moonslav59

Read my post. The hole is 1B not 3B. A sugar is a massive upgrade at 1B. Nobody is screaming for Machado on the Yanks, and you clearly have a weakness at 1B, whether you choose to agree or not. I'm not saying you should or need to sign Machado. My point is the same argument can be made about the Yanks getting close and then stopping short of pushing all the chips in. We just won a ring. The Yanks should have a greater sense of urgency. If anything, it is the Sox that should be thinking longer term with the impending cliff on our doorstep.

Do you really want Leon or Centano catching 120+ games? As for Vaz on offense vs Leon, I guess we'll have to wait and see. I know I have way more faith in Vaz getting close to .700 than Leon. I never said Vaz is a good hitter. It's more about my opinion that Leon is horrible, not likely to improve at his age and seemingly getting worse the more he plays. Not sure where any straw man was created.

I think we trade Swihart, even if it's for a single-A hopeful. Lin is the 25th man. Our 4 man bench is Pearce or Moreland, Vaz or Leon, Nunez or Holt (assuming Pedey is on the DL) and Lin. If Pedey is on the 25, then Lin is in AAA. JD, Holt, Nunez, Pearce, Moreland and Lin can all play OF, if needed.

If you’re gonna push your chips to the middle for one more season, then do it. Don’t tiptoe up to the line and stay behind it ... $240M is more chips than anyone else has pushed to the middle of the table. We are right up there in odds of winning it all. One could ask, why don't the Yanks sign Machado and move Andujar to 1B? Why go all the way this far, then leave such a glaring weakness at 1B- a position normally associated with mega offense. Everybody on this planet knows they have this weak area. Just spend more. Push all the chips.

I get why people focus more on players they know more about, like Buch, Kimbrel, Pom and guys like Masterson before. Our management team has done an excellent job determining when enough is enough. They seem to be very good at placing the correct value on players they know and see the most- not surprising, right? You won't see me clamoring Buch, Pom or Kimbrel. They all left us just at the right time (maybe Pom a year too late).

Maybe owners are frightened of a massive recession. Many indicators are pointing to one. Maybe Henry and DD were prepared to spend more, if the Yanks had signed Machado or Harper, but now they don't feel the pressure to make a high risk signing.

I think they know who they'd like to keep- Vaz & Leon, but the question is how important is it to upgrade the pen vs weakening the catching, plus budget concerns that might give trading Vaz more value. Vaz catches Porcello, Eovaldi and ERod. Leon catches Sale & Price. To me, this is as clear as day the best choice. Now, if we could get a solid RP'er for Vaz and only Vaz, then maybe the choice gets cloudier.

Whoop-dee-freakin'- doo!

If we trade Vaz, Swihart will play more than 30 games. That frightens me, and it should frighten every Sox fan. Look at how our SP'er do when he catches. Maybe, it's just a fluke. Maybe with time, they'd grow accustomed to him and do well. I'm not willing to risk it. That brings us to Leon, assuming we trade Vaz. My 200 point possibility was based on the assumption that either Vaz or Leon would catch 110-115 games in 2019. Leon seems to tire out the more he plays. He'd probably hit under .500 (yes OPS) if he played that much. I think Vaz can hit near .700 this year over 110-115 games. That's a possible 200 point gain, which is close to the difference between JD and a Pearce/Moreland platoon. No, I do NOT want to go into the 2019 season counting on Swihart to catch more than 5-10 games. If there's a catcher injury, maybe we could deal with 25-35 starts, but no way do I want a Leon-Swihart tandem all year. I'm not willing to trust the learning curve period is short, or worse, they never adjust to him and our staff ERA jumps a half run or more due to trading Vaz. Swihart seems to do okay with RP'ers, so keeping 3 catchers and PH'ing for one or two of them in any particular game would minimize the fright level by not seeing Swihart with any of our starters, except maybe ERod, who seems to do about the same with everyone. Ideally, IMO, Leon starts when Sale & Price do. He only starts with someone else, if Vaz is hurt or needs a rest. Swihart is either a utility player or is traded. (Vaz 110-120 games & Leon 42-52 games started) I'm going throw a question back at you: why give Swihart a chance? Are you willing to risk our great staff success on these numbers? Chris Sale: It's very telling that Swihart has never even caught 1 inning with Sale. Career ERA with... 2.42 Leon (319 IP) 3.40 Vaz (53 IP) n/a Swi (0) David Price: Pretty telling that Swihart has only caught Price 11 innings out of nearly 500 with the Sox. 2.83 Leon (194 IP) 4.32 Vaz (263) 5.73 Swi (11) Porcello 4.14 Leon (483 IP) 4.15 Vaz (134) 4.59 Swihart (118) Eovaldi (Tiny sample sizes) 0.55 Vaz (16 IP) 3.86 Leon (35) n/a Swi (0) ERod (The one pitcher I might trust with Swihart for 20+ starts) 4.00 Leon (99) 4.08 Swi (71) 4.24 Vaz (276) Wright (Swi does well here) 3.35 Vaz (97) 4.06 Swi (71) 5.59 Leon (56) The Pen: Barnes 3.72 Vaz (97 IP) 3.80 Leon (83) 5.02 Swi (38) Brasier (Tiny sample sizes) 1.29 Swi (7 IP) 1.40 Leon (19) 2.84 Vaz (6) Hembree 1.82 Swi (25) 3.52 Leon (77) 4.20 Vaz (81) Johnson 3.47 Leon (47) 3.72 Swi (46) 5.88 Vaz (34) Velazquez 2.25 Leon (32) 3.21 Vaz (56) 3.79 Swi (19) We can gamble that these numbers mean little or nothing, but I'd rather nor.

I would. And my reasons are simple. 1) Leon is as good defensively as Vazquez and Sale and Price work better with Leon. That's a reason to keep Leon not to trade Vaz. 2) While Vazquez should be a better hitter, the catcher bats ninth for this team anyway. Vaz might hit 200 points higher than Leon next year- 9 slot or not, that's huge. 3) His AAV is actually the highest of the three. Legit reason. We could trade Vaz for a cheap RP'er then use the money to get another one. 4) If the Sox are hellbent on keeping Swihart, at some point it needs to be justified with more playing time than a third string catcher typically gets. They are not hellbent. He will be traded, soon. 5) I have a little faith in Swihart defensively and offensively. At least for now. This is a reason to keep Vaz. "Little faith" is not good enough. 6) And most important, I think Vazquez can bring back a decent return... Certainly better than the other catchers, but the hole opened will be worse than the hole filled in the pen, IMO.

Pen arms and possible pen arms in our current system: Listed by soxprospects.com Relievers Matt Barnes Ryan Brasier Heath Hembree Tyler Thornburg Brandon Workman Bobby Poyner Colten Brewer Zach Putman Carson Smith Austin Maddox Travis Lakins Josh Taylor (Durbin Feltman on A-Ball list) Swing Men Brian Johnson Hector Velazquez Steven Wright Marcus Walden Josh Smith Starting Pitchers (depth) Erasmo Ramirez Ryan Weber Mike Shawaryn Chandler Shepherd D Hernandez

Let bygones be bygones.

I think Vaz does right now. I don't think GMs get scared off by one bad year. I also think there's some doubts about Chavis due to the PED affects on his minor league numbers. I would not trade Vaz, because I have little faith in Swihart in any meaningful role as a catcher in 2019.

I'm offering 3 quarters for 50 cents. Johnson OR Velazquez Swihart Chavis or Dalbec 3 players not 4. I'm not asking for LeClerc for this offer. I'm hoping we get something decent. Most likely, we trade 1or 2 from the list above for a RP'er- not 3, but my point is we could offer 3 and not be terribly hurt in depth or future outlooks.

I get your point, but think of it this way: maybe Henry wanted the budget to be at about $220M, and he's already spent way more than he wanted to just to get us as good as we were last year and are now. Asking him to just go a little higher just because we are so close might look unreasonable within this context, right? The, once we get a big RP'er, what if someone gets hurt? Can we expect you and others to trot out the old "We are so close, so why not get one more piece?" Nobody is thrilled with our pen, but it's not horrible, and we are so solid at other positions, I'm not sure why we need to be great everywhere. Sure, it would help. Sure, it would improve our odds at winning in 2019, but we super maxed out last year. The same argument could be made every year. Keep everybody. Sign anyone we need. On and on...

Let's take away the Sox and M's pitching and look at their offenses: Sox HRs on offense: 102 Home 106 Away M's HRs on offense: 84 Home 92 Away

I'd rather do this (or sub Dalbec for Chavis). I'd also float Johnson or Velazquez (with Swihart and/or Chavis/Dalbec), if that would get us a better pen arm.

Why is it odd, when the team just outspent everyone by $40M and won a ring? It seems like a good time to say let's cut spending, but actually, we are not cutting spending. We are spending close to what we did last year and still ahead of everyone. I get the argument about why Pearce and not a RP'er, but I totally get having a restricted budget. (It's not like our restricted budget is at $100M or $80M. We're still way ahead of almost every team... way, way, way ahead.) I think asking Henry to spend more is more unreasonable than questioning why DD let the closer position turn out to be our weakest position.

I thought your criteria was just that the guy had to have 2 good years at some point in their careers... like with Thornburg & Smith.

That can never be a good idea. To those who think we must upgrade the pen, I ask again, if we have only $3M to spend, what position do we weaken (via trade) to make our pen better? I'm sure, if we have Lin as our starting SS and Kimbrel as our closer, we'd be hearing about how stupid it is to have such a great team with such a big weakness at such an important position.

He's the last guy I'd trade out of Price, Eovaldi and ERod. I do think he has as good a chance as the others of doing the best from 2020-2021.

I was talking beyond 2019. ERod has 2 arbs left after this year. Even if he ends up not being better than Price & Eovaldi in 2020 and 2021, his contractual cost tips the balance.

Really? I thought not. They should get up to 50% of the TV revenue, too. (And home teams should get 50% of the away team's TV revenue)

ERod is our best hope beyond 2019. Plus, he's cheap.

It's a lot, if the owner thinks he already way overspent the year before and is facing another max penalty tax and penalty in the next year. It wouldn't bother me at all, if Henry has told DD not to max out this year and to plan to reset after this season. We got another ring, we have a great team to watch again this year, and we still have a good chance to win it all again. Every team wants more, more, more. To be starting the season with just one clear weak area is usually a good thing.