moonslav59

The projected Orioles 2026 team: 1. Henderson SS .787 in '25 2. T Ward LF ,792 (under .756 previous 2 seasons) 3. Rutschman C .673 4. Alonso 1B .871 (.804 from '23-'24) 5. O'Neill RF .684 (.765 previous 3 seasons combined) 6. Basallo DH .558 as a 20 year old 7. Alexander 2B (Jackson Holliday on IL) 8. Cowser CF .655 9. Mayo 3B (Westburg on IL) SP: Bradish, T Rogers, Baz, Bassitt, Eflin/Kremer I'm just not getting all the O love. What am I missing?

Good points, but Bregman only played 2/3 of the season and kinda sucked near the end of 2025. Durbin is a very good defensive player. Contreras is new at 1B, but he looked pretty good, last season. Mayer should be a big defensive upgrade at 2B, if he sticks and stays healthy. Story may continue his decline on defense. IKF was a major upgrade to our infield bench defense and versatility. Overall, I think our infield defense improved. Our OF defense remains the best in MLB, if not top 2-3. Our catcher defense looks solid (top 10ish?)

Bennett is on the hill, today vs PIT. 1. Ward CF 2. IKF 3B 3. Monasterio 1B 4. Wong C 5. Thaiss DH 6. Romero 2B 7. Capra SS 8. Castro RF 9. McDonough LF

I call Contreras and Bregman a push on offense. The down turn was Devers to Durbin. On defense, we may have improved some: Bregman to Durbin, Toro/Lowe/Casa/Romy to Contreras and an awful 2B mix to Mayer. The pitching got way better on paper.

People tend to focus on the additions teams make over the winter(s.) The O's have lost a lot of talent, too. Two years ago, the O's were looking at... C Rutschman coming off 2 straight .800+ seasons. He has dropped off significantly, since then. 1B Mountcastle on the rise. 2B Holliday with oodles of promise. SS Gunnar Henderson as one of MLB's top young stars. 3B Ramon Urias, who had a decent 2024 season LF Cowser as another youngster on the rise. CF Mullins as a solid vet RF Santander about to have an .800+ season DH O'Hearn as one of MLB's best DHs Bench: Westburg, McCann, Hays & Mateo Rotation: Burnes (2.92 in '24) Eflin (2.60) A Suarez (3.70), Grayson Rodrigues (3.86) Bradish (2.75) Kremer (4.10) and Cole Irvin (coming off a 3 year 4.16 ERA) Kimbrel was their closer and they ended up having 4-5 RP'ers with an ERA under 3.30. That was a better looking & promising team than this one is. Way better.

Maybe a big WBC will get someone calling.

It's hard not to get excited about this young player.

After losing Refsnyder, this one hurts, more.

I've agreed Casas and Romy start the season on the IL and there is no need or rush to trade Masa, now. I don't see him "blocking" Eaton, either. KC will begin the season in AAA, and he won't get the call, unless it's to play FT or near FT, so in that context, Masa is not blocking him, until (and if) he has proven himself to some extent, but then again, Masa kinda has to re-prove himself, too, and with Duran at FT DH, that will be hard. To me, it's not so much about blocking KC & Casas-Romy, it's about having 4 FT OF'ers and using a bench slot for a DH only player who likely needs to be platooned. Yes, we may not not have to do anything, even until June or the dealine.

I was talking about our weakest spots as winter began and my desire to upgrade by more than we did by trading from our logjam position. I said we no longer have a big weak area, since we filled 1B (Contreras) 3B (Durbin) and SP (Suarez & Gray.) It is no longer practical to upgrade to a big bat, because we aren't getting KMarte and Paredes is not a big upgrade over Duran, and might not even be better. I don't think we need Masa. We might, if one of our 3 OF'ers get hurt, but I'd still be okay with KC, Casas & Romy filling in. The $4M saved is not earth-shattering. I'm not laying awake at night wondering how we can unload Masa for $4M added to our summer trading budget. It's really not a big deal, anymore. I just added my opinion to the conversation. I actually like Masa as a hitter and argued he might have an OPS close to Duran's in 2026, if given a long look. Like I said, maybe I'm higher on KC, Casas and Romy than you and others are. I've agreed that if an OF'er gets hurt, I could be eating crow. I think it's worth the risk to trade him, but waiting for Casas to show himself is probably worth it.

Sometimes I wonder if just choosing surgery on day one would be the best result. As of last week, Red Sox utility infielder Romy Gonzalez was experiencing shoulder troubles and received a platelet-rich plasma injection. He admitted that he would likely miss Opening Day, though he may end up missing significantly more time. Today, Sean McAdam of MassLive adds that Gonzalez will visit a shoulder specialist next week to see if he needs to undergo surgery. Gonzalez opined that surgery “is not a season-ender by any means, in my opinion,” though any longer absence for the lefty-mashing infielder will be a blow to the Red Sox’ lineup regardless. The right-handed-hitting Gonzalez injured his shoulder at the end of 2025 and experienced renewed soreness in January while ramping up for Spring Training. iHe posted career-best offensive numbers in 2025, batting .305/.343/.483 with a 123 wRC+ in 341 plate appearances for the Sox. While his performance against right-handers was slightly below average (95 wRC+), he absolutely teed off on southpaws. In 143 PA with the platoon advantage, Gonzalez hit seven of his nine home runs and posted a 162 wRC+ that was tied for 12th-best among hitters with at least 100 PA against lefties. Obviously, the team will hope he avoids surgery, but with that kind of production, they’ll do what it takes to ensure Gonzalez comes back at full strength.

ST'ing OPS 2.167 Duran 1.563 Contreras 1.438 Rafaela 1.097 Gasper 1.053 Monasterio 1.038 Ward .991 IKF .979 Story .900 Eaton .864 Castro .859 Durbin .833 Mayer .821 Ferguson .769 Narvaez, .762 McDonough, .747 Campbell .616 Anthony, .611 Hickey, .546 Romero .481 Thaiss, .473 Delay, .437 Abreu, .249 Sogard, .181 Wong, .125 Capra Pitchers ERA/WHIP listed in order of IP 2.16/0.84 Early 0.00/1.00 Oviedo 4.05/0.90 Tolle 8.53/1.74 Martinez 1.50/1.67 Guerrero 9.00/2.20 Sikkema 10.80/1.80 Watson 5.79/1.07 Crochet 5.79/1.07 Suarez Selected... 24.30/3.00 Bello 0.00/0.30 Song 3.00/1.67 Kelly 0.00/0.33 Whitlock 0.00/1.13 Chapman 13.50/1.88 Slaten 0.00/0.50 Weissert 0.00/1.80 Moran 0.00/1.20 Uberstine 6.75/2.25 Bennett 13.50/3.75 S Gray

Over the winter, Brez made some bold trades, and he didn't seem to shy away from trading prospects. He did keep the top ones, but according to soxprospects,com's rankings he ended up trading away these prospects: 4 from the top 10 and 7 from the top 20. 4. Perales (for current #6 Bennett) 6. Jh Garcia (for Oviedo- our #5 SP'er) 8. Clarke (for Sonny Gray- our #3 SP'er) 10. Fajardo (part of the Contreras deal- our starting 1Bman & #4 batter) 12. Sandlin (part of the Jordan Hicks dump trade) 18. Drohan (part of the Durbin trade- our starting 3Bman) 20. Travieso (part of the Contreras trade) We also lost #21 J Paez to Rule 5, but gained #19 via trade (J Reimer) for Rule 5 Ryan Watson. Besides adding #6 Bennett & #19 Watson to the top prospects list, Brez acquired: 27. Samaniego (with Oviedo) 29. Ziehl (Hicks & Sandlin trade) 30. Adonys Guzman (with Oviedo) 31. Luke Heyman (for Hoppe) 33. Garielvin Silverio IFA 49. Isaiah Jackson (for Grissom)

I can see how it doesn't make sense to trade him now. We could at least wait until Casas or Romy are back and showing they are okay. That may not ever happen, but when it does, Masa cannot be demoted, so I'd rather risk losing DH depth than keeping Masa as a PH only bench piece.

That is a valid way to look at the changes, but I'd prefer Suarez to Breggie and Durbin & IKF were the bonuses. Breggie cost $45M more than Suarez. While money was differed, it's still $9M more a year. That basically paid for IKF with $3M left over and then $9M more a year for 4 more years. To me, a more realistic contract swap would be Gray for KMarte & IKF, which is almost even. We'd have traded Mayer & Tolle for KMarte and maybe we add what we gave for Gray to what we gave to Durbin and get Neto or Paredes, instead of Durbin. (Or, we still have Fitts or Clarke as depth, since we no longer have Gray.)

Yes, I know how depth works. Yes, I have seen examples where even good depth was not good enough, as recently as last year. Yes, I saw Toro get way too many PAs, but we all knew we had poor 1B depth, last year, and needing Romy at 2B kept him from playing 1B, and we waited too long to get Nate Lowe. Do people know how improving your weakest slot on the roster is often the best way to improve a team, and that you have to give to get? I'm assuming you know this. I'm assuming you also know that often the best way to improve a weak or weaker area is to trade from an area where you feel you have someone who can replace the guy you trade with not much of a drop off, of the drop off is less than the gain made at the other position. My winter mantra was more about trading an OF'er, because I felt the "drop off" from Duran to Masa/Casas/Romy/KC at DH was not as much as the gain we would have gotten at 3B/2B/SP or even 1B, before we got Contreras, Gray and then Suarez & Durbin. Yes, I suggested some Masa trades, but I felt trading an OF'er made more sense, and saving $4M was not all that valuable. Now that we have the 4 guys I mentioned, the "weak or weaker" areas are not so pronounced. The need is not as great, and the OF depth "trade off" is not such a clear action to take, but the fact remains that we have a logjam at OF and DH or OF/DH, since Duran plays both. I don't see a big drop off from Masa to Casas/KC/Romy, but certainly there could be. An injury to one of the 3 OF'ers moves Duran to the OF and forces the issue of there being a drop off or not, and $4M in savings may not make up for it, if Masas does well and the 3 guys I named suck or are (still) injured. I get that. It's a risk. I disagree that the choice come down to Masa vs Eaton/Gasper/Seagler, but even if it did, it doesn't mean one of them play in Masa's vacated role. Romy would likely DH not one of them. Yes, Romy and Casas will start the year on the IL, and I'm all for waiting until one returns to make the trade, but when they do, it's not Eaton vs Masa- it's one of them vs Masa or a demotion to Montasario. With IKF, I can see not thinking Montasario is all that important, but until Mayer proves he belongs, I think he's more valuable than Masa, even as a PH or platoon for Mayer, until Romy returns. There is also still a chance Durbin is not as good as we think. Of course, there is no hurry to dump Masa as we give Durbin a look. We won't need to replace Durbin, if he sucks, for a while. There is no urgency to replace Masa, until Romy and or Casas is ready, but I still think I'd trade him, if someone offered to pay $4M x 2 or more. Knowing JH, that $4M is likely needed to allow for a deadline trade, once we actually see where the need is- like last year at 1B, 2B and eventually SP.

It would have helped if we actually made a decent attempt at replacing his bat. I think Contreras can fill Breggie's bat, but we left the Devers loss unfilled. Durbin and IKF improve the defense over Devers, but not really over Breggie, so that counts for very little. After all that went down, I agree that Devers had to go, but we left his line-up slot vacant. On top of that, they all but promised they'd fill the big bat need. I do realize teams can win in many different ways, but all our ring teams and near ring teams had not one but two or more big bats. My mind is biased.

I almost added this thought at the end of my post. This does look like a better line-up: L Anthony S KMarte L Duran R Contreras L Abreu R Story R Durbin R Narvaez R Rafaela. Paredes over Durbin would have been great, but we could not get him without losing Duran or Abreu- both LHB.

It's not like I'm saying having OF depth is worthless. Of course it has real value. Since adding Durbin and Contreras plus 2 decent SP'ers, we don't have the gaping hole we had a couple months ago, but we still have weaker positions where an upgrade looks better on paper than having amazing OF depth. Maybe I have more faith in KC than you do. Others can play OF, too. No, Ward and Eaton should not be viewed as FT'ers, if an OF'er goes out for the season, and yes, we can cite examples where we thought we had depth, only to find out it wasn't enough. I'm fully aware of the risks. I still think the roster was let unbalanced, again, while other high needs were not filled as well as they could have been. I'm not sure many trades make sense, now for an OF'er, but I do think if someone is interested in Masa, I'd do what I can to help rebalance the roster. We'd still have an OF logjam, but with DH less crowded, we can give Cora better roster flexibility with someone who is not a platoon DH only guy.

I'm fine with waiting a few weeks or months, or even long enough to get a good read on Casas, but I also like Romy & KC as DH's. I don't see KC as being short-side platooned, so he could be the FT DH, if an OF'er gets hurt. Yes, both KC & Romy are RH'd, but Duran isn't. Masa is blocked by Duran, so using one of the 4 bench slots for a DH that will likely be platooned does kinda make me think, why not now, if someone offers to pay a chunk of his deal? He may be worthless by the time Casas is healthy. We certainly have a logjam at DH, even if Casas never returns.

Yoshida was hurt, last year, too, so yes, he blocks Casas. With a healthy Contreras, the only slot for Casas is DH. For a career .800 batter who averages 30 HRs per 650, it seems obvious that, if healthy, Masa is totally blocking Casas. The only alternative view would be that Casas would be blocking Masa as the DH, since both are LHBs. BTW, Casas hits LHPs better than Masa. He does not need a platoon.

I agree. I think "saving" $4-5M is enough to make a difference for a deadline addition, and the roster slot is better filled by Monasterio, Romy, Ward or even Eaton. I'd say KC, but he will not be on the bench. With a DH logjam, KC is blocked there, too. Maybe a Masa trade allows for KC to get a shot there, even without an OF injury.

You make some good points and suggestions. I don't agree with them all. Here is a summary of some of my opinion. I do not think Breggie was worth even our final offer, so I'm glad we didn't go higher. I love the Suarez signing (instead,) but it makes me revisit the Sonny Gray move. Although we ended up trading so much SP'er depth, the need for Gray has been "vindicated" on paper, to me. I really like the Durbin trade and think it might end up being one of MLB's best winter trades, but he really did not fill the big bat need, at all. That is one reason I like to use the Contreras offense vs Bregman offense comp over Durbin vs Breggie. I think that's how Brez viewed the moves. Offense: Contreras = Bregman and Durbin = the 2025 Nate Lowe, Casas, Toro and others 1B mix. On defense: Breggie is slightly better than Durbin at 3B, but Contreras is way better at 1B than the 2025 mix. Once could call the corner IF moves a push with possible upside. The choice of using Mayer at 2B makes sense, since the Romy platoon becomes possible, when he comes back- if needed. It also allows Mayer to play SS, if needed, since Romy can play 2B. I like the IKF signing, and it's nice having a real defensive utility guy, for once. $6M seems high, but by what? $1-2M? No big deal. I really wanted K Marte, then pivoted to Paredes, but apparently those two players demanded more in return than Brez was prepared to give up. (Neto, too.) I'd rather have Paredes & Durbin or KMarte & Durbin than Mayer, but Mayer has some serious upside and might shut me up quickly. The problem was than HOU did not want Mayer. Apparently AZ wanted Mayer & Tolle for KMarte, and I can see why we said no. I think I'd have said yes, as KMarte is not paid much and is that big bat we needed. Being a switch-hitter is nice, too. Maybe getting KMarte and Durbin while losing Mayer & Tolle might have meant we don't get IKF and maybe even Gray, but I'd have tried to make the dollar work to keep 'em all. (Easy for me to say.) We still he 4 OF'ers plus KC & Masa as depth. We still have Duran at DH and several players that look like their best slots are or may be DH: Masa, Casas, KC & Romy. I'd have tried to trade Duran for Paredes, King and Jarek. (Maybe we have to add someone like Holobetz, Mullins or even Eyanson.) With Durbin not IKF. My choice roster might have looked like this: 1. L Anthony LF 2. S KMarte 2B 3. R Paredes 3B 4. R Contreras 1B 5. L Abreu RF 6. R Story SS 7. L Masa DH (L Casas/ R Romy or KC DH) 8. R Narvaez C 9. R Rafaela CF Bench: R Durbin, R Wong, R Romy, R Monasterio/L Casas/R KC SP: Crochet, Suarez, Gray, Bello, Oviedo RP: Chapman, Whitlock, Slaten, King, Weissert, Sandoval, Crawford, Watson or Moran

One area of doubt remains as a couple pen slots are uncertain. One main decision involves management deciding on whether they want to convert a starter to the pen right away, later in the season or not all. I think that was part of last year's plan, and it barely happened, as we began the season with Crawford, Gio and Sandoval on the IL, then lost Houck, Dobbins and others. We do have some clearly defined roles for closer Chapman, top set-up man Whitlock and the hopefully-healthy Slaten. It looks like Weissert will fill the key 4th RP'er slot that often is needed in moderate to high leverage situations. After the top 4, it gets a little complicated, since there are Rule 5 issues (Watson) and no options issues (Moran.) Those two will likely make the opening day 26 man roster, unless they really stink over the next 2 weeks or get hurt (phantom or otherwise.) That leaves 2 slots for... Crawford may start the year on the IL or rehabbing in AAA as a starter. Sandoval may be the guy the convert to the pen. Recent injury issues might play into the choice, and it seems like Oviedo will be our #5. I'm thinking he will be one of the 8. Zack Kelly still has an option, so he can be beat out by someone, but he might have the best chance for the 8 slot. There are still some decent FAs out there. Or waiting for last minute waiver pitchers or out of options squeezed players on other team's being traded near opening day. Sikkema might be this year's Newcomb. soxprospects,com mentioned Wu-Yelland as an outside candidate. Song has looked really good in ST'ing but I don't see them adding him to the 40 to take the last slot. Uberstine? I'm pretty sure they want to keep Early & Tolle in the AAA rotation, until needed as starters, but at some point, our pen needs and playoff aspirations might trump that desire.