moonslav59

I'm not super high on Fitts, but with the state of our pitching farm history, I think I'd rather pay $5M more and keep Fitts. Give them Castro or Jordan. Throw in Gambrell, but again, not if we have to pay more than $10M x 3. They should give us a prospect at $15M x 3. Can you explain to me, why Arendao is worth giving a prospect for at $15M x 3?

These are some possibilities, too: 1. Story stays healthy into June and is playing excellent defense and hitting over .740. Dham & Romy or Grissom are holding down the 2B job, very well. Their defense is a net plus, and DHam is hitting .750 v RHPs and Romy .800 v LHPs. Maybe that keeps Mayer and Campbell from being added to the infiled, unless we are thinking 3B. 2. An OF of Duran & Ref in LF, Rafaela & Duran in CF and Abreu & Rafaela in RF is doing as well as they did in 2024, or better. The need for Anthony or Campbell in the OF is not present. Now, we may decide that even if those positions are doing okay or better, a prospect addition could provide an even better result. I'm not against that idea, despite the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." How much we want to prolong the prospect additions to gain a year(s) or control may play into the chocies and timing of the choices, but we do have some decent hopes at 2B, SS and OF without counting on the kids.

1. Rafaela cannot hits as well as DHam vs RHPs and Romy vs LHPs, and both of them seem like plusses on D at 2B. 2. Grissom will be given a chance to redeem himself, even if he has to first prove himself in ST'ing and or AAA, first. 3, Rafaela is a much better defensive OF'er than Campbell, and Anthony is about to put a squeeze on the OF, soon, as well. I'm not writing off the idea. I'd like to see how Campbell plays 2B defense, first.

fWAR adds (or subtracts) positional value, and so, DH's get dinged, even if they hit well. Papi's highest fWARs were... 6.3 in 2007 5.3 in '06 5.3 in '05 4.6 in his last season His "positional values," those years were between -15 and -17. I'm not sure what his WAR would be, if he had just a 0 positional value. Yoshida is a plus hitter, but his awful LF D, which forces him to be a DH only player really does hurt the team by about as much as his bat helps.

They seem more interested in lowering their budget, as they are shopping Suzuki.

Arenado is not an upgrade vs LHPs. 2023-2024 OPS v LHPs: .886 Refsnyder (290 PAs) .879 Romy (130) .794 Casas (158) Some want to trade him, if we get Arenado or Bregman. .749 Devers (412) .721 Wong (260) .704 Bregman (397) Not much better than Yoshida v L .680 Duran (279) .669 Yoshida (better than Arenado & Bregman vs RHPs) .654 Arenado (299) .619 Grissom (24) .610 Rafaela (179) .573 Story (58) .539 DHam (53) Should not start vs LHPs .514 Abreu (77) Should not start vs LHPs

So, we actually get worse vs LHPs by swapping out Yoshida's slot in the line-up for Arenado- just for a gain on 3B D, and all for $15M x 3. What am I missing, here?

Does BTV have Fitts worth just $5M?

You think arenado is worth $45M/3 or $15M x 3? Plus Fitts? I don't see it. .680 glove first 3Bmen should be near min wage cost. Or, dom you think Arenado will have some sort of resurrgence?

I'm not sure why so many posters want Arenado, and I'm a huge fan of defense. The guy is in the midst of a serious decline that looks to be age related. He is not a solution vs LHPs, and he might even make us worse vs lefties. 2024 v L: .235/.266/.379/.646 2023 v L: .220/.276/.386/.662 He's has had very low OBP and SLG vs LHPs for 2 years. Who's bat is he replacing? Yoshida? (2023-2024 v L: .239/.318/.351/.669) I hope it's not Refsnyder. Is the improved defense at 3B worth making us even worse vs LHPs? Maybe, by a tiny bit, but why pay anything for this, while also giving up any decent prospect. If it's Fitts and not Jordan, I'll be doubly pissed. I'm not even sure I want Arenado at R$10M x 3 for no prospect or player, other than Yoshida plus cash.

Seeing those two sign bummed me out. I'd like to think Brez has a plan, but with these cheapies, I can't expect anything, anymore. Maybe, he's already decided that once Bregman decides, it will be him or Arenado, but neither is all that great vs LHPs, and Arenado has actually sucked vs lefties for 2 straight years.

Casas hits lefties pretty well. No thanks.

He might be as bad, there, as Yoshida on D.

The Sox appear to not be willing to budge off their shorter term offer. It is rumorer the Tigers and Jays have offered longer deals and the Astros may have recently upped their 6 year offer in dollars, but they are said to be longshots, still. That lead me to think DET & TOR have offered more than $160M/6. Maybe we offered a higher AAV and or an opt-out, but maybe just 4 years. (Maybe a 5 year higher AAV would work, but I doubt we budge.)

My OCD has migrated to the Sox, almost exclusively. (I'm still a contract bridge fiend, as well.)

The Cubs are reportedly shopping RHB Suzuki to cut costs. He's owed $19M x 2 ($17M AAV on CBT.) How about expanding the deal to save them even more, while we get to dump some lesser salaries, ourselves. $137M/5 RHB Swanson SS and $38M/2 ($25.3 AAV) & RHB Suzuki OF/DH (Total: $175M and $42M AAV +$6M x 3 paid towards Yoshida= $48M AAV vs $41.3M now) for $77.5M/3 Story ($23.3 AAV) and $55.8M/3 Yoshida ($18M AVV) + $6M x 3 yrs = Total: $115M and $35M AAV Add 2 from Crawford, Abreu or Cespedes/Bleis. Would you move Swanson to 3B for Mayer or try Mayer or Campbell at 3B, when we finally moves Devers to 1B/DH?

Top Sox Prospects from soxprospects.com by position (I moved a few to fit the top prospects into the starting 9): C: Jo Garcia (15 A-) 1B: Ju Gonzales (25 FCL) 2B: Campbell (2 AAA) 3B: Mayer (3 AAA) * from SS SS: Arais (5 A+) LF: Jh Garcia (12 AA) CF: Bleis (6 A+) RF: Anthony (1 AAA) DH: Cespedes (7 A-) Bench: Romero (13 AA) Castro (18 AA) Narvaez (28 MLB) N Taylor (26 A+) or Jordan (27 AA) SP: Perales (4 AA) Dobbins (8 AAA) Fitts (9 AAA) Tolle (10 A+) Early (14 AA) RP: Sandlin (11 AA) Guerrero (17 MLB) Pendrod (20 AAA) Cason (16 A-) Valera (19 A-) Monegro (21 AA) D Reyes (22 FCL) J Paez (23 A+) or Mullins (24 AA) When you look at this, as a whole, it looks pretty solid and maybe more balanced that it has been since the days of Lester, Buch and Masterson.

If we end up with a so-so closer, we might be able to compensate by having the next 3-4 guys have great years and lockdown the 7th and 8th, so we don't need so many save opportunities. Say Hendriks closes: if Chapman, Slaten and Whitlock can pitch like they have shown they can, recently, and Wink holds his own, maybe the pen can surprise us.

Nobody has to google Burger King.

Yes. I have mentioned how DD's farm was not as bad as some suggested, and that the trio of Houck, Bello and Crawford were the best 3 from the farm in a very long time. We wiggled and wormed our way into acquiring Whitlock, Wink, Slaten, Fitts, Priester & Sandlin. While Bloom was benefited by DD's sleepers, he was in charge during their "development" and made a few shrewd moves to bolster the staff. (Too many failed, for sure.)

I totally agree. Weak at closer. Weak at #11-13 of staff. Good at #1-6 SP Good at #2-5 RP Good at #13-20 pitching depth.

How can we ever know? For one thing, we don't even know if Alonso chose the best deal. MLBTR projected $125M/5 and he got $54M/2, but it seems like 1Bman value cratered, this winter. That can't be blamed on BorA$$. Soto was projected at $600M/13 and got $765M/15. POW-SAH! Burnes $200/7> $210M>6 Bregman $182M/7> TBD Snell $160M/5>$182M/5 W Adames $160M/6>$182M/7 Fried $156M/6> $218M/8 Alonso $125M/5> $54M/2 looks like the worst deal, so far, until the next one... Flaherty $115M/5> $35M/2 Santander $80M/4>$93M/5 Manaea $60M/3> $75M/3, Teoscar $60M/3>$66M/3, Kikuchi $60M>63M, Walker 60>60 T Scott $56/4>$72M/4, Severino $51/3>$67M/3 That's the top 15. I'm not even sure how many of these guys are w Borass.

Nobody ever said he was not the best because of the many failures. I questioned who sets the criteria? Certainly, if the criteria is most money contracted, there is no argument. Maybe, if a customer satisfaction survey was sent out to every player who ever signed a contract and turned in, he'd win that one, too- by sheer numbers, probably yes, but by percent of happy clients, who knows? It's impossible to know which agent gets the most money vs expected money on a percentage basis, which would probably be a better criteria, but who sets those numbers would be highly questionable. Maybe, someone could take MLBTR's top 50 FA projections and dollar amounts and see which agent gets more, by percentage than others. (This year, Soto, alone would make Borass the clear winner.) I'm just questioning the criteria- just like I firmly believe McDonalds is not even close to the best burger joint. They don't even make my top 20 list, but by the criteria used on Boras, there is no discussion: McDonalds is the best. Period. I disagree. I'm not sure who is better than Boras, and I'm not even sure what I'd pinpoint as my criteria to determine who is the best, but it would not be all about who makes the most money for players that could make a ton representing themselves. How much more does he make for them? How much more do the other top agents make "extra" vs the norm? Probably impossible to determine, so let's all just say the guy who has the most big-named clients has to be the best. Are Johnnie Cochran & Alan Dershowitz the best lawyers in America?

Of the 9 pitchers you listed, 6 are SP'ers. We are the only team with 6 SP'ers with a projected fWAR or 1.2 or more. That suggests that we can maybe withstand 1-2 injuries to the rotation better than most teams. We then have Criswell (over 1 WAR on '24) and some promise in Fitts, Priester, Dobbins and Fulmer in AAA with Criswell. To me, our pen is the big concern, and the worry is at the top: we have no sure thing as a lockdown closer. You did not mention Slaten, but I think we have a pretty nice set-up crew of 4 arms in Hendriks, Chapman, Slaten and Whitlock. One will have to be the closer, so we drop to 3. It's not a bad 4, but it's not top 10, IMO, and one could argue it's not top 15, either. 2 missed all or most of 2024, and Chapman has been in a decline mode for a while. I kinda like Wink as the 5th guy, and he can go 2-3 IP, if needed, but the rest are marginal, with some having various levels of promise. The plus to the pen's lower the #5 pitchers is that there is a pretty large numbers of them, many already on the 40, as our roster is sorely lacking everyday player depth on the 40. (No real biggies, as Anthony, Campbell & Mayer are poised to be added, in a flash, if needed.) One issue coudl arise: we have to cycle through 12-15 pitchers to settle on last 2-3 pitchers on the 13 man staff. We could lose a lot of game playing the process of elimination game. Guerrero, Weissert, Bernardino Penrod, Kelly, I Campbell Mata, Mills, Moran N Davis, Stock, Adams Harris, Newcomb or a converted SP (Gambrell, Drohan, Fulmer, Dobbins, Fitts, Priester, Criswell) Some are not on the 40, but many are, already. Same with the pen: if we have an injury or two, we look to be better positioned to replace the injured pitchers with something maybe more decent than other teams have on their depth chart and deep depth charts. Key word: MAYBE.

Top Suspects List as Red would say.