moonslav59

I agree, but we have yet to see how he handles a slump.

I'd love a 1 year deal with a team option. Maybe $18M/1 with a $17M option and a $4M buyout- making it a $22M/1 or $35M/2 deal.

I think he more than made up for his errors by getting to more balls than most SSs did, but just barely, and once he got hurt, his one plus was taken away, and he became a massive minus.

I get it. We need a big lefty bat though.

I don't see rule 5 being an issue this year. I think our bottom of the 40 man roster has some guys we can do without- like maybe Brentz, Elias, Abad & Holaday who have zero options. We (may) lose Papi, Ziegler, Uehara, Tazawa, Hill & Hanigan, but we have added these guys from our 60 man DL: Worman, Sandoval, Swihart. I think we're at 38 now. We can afford to get down to 34 or 35 by trading or DFA'ing some or all of the 4 I listed. There's also Marrero (1 option) and Jerez (2 options) that are not high need players. I don't see a lot of players that other teams would want on their 25 man roster all year, but here's the list soxprospects.com has: The following players will be eligible for the December 2016 Rule 5 Draft if they are not added to the 40-man roster by November 20, 2016: Danny Bethea, Ty Buttrey, Jamie Callahan, Carlos Coste, Ryan Court, Allen Craig, Jake Drehoff, Jeff Driskel, Jeffry Fernandez, Pat Goetze, Reed Gragnani, Taylor Grover, Justin Haley, Juan Hernandez, Dedgar Jimenez, Raiwinson Lameda, Anyelo LeClerc, Tzu-Wei Lin, Deiner Lopez, Austin Maddox, Kyle Martin, Mike McCarthy, Daniel McGrath, Simon Mercedes, Mike Meyers, Mike Miller, Yankory Pimentel, Tim Roberson, Javier Rodriguez, Jake Romanski, Dioscar Romero, Ramses Rosario, Jose Sermo, Teddy Stankiewicz, Aneury Tavarez, German Taveras, JT Watkins, Jordan Weems, Jantzen Witte, Luis Ysla I don't see a big problem at the bottom of our roster, even if we sign 4 free agents.

4 years of JBJ is a steep price to pay for 2 yrs of a DH. Including Young makes the deal too tough to swallow. We'd want Young in LF as Beni moves to CF. I'd rather have Young than Smith. I'm not sure I'd even do JBJ, Buch & Marrero for Cruz, Miranda and Cishek alone. How about Buch and Marrero for Cishek & Miranda? (I'm not sure I'd do even that one.)

Lugo was a mess after the injury. He was barely a break even or plus beforehand. Expecting him to become our lead off hitter was a mistake. His defense, helped greatly by a plus range, was not bad that first year. People tend to remember mostly the ending.

I think this looks about right. I'd love to see Beni lead off, but too much pressure might hurt him. I'd flip JBJ and Bogey vs RHPs. (keep as is vs LHPs)

I think a third year really squeezes Moncada, Devers or Travis. Of course a trade could be made, but even a two year deal may keep a great kid from getting a chance. I'm fine with Beltran for 2 years. I doubt Joey B settles for two. This could be his last chance to hit jackpot.

Beni may have to go through some learning curves along the way, but it's hard not to be really encouraged by his small 2016 sample size in the bigs. I'm super excited about him playing a full season in LF. We should get a boost from that position, but I'm not sure it will make up for a big chunck of our expected drop-off at DH. Our team cobbled together a 12th place finish in LF WAR last year (+2.0). We also had the 12th best LF OPS at .759, which was just .005 away from 9th best. That being said, when you break down last year's LF OPS, you can see room for significant improvement by replacing Holt and the scrubs with Beni and also a full season from Young (particularly against lefties). Holt got the most LF PAs by a lot. .850 Young (227 PAs in LF) .835 Beni (118) .720 Swihart (74) .705 Holt (324) .690 Brentz (64) .625 Castillo (8) .176 LaMarre (6)

Well said. In theory, it would be nice to acquire a 3Bman that could transition to DH when Moncada/Devers move up, but Justin Turner will be very expensive.

...His noted defensive deficiencies are concentrated at third base where... I guess that's why he wasn't a Sox option at 3B. Thanks.

Christian Vazquez made his fall debut Saturday with Cangrejeros de Santurce. He went 2 for 3 with two singles and two walks and caught all nine innings. -soxprospects.com

What are your thoughts on the Danny Valencia trade? I thought he might make a good 3B platoon with Shaw or just win the job outright. He's got a career .873 OPS vs LHPs. 2015-2016 3Bmen (out of top 30 by PAs at 3B) 6th vs LHPs at .878 12th vs RHPs at .792 10th overall at .822 The mariners gave up 22 year old prospect Paul Blackburn- a pitcher with a 6.2 K/9 rate in the minors.

I think he's a good gamble, but at what cost? We already have Carson Smith coming back, so I worry about too many recovering players.

Don't get me started.

Did Theo get death threats for signing Lester? Signing Jackie was an extremely difficult decision.

The story was a great one. From a fan's perspective, what Theo did was priceless - twice! From a GM's perspective, he had a big budget to work with, and with the Sox a nice foundation to start with. Theo's the greatest I've seen, but history shows others are at least as good, if not better.

That's why I have Barnes and Shaw over Dubon

He is very slow of foot. How many double plays did he hit into during the stretch? 4 in 124 PAs to end the season, counting the PO's.

The sample size on all these guys is way too low to make any kind of definitive judgment on the projected offensive skill set.

There was a lot of African American talent in the big leagues by the mid to late 1950's. Not really. While 14 teams had a black player by opening day 1957, 3 still did not, and many teams just had one "token" black player. By 1957, the total percent of black players reached 10. I guess you could call that a lot, but it barely reached 15% by 1959, so the growth was slow. It took until 1976 for the percent increase to level off.

I think most of us view Leon's hot streak as a fluke, although he has had some hot streaks in the minors before. Here's a refresher on Sandy's history: Out of 100 catchers with over 200 PAs between 2012 and 2015, Sandy placed #99 in catcher OPS at .483. Nobody had more PAs and a lower OPS as a catcher. Nobody. His SEP .539 OPS and playoff .582 OPS raises concerns about just how much we can count on more hot streaks going forward. He also ended AUG going 5 for 28 (.179) with 1 DBL and 2 BBs. Take the end of AUG, all of SEP and the playoffs, his poor sample size was 124 PAs (which is over half his career PAs). 5 for 28 (end of AUG) 16 for 75 (SEP) 1 for 10 (playoffs) 22 for 113 (.195 BA) He has a .654 minor league OPS in over 2300 PAs.

Elston Howard, NYY 1955. Pumpsie Green, BOS 1959. To count breaking a curse as more important than breaking the color barrier is losing sight of history. Only 2 other teams had a black player on their team 2.5 years later! Only 6 teams had black players by early SEPT 1953! It's quite possible that enormously important things happened before we were born or started watching baseball.

To look even more closely.... Here are Pablo's career splits vs RHPs prorated to 650 PAs: .298 21 88 (OBP .352/ SLG .484). Even during his horrible 2015 season, he maintained a .744 OPS vs righties. Chris Young has been an elite hitter vs LHPs over the past 2 years combined. Out of 144 MLB hitters with over 250 PAs, here's where Young placed: 1.076 Goldschmidt 1.061 N Cruz 1.011 Trout .984 Braun .980 YOUNG (HanRam placed 18th and Bogey placed 25th and EE 30th at .872.) It's essential we find a way for Young to play vs all LH'd starters. Getting a FT DH means we sit Beni or JBJ vs lefties. That diminishes the plus. Signing and playing EE FT may end up benching a damn good hitter vs lefties. The Pablo half of the platoon is not set in stone by any means