moonslav59

Maybe it would shut up the fldg% freaks.... NOT! I would not give the award to Narvaez. I would for Rafaela (4th in CF errors) & Abreu.

Duran is in decline. I didn't forget about all star designations. I did not mention it. I agreed that Duran had better 2024 and 2025 seasons, and his all star was a reward for that. BTW, Duran missed time in 2023, too, but I will give you the iron man part of value goes to Duran. Abreu players more games than Duran's 2023 number both of the last 2 years. Much of his missed games were due to Cora choosing to platoon the wrong OF'er, not because of injuries. You can assume Abreu will keep getting hurt, but that doesn't make it true. Iron Man: Duran Speed/Running: Duran Power: Abreu OBP: Abreu Age/Trending: Abreu Defense (glove & arm) Abreu Cost: Abreu Years of control: Abreu Least games missed due to suspensions and wimping out of a vaccine: Abreu. When we are trying to straddle the tax line, $8M could mean teh difference between Suarez and Hoskins on AAV, It's a lot closer than this breakdown shows, but I'm keeping the GG RF'er with more power and better splits. I'd be okay trading Abreu and keeping Duran, or even trading Rafaela, instead.

I'm talking 2026 and beyond. Duran is in decline and is worse vs LHPs, now. Abreu is improving and is now better vs LHPs. Abreu is a GG RF'er in a park that needs one. Duran is now a negative on D. Duran costs $8M in 2026 with 2 more arbs for 3 years of control Abreu is pre arb with 3 arbs making 4 years of control. Duran is a much better baserunner, who even saw that decline in 2025. Duran was better in 2024 and 2025. Abreu has more value, now. Yoshida could be traded, if we pay all but $3-4M a year x 2. Hicks for all but $2M a year x 2.

There is no roster crunch.

Masa and Casas are untradeable. Abreu is better than Duran and cheaper w more control.

They probably are not in teardown mode. They only traded away FAs-to-be. K Marte has had some issues on the side, but like Cincy, they'd want MLB ready players in return. Mayer would probably top the asking list, along with Tolle or Early, but maybe if they like Duran or Abreu, we could probably save one one of those guys. I doubt they'd view Campbell as a 2B replacement, and DHam would be just a throw in. They might take Duran, Campbell and Crawford or Duran, DHam and Tolle. Maybe they'd insist on Duran, Mayer and Sandlin. If we could get them to take Hicks, I still don't know if I'd give this much. I do thin they'll entertain offers.

The fWARs were: 3.9 Abbott in 166 IP 2.9 Greene in 108 2.9 Singer in 170 2.8 Lodolo in 157 2.1 N Martinez in 166 Greene is clearly the best fWAR per IP, but Lodolo is pretty good, too. I'm intrigued by both. Cincy seems to always demand too much in return. I still think Joe Ryan or Pablo Lopez are more likely obtainable. Keller even more so, but he's not as good. ERA- rankings among 127 SP'ers with 100+ IP in 2025: 12. Greene 62 (Best of all Cincy SP'ers) Crochet at 61! 24. R Suarez 74 25. Lodolo 75 35. Giolito 80 (Bello is at 32) 39. Ryan 83 40. M Kelly 84 48. Valdez 90 51. Singer 91 54, Castillo 92 69. Keller at 98 96. Cease 112 98. Gallen 114

I like Arias on D, a lot, but I don't even trust MLB defensive awards, so I'm not sure he is the best infielder on the farm. He's good enough for me.

I think we basically have to, and I am convinced we need to add two power bats, hopefully 1 RHB & 1 LHP or switch hitter. I think the rest of the line-up has enough secondary power that we can get by with "2-3 power bats." The league ISO was .159 in 2025. The Sox were 10th as a team at .167. The Yanks were first at .204, but .178 puts a team in the top 5. We are not that far away, and losing Bregman is not a big hit to our ISO. (Losing 2 months of Devers is.) When you set the PA sample size at 300, here is how our current players and targets ranked in ISO in 2025: 5. Schwarber .323 6. Suarez .298 15. Alonso .252 _________________________ 26. K Marte .233 29. Polanco .229 30. Grisham .229 (Devers was at #32 with a .227 ISO) 35. Abreu .223 (I think he has legit power and should no longer platoon.) 38. B Lowe .221 ______________________ 50. S Murphy .210 52. Bellinger .207 58. Paredes .204 (Talk of trading him down here.) _____________________________ 63. Tucker .198 (Yes, Abreu is higher) 76, Bregman .189 84. Duran .185 87. Naylor .184 91. Y Diaz .182 95. Narvaez, Hoskins & J Bell .179 100. Romy .178 _______________________ (Vladdy was at .175 in 2025!) .171 Anthony at 122 out of 300 .170 Story at 123 .165 Rafaela at 140 (still top half and better than the league .159 mark) Less than 300 PAs: .214 Ref in 209 .173 Mayer in 136 .140 Lowe in 119 .122 Yoshida in 205 I think if we add Suarez and KMarte, we'd be okay with Abreu, a higher number from Anthony, along with some decent power from Story, Narvaez, Rafaela and Romy/Ref/Casas.

When you see how bad Casas and Alonso are at 1B defense, can Schwarber really be all that much worse? He need not be our DH in light of these facts. I'm not sure Suarez would be any better at 1B than the three I just mentioned, but again, he can't be worse- or much worse. I know I sound like a broken record, but Suarez will cost less and get less years than Alonso & Schwarber. I am afraid of steep decline from a 34 year old, but these guys will be these ages for most of 2026: 28-29 Naylor 31 Alonso 32 O'Hearn 33 Schwarber, Hoskins. Josh Bell Suarez turns 35 in July 2026.

I could be wrong, but KC showed me he is not a 2Bman. I see him as a LF'er, DH or maybe 1B with 2B as an emergency role. I do not think $7.5M a year is a big turn off, but certainly some GM would not be interested, unless we took salary back. A couple month slump is not as devastating to a player's value as some might think, IMO, but when his value was so speculative to begin with, it's hard to know anything. I kinda feel like trading KC would be "selling low," but I might be in the minority on that one. If we needed a DH or LF'er, I'd be less inclined to look at trading him. I'm not for adding him as a throw in. I only trade him, if the other GM asks for him and will give back real value for him. For that reason, he will likely not be traded. Maybe Jh Garcia is the add-on, despite his better defense and known position..

Tolle needs to greatly improve his secondary pitches to become a #2 SP'er. The reason Early did better was due to the higher quality mix of pitches. That's not to say Tolle will never pass Early, but for now, I do not see Tolle as a top 5 SP'er going into 2026. I understand the worry of putting him in the pen, which might stunt his starter potential, but in terms of giving the 2026 MLB Sox their bast 13 man pitching staff, he'd be in the pen and not the AAA rotation. I'm not certain I want them to do that, if they feel it significantly hurts his growth at becoming a 2/3 slot MLB SP'er. Right now, I have 7-8 pitchers ahead of Tolle for starting with the big club: Crochet, Bello, Sandoval Crawford, Dobbins, Harrison, Early Maybe even Perales, Fitts & Criswell. (These last two are more likely pen guys, despite Criswell's much better success as a starter.)

I do not want Bellinger, but he'd be an option if we trade 2 OF'ers plus Campbell. This was the context of my mentioning him. Tucker will cost too much. We should not trade Duran, Abreu plus Campbell or Garcia. 2 maybe, but not 3. I'd be okay with a Garcia-Campbell-Refsnyder LF, if we got 2 key pieces for Duran, Abreu and others, but is seems simpler to just trade one Of'er plus others to fill one of the 3 top priorities and then sign 2 for the other slots.

That's my point. Our corner IF power was weak. Hoskins just about even out Breggie's loss. Hoskins was at .205 at age 31 in 2024. He missed 2023. I'm not seeing a grand improvement. The Japanese guy might be a great get. I'm not against that idea. I said I did not disagree with your assessment. I think we need a bigger power boost and would prefer more Known talent. Hoskins and Okamoto might be enough. Maybe include Mayer in a trade and get KMarte, too? I don't thinkw e can afford all three and still get the pitcher I want.

If Hicks made it through 2025 without a DFA, he's a lock on a pen slot for 2026. He's out of options, so only the IL can keep him off the 26 man roster on opening day, IMO. Sad, but true. There is a chance he can "be fixed." I'm not worried about our #8 RP'er, anyway. His contract hurts, but I see it as part of the Devers salary dump attempt at a minor balancing act. While I think Early has some high potential, I'd like to see us look at him as our #5 while keeping the depth we have in place as best as we can. I suggest we trade one SP'er with Duran and maybe Campbell or Jh Garcia for #2 SP'er or someone like K Marte.

The guy pitched well for three years before the injury. Not Buehler good, but pretty good, and it was just one injury. I think we have the rotation depth to cover him, if he flounders, but we need a #2. I don't trust Bello or Sandoval as our #2. Ideally, it should be... 1. Crochet 2. ______ 3. Bello 4. Sandoval 5. Early 6. Crawford, Dobbins, Tolle, Harrison, Fitts, Perales, Criswell Maybe start Fitts & Tolle in the pen. Crawford could be pen-bound, as well. Tolle, Perales, Harrison, Dobbins, Criswell and Crawford could start in the AAA rotation.

Legit offer, but we can't part with Mayer with the loss of Bregman, unless we add Suarez and KMarte, but even then, we'd need Casas to comeback strong.

I do, too, despite my trade him mantra. For a team looking to upgrade it's offense, it seems counterintuitive to suggest trading our WAR leader. However, look at the OPS+ numbers for 2025: 140 Anthony 131 Refsnyder + 116 Abreu platoon in RF 128 Romy-93 Yoshida platoon at DH 114 Duran 105 Story 100 Narvaez 95 Rafaela 85 Mayer (No more 151 Devers and 131 Bregman- maybe no Ref as well.) The only way I'm for trading Duran is on the assumption that we add a couple big bats- and I mean oner higher than 114 and one higher than 130 or 135. I don't see us trading Rafaela, and Abreu is a much better defender, power bat and is pre-arb. Anthony is not our DH, so Duran is my "odd man out." It's not dissing him.

I can see my wording was not that clear. I know AAV is important, due to the tax line, so Suarez might end up being more than Bregman. Paying a higher AAV for a big drop on D is not all that appealing, but I want Suarez at 1B and back-up 3B for Mayer. Having Mayer at 3B also makes 2B a priority (or SS if we move Story to 2B.) That's not appealing, either, but we need that big bat. We both seem to agree that Alonso & Schwarber are likely too expensive for JH and will likely get 1-3 more years than Suarez. That's why my focus is on Suarez. The second bat should be 2B or 3B (Mayer to SS and Story to 2B.) That can be via trade for K Marte of FA for Polanco. If we don't trade major pitching for Marte, maybe we can get by with our current pitching staff plus a minor addition or topping out with Merrill Kelly, but I think Suarez, Kelly and Marte is too expensive for JH, despite losing Devers, Bregman, Gio & Buehler. The extensions that kick in are significant. AAV 3.8> 28.3 Crochet +24.5 Min> 16,3 Anthony +15.5 Min> 7.5 Campbell +7.0 That's $57M added AVV, then this... Plus 10.3 for Hicks and Duran from 3.8 to 8.0 & Chapman from 10.3 to 13.3 and some arb raises. This cuts sharply into all the "savings" we've drooled over. If JH wants to reset the tax, there is not enough to add two large and long contracts, let alone 3, unless we trade some salary, too. I'm not going with the broken record of trading Masa and Hicks, but these guys offer some salary relief that could be just enough to allow us to add 3 players via free agency or trade. (Some of the trade ideas do not involve huge salary gains.) First of all, non tender Lowe. $10-12M arb due. $8M Duran plus 2 more arbs $7.5M Campbell (8 more years plus options) $6.3M Rafaela (6 more years) ~$4M Houck (plus one more arb) ~$3M Crawford arb (+ 2 more arbs) Abreu is still pre-arb, and that is one reason why I avoid trading him over Duran. Trading Story and his $23.3M x 2 is not realistic, especially when our hole is at 2B and 3B.

Good points. If they do want a pitcher back, it would likely be someone like Crawford, Dobbins, Harrison or maybe add-ons like Sandlin. Of course, they ask for Early or Tolle, but I'd not give Duran, Abreu and one of them. Duran, Campbell and one from Crawford, Dobbins or Harrison might not be enough, but it might be all I'd offer. (Throw in Romero, DHam and or Romero.)

Okay, but Bellinger is hard to forget and seems like a sure FA, unless the Yanks re-sign him soon.

I'd love to see Ref return, especially if we trade Duran. Romy should be Masa's platoon at DH, not Ref. I could see a short term singing like Winker as a "bridge" to Jh Garcia. I've been suggesting the idea of trading 2 OF'ers for a while, now, and with K Campbell looking like a 1Bman or LF'er- all the more reason. I'm not convinced Rafaela is a 100% keeper, either, but I know Cora loves him. (I think he loves Abreu and Duran, too.) If we do trade Duran & Abreu and sign Winker & Ref, we'd have this: LF: Winker/Refsnyder-Garcia-Campbell CF: Rafaela-Garcia (Campbell) RF: Anthony- Garcia The return for Duran & Abreu (with others which could include Garcia or Campbell too) could be a solid Pitcher and K Marte.

It's total money not AAV, if he did even think that. Devers is owed about $240M/8. Bregman might get $120M/4 andBellinger might get close to the same.

I agree, and I don't see Anthony being a step down from Duran. Adding Suarez plus Hoskins/O'Hearn or Naylor would be a plus over Bregman and Lowe/Toro. Losing Duran does hurt the offense, but with Masa as our DH, there is no room for the OF rotation at DH idea. Trade Masa and maybe we can keep Duran.