moonslav59

I'd rather have Iggy than Lin, but I guess Lin has learned to play the OF.

Well said. $8M might not seem like a lot, but it is at the trade deadline. We can trade for 2 guys making $12M each and their prorated portions will be $4M (1/3 season) x 2 players = 8M total.

soxprospects.com has this... http://news.soxprospects.com/2019/02/fort-report-shawaryn-set-to-start.html

Just read that Iggy is looking to sign a minor league deal.

If Pedey was a Yankee, we'd have heard about JT over and over.

I totally agree.

The upside I see for the Sox is ERod being healthy, Eovaldi proving his stuff will translate over a full year and Devers breaking out. I guess you could also add the catchers position, although it’s not really a breakout if they move from horrendous to below average, but you’ll take it, I’m sure. Going from .540 to .640 could offset JD and Betts each dropping .050. Pedroia is a wild card and the board has treated him as such which is appropriate If Nunez gets over his knee issue, we could get a 2017 type season from him and not need Pedey. The downside I see is JD and Mookie still being forces of nature but not repeating 2018. This isn’t that hard to follow. JD was a DH and had over 6 WAR. Mookie was out of his mind last year. Both guys could fall back to .900 OPS seasons and be very productive, all star level players. Both could easily do the same or maybe even better. Betts is still prime and JD is still in the window. Chris Sale had the best 2/3 of a season he’s ever had. He finished the year looking like a shell of himself with a mystery shoulder injury that sapped his velocity. His downside this year is humongous mostly because of how high he has soared. It is a concern, but so is Paxton, CC and Didi. If he’s just good, that’s a big fall. Eovaldi’s health history needs no introduction, so while he was a trade deadline add and postseason folk hero, he could also be on the shelf. Price’s history of elbow woes hampered him for two seasons. He finished well, clearly, but he’s got some concerns there. Maybe Porcello steps up bigly. Xander has a career season. If he slides back a bit, he’d still be all star caliber. You act like a player on the way to peak prime having a career year is some kind of fluke. Many players nearing prime have a few career years as the enter prime. Pearce was out of his mind after the trade, likely not to be repeated. He's been pretty good up to the trade as well. Here are his pro-rated numbers to 650 PAs since 2016: 2016: .288 27 75 (.867 OPS) 2017: .252 25 70 (.757) 2018: .284 28 107 (.890) He was .868 with TOR and .901 with us. (He also had a .930 OPS in 2014.) Of the 43 1Bmen with 900+ PAs, Pearce places 12th with a .830 OPS. Y4es, he's getting older, but one can easily view 2018 as not a fluke. Kimbrel is gone leaving a pen in disarray. Opinion. Just like it's my opinion your SS and 1B positions are in disarray. This all adds up to one commonality that I’ll throw out there. The Sox offense will be stacked, still top 3, maybe number 1, but they won’t score as many runs. They will score more. Book it. The rotation, now shored with Eovaldi will be good when the top 5 take the bump, but there will be a fair amount of starts by your #6 and #7 starters. The leads handed to your pen will be slightly smaller than last year and likely earlier than last year, which is going to put a lot of pressure on the underbelly of your club. Our rotation is better this year. There is no reason to think the leads will be smaller. This is why the Sox are going to finish behind NY. The pen overachieved based on personnel last year. Overachieved based on your projections. The Yanks overachieved, too. They lost two of their top 4 relievers and added nobody to it. The pen losses will mount. The best way to beat your pythag is to have a dominant pen. Opinion. There are many ways of winning games. You choose the pen as the most important, and we all know why.

Ottavino replaces Robertson. Paxton is a big upgrade over Gray & Lynn, if he can stay healthy. The Happ & Britton retentions are pretty much the same as us keeping Eovaldi & Pearce. Nothing changes from the teams we had in the playoffs except Paxton over Gray/Lynn and our loss of Kimbrel, who sucked in the playoffs. The gap is not as large as you want it to be (and probably bigger than I want it to be).

Yes. I've already skipped a year.

I'd flip Bogey and JD as well as Devers and Moreland.

...and we DFA'd our 3 slot hitter.

...and then win 90 games.

I mentioned 3 others as possibilities.

CLE and the Cubs dropped off from last year's short list. Can the Brewers, Braves, Cards or someone else be added?

ERod was in the midst of breaking out, when he got hurt (again). The team was 17-3 in his first 20 starts, and his ERA was 3.34. Anything like that this year over 28-32 starts would be a huge boost.

I think only 4 have a great shot, as of now: BOS NYY LAD HOU

Wow. This is a shocker. RIP, Nick. Apparently, he dies at the park- probably the way he would want to go.

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Devers is closer to 22 than 23, and we should not forget that he only spent ... 77 games in AA (320 PAs) at age 20 (.944 OPS) 15 games in AAA (60 PAs) at ages 20-21 (1.006 OPS) Having a .760 OPS after his first 730 PAs in MLB should be viewed as encouraging. His 2nd half OPS for 2018 was .781 in 123 PAs. There is a lot to be optimistic about, but of course, he could struggle.

With 4-8 teams lookin highly competitive every year, it's awfully hard to project the winner more times than not, and I've been wrong way more than I've been right, but to me, the Sox look like the best team, on paper, and the Yanks are second. The Dodger and Astros are not too far behind the Yanks.

Good read, and of course this could happen, but our team has very few players past prime, and those that are do not have a major role on the team. Some will regress- some will improve. Maybe full seasons from Pearce and Eovaldi will make up for losing Kimbrel. (Losing Kelly & Pom is a wash.)

Well, if they are planning on resetting the tax and having at least 1 off year to rebuild, then getting a mediocre SP'er for a catcher could make sense, but you are right, they starter will not be a good one. He shouldn't be any better than Johnson or Velazquez. The statement makes no sense to me. If he wanted to trade a catcher, he should have said he wanted to keep all 3. Now, teams know to just wait it out.

Devers hits a lot of HRs on traditionally not HR-type pitches. Here's one (go to the 1:30 time line...

And yet regression isn’t on your mind at all? Betts is going to continue this unrepeatable pace? Many times I have said we will have injuries and we will see some players fall short of expectations and decline, possibly even players not yet at prime years. Of course it is possible and probable that more than 1 or 2 players will do worse than 2018. We saw in 2017 how more declined than improved despite their age curve suggested growth. However, the same could happen to every team, even the great Yankees. Is King Kong JD going to surpass 1.000 OPS again? Good chance he does- good chance he doesn't. I'd say the odds are close to 50-50 that either Betts or JD repeat or better 2018 while the other one does not. Can Xander keep up his career season? Why not? He's only 26. I could see him hit .900 or even .950, but of course, he could fall back to .800 or lower. Some of his lower numbers from the past involved him playing through wrist injuries. Yes, you’ve got some parts that either were hurt or underachieved, but the core of your offense stayed healthy and played bonkers. Expecting that plus improvements in health and production could happen, but it’s far more likely that someone crucial slips back a little or spends some time on the DL. Betts & Bogey spent time on the DL. Pedey missed the whole year. Devers missed a lot of time. Nunez played hobbled. Vaz missed time. Sale & ERod missed time and were not the same by the playoffs. There's a ton of room for more production by these guys just playing more, even if their numbers dip slightly. Look, I get the argument that some or many can dip, but we are talking about what is expected, and you seem to expect the worst from just about every Sox player and the best from every Yankee player. I'm expecting growth from many Yankee players as the near prime, but I could easily ask if Judge will ever repeat his career best. (I actually expect Judge to have his best season in 2019.) I don’t think the Sox win 100 this year. I doubt the yanks win 100. It’s very difficult to be in a division with two other very strong clubs and win as much as our teams did last year. The reasoning was that Tampa sucked and then went on a late run that was crazy to get them to 90 wins. They’re going to be good again and probably from the outset. Yes, we’ve got the worst team in baseball in our division and a middling squad likely hellbent on rebuilding, so that’ll help rack up wins. But games vs BOS, NYY and TB are going to be dogfights and that’s 38 games of the schedule. Last year TB was a pushover til June and the Sox owned them early. This year, they’ll be good. Let’s just assume that those 38 games are splits. 19-19. In order to win 100, a squad would have to go 81-43 (65%) against the rest and that’ll be hard to do again. Cleveland is worse, and many AL teams did not improve on paper. I'm expecting 100+ wins from both the Yanks and Sox. I've been rong before, but these two teams are light years better than others in the AL (except Houston, but even they did not improve on paper).

I'll never want Hosmer, and not just because he's on and off. He is a good poster boy for not expecting the same results as the year before, like some here seem to do often.