moonslav59

Early Sox Theo. Cub Theo.

As long as he feels good after pitching, I'm viewing this as a positive step. I wasn't expecting a good first outing after so much time off.

Or. it's just as simple as getting a big boost by replacing the 2017 Moreland with the 2016 Ortiz. Even if nobody else got better by the replacement, we'd be way better with Papi's numbers instead of Moreland's.

$20M on Porcello will free up for 2020. Same goes for Hanley and Pablo, thus freeing up $60M between 3 players. Looks to me like we'll have money to spend. Arb raises are going to be enormous, but we certainly will have some money to spend to keep those we want the most. I'm also fairly confident that once we have reset the luxury tax, Henry won't mind going over for a few years in a row. We'll have enough to spend on Sale & Betts, even if they both get over $30M a year, but it might be tough filling out the rest of our roster with lots of players making mid-level or big money.

We should trade Xander and even Betts if they look to walk. (say with 2 years of control left) That means trading Bogey this winter and Betts next winter. It's hard to trade these guys for ML talent. Teams looking to get these guys will likely look to trade away prospects. Maybe a 3 team deal could be worked out, but I just don't see us trading these guys during the "window". We could get comp picks and just use their big money to sign someone else.

Yes, hard to project "nicely" on someone who's never played the OF. DH: maybe. 1B: maybe more likely than LF, but still a maybe. A lot will depend on HRam's ability to play 1B next year without greatly increasing his odd of getting hurt. It would be great, if all our prospects step up quickly and forcefully. Devers takes over for Pablo & Co. Chavis and Travis take over for Moreland (1B) and Young's DH role. Maybe Brentz or Barfield takes over for Young's 4th OF'er role. (Holt could as well.) My guess is, we sign a big bat to play 1B (one year deal?) and delay any need to call-up Chavis.

...and the now was once the future.

Agreed, but he may get a few PAs, and if he does very well, or someone gets hurt or struggles, who knows...

It's hard giving these guys a real chance at the ML level without some sort of back-up plan. It's hard to risk failure on a team looking to make the playoffs everyone of the next 3 years (including 2017). If the back-up plan is someone like Moreland or Morrison, and these kids both fizzle, we'll be right where we are now- sorely lacking at the 1B position in an era of power hitting gone crazy.

A Price opt-out would be a game-changer. I'm not super high on Bogey, but he still won't be easily replaced. (Chatham?) Losing JBJ would hurt very badly.

Last year of team control: 2017: Nunez A Reed Moreland Young Abad Boyer Fister (A Craig comes off the books.) My guess is we sign or trade for a big bat 1Bman and try to fill all our other needs from within the system: FA for Moreland Devers for Pablo Hernandez (Lin/Marrero) for Nunez Holt (Brentz/Barfield) for Young CSmith for A Reed Thornburg for Abad Several choices for Boyer & Fister We may sign another lower level FA or two or wait for the deadline to make adjustments, if needed. 2018: Kimbrel Pomeranz Kelly R Ross HRam (2019 if his options vests) It gets more difficult here. This could be the second year going over the luxury tax, and arb costs could be sky-rocketing. My guess is, assuming no big injuries or surprises, we'll try to keep Pom and Kimbrel (or other pitchers at their current level). We may need to replace Kelly and Ross from within. If we can replace HRam with Chavis or some other in-house player, we'll be fine heading into 2019. We may need to sign another big bat, if Travis, Chavis or no other prospect steps up. 2019: C Sale Bogaerts Porcello Thornburg B Holt Rutledge (Pablo comes off the books) It's hard to project this far away, but clearly our work is cut out for us this winter here. Pablo's money coming off the books can help some. We'll have to keep Sale of find another ace. That won't be cheap. We may say good bye to Bogey, which would probably help allow us to keep Betts & Bradley the following year. 2020: Betts JBJ Wright C Smith Vazquez Leon (Castillo comes off the books- not luxury tax books) The so-called "cliff year" may actually be 2021 2021: ERod Pedroia Barnes Hembree Swihart Elias 2022: Price TBD: Beni Devers Hernandez Travis Lin Marrero Workman Scott Taylor Johnson Maddox Martin Velazquez N Ramirez H Owens

It's been fun watching the Sox lately, and hopefully our rotation will get healthy and back in the groove come playoff time.

Cashman has been nothing short of brilliant of late. Much of his success has been in acquiring top prospects with no value except speculative. Hmmmm.....

If the Sox can't afford to pay market rate for a younger-than-normal FA stud, then who can? Our problem is we have too many becoming FAs within a 2 year span. We should be able to keep 2 or 3 out of our big 4 (Betts, Sale, JBJ & Bogey) but probably not all 4.

Well said. The word "cliff" might be hyperbole, but we don't have to go back too far to see a recent "cliff". We finished last in 3 of 4 years. How was our farm from 2007-2010 or 2008-2011? Why was our farm so weak? Could it have been years of getting draft picks in the mid to late 20's? The turn around of our farm under Theo's last years and Ben's years were fueled by comp picks, international signings and drafting "unsignable" players lower in the draft. The comp picks and free spending on international FAs are gone. Our draft picks should be mid 20's for the next 2-3 years. To me, it's bit more than "uncertainty" but maybe a bit less than a "cliff".

Gray pitched pretty well. It was more "splashy", but it was also a great trade (IMO).

We will need a 1B/DH next year and another one after HRam bolts.

They must be Buttah!

Unless we'll need Nunez at 2B or SS, I think Nunez at DH negates the need for Travis, although one could argue for a Moreland-Travis platoon at 1B. I agree with you. Boost the D by calling up Marrero or Lin. If we do need Nunez at 2B or SS, then maybe using Brentz or Barfield, or even Chavis at DH might be a better call than improving our bench IF defense.

He certainly looks ML ready with the bat, and since he's being moved to 1B, he may be used as a DH in September. In the past, the Sox have promoted players to the bigs on just 10 games at their new position. I'm not sure they'd try that with Chavis at 1B. DH seems safer.

Go for the big sweep. Put some distance between us and the Yanks (and others).

Moreland at 1B: he's heating up. Nunez at DH. No or little rest for Bogey, and Pedey better get well quickly. Calling up Lin or Marrero makes sense, if HRam goes on the DL, but maybe giving Brentz a look would work out better. Another option might be calling up Travis or Barfield.

The Sox can go over the limit by just under $20M and not incur extreme non monetary penalties. Even with the tax up pretty high by 2020 and 2021, if Henry gives the okay to spend big, we could possibly fill a big hole or two with successful FA signings AND successfully fill another hole or two with some maturing prospects that work out better than lower picks normally do. It's not impossible. We could be pretty good in 2020 and 2021, but IMO, it will be very difficult to remain highly competitive those years and probably 2022 as well. Those years are far away. It's hard to know anything for sure even about 2018 and 2019 let alone several years afterwards, but DD will have his work cut out for him come 2020.

HRam not only need 1050 PAs in 201702018 combined, he also needs to pass the team physical. With his constant shoulder issues, they might already know they have the goods on him to send him packing. If they don't then you are right. We'll need to figure out how to limit HRam's PAs next year.