moonslav59

Cora and JD should make a significant difference. Full years from Devers, Nunez, Carson Smith and others should help as well. Of course, we'll likely have others out, and we're already starting the season with Pedey, ERod, Pom and Wright out, but I expected a better season, overall, from our returning players anyways. I wanted to vote for 96 wins, but I did not like the 96-101 bracket as much as 92-95, so I voted 92-95.

So, we have one or maybe 2 more years of Vaz under control. I've always been a big Vaz fan, so I really like this move by DD, It also keeps one of our core players from becoming a free agent at just about the same time.

MLBTR.... Red Sox Extend Christian Vasquez By Kyle Downing | March 24, 2018 at 9:27am CDT The Red Sox have signed catcher Christian Vazquez to a three-year contract extension that’ll run through the 2021 season, as Pete Abraham of the Boston Globe was first to tweet (Vazquez was already set to receive $1.425MM this season after his first trip through the arbitration process). According to Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald, he’s set to receive $2.85MM in 2019, $4.2MM in 2020, and $6.25MM in 2021. The club option is for $7MM, and can increase to $8MM if he manages to accrue at least 502 plate appearances in each of 2020 and 2021. The option comes with a $250K buyout. The extension also comes with a club option for 2022. Jason Mastrodonato of the Boston Herald tweets that Vazquez has offered to make an annual donation to the Red Sox foundation as part of the agreement. He’s represented by MDR Sports Management. Over the course of his career, Vazquez hadn’t received much attention for anything other than his defensive prowess behind the plate. That changed a bit, however, when the now-27-year-old hit .290/.330/.404 across 345 plate appearances for the Red Sox in 2017. While a .348 BABIP suggests that those numbers could regress significantly, the combination of an offensive breakout and a stellar defensive reputation apparently convinced the team that he’s worth keeping in the fold through his age-30 season (and possibly his age-31 season as well). Vazquez will receive $13.55MM in new guarantees from the pact, including the buyout of his option. As for the Red Sox, they’ll receive cost certainty across the catcher’s final two arbitration seasons in addition to delaying his free agency by a year, and possibly two. The pact is somewhat similar to the extension given to Guardians catcher Roberto Perez just last season, who’s also a client of MDR Sports Management. While Vazquez spent last season in a nearly-equal time share with fellow backstop Sandy Leon, the terms of the option (and indeed the extension itself) seem to hint that they’d like to give the lion’s share of at-bats and defensive innings to the former. Considering he’s been worth 31 defensive runs saved in just 1,668 innings behind the dish over the course of his career, more playing time for Vazquez would likely end up paying dividends for Boston. A largely unheralded ninth-round pick by the Red Sox back in 2008, Vazquez has never known another major league organization. It took him six years to crack the MLB club, and even then he didn’t seem to be a core piece of the team right away. Vazquez owned a .309 career slugging percentage prior to last season, and missed all of 2015 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. However, the Red Sox will hope that last year’s 1.6 fWAR showing is more indicative of his talent moving forward.

The Rangers have released Bartolo Colon from his minor-league contract.

The real "ace-in-the-hole" could be ERod. He's been nagged by this knee injury for years. Maybe the surgery will, once and for all, help him become the pitcher we all hoped he'd be.

He's hurt. He's old. We need starters now and probably not at the time Lackey could be ready by. Just say no to John.

So Velazquez can stay up? I thought you judged players by ST'ing numbers.

He's always had decent stuff. Now, let's see it BRIAN!

15 days might be just about what Wright needed to be at 100% or so. It doesn't hurt. I guess we'll see Velazquez game 5.

I guess their trying to go from 3 HRs a year to 5.

Wright should hit 3rd- studies show the worst hitter should go there!

I'd have chosen the ranges like this: 81-90 91-92 93-94 95-96 97-98 99-100 101-102 103-104 105+

With Wright as the DH? Brilliant!

Look at some Sox numbers over these player's first 3-4 years... OPS Betts: .812-.820-.897- .803 Bogey: .660-.776-.802-.746 JBJ: .531- .832- .835- .726 (All three showed a significant drop off after three straight improving seasons. It's more like "Senior slump".) Pedey:.823- .869- .819 Beni: .835- .776 (1st season was only 118 PAs)

Everytime he has a window to show what he's got, he's out hurt himself.

Also, Nunez and Pedey are bot better hitters than Swihart and JBJ.

lol!

Yes, of course. I would not trade Holt. We won't get much in return, for one thing, and we may need him later. Any recent word on Marco?

We don't have deep ML ready minor league depth, but I like our immediate depth at each position. C: Leon and Swihart both on the ML roster gives us immediate catcher depth few teams have. 1B: With HRam and Moreland sharing duty, one can move to FT, if the other is injured with very little drop off. Then, we have Swihart & Travis in the wings. 2B: We might have the best back-up 2Bman in MLB in Nunez. We're super deep here beyond that with Marrero/Holt. Marco, Lin and Quiroz. 3B: Once Pedey returns, we'll have Nunez as the back-up here, again an excellent sub. After Nunez, we have Marco, Marrero, Holt and Lin with maybe Chavis ready by August. SS: Nunez is not the best SS on defense, by far, but he swings a good bat. Beyond him, we have Hernandez, Marrero, Holt and Lin. OF: Our OF depth is not great, but we can put JD in the OF and play HRam and Moreland or use Nunez at DH. That's pretty good. We also have a bunch of guys who aren't really true OF'er, but they can play LF pretty well: Nunez, Swihart and Holt. We can also use Moreland in a pinch. I like our depth now, but down the road, not so much.

I'm not so sure we'll need him. If there's an OF'er injury, we'll use JDM, Swihart and when Pedey is back, Nunez. If a 1Bman gets hurt, we have Moreland or HRam and would probably call up Travis or use Swihart before Holt there. If Pedey returns, Nunez will push Marrero of the roster, unless there's another IF injury, whereby Marrero stays and Holt remains in AAA. If an IF'er gets hurt before Pedey returns, then yes, Holt would and should get the call up over Lin or Chavis. There just this one specific scenario within a specific time frame (Before Pedey's return) where Holt gets called up over someone else, IMO.

Exactly, and even if he returns to the .727 hitter he was in his all star season, who is he ever going to PH for? If we won't use him for his better- than- normal utility IF'er offense, we certainly won't use him for defense! His only real value is his ability to fill-in (notice I did not say play) at 8 positions. This allows a manager to "use up" his entire bench as he see fit, knowing he has Holt at the end of the bench "just in case". I'm sorry, but that has little value compared to Swihart, who is likely a better hitter and can catch or Marrero, someone who can actually field better than all of our opening day infielders. There's more value to marrero as a late inning replacement player than to Holt. Just stash Holt in AAA and move on. Once Pedey returns, we'll have Nunez as the guy that can play 7 positions and Swihart who can play 3-4, including the 2 Nunez can't play.

A story on our OF & OF depth... https://www.overthemonster.com/2018/3/21/17145004/red-sox-depth-chart-outfield-mookie-betts-jd-martinez-andrew-benintendi-jackie-bradley-cole-brannen A story on the IF & IF depth... https://www.overthemonster.com/2018/3/20/17140572/red-sox-depth-chart-infield-brock-holt-deven-marrero-xander-bogaerts-rafael-devers

Yeah, we really need another injured pitcher right now.

Don't know- don't care. I think he's hurt.

Based on like 8 IP in ST'ing games? Wow! You are harsh!