moonslav59

It does, but if we want to stay under our $10M winter spending limit, we may have to give up on signing a LH'd hitting DH at Uehara's expense. I'm not saying no; I'm just saying it may be an either or. Maybe we can trade for a cheap platoon player making minimum.

I mentioned .690 from leon in 400 PAs and .630 from Vaz in 200 PAs as actually improving on last year's catcher OPS, but I think we can and will do better than that. I'm happy with our catcher defense right now. Very happy. If we can get a .710 OPS from them, which is above average these days, we'd turn a long time problem area on this team to a sure fire plus-plus. If it works out, we may trade swihart at the deadline or try him at another position, if something goes wrong in the OF or 1B/3B/DH.

This makes way more sense to me than the Kimbrel deal. I realize CK was a top closer in MLB, but his contract was near FA numbers and we gave up way way more than for TYhornburg. I really love this deal. I could see Thornburg stealing the closer job from CK.

I'm not for trading Buch anymore. I do thing adding a couple vet starters to minor league deals make sense. I'm not sure who the Aaron Cooks are in the world today. I'd see if RDLR would agree to a minor league deal for cheap, but Edwin Escobar just signed for over $2M, so I'm not sure what's out there.

LOVE this move! I'm changing "like" to "love' also. In his prime and found his groove last year. Hes also Under control for a couple more years. Two more after this year: 3 total- all arbs!

I have to think someone would like one or two of our out-of-options RP'ers: Hembree, Abad or Elias. Maybe we could trade 3 from: Abad, Elias, TBall & Chavis for another low cost solid RP'er.

DD probably wants a strong top 6-8 if he can, so The six we have now will most likely be added to. Maybe a vet or two signed to a minor league deal.

I'm surprised we didn't give Milwaukee one of our out-of-options RP'ers: Hembree, Abad or Elias. Maybe we'll make a seperate 2 or 3 for one type deal for another RP'er. I'll "order it": SP1 Porcello SP2 Price SP3 ERod SP4 Wright SP5 Pomeranz SP6/long RP: Buchholz Closer: Kimbrel RP2: Thornburg RP3: (Smith-Buchholz) Kelly RP4: Ross RP5: Barnes RP6: Hembree/Abad/Elias (all out of options) That's the 12 pitchers on opening day, baring injury or roster decisions based on options remaining. Others: Owens, Johnson, Scott, Workman, Martin, N Ramirez, Ysla, Jerez .

Well, if it's Pomeranz, it's a lot cheaper for the 6th starter.

MLBTR estimates Thornburg's arb cost at : (3.057) – $2.2MM! That leaves us with close to $8M to try and sign Adam Lind, Brandon Moss or Pedro Alvarez. I think Alvarez makes more sense, because he can play 3B (poorly, granted). It would be great, if we could find a way to get Alvarez and Uehara. Here's an idea: let's say Uehara wants to retire after 2017. We could sign him to a three year $7.5M deal, and it would only cost us $2.5M on the luxury budget.

I thought we needed to trade Buch to be able to afford a top 8th inning RPers and maybe a LH'd hitting DH, but this trade cost us little off the luxury tax budget. I thought it was Buch -OR- a top 8th inning RP'er + LH'd DH. Now, we can have Buch + top 8th inning RP'er + maybe a DH. I was not as high as many on Shaw. Word was Dubon looked to top out as a good utility guy. Pennington had Tommy John surgery and is a huge "if". Like I said, I value the 6th starter position, but it looked like its high cost might prevent us from filling higher need areas. I was wrong. DD pulled off a good trade. I'm happy.

Yes, I agree. I'd rather trade Shaw, Dubon and Pennington than Swihart. Good deal!

Pennington might be the best of the three. Here's the summary on Pennington from soxprospects.com: Potential late-inning arm if things break right, but has a long way to go and a lot of risk due to previous Tommy John surgery. Because of prior arm trouble, delivery, build, and lack of a third pitch, doesn’t profile as a starter, although will likely be developed as one.

Now that we have Thornburg, trading Buch makes way less sense. I liked Dubon, but I never viewed him as a plus SS of the future (assuming Bogey bolts to free agency or got moved to 3B years from now). Good trade, DD!

Shaw, Dubon and Pennington for Tyler Thornburg. I like the trade. Thornburg had a great season: 67 IP 12.1 K/9 0.940 WHIP 199 ERA+ 5.1 H/9 Maybe he can improve on his 3.4 BB/9.

Well, there you go: more good prospects for a RP'er. At least he has 3 years of team control through arbs.

Look, I know starter depth is important. I've shown how many starts we have used in recent years from our 6-12th starters many times. Show me a way we can stay under the luxury limit (just $10M to spend), keep Buch, and find a solid 8th inning RPer and maybe another RP'er and a LH'd hitting DH. Show me, without trading a blue chip prospect, and I'm all on board.

We did not sign Dempster to be out 6th starter. I had him ahead of Doubront as the 4th starter, and I think Sox management did too. Plus, with a fragile Buch in the rotation, he could easily have ended up the 3rd starter that year.

True, and I have said based on recent Sox history, that there will probably be 30 starts available to our 6th and beyond starters, but I see Buch as our 5th or 6th starter right now. I doubt we use Wright out of the pen, so it's between Pomeranz and Buch. I know starter depth is a concern. I'm scared as hell of the thought of having to use Elias, Owens, Johnson or the next O'Sullivan next year, but I have even more grave concerns about our pen. I'm not sure if posters are being fooled by how well our pen did in September, but counting on Kelly, Barnes and Hembree to take up the slack from departing Ziegler, Uehara and Tazawa scares the bejesus out of me! I wouldn't count on Carson Smith coming back before July, and when he does, what can we expect? The whole league is moving towards stronger and deeper pens. We can't afford to move from the mediocrity of our 2016 pen to something worse. We can hope nobody gets hurt, and Buch becomes a force in the pen. We can Hope Kelly builds on his late season showing last year, but we gave the guy a starting slot based on his ending to 2015. Assuming he's a lock on a quality set-up role is a dangerous gamble. Ross has been steady for several years, but I'm not sure he's 8th inning caliber. Wanna try and see, if he can do it and risk messing up a good 7th inning guy? Not me. Barnes and Hembree bot are very promising. I have faith in both, but I'm not about to pencil them in for the 8th inning just yet. People, our pen took a gigantic hit losing Ziegler and Uehara. Tazawa wasn't bad either. Even Kimbrel showed signs of regression. What if that continues? Our pen needs serious help. We need at least a solid 8th inning guy that may be able to close, if necessary. I'm not even sure Uehara can fill that role, but he's about the least kind of upgrade we need. If we don't get someone better than Uehara, we might try two guys like Uehara in hopes that one does well and the other okay. With just $10M to spend, it's not going to be easy, unless we want to trade a prospect for a RP'er, something I hate to do. That's why I see gaining budget space by trading Buch as an option. I'm only saying this based on the assumption we are going to reset the luxury tax tax this winter by staying under the limit. There's no other big contract we can trade without creating a bigger hole than our 6th starter slot. In theory, trading Buch for a good RP'er making maybe $3.5M would not only fill a pen slot, but would add $10M to the $10M we have and allow us to sign or trade for a more costly RP'er and LH'd hitting DH or 3Bman not just one or the other. Or, we could go bold and sign Chapman or Jansen or Turner.

Plus, our catcher offense was ranked 18th, which is not really that bad (.681). The league catcher OPS average was .702. I know people keep talking about a Leon offensive regression, but one could also look at the strong possibility that a Leon-Vaz combo could improve on these numbers: 181 PAs .584 by Vaz 111 PAs .449 by Hanigan 34 PAs .454 by Holaday That's 326 PAs of pretty God-awful offense. Leon only had 271 PAs (.840) and Swihart 23 PAs (.669) as catchers, so if Leon can give us 400 PAs at .690 and Vaz can give us 200 PAs at .630, our catcher OPS could improve from 2016.

Brandon Moss:.319 OBP and .472 SLG% career vs RHPs. However, he did have a .525 SLG% vs RHPs this year but a .303 OBP. He was much worse in 2015.

It's .321 vs RHPs, but your point is very well taken. His .801 OPS vs RHPs is fueled mostly by his SLG% of .480. (Also, he has not gotten over .330 OBP in the last two years vs RHPs.) Better choices might be who with what we have to spend? Adam Lind .328 career OBP BUT .347/.502/.849 vs RHPs! He had an off year this year, so that is a big concern (.287/.442/.729 v RHPs). We could hope for his 2015 numbers vs RHPs: .380/.503/.883. Brandon Moss .319 OBP (.319 vs RHPs with a .472 SLG% career vs RHPs). However, he did have a .525 SLG% vs RHPs last year but a .303 OBP. He was much worse in 2015. Moreland .315 OBP career. He's .321/.457/.778 carerr vs RHPs but was awful this year (.293/.407/.700). Again, we could hope for 2015 numbers: .348/.528/.876. Morrison (28) .325 OBP career. He's .327/.435/.762 career vs RHPs. Another candidate with bad 2016 numbers: .312/.419/.731 vs RHPs. It makes me wonder, if we should just put all our winter budget and planning into building pitching depth. With Pablo looking in great shape, maybe the gamble should be to just let our own system work itself out. Maybe something like this: DH PAs: 250 HanRam vs some RHPs and a few LHPs. 200 Pablo vs some RHPs 250 Young vs almost all LHPs 3B PAs: 250 Pablo vs RHPs 200 Shaw vs RHPs and some LHPs 200 Moncada vs LHPs and some RHPs 1B: 400 HanRam vs LHPs and some RHPs 300 Shaw vs RHPs and some LHPs. The big ifs are Pablo and Shaw, but if Moncada can take more PAs from 3B or possibly DH, if he can't field worth a hill of beans, then the PAs can be reduced from either or both Pablo and Shaw. Pablo sucked vs LHPs, even when he was good, so I feel he should be platooned. Shaw is a much better defensive 1Bman than HanRam, so let's give hanRam some rest by DH'ing him often vs RHPs. He even said he likes the idea. Maybe Hernandez or Holt can earn some quality PAs at 3B.

No, but nobody wanted us to sign him to a 3 years $30M deal or whatever high-priced contract he suggested like bosoxmal did last winter. To most of us, the issue was that we could not guarantee him a starting slot, yet we ended up using our 10th starter on our depth chart in early May (O'Sullivan) then had to trade for Pomeranz mid season.

No. I didn't care about Espi's numbers- others did. Every time I talk about how much we gave up for someone, posters bring up numbers from the minors to try and prove the player we gave up was not as good as I think he is or might be. I'm trying to show the folly of such arguments. I think Giolito is the real deal- just like I think Moncada and Devers are and Espi and Margot were.