moonslav59

Good point. Despite his huge break-out year, players like him are a dime-a-dozen. Give me your priority list, please. I'm all ears.

So true, but that's what people kept telling me when I dreamed of Chris Sale in a Sox uniform.

Could be, but if we sign a 1Bman, it goes down a lot. HRam's ability to play 1B is also a factor, especially if we sign a DH type like JD Martinez. Travis looks like he took a step back last year, so Chavis can certainly leap frog him. I wonder about Chavis at 2B.

Fall League Update: Swihart is 6 for 13 with 5 walks and 2 Ks. He has been catching. Chavis .314/.351/.429 Travis is 4 for 17 with 3 BBs. Brentz is batting .147 in 34 ABs with 1 HR. Chad de la Guerra .235 but has 2 HRs in just 17 ABs. Ty Buttrey 1 ER in 3.1 IP Owens is still wild. Time to DFA the poor kid (7BB in 5IP)

Stop picking on our elders!

Agreed.

I'm thinking the same thing. Same with Betts. We need big years from at least two of these guys: Betts, Beni, Bogey, JBJ or HRam. Only HRam is past prime. If that doesn't happen, we could possibly get a monster year from Devers or something surprising from Pedey or Vaz.

I know about Bird, and I wish he was on our team, but I thought of him, too, when I mentioned several to many Yanks could decline next year like our young and mid-ranged players did this year. (We had no old players.)

I caught a lot of flack for saying I felt the 2917 Sox lacked "fire and desire" as well as "focus". I'm hopeful we see a noticeable difference next year. I think that might be one reason we hired Cora.

I don't think our amount of injuries were that much as compared to the norm. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I think we might have been at about the mean for days lost to injury. Players playing hurt is another matter, and it is hard to quantify. Certainly HRam's surgery confirms he was playing hurt, and it was obvious Pedey was, too. The Betts and Bogey injuries seemed real to me. I agree on your basic assessment on where our players will be next year, except for Smith, where you expected "about the same". Unless he misses 4 months, I don't see how he gives us worse than 2017. As for LH'd RP'ers, we have Scott and maybe R Ross, but more importantly, we have several righties that do really well ve LHBs: OPS against .572 Kimbrel .641 Taylot .671 Kelly not bad... .720 Maddox I do think we look for a lefty RP'er, unless we feel Thornburg will be back sooner than some think. We might also make the choice to put Brian Johnson in the pen. However, with the 5th starter in question, keeping Johnson stretched out might make more sense.

DiMaggio .383 Bench: Wally Moses .340 Matt Batts .391 Billy Hitchcock .341 Vern Stephens went crazy after 1948: 1949 .290 39 159* (.391 OBP) 1050 .295 30 144* (.361 OBP) * led MLB The '49 Sox had none of their top 10 PAs guys under a .350 OBP. They had 3 guys over .400 and 5 over .390! 2 guys had 159 RBIs!!!! 1950 was even better! 5 of the top 10 players were over .413! None were under .361. 8 were over .377. 4 guys with 27+ HRs and 2 guys with 144 RBI. Never made the playoffs those 3 years!

Agreed. Improving on Moreland could be a big plus. I think we add one great bat or two really good ones, somehow- someway. More from Devers, Smith, Maddox, Workman and maybe something from Ross and/or Thorburg could be a big plus. No Pablo, Rutledge and a few others is addition by subtraction.

They could experience what we experienced this year: just about very returning player declining, even those at ages of normally seen improvement.

There's certainly reason to be concerned about the staff, but with all the "what can go wrongs" there are as many "what can go rights." Porcello doesn't have to be like 2016 to be a big improvement over 2017. Pomeranz could easily be for real and repeat or improve on 2017. Price gave us just about nothing last year as a starter. It's not hard to imagine him doing better or much better. Wright was a decent pitcher before his great start to 2016. There's a chance he can do better than the 30 starts by Fister-Johnson-Velazquez-Kendrick + the 2017 Wright. We might get a surprise from Johnson or Velazquez. I realize this is being overly optimistic, but certainly a few of these things can come true, while the others just stay even. We were 13-11 in ERod's starts, and his 4.19 ERA was higher than the team starter 4.06 ERA. Would I rather have ERod than Wright, Velazquez and Johnson? Hell yes, but we might be surprised next year. We may also pick up a better starter than Fister. I'm also thinking our pen will be better and deeper. We have Smith returning, Maddox and Workman for the full year and maybe something from Ross or Thorburg.

If we have close to $40M to spend, like I think we do, I think we should be able to get a good power hitter and solid pitcher for that kind of money. The problem is that there aren't many very good power hitters on the market that match our highest positions of need: 1B DH, if HRam can play 1B enough possibly 3B, if we move Devers to 1B Trading means we give up a player and create a new hole or further deplete an already weakened farm.

Moose is a risk. I've said that. I'm not drooling over him, but he addresses our power issue better than Hosmer, and he also solves our 3B defense issue, though not to a great level. Devers and HRam could share 1B and DH.

I'd start with Moose at 3B and Devers at 1B, but let Devers take reps at 3B and play some games when Moose rests. I wouldn't risk games lost with an obvious and significantly worse defender at 3B everyday. Don't wait to lose two games and then make the move.

I'm not judging him. I was actually agreeing with your statement, "I think a lot of it is players being healthier and playing better. Seriously, this team had issues with both - and won 93 games! And note - Benintendi, Betts, Bradley did not actually have bad years ... they had years which were right in the middle of the bell curve of outcomes for them...." Betts had wrist issues too, so I'm not sure why he was listed and not Bogey.

We should also have a full season from Maddox and Workman, plus maybe something from Robbie Ross.

Moustakas is a similar gamble to Hosmer. He's only 28 and 2017 looks like it COULD be a fluke. 34 HRs is a lot more than Hosmer's 25. Moose also has 3 straight years over .800, but his pre-2015 numbers are very low. He's barely a plus UZR/150 over the last 3 years combined (+0.2), but that's way better than Devers. One has to then consider the poor defense at 1B with Devers for a while anyways. Moose is not my favorite guy, but this year's free agent class only has one big slugger: JD Martinez. Moustakas looks like the safest 2nd choice, if power is what you are looking for. The .305 career OBP is scary, although it's been .329 over the last 4 years.

Santana is maybe my third FA choice, if we miss out on JD Martinez and Moustakas.

Maybe try JD Martinez at 1B. We still have HRam and Travis as back-ups. The Devers move to 1B could be a reality sooner than we want. That's one major reason to look for a 1 year signing, even if it's a massive overpay.

Abreu will cost top prospects. Just sign someone to a 1 year deal and see if Devers needs to be moved to 1B. Don't logjam 1B with an iffy player and 4-5 years.

Moreland is a much better fielder, but Hosmer is better than Moreland by a lot. It's the 4 years plus that kills any idea of signing him. (No Moreland either!)

I said he "could be" a one year wonder. Duda has been more consistent with his OPS and power. HRs Duda: 30, 27, 7 (in 172 PAs), 30 Hoze: 17, 9, 25, 25 SLG Duda 481>486>412>496 Hoze 398>459>433>498