moonslav59

We need a power bat for 2017. Encarnacion will be coming off $10M contract. Someone also to keep an eye on is Josh Donaldson when he will be FA after 2017 season. Moon may disagree but we can afford a power bat and replace Ortiz' $16M contract. And we can pay for a high end pitcher. I think we'd be over the new luxury limit, but that may be okay with Henry. We also need to replace or r-sign Uehara and Tazawa and may need a 4/5 slot pitcher, if ERod never regains. We may also need a LF'er who can hit righties, if Moncada or Beninendi don't make there it by 2017. Yes, we can "do it", but it won't be easy without some sort of major trade for a cheaper, major role player(s). With our record on FA signings, I'm not holding my breath on that being our solution to filling multiple holes next winter. All resources at some point will need to be focused on top of the line starting pitcher. Swihart, Benintendi,Devers, Shaw and every single pitcher should be available for the trade. Obviously Moncada, Xander, Bradley Jr and Betts are untouchables. Agreed. I'd try hard to avoid trading Beninendi due to our big need in LF, and some better offense to help compensate a little for Papi's loss. I also hate the idea of trading our best pitching prospect since Lesster. I think we can get something very special next winter for Swihart, Devers, Travis, Kopech and Holt. We can always find position players. It's the pitching that gets tricky, especially when you see we have nothing in Sox pipeline. I'm all about upgrading our pitching staff from the top not the bottom. That's why I think signing & spending on another big bat might cut into the quality and quantity of pitchers we do end up getting.

1) Holt's .747 April OPS was not a big key to our early success. Besides, asking for Holt to continue at even .747 all year goes against his norm. 2) Young's .935 May and .903 June blew Holt's April away. 3) I don't see how having two of our best 3 SLG% guys up 9th and 1st helps anything. 4) JBJ's OPS batting 9th 1.025 is not much better than ... 7th 1.083 (not even better!) 8th 1.000 6th .950 JBJ only has 30 PAs batting 5th (.600 OPS), so I doubt that's the reason we've sucked in June. (BTW, JBJ had an .805 June OPS, which is one of the team's best during that month.)

I'd guess none. It may affect us 3-6 years from now.

We are 43-36 so far, even with 40% of our rotation being as bad as I can ever remember. You may be surprised by these numbers: team records in starts by.... Wright 9-7 Price 10-7 Porcello 11-5 Top 3 are 30-19 The 40% are 13-17. That may be pretty bad, but it's far far from a "forfeit". Now, one could argue going 13-17 was done with smoke and mirrors and is likely not sustainable here on out, and I wouldn't argue with that, but an equally valid argument could be made that if Wright continues to pitch like he did over the first half of 2016, we shouldn't go 9-7 in his last 16 starts. If Price "turns it around" and that's what this debate is about, we can expect better than 10-7 in his last 17 starts. So, if Wright goes 11-5 and Price goes 13-4, we'd only need our bottom 40% starters to go 8-22 to keep up our current winning percentage. Once in the playoffs, an "in form" Price plus Porcello and Wright stacks up pretty well with just about any other AL team except for the Guardians. With our bats and defense, I'd give us a decent chance to make the WS. Remember, we have Papi- the Guardians don't.

We're in the playoffs right now, if the season ended today. That's with Price pitching like a number 4/5 slot pitcher. Please go and look at the rotations of the teams behind us in the AL wild card race and tell me they don't have as many holes as we do. Then look at the offensive comparison and fielding while you're at it.

It's doable, but it won't be easy, especially if we keep swinging and missing on free agency.

Once you make the playoffs, it's a crapshoot. You only need 3-4 solid starters for the playoffs, and with so many days off, the pen depth is rarely "exposed". I'm not saying we'll be favorites with Price "back to form", but we may be AL faves, so getting to the big dance is still on the table, even without any major trade. It's not that big an if hoping for Price to turn it around, and Porcello & Wright to keep going as is. Look at other AL teams. They all have weaknesses and have gone through bad stretches this year at some point.

If there's any team out there crazy enough to offer someone like Schwarber for a reliever, maybe we should think about shopping Kimbrel. Maybe we could get someone like Margot plus another 3 decent prospects for him. LOL

Sox just outrighted Mike Miller to AAA. That removes him from the 40 man roster. Anybody hear rumors on who will be the addition to the 40 man roster?

In 2 years, Pedey will be only 34. I know, his "style of play will lead to more injuries" argument, but I'm not sure I'm buying it. Here's what sox prospects has listed as possible future rosters: http://soxprospects.com/future.htm Espinoza joins the rotation by 2019, Kopech, Light, Workman and Martin join the pen by 2018. TBall is in the pen by 2019. They have Moncada starting at 3B and Benintendi in LF in 2018 (TShaw at DH). Travis, Hernandez, Pablo and Holt fill out the bench. By 2019, they have Devers taking Pablo's place on the bench, then becoming the FT 1Bman in 2020. Nobody is trying to say any one player can replace Papi's offense and clutch performance, but I tend to agree with the philosophy that trading top prospects for 1.3 or even 2.3 years of a control on a solid pitcher is NOT worth it.

More notes: 1) Maybe by the next ranking period, one Basabe will pass the other. 2) Looks like Chavis is making a move to be part of the elite prospect short list. 3) Benintendi's jump from 4 to 2 may be more about the fall of Devers. 4) Marrero's tumble from top 10 to outside the top 20 seems a bit rash to me. 5) Washington's huge rise to the top 30 may be a sign he's on his way into the top 20. I'm not trying to end the discussion on the IFA penatly, but it seems like it's been beaten to death a couple times already.

That's what I said a few pages back, and I wonder if that is why the book has been thrown against just the Sox.

New topic: soxprospects.com has come out with their summer rankings. Top 20 prospects only Here are the biggest gainers (in ranking number): +20 Ockimey (37>17) +16 Luis Aj. Basabe (34>18) +13 R Raudes (33>20) +3 Chavis (11>8) +2 Benintendi (4>2) +2 Hernandez (12>10) +2 K Martin (21>19) +1 S Travis (7>6) +1 Lakins (10>9) +1 Dubon (13>12) +1 Light (15>14) +1 T Ball (16>15) Here are the biggest decliners: -22 C Acosta (18>40) -21 Jerez (17>38) -13 Marrero (9>22) -4 L Ysla (19>23) -4 Y Pimental (20>24) -3 Luis Ax. Basabe (8>11) -2 Devers (2>4) -2 Longhi (14>16) -1 Johnson (6>7) Non top 20 big swings: -27 W Rijo (22>49) -15 N Ramirez (28>43) -14 A Rei (25>39) -11 Stankiewicz (26>37) -10 J Rivera (40>50) +9 C Shepherd (30>21) +13 Jake Cosart (44>31) +14 Romanski (59>45) +23 T Matheny (57>34) +27 K Washington (55>28)

There's still plenty of time for Price to turn things around and lead us to the promise land. It's nice to see Wright pitching like an ace, and Porcello having his best career season.

Funny!

Supposedly, we were the only team that did a common practice to avoid paying a penalty. I'm thinking we have a case with an arbiter.

Another remote choice might be to trade for RP'ers (easier to acquire than SP'ers) and stretch out Barnes to become our 5th starter.

Sox players by age- not prospect status: 18: Espinoza, R Rniel 19: Devers, L Ax Basabe, L Aj Basabe, Y Aybar 20: Kopech, Chavis, Ockimey, Longhi 21: Moncada, Benintendi, Dubon, Chatham, K Washington 22: Travis, T Ball, Lakins, Pimental, Beeks, J Cosart 23: Bogaerts, Betts, ERod, Hernandez, Owens, Shepherd 24: Swihart, Ysla, H ramos 25: Vazquez, Marrero, Light, Marrero, Johnnson, Cuevas, K Martin 26: JBJ, Shaw, C Smith, Barnes, N Ramirez, M Miller 27: Porcello, Hembree, Ross, Leon, Rutledge, Elias, Brentz, LaMarre 28: Kimbrel, Holt, Kelly, Castillo, O'Sullivan, A Wilkerson 29: Sandoval 30: Price, Tazawa 31: Wright, Buchholz, layne 32: Pedroia, H Ramirez, C Young 35: Hanigan 40: Ortiz 41: Uehara We may lose the oldest three players on this list next winter, and if we replace them with under 30 players, we will greatly lower our average team age.

We just traded away excellent mid level prospects Margot, Guerra, Allen and Asuaje. We still have Kopech, Travis, Dubon, Chavis, Hernandez, Light, TBall & Ockimey. Other teams have these type of prospects as their 2-3-4-5 prospects. Are their 6-7-8-9-10 prospects really much better than the ones I listed above?

Well said, and I might add that many of our recent prospect graduates were rushed to the bigs. Had Vazquez never gotten hurt, Swihart might still be counted as a prospect. Had Pablo not sucked or got hurt, Shaw might still be in the minors and not even viewed as "helping" the farm be viewed as strong. I trust the experts, when they say our farm system is very strong, and when you add the list of recent graduates, it is clear that acquiring and developing prospects has been maybe the only bright spot on this team recently other than the 2013 championship. Our issues developing solid starting pitchers is a major concern, but overall, our farm has been and still is very strong. Remember, we also got Kimbrel by trading away some pretty darn good prospects. Margot is still ranked very highly. Guerra might have slipped a little, but Logan Allen and Acosta are still "alive" as prospects. A bit farther back, we traded Rizzo to get Gonzo. I think the evidence clearly shows our farm is very strong. Our biggest problem has either been identifying the right big named free agents to sign or choosing to sign so many big named free agents in the first place. Our record on keeping and letting go our best talent when they near free agency took a big hit with the handling of the Lester extension, but overall, I think we've judged correctly more often than not. We've had a few big misses, but I feel more often than not, we've chosen wisely. Now that DD is in charge all of this might change over time. Let's hope for the good.

I defended Porcello as well, and although the extension looked like an overpay, signing a 26 year old pitcher to 4 years almost always trumps signing 31 or 32 year olds. I did a study on how well the top 3-4 FA signings (by dollar amount) have fared over the last few years. The numbers are shockingly bad. It was a big risk signing Price, but as much as I knew that risk was, if ever there was a "sure bet" signing, one could view Price as "that guy". We needed a top pitcher. Greinke was just as risky. Cueto's mechanics are scary. Zimmerman was a risk. I get the argument that we have failed miserably with out bigf free agent signings going back to Crawford. Clearly we have not done well, but within the context that the vast majority of big signings fail or do not turn out very well, the blame game might be better focused not on correctly choosing FAs, but rather on how the team keeps being constructed in a way that keeps ending up with huge holes. Building a strong farm is one key. Developing good pitchers is another. Filling holes with strategic short term FAs (like Young Cody Ross, etc...) or trade acquisitions (like Uehara) might be a better choice. Price does not look like the stopper we had hoped for, but it's just been 3 months. Remember how long it took Beckett to adjust. Josh had a 5.01 ERA and 1.295 WHIP in 2006 before becoming a major factor in our 2007 championship[. Beckett went 4-0 in the post season (30 IP, 4 ER, 19 H, 2 BB, 35 K/B0). Let's hope Price turns things around. I'm as frustrated as anyone here about his performance so far. I keep waiting for him to have a defining moment, like a shut out in a 1-0 win vs Baltimore, but as soon as it looks like he's turning the corner, he allows the sucky Rays to score 4 runs against him.

Thanks for the info. I hope we can sign this guy.

Take a look at other teams and their issues. We certainly have a few holes to fill, but so does just about every other team in the AL.

One reason I much prefer acquiring pitching in the winter over July is that it's actually a 2 month rental (1/3 season) rather than a full season, but I guess the post season adds to that, and maybe you know more about a guy in July than in January.

I'm fine with overpaying for young controllable pitchers, but not for rentals (like Rodney was).