moonslav59

Agreed, but since our 6th starter is better than all but maybe 2-3 teams' 6ths tarter, I think that makes up for any comparative loss we might have at the 7-8-9 slots.

Harmony will continue to point out why the Red Sox will not succeed-until they do. Harmony is a good guy who injects some non-biased opinions into the mix. At least he's consistent with using WAR and WAR projections in all of his evaluations- even with Mariner players. He's not a troll, but I do think he's hooked on ZiPS.

Kimmi, nobody is saying these guys are as good as the FT'ers they may end up having to replace long term. The evaluation of a bench is not done by comparing them to the starters; it is done by comparing our bench to the benches in MLB. I'm not saying we have the best bench in MLB, but I do think it is top 10 and maybe even top 5 or 6. Young, Holt, Vazquez and Swihart could start on many teams. They might not be all stars, but we won't be burned by having them play everyday. Maybe Travis can join this group before the season is over.

Young hardly DH'd last year. Beni is replacing his OF numbers, so Young should be counted on as a partial replacement to Papi- not just Moreland. Plus, Young missed some time. I think you rely too much on projected WAR. Thornburg had a 2.0 WAR last year. Do you honestly believe he'll be at 0.9 this year? If so, I think you are overly hooked on these projection numbers. ?

The Red Sox deserve to be in the conversation of American League favorites but I'm unconvinced that the Sox have made a net improvement over the 2016 AL East champs. Basically, a Young-Moreland platoon will try to make-up as much ground as possible on the departure of Papi's production. While I hesitate to even use their names in the same sentence at Ortiz, their split numbers look good to very good: vs RHPs: Moreland .778 career (.876 in 2015) vs LHPs: Young .846 career (.999 in 2016 and .972 in 2015 making him one of MLB's best hitters vs LHPs over the past two seasons combined) If these guys hit their career numbers the overall DH OPS would be about .800. While that is still woefully short of last year's 1.045 DH OPS, it's not bad, and there's a chance we could end up at .850ish. While nobody is going to be overly confident with Pablo, I'm pretty confident we can improve on last year's .686 third base and .759 LF OPS. If we can improve those two slots by 50 points each, that might make up for about half of the loss at DH. If Sale can give us 32 starts (3.34/1.037 WHIP) , there would be a massive gain. Sale and Pom/ERod/Wright replacing these 37 starts: 21 Buchholz 5.01/ 1.371 WHIP 6 J Kelly 8.46/ 2.239 5 H Owens 6.95/1.955 4 O'Sullivan 6.64/1.672 1 R Elias 15.75/2.500 I think you may be underestimating the impact of having Sale and a full year from Pom.

In 2016 the Red Sox received stellar performances from Mookie Betts, Dustin Pedroia, Xander Bogaerts and Jackie Bradley, who posted fWAR pf 7.8, 5.2, 4.8 and 4.7, respectively. These are four great players but I doubt more than one will match or exceed his 2016 fWAR (and the current Steamer, ZiPS and FanGraphs Depth Charts projections support that). Few Red Sox players are projected to regress upward. You know better than anyone that ZiPS and Co. all rarely show a player repeating a very good season, even if their age projection performance curve is still on the rise. I think 2 of those 4 you listed will improve on those 2016 WAR numbers with Pedey being the least likely. I'd almost bet 3 doing it have better odds than 1 doing it. (Almost)

We added Sale, Thornburg and Moreland not just "an ace".

Long term depth: C: Swi or Vaz 1B: Moreland or HanRam become FT (Travis to bench) DH: HanRam or Young become FT (Tavis or Holt to bench at 1B or LF) 2B: Holt- his strongest position defensively 3B: Rutledge or Holt (Hernandez?) SS: Hernandez LF: Young CF: Beni (Young FT in LF) RF: Young How is this weak? Only 3B looks sketchy, but how many other teams have vastly better back-up 3Bmen? At least we have 3 guys to choose from there.

I am struggling having 2 4A catchers on your major league roster as "depth". Or maybe we can say the team has depth but no starter? That's kind of what my point was. We have 3 very good back-up catchers with promise but a doubtful starter. That's not lack of depth as one starts and we go two deep in capable back-ups which is more than most teams have. It's not a depth weakness here; it's a plus. I could agree that Hern may be better than Holt if we were talking inf defense. I dont think Rutledge makes this team out of ST. Who is 25 then? Hern or Travis? I think it's Rutledge, and I think he's a pretty decent 3B sub--maybe average in MLB, so again, not a weakness. With Hern as the third man down, I think we're fine at 3B depth. I like Young and view him as a semi regular due to his presumed DH duties. I also like him in the OF. I can see your point, but your worry was for longterm injury coverage, and Young is decent vs RHPs and could be a FT OF'er, if need be. (It would fix Moreland to 1B, even against LHPs and HanRam to DH, but that wouldn't ne the end of the world either. Besides, we might call-up Travis to play 1B vs lefties. I'm not excited about Holt moving from the 5 to 4 OF'er, but as long as we don't have 2 OF injuries, we should be fine. OF'ers are easy to acquire mid season- see de Aza, Podsednik, QBerry, DMac... I know it's not fair couinting players as depth that are not in the system, but you get my point here. My point on "depth" was more so needing someone to play every day due to inevitable injury. If the need arises to play someone 1-2 months, there is nothing in Pawtucket on the field or on the mound. I would assume a search for the next Aaron Hill would com mence. If Benni ...gasp....struggled, would Swi be moved to the OF? Would Brentz be summoned? Lets face it there is no Bogey or Benni or Moncada just about ready to plug in. I would assume there is no rush to rush Devers or Groome. If Beni struggles or gets hurt we can platoon Young with him or play Young FT. He's got a career .707 OPS vs RHPs (.766 in 2016, which was better than our overall LF OPS last year of .759). Here's how I see our depth chart (Starter in parenthesis): C (Leon) Vaz, Swihart, Butler 1B (HanRam-Moreland platoon) Moreland-HanRam (from DH), Holt (shortterm), Travis (longterm), Craig 2B (Pedey) Holt, Hernandez, Rutledge, MMiller or Marrero 3B (Pablo) Rutledge, Holt, Dominguez, Witte SS (Bogey) Holt (shortterm), Hernandez (longterm), Marrero, Meneses LF (Beni) Young, Holt, Swihart, Moreland, Lake-Brentz CF (JBJ) Beni (from LF - see above to fill LF) Holt, Lake RF (Betts) Young, Holt, Moreland, Lake-Brentz DH (Young-HanRam platoon) Young or HanRam FT, Swihart, Travis, Witte I think we had a great bench last year. Leon, Beni... Just because we lost Moncada and replaced Shaw with Pablo, doesn't mean our bench is weak. We added Moreland and Travis to the mix. We do lack extended depth in the OF, but It's not like Young and Holt with Swihart in an emergency is a negative. I really believe our depth is average or plus everywhere else. .

,,,and some of the other AL East teams appear to have gotten worse over the winter while our short term look got much brighter.

I totally agree. I don't think I've ever felt this good about top 3 starters. Top 6 is right up there too.

I didn't realize that. Was that his midseason ranking or last January?

Anybody have a good explanation for the severe reverse splits shown by Thornburg over his career? The RHD'd pitcher does way better vs LHBs: Career vs RHBs: .239/.316/.416/.732 (496 PAs against) vs LHBs: .181/.278/.253/.531 (414 PAs against)

and Espi, Asuaje and Margot, although Manuel was essentially blocked.

...and for allowing players to walk for comp picks: JBJ & Swihart for A Beltre Barnes & Owens for VMart Kopech for Ellsbury Ellsbury & Lowrie for OCab Buchholz & Egan for Pedro Daniel Bard & K Johnson for Damon B Johnson & P Light for Papelbon Hansen (traded with Manny for JBay) & Bowden for D-Lowe Ranaudo (who got us R Ross) for B Wagner Stephen Fife (helped us get Erik Bedard) r for Hunter Morris Workman B Brentz for J Bay N Hagadone (traded w Masterson for VMart) for Gonzo Aaron Bates & Caleb Clay for Mueller Ryan Dent for Foulke Bryan Price for E Gane Boy, that Nomar-OCab trade not only helped win us that ring in 2004, the comp picks brought us Ellsbury, Lowrie, Kopech (via Ellsbury) and Sale (via Kopech and others) It's the gift that just keeps giving.

The prospects traded by DD over the last 8 months: 1 Yoan Moncada 3 Anderson Espinoza 3 Manuel Margot 5 Michael Kopech 6 Javier Guerra 7 Luis Basabe 12 Travis Shaw (not a prospect at time of trade) 12 Wendell Rijo 13 Logan Allen 13 Pat Light 18 Luis Basabe 20 Carlos Asuaje 21 Victor Diaz 24 Josh Pennington 30 Aaron Wilkerson 40 Jose Almonte Others (post-prospects or prior to 8 months ago): 1 Buchholz 3 Cecchini 11 Coyle 21 J Aro (just DFA'd by SEA)

...and Theo!

MLB.com top prospects by position: RHP 4) Kopech 6) Espinoza LHP 2) Groome 1B: 10) Travis 2B: 1) Moncada 9) C Asuaje 3B) 1) Devers OF 1) Beni 8) Margot

Kopech getting some serious loving...

Pretty impressive after a prospect dump like we just had! Wow, Moncada fell a long way based on a tiny ML sample size.

4 TOP 30 EVERYDAY PLAYERS! 3 TOP 13 SP'ERS and 5 TOP 50 SP'ERS! 2 TOP 30 RP'ERS. All but Pom are controlled for 3 or more years. Yup, that's pretty solid! Then there are supporting players like HanRam, ERod, Beni, Smith, Kelly...

I said "one could call it..." and put off year in quotes to emphasize the iffiness of the statement, but I do think last year could have been much better but wasn't due to his defensive slump and how he dropped off at the end of the year. I guess I worded it wrongly.

Speaking of value as determined by fangraphs, here's how our players placed last year (146 qualifying players): 3) Betts $62.3M 19) Pedey $41.9M 26) JBJ $38.8M 30) Bogey $37.9M 36) Ortiz $35.4M 73) HanRam $20.7M 108) Shaw $11.9M Pitching (142 pitchers with 100+ IP) 6) Porcello $43.8M 8) C Sale $41.5M 13) Price $36.9M 39) Pomeranz $23.9M 49) Wright $22.1M 100) ERod $9.6M RP'ers (176 with 40+ IP) 12) Thornburg $16.0M 27) Ziegler $10.3M 31) Kimbrel $9.8M 81) Uehara $4.8M 96) Barnes $3.5M 105) Hembree $2.7M 115) Abad $2.1M 127) Tazawa $1.2M

Yes, I understand, and many agree with you. However, I am not completely sold on Leons outlier 1.5 months. I also have to see more from Vaz. I do think Swihart will be great, but maybe not quite this year. But isn't this more of an issue with the starter not the bench? Whoever starts, we have two back-ups that are very well regarded as back-ups when comparing to the average league 2 and 3 catchers. That's a strong catcher bench. Rutledge and Hern for me are 4A players I think Hernandez still has upsie and may be better than Holt at SS and maybe even 3B. Rutledge is probably better than Holt at 3B. Even if they are 4A, they are behind Holt and are as good if not better than many other teams' 3rd or 4th oiption at the IF positions. Young IMO is our DH while Moreland is depth/defensive replacement Young will DH vs LHPs only, which is only about 23% of our games. If he is DH'ing and an OF'er gets hurt, there will be an issue with losing the DH, but Holt is a fine back-up in the OF for a partial game here and there. HanRam will DH vs RHPs as Moreland plays 1B. Any long term or pregame injury to OF or 1B can easily be dealt with by having Young play LF or Moreland/HanRam play 1B against either handed pitcher. Holt is the 3rd string back-up in LF and 1B. One of Young or Moreland should always be on the bench with Holt, Rutledge and Vaz or Swi. Travis in June if Moreland is a K machine Travis could provide better than 4A depth at 1B.

And one could call 2016 an "off year" for Bogey, even though it was his best xOBA and wRC+ (113 which would place about 14th among 1Bman). If he can bring his defense back up to the 2015 level or higher and improve his offense, Bogey's value is going to be through the roof. fangraphs has his value measured as such: 2015: $34.0M 2016: $37.9M FYI: JBJ's 2015: $19.5M 2016: $38.8M