moonslav59

I totally agree. Right now, soxprospects.com projects our 2017 pitching staff as such: Price, Porcello, ERod, Wright, Buch/Kelly Kimbrel, Smith, Barnes, Hembree, Layne, Ross, Elias There's a shitload of holes here. These holes will cost millions to fill and or several top prospects in trade... or both.

Plus, wasn't there doubts about how he got hurt? That he lied about where and when he got hurt?

Nomar had 5 or 6 really good to great seasons. I'm thinking Bogey will beat him on longevity alone, but even if you go back and look at Bogey's best 6 year stretch, my guess is he'll have a pretty even WAR total than Nomar's best 6 year span.

I do. That's why they paid so much for Young. We also have Holt returning at some point.

Here's a possible look at our 2017 line-up, assuming no major acquisitions on offense: 1) Betts RF 2) Pedroia 2B 3) Bogaerts SS 4) Bradley CF 5) Ramirez DH/1B 6) Shaw/Moncada 3B/1B/DH 7) Moncada/Young/Benintendi/Swihart LF/3B/DH 8) Young/Swihart/Benintendi LF/DH 9) Vazquez/Hanigan/Swihart C Certainly, this is not as good as a line-up with Papi, but it's still a plus offense.

Here are the current worst teams by record in MLB and their best pitchers: MN- No SP'ers with an ERA under 5.00, except Pat Dean who has a WHIP over 1.41. The only 2 RP'ers having decent years are 30 year old Fernando Abad and 31 year old Brandon Kintzler. ATL- 25 year old Julio Teheran as been discussed (2.93/0.989), but there's also 23 y/o Matt Wisler (4.23/1.181) and 25 y/o closer Arodys Vizcaino (2.22/1.235 but with a 13 K/9 rate). There's also lefty RP'er (26 y/o) Hunter Cervenka (3.10/1.180 and 12.0 k/9) SP- Tyson Ross is hurt, but there is lefty 27 y/o Drew Pomeranz (2.88/1.173 and 10.7 K/9) and 39 y/o closer Fernando Rodney who has yet to allow an earned run in 23.1 IP (0.857 WHIP/ 8.1 k/9). 29 y/o lefty Ryan Buchter is off to a nice start (1.86 CIN- Dan Straily (27) 3.66/1.195, Brandon Finnegan (23 lefty) 3.61/1.312 OAK- Sonny Gray has been hurt and not pitching well, 36 y/o Rich Hill is on the DL, but they have quite a few RP'ers doing well so far this year. BB has a history of trading RP'ers often: Ryan Dull (26) 2.31/0.800, Sean Doolittle (29 lefty) 2.67/0.926, Fernando Rodriquez (32) 2.65/0.971 AZ- I doubt Greinke is even up for discussion, so all that's left are 4 RP'ers: Tyler Clippard (31) 3.65/1.378 and 10.2 K/9, Daniel Hudson (29) 1.73/0.846, Jake Barrett (24) 2.16/1.040 & Brad Ziegler (36) 2.93/1.446. LAA- I don't see anyone worthwhile that is healthy and doing well, except RP'er Cam Bedrosian (24) 1.61/1.299 and 9.7 K/9. PHI- 23 y/o Aaron Nola 3.51/1.134/9.9 K/9 and Jerad Eickhoff (25) 3.40/1.172 are doing very well. Vincent Velasquez (24) is on the DL 3.65/1.265 and maybe a couple RPers Hector Neris 11 K/9 and David Hernandez 11.5 K/9. MIL- Zach Davies (23) 3.88/1.181, Junior Guerra (31)3.81/1.178 & Jimmy Nelson (27) 3.92/1.353 plus RP'er Tyler Thornburg (27) 2.60/0.759 and 12.7 K/9 rate. I haven't even heard of some of these guys, and I'm no expert on other teams' players, but maybe someone from this group can become available and eventually help us.

Yes, and .725 is respectable on it's own, but when Swihart returns, we can probably do better than that.

Agreed. Hopefully, Benintendi and/or Moncada can make the 25 man roster and take up some of the slack at DH, 1B, 3B, LF and wherever else we may need a boost offensively. I think we will need all available financial resources to find a SP'er and replace Uehara and Tazawa.

I'm not trying to beat a dead horse, but picking up guys like the two you mentioned would have been so much easier during this past winter. The overpay needed to pick up a decent starter near the deadline is always way too high. I'm not saying I'm against picking up a 2 month rental, but parting with a top 6 or 7 prospect to get one would really piss me off.

I totally agree, but I do think our offense will still be plus next year even after adjusting for the park factor. The budget factor will also be much tougher than many imagine. Replacing Papi will be very costly, even if we "replace" him by greatly improving our pitching staff.

Wow! Some of you guys are tough on ERod. I think he deserves at least 5 more starts, before considering a demotion.

Even if Bogey slows to last year's WAR "pace" the rest of this season, it would mean his WAR would be ... 3.9 so far + 2.6 (60% of 4.3) = 6.5 6.5 would equal Nomar's 3rd best season according to fangraphs. His best seasons were: '00 7.6 '98 7.3 '97 6.4 .99 6.3 '03 5.8 '02 4.8 '06 2.0 '04 1.5 I'll still place my money on Bogey having a better career. If never tops a 7.6 WAR, so be it.

While I totally agree we need a very solid starting pitcher to realistically be a top contender, I think using starter ERA is misleading. We play in a hitter's park. Our starter ERA - is 104, which is not very good at all, but it places us 14th not 19th. 6th in the AL. Our WHIP by starters places us in the same place- 14th and 6th. It's going to be costly, but if we want to win this year, I feel we'll need a quality SP'er.

Thanks for the summary. I do think we need to look beyond just this year, and I realize getting a 23 or 25 year old is inherently riskier, but I think we need to look young not old, and as long as the kid is better than what we have right now, it may also be enough to get us over the hump this year. In theory, I'd like a very promising, young but ML ready SP'er and a veteran RP'er doing well this year.

I'm pretty happy with Young and his .915 OPS in LF. Although he is more of a platoon player, I think once Swihart gets back, we'll be more than fine in left. (Note: Young has actually faced more RHPs than LHPs this year and still is over .900!)

Well, the weird thing is Shaw wasn't "getting the job done" before he got called up last year. He was actually doing kinds badly the first half of 2015, and his numbers at AA and AAA were not that impressive, especially for a 1B/3Bman.

The kid deserves a longer look.

Would you give Dubon and Lakins?

Career 46% CS% is the best we;ve seen from a Sox catcher in I don't know how long. Let's hope he returns to form after his surgery. I think he was at 38% in the minors.

We have enough guys in the OF already, and when Holt returns, I can't see Brentz ever getting a look, even if he was hitting .375 at AAA.

HanRam has a much longer history of success. Shaw's previous history before coming up last year was up and down and sub .790 in the minors for 2-3 years. Also, it's been much longer than a week. Shaw's OPS over the last 28 days is .535. That's 4 weeks. Before those 4 weeks, he went 1 for 8 in the previous 2 games, so it's really been a 30 day slump. At least I hope it's just a slump.

I'm pretty sue multiple teams would have interest in acquiring Brentz when he is DFA'd, but I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying they'd be "licking their chops". If that were the case, they'd probably be calling and asking about a trade.

I certainly have a better feeling about Espinoza than anyone else on the list above, but I do believe Kelly reached the top 25 in baseball America. The Padres obviously liked him a lot, so maybe hindsight is being applied here. Barnes and TBall ere drafted in the top 20. I think it might be unfair to compare Espinoza to these guys as our scouts have changed over the years, and he was an international signing not a draft pick. I really think he's going to be a very good to great starter someday. He's just so damn far away from MLB.

Would anyone trade these players to the Phillies for Aaron Nola and Jerad Eickoff: Swihart Devers' 3 from: Kopech Owens Johnson Lakins Dubon

Here's a list of the top qualifying pitchers by ERA- since the start of 2015: Arrieta Kershaw Greinke Chatwood G Cole Lackey deGrom Maeda Bumgarner Price Estrada Lester Syndergaard Scherzer Cueto Quintana Salazar Sale Lynn Keuchel Tanaka C Martinez J Hammel C Hamels Burnett S Gray F Hernandez Harvey Odorizzi Volquez Here's a list of 27 or younger starters with 100+ IP since 2015: Kershaw Keuchel S Matz J Fernandez deGrom Cole Bumgarner Syndergaard Qunitana Salazar Eickoff Sale Stasburg Tanaka C Mart Nola Aaron Sanchez Joe Ross Gray MCCullers Harvey Erasmo Ramirez Odorizzi Martin Perez D Pomeranz Archer Finnegan K Hendricks R Ray S Miller K Gibson A Heaney Teheran N Karns C Rodon M Leake G Richards Stroman N Martinez R Iglesias H Santiago Bolsinger Eduardo Rodrigues Wacha A Conley B Anderson J Nelson DeSclafani These are all at a 99 or lower ERA- since the start of 2015.