moonslav59

While this off season was frustrating, so many big named players were not being signed by anyone. I never understood why DD was blamed for nobody signing with anybody. I get your complaint about not signing a pitcher, even to a minor league deal, but the JD signing came in below expectations financially, and yet we still only have about $4M to play with this summer. It looks like not signing anyone else might prove to be the best move, as $4M can buy us much more paying just the pro-rated portion of a better pitcher in July rather than some bum in January.

There's no ideas for Travis. Unless there's an injury, he's like 5th on the depth chart at 1B. 1. HRam 2. Moreland 3. Maybe JDM 4. Swihart 5. Holt or Travis

Is this your first time?

I don't think it's a manager's job to hand out condoms.

What wall?

I don't see the same type future rookie value level, but there's chances of surprises. For example, Betts was drafted 172nd in 2011 and only reached number 10 in the soxprospects rankings by the fall of 2013. I doubt we have someone like Betts hiding in the system, but who knows. We've become accustomed to not believing in any of our starting pitcher prospects after dud after dud. Here's my look at possible prospect arrival times... 2018: Devers, Travis, Beeks 2019: Chavis, Ockimey, Shawaryn, D Hernandez, Chatham, Thompson 2020: Groome, Houck, Brannen, Scherff 2021-2022: Mata, D Diaz

Here's a look at our arb players and what arb year it is.... 2017 Salary and next winter's arb year $10.5M Betts 2 of 3 $7.05M Bogey 3 of 3 $6.10M JBJ 3 of 4 $2.38M ERod 2 of 4 $2.23M Holt 3 of 3 $2.05M Thornburg 3 of 3 $1.95M S Leon 3 of 4 $1.43M Vazquez 2 of 3 $1.10M Wright 2 of 3 $850K C Smith 2 of 3 $835M Workman 2 of 3 1 of 3: Elias, Barnes & Hembree 1 of 4: Swihart Maybe Holt & Leon or Swihart are gone by next year, but there's still a lot of money going to arb raises next year.

My line of thought is, I don't care about ST'ing at all. If he's hitting .050 in May, then I'll worry.

Yes, and I can't see us striving to reset again next winter. Maybe after 2019, but if we haven't won a ring in these next two years, I think Henry will keep the big spending window open one more year at the maximum tax rate. A reset will likely take place after 2019 or 2020, which will coincide with the end of our window of top competitiveness.

I don't know about you all, but I can't wait until opening day!

Same as in the 60's.

He could be oh for 100 in ST'ing, and he'd still be my number 40.

He's "Ben" secretly taking orders from the coffee boy.

See now? That wasn't so hard to do, was it?

Will you talk badly about him, if he is unduly credited or praised?

By all accounts our staff (as a whole) over performed last year. I blame Leon and Vaz and JF for that success. (Note: it's one of the very few things I gave JF credit for.)

Maybe DD views the following things as "adding to our pitching depth:" 1) The eventual return of Wright 2) Finally fixing ERod's knee issue once and for all (hopefully) 3) A full season from Carson Smith 4) Something from Thornburg 5) A full season from Workman 6) Maddox more of a known and available all season 7) Velazquez viewed as a better option than he was last Spring. 8) Johnson healthy to start the season. 9) Beeks closer to ML ready. 10) Kelly, Barnes, Scott and Hembree all showing better projections than they did last March. Of course, nobody believes all of this will come out positive, but there is hope our staff will be better this year, even without any additions. Yes, one could argue our pen over performed last year and expecting it to do so again is nothing more than wishful thinking. I'm optimistic. I wish we'd add a cheap vet to a minor league deal, but we have about $4M to spend, and we might be better served waiting to the deadline, when we can trade for a higher priced pitcher with a pro-rated cost to us and our tight budget. Fister did a pretty good job for us last season, and he's gone now, but he was 5-9 with a 4.88 ERA. (We were 8-7 in his starts, though.) Is this, as a whole, addition by subtraction? IP Pitcher 90 Fister 58 Abad 41 Boyer 27 Reed 17 Taylor 9 R Ross 8 Kendrick 6 N Ramirez + Moreland If we replace these 250+ innings with.... 100+ more IP from Price 100+ more IP from Wright (or Workman/Scott) 50+ more IP from Smith and Thornburg

LOL That can be his day off.

OPS from 2016-2017 .985 JD Martinez .851 Betts .819 Devers .811 HRam .799 Pedey .785 Beni .784 JBJ .778 Nunez .776 Bogey .746 Moreland .741 Leon .683 Vazquez .653 B Holt Not bad having 9 guys over .775, but we have to start a catcher...

Yes, it was much better than I portrayed it to be, but if you want to count Swihart and Owens, then Betts wasn't even top 20 on soxprospects.com when Ben took over. I stand corrected. I was wrong. It was a very good farm, in hindsight and was 9th in BA rankings.

I've said numerous times, I have no problem with what DD has done. I'm not sure what more I can say to convince you I mean it. We will not reset the tax next winter, even if HRam does not vest. We may "get rid of Kimbrel and Pom", but we will need to replace them with somebody costly or close the window to another ring.

ErrR is, and that is part of UZR/150. I'm not sure about Edge, but I think DRS and EDGE include all plays made or that could be made.

I'm standing by my position. It was depleted. Middy, Ranaudo, Bogey, Iggy, Lava... The farm Ben left for DD: Moncada, Devers, Espi, Beni, Kopech... Night & Day.

There's no way Lin makes the 25 man roster. He's got options, while many others don't.

There are more built-in days off this year. I'm not for a 6 man rotation. I think our pen really stepped up last year, and by adding Smith and maybe Thornburg at some point, plus full seasons from Workman and Maddox, if needed, we should be even better with our pen this year. I'd like to see us add a vet SP'er, but we only have about $4M to spend. If we can wait until mid season, we'll only owe a pro-rated share of a better pitcher's contract than one we can afford to sign now.