moonslav59

If we can forget about the start to Houck's 2025 season, the top 7 or 8 guys we have on the IL are better than some team's best 8 pitchers, right now. Houck, Crawford, Sandoval, Murphy (Perales/Drohan) Slaten, Winckowski, Burdi, Hendriks (Webb) On the active roster, only Buehler is stinking up our rotation of Crochet, Dobbins, Bello & Gio. We have a pretty solid top 4 in the pen: Chapman, Whitlock, Wilson and gasp... Weissert. The bottom 4 could use a serious upgrade: Bernardino (too up and down) Guerrero (maybe not quite ML ready) Kelly (about used up his leash length) and Alcara (fill in the blank on our 8th pen slot)

It's too bad his SS defense sucks, or he'd be a much more useful utility man w great PR value.

Very nice win, but the offense getting just 3 hits cannot go on for much longer. 28 hits in the last 6 games. (4 HRs) In the last 4 games: 15 hits w 6 of them XBHs (4 HR & two 3Bs)

Yes, they could afford Devers, but I think they view it as not an either or thing. It's do we pay $31M x 8.5 years for a DH only pouter/complainer/dogger or on someone else?

This year, Brez did have the foresight to create a rotation with depth to the 10th to 12th slots, and we've already gone that deep (Newcomb) but have yet to use Criswell and traded away Priester (but added Harrison & Hicks, who will be in the pen.)

You get what you pay for, agreed. I will say that other teams have better track records on these same types of deals, however. We did step it up a little from the $10M/1 deals like for Kluber and Richards or less for Wacha, Hill, Paxton and Perez, when we signed Gio to $39M/2 and Buehler for $21M/1 w a buyout for year 2, but yes, these are not deals given for proven studs. I will also say that looking at the largest deals given in the history of MLB, more than half do not meet expectations, with a sizable chunk being busts from year 1 or 2 onwards. Our biggest signings over the past 9 or so years: Price, Sale (extension), JD, Story, Pablito, HRam, Lackey, Bogey (extension) and Nate. One can argue that hasn't worked either.

I am, too, but how realistic is that even 3-4 players can make up for even half of what we just lost? Remember, they have to do way better than they have, so far. That might be possible for Mayer and Anthony, and even Campbell, but not so much for anyone else, except Story and to some extent Duran. Most others are already doing as much or more than expected. Let's assume all 3 rookies do this going forward: 162 game pace: .280 25 90 Is that enough, and how likely is this?

All true, but appears to be our best chance at taking up the slack...and a lot of slack it is.

This highlights how our FO should not be let off the hook on this. Once again, they expose themselves as having little or no foresight or people skills.

What's the big deal about maybe playing some 1B and some DH? It's not we asked him to play SS and CF. DH is not even a defensive position. I know it sounds like we are making excuses to explain why trading Devers was what we had to do, but I feel like saying he said he'd play 1B only is doing the same thing from the other end of the issue.

While I totally get your position on avoiding mega contracts, there is an unavoidable dilema with the Sox. I'm sure I'll get some push back, here, but I think we have a very solid and deep roster & farm. Our weakness lies in the lack of standout players that are head and shoulders better than what most teams have at any given position, except our ace and 3Bman, whn healthy. To get a top player, we have to pay top dollar, Over the last few years, we had so many holes to fill that it made sense to not spend it all on 1-2 players but to instead try and spread the wealth and risk over several player additions. I don't see us in that boat anymore. This winter, I think we'd become a much better team with just 2-3 targeted major signings or trade additions: 1. A second ace. 2. A top closer to replace Chapman (maybe just bring him back.) A far #3 would be another solid arm or a big bat for 1B. (I would not pay for a mostly DH profile player.) Maybe we could trade for a significant bat or pitcher. I know many here have given up on Casas and don't want us to count on or younger players to blossom quickly and fully, but I think we have to. SP: Cease or Framber/Gallen or maybe M King/Ra, Suarez/Flaherty/Lugo Closer: Helsley or Ro Suarez/ E Diaz Maybe trade Casas and an OF'er for a 1Bman or sign Hoskins/Naylor or Alfonso, if he opts out. (Take a chance on Murakami?) I would not sign a DH like Schwarber or Ozuna.

Here are the highest 1Bman OPS, this year. This is the only position besides pitching, we might look to make a trade for: .961 Alfonso (not happening) .960 Soderstrom (Hmmm....) .953 Freeman (zero chance) .951 Aranda (highly doubtful) .848 Busch (Cubs aren't looking to sell) .826 Pasquantino (Name is too long and hard to spell) .819 Olsen (I doubt ATL is retooling) .800+ Vladdy, Torkelson & B Harper (doubtful) Hoskins is at .747 (Toro & Romy are doing better) Naylor is at .725 (see above & AZ may not be sellers) Arraez is at .714, this year. If we do anything major, via trade(s) this summer, it has to be upgrading our pitching, and IMO rental pitchers cost too much. Our hope lies with the returns of Bregman, Abreu, Houck, Crawford, Slaten and our first look at Sandoval, or perhaps some comeback by Fitts, Hendriks, Murphy or Buehler.

I don't see us trading for bat, rental or otherwise, except at 1B, and I don't like using this kind of logic- like about how poorly Casas was doing, so replacing him with Toro and Romy made his injury fortunate, but how much will a guy like Hoskins improve on Toro-Romy. What size chunk will that take out of the Devers replacement apple? We'd have to trade for Alfonso to come close, and that ain't happening. ATL ain't trading Olsen, either. As much as we can say there is room for a big bat at 2B or SS, we are not trading for someone that benches Mayer or Campbell, and we aren't going to even look at an upgrade in the OF. I think we are satisfied with Narvaez as our catcher for the next 5 years. The biggest area we can improve on is pitching and trying to win in different ways than with our bats. That being said, we do have some hopes that little bites can be made to the Devers replacement apple by the kids, Story, and the returns by Bregman, Abreu and maybe Yoshida. We can't even hope the whole or even half of the apple gets eaten for 2025.

While he certainly is slapping the Sox FO face, he's also undermining his own persona. He's confirming this was more personal than about his feeling about being forced to play "every position." Had he made this statement publically, a 2-3 months ago, he'd probably still be here.

Can't disagree, here. (I don't think we allow Gio to get to 140 IP, so his cost is $39M, but add the Hendriks signing to the pile of rubbish.)

I have spoken about several reasons beyond the move to DH and proposed move to DH issues. The "He never needed to play 1B." is irrelevant. They felt he needed to, and so did I, and he was not willing to, when he should have gladly accepted what was best for the team. He was dogging it, and it wasn't just a one time occurance. He was not setting good example to the other players, and we have an inordinate amount of rookies and 1-3 year players on the 26. He was being paid $31M to DH only. I know that doesn't mean we can afford to just let his bat go for very little in return, and replacing his money is something nebulous and speculative, but the fact is, no DH is worth $31M a year. Also, in the whole history of MLB on 8+ year deals, I challenge you to find one where a team would not have chosen to get out of the deal during or after year 2. (Not saying you cant find one or two, but the vast majority makes my point.) Look, this sucks. I'm not happy about it. I want Devers in our line-up as much as anyone and everyone. I was the guy saying "Devers forevers." Maybe, I'm reaching to try and find a silver lining or something to stay positive about. I get that. I know that about myself and realize my emotions may be clouding my opinions and statements. I do think Devers was overpaid, but I'm okay with overpaying for players that produce. I felt Papi was underpaid, but the fact is that nobody pays DH's much more than $15-20M a year. While Devers is still firmly in peak prime or even early peak prime, the majority of his remaining contract was not within prime years. I've never bought into the overweight talk and he "won't age well" talk, but just normal age progression charts would show, he won't earn the money, starting in about year 5 or 6 of his 10 year deal, and we already got year 1 and part of year 2 from him. He wasn't happy, here, anymore. I know I got some rightful grief for the "smiling less" comment, but things weren't the same. I know it's easy to say Brez & Co were to blame and they should go- not Devers, but we all know that wasn't going to happen. I think the rub with Devers went higher up than just Brez. It may have even reached JH, and JH ain't firing JH. The example he was giving to the kids, even discarding the whole Campbell report, which I'm not so sure had zero truth to it, was a factor in my opinion that trading him was needed. I also think waiting until later to trade him may not have been possible, or we'd have had tp pay more and or gotten less in return. Call me Mr. Optimistic, but I think we got a pretty nice return- maybe better than what I felt we got for Betts, at the time of that trade, and certainly more than I thought we got for Bogey (a comp pick that ended up being Campbell.) Again, I am way more bummed than happy, but I would have been bummed had we kept Devers and things continued to unravel, as it seemed they were on pace for happening between him and management, him and his teammates, him and egg shell-walking Cora and more.

I don't usually report on DSL games, but this from SP.com: Dorian Soto had a huge performance, leading off the game with a home run and then blasting a two-run shot in the fifth inning in a 3-for-5 game.

With so many recent prospect graduations, I thought maybe it would be a good idea to look at out team, in terms of age -the under 30 list: Pitchers with some level of promise or proven skills: 17/18: Cason, Delzine, Reyes, Fajardo, Travieso 19: Valera 20: J Bello 21: Paez, Neely 22: Perales, Tolle, Clarke, Monegro, E Rivera, McShane, Holobetz, Ingrassia, Aita, Tygart 23: Harrison, Early, Carlson 24: Guerrero, Sandlin, Mullins, Wehunt 25: Dobbins, Fitts 26: Crochet, B Bello, Uberstine, Drohan 27: Slaten, Wink 28: Sandoval, Hicks, Criswell, Moran 29: Houck, Whitlock, Crawford Everyday Players: 17/18: Ju. Gonzales, D Soto, Azocar, Cason, H Rivas, H Ramos, Pinto, Fermin 19: Arias, Cespedes, Y Rod, A Anderson, Nunez, Salazar 20: Jo Garcia, Alcantara, Encarnacion, Zanetello 21: Anthony, Romero, Bleis, Brannon 22: Mayer, Jh Garcia, Taylor, Jordan, Castro 23: Campbell, Riemer 24: Rafaela 25: Casas, Hickey, I Coffey, Y Cruz 26: Abreu, Narvaez, Mata 27: C Murphy, I Campbell, DHam, Sogard 28: Duran, Romy, Toro, Eaton 29: Wong I see a lot of talent and promise on this list.

I can't keep up with 17 threads on Devers.

We'll never know the answer to this, even if Betts says he would or would not have. I doubt he'd take the offer he ended up getting, had we offered it before COVID and before we traded him. Just my opinion, since we will never know.

I know exactly what we lost. I'm not misled on that. I clearly stated, I'm not sure what is true on the Campbell thing and who said and did not say what to each other. Devers did not play 1B, when we needed him to. He did great at DH and we lucked out by seeing the Toro-Romy platoon work at 1B. This does not change the facts. I have stated that our offense took a gut punch. Does that show I was misled? This whole think sucked and still sucks. I still think Devers had to go. I doubt any other team would take him without us paying a bunch of money or including other players. Our offense will be much worse for at least the remainder of 2025, even if we trade for Hoskins or some other rental(s.) Maybe by the time Devers told the Sox "I'll play 1B," it was too late. We'd already found a solution that was working. I'm not being misled in thinking he should have jumped at the idea of doing what was best for the team Day 1, Day 2, Day 3...

I said I wasn't sure if I can believe everything, and I'm not sure I believe Cora or the guy who claims Devers said he'd play 1B, if we promised his fragile ego, we'd not "jerk" him around- all the way from 1B to DH. Poor guy. I feel so badly for Devers, now that "the truth" has come out.

What's with the Sox and FA SP'er signings? You could throw a dart at a board of pictures of FA pitchers in your price range and do better than we have done. $21M/1 Buehler (looks like a disaster, so far) $39M/2 Giolito (even if he pitches like his last 5 starts, the rest of the way, he's still overpaid.) $10M/1 Kluber (plain horrible) $10M/2 Paxton (one brief stretch of usefulness) $7M/1 Wacha + $5M/1 Hill (worked out okay, but missed them down the stretch) $10M/1 Richards (plain horrible) $5M/1 + $6M/1 Martin Perez (did very well, as soon as he left BOS) Although I view the Nate FA signing as an extension, it was technically a FA signing. That was a decent signing, but he still missed about 30-40% of his available starts. The Price deal was not a good one. Conversely, look at our trades for SP'ers: A Miller for ERod Cespedes for Porcello A boatload of prospects for Chris Sale. A boatload of prospects for Crochet Beeks for Nate Workman & Hembree for Pivetta Even the Pomeranz & Wink trades were better than our FA signings. The recent Sale for Grissom trade is the counter on the trade front, but how many other major trades for SP'ers backfired?

Oh, then that makes it all so much better! I wouldn't call playing 1B and DH being "yanked around" or asked to "play every position." He certainly never said "I'll play wherever you want me to play," like he said to his new team. At this point, I'm not sure what exactly was said between Devers and Brez and Devers and Cora or between Devers and anyone else, including Campbell, when he asked to play 1B. I hate losing the guy's bat, and this is a big gut punch to our 2025 chances and maybe beyond, but I'm firmly in the camp, now, of being glad we traded him. I'm off the fence and across the yard.

I mentioned adding a prospect. I think, last winter, I suggested Casas and Abreu for Woo. I remember someone really wanted Miller. The Casas for Castillo deal was discussed more.