moonslav59

Adding Bennett to the pen could be all the pen needs to outshine any other team's pen. Chapman Whitlock & Miller Bennett & Bello (Guerrero, Moran & maybe 1 from Crochet/Houck/Slaten) You don't usually need 11-13 pitchers in the playoffs. If we do, they won't be the reason we lose. I like our top 7-8 pitchers as much as anyone else, or at least it's very close. I like our defense. (11th in last 81 games according to fangraphs. TBR is slightly better. CLE is 5th. No other AL contender is top 14.) Our offense has been top 10 over half season (81 games.) #3 in Runs scored (#1 in AL) #8 in OPS (#2 in AL behind TBR) Last 81 games: 53-28 BOS (#1 Pitching fWAR/#2 ERA-) 50-30 TBR (#9 Pitching fWAR/#4 ERA-) 50-31 MIL 46-32 CHC 45-32 LAD 44-36 NYY (#3 Pitching fWAR/#1 ERA-) Yanks are 25th in Runs scored and 28th in OPS over last 81 games, and posters are crying about the Sox offense. Sure, they got Judge back, but our offense should improve with Anthony, AR and Story added over the last few weeks. We have a well balanced team with a playoff roster that looks very tough.

Nope. There will be no shutdown, and if there is, no longer than April missed.

I'm not one to think looking ahead at 2027 is doin a disservice to the 2026 team or jinxing us in any way. I like our chances this year, based on our top 6-8 pitchers when the playoffs often see much less IP from the #9-13 pitchers. That being said, I'm stoked about our 2027 chances, but knowing full well, injuries are a certainty, and who gets injured can easily shift my positions of extreme optimism to something less or much less. There are three major reasons for my high level of optimism: 1. The players we lose or may lose to free agency are significant, but not as bad as other teams and recent Sox off seasons. The biggie is Gray, but he may return. IKF is a decent role player but easily replaceable, even from within the system. Sandoval appears to be addition by subtraction, but our minor league SP'er depth took a big hit over the last year. Our everyday player core of 9-12 players all return. One could conclude that Crochet might replace Gray seamlessly- leaving no urgent need to replace anyone we lose. One could also think Crochet, Houck, Crawford + Oviedo (Bello?) can improve on Gray + Sandoval. _________________________ 2. The quality of our starting 9, rotation and top 4-5 RP'ers already on the roster: C Rutschman 1B Contreras 2B Mead 3B Durbin SS Arias (Story) LF Anthony CF Rafaela RF Abreu DH Yoshida SP: Crochet, Tolle, Suarez, Bennett, Bello RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Miller, Slaten (Houck/Crawford) That's a very solid 18 players. _________________________ 3. The bench and AAA/AA depth: Our bench carried us for much of 2026, especially the middle IF, rotation and pen depth. Despite losing IKF, Gray and Sandoval, I think the bench will be as strong or stronger next year, but that depends on how many are needed to start due to injuries to the solid 18 posted above. Here is how I see our 2027 depth chart, assuming the 18 listed above are the major slots filled: C: Wong, Gasper (Jo Garcia, Baez, H White, GRod, Rosario) This is not a strength area, but maybe a minor leaguer steps it up in '27) 1B: Mead, Casas, Romy, Gasper, Sogard (Brannon/Gonzales) looks about as deep as any MLB team has. 2B: Story, Sogard, Romy, Seigler, Monasterio, Cheng (Rodgers, McDonough, Romero, Cespedes M White) is again among the top depth in MLB at 2B. 3B: Story, Monasterio, Cheng, Sogard, Seigler (Romero, Winnay) is pretty good, but probably not if needed for 80+ games) SS: Story, Monasterio, Cheng, Sogard is pretty good. OF: Duran, Yoshida, Jones, White & maybe Mead. (Campbell, Eaton, Gonzales, Ward) Pretty good. DH: Duran, Romy, Gasper, Jones, Sogard.... (Brannon, Jo Garcia, Cespedes) Pretty good SP: Houck, Crawford, Oviedo is not deep but could be very good. (Paez, Wehunt, Holobetz, Ziehl, Burgos is not great nor 11-12 deep) RP: Guerrero, Weissert, Moran, Kelly (Mullins, Bastardo, Gamboa, Samaniego, Rivera, Olds, Futrell, Monegor) looks decent but will probably be bolstered by a signing or trade. Health will be a major factor, of course, and we will go into the season with significant questions about some major pieces: Crochet, Houck, Crawford and to some extent Anthony, AR, Slaten and lesser pieces like Oviedo & Casas and high salaried guys like Story & Yoshida and even Duran. I think our 2027 roster has an overall great foundation and depth.

The AL is kinda lacking in the quantity of quality. Everyday Players over ____ fWAR ... 1.5: AL 79/ NL 80 (call it a tie) 2.5: AL 43/ NL 48 (seperation begins) 3.5: AL 18 (including Ceddanne, Wilyer & Willson)/ NL 23 4.5: AL 8/ NL 7 (Ooops, there goes my point.) 5.5: AL 2 (Yordan & Witt)/ NL 2 (PCA & de la Cruz) Pitching 1.5: AL 61> NL 54 2.5: AL 28> NL 23 (including Gray, Suarez & Tolle) 3.5: NL 10> AL 9 (including Suarez & Tolle) 4.5: NL 5 = AL 5 5.5: NL 4> AL 2 Overall, pretty damn even.

We've seen some nationally, highly- ranked prospects stumble, get injured or both, ao I hesitate to sound gushy over Arias, but I really think he will be the "real deal." I still feel the same about Anthony, too. I've not given up on Campbell, either, but Mayer is heading for major bust territory- at least with another team, anyway. We've traded away a lot of top prospects and recent grads. Harrison was not really all that "recent," but he had a ton of control years left. Early looked like a smart pitcher and a keeper. Dobbins, Drohan & Priester may fizzle out- maybe not. Eyanson, Witherspoon, Perales, Clarke, Fajardo, Travieso, Sandlin, Uberstine, Aita and others have a lot of time to show up or show out. JH Garcia is still getting his feet wet. The Crochet deal has only really helped the CWS with one guy, so far, and he seemed like the throw-in: Meidroth. Time will tell on Teel & Montgomery. They still have many years to show up. According to soxprospects.com, here is a list of the highest ranking prospects in order of highest slots since fall 2023: (only notables listed if below #10) 1. Anthony, Tolle, Arias 2. Campbell, Eyanson 3. Early, Teel, Witherspoon 4. Ceddanne, Bennett, Bleis 5. Gonzales, Montgomery, Witherspoon 6. Perales, Azocar, Yorke, Jh Garcia, Cespedes, Romero 7 Perales, Primera, Valera, Phillips 8. Abreu, Godbout, Clarke 9 Fitts, Sandlin, Wikelman 10 Fajardo, Delzine, Soto, Zanetello 11. Meidroth 12 Romero 13. Holobetz, M Lugo, Uberstine 15 Drohan, Paulino 17 Wehunt, Ramos 18 Rivas 19 Blaze 20 Slaten, Travieso, Paez 21 DHam 23 Dobbins 24 Elmer Rodriguez 28 Hoppe

The farm seasons are over, except for WOO. soxprospects.com has next year's roster projections set up: https://www.soxprospects.com/2027.htm Some notables: Crawford joins Paez, Wehunt, Holobetz and Ziehl in the Woo rotation. While that rotation looks decent for a AAA team, Crawford looks like the only meaningful ML-impact starter. They have Mullins as the #6, but maybe he gets moved to the pen. The pen has Bastardo, Gamboa, Smaniego, Rivera and Olds. The everyday players at Woo look pretty decent, but with Duran, Jones, Yoshida, Eaton and Cheng listed in la-la land as bubble players, I'm going to push Monasterio, Gasper, Eaton & Cheng to AAA, making there roster look like this: C: Jo Garcia, Nate Baez (H White/ GRod AA) 1B: Casas, Gasper (Hickey?) 2B: Seigler, Rodgers, McDonough (M White AA) 3B: Eaton, Romero (Winnay AA) SS: Arias (MLB?) Liendo (Godbout AA) LF: Castro (Gutierrez AA) CF: Ward, Bleis (I Jackson AA) RF: Campbell (Gonzales AA) DH: Brannon (AA>AAA) or Jo Garcia/Casas/Gasper/Seigler (Ro Hernandez AA)

Agreed, but Brez did use some of the young pitching depth to improve the quality of the MLB staff and line-up. Staff: Perales for Bennett (5 yrs of control) Clarke, Fajardo & Aita for Gray (might just be one year) Travieso (+Jh Garcia) for Oviedo & Samaniego Line-up: Dobbins, Fajardo & Aite for Contreras (3 yrs of control) Early for Mead Harrison, Drohan (+DHam) for Durbin, Monasterio & Seigler (One could argue the money saved on no Bregman allowed us to sign Suarez) Added farm pitching: Sandlin & Hicks for Ziehl (maybe a push) Delzine (IFA) Phillips, Brown & LaFavor('25 and '26 Drafts) Barrett Morgan, Jacob Mayers, Leighton Finley and some others have some hopes.

We were not favored to make the playoffs halfway through the season, so we saw first hand how things in baseball can change in major ways.... sometimes overnight.

Devers at DH or 1B was the obvious solution years ago. I guess his tolerance level was one position change per year and per team.

Good points. BTW, 11 HRs in 306 PAs is over 20 per 650. The ball being juiced at lower farm levels should make us think twice about 18-22 HRs by some of our prospects, but Arias and Brannon's homers are legit. I know Brannon Ks a lot (115 in 350 ABs,) but he's batting .280 and has 30 2B+3Bs, too! His .355 OBP would likely not be matched at the ML level, but .325 and even .300 beats Duran. Arias has 24 HRs in 430 ABs. He has 29 2B+3Bs, a .323 BA and .402 OBP. I kinda wish he was our current SS with Story and Sogard/Seigler at 2B, but our middle infield has done much better than recent years, and I get why they want to keep Arias off the 40 as a work stoppage looms. (Note: Tyler McDonough had 20 HRs for POR>WOO in 361 ABs, but I doubt he sees MLB action.) Jo Garcia & Will Turner both had 18 HRs at POR in 320 ABs. The lower level HR leaders: 21 Jackson (396 ABs GRE>POR) 20 Heyman (359 SAL>GRE) 20 Cespedes (442 GRE>POR) 19 Gonzales (421 GRE>POR) 18 Mason White (350 GRE>POR)

I know the starting pitcher is the driving force behind setting odds on winning any specific game, but it seems like our history has shown we do pretty well vs the real good starters and often do poorly vs no-names and meh pitchers.

Had our chances. The offense needs a spark, or two, or three...

He's close to 68-82, so good point. Same guy who projected we'd miss the playoffs. How many people thought we'd make the playoffs? Fangraphs Ring winners: AL: 10.1% TBR, 9.3% NYY, 6.3% BOS, 4.2% HOU NL: 25.9% LAD, 13.4% MIL, 7.3% PHI, 5.2% CHC, ATL 4.9% Sportsbook has us 5th (behind TBR and ahead of CHC)

The 2026 Sox All IL, DFA'd, Traded Away & AAA Team: SP: Crochet, Early, Houck, Crawford, Oviedo, Uberstine RP: Slaten, Guerrero, Watson, Coulombe, Kelly, Samaniego, Rivera C: Narvaez & Rodgers 1B: Casas 2B: Mead & Rodgers 3B: Seigler & Mayer SS: Arias & Cheng LF: Yoshida CF: Rafaela RF: Ward DH: Romy

Even ones that are out for the end of the season and playoffs? Sounds kinds lop-sided.

Agreed. I think throwing errors were about 45% of his errors, but that's a lot for a 3Bman.

Shouldn't we take away some HRs from other players on other teams, too? Maybe that brings us to #12.

American League Runs Allowed since June 25th 160 NYY (196 scored) NET +36 167 TOR (199 scored) +32 180 TBR (212 scored) NET+32 181 DET (227 scored) NET +46 187 CLE (195 scored) NET +8 188 BOS (231 scored) NET +43

Miller & Bennett might be better than some playoff team's 3rd, 4th or 5th best pitchers.

...and first in 2Bs 5th in ISO 2nd in OPS & wRC+ 2nd in Sac Hits And of course, 1st in HBPs.

"Plus" can be a +1 DRS. I thought it might take time to get there. Even -2 is better than his 3B DRS.

Agreed. I do worry a bit about the quality of our near ML ready pitching on the farm, but those two are longshots. 9. Holobetz (24 yrs old) 13. Wehunt (25) 16. Paez (22) 18. Bastardo (24) 21. Ziehl (23) 23. Mullins (26) 24. Monegro (23) 25. Rivera (23) Maybe the hop is 1 or 2 out of 8 make it. The odds of 1 or 2 out of 6 lowers the odds some.

Oue 1-2-3 starters might be our-matched by our 1-2-3 RP'ers! Chapman Whitlock Miller (Bennett & Guerrero are pretty damn good, too) Your top 3 starters and top 3 RP'ers take on more value in playoff setting. I'm not saying the Yanks and Rays don't have nice 3 and 3's but I like ours more.

He sucks at SS defense, and I'm big on that. He's better than Monasterio, but he's not #15 right now. (I'd rather have Arias now, but he's not being promoted.) 1. Tolle 2. Gray 3. Ceddanne 4. Contreras 5. Abreu 6. Suarez 7. Anthony (could move up) 8. Durbin 9.Chapman 10. Whitlock 11. Bennett (maybe #14 for playoffs) 12. AR 13. Sogard 14. Miller 15. I could see putting Story or Duran, but I'd put Story, because he's the SS.

I am okay with Story. On this site, I'm maybe in the top 10% on his side. My main beef is that he should be at 2B, but for now, we have nobody better, unless we promote Arias.