moonslav59

Yes, I read somewhere that the new CBA specifically addressed this type of situation. In the new baseball agreement, the Red Sox "would have the average annual value of Castillo’s contract (around $10.4MM) counted on their luxury tax calculations through the end of the outfielder’s deal in 2020, even if they called up Castillo for even just one day... Castillo may not have a clear path back to the bigs at all for over three years." Here's the link: http://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2017/06/22/rusney-castillo-reborn-but-also-stuck-pawtucket/WXXV4C6o8xF3h4zCC5q6KL/story.html Note: Castillo has an opt-out after 2019. Perhaps we can make some sort of agreement the Player's Association will be okay with that allows him to find another place to play and take some of the money loss away.

We'd have to give even more in talent by making any team take on Price, HRam and Castillo. Miami doesn't want any of those three. If they do trade GS, it will be for at least 4-5 top quality young players or prospects.

How about kudos to JF for calling out players making bonehead plays instead of merely performing poorly? It hasn't happened (that I know of). It's more than just base-running blunders, and I'm not talking about being a little over-aggressive at times. It's fielders forgetting how many outs there are, throwing to the wrong base, and allowing players to go from 1st to 3rd on a simple passed ball by just jogging back to the back stop and casually turning to look to see if the runner is blitzing to 3B. Lots and lots of little things that can and may end up biting us in the ass when it really matters.

Teams know, if they claimed him and offered nothing in trade, the Marlins would just pull him back off waivers. That's why nobody claimed him. Now that nobody claimed him, any team can work out a waiver-wire deal. I doubt Miami would offer to pay any of his salary. That's the only reason they might have to trade away the only real big fan appeal player they have. I doubt he gets traded this August. I'd put the odds pretty low for a winter deal as well. With budget issues on the Sox horizon in 2019 and 2020, I seriously doubt we even kick the tires. My "offer" was somewhat tongue and cheek and was meant to give an idea of what a starting point to any trade might be.

When was the last time anyone on talksox or in the media said, "you know, those guys won because the manager made some great moves." I heard it said of Tito. I praised Tito a lot, before the team went AWOL on him. I didn't really "blame" Tito for that either as he certainly had reasonable distractions going on in his life. This team has not gone AWOL, but there does not seem to be any accountability with repeated bone head plays. The "fire and desire" are back, and I thank Nunez and Devers (and Beni- bonehead plays and all) for that.

Of course other managers make mistakes. Of course other teams' players make mental mistakes and blunders. I get that. I've just never seen so many bone-head plays by Sox players in a long, long time. Yes, the players have to take responsibility, but a manager does have a role in teaching, re-teaching and demanding good solid fundamental baseball. There's been a clear lack of focus, when you see multiple instances of players not knowing how many outs there are, or when it's okay to gamble on trying to go to 3B. I've watched just about every pitch of every Sox game for decades, and I've never seen anything like this. It actually seems to be getting worse, even as we are winning. To me, that indicates there seems to be no consequences for lacking focus. I know it's not easy to stay focused 100% of every moment of every game, but a severe lack of focus is surely a reflection of the manager. Yes, "fire and desire" comes from the players, but JF is certainly not known for inspirational skills. He looks like a bump on a log all game. I saw more fire and desire last year. I'm seeing it now since the Nunez trade. Devers' call up and heroics helped as well. I'm hopeful I won't have to say it's missing the rest of the year.

He's made some "plus plays" for sure. I like what I'm seeing on both ends.

Great point. Also, with 4 errors in 141 innings, we can see why there was a little concern over his readiness on defense. I love the call-up. I said all along, I trust Sox management to know when "when" is. I think they nailed it dead on. Sure, one can argue about how badly our 3Bmen did before the call-up. We can all wonder "what if..." until the cows come home, but we're in first place. Devers looks as comfortable as any mid-season call up could possibly look. No complaints here.

Who cares? Nunez at SS and Price for ERod.

Yes. I'd do it, if the contract does not go too much past 34 or 35 years old.

Stanton passed through waivers. Would Bogey, ERod, Groome, Chavis and Travis get the talks started?

Sad.

One could have argued we waited too long to bring Rice & Lynn up. Devers is doing great. I'm fine with the way things have turned out with this choice.

JD Martinez and others...

Really?

What I was trying to say was that if we are going to hand out that type of contract to a 30+ year old pitcher, Price would be the best bet. That was my opinion from the start as well. My other main opinion was to save top prospects for trades like Sale (and/or Quintana). Great pitchers with low-cost and 3+ years of team control.

We could have a 4 man bench like this: C Leon IF/LF Nunez IF/OF Holt or OF Brentz (Castillo) IF Hernandez (Lin or Marrero)

Runs per game with Devers playing: 85 in 16 games= 5.32 Runs per game with Nunez playing: 86 in 15 games= 5.73 Nunez did not play 7/25 (5 runs scored) and 7/26 (4 runs scored) Devers did not play 8/9 (8 runs scored) Both players have made a tremendous difference in our run scoring. Devers 11 R + 12 RBI - 6 HR= 17 in 16 games Nunez 9R + 12 RBI - 4 HR= 17 in 15 games I'm not taking anything away from Devers here. Without him, we'd have lost a few more games, but Nunez has been huge as well.

One could say Devers is (and then some). Plus, Nunez has done much better than Pedey. Nunez has also played 3B and DH.

If his role will be to only start vs LHPs in LF or DH, then his numbers look good, but who will he start for? We can see now how Young, one of MLB's best hitters vs LHPs over the last 3-4 years, is being squeezed out of playing time. If Pedey wasn't injured, I doubt Young would play over Nunez, HRam or Beni vs LHPs. Also, we always go into these things looking for someone who kills lefties, and then we end up playing them ve RHPs more than we wanted due to injuries. Sometimes, it works (Cody Ross), sometimes it doesn't all that well (Gomes struggled at times as Young has this year). I'm not against giving Brentz a shot at the 4th OF slot next year, in fact, I'm not for signing an OF'er this winter, but maybe a guy like Nunez, who can play LF, if needed. Better stat: OPS splits vs RHP/LHP Brentz in minors 2017 .850/1.035 AAA 2016 .621/.930 AAA and .690/.598 AA 2015 .656/.767 AAA 2014 .698/.765 AAA 2013 .789/.785 AAA

They also added Nunez during the same time. He's been a big part of the increased run production as well.

I don't. I get the argument that by adding him to the 40 man roster the luxury tax will be less than signing a FA like Young, but the 2 big flaws outweigh the possible plus. 1) He may not be as good as Young, or whoever we might have signed or even a cheaper Brentz. 2) Once we re-add him to the 40 man roster, his $11M AVV will count against our luxury tax budget for the remainder of his contract, even if we send him back down or remove him from the 40 man roster. That's 3 more years of taxes that could be 20%, then 30% then 50%. That's an "extra" tax of about $11M, which is close to what we paid Young for 2 years combined, or is the equivalent of a decent RP'er for 3 years.

We could use Holt as the 4th OF'er, but if we sign Nunez, he could play LF. I don't see Lin in the picture, unless someone gets hurt. I see Hernandez as our utility IF'er over Holt, Lin and Marrero. It all depends on who we sign. My guess is, we'll sign a 1Bman, and if we get one who can also play LF, maybe we can do without a true 4th OF'er, especially if Holt is still around. Signing an OF'er who can DH makes less sense to me. Trading for Dozier or signing Nunez makes more sense as well. There just are not that many great FA options out there this year that meet our biggest needs: Power clean-up hitter Shorter term contract

It depends on the prospects.

Fair enough. I'm a huge Wright fan, by the way. I had him as our #4 this year.