moonslav59

Now is certainly "THE TIME" to make a move or two with prospects, without ruining the future. We have enough prospects to do that. This does not mean trade 3 top prospects for a 1 year rental, unless we extend him. We have 4 OF'er plus Campbell and Masa. We have 10+ SP'ers at a time when we are seeing gross overpays for starters. We have 2-3 major holes to fill and logjams in areas where other teams have major holes to fill. The time is right. The match-ups with some teams is ripe. Sure, I'd prefer JH just fork over the money to fill all 3 holes with high-priced FAs, but until I see that happen, I'm going on the assumption it won't happen. Hell, we may not even see one hole filled that way, let alone 2-3.

He can be traded to all teams who need an OF'er. I was responding to the post about his contract being to high for some teams.

Not a worry for low budget teams at all.

Too bad both Romy and Campbell are RHBs.

$156-168M/6 would lower the AAV from $150M/5. Not sure he takes it.

I don't see that as an issue. The low budget teams can trade him, when hids contract gets to high for him. He is not overpaid. It's hard to know if he will be worth the money in his last years, but he earned that money in 2025. He makes $11.5M over the next 3 years combined. That's Pittsburgh Pirate money. 26:$2M, 27:$3.5M, 28:$5.5M, 29:$7.5M, 30:$10.5M, 31:$13M, 32:$16M club option ($4M buyout)

DD was damn good at what he did, and he benefited from an owner that allowed a cycle up, when the window opened wide with so many top prospects coming into their own, at around the same time. I once made a list of the highest sp's rankings each of his prospects traded reached and it was over 20 players who were once top 20 in teh system, yet hardly any amounted to squat. The few that did, still fell woefully short of what the return guy did for us. Some call it luck, but he kept all the right prospects. Sure, many were so low in the system, that their value was not that high, but he kept the best of his farm. His farm ended up producing a few key players- so much for "blowing up the farm." YES! He knew how to value FAs and his own soon-to-be FAs. He got the Sale extension wrong, due to injury, but after he was traded to ATL, you'd swear some fans suddenly thought he was worth keeping around. The Porcello trade and extension netted a Cy Young. That was just one of many moves that worked. His FA hit% blows Ben, Bloom & Brez away. Take all those guy's top signings combined, and they cant beat DD's top 5 or 10. The guy did what he was asked to do, and I'm so glad he was our GM. This fact does not contradict the fact that the team was bound to reach that escarpment, and no, expecting JH to buy our way out of it was not a reasonable demand. (Going 4+ years has been a bit extreme, but here we are again at a similar window we saw in 2016-17 and finalized the deal in 2018.)

Casas is one big fat question mark- pun intended, but the guy can hit. Romy might be the next Refsnyder, but at 1B and 2B (3B in a pinch.) He even hit RHPs pretty well in 2025. Campbell might end up sucking at every position and ending up at 1B (or DH.) I'd be okay with rolling the dice with these 3 at 1B, but we need a really nice addition at 2B or 3B. There are question marks with each option, too: Marte looks like the best recent producer, but he is 32 and is signed through age 36. Bregman is a plus on D, but is not an improvement- just a break even, at best. He'll be 32 to start 2026 and was showing decline before his 2025 season, where he just played 2/3rd of it. Bichette is younger but will get more years than JH is open to. Maybe twice the length. His D at 2B is kinda unknown, and he's not a big power guy- nor is Breggie. Suarez brings the power but is 34 and no wonder on D at 3B. (He may be okay at 1B, if Casas stumbles.) He may take a short enough deal for JH to approve. Vientos? Hoskins? Bohm? Donovan? B Lowe? I'm sure I'm forgetting someone(s).

The idea of playing the FA market "halfway" by signing almost all 1 or 2 year deals has largely failed, too, especially the 2 year deals for returning pitchers from injury- expected to give a year plus 2-3 months from year 1. Chapman and a few others worked well, but so many, especially SP'ers have come up short- even the $21M/1 guy. We finally signed a healthy pitcher to 2 years, and he gets hurt and misses all of year one (Gio.) There have been some decent short deals given so far. I'm not crying "missed a great one," but I do wonder if short termers are what JH wants, will we find much better than Polanco at $40M/2 or Merrill Kelly at $40M/2? Kim at $20M/1?

I had that issue on my phone the last couple days. The box to write in would not appear.

Maybe the best idea would be to trade Rafaela. I'm a huge fan of defense up the middle, but if we don't get 2 big bats, we can't afford to trade Duran or Abreu, and DH'ing Duran is almost as big a waste as moving Rafaela to the infield so our weakest OF'er doesn't have to DH. This OF looks pretty good to me: Duran/Campbell in LF Anthony/Duran in CF Abreu/Anthony in RF (Campbell could DH some vs RHPs and spell the LHB OF'ers when we face lefties.) If Brez likes Rafaela more than Duran and Abreu, other GMs might, too and give us more in return. His pay is low and his control is long. Something like Rafaela, Crawford, Mullins & Monegro for KMarte. Sign Suarez to play 1B and maybe 3B vs LHPs, if Mayer needs to be platooned. That might keep us near enough to the tax line for JH to go along with. Another idea might be to trade Mayer for Vientos & Senga... nah....

Yes, and that is one downside of just finding sample sizes to make a point. Crochet was a damn good pitcher, despite the 5.19 ERA over a rather large sample size, and so is Joe Ryan, despite 4 bad games pitched in his last 7 starts of 2025.

That's why I always felt it was a mutual parting of ways.

We were a top 3 spending team in '21, too.

We spelled that out as part of why we saw a cliff coming. Some denied the possibility or argued that the farm could be rebuilt (while winning) and replenish.

I'm big on planning for the future, but I think now is the time to give some of that away (not all or even most) and get something really good for a 2-3 control period.

I guess it depends on your view of a good track record is. He's had a longer stretch of good pitching than Crawford, Dobbins, Harrison, Oviedo and even Bello. 2021-2022 41 GS and 236 IP 3.17 ERA/3.44 FIP 245K:96BB 5.2 fWAR/5.3 bWAR 132 ERA+ Add the okay 2023 season: 69 GS 380 IP is a way longer sample size than those I listed above: 3.53 ERA/33.72 FIP 373K:170BB 7.5 fWAR/5.7 bWAR 122 ERA+ We don't know if he can regain those numbers, but he does have a decent track record over nearly 400 IP.

I never blamed Dave. I praised him and still do. That being said, it was unsustainable and bound to happen. Yes, the pattern of JH pulling back on spending after rings was a major part of the cliff, but many of us knew it was going to happen. We were the top spending team about to reach the big paydays for numerous young stars reaching free agency years. JH could have made the Sox like the Dodgers are today, but that was always a pipe dream.

If DD was here, now, would he trade several players from this group for the here and now? Tolle, Early, Arias, Witherspoon, Valera, Gonzales, Fajardo, Phillips and more?

It was worth it- the price to pay was the what came after 2018.

They almost forced DD to trade Betts in 2019. The cliff was coming, regardless of who was told to tear it all down. The writing was on the wall, all along.

When I heard of that trade, I told my brothers-in-law, "We just made a trade that will win us a ring." When I told them we traded Nomar for Cabrera, they said, "Who is he?" (That was one of the very few times I was right about how the Sox would end a season.)

I think Brez views Gray as the #2, but they told him not to say that. We will use converted starters to fill the pen. No more significant pen additions. We will add what they will call a big bat. We may not agree.

So, Gray, Oviedo & Sameniego replace Gio, Bello, Buehler, Wilson and others. Hmmmm.... Marte is a great add, but now we lose Duran with Berggie, Devers, Ref & Lowe.

I wonder what our spring team ranking will be.