moonslav59

Indeed, and even if a trade fills "a need" very well, while giving away a player in a logjam situation, they still won't make what they feel are significantly unbalanced trades. They may also disagree with fans and pundits who thing there is a great ned or logjam. For example, Brez might feel totally confident in Romy as the FT 2bman with DHam and Sogard as good enough depth. He may have already decided he doesn't want Masa DH'ing and will trade or demote him, so Duran is the FT DH. Presto: no OF logjam exists. It's only in some fans' minds.

fangraphs projects a 1.8 fWAR fro Okamoto (.775 OPS) FA Top OPS projected: 4.4 Tucker 4.0 Bregman & Bichette 3.0 Bellinger 2.6 E Suarez 1.8 Realmuto 1.5 Arraez & Bader 1.4 Ozuna 1.2 Willi Castro, L Rengifo, V Caratini, M Andujar 1.1 Moncada Via trade? 4.8 KMarte 4.3 Seager 3.8 Hoerner 3.5 Chisholm 3.4 Bogaerts (had to list him) 3.0 Donovan, 2.4 Bohm, 2.2 Paredes, 2.0 M McLain & Arenado 1.8 Vientos Pitchers: FA 3.7 Valdez, 3.3 Ra Suarez, 2.4 Gallen, 2.1 Bassitt, 1.7 Littell & Leiter 1.6 Verlander, 1.5 Jon Gray, 1.4 Scherzer, 1.3 N Martinez & Civale, 1.2 Giolito Trade: 4.2 Ragans, 3.4 Ryan & Nate, 3.2 P lopez, 2.5 Alcantara & Kikuchi, 2.4 Lodolo & L Castillo 2.3 M Keller & B Singer, 2.0 E Cabrera, 1.8 B Garrett, 1.7 Ober, 1.6 R Ray, 1.4 K Senga

I should try that! LMAO!

The Bronx is not the only place to learn such lessons in life, but your point is well taken by this poster.

Apparently, Okamoto got $60M/4, including a $5M signing bonus. That's an AAV of $15M, which the Sox could have afforded and stayed below the second line. My guess is the 4th year kept us out of the winning the bidding war. He's 29 and turns 30 in June, so he'll turn 33 in his final year. I doubt we get Bregman or Bichette, so to me, it's Suarez or someone via trade. I think we've traded away enough prospects, so any trade should/might involve an OF'er. If we trade for a #2 SP'er, if might include and OF'er plus one from Sandoval, Crawford or Harrison, but not Tolle, Early, Valera or Witherspoon. Just my take. MLBTR projected $60M/4 for Okamoto. They project $63M/3 for Suarez. Other 3 or less year deals they project: $38M/2 Bassitt (I don't see the Sox signing him.) $30M/2 Realmuto (I doubt it.) $14M/2 Caratini (not likely) $25M/2 Nick Martinez or Zack Littell ??? $18M/2 S Dominguez (maybe) $14M/2 Willi Castor (can play 2B, so...???) $22M/1 Verlander or $15M/1 Scherzer (doubtful) N/A projections: J Wilson, Kopech, Moncada, J Montgomery, Quintana, Sugano

Gotta think Okamoto to TOR means no Breggie to TOR, but does it also mean no Bichette? TOR + Cease Okamoto Cody Ponce Tyler Rogers TOR- Bichette Bassitt S Dominguez Scherzer Kiner-Falefa Ty France Did I miss anybody? How much better has TOR gotten? Cease > Bassitt Ponce > Scherzer Bichette> Okamoto Rogers <>Dominguez France & K-F <> _______

The Gray trade looks similar to the Sale trade, without the injury history. STL paid us to take him, and they "saved money" by doing so. BTW, I think Clarke was who STL viewed as the prize on their end, kinda like how we viewed Grissom in the Sale trade. When you put the two Cards trades together, we see this through the eyes of BTV: To BOS: +5 but skill value or 59.5 +11.1 Gray (Skill value: 32.1) -6.1 Contreras (Skill: 27.4) To STL: +33.5 (Skill: 26.9) -$20M cash=13.5 15.6 Clarke (Skill: 0) 8.6 Fitts (16) 4.5 Dobbins (10.9) 4.8 Fajardo (0) 0.0 Aita (0) BTV accepts the reverse trade made now.

LOL. We should stay away from those surnames!

Spotrac Tax Payroll: 2025: Sox were 7th at $249M 2026: Sox are currently 8th at $235M, but we are $16M from #7 ATL and $21M from SDP. I'm not sure we get any higher ranked and HOU is about tied with us, sowe could drop to 9th, at worst. TOR just signed Okamoto and will pass the NYY for 4th. NYY might re-sign Bellinger, so the top 5 will likely not be touched by any other team. Top 10, as of now 342 LAD (really 425 after tax) 303 NYM (343 after tax) 301 PHI (340 after tax) 280 NYY (pre Bellinger) 300 after tax 279 TOR (pre Okamoto) 292 after tax 255 SDP (258 after tax) 250 ATL (251 after tax) 235 BOS (not over tax line, right now) 234 HOU 206 SFG

At his age, I'd project .790 to .815 tops- maybe ,815-.830 if only platooned.

But you and others keep saying he's not spending or is "cheap." Spending unwisely is a different story and is more on Brez than JH, anyway. Sure, JH might be insisting on no long term deals, so that ties Brez's hands, but there are some good deals out there that are not long, and we have made some good ones and some bad ones (more from Bloom than Brez.) Was the Breggie deal unwise? Was the Chapman deal and extension unwise? Was the Crochet trade and extension unwise? Were the Devers, Bello, Rafaela, Campbell & Anthony extensions unwise? Of course, some unwise moves have been made, and of course that is what we always hear from you about- and only those. The Buehler signing was a disaster, but it was far from a dumpster dive. He was a better bet than Kluber, Richards and paxton were- perhaps combined. The Sale trade was a disaster, but made some sense at the time, and apparently the money saved was used to sign Gio, who did give us some value back, as without him we don't make the 2025 playoffs. The Priester trade was a "dumpster dive" by MIL, and that worked out poorly for us, but some of our dives like for Romy, Wilson, Matz and others did fine. Look, I'm not very optimistic either on JH's future spending plans, but they guy has spent a ton in the two decades in BOS. He's pulled back and splurged a few times. Based on our ranking in revenues, we can cry and cry that we need to spend more, but these rich guys are in this to make money and maximize profit. Focusing on one rich guy and acting like he's the evil one is misguided. Saying he's cheap is just plain untrue. I'm not defending JH, but we are are about 8th or 9th in spending for 2026 and have dished out a lot of new cash since the Devers extension kicked in. We've lost a lot, too, including the Devers dump, but we are a top 8 or 9 spender, right now. That's not cheap. If you wanna talk about unwise spending, talk about Bloom & Brez.

True, but they did bring his $40M in 2025 down to a $32M AAV for the tax line. If they do something similar, then trade Duran ($7.8) + Crawford ($2.7) for a SP'eeer make $5M, liek Lodolo, maybe they can make it work.

I doubt they got news none of us got. They've shuffled our 5th starter so many times, I'm not sure what new information does that. All-in-all, they do a fine job, though.

Exactly. That's all BTV does, and they seem to overvalue and undervalue several players, so it is what it is. Nobody is pretending it matches what GM want ot need. Here are a few examples of where I think the get some Sox players' value wrong- some seem way off. $22M Crawford: Okay, he was pretty good in '23 and led the team in IP in '24. I'm higher on Harrison at $6.6M than Kutter. $18M Casas: Again, a few years ago, he showed he could hit. They have Romy at $12M. These two might be the worst: $11M Cespedes & $10M Romero. Why? Bennett & Harrison are $7M, Valera is just $6M. When you take away the salary and look at how they just plain value the players, it looks more realistic, but then guys like Cespedes have zero value. Their rankings of prospects seems suspect, at best. On vets, the years of control is a big component, as it should be: $240 Crochet, 220 Anthony, 112 Campbell 94 Rafaela, 83 Duran, 79 Mayer, Early, 76 Bello 56 Abreu, 50 Tolle, 41 Narvaez, 36 Whitlock, 35 Kutte 32 Gray, 27 Contreras & Casas, 26 Slaten, 21 Romy 20 Story, 18 Chapman & Sandoval, 14 Harrison, 13 Oviedo 10 Masa, 7 Weissert, 5 Sogard & Wong, 4 Hicks & DHam 0 Everyone else

I think Paredes is worth more than the $11M BTV assigns him, but I'm not sure he's worth Bello. I'd give them Crawford (valued at $22M.) Maybe we could get Paredes plus Sousa or King for IP. I really like Paredes, but I view Bello as significant;y better than Sandoval, Crawford & Harrison- our likely 4-5-6 SP'ers. We can't afford a major step down in the rotation and its depth, as now Harrison becomes the #5, and that's assuming Kutter and Patrick don't start the year on the IL, otherwise, Harrison is our #3 with Tolle & Early pressed into MLB roles on day one. I might give Kristian Campbell for Paredes and King.

Our top everyday prospects seem to fit well with openings that may arise in the near future: SS #2 Arias (Story to 2B?) OF #7 Gonzales (Should be ready when Duran's control ends) SS #8 Soto (Is far away from the bigs, so maybe when DHam/Sogard are gone.) 2B #12 Godbout (Wish he was ready, now.) UT #13 Romero (May get a look, this season) The lack of top everyday prospects is not so bad, since most of our positional players are under team control for 3 or more years. 2 yrs: Contreras, Yoshida 3 yrs: Duran, Story, Casas & Romy

The 2025 season saw 4 major prospects graduate: Roman Anthony Marcelo Mayer Kristian Campbell Carlos Narvaez The year before we saw Rafaela, Abreu, DHam & Slaten graduate. This year it looks like Payton Tolle, Connelly Early, Ryan Watson and maybe David Sandlin, Tyler Uberstine or Shane Drohan do so. This would mark the serious shift our farm has gone from everyday players graduation 7 of the last 8 to maybe seeing 3-5 pitchers as the only grads, this year. According to soxprospects.com, 8 of our top 11 prospects are pitchers. 12 of the top 17, too. Not bad, when you consider our MLB staff has these aged pitchers: 23 Harrison 26 Crochet & Bello 27 Slaten 28 Moran 29 Whitlock 30 Weissert & Kelly

I can sometimes be a stickler for semantics, but I keep hearing hos JH is "cheap," when he actually has spent a lot for two decades and for the the the last 2-3 years. The Devers extension was signed in JAN 2023, but it I believe it started in 2024, so more like 2 years. It sucked from 2019 (not re-signing or replacing Kimbrel & Kelly) through the Betts trade and countless stars leaving without in-kind replacements, but the spending has returned. We can argue it should be more, but saying he's not spending or is cheap is not needed (nor true) to make that point.

And, we were one of 9 teams going over the tax line in 2025. We went over by the 7th most.

I think we all want us to get better, anyway-anyhow. Spotrac has us 8th, right now. $16M from #7.

That's fine, but that is not the same as saying JH does not spend a lot. I wish he'd spend more, too. I don't get pissed because he's like most businessmen.

Devers was not a FA. The $40M for Bregman was more like $32M. The $21M for Gray is exactly what we paid Buehler, who was the highest pitcher AAV since Sale (extension) and Price as a FA. Contreras costs us $21.5M as AAV. That's not as much as Breggie, but it's the second highest since Story's, when compared to just FA signings, which your point. No, this is not as much spending as last winter, and since that was on the heels of the Devers extension kicking, this is not as much, but we are seeing the Crochet extension kicking in, as well as Anthony & Campbell's. New AAV added for 2026: +$24.5M Crochet ($3.8M to $28.3M extension) $21M S Gray ($41M- $20M paid by STL) $21.3M Contreras $16.3M Anthony extension $10.3M Hicks (part of Devers dump) $7.5M Campbell extension +$2.5M Chapman ($10.8M to $13.3M extension) Again, this is not meant as a defense for JH, but they guys has spent some heavy new money. This might be more new money spent than almost any other team, so far. Granted, we dumped Devers and lost some heavy salaries for Buehler, Gio and some lesser ones, too. I do not think we are done spending, either.

They could differ so much maybe keep us under the 2nd line. It might take some salary trade aways, too.

Probably $120M/3 maybe with an opt out. Maybe $110/3 with a 4th year option at $30M and a $10M buyout.

Cheaper than a FA, yes, but not cheap. Gray cost us $21M and for once we got the other team to pay some cash. Contreras has a decent salary- yes cheaper than if he was a FA, but still we added a lot of salary, so far.