moonslav59

What makes you think he's a good defensive 1Bman? I'm open to the idea though. I think he has the best chance at being a great clean-up hitter next year, and he won't cost us any prospects or draft picks by signing him.

If we release him, I'm not sure if that frees us from the vesting option, if he goes elsewhere and gets enough PAs.

There really aren't many big bopper 1Bman FAs this year. Moustakas is probably a better bet (for power) than Hosmer, Duda, Morrison, Alonso or any other FA 1Bman. Machado is available next winter. Normally, you are right, good 1Bmen are a dime a dozen, but we need more than just "good", and I don't see any, unless we make a trade. I also don't think signing an OF'er (JD Martinez) to be a DH is better than finding a 3Bman or 1Bman. It would force HRam to play 1B FT... Yuck!

I've said all along "Nobody knows for sure." Even if Sale decline, we'll still need to replace him with an ace. If we have to do that through free agency, we can't keep all of our core or maybe even most of it. Yes, Chavis, Mata, Flores and I'll add Groome can help or provide trade pieces, but the pool of top prospect talent is smaller than it might have been. By trading away so many prospects, we have a significantly smaller chance of getting multiple trade pieces or cheap young infusion into our 25 man roster by 2020 or 2021. I've never said we will completely "stike out" in 3-4 years. As long as our budget is near the top, I can't see us ever being projected to finish last, and that's why I've brought up the subjectivity of the word "cliff". To me, the "cliff means we are likely, not surely, not going to be HIGHLY competitive for at least a 2-3 year window beginning in 2020 or 2021. Others may think worse. Many think we'll do better.

We'll knock of Houston for you, if you knock off Cleveland for us. Deal? It would be fun to see a BOS-NYY AL Championship series again. Too bad for you, you get swept!

The good thing is, every player we lose this winter is not a very essential piece to 2018 success, except maybe Nunez. $6.5M Young $6.0M Davis (but we pay about 1/3) $5.5M Moreland $4.2M Nunez (but we pay only about 1/3) $2M Abad (Fister & Boyer) All together this is a significant amount of money coming off the books- maybe close to $18M. Option and Arb raises will eat up just about all of that, if not more. The hope is Henry is going to open up the wallet and allow us to go significantly over the luxury tax limit, since the tax is now reset. That should be enough for one mega signing- most likely a clean-up hitter that plays 1B, but it could be a DH type or a 3bman, if we deccide to move Devers to 1B over the winter.

Who is panicking. The panic comes if 3 years. 5 of the 9 positions you listed will be up for free agency before or at 3 years. Here's the staff years: After this year... Years 0 Fister 1 Pomeranz 2 Sale 2 Porcello 3 Wright 4 Rodriguez 5 or 1 if opts out Price Pen 0 Reed, Abad 1 Kimbrel, Kelly, Ross 2 Thornburg, Workman 3 Smith 4 Barnes, Hembree 4+ Scott, Maddox It;s going to get very expensive trying to keep all the best ones.

I'm happy with this year's draft picks, but it's way too early. I think we did very well with international signings, considering the new restrictions. (I've felt good about other drafts and signings that have not worked out well.) I'm hoping like hell I'm dead wrong about the cliff. Nothing is certain in baseball- you just go with the odds and hope for the best. You try to improve your odds on paper ever winter and sometimes at the deadline. But, the game is played on the field, and anything can happen.

I'm not in denial that these guys brought us great talent for a 2-3 year window. Some seem to be in denial about how losing these prospects will affect our long term future. I'm not lamenting anything. I'm enjoying the ride. Personally, I think we went too far and we'll feel the effects later. I'm not sticking my head in the sand. I have also said again and again that I was not against trading top prospects, especially ones blocked by others. I suggested trading Moncada for Sale many times long before it happened. I suggested trading Margot, Espinoza and others for Sale and/or Quintana. I'm not for keeping each and every prospect, but it is nothing short of astounding the sheer number of top prospects traded in a very small time frame. I'm not crying about it. It is what it is. We almost certainly sacrificed some of our future for a 3 year window. I've seen teams do it for a one year window. I'm glad we didn't do that. I'm not upset. I'm going to love watching the Sox over the next 3-4 years. I'm going to watch them afterwards, God willing, and I hope I can enjoy them as much as I will from now until 2021, but I'm thinking the odds are stacked against us being as good as we are now.

Some of the names on the list are not big names, some were better prospects when we traded them, some were better long before we traded them. What's astounding to me is what a tight time frame all these guys got dealt in, and how some seem to feel trading all these guys will barely affect our long term outlook.

Well, if Price had a season close to what Sale is having, we would have still been a strong competitor. Nothing wrong with having 2 or more aces has always been my mantra. Pedro/Schilling Beckett/Shilling Lester/Lackey

We do have injuries, but most should be back for the playoffs. I'm hopeful we can peak when it counts.

MAybe, but we had too many different players to make a good scenario comparison.

I'm not sure where this is coming from, but I have played the game and do more than "lip service" to the intangibles of the game and to aspects not captured by stats and data. For example, I'm a huge believer in the importance of a catcher's relationship with the staff that goes well beyond the CERA argument. BTW, I do not intentionally "hint at knowing more", but I guess by providing data to support my point of view, it probably comes off that way, at times. When someone makes a claim that so and so has been in a slump, but the guy has been over .800 for the past 7 days, 14 days or 28 days, I'm going to say what I feel needs to be said.

Yeah, it was scary, but I still maintain that if Porcello and HRam had their 2016 seasons in 2015, Ben would have been given at least another year's life.

I totally agree, and the thought that guys like Sale don't come available very often. (Then again, Quintana and Gray were recently traded in what I thought were actual "underpays".)

Hard to know: they were a .552 team before the streak began.

Or, a stranglehold on the 2 slot would work, too.

I was joking, but some have hinted at knowing more, because they played the game at a somewhat higher level than the rest of us.

It's shocking to me that some seem to feel trading away all the prospects listed below is not going to have a major impact on our long term outlook. I have no issue with the argument that we might be smart over the next few years, draft better than we have in the past with picks below number 20, sign a few more good international free agents with less money to spend, and do better with our free agent signings than Pablo, HRam and Price. Maybe we can acquire enough good prospects to make another Sale-type trade before 2020 arrives. Sure, any of this is possible, however we may need close to all of this happening to be HIGHLY COMPETITIVE in 2020 or 2021. To me, that is improbable, if not highly improbable. Recently traded prospects listed by highest ranking on soxprospects.com 1 Yoan Moncada 3 Anderson Espinoza 3 Manuel Margot 3 Garin Cecchini 5 Michael Kopech 6 Javier Guerra 7 Luis Ax. Basabe 9 Maurice Dubron 12 Travis Shaw (not a prospect when traded) 12 Wendell Rijo 13 Logan Allen 13 Pat Light 18 Luis Aj. Basabe 20 Carlos Asuage 21 Victor Diaz 24 Josh Pennington 30 Aaron Wilkerson 40 Jose Almonte Now, clearly some of these guys have fallen off since the trade or had fallen off before the trade, but the sheer magnitude of top prospects traded makes it next to impossible to believe that none of these guys would have made made a positive impact on 2020 and 2021. Chances are several would have. None of us "cliff-dwellers" have ever said we did not want to trade any of these guys. We had some duplicated value that almost necessitated some players being traded away at some point. Just abou all these guys were traded away for players under team control for 2-3 years only. There's never been an emptying of the farm like this under Henry's reign. Theo always tried to balance prospect trades and spread them out over many years. Ben may have held onto too many prospects and for too long, but I for one, find it confusing that so many posters seem to feel like it just takes "smart management" to be able to recover from such a massive loss of young talent. It would have been hard, not impossible but hard, to recover, even if the rules haven't changed. It's much harder knowing the rules have changed significantly.

Hmm. I am still not convinced that the situation is dire. I'm not totally convinced there will be a cliff, but I'm pretty sure there will one. "Nobody pretends to know for sure" - this is simply not true and you know it. No, I don't "know it" at all. This is so far from the truth. For one thing, I'm sure there is a wide range of what some might even call a "cliff". To me, a cliff mean we will not be highly competitive. We will not have high expectations going into the 2021 season, and maybe even 2020. That doesn't mean we might not squeak into the playoffs by over performing. That doesn't mean I am setting the standards low. I thought we'd be highly competitive in 2014 and 2015, so even though we ended up finishing in last place, I would not have called those years "cliff years" before they started. My point is, there is a lot of gray area just on the definition of what a "cliff" is. Secondly, I have not heard one poster say they are sure we will hit a cliff. We will still be one of the highest paid teams in 2020 and 2021, but as 2012, 2014 and 2015 showed that does not guarantee a highly competitive team in reality. We could probably have a 1,000 page debate on whether we were or were not "highly competitive" going into or during those 3 last place seasons. Extending that to conjecture over this team's position in 3-4 years is certainly not anything anyone can say "for sure". The game of team building has had some rule changes. Changes that effect all MLB teams, not just the Sox. Yes, some, but many are clearly only going to affect teams straddling the Luxury Tax line and who would overpay for draft picks that fall in the draft due to signability issues for poorer teams. The international FA signing pool changes will affect higher spending teams. We've already seen many rich teams trade prospects for bonus slot money. Of course, that is a change from before. Rules have been changed that affect poorer teams, like forcing them to spend more on their player payroll budget, but that pales in comparison to all the rules that were designed to make rich teams have a harder time acquiring top young talent. With good management and strategy I see no reason why the Sox can not continue to compete. You see "no reason"? All I can say is "WOW!" And it is not like the abundance of Sox prospects that graduated and others who were used in deals have yielded an abundance of championships. In other words, being a rich team does not guarantee a f***ing thing. It certainly helps a lot. There are times when poor teams compete and even win, but spending makes a huge difference. HUGE! My primary question remains unanswered. We've answered. You just don't like the answers.

The Yanks have not come close to their 2014 off season signing barrage, but they may again someday soon. That winter, they signed 4 players who had declined QOs (Kurda, McAnn, Beltran & Ellsbury).

Yes, but if you want to view it that way, then combine both contracts and the net cost is slightly lessened: instead of being $20.6M x 4, it would be $19M x 5.

But, look what the Dodgers replaced Greinke with. They still keep spending and spending while saying they are going to slow down with their budget. Just their trades during the year have added a ton of contractual costs- even though short term. Granderson Yu Darvish Last winter, they paid large and long to keep Jansen ($80M/5 for a closer) and Turner ($64M/4). They also signed Rich Hill to $48M/3. Not that Rich is an even replacement for Greinke, but they still spent super large last winter. The winter before, they gave Brett Anderson a QO and signed: Kazmir $48M/3 Maeda $25M/8 Kendrick $20M/2 Y Sierra $30M/6 Plus, Utley $7M/1, Howell $6M/1, Blanton $4M/1 The Yanks have let many of their big contracts walk, but many retired or were way over the hill to begin with.

Porcello was not on the "giant contract" year one, so it's not "33%". It's been 25% of the whole deal and over 50% of the giant deal, so far. The rest I agree on.