moonslav59

Agreed. My mention of Kelly would be if we go mega on 2 big bats and JH insists on a short term contract. A trade for Ryan and a Kelly signing would be nice, but not if it prevents that second big bat we need.

Not to mention Bello's 2026 vs 2025. He was a clear second in SP'er IP (162) and had a 3.34 ERA. True, replacing Buehler should be easy (110 IP and 5.40 ERA) as well as Houck (8.04 in 44 IP.) Those two started 31 games. Replacing them with more from Early (2.33) Harrison (4.00) Dobbins (4.25) Crawford (n/a) and Sandoval (n/a) could be the boost we need, but we all know someone else will get hurt. We also lose some other spot starters like May (5.68) Newcomb (4.43) and maybe less from Fitts (4.83) as a SP'er, but every year I point out all the "additions by subtractions" it never works out that way. The only way I'm okay with adding just one SP'er is if it is a solid #1/2 type like Ryan, Lodolo or better, AND we add 2 big bats. (One bat can be a sideways move like keeping Bregman or signing Bichette instead.) I like out SP'er depth and am confident we can find 3 capable rotation guys for the 3-5 slots from: Sandoval, Crawford, Dobbins, Fitts & Harrison Early, Tolle & Perales Emergency depth: Criswell, Uberstine, Drohan or a jump from AA by Clarke, Holobetz, Rivera, Paez or Wehunt/Rogers.

True, and they both dropped off near the end. Do you think bringing Bregman back and replacing Gio with Ryan, with not other significant additions is enough to jump us up a level?

That's not insane money or years, but I'm kinda glad we are not signing another large injury risk SP'er. That being said, the one "durable" guy we signed, Gio, missed half of his 2 year deal.

The article I read seemed to think Kim is due for a significant uptick, but I'm not for another dice roll for 2B.

Mayer is better at 3B than Polanco, so why? I doubt this is a good idea, either: vs RHP 2B: Polanco/ 3B Mayer vs LHPs 2B: Romy/ 3B Polanco I'd rather not do this.

Ryan might be an improvement over the 2025 Gio, but not big enough to get us to top competitive status. Bregman may not improve on the 2025 Bregman, even if he stays healthy all year. I'd be happy with Ryan, and I'd much rather have Ryan for 2026 than re-signing Gio, but how much better can he be than 2025 Gio?

Kelly may be borderline #2.

Perhaps. He has paid $140M/6 and $110M/5, but we'll see if he tops that.

He's horrible, so is Casas. Worse than horrible is possible, but is it a big deal breaker?

Or Matz 1/5 I was thinking more in line of the first big FA to sign anywhere.

Maybe 2025 was a blip, but Abreu did make major strides in hitting lefties. His .676 OPS is pretty close to sustainable, especially if you see how Cora felt Duran's much lower OPS vs LHPs was sustainable. OPS vs LHPs Duran: .428 in 30 PAs '21, .509 in 27 PAs in '22, when he only started 8 gms v L and 50 v R- that was a platoon, folks! Then, Duran turned it around: .749 in 49 PAs in '23 but still 73 GS vs R and just 9 vs L, so this whole notion that Cora has not platooned Duran is a false narrative, unless you look at just 2024 and 2025. As soon as Duran went FT, his OPS vs L dropped and dropped again: .665 in '24 (230 PAs: 117 GS v R/43 GS v L- a strict FT player) .600 in '25 (209 PAs: 116 GS v R and 36 v L- still a FT player) _________________ Abreu has not been in MLB as long as Duran, and in a sense is 2 years behind him, and here are his splits vs LHPs (note the smaller sample sizes due to a near or full platoon) .400 in '23 (just 10 PAs: GS 18 v R and 1 v L) .532 in '24 (67 PAs, which is more PAs than Duran had in '21 and '22 combined!) 104 GS vs R and 6 v L (pretty much a strict platoon) .676 in '25 (68 PAs, which is more PAs than Duran had in '23, but a lower OPS) 89 GS v R/ 8 GS vs L (a slight move towards a near full platoon) Abreu's 2025 OPS is better than Duran's 2024 and 2025 OPS. This is not meant to say that Cora will platoon Duran and not the better defender Abreu, but just that maybe Abreu will not be strictly platooned in '26. IMO, Duran will not be here in '26, so there will not be an either or or both choice to be made.

Of course he does. There is no disagreement from me on that. I will say, it wasn't always like that. Like Abreu, Duran started out as a work in progress, was platooned and highly questionable as a FT'er going forward. I could see Cora looking at having Abreu play FT in 2026, and that would be made more likely, if we traded Duran or Rafaela and did not bring Ref back. (I do think we might bring ref back, if we trade an OF'er, because we do not want to stunt Garcia or Campbell's growth by making them short-side platoon players on the big club.) If Duran is on the 2026 Sox, Cora will NOT platoon him. If Abreu is on the 2026 Sox, he may again be platooned: he may not be, as well. If we keep all 4 OF'ers, Abreu will not start vs LHPs. My issue with keeping all 4 is who sits or DHs vs RHPs, and what a waste of value (tradeable value) that would be.

Never once have I even implied Polanco would play 3B. I'm with Drweski on getting bats first and worrying about a guys arm at 3B in 30% of games. Hell, trade Romy for a better defensive 3B to platoon with mayer, if we have to. Maybe Mayer turns into a FT player, in short order. I'd prefer KMarte or Polanco at 2B with Mayer-Romy at 3B, at a much lower cost, than Breggie at 3B and Mayer-Romy at 2B. That is a much better defensive infield but at a higher cost and much less power.

Agreed. It makes more sense to add a 3Bman than a 2Bman, so Mayer-Romy share 2B than 3B, but... Breggie is too expensive. Suarez is too old and not good at 3B D, Maybe someone is out there via trade, but it seems like 2B options, some with real power, are more plentiful... K Marte Bichette (not much power) Polanco I'd be willing to sacrifice some 3B arm strength in 30% of our games, if it meant having KMarte over Breggie or Suarez. I wouldn't mind KMarte at 2B and Suarez at 1B/back-up 3B. We could actually play Suarez at 3B vs LHPs and Mayer vs RHPs with Romy at 1B vs LHPs. KMarte at 2B.

Who are you talking about benching 70% of the games? Rafaela- the only RHB of the 4? Clearly, his value would be greater on another team playing 95% of the games than to us in 30% of the games and as a late inning defensive replacement. Sure, he'd be valuable as a depth piece, but I see it as a waste to keep him on the bench, when we could trade him for value we could use everyday at another position. No way I want to bench one of our LHB OF'ers vs RHPs, even on some sort of rotation. That would be a gross misuse of talent. One would have to DH, which is another form of wasted value, as they'd be worth more to another team as an OF'er than to us as a DH. This is all before we even think about Masa and even Campbell-Romy-Garcia as possible DHs. We have too many otehr needs to be able to afford the luxury of 4 FT OF'ers and Campbell, Garcia, Masa in reserve.

Not even fans value GG voting all that much. Abreu is a damn good defensive RF'er and with a park like Fenway, he has extra value to us. IMO, that gets me leaning towards him not being traded. His arm is good, too. This whole flg% argument is not even worth discussing. Sure, a few less errors by Abreu (and Rafaela) would be nice, but those two are among the top defensive OF'ers in MLB. I don't want to silence anyone's opinions, but this talk goes in one ear and out the other at the speed of light, to me. Duran is our worst defensive OF'er of the 4 (maybe 5, if you count Garcia.) That's even before counting arm strength, which is very important in Fenway's CF and RF. He's fine in LF, but it is beyond absurd to me, to think he should be in CF. I'm fine with Rafaela in RF, but not so Duran can play CF. I'd rather have Duran LF, Rafaela CF and Anthony RF, if Abreu gets traded, so to me the only way Duran might play CF is if we trade Abreu & Rafaela. (Masa/Garcia/Campbell in LF, Duran in CF and Anthony in RF.)

Yes. I get that. I'm pretty sure not a single poster listed him, and some of us made some pretty long lists of borderline and even unlikely Rule 5 guys. After the fact, it's easy to explain it away, but I still think he fits the "under the radar" label for the reasons I mentioned. True, we are talking about borderline 40 man roster players, so notin's point about how barely significant players can be "under the radar" is well-taken. That being said, we've seen an interesting Rule 5 trade in recent Sox history, with us on the receiving end: Slaten was traded for after being selected in the draft. That's a bit different from this situation.

As for Schwarber's high K rate, who cares when he is also top 7 in BB%. He's got pop (4th in ISO and SLG) and 7th in Walks. (3rd in BB% '24-'25.) We could certainly use his bat, but trading Masa is near impossible, and playing him in LF is scary as hell, and probably means trading 2 of our 4 OF'ers.

If Alonso is not much better on defense as Schwarber, would you say the same of him?

Well said. Next step in this thinking, which move/contract was most instrumental in causing the financial burden while offering little hope of producing near his cost? It was the largest and longest free agent contract in Red Sox history. (Okay, Manny's was a year longer, but he was pre JH. Carl Crawford was equally as long at 7 years) but nobody was Larger and Longer. It was David Price- the guy we ended up attaching to the Betts trade, which was the clear sign the team was punting, especially when we have yet to replace his production value. I'm pretty sure JH told himself, "never again." The Sale extension pales in comparison to Price. The JD, Story and Yoshida deals, too. The Devers extension was larger and longer, and we see what JH ended up doing with that contract, less than 2 years into the 10 year deal. (Okay, it was Brez not JH, but you know JH gave his stamp of approval.) What remains to be seen is do we replace the Devers value, along with Bregman's and Gio's, too. Just how Large and how Long will JH approve? I think age has a lot to do with it as Devers was young and Crochet's 6 year deal was approved at a young age, too. There are not many young free agents out there. Five or six years might be pushing it, and many of the very best FAs get 7 or more. If we do spend big, and that is no given, and we don't go large and long, the usually leads to quantity over quality, to some extent, and in my opinion we have the "quantity" well covered already and need to add some serious star quality to the 26. I've said 3, and if we go 4-5 instead, and the budget was fixed, it will likely mean lower quality, shorter deals and kicking some major decisions down the road. One thing that could happen is that older FAs like Schwarber can be signed for less than 7 years, but his age is big stumbling block to go 6 years or maybe even 5. Alonso turns 31, and maybe nobody offers him 7 years- maybe not even 6. Bregman turns 32 before the season, so I doubt we go 5 with him- maybe not even 4. Bichette fits the age range (turns 28 before the season) but does not give us the power bat we need. He might be a great secondary signing, but are we really going to sign someone to 7 years that isn't even "the guy" we need most? We could trade for Ketel Marte, who is 32 and under control for a few more years, but then we lose some serious talent going to AZ. E Suarez is 34 and may not deliver the production we need for the next 3-4 years. He will likely sign for 3-5 years. Polanco is 32 and there are worries that 2025 was an outlier season. He may get 3-5 years or take a huge one year deal like Bregman to try and make big the following winter. There are a lot of considerations going on. This should be an interesting Sox winter.

Who will be the first shoe to fall?

I think soxpropsects.com updates their list, this week. I'm not sure they have Romero top 10 either, but he should be close. Personally, I like the potential Witherspoon has, and I can understand why injuries can drop players in the rankings, but I might put Perales 4th and Garcia 5th with Witherspoon 6th. I like Fajardo more than Valera, but I understand why Valera is ahead of him and am fine with it. As of now, I'd go... 1. Tolle 2. Early 3. Arias 4. Perales 5. Garcia 6. Witherspoon 7. Fajardo 8. Valera 9. Gonzales 10. Clarke 11. Soto 12. Phillips 13. Godbout 14. Holobetz 15. Romero 16, Paez 17. Travieso 18. Azocar 19. Delzine 20. Jo Garcia/Sandlin/Eyanson/Monegro/Mullins

Notin might like this one, but one site suggested Duran to LAD for Kim and Rushing.

I can't think the Pats are the best team in the NFL, despite their record. My power rankings: 9-2 Rams 8-3 Colts 10-2 Pats 9-2 Broncos 8-3 Seahawks 7-3-1 Packers 7-4 Bills 7-4 Lions 8-3 Eagles 8-3 Bears/ 6-5 Texans