moonslav59

We really only have a couple of prospects that look to have a legitimate chance at being significant impact players on the big club over the next 2-3 years: Devers & Travis. We are fortunate those two play positions we will need to fill in two to three years from now. Who will replace Kimbrel? Smith, Hembree or Kelly??? I'd say keeping Betts is just as important as keeping the big 3 SP'ers.

I just looked- you're right. That's weird, because they have Pedey at $15M- his 2017 salary- not his average salary.

I'm super excited about this season and our chances for greatness.

I remember, at the time of the Dodger dump trade, many Sox fans hated or were ambivalent about the deal.

My bad. AGon was not included in those wanting to dump.

Arb costs for Betts, JBJ, ERod and others will be rising as well, so I'm not sure just how many of our stars we can keep. Losing Pablo & HanRam will help, but we will really need Devers and Travis to be productive to not lose too much ground. Maybe what plus Devers might give us over Pablo & Co. will outweigh the loss of Ramirez. We have to hope most of these guys: Beni, Devers, Travis, Vaz-Swi and others can give us top quality production at a lower cost, so we can keep Porcello, Sale, Bogey and eventually Betts & JBJ. My guess is, we'll lose one of those 5, which may not be the end of the world.

cots uses actual 2016 salary- not the average contract salary used for the luxury tax budget.

Problem with that is the US wouldn't allow it.

"In one fell swoop, the Red Sox shed $262.5 million in payroll...it is, an opportunity, a unique opportunity to reset our roster and payroll. What we do, and how well we do it, will be the determinant of the ultimate success of the transaction."- Lucchino

Abad is the only one remaining. The estimate is $2M, but I do not think we should pay that much.

This case was one of the league's widest disparity between numbers submitted.

Updated Luxury Tax Budget Numbers Guaranteed salaries AAV David Price $31M, Hanley Ramirez $22M, Rick Porcello $20.63M, Pablo Sandoval $19M, Dustin Pedroia $13.3M, Craig Kimbrel $10.5M, Chris Sale $6.77M, Chris Young $6.5M, Mitch Moreland $5.5M [10 players-- $135.2M] Arbitration Xander Bogaerts $4.5M, Drew Pomeranz $4.45M, Jackie Bradley Jr. $3.6M, Joe Kelly $2.8M, Tyler Thornburg $2.05M, Robbie Ross Jr. $1.825M, Brock Holt $1.925M, Sandy Leon $1.3M, (pending) Fernando Abad ~$2.0M [9 players--$24M] Team control pre-arbitration eligible (projected): Mookie Betts $800,000, Steven Wright $650,000, Carson Smith $550,000, Christian Vazquez $550,000, Eduardo Rodriguez $550,000, Matt Barnes $550,000, Heath Hembree $550,000 [7 players--$4.2M] Commitments Major League: (AAV) $163.4M Minor league: (40-man) $1.2M Benefits: $13.5M Total: $178.1M Estimated Depth call-ups: $3.9M Incentives $1M Total $183M Trades/midyear: $????? Luxury tax threshold $195,000,000

Red Sox, Drew Pomeranz Avoid Arbitration By Steve Adams | January 25, 2017 at 3:02pm CDT The Red Sox and Drew Pomeranz have avoided arbitration by agreeing to a one-year deal worth $4.45MM, reports Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports (Twitter link). The two sides had the largest gulf between their filing figures (as shown in MLBTR’s 2017 Arbitration Tracker), with Pomeranz filing at $5.7MM and the Sox filing at $3.6MM. They’ll settle a bit south of the $4.65MM midpoint between those two sums.

The fact that the whole league knew we wanted to dump those 3 players makes the actual trade even more amazing to me. The Dodgers took on almost all of the contractual cost. We only had to pay less than $12M spread over 3 years! It was one of the most impactful trades the Sox have made in my lifetime. The Pedro, VTek-Lowe and Schill trades were spectacular, but the Dodger dump helped win us a ring in 2013 and is still impacting the team today.

Their pitching staff looks very good, but it also has room for significant growth. Losing EE and Saunders has got to hurt though. That's 66 HRs and 184 RBI. I don't see many offensive players with upside potential to help reduce the significance of losing 2 big bats.

It's not like the Sox even got much for them. The long view of that deal is the Sox got Carson Smith and his 2IP. We did get Miley for a year, and Elias is still on the 40 man roster, but not looking too hopeful right now (Webster/DLR to AZ trade). Jerry Sands was a very tiny part of the trade that brought us Holt & Hanrahan, but I would NOT argue we have Holt as a result of that trade. The trade, to me, was more about dumping salary and allowing us to get better players than any form of chemistry reformation.

We need to score 50 runs better than others just to break even with the home park adjustment, but I agree. If we can be about 50 ahead, our pitching and defense should carry us to a top 4 team in MLB.

I agree, and it's not just about his numbers needing to be replaced. It might be a lot to ask for Betts to get even better, but it is certainly possible. Bogey can improve, JBJ can get more consistent and Young could stay healthy all year and give us some gains. I'm hopeful we can see some significant offensive improvement from our 3B and LF positions. 2016 3B .242 15 68 (.306/.380/.686) 2016 LF .268 14 70 (.337/.423/.759) Last year we got 73 HRs and 257 RBIs from our 1B/DH slots combined (~.926 OPS). If HanRam can repeat his .866 for half of the PAs from those two slots, we'll need an .806 OPS from the Moreland-Young platoon to bring us close within 90 points of .926. Career: vs RHPs: .778 Moreland vs LHPs: .846 Young (.999 in 2016 and .972 in 2015) I realize it is not as simple as this, but if we can lose only 90 points from 1B/DH and gain 90+ points from 3B/LF, we could end up scoring about the same amount of runs as 2016. That may be wishful thinking, but it is not unreasonable to think it could happen. Yes, we could also see some regressions at other positions. Pedey had his best season in 5 years. He may not repeat. Leon will likely decline, but our catcher OPS was .665. Remember, Hannigan and Holaday and their combined .450 OPS in 145 PAs are gone. JBJ and Bogey are hard to project. HanRam could decline; he's been up and down a lot over his career. I'm hopeful our offense will score within 30 runs of 2016.

True enough, and fine performances by Tomlin and Merritt helped too.

The thing that gets me is this: a guy like Josh Beckett was on his way to becoming one of baseball's all time great post season starters. He almost single-handedly carried the Marlins to a ring and was lights out for us in 2007. Suddenly, he becomes a poison in the clubhouse and is labelled "bad chemistry".

There are many examples of great top of rotation staffs not winning the WS, but one has to feel better about your odds of winning by having 3-4 top starters.

Seems that way, but the Cubs and Guardians did have great SP'ing. 2016 ERA- 1) Cubs 71 (1st in WHIP/3rd in WAR) 2) TOR 3) WSH 4) NYM 5) SFG 6) BOS 7) CLE 95 (6th in WHIP/8th in WAR) RP 7) CLE 5.0 WAR (8th in WHIP) 19) Cubs 3.2 WAR (5th in WHIP) 2015 SP NYM 4th in WAR (4th in ERA-/3rd in WHIP) KCR 23rd in WAR (18th in ERA-/25th in WHIP) RP KCR 3rd in WAR (2nd in WHIP) NYM 12th in WAR (8th in WHIP)

I tend to agree. I remember the year Reggie Jackson went after Billy Martin in the dugout. I thought to myself, "No way the Yankess can win now!". Ooops! Baseball more than any other "team sport" is mostly about individual effort. Pitcher vs batter, Batter vs fielder, fielder vs runner... Only things like DP's and relay throws involve any advanced teamwork efforts. I have come to believe that "team chemistry" matters more than I used to think it did, but the talk about "identity" does seem a little overboard.

I do think building a top rotation, especially the top 3 slots, above all else, improves the odds of making and winning the WS. After all, odds makers look at the starter match-ups more than anything else when setting the odds.

I voted other, though my issue is tangentially related to Ortiz' departure. And, Pedey is the only guy from 2007. We only have 5 guys on our current 40 man roster who were on the 40 man roster at the start of the 2013 championship team: 2013 Pedey Wright (no ML gams) Vazquez (no ML games) Holt (played in 26 games) JBJ (no Ml games) (Workman and Bogey were added during the 2013 season, and Bogey played 18 gms late in the season)