moonslav59

If we never spend his money, the "ridding of the contract" benefits only JH.

It was meant to be, but yes, my question was would he be okay at 3B. I think his glove would be a plus- his arm a minus. I think he might be barely acceptable, but that would be much better than the Devers years at 3B and any other option we might have in the system, right now, which could really be all that matters. If you had to choose? SS Mayer & 3B Story SS Story & 3B Mayer

Your counting skills needs some work.

It was strange how he had an island of plus D right after the Story trade, then went on to be barely okay by the metrics... Bogey DRS: -18 previous 3 seasons, +5 in '22, then -8 last 3 seasons OAA: -22 previous 3 seasons, +5 in '22, then +7 last 3 seasons Story: DRS: +10 previous 2 seasons (just 550 innings) and -7 in 2025 OOA: +10 previous 2 seasons and -9 in 2025.

That very well may be true. Personally, I can't think anyone would think Casas is a better 1Bman than devers could be, but that is all speculation on my part. We do know Cora has had certain strong opinions on players and positions and is fiercely loyal to many players. He once called Kike one of the best defensive SSs in MLB. He resisted moving Bogey off SS, when we signed Story. I do think he did not want to upset Devers by moving him off 3B, but he ended up asking him to DH, so I can't help but raise an eyebrow over not just telling him it's 1B not DH. The fact that he apparently never even asked Devers to play 1B, let alone tell him to, supports your opinion. It was strange that Cora initially floated the idea of Bregman at 2B and devers at 3B and even Bregman okay'd the idea, but he did move off that position- perhaps with a nudge from Brez. It looked like a "nudge" was not going to be enough to convince Cora to get Devers to try 1B. The whole situation was weird, to me. How often do you see a GM going to speak to a player s about a position move? Then , some reports said Brez never even asked him to play 1B; he just told him they'd like him to play there. Seems like there were just too many unknowns to throw most of the blame on one guy. I know some say 50+% is on Devers, while some seem to think Cora is the main guy to blame. I'm not sure I need to know. I'm kinda glad we moved on, but only if we can add a mega bat to take his slot, and no, it's not Anthony. Anthony is the boost we need to improve- not the boost we needed to maybe stay even.

Like Sandoval and the SFG.

No doubt, and look no further than the Astros over the last few years and all their top pitcher injuries and defections You can't go into a season thinking the only way we can win a ring is for our top 3 pitchers to get 90 GS'd. I also agree with you on the idea that you can't go into the season thinking all our young bats will be healthy and improving from 2025 to 2026. You actually have to plan on a couple regressions from the kids as well as some age regression from Story, Yoshida and maybe more regression from Duran, too. We need more surety. Maybe "surety" should be the theme of this winter. That being said, I think it is also realistic to expect some jumps from a few kids. We have so many pre-prime and early-prime players, that it makes sense to think most will likely improve. Age Pre-prime 21 Anthony 22 Mayer, Jh Garcia 23 Campbell 24 Rafaela 25 Casas Early prime: 26 Narvaez 27-28 Duran, Romy, DHam & Sogard Prime: 29: lowe & Wong 30-31: Yoshida Ending prime: 32: Story Nobody over 33, unless Refsnyder returns. It's also okay to project improvements.

The other consideration is that since Houck will miss 2026 and sucked in 2025, his last arb year in 2027 will not be much. He'll be about as cheap as Paxton, Henricks. Kluber and Richards were.

I'm all for shooting for top 3, and I think we can get there With Alonso and one other significant bat. Just Alonso would need too much else all going rgiht at the same time, and I don't like plans like that, either. I'd like to see Alonso plus Bregman, Suarez, KMarte or maybe Polanco or Torres. Alonso at DH, Hoskins at 1B and Torres/Polanco at 2B would be fine. Find a taker for Yoshida or have him play some LF, once we trade Duran for Ryan. (There, I said it again.) I don't want just one. I'm expecting zero to one, and the one might be just Hoskins or Torres.

If the bar is Devers, DHam, Romy or Eaton, I'd agree.

I do think Bloom knew what he was getting into and accepted the challenge. I doubt he actively pushed hard to get a bigger budget, but I have to think he'd have wanted more. The guys was forced to sign Martin Perez, Peraza and other clowns in 2020. He was later allowed to "splurge" on Richards and Kike. I gotta think he'd have wanted better, if able, but I also see your point. He was hopi ng he could do what the rays did, but maybe be able to keep some of their good additions. While he literally wrote the book on the "Rays Way." it turns out, he wasn't the mastermind behind it. The guys who went to the Dodgers and Astros were.

League average is .719.

I certainly agree, he'd be better at 2B than 3B, but that wasn't my question. If Mayer plays SS, Story 2B and Breggie bolts, who plays 3B?

I was surprised at how quickly Story's defense declined. I doubt it was just rustiness. That being said, we did not see our worst D at SS this year: DRS at SS -13 2018 -13 2017 -7 2024 & 2019 -6 2020 (projects to -16) -6 2025 -3 2021 +4 2023 +5 2022 2025 tied with 2024 with the worst OAA at -10 with 2019 at -9

Agreed. Do you think Story could play 3B well enough?

...and this is why many of my trades center on Duran. He'd be worth more to other teams than us. Our replacement for him is light years better than who he replaces on his new team. That is actually the most significant factor in the choice to trade him. Nobody else is looking at DH'ing a guy Like Duran or benching Rafaela, Abreu or gasp... Anthony. Nore do they have Jh Garcia and Campbell types in reserve, as well.

Some said he wasn't good on D. Some asked where is the leadership, when the team kept imploding, but most knew the roster was being decimated and did not blame Bogey, JD, or others for our lack of winning. Most blamed Bloom and or JH x 22.

Also, the Pivetta trade.

He didn't refuse the money given for Story and Masa. Kinda hard for me to prove, and you as well on your point that he preferred to not have a bigger budget. I seriously doubt any GM turns down more money, year after year.

I've been saying two, but one big bat would get us pretty close... 1. Anthony CF 2. Story SS 3. Abreu RF 4. Alonso 1B 5. Duran- Jh Garcia LF 6. Yoshida-Romy/Campbell DH 7. Casas-Romy/Campbell 1B 8. Mayer 3B 9. Narvaez C If Breggie comes back and we add Alonso, we'd be fine.

You have the link that says Cora specifically asked Devers to play 1B?

I thought TOR had some serious weak areas and were not much better than us or the NYY/SEA/DET... I'm not so sure, anymore, but one thing that is very helpful- just look at previous Sox championship seasons- is that their top SP'ers pitched from wire to wire, even if not having their best seasons. They showed up. Ours did not. GS/ ERA+ 32 Gausman 119 (despite turning 84) 31 Bassitt 108 (despite turning 86) 30 Berrios 102 (despite turning 80) Okay, 34, 36 and 30, but still: 93 starts from their big 3. Their top 7 batters by most PAs were all over .710 (about the league norm.) Then, they had two guys with over 225 PAs over .795. The Sox had... 32 Crochet 159 9 Houck 51 0 Crawford (out all year) Okay, maybe call one of these guys are #3: 26 Gio 120 28 Bello 123 These two plus Crochet did equal 86 GS, and they were a major reason we made the playoffs, but imagine if Houck & Crawford pitched like 2024 and we had Gio & Bello doing this well! In all fairness, the Sox did have all of our top 9 batters by PAs at .708 or better, but one was Devers. Toro (.659) was #10 and KC at #11 (.664) but Ref helped out a lot at 209 PAs (.838) and Yoshida (.696) came on at the end to give us the boost we needed. Check these GS numbers out in our ring years: 2004: 33 Pedro, 33 lowe, 32 Schilling, 30 Wake, 29 Arroyo! That was amazing! 2007: 32 Dice K, 31 Wake, 30 Beckett, 24 Schill, 34 Tavarez+ Lester 2013: 33 Lester, 29 Lackey, 29 Dempster, 27 Doubront, 26 Buch+ Peavy 2018: 33 Porcello, 30 Price, 27 Sale, 23 ERod, 35 Nate/PomPom/Johnson

Ryan has a $5.8M arb estimate for 2026, so trading Duran plus for him would actually save us money. Of course, it would also accentuate the need for a big boost to the offense, but with the hopes that Anthony an be a near .900 batter, we might be able to get by with just one real big addition (Alonso/Schwarber) or two significant ones ( 3B Bregman/Suarez and 1B Suarez/Hoskins/Naylor or 2B Polanco/Torres/ Marte trade)

I do think JH would allow us to go over the tax line, but I think he'd prefer we don't. I think Bloom would have spent more, if allowed to.