moonslav59

I think Paredes is worth more than the $11M BTV assigns him, but I'm not sure he's worth Bello. I'd give them Crawford (valued at $22M.) Maybe we could get Paredes plus Sousa or King for IP. I really like Paredes, but I view Bello as significant;y better than Sandoval, Crawford & Harrison- our likely 4-5-6 SP'ers. We can't afford a major step down in the rotation and its depth, as now Harrison becomes the #5, and that's assuming Kutter and Patrick don't start the year on the IL, otherwise, Harrison is our #3 with Tolle & Early pressed into MLB roles on day one. I might give Kristian Campbell for Paredes and King.

Our top everyday prospects seem to fit well with openings that may arise in the near future: SS #2 Arias (Story to 2B?) OF #7 Gonzales (Should be ready when Duran's control ends) SS #8 Soto (Is far away from the bigs, so maybe when DHam/Sogard are gone.) 2B #12 Godbout (Wish he was ready, now.) UT #13 Romero (May get a look, this season) The lack of top everyday prospects is not so bad, since most of our positional players are under team control for 3 or more years. 2 yrs: Contreras, Yoshida 3 yrs: Duran, Story, Casas & Romy

The 2025 season saw 4 major prospects graduate: Roman Anthony Marcelo Mayer Kristian Campbell Carlos Narvaez The year before we saw Rafaela, Abreu, DHam & Slaten graduate. This year it looks like Payton Tolle, Connelly Early, Ryan Watson and maybe David Sandlin, Tyler Uberstine or Shane Drohan do so. This would mark the serious shift our farm has gone from everyday players graduation 7 of the last 8 to maybe seeing 3-5 pitchers as the only grads, this year. According to soxprospects.com, 8 of our top 11 prospects are pitchers. 12 of the top 17, too. Not bad, when you consider our MLB staff has these aged pitchers: 23 Harrison 26 Crochet & Bello 27 Slaten 28 Moran 29 Whitlock 30 Weissert & Kelly

I can sometimes be a stickler for semantics, but I keep hearing hos JH is "cheap," when he actually has spent a lot for two decades and for the the the last 2-3 years. The Devers extension was signed in JAN 2023, but it I believe it started in 2024, so more like 2 years. It sucked from 2019 (not re-signing or replacing Kimbrel & Kelly) through the Betts trade and countless stars leaving without in-kind replacements, but the spending has returned. We can argue it should be more, but saying he's not spending or is cheap is not needed (nor true) to make that point.

And, we were one of 9 teams going over the tax line in 2025. We went over by the 7th most.

I think we all want us to get better, anyway-anyhow. Spotrac has us 8th, right now. $16M from #7.

That's fine, but that is not the same as saying JH does not spend a lot. I wish he'd spend more, too. I don't get pissed because he's like most businessmen.

Devers was not a FA. The $40M for Bregman was more like $32M. The $21M for Gray is exactly what we paid Buehler, who was the highest pitcher AAV since Sale (extension) and Price as a FA. Contreras costs us $21.5M as AAV. That's not as much as Breggie, but it's the second highest since Story's, when compared to just FA signings, which your point. No, this is not as much spending as last winter, and since that was on the heels of the Devers extension kicking, this is not as much, but we are seeing the Crochet extension kicking in, as well as Anthony & Campbell's. New AAV added for 2026: +$24.5M Crochet ($3.8M to $28.3M extension) $21M S Gray ($41M- $20M paid by STL) $21.3M Contreras $16.3M Anthony extension $10.3M Hicks (part of Devers dump) $7.5M Campbell extension +$2.5M Chapman ($10.8M to $13.3M extension) Again, this is not meant as a defense for JH, but they guys has spent some heavy new money. This might be more new money spent than almost any other team, so far. Granted, we dumped Devers and lost some heavy salaries for Buehler, Gio and some lesser ones, too. I do not think we are done spending, either.

They could differ so much maybe keep us under the 2nd line. It might take some salary trade aways, too.

Probably $120M/3 maybe with an opt out. Maybe $110/3 with a 4th year option at $30M and a $10M buyout.

Cheaper than a FA, yes, but not cheap. Gray cost us $21M and for once we got the other team to pay some cash. Contreras has a decent salary- yes cheaper than if he was a FA, but still we added a lot of salary, so far.

Why assume Moran flames out? Did you see my breakdown on TOR NYY and BOS top 3 pitchers? I'm also hoping we can add a number 2, but our 1-2-3 are as good or better than TOR & NYY. Our 6-9 SP'ers beat almost everyone's. Our 4-5 suffer, but they don't start in the playoffs, as you pointed out.

What does that mean, if it does not include an extra year added? Did he start with 2 years, go to 3, then 4 and is not "pushing hard" towards 5, or just adding some dollars to 4 years? How do you envision this "hard push?" I'm not saying you are wrong, but I'm curious just how much he can do, if the limit is 4 years, and Breggie is demanding 5+. Why offer the same money for 4 as someone with a 5 year offer?

He wants to win without large and long deals. We and the league have a pretty terrible record with large and long FA deals. We do spend, despite what you claim. I wish we spent more. I think we can win while staying below the second line, but we have to not swing and miss on the next deal or two, and we need some luck with health and progressions over regressions.

For what it's worth, soxprospects.com has Casas, Houck, Crawford and Sandoval beginning the season on the IL. They project this opening day roster: SP: Crochet, Gray, Bello, Oviedo, Harrison (2 weeks ago, they listed Crawford as the #5. I've seen Early listed there at other times.) RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Slaten, Weissert, Hicks, Kelly, Watson & Moran (no remaining options) C: Narvaez & Wong 1B: Contreras 2B: Mayer SS: Story 3B: _______ (Acquisition) LF: Anthony CF: Rafaela RF: Abreu DH: Duran Bench: Romy, DHam, Yoshida (Wong) Others on 40: Houck (to 60 Day IL once the season begins) Crawford (IL) Sandoval (IL) Tolle, Early, Sandlin, Uberstine, Drohan, Bennett, Samaniento Casas (IL) Campbell, Sogard, Eaton, T Gray Counting Houck, that's 10 pitchers and just 5 everyday players on the farm and on the 40. It's nice that Contreras can cover the Catcher position for a few days, until we can find and add a 3rd Catcher to the 40, so that saves an opening day roster slot. Watson is Rule 5, so he will have to be sent back, if removed from the 26, unless via IL. Moran and Hicks are out of options: Kelly is not. My guess is we make that 3B acquisition and trade or DFA a pitcher. We may also trade an OF'er- maybe with a pitcher for another player (3B/2B?) or pitcher (SP#2? or LH RP?). I don't see a 40 man roster crunch, and we can fill Houck's slot quickly, once the season starts, but when we get some players back from injury someone like Hicks, Moran or Watson will likely have to go. When Casas is ready, maybe we try to dump Masa or demote DHamor Yoshida.

He had surgery in mid May 2025. Just about everything I read says this, but it seems doubtful: "Extensive rehab, aiming for a return for the start of the 2026 season (Opening Day). "

Perhaps. Maybe some Sox exec told Olney that, and he felt $120M/3 was "aggressive." In terms of AAV, it is, but it's likely not what Breggie wants. Apparently, he wants 5 years, but $150M/5 is just $30M/2 more than the $120M/3 offer I mentioned. I'm still thinking we settle on Suarez. The Okamoto clock runs out Sunday, so if Breggie is not signed, or we know we are out of that race, we need to act soon on him or be elft with one fewer "fall back."

Gray and Contreras are "marginal" or "complimentary?" Gray is top 10 in SP fWAR in 2025, 2024 to 2025 or 2023-2025. Contreras is a top 35 OPS guy for the last 2-3 years combined. Sure, Oviedo, Watson and some others are marginal/complementary, but those are needed, too. We are one big bat or two good players away from being significantly better than 2025.

When you add some players mentioned in trades, like KMarte, Donovan, Vientos, Lodolo, Gore, Alcantara, Bubic, Ragans and others, there are still plenty of options out there. getting two would be great, but we'd have to make a trade for that to happen and not get the budget where JH says NO. To get two, we'd have to pass on Bregman and Bichette, IMO. Suarez or Okamoto could fit the budget model, and trading Duran ($7.8 AAV) for a solid SP like Lodolo ($5.2M) might keep us under the second tax line, which is maybe $24M away. $25M a year for Suarez or Okamoto minus $2.6M on the trade, and we squeak under the 2nd line. Try to get CIN to take Hicks plus $6M a year and we'd save another $4M a year in AAV. I think this looks like a significantly better team: 1. L Anthony LF 2. R Contreras 1B/C 3. L Abreu RF 4. R Suarez/Okamoto 3B 5. R Story SS 6. L Yoshida DH/R Romy DH/2B or R Campbell DH 7. R Narvaez C/L Casas 1B (Contreras at C) 8. L Mayer 2B/ R Romy 2B 9. R Rafaela CF Bench: Wong, Romy, Campbell, DHam/Casas/Sogard/Eaton (TGray/Romero/Ward) SP: Crochet, Gray, Lodolo, Bello, Sandoval/Oviedo (Tolle/Early) RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Slaten, Weissert, Chapman. Harrison, Watson, Hicks/Moran (Kelly/Sandlin/Mullins/Uberstine/Drohan/Gamboa) I LIKE THIS ROSTER!

I agree the rotation is better and the pen worse. We lost some rotation depth, but Tolle & Early look more like impact MLB SP'ers than they did last winter. Losing Gio hurt. Losing Buehler, May and a couple others might help. Losing Dobbins, Fitts and maybe Perales needs to be made up for with Tolle, Harrison for a full year and the returns of Crawford and Sandoval. All-in-all the rotation looks solid and deep. We are deep with 4-5-6 type SP'ers, and other teams might have better 4-5's, but having six to seven 4/5's helps a lot. We might be able to handle some of the pen losses by converting a starter or two into relief roles, even if just for a season. I said the same, last year, and we barely did that, as we ended up needed to trade for May and rush promote Tolle & Early, then used de Leon and Criswell. I have a big issue with thinking our line-up is better. While I believe is could be, we'd need an almost perfect confluence of luck, health and progressions for it to be better than 2025. I get how counting Devers and Lowe, who were not on the 2025 team for more than a 1/3 of the season is problematic when comparing this line-up to that, but they did give us some serious production value that cannot be ignored. The aspect of looking at what we lost from 2025 is that there are very few bad bats lost, except Toro. Bats lost from 2025 by PA ranking: 4. Bregman .821 in 495 PAs (OUCH!) 8. Devers .905 in 334 (Yes, he was still a top 9 batter by PAs) 10. Toto .659 in 284 (This is an area we can gain with Contreras) 12. Refsnyder .838 in 209 (OUCH!) 17. N Lowe .790 in 119 PAs (more PAs than Casas!) That's over 1050 good to great PAs lost and about 300 bad PAs lost, if you count 18 from Sabol and 9 from Garcia.) The argument I hear most is that we will get a full season from Anthony in 2026, and that is exciting, assuming he stays healthy, but he was already a top 9 batter by PAs with 303, so maybe he replaces 300-350 of that 1050 lost. That leaves us with 700 PAs lost. Even if N Lowe gives us 700, he's about a .790 batter, which was what the lowest batter lost hit (Lowe at .790.) Maybe Mayer gives us a boost, but can we count on him doing much better? We have many players in peak prime years or fast approaching them, and counting on progression is reasonable. They should outweigh the regressions by the very few post prime players we have, namely Story and Masa. Perhaps that brings us back to even with 2025, but that is assuming near perfect health for our best hitters or some gigantic jump by someone(s.) Lets go by position and 2025's OPS: .653 Catcher (Maybe Narvaez regresses some- maybe not. I think Wong hits better, so maybe we stay even. Perhaps Contreras plays some catcher and gives us a slight boost.) Let's project .673 (+20) .691 1B: Let's assume Contreras helps improve the defense at 1B and jumps the team OPS to .791. (+100) .670 2B: It's hard to project this slot. KC, DHam and others hit poorly, while Romy did well. It may be optimistic to think .670 (+0) .736 SS: I have to project regression, here: .716 counting back-ups (-20) .777 3B: Another hard one to project, but assuming Mayer & Co: .677 (-100) This puts the offense even going into the OF and DH. I'm combining these because as we look now, we have 4 OF'ers and 3 OF slots. I project Duran would DH a lot, if we don't trade anyone. If Rafaela plays 2B, it wouldn't change that OPS projection much, and we'd go with Masa/Casas/Campbell at DH. A lot depends on where Anthony plays, but let's go with Duran at DH, Anthony in LF, Rafaela in CF, Abreu in RF for data purposes. .781 LF: Anthony > Duran (+100) .774 CF: Rafaela FT drops this to .724 (-50) .822 RF: Abreu FT? is hard to project the same: I'll go .802 (-20) .823 DH: Thanks mostly to Devers. Let's say Duran hits like his 2025 OPS and helps the DH slot bat .773. That's -60 These 4 slots combine for minus 30. Maybe they can stay even. I'm seeing staying even as being optimistic. Being better is pushing it. The closeness highlights how adding one major bat can move us to plus on O, plus on D, plus on SP'ing and a big Q for the pen.

I always think fangraphs is generous when it assigns "value" to a player's production, and apparently it is open market FA value given. Here has been Bogey's "value" in 3 years with SDP: $36M '23 $16M '24 $26M '25 $78M/3= $26M a year, which is about what many felt we might have gotten him to sign a year or two before he became a FA. (We had signed Story to $23.3M x 6, so $26M x 6 might have been possible.) He's 33, now, and while he upticked some in 2025 after a bad '24 season, I'm not sure he'll be worth $26M x 3 more years. No doubt, I'd have wanted him at $26M x 6, 4-5 years ago. He was worth a lot on 21 ($33M) and '22 ($48M) but even if we added the 6 years to start in '23, I'd have liked that deal. I'll never be sure he would have accepted $26M x 4 back in '21 or '22. I'm not ron up over losing him, but when you add his name to Lester, Betts, JD, Sale and so many others not replaced, it still sting.

All it takes is an offer he likes.

I think Contreras will be a big help. I also think he might catch more than some expect. The words was STL was preparing to play him more at catcher in 2026. They were loaded at catcher in '25. Even if he just plays a little late inning stints at catcher, it's nice to have a PH option and the flexibility to move guys around. Cora loves that! I seriously doubt we go over the second tax line, so adding a huge contract means we have to unload some. Of course Hicks and Masa come to mind, but that is likely just a dream and might save just $3-6M each on trades for nothing. More likely we'd trade Duran ($7.75M) for something much less costly. Is signing Bregman and trading Duran for prospects improving the offense? Duran for Lodolo only saves about $2-3M. Not enough. Other adjusted AAVs: (WHAT THE OTHER TEAM TAKES ON, not what we SAVE.) $27.5M Story (We'd have another IF hole to fill) $13M Bello (Maybe this is why we keep hearing his name in trade talks.) $9.1 Sandoval (Not sure many teams want to pay that much for an injury question. Too bad there isn't another Brez in MLB.) $8.4M Campbell $8m Rafaela (Move Anthony or Duran to CF?) $7.8M Duran $4M Houck (Only Brez would trade for a guy like Houck.) $2.8 Crawford (Not much relief.) The AAV we'd save by trading away for nothing added: $23.3 Story $18.0 Masa $10.3 Hicks $9.2 Bello $9.1 Sandoval $7.8 Duran $7.5 Campbell $6.3 Rafaela $4.0 Houck $2.8 Crawford It really sucks thinking of ways to save JH tax payments.

A perfect fit for the Sox would be Jose Ramirez from the Guardians, but I'm sure they are not looking at trading him. He is 33 and has 3 years of control ($23M adjusted AAV.) BTV has the switch hitter (career splits both at about .855) worth just $34M, which I find puzzling. They say Crawford (22) + Campbell (19) would be an overpay, but I'd do it in a heartbeat. 1. L Anthony LF 2. S Ramirez 3B 3. L Duran DH 4. R Contreras 1B/C 5. L Abreu RF 6. R Story SS 7. L Casas 1B/ R Narvaez C 8. L Mayer 2B/ R Romy 2B 9. R Rafaela CF

I know some of my trade suggestions are wild, and this may be my wildest... To TBR: Duran ($7.7M), DHam, Wong and Yoshida ($36M/2) + $10M cash To BOS: Y Diaz ($26M/2) & Jax Griffin ($9M/2) The money is about even. The Rays get a 2Bman and catcher. Yoshida replaces Diaz at DH and Duran gives them a pretty cheap star. We get Diaz to DH, unload Masa and can play Contreras at C, instead of Wong, play Diaz at 1B and DH Campbell or Romy, when Diaz is at 1B. We also get a nice RP'er. I'm not sure that's the best we can get for Duran, but we do unload Masa without taking on a salary dump in return and we stay even on the budget, which could allow us to still sign Suarez or Okamoto or ...gasp ... Breggie or Bichette. Let's say we sign Suarez... 1. L Anthony LF 2. R Diaz DH/1B 3. R Contreras 1B/C 4. L Abreu RF 5. R Suarez 3B 6. R Story SS 7. L Mayer/ R Romy 2B 8. R Narvaez C/ L Casas DH or R Campbell DH 9. R Rafaela CF Now, we'd have a very RHB tilted line-up. (Okamoto is a RHB, too.)