moonslav59

You beat me to it. Signing Eovaldi might mean saying good bye to Sale.

I'd rather have Porcello. He's younger. He's durable. He might not be that much more expensive than $60M/4.

I think we reset after 2020. The roster is too good to say good bye that soon.

The Associated Press has UCF ranked 8th and Wash St 7th. 7. Wash St 8. UCF 9. LSU 10. Ohio St. 11. Texas 12. W Va The Coaches Poll... 7. Wash St 8. LSU 9. UCF 10. Ohio St 11. Texas 12. W Va

Now that we have Pearce, and even if we trade Swihart, I don't see where HRam gets any PAs.

Actually, he's faced righties more than lefties--not at the rate a FT'er would, but the numbers are not as skewed as one might think. Last year, Sox batters faced righties just under 75% of all their PAs. Pearce faced righties 98 times and lefties 67 times with the Sox. That's 59.4%. That's only about 15% less than the norm. He also had a decent .825 OPS vs righties with us. In 2017, Pearce actually hit righties better (.767 to .730) and faced RHPs 72% of the time. In 2016, he hit lefties way better (1.028), but he was pretty good vs RHPs (.795), too. He faced righties 69% of his PAs. In 2015, he hit RHPs better (.765 to .623), but he only faced RHPs 62% of the time. 2015-2018 .783 vs RHPs in 788 PAs (Moreland is at .782 in 1596) .826 vs LHPs in 438 PAs In 4 years, he faced RHPs 64% of the time, which is not all that far away from a FT player. The .043 differential is not as much as I expected, and sine he has hit RHPs about the same as Moreland, maybe playing him vs many RHPs makes sense, either at 1B or DH, when JD is resting or in the OF. Trading Moreland and freeing up his contract to sign another RP'er might make some sense. Let JD learn to play some 1B, and we have Holt, Swihart and maybe Chavis as 1B depth.

I realize that. It is not likely we sign him, unless nobody offers him 3+ years, and even then...

If Pedey doesn't play, I can see... 2B 90 Holt 60 Nunez 12 Lin/Quiroz/Hernandez 3B 132 Devers 30 Nunez 1B 100 Moreland 60 Pearce 2 JDM DH 145 JDM 15 Pearce 2 Nunez OF 155 Betts 155 Beni 145 JBJ 16 Holt 8 JDM 4 Nunez 3 Swihart

Here's what's left... 1. Alabama AUB 11/24 GA (5) 12/1 2. Clemson So. Car 11/24 Pitt 12/1 3. Notre Dame USC 11/24 4. Michigan Ohio St (10) 11/24 5. Georgia Ga Tech 11/24 ALA (1) 12/1 6. Oklahoma W VA (9) 11/23 7. LSU TX A&M 11/24 8. Wash St. Wash (18) 11/23 9. W VA OKL(6) 11/23 10. Ohio St Mich (4) 11/24 11. UCF So. Fla 11/23 UCF has no shot, even if everyone loses out. Ohio St has to beat Mich and hope everyone loses, and they still might not make the top 4, since everyone losing means someone ahead of them wins as some play each other. I'll say no chance. WVA needs to beat OKL and hope ND, Mich, LSU and GA all lose. Even then, they may end up #5. Wash ST has just one loss, and if they beat Wash, they could sneak to #4 if a bunch of top teams lose, but I don't think they deserve to make it. LSU has 2 loses, and even though they play a tough schedule, there will likely be too many one loss teams that should stay ahead of them. I'd put Alabama, Clemson & ND ahead of them, even if they lose. That means they'd have to catch Mich (lose to Ohio St), OKL (lose to WVA) and GA (lose to Ala) OKL plays #9 WVA, and if they win, they could get to the top 4, if someone loses. I'd still take a one loss ND, Clem & Ala over OKL, but late season wins and loses seem to matter more. GA plays Ala. If they win, it's a mess. They have to pass Mich, and one would think Ala has to be top 4, if they beat Aub and lose to GA. Mich could get squeezeed, even if they beat Ohio State and win the big 10 playoff game (NWestern?) Mich will likely go, if they win. If they lose to OSU, someone will pass them. ND has to beat USC to go. Clem plays So Carolina. They will go if they win and may go with a loss. Ala probably has to lose to Aub & GA to not go. If they beat Aub & lose to GA, and Clem, ND, Mich, and OK all win out, this might be the rankings: 1. Clem 2. ND 3. GA 4. Ala 5. Mich (close) 6. Okl (close)

Personally, I'm guessing we want to avoid any big deals longer than 2 years, so that would mean no Eovaldi, Kimbrel and probably Kelly. We may go Morton, Cody Allen for 2 and maybe Miller takes a 1 year deal looking to up his value.

The luxury tax only affects about 6-8 teams, and it seems like those 6-8 just try to reset every 3-4 years,so it's not a big issue in terms of the limit. The mega taxes on the 3rd year is what gets teams wanting to reset.

I get your point, but our talent is not cheap. We have a solid 25

That's why every other excuse was a smoke screen. It was always about the money. Hram>Swihart

Pretty amazing that we've dropped these contracts and are still over the luxury tax limit after signing Pearce (and projected arb raises): $22M HRam $13M Kimbrel $11M Kinsler (We did not pay most of this.) $8.5M Pomeranz $3.8M Joe Kelly $2.0M Eovaldi (We did not pay most of this.) $0.7M Phillips $61M gone (maybe $58M from our 2018 budget)

Unless Henry is okay with spending big this winter, I doubt we touch 2B. We have too many options to try first, and we can look mid season, if none work out. Pedroia Holt Nunez Lin M Hernandez Quiroz

Yes, but $11M x 2 vs $6M x 1 makes me cringe.

Top Free Agent RH'd Starters Ranked by MLBTR (overall ranking listed & projected salary) 7. Nathan Eovaldi ($60M/4) 14. Charlie Morton ($32M/2) 28. Anibal Sanchez ($22M/2) 29. Matt Harvey ($22M/2) 30. Trevor Cahill ($22M/2) 36. Lance Lynn ($16M/2) 40. Bud Norris ($12M/2) 49. Ervin Santana ($6M/1)

2018 Pitching Splits OPS Against vs RHBs .313 Brasier .508 Kimbrel .610 Barnes .703 Kelly .798 Walden .725 Workman .847 Hembree .882 Poyner .918 Smith .947 Pom .972 Thornburg .555 Sale .630 Wright .636 Eovaldi .672 Porcello .679 ERod .695 Price .734 Velazquez .810 Johnson vs LHBs .200 Smith .420 Poyner .551 Hembree .610 Walden .610 Kelly .631 Kimbrel .643 Barnes .647 Brasier .670 Workman .800 Thornburg .424 Sale .665 Johnson .670 Wright .672 Price .691 ERod .705 Pom .727 Porcello .733 Eovaldi .806 Velazquez

I said two. I never said a lot of support. You can tell it's getting boring, when these kinds of issues get beat to death.

I'm hoping for Alabama to win, for maybe the first time ever, just so they won't move down to 3rd and ND would have to play them first round. USC won't be easy in SoCal, but we looked pretty sharp today against a very good Syracuse team. We've had some easy games, but we beat... #4 Michigan #12 Syracuse (who will drop now) #22 N'western (who should move up a little) Va Tech, Stanford and Wake are pretty decent and were ranked at some point this year.

let's move JD to catcher and maximize our offense.

Well, it's been brought up like 20 times, and someone always agrees with the idea, so there's at least two of them.

You'll be wishing him luck, then.

IMO, other options provide better chances of contribution, but I'm fine wil as many minor league deals we can get, as long as they don't retard the growth of legitimate prospects.

I think they just want to see the best line-up possible- damn the defense.