moonslav59

I'm thinking JBJ, Swihart and Moncada (plus scraps) for Quintana, Robertson & Frazier

I'd love to see Sandoval gone and never wanted him in Boston ever. The only way othrt than an unlikely release is probably a bad contract swap. The "best" fit might be to Atlanta for Matt Kemp. If the Braves keepthe mmoney from SD and LA, they fill 3b, open a spot for Mallex Smith, and get Sandoval for about $11million per. The Sox get Kemp, not an ideal Fenway hitter but a better DH candidate than Sandoval or Shaw or Young.... Thanks for trying to bring the thread back to baseball.

That leaves our OF short. We could play Young FT in LF and move Beni to CF, but out depth would be only Holt and Swihart. If we signed Beltran, perhaps he could bridge us to Basabe or let Moncada try to play the OF.

From soxprospects.com... Christian Vazquez's (pictured, above) week started off slowly, as he went 0 for 7 with two walks over his first two games. He turned it around in his final two appearances, going 5 for 8 with a walk, including a walk-off home run on Sunday in the bottom of the 10th. The home run was his first extra-base hit in eight games with Santurce.

I have no sympathy for Pablo either, but I'm not writing him off just because he let us down. I'm not counting on him for even 1 AB, but I do think he has the inside track on winning the DH platoon job with Young or less likely- possibly winning the 3B job. It's too bad Pablo, Shaw and Holt all hit righties better than lefties.

That makes sense. That would be the two years.

Sorry, but I don't count 248 PAs as "plenty of reason" for anything but maybe hope. Here is a look at a larger sample size of Shaw's recent history- most at lower (and easier) levels than MLB. (Note: Shaw was not under aged at any of these levels.) .781 in 133 PAs at AA to end the 2012 season .736 in 529 PAs at AA in 2013 .954 in 208 PAs to start the 2014 season in AA .752 in 346 PAs to end the 2014 season in AAA .674 in 322 PAs to start the 2015 season in AAA then, .813 to end the 2015 in Boston in 248 PAs. .726 in 530 PAs in 2016. I'm not sure why so many seem to cling to the second half of 2015 and the first half of 2016 as what they think Shaw will or likely can give us in 2017. The vast majority of his career in AA and above is mediocre. .795 in AA in 870 PAs .715 in AAA in 668 PAs .754 in MLB in 778 PAs While .750 is not bad, it's not really a plus, and I'm not sure he can even give us .750 next year. My guess is, he will be closer to his .715 AAA numbers at best.

He might, but that eats up some of the money we may need to extend the big Bs.

I think we're set up pretty well. Our biggest need areas, like 3B and pitching, have the most high prospects within the system. I have high hopes for Basabe- not mentioned above, but you made a nice summary of our future outlook.

We don't have the money to extend anyone right now, including Pomeranz.

Who? Shaw? Not if he hits like 2nd half Shaw.

When are the international restrictions lifted from the Sox? I thought we got hit with 2 years.

I like Turner and Jensen, but I don't think we will pay what they want.

I'd like to stick to Red Sox baseball on this thread. I was hopeful the luxury tax might go to $210M next year, but it looks like it might be closer to $200M. With our luxury budget looking to be around $185M, we'll have some tough choices to make. Since Henry will be paying Castillo & Craig $22.2M this year "off the books" so to speak, I'm not sure how willing he will be to pay a %50 tax on anything over the new luxury limit. A few million will probably be okay, but I can't see us signing EE and a RP'er or two. We may not even want to sign Beltran and two good RP'ers. We may look for a cheap 3B bridge and use Pablo and Young as a DH platoon, or we could sign a cheap platoon DH and hope one of our in house 3Bmen rise to the challenge. Either of these would allow us to spend on the pen.

...but why the hell would you need to when you have one of the largest payrolls in the league? It's precisely the fact that we have one of the largest payrolls in the league that we look for ways to save as Henry is surely instructing his management team to do. People can cry all day about Henry's immense wealth and his ability to go way over the luxury tax (at %50 this year), but until we see it happen or he says he's willing to go way over, most of us are operating on the assumption that we will continue staying very close to the luxury limit like we have for many years. If the limit goes up to $200M, we'll have about $15M to spend without paying $1 on every $2 we spend. That's not even including what we are paying Castillo and Craig to not be on the 40 man roster and subject to massive taxations.

We lose Clay B and Young next year, saving close to $20M. Fernado Abad is the only player becoming FA after 2018 assuming we pick up the club option on Kimbrel and Price does not opt out. Pomeranz, Kelly and Ross are all FAs after 2018. HanRam has a vesting option that is guaranteed if Ramirez has 1,050 plate appearances in 2017-18 and passes club physical after 2018 season We need Moncada and Kopech to step in by 2018 to provide some cheap alternatives as our arbitration numbers continue to grow. In reality, Price opting out may not be the worst thing to happen. That's why I'd like to see Sox extend Pomeranz. Buy out two years of FA years. Why not give him a 4 year deal right now (2 arb years plus 2)? How much are you suggesting we offer? Isn't extending Bogey, Betts & JBJ a higher priority? I'm at $185M assuming $22M for arbitration players, $12M each for rest of 40 man squad and benefits. Assuming luxury tax is raised to $200M, we only have $15M for FA signings. Trading Clay B would relieve another $13M but I don't see that happening until August assuming Wright, Pomeranz and Rodriquez are all healthy and pitching well. We can't even get Beltran for $15M, so I think we'll either go over the luxury limit again (I think at a %50 cost) or dump some salary. I think we may look to trade Buch this winter, but we'd have to find some sort of veteran 6th starter at a cheaper price. The other option is to try and trade Pablo and maybe save $5-8M a year off the budget. That would allow us to maybe sign Beltran and a cheap RP'er or a cheaper platoon DH type and 2 good RP'ers.

Being a RP'er is a different mentality. I'm not sure about trying to have Kopech try relief pitching at this point. What will we really know, if he fails? Also, sometimes RP'ers overthrow due to the fact that they know they are only in for an inning or two.

I'm happy about our OF too, although our OF depth is a little thin with Young under contract for 1 more year and Holt being more of a daily fill-in type guy. Basabe is the only OF prospect with significant value. The larger package thing will always be speculative, unless we hear about some specific offer on the table before he was traded. The reasons I mention Moncada being moved to LF are that I'm not sure he'll ever be decent enough at 3B to be "ML ready", and there's been so much talk of every team wanting JBJ, that one has to think he may be traded someday- like it or not (I don't).

It's easy to rank these tardes as good for the Padres from their point of view. I get why the Sox did them, but I think Margot and Espi are going to make the Padres look very good years from now.

Not even worthy of answering.

Yeah, that proves killing people solves lots of problems. Good one.

Either a sick joke or a sick person.

We could use a Pablo-Young platoon at DH, but then 3B is more of an open book.

Then I'd rather sign Beltran for $1M more a year than VMart makes, since it won't cost us any prospects. I think Beltran will sign for $36M/2.

Plus, he was in decline before the signing, but if he can return to what he was in SF during the regular season, he'll still be grossly overpaid, but much better than what we have right now.