moonslav59

I think we need Bregman, Story and Duran to all hit over .750 and maybe .800+. Our next hope is Abreu's return. Narvaez, Romy & Ref can only do so much.

In sp.com's first rankings list, they had.... 3. Jorge de la Rosa 5. Dumatrait 7. Lester By the end of 2003, it was... 1. Jorge de la Rosa 2. Lester 3. Youk 4. Shoppach 5. C Spann 6. HanRam 7. D Murphy 8. Delcarmen Lester was #1 by the start of 2004, but Abe Alvarez passed him and was a head of Papelbon at #5 in midd '04. By the end of 2005: 1. Papelbon 2. lester 3. Anibal Sanchez 5. C hansen 6. Delcarmen 10. Pauley, 15. Alvarez, 17. Buchholz

True. Prospect and draftee rating and rankings are often based on how hard a guy can throw or how much break he gets on his breaking pitches, and not so much on college or HS ERA or WHIP. It's easy to be mislead, and these guys are human- both the pitchers be evaluated and the people doing the evaluations. For all the talk of how bad our farm had gotten with acquiring and developing young pitchers, and rightfully so, I feel like a shift began a few years back and the trend can just about be called "over." Call it luck or whatever, things started changing when Houck came up and showed some skills. DD got a lot of grief for "emptying the farm," but he did keep or add some arms that turned out to be pretty good, and certainly better than we had seen for quite a few years after Lester. Crawford and Bello, added to Houck were the best trio of SP'ers from our farm in a long, long time. Then, Bloom acquired Whitlock (Rule 5) and guys like Pivetta, Kelly and Wickowski- not great, but better than much of what we had before. (Pivetta was not a prospect.) He also drafted Early, Dobbins, Valera, Guerrero and others Perales has yet to get a shot, due to injuries, and we did see several rather highly touted pitching prospects fizzle out- like Mata, Groome, DHern & TWard. The Brez regime has marked a major push towards acquiring young and promising pitchers Trades landed us Slaten, Fitts, Priester, Fajardo, Holobetz, Weissert, Sandlin, Harrison, J Bello, I Campbell, Moran and others in just 2 years. The amount of pitchers taken in the draft was astounding, and larger IFA bonuses were paid to pitchers than in recent years. If Houck was not out for the 2026 season, we might have seen 4 homegrown SP'ers in the rotation with Crochet (Houck, Bello, Crawford, Dobbins, Early, Tolle...) Soxprospects.com has 7 of our top 9 prospects as pitchers! 5 of the next 11 are pitchers, too. Holobetz, Delzine, Mullins and others may crack the top 20, soon. Now, it seems we need to focus on acquiring a couple big bats to rebalance the roster.

Seems like everyday, we can say, "What a difference a day makes." Now, we are the 3rd WC team, after everyone closest to us won. CLE is now our main contender, as TEX lost. 83-68 SEA ALW leader (Tonight: B MIller v Ragans) __________________________ 84-67 NYY (Tonight: Gil v Bradley) 83-69 HOU (Javier v de Grom) 82-69 BOS (Gio vs Barnett) 11 games to go & up 2.5 ________________________ 79-71 CLE -2.5 (GWilliams v Flaherty) 79-73 TEX -3.5 (de Grom v Javier)

The other middle relievers are worse and have been all year.

Yoshida for Wm Contreras (1B.) Or, maybe Masa & Hicks for Arenado?

It's kinda funny how GMs and scouts are routinely bashed for "missing" on draft picks, especially high ones, yet every one of us thought Tolle was our best pitching prospect, including me. I had offered Abreu, Early and Sandlin for Ryan.

Just finished watching. That was painful.

He doesn't seem to try and steal as many bases, anymore.

MLB.com projected two Sox GG winners. Here are their write-ups: RF: Abreu: Seeking his second straight Gold Glove, Abreu touts an elite combination of range and arm strength. Abreu has made more five-star catches (eight) than anyone not named Pete Crow-Armstrong, an impressive accomplishment for a corner outfielder. Not to mention, his average arm strength is 94.3 mph, good for the 98th percentile. Should Abreu and Rafaela each win a Gold Glove, they would become the first pair of Red Sox outfielders to win Gold Gloves in the same season since Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr. in 2018. CF: Rafaela: Rafaela has split time between second base and center field, but injuries to Wilyer Abreu and Roman Anthony have shifted the 24-year-old back to center on a full-time basis. That's good news for the Red Sox, because he's elite in the outfield. He's been worth +19 Outs Above Average, tied with Pete Crow-Armstrong for the most among outfielders. Much of his value derives from his excellent jumps, as his average jump is 5.2 feet better than average.

I had the right players, just juggled 6-7-8 batters. See above.

They also were "sellers" at the deadline!

The Ghost of Tito?

I'm not totally thrilled with Rafaela in CF for the next 6-7 years and moving Duran or rotating all the other OF'er through the DH slot, but it would be an upgrade on offense from the DH slot, without making any trades or costly signings. We'd be paying Yoshida to be on the bench or AAA, but we are paying him, anyway- probably even if we trade him away. Doing that plus bringing Bregman back plus a big bat (Alonso, Schwarber, Suarez or Marte) would be a huge upgrade on O. If we got Marte for maybe Rafaela, Arias and Clarke, plus brought back Breggie and signed Suarez to DH, we could see this: 1. Anthony LF 2. Marte 2B 3. Bregman 3B 4. Suarez DH 5. Duran LF 6. Story 2B 7. Abreu RF 8. Casas/Romy 1B 9. Narvaez C I'm not sure how we replace Gio, Buehler and Houck, though.

I will say, our offense has a lot of potential. That is not the same as proven talent. While a sophomore slump is possible for Anthony, Narvaez, Mayer, Campbell (maybe he already had his slump) and the rookie pitchers (Dobbins, Early and Tolle,) I think we get more from them in 2026 than 2025. For one thing, they should play way more than this year- just about all of them, except Narvaez. Our approach, this year, after the Devers trade was to try and have a more balanced offense, and not one with 2-3 studs and not much afterwards. It worked to varying degrees, but we really could use a beast or two. Bregman barely qualifies, but his slump makes being a "beast" 2026 a question. Anthony and Abreu might become a beast. If Duran could repeat 2024, he'd be close to being one. That's a lot of ifs, but having 4 or them is better than some teams have, and that's before we might add a big bat over the winter. We have 10 guys with an OPS+ over 103, but two were mostly platoons on the short side (Ref & Romy) and two are Lowe and Eaton. We could view it like we have 6 or 7 for 2026, depending on Breggie: 138 Anthony (sophomore slump in '26) 129 Bregman (back in '26?) 121 Abreu + 134 Ref platoon in RF 115 Duran 109 Lowe + 132 Romy platoon at 1B 105 Narvaez 103 Story That leaves DH, 2B, and CF as sub 90. Mayer offers some hope at plus 100 at 2B. Casas and Yoshida offer some hope at DH. Ideally, we add a real big bat on top of brining Bregman back. 1B, 2B or DH makes the most sense. Alonso (1B) Saurez (1B or 3B no Breggie) or Schwarber (DH) Marte via trade (2B) If no Breggie, we can play Mayer at 3B and Marte at 2B.

All 3 of the batters with higher OPS+ are also better on defense. Abreu and Anthony are also pre-prime and have a higher ceiling.

We handed Devers away as a salary dump. I'm not handing Duran or Abreu away. I see Joe Ryan as an ace or near ace. We can see how Crochet made us a force. Adding another top pitcher will help a lot. The other way I look at it is this: step up vs step down. The step down from Duran to Anthony, Abreu or Rafaela has a value. The step up from Jow Ryan over Crawford/Dobbins or whoever our 5th SP'er has a value. Which value is larger? (I'm not sure, but there is some sense in trading from an area of depth.) Now, we can argue all 4 OF'ers can play, if we DH one, and that changes the value of the trade-off. We can argue Early, Tolle and others will more than make up for losing Gio, Houck and Buehler from the rotation and the upgrade from Early to Ryan might be a negative value. It probably makes sense to trade Rafaela and just not get Joe Ryan back. Maybe trade Rafaela, Clarke and Romero, Mullins or Sandlin for Mitch Keller.

I hope we upgrade, but if we trade an OF'er and don't sign a 1Bman or DH, like it or not, Yoshida might be our best option vs RHPs at DH, especially if we trade a LHB OF'er. Let's assume we trade Abreu: LF: Duran CF: Rafaela RF: Anthony 1B: Casas and or Lowe DH: Yoshida v RHPs and Romy v LHPs (Ref, if he does not retire.) Who else is there? Maybe Lowe at 1B and Casas at DH? Maybe Jh Garcia? (He's a RHB who may not outhit Masa v RHPs.) I'm not happy about it, but they are paying him $18M, and we can see how much they want to play him, even when he's not hitting .750+. Maybe they keep all OF'ers and DH one over Masas.

I get that. I worry about decline as Duran ages, but his control years end about the time when decline begins. Previously, I had concerns about his attitude. The comment he made to the fan and missing time in TOR due to not getting vaccinated. That's not enough for me to want to trade him, and that doesn't bother me, anymore. He is a spark. I agree. I like Abreu because he is younger, has more control years, hits more homers and plays more D than Duran. Does "spark" outweigh all that? Duran vs Rafaela is apples to oranges. I fully understand anyone who wants Duran. I do, too. To me, it's the return that might tip the balance.

I fully expect Masa to be back, next year. He's virtually untradeable. If we trade an OF'er like I expect we will, I might be fine with Masa as our DH. I'm not a Masa hater. I thought we had better options, this year. I did not like the way they handled Masa, this summer. He should have played in AAA longer. This is not about his 40, 50 or 150 sample size. I actually think Masa is better than this. I think he can and will hit .750+, next year. If that is better than I expect from someone else, I'll support him staying in the line-up.

I have suggested trading Rafaela several times- not Duran and Abreu. The return will not be as much, but we would have a better offense. Duran or Anthony (or Garcia) in CF is a drop in defense, but the offense bump should outweigh that. It would come down to the return we get for Rafaela vs Duran or Abreu on deciding what is best for the team. What else we do to beef up the offense is part of the equation, too- like keeping Bregman or not and adding another bat (1B, DH, 2B with Bregman or not.) It could come down to this: Rafaela plus 2 from Early, Tolle, Valera or Dobbins for Joe Ryan vs Duran or Abreu plus 1 from Early, Tolle, Valera or Dobbins or none but adding Clarke, Sandlin & Mullins If you had to do one, which would it be?

Maybe not at all, too!

Facing a lefty means R & R could be keys to a win (Romy & Ref.) I'm projecting this line-up: 1. R Romy 1B 2. R Bregman 3B 3. R Story SS 4. R Refsnyder DH 5. R Narvaez C 6. L Duran LF 7. R Eaton RF 8. R Sogard 2B 9. R Rafaela CF Last time, they used Wong with Early, so maybe Wong catches and Narvaez DH's, again. Then Refsnyder would be in RF (no Eaton) or LF (no Duran and a 9 RHB line-up.)

When they made the trade, they had already placed Newcomb ahead of him on the depth chart and others, too- like Fitts & Dobbins. They expected Giolito (1st start 4/30) , Sandoval and Crawford back, later in the season and still had Criswell, Winck and others maybe behind Priester. I'm not defending the trade: the statement "You can never have enough pitching" is true nearly every season. As it turned out Early and Tolle joined the depth chart, as did Harrison after a later trade. We still ended up needing to trade for another SP'er (D May) and have had 3 pen games, this year. Had we kept Priester, we might be leading the AL East, so the hindsight call is a big bust for that trade- same with the Sale one, except I doubt Sale gets us into the playoffs in 2024.

Again, I did not want Yoshida at DH before PA 1. The next 40-50 then 150 just made it worse.