's not uncommon for starters to pitch out of the pen in the playoffs, so I know it's apples to oranges, but without Kelly and CK back, we may need even more playoff help from our starters than 2018!

Look at some signings this winter, would you rather have Mookie or... $13M x 3 McCutchen $10M x 3 Familia $8M x 3 Joe Kelly

True. Good point.

The Yanks don't have any glaring big weakness. One of their weakest positions is 1B, especially in light of how many teams have great offense from 1B. Signing Machado and moving Andujar to 1B would be a great upgrade at 3 positions- offensively and defensively at 3B and offensively at 1B. I agree: they don't "need" him.

I guess we could have Betts ($35M), Sale ($33M) and Price ($31M) (and Pedey) on the same roster, but what would the rest of the roster look like?

We can't afford him and Betts. If we could, I'd love to keep both until retirement. Maybe I should say... Mookie Freakin' Betts!

Everyone knows hot I feel about... Chris Freakin' Sale!

I don't agree. Maybe the next tiers of free agency have risen and the ranks of the under tiers have grown a little, but so many players are getting grossly underpaid up to and during their arb years. For many, they never get to big FA payday. They should all band together to insist changes are made to the bottom of the structure.

I was one who felt Bogey would and should be moved to 3B early on. He hasn't bulked up like some projected, and his growth on defense has been slow and sporadic, but he looks like he'll be a SS for a while longer.

It is hard to know what will happen. I think Henry saw how great of a core he had and a 4-5 year window to get another ring (or two). I'm sure all GMs would love to stay highly competitive 20 years in a row, and I get the argument that we were actually looking somewhat competitive before the 2012, 2014 and 2015 seasons began (the last place years), but I really don't think Henry wants either of these two things to happen: (Note: I could be very wrong, but my gut feels this way.) 1) Henry does not want to be known as the next King George and leave a legacy of outspending all other teams by tens of millions of dollars to buy championships. 2) Henry does not want to continuously pay mega taxes, surtaxes and penalties every year. He's okay doing it for short windows to keep our chances of winning a ring very high, but we are reaching a point with our budget, where he'd have to go over $250M to keep this team intact. I don't see it happening.

I don't either, and I'm not concerned much at all about his weight. I was glad to see some progress on defense by the end of 2019. I hope he continues to build on that growth on defense.

We all want Sale & JD to stick around, assuming Sale's arm does not fall off this year. If we want to keep Betts, too, we're looking at this.... $34M Betts $33M Sale $31M Sale $25M JD (maybe the only one without a long term deal) Bogey? You basically commit to going over the tax limit for as long as these deals last- probably by a lot.

Yes it is. He was a pretty good defensive 3Bman for a few years. He was quick and had decent footwork skills. The 4 years before coming to Boston, Pablo put up these numbers with SF: +4.2 UZR/150 (7th in MLB) + 13.9 Range Factor (5th best in MLB) That's in a very significant sample size of almost 4,200 innings!

Good point- same with the Dodgers. Maybe the fact that the Yanks and Dodgers both were super competitive last year, despite resetting, has made them rethink their spending strategies. There's lots of two year deals being signed these days.

Who knows what the next agreement will look like. The move from the players might be to greatly increase the minimum pay and early career pay and not so much the biggest of the big contracts for a select few players. Wouldn't more players (over their careers) benefit from a min. ML salary of $1M with step raises to $2M until arb years rather than see a few of the best guys make $400M+?

I don't disagree. Our biggest problem is that while the whole league seems to be moving towards "developing your own talent," we boxed ourselves in a corner by nearly emptying our farm to build this championship team and a 4-5 year window of high competitiveness. I can't see any way Henry doesn't reset at some point soon. The Yanks and Dodgers did, because it's good business. Amazingly, they both were still highly competitive during their reset year. It's a dream to think we can reset and be that competitive in that year. We don't have the amount of cost controlled young players the Yanks & Dodgers had last year. We have too many key players about to make top dollar. Our only way out is to try and minimize the "rebuild" to one or two year while maybe keeping a couple big and popular stars (Betts & ???) or expect Henry to keep spending more and more each year, including sky-rocketing taxes, surtaxes and penalties- some not financial. We may not be as bad as some think we will be, when we do reset, so maybe the word "cliff" will end up being hyperbole, but it won't be easy to stay highly competitive for many years in a row without having a good farm. 2019 will be our 4th year in a row where we had a good chance at winning it all. That's a pretty nice stretch.

Andujar at 1B would be a major upgrade. I'm still not sure the Yanks are out, especially when the prices of these contracts may not be as high as reported.

I've thought he was destined for 1B almost from day one, but he has pretty quick reflexes and deserves a chance to show he can make it at 3B. We have an opening at 1B next season, so this season may be his best chance to prove he's a 3Bman.

I totally agree, but we must remember Pablo was pretty nimble & nifty at 3B for quite a while before he suddenly wasn't.

Yes, but periodically reset to save many many millions. Look, I'd love to stay highly competitive every year, and if Henry wants to be the next King George, then so be it. I'm just not going to be a hypocrite and call for him to do just that (not that you or others are). I'd like to see us win 4 rimes every 15 years and am okay with some off years in between, in fact, I think it is necessary, now that our farm is all but toast.

He built the team. If he can keep the "cliff" to one year, it may be a better option than deciding to pay mega taxes forever. Do you really want us to keep spending more and more and become what we all hated when the Yanks did it?

Maybe, or maybe go $40M over 2 times in a row (again) before resetting. Maybe start just going $10-19M over for 4-5 years in a row. Maybe not jump $39M in 2021. Lots of directions that depend on how lots of things shake out.

Maybe keep JD and Bogey for $51-55M. That leaves $16-20M for a SP or 2 lesser ones. We fill 1B with Chavis & Dalbec and 2B with Lin or a cheap find. Price Eovaldi ERod FA Wright/Johnson/Velzquez 1. Beni LF 2. Betts RF 3. Bogey SS 4. JD M DH 5. Devers 3B 6. JBJ CF 7. Chavis/Dalbec 1B 8. Vaz 9. Lin/Chatham 2B Then, maybe in 2021, we go back to $39M over and fill the biggest gaps.

I doubt they can pay Price, Sale, JD, Betts last arb and Bogey or Porcello. That's why we call it a cliff. We say good bye to Sale & Porcello, which might not be awful, if Sale shows injury issues this year. We can probably keep Price, Betts, JD and Bogey. We can spend large again in 2021 and maybe get quickly back in the race, if a couple prospects step up by then or Beni & Devers go nutty.

Me, too. If we don't sign anyone to more than 1 year from here on out, I'm almost certain it will be after 2019.