moonslav59

Maybe I get surprised, but I doubt we sign Bregman or Bichette, so I only see one FA that seems good enough and maybe cheap enough to get: E Suarez. That keeps Mayer and Romy at 2B. Maybe trade for a SP'er or find a way to dump Yoshida and save $4-6M a year to help pay for the tax Suarez caused JH to pay.

We'd never have paid him what he got. The whole argument is that JH will not spend, so how would this happen? Just sign Suarez and trade and OF+ Crawford for a much better SP, and let the season begin with us as a top 5-6 MLB team on paper.

Cool. I'm at a school that is about 35% Asian (mostly from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan & Vietnam,) 25% White, 25% Black and 15% Hispanic (hardly any from Mexico.) The district is among the most diverse in the world: 28% Black 27% Asian 27% Hispanic 15% White (Not all our schools are diverse, though.)

BTV accepts: Tolle, Campbell ($8M AAV), Bello ($13M AAV), Yoshida ($18M AAV)+ $18M= ($9M AAV) for Logan Webb ($23.3 AAV) & Trevor McDonald We save about $6M. Sign E Suarez to $66M/3 ($22M AAV) which puts us about $12M over the tax line and $8M below the second line. SP: Crochet, Webb, Gray, Sandoval, Oviedo (Crawford/Harrison/EarlY) RP: CHapman, Whitlock, Slaten, McDonald, Weissert, Watson, Hicks, Moran/Kelly 1. L Anthony LF 2. R Contreras 1B/C 3. L Duran DH 4. R Suarez 3B 5. L Abreu RF 6. R Story SS 7. L Mayer/ R Romy 2B 8. R Narvaez C/ L Casas DH 9. R Rafaela CF

Has JH spent or not? It's not apologizing for him to point that out. I'm not speaking for Joe, but I have pointed out many times, I wish and think he should and could spend more. I do know he spent way more than previous owners.

"Free Agent Apologist" or did you mean JH apologist?

LOL

Great story. As a kid, my family was the only white kids in an inner city Milwaukee school. Later we were in a Catholic school and were the only students not wearing uniforms, due to being too poor to buy them. One of my first teaching positions was at a school that was 50% black and 50% hispanic. There was one white student in the school and only 4 white teachers out of 75. Life stories help build who we are.

Is this the year, Romero makes a move? https://news.soxprospects.com/2026/01/following-2025-success-mikey-romero.html

For what it's worth, here is how fangraph's projects Sox pitchers, if pro-rated to 180 IP: 5.6 Crochet 3.9 Gray 3.3 Early 2.8 Sandoval 2.8 Tolle 2.6 Oviedo 2.2 Crawford 2.2 Bello 2.0 Harrison If these numbers are close to accurate as projections for full seasons, we have some SP'ers other team would very much want in trade. (I'm sure other teams have some lower IP guys who would see similar boosts, but I'm not sure how many MLB teams have 9 SP'ers at 2.0 or more. How about batters at 650 PAs? 3.1 Anthony 3.1 Narvaez 3.0 Rafaela 2.7 Abreu 2.3 Duran 2.1 Contreras & Mayer 2.0 Romy 1.9 Story & Casas 1.7 Campbell 1.3 Yoshida 1.0 Wong & Sogard

I'm pretty sure we all are. 2021 and 2025 offered brief glimpses of hope, but I see 2026 as a chance to open the window wide. We don't need to mortgage the future or spend like the Mets and Dodgers to do it, either. We probably don't even have to spend like the Phillies, Yanks and Jays. Going up to the second line and one more trade could get us to a top 5-6 team in MLB. Hell, fangraphs has us projected at a .531 winning %, which is 7th best and just .002 from NYY and .004 from the Jays and M's atop the AL. Fangraphs has us ranked 9th at 42.9 fWAR. That's 0.2 from PHI & BAL and a tie for 7th place. We are currently 21st for everyday players and 2nd for pitching. Add a big bat or two good ones and we should be fine.

Indeed, and even if a trade fills "a need" very well, while giving away a player in a logjam situation, they still won't make what they feel are significantly unbalanced trades. They may also disagree with fans and pundits who thing there is a great ned or logjam. For example, Brez might feel totally confident in Romy as the FT 2bman with DHam and Sogard as good enough depth. He may have already decided he doesn't want Masa DH'ing and will trade or demote him, so Duran is the FT DH. Presto: no OF logjam exists. It's only in some fans' minds.

fangraphs projects a 1.8 fWAR fro Okamoto (.775 OPS) FA Top OPS projected: 4.4 Tucker 4.0 Bregman & Bichette 3.0 Bellinger 2.6 E Suarez 1.8 Realmuto 1.5 Arraez & Bader 1.4 Ozuna 1.2 Willi Castro, L Rengifo, V Caratini, M Andujar 1.1 Moncada Via trade? 4.8 KMarte 4.3 Seager 3.8 Hoerner 3.5 Chisholm 3.4 Bogaerts (had to list him) 3.0 Donovan, 2.4 Bohm, 2.2 Paredes, 2.0 M McLain & Arenado 1.8 Vientos Pitchers: FA 3.7 Valdez, 3.3 Ra Suarez, 2.4 Gallen, 2.1 Bassitt, 1.7 Littell & Leiter 1.6 Verlander, 1.5 Jon Gray, 1.4 Scherzer, 1.3 N Martinez & Civale, 1.2 Giolito Trade: 4.2 Ragans, 3.4 Ryan & Nate, 3.2 P lopez, 2.5 Alcantara & Kikuchi, 2.4 Lodolo & L Castillo 2.3 M Keller & B Singer, 2.0 E Cabrera, 1.8 B Garrett, 1.7 Ober, 1.6 R Ray, 1.4 K Senga

I should try that! LMAO!

The Bronx is not the only place to learn such lessons in life, but your point is well taken by this poster.

Apparently, Okamoto got $60M/4, including a $5M signing bonus. That's an AAV of $15M, which the Sox could have afforded and stayed below the second line. My guess is the 4th year kept us out of the winning the bidding war. He's 29 and turns 30 in June, so he'll turn 33 in his final year. I doubt we get Bregman or Bichette, so to me, it's Suarez or someone via trade. I think we've traded away enough prospects, so any trade should/might involve an OF'er. If we trade for a #2 SP'er, if might include and OF'er plus one from Sandoval, Crawford or Harrison, but not Tolle, Early, Valera or Witherspoon. Just my take. MLBTR projected $60M/4 for Okamoto. They project $63M/3 for Suarez. Other 3 or less year deals they project: $38M/2 Bassitt (I don't see the Sox signing him.) $30M/2 Realmuto (I doubt it.) $14M/2 Caratini (not likely) $25M/2 Nick Martinez or Zack Littell ??? $18M/2 S Dominguez (maybe) $14M/2 Willi Castor (can play 2B, so...???) $22M/1 Verlander or $15M/1 Scherzer (doubtful) N/A projections: J Wilson, Kopech, Moncada, J Montgomery, Quintana, Sugano

Gotta think Okamoto to TOR means no Breggie to TOR, but does it also mean no Bichette? TOR + Cease Okamoto Cody Ponce Tyler Rogers TOR- Bichette Bassitt S Dominguez Scherzer Kiner-Falefa Ty France Did I miss anybody? How much better has TOR gotten? Cease > Bassitt Ponce > Scherzer Bichette> Okamoto Rogers <>Dominguez France & K-F <> _______

The Gray trade looks similar to the Sale trade, without the injury history. STL paid us to take him, and they "saved money" by doing so. BTW, I think Clarke was who STL viewed as the prize on their end, kinda like how we viewed Grissom in the Sale trade. When you put the two Cards trades together, we see this through the eyes of BTV: To BOS: +5 but skill value or 59.5 +11.1 Gray (Skill value: 32.1) -6.1 Contreras (Skill: 27.4) To STL: +33.5 (Skill: 26.9) -$20M cash=13.5 15.6 Clarke (Skill: 0) 8.6 Fitts (16) 4.5 Dobbins (10.9) 4.8 Fajardo (0) 0.0 Aita (0) BTV accepts the reverse trade made now.

LOL. We should stay away from those surnames!

Spotrac Tax Payroll: 2025: Sox were 7th at $249M 2026: Sox are currently 8th at $235M, but we are $16M from #7 ATL and $21M from SDP. I'm not sure we get any higher ranked and HOU is about tied with us, sowe could drop to 9th, at worst. TOR just signed Okamoto and will pass the NYY for 4th. NYY might re-sign Bellinger, so the top 5 will likely not be touched by any other team. Top 10, as of now 342 LAD (really 425 after tax) 303 NYM (343 after tax) 301 PHI (340 after tax) 280 NYY (pre Bellinger) 300 after tax 279 TOR (pre Okamoto) 292 after tax 255 SDP (258 after tax) 250 ATL (251 after tax) 235 BOS (not over tax line, right now) 234 HOU 206 SFG

At his age, I'd project .790 to .815 tops- maybe ,815-.830 if only platooned.

But you and others keep saying he's not spending or is "cheap." Spending unwisely is a different story and is more on Brez than JH, anyway. Sure, JH might be insisting on no long term deals, so that ties Brez's hands, but there are some good deals out there that are not long, and we have made some good ones and some bad ones (more from Bloom than Brez.) Was the Breggie deal unwise? Was the Chapman deal and extension unwise? Was the Crochet trade and extension unwise? Were the Devers, Bello, Rafaela, Campbell & Anthony extensions unwise? Of course, some unwise moves have been made, and of course that is what we always hear from you about- and only those. The Buehler signing was a disaster, but it was far from a dumpster dive. He was a better bet than Kluber, Richards and paxton were- perhaps combined. The Sale trade was a disaster, but made some sense at the time, and apparently the money saved was used to sign Gio, who did give us some value back, as without him we don't make the 2025 playoffs. The Priester trade was a "dumpster dive" by MIL, and that worked out poorly for us, but some of our dives like for Romy, Wilson, Matz and others did fine. Look, I'm not very optimistic either on JH's future spending plans, but they guy has spent a ton in the two decades in BOS. He's pulled back and splurged a few times. Based on our ranking in revenues, we can cry and cry that we need to spend more, but these rich guys are in this to make money and maximize profit. Focusing on one rich guy and acting like he's the evil one is misguided. Saying he's cheap is just plain untrue. I'm not defending JH, but we are are about 8th or 9th in spending for 2026 and have dished out a lot of new cash since the Devers extension kicked in. We've lost a lot, too, including the Devers dump, but we are a top 8 or 9 spender, right now. That's not cheap. If you wanna talk about unwise spending, talk about Bloom & Brez.

True, but they did bring his $40M in 2025 down to a $32M AAV for the tax line. If they do something similar, then trade Duran ($7.8) + Crawford ($2.7) for a SP'eeer make $5M, liek Lodolo, maybe they can make it work.

I doubt they got news none of us got. They've shuffled our 5th starter so many times, I'm not sure what new information does that. All-in-all, they do a fine job, though.

Exactly. That's all BTV does, and they seem to overvalue and undervalue several players, so it is what it is. Nobody is pretending it matches what GM want ot need. Here are a few examples of where I think the get some Sox players' value wrong- some seem way off. $22M Crawford: Okay, he was pretty good in '23 and led the team in IP in '24. I'm higher on Harrison at $6.6M than Kutter. $18M Casas: Again, a few years ago, he showed he could hit. They have Romy at $12M. These two might be the worst: $11M Cespedes & $10M Romero. Why? Bennett & Harrison are $7M, Valera is just $6M. When you take away the salary and look at how they just plain value the players, it looks more realistic, but then guys like Cespedes have zero value. Their rankings of prospects seems suspect, at best. On vets, the years of control is a big component, as it should be: $240 Crochet, 220 Anthony, 112 Campbell 94 Rafaela, 83 Duran, 79 Mayer, Early, 76 Bello 56 Abreu, 50 Tolle, 41 Narvaez, 36 Whitlock, 35 Kutte 32 Gray, 27 Contreras & Casas, 26 Slaten, 21 Romy 20 Story, 18 Chapman & Sandoval, 14 Harrison, 13 Oviedo 10 Masa, 7 Weissert, 5 Sogard & Wong, 4 Hicks & DHam 0 Everyone else