moonslav59

If we are in a race for a ring, which we should be, I can't see us trading Pablo or HanRam at the deadline. Even if Travis and Moreland are doing well, I doubt we decide to go with Holt-Rutledge-Hernandez at 3B and rely on a continuance of good play from Travis-Moreland-Young at 1B-DH. I could maybe see us trading Moreland, if Travis is doing very well. If we trade HanRam, we'd have to replace him, in kind, at a lower cost to make it worthwhile. If Pablo gets off to a good start and ends up having some trade value or even a lot of trade value, who plays 3B after trading him away?

Agreed, 2019 is too early to expect Groome to start and do very well. We have 6 starters. If we keep 5 and hope Groome can ease his way into a starter role by 2020, we won't need to spend big on keeping all 6 or finding a replacement for Pom or Porcello (assuming we chose to keep Sale and one from pom/Porcello).

I mentioned replacing Pom, because his and Sale's contracts are the first to expire. Assuming good health and no radical declines, I think we'll try to keep Sale. Maybe GRoome will not be ready until the following year, when Porcello's deal expires. I do think he may replace Porcello instead, due to his age. Eitherway, having Groome become good enough to replace Pom or Porcello without a big drop off would go a long way towards helping us keep everyone else we want to keep.

The only relief comes when we drop Pablo and HanRam, most likely after the 2018 season. However, with extensions pending, and Sale coming off the books and needing to be re-signed or replaced, we'll be "tight" even still. We really need at least 2 of these guys to give us great production at a low cost, so we can spend elsewhere: Devers Travis Groome If we can replace Pablo with devers, HanRam with Travis and Pomeranz with Groome, without losing much production, we might be able to squeak by and keep all our major pieces without going $40M over any year and without going 3 or 4 straight years over the limit (assuming we reset this season).

I doubt we trade HanRam, but $22M is a lot to pay for a DH. Even Papi never made that.

Yes, but there is also a penalty for going $40M or more over the limit, even if you are reset, so yes, we can go over, but within reason..

3 come off the books: Young ($6.5M luxury tax number), Moreland ($5.5M) and Abad ($2.05M). Options: $13M Kimbrel (up $2.5M from his current luxury tax number) $12.5M C Sale (up $6M from his current luxury tax number) Assuming we take the options, we aren't left with much spare room, and we haven't even counted arb raises.

A few reasons: 1) Going over by a certain amount, even if "reset" can cause serious penalties that include loss of picks and/or slot money. 2) Signing any of these guys to a multiple year deal would pretty much guarantee we lose one more of our current players down the road. 3) We might have bigger worries than SP'er next winter.

I don't think it indicates a "Major concern". I think they knew all along, he wasn't going to beat out a pitcher with no options remaining anyways. Maybe they just wanted other pitchers to get the ST'ing innings. I may be wrong, but it seems like less double game dates this spring. Maybe they felt Workman would get better workouts in another environment, and not be thinking about "making the team".

I doubt we have much money to sign a big FA next winter with extensions on the near horizon, but if we do, it's nice to see there are some good choices at areas we may have a high need: 3B: Moustakes 1B: Hosmer C: Lucroy P: the top 4 on the list

I'm sure he's still going to work on returning to a higher level- just not with the big club in ST'ing. Maybe they just felt pitching a few more innings in ST'ing was not what he needs right now. I look forward to seeing him get a chance later this season. I always liked him.

MLBTR ranks next year's possible FA class: 1. Jake Arrieta 2. Yu Darvish 3. Johnny Cueto 4. Mashiro Tanaka 5. Jonathan Lucroy 6. JD Martinez 7. Eric Hosmer 8. Justin Upton 9. Carlos Gonzalez 10. Mike Moustakes "Just misses": C Tillman, T Frazier, M Pineda, C Santana, L Cain & W Davis.

MLBTR... David Price told Red Sox reporters that he’s not 100 percent certain exactly what the injury he’s facing is, but in fairly strange fashion, noted that he’d have opted for surgery if he were 22 or 23 years old (via Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald). “They said if I was 22 or 23, they’d have told me to go have surgery,” said Price. “…I’ve gone through this. This is something I feel like happens every spring training. It’s those first four to five weeks of spring training that I feel like I go through this every single year, and this year was just a little bit worse.” Pressed on the specifics of the injury Price stated that he’s not sure what precisely set off the alarm bells for doctors but added that his elbow feels good and offered no concern regarding his ulnar collateral ligament. There’s no timeline for his recovery, though Drellich notes that it’s looking likely that Price will be on the DL to open the season.

He has options left- something Abad, Hembree and others do not, and I think management probably feels he needs more time to get to his best. If he truly has recovered, he'll get ample opportunities to show he belongs in the bigs.

MLBTR... Brian MacPherson of the Providence Journal provides updates on a pair of mending Red Sox relievers (Twitter links). Setup man Tyler Thornburg, acquired in the trade that sent Travis Shaw to Milwaukee this winter, is slated to throw off a mound on Wednesday. Thornburg hasn’t appeared in a game since March 1 but appears to be nearing a return to action. As for last season’s setup acquisition, Carson Smith (who underwent Tommy John surgery before pitching in the regular season), he threw a 15-to-18 pitch bullpen session today, which marks his first mound work since undergoing his Tommy John procedure.

MLBTR... David Price told Red Sox reporters that he’s not 100 percent certain exactly what the injury he’s facing is, but in fairly strange fashion, noted that he’d have opted for surgery if he were 22 or 23 years old (via Evan Drellich of the Boston Herald). “They said if I was 22 or 23, they’d have told me to go have surgery,” said Price. “…I’ve gone through this. This is something I feel like happens every spring training. It’s those first four to five weeks of spring training that I feel like I go through this every single year, and this year was just a little bit worse.” Pressed on the specifics of the injury Price stated that he’s not sure what precisely set off the alarm bells for doctors but added that his elbow feels good and offered no concern regarding his ulnar collateral ligament. There’s no timeline for his recovery, though Drellich notes that it’s looking likely that Price will be on the DL to open the season.

Agreed. I do think Henry's bigger concern is the luxury tax and the penalties involved with going over by too much and/or too often. Some penalties invlove more than just money coming out of the profits.

347 AB is not all that much, especially when scattered over two seasons in the last 3 years. I agree that his .602 career OPS in MLB is unsustainable, but I look at his minor league sample size of almost 2,200 PAs and a .734 OPS with some hope. If he can just get his OPS above .650, he'd be a plus, or at least have much more trade value. If he can get to .680 great! If gets over .700, he'd likely be our starter, and we'd probably trade Swihart or move him to another position.

Castillo is not on the 40 man roster.

Yes, I know, but just DFA'ing one of these guys or trading them for peanuts, before we really know if Swi is the answer scares me. I know we can't wait forever for Vaz to shine, if he ever does, but looking at his career, he really hasn't played a whole lot at the big league level. I hate making these calls before we know more. I get the argument that if Swihart is doing well and one of our two are struggling badly, we have to try to win this year by calling Swi up, but keeping 3 catchers for as long as possible is also a strong priority.

Catcher's often take time to develop. I'd hate to give up that quickly on Vaz. It's not like he's had extended playing time that often. I'm not disagreeing though, if Swihart proves to be a better option, we may have to make a tough choice and trade a catcher at a low stock price. We could probably get creative with a phantom DL and rehab assignment for one of our catchers, but that can only prolong the choice for so long.

With the state of catching the way it is these days, my guess is several teams would want the catcher we may end up looking to trade, but as of right now, Their trade value is not worth more than what they mean to us. We need to find our catcher of the future, and three chances are better than two.

MLBTR.... Red Sox reliever Tyler Thornburg’s lack of shoulder strength partially boils down to miscommunication, writes Silverman. After they acquired him from the Brewers, the Red Sox, who have their own shoulder maintenance program, sent Thornburg a list of exercises to perform daily. He misunderstood the directions, however. “I kind of figured that this is a list of the exercises they incorporated, I didn’t think this is what they do all in one day,” said Thornburg. “I thought, ‘here’s a list of exercises, learn them, pick five or six of them,’ because that was pretty much what we did in Milwaukee.” Teammate and fellow reliever Joe Kelly also had a difficult time adjusting to the program when the Red Sox acquired him in 2014, but he’s now on board with it. “It’s something that I didn’t buy into all the way when I first did it because it’s something new, something new you’re doing and you’re getting sore and fatigued, it’s something you probably don’t want to do,” Kelly stated. “It’s something I stuck with, and I tried it and ultimately it just felt great. It’s one of the things you’ve kind of got to get results first in order to believe.” It didn’t surprise Clay Buchholz that the Red Sox traded him during the offseason, the right-hander told reporters – including Michael Silverman of the Boston Herald – on Sunday (Twitter links). Buchholz is now with the Phillies, though he expected Boston to send him to the White Sox as part of the Chris Sale deal. “This is probably good for me, getting out of Boston in general,” said Buchholz, who had been a member of the Red Sox since they selected him in the first round of the 2005 draft. “It stinks to say that but seems like more people remember bad things that happened rather than good things.” Buchholz had his down moments in Boston, including a rough 2016, but posted respectable numbers in 1,167 2/3 innings with the Sox (3.96 ERA, 6.93 K/9, 3.21 BB/9, 47.8 percent ground-ball rate) and had arguably his best season in 2013 as part of a World Series-winning club.

I wouldn't give up on Vaz after 2-3 months of poor offense, assuming he starts slowly. However, if Swihart is doing very well in AAA, we may have to make a choice. I might trade Leon.

Vaz and Leon are out of options, but Swihart has options. I doubt we trade a catcher before opening day, unless someone makes us a very good offer. We need to let this play out, so we can have a better understanding of what we have. That only happens if we start Swi in AAA or go with 3 catchers but use Swi at DH from time ti time.