moonslav59

At that point in the off season, he was the only one that could make us a playoff contender. It was an overpay but worth it. We should not have gotten to that point of desperation. We better not repeat that scenario this off season.

I'm not ignoring them or offering them in trades (hardly at all,) but we need a solid #2, and I'd prefer a younger guy than Sale, Merrill Kelly of some other 30+ pitcher.

I'm not against a massive overpay, BTV or otherwise. Most of the trades I suggest are BTV overpays. I'm not sure many of the younger pitchers I listed are "available," but I'd kick the tires. I thought the Crochet deal was an overpay, but I was fine with it. I did say, "We better extend him or risk it being a bad trade."

Wilson dropped off near the end, and I thought we were talking SP'ers. Chapman was a better RP'er example. SP'ers 30+ signed or traded for: '25: Buehler '24 Paxton '23 Kluber '22 Wacha & Hill (The only 2 that worked out okay, but missed key games.) '21 Richards & Paxton (Peacock) '20: Godley, Mazza & Kickham (Perez was 29) '19 Cashner & Chacin Great streak, huh? Maybe we get lucky, next time. Sandoval turns 30 next October. Why keep rolling the dice?

Best ERA- of younger pitchers 2024-2025 (150+ IP) 46 Skenes 63 Greene 64 Yamamoto 72 Crochet 73 H Brown 74 Abbott 76 Ragans & T Myers 77 Woo & Schwell. 83 Olson 87 Priester 88 Gil 90 L Ortiz & G Williams 91 Roupp 93 Bello 94 Kirby & Burke 95 J Soriano 96 Bibee 97 Gore 99 Bellozo

Who could be our next Crochet? I'd accept a 26, 27 or even 28 year old in a trade and extension. Peralta turns 30 in June and has 1 year left- not two like Crochet had. Ryan turns 30 in June, but he has 2 years left. Lodolo turns 28 before the season and has 2 years. Skubal just turned 29 and 1 year. None of these guys come very close to the Crochet situation. Skenes isn't even 24 and is pre arb (4 years to go) but PIT is not shopping him, HOU is not shopping 28 year old Hunter Brown (3 arbs to go) Ragans turns 28 soon. He has 3 years left. Hunter Greene is just 26 and is locked up for 3 years with options. I just don't see CIN trading him, unless we blow them away. Kirby turns 28 and Gore 27 in FEB, Bibee turns 27 in March. Woo turns 26 in Jan. None of these guys will be easy to pry from their current teams. Is it worth making a massive overkill offer to get one?

Indeed. Yankees fans in MA, Sox fans in CT and NY and even TEXAS! Hell, there might be more NYY+BOS fans in Tampa than Rays fans.

Wong's bat is not good enough to play 1B, unless in an emergency. Romy may need a position to get time. He's ahead of Wong on my 1B depth chart.

It seems that as much as we complain about adding oft injured or recently injured pitchers, every year, many posters suggest we add the next one.

Okay. I thought your point was that the Breggie signing was the mistake.

If TOR adds Tucker, that would be huge, but if they lose Bichette, Bassitt, Scherzer and some lesser players, I'm not so sure they will be significantly better. They seem like an up and down team to me. The Yanks and Mariners scare me more, and both may make some gains this winter. We know NYY gets Cole back.

While I agree, there may be some maniac spender in a smaller market size than us, so it's not always such a clear delineation. I will agree that top 6 seems reasonable, as there was a significant drop from #5 TOR ($255M) and #6 HOU ($232M,) and the 7 through 12 teams were all between #12 $203M (BOS) and #7 TEX at $226M. We're talking $23M to go from 12 to 7. The #6 team (HOU) is saying they want to get under the tax line, and TEX is #7, so it seems doable to get to #6, if no other teams goes absolutely nutty. The drop from 4 to 5 was about $37M, so I doubt we jump to #4 anytime soon. We can spend more has been the mantra here for years. No doubt we can.

CT has some Sox lairs, too.

I think they decided after the Sale & Nate, which was 2019, that they were not going to spend for a while. Maybe they convinced themselves they could still stay "competitive enough," but once they dumped Betts and half-Price, they must have know no rings were forthcoming. The 2021 season gave them cover. It was hard to argue we were no longer competitive, and they ran with that while making some strategic moderate "buys" just when the fanbase seemed about to revolt. If you look at the Sox spending trends under JH, you sill see several downturns in spending, but most did not last long. We seemed to be cycling our spending when ring seasons seemed more probable. 2013 was an outlier, as we cut spending and still won. 2019 was somewhat of an illusion as spending went up (Sale + nate deals) but we failed to return Kimbrel and Kelly and the roster was worse. When you factor in inflation we have had a very long downturn and are still way behind our 2019 budget total. The actual total budget is higher than 2015, and the end of year budget in 2025 was slightly higher than 2016 and 2017, but that is no defense for JH. Here are the years the Sox went over the lux tax line: 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 under for 2 years 2010 & 2011 under for 3 years 2015 & 2016 under for 1 2018 & 2019 under for 2 2022 (over by 1.2 M- a mistake?) under for 2 2025 (not over by much) This shows a shift in "trends." If we go over in 2025, it will be the first time back-to-back in 6 years. There have been some ups and downs along these last 6 years- most significant from 2021 to 2022 (Story signing) and from 2024 to 2025 (several signings and the Devers extension.) I know I have used the phrase "make or break" for JH a few times, in recent winters, and the big jump in spending last winter was an encouraging sign, but now that Devers was dumped and Bregman & Gio opted out, we are back in that familiar place again- wondering what JH will do. The long extensions to young stars over the past 2+ seasons is nice, but we need to do better than last winter. To me, it's time for at least one large and long contract, and I'm not talking Trevor Story or Yoshida levels. We can't stop there. While one L & L deal is essential, we need to find a way to add at least 2 more significant players- somehow/someway. The Sox are on the clock.

One may be more important than the other, but both are such high needs that we might as well call it a tie. We also need a 3rd major add. Big Bopper (1B, 3B/2B) SP2 3B/2B or 1B (see #1)

With so many teams in need of Of'ers the talk has been almost all about us trading an OF'er, but what about the fact that many teams are dying for starting pitchers- even #4's or #5's. That is another area we are pretty deep. We have a #1 (Crochet) and a decent #3 (Bello,) but the amount of #4's to #6's is rather amazing. Adding one or two to a trade package could be what gives us the edge over other teams who cannot spare a pitcher. Sandoval, Crawford, Harrison, Dobbins, Fitts, Criswell Tolle, Early, Perales, Uberstine, Drohan, Anderson, Sandlin I don't think you get good return value on lower level prospects, but we have our fair share of them, too: Holobetz, Clarke, Paez, Fajardo, Valera, Witherspoon, Phillips, Eyanson Aita, Travieso, Monegro, Mullins, J Bello, Morgan, Tygart, Brown, Rivera

Not much else to talk about. I kinda like Romy, but I hope we don't count on him as a FT'er, next season, just because he happened to hit .718 v RHPs. He is a damn good back-up or platoon bat.

Well, we have a poster obsessed with bringing Sale back, so it must be contagious.

How is signing the best player left mistreating the worst defensive 3Bman in MLB? Sure, they handled the communication badly, but the signing was perfectly fine. If Devers is afraid of other good players on the team, then he's the issue. (Note: I don't think he was or is. He just hated how they handled it. So did I.)

It's not even close to a normal platoon. The norm would be 29% v LHPs. I guess 13% fro the norm is technically disproportionate, but IMO, it's not that far off. Hardly anyone is 71-29. Most short-side platoons bat more than 50% v L.

There are many pitchers with one year left on their deals. Also, Sandoval is gone after 2026.

Nobody really jumped out at me from all the announced non tenders, today. Anybody see a possible match?

Casas was apparently 100% to start the 2025 season. Had we figured out Romy would hit .718 vs RHPs, we might have played him there earlier and more often.

Not so much. 198 PAs vs RHPs 143 PAs vs LHPs That is more vs LHPs than a FT'er gets percentage wise, but Romy started 38 vs R and 38 v L.

Agreed. If we get 2 out of these three, many will be happy. I would not see 2 out of 3 as an improvement, even if we add a couple decent 3rd or 4th additions (like Hoskins, Matz, Ref, J Bell...)