moonslav59

Ohtani to pitch in May.

They did talk about Yoshida playing some OF, but that does not have to be opening day or even in April. I'm thinking he'll be the opening day DH, unless we face a lefty, and we decide to start Ref at DH, not the OF. The reports I see say Yoshi should be ready by the first day of ST'ing or by opening day.

When you try to take an optimistic view of our pitching staff, while remaining somewhat realistic and objective, we can think that health could be the number one issue with the idea that all of our pitchers under he age of 32 could maybe just repeat or come close to their best single season years since 2017 (last 7 full seasons.) In this light, here are the best fWAR seasons by our current pitchers. 5.6 Buehler '21 (5.1 in '19 & 3.1 in '18) 5.2 Giolito '19 (4.1 in '21, 2.0 in the short '20 season & 1.8 in '22) 4.7 Crochet '24 (1.4 in '21) 3.9 Houck '24 (2.3 in '21) 3.7 Sandoval '22 (2.3 in '23) 3.6 Fulmer '17 (1.5 in '18 & '21) 2.4 Crawford '23 (1.9 in '24) 1.6 Bello '23 (1.3 in '24) 1.1 Criswell '24 Pen: 3.9 Hendriks '19 (2.7 in '21 & 1.6 in '22) * turns 36 soon 2.1 Chapman '19 (1.8 in '18 & '23) * turns 37 soon 1.6 Whitlock '21 (1.4 '22) 1.5 Slaten '24 There is no way all of these guys approach their season highs in 2025, especially Hendriks, Chapman and maybe Giolito & Fulmer, but I do not think coming close is any wild expectation or wish. We could see.... Buehler & Crochet: 4-5.5 Houck & Giolito: 3-4.5 Crawford & Bello: 1.5-3 Criswell 0.8-1.3 & Sandoval for a half season of 0.8-1.3 Pen: Slaten & Whitlock: 1.5- 2.5 Hendriks & Chapman: 1.0-2.0 We won't see all these guys meet these lofty possibilities, but one or two could even exceed the range listed, here, and we might just need 3-4 of our starters to meet these ranges to have a nice season. The pen may need to go 3-4 or 4-4, unless some other pen arm steps up.

I seriously doubt we get to opening day with the unbalanced 40 man roster. When we add Murphy, Perales and Sandoval to the 60 day IL, I'm thinking we add at least 2 everyday players to the 40. One might be Campbell or Anthony- maybe both, but we will not allow it to get to a point where JH arcia gets the call before being ML ready. I think one will be Eaton, and if we end up having to DFA him, later, and lose him, it won't be a big deal. Once we add Campbell and Anthony, they are locked into a slot on the 40, and someone else will need to be DFA'd if we need to add someone else. This is the advantage of adding guys like Eaton, Toro or Sykes. It won't be Hickey or Binelas, so who else is on the AAA roster that could be #40?

Did we ever get a clear diagnosis? If it was structural, like a rotator cuff and needs surgery, at some point, but some issues do heal with just rest. I'm worried.

I'm not sure we need them to be that good, but we do need quite a few things to go right. Many are based almost totally on health, although someone like Story could play 150 games but hit just .650. IMO, that would still give us a boost, but not enough to make a big difference. (Our SS position hit a surprising .761 in 2024.) I think we may start Campbell at 2B, in part because the kid has been a monster, but also because our unbalanced line-up. We keep Anthony in AAA for just long enough to gain the extra year of control (mid May?) and Mayer stays in AAA, until needed. If our OF is doing fine, we may hold off on an Anthony promotion even longer.

Good article. No complaints on the ordering.

I've had points in the off season, where I was really down on the Sox, and I'm still pissed we didn't do more, this winter. At least I went into the off season not expecting anything, at all. That being said, I'm trying to see the bright side while remaining realistic and and somewhat objective. Before last season began, I thought we might see some exciting things and wondered how many of the good possibilities needed to come true for it to be a winning season. There was a pretty long list, and maybe surprisingly many did come true. Just not enough. Here is a look at the 2025 everyday players: Devers is as good a place to start as any. While he lagged behind in RBIs, he was on his way to a career high in OPS., and was still at .974 on AUG 7th, but the shoulder issue knocked him and the Sox out of it. His last 36 games saw a .573 OPS. Despite this, he still ended up with his second best career OPS+ at 139. At age 28, I'm not sure why it's not reasonable to think his career year could be 2025. He is in peak prime, now. Maybe- just maybe. To me Casas might be the biggest key to 2025. I can't see him ending up like Bobby Dee, who was still over .800 as he passed his first 550 PAs. Casas is at .830 after 840 PAs (125 OPS+) Health has always been an issue, but the guy averages over 30 HRs per 650 with an OBP nearing .360. It's hard to predict what this 25 year old will do in 2025, but first and foremost, he simply has to get the PAs. Duran is considered the best everyday player on the team by some, and I can't really argue with his 2024 numbers. Seems strange that 2 years ago, hardly anybody saw much promise. Over his last 1097 PAs (2 seasons,) he has an .832 OPS (126 OPS+) 127 XBHs and 58 SBs. His defense went from bad to near GG almost overnight. I'm not sure how many teams have 3 guys that can end up with an OPS over 125 or 130. I'm sure there are some, but I really like our three man core of 25 to 28 olds. The next players have way more questions and or very noticeable flaws, but many have some high promise or hopes. Story has been battling injury, and when he has played, sporadically, he's K'd way too often and shown little production, when compared to his many years w COL. His near GG defense, alone could be a big boost to the team, but as one of our few RHBs with history, I think we need something positive on offense. Realistically, I'm not sure we can expect much. I'm wondering if .725+ is all we can really expect, with maybe some hopes for more. Abreu killed RHPs, last year, but looks to be a platoon bat, until he can show something vs lefties. His defense was really good (GG.) He is also just 25 and was still at .830 on SEPT 8th, last year. Did he hit a wall? Can he hist over .830 for a full season? A 117 OPS+ after his first 475 PAs of his career is not so bad. Rafaela showed a few glimpses of being able to hit, decently. His defense looked real good, but he made too many unforced errors. He was forced to play SS more than he probably should have, but he wasn't all that bad. Word is, we want him in CF as much as possible, but with Anthony banging on the door, I'm not sure he can stick as a starter or FT'er. He has to bring his offense to the next level. I'm not sure 2025 is the year he does that. He's just 24, so who knows? Yoshida and Ref coudl end up being a nice platoon DH, but who wants 2 near DH only players out of your 13 on the roster? Ref has to stay, since we suck vs LHPs and he's a top 20 batter in MLB against lefties. Yoshida has been roasted alive, enough, so I'll let that go. He still has a 113 career OPS+ and might have a good year in him,m at age 30. Wong may have gotten lucky on O, but his D is for real... BAD! I think I spoke about how I felt Wong and McGuire could combine for an OPS over .700. This year, I just hope for improved catcher defense. Is that realistic? Probably not. The 2B mix of LHB DHam and RHBs Romy & Grissom might combine to give us a nice 2B season, but nothing is for sure, here. It's hard to look at DHam's 92 OPS+, Romy's 99 and Grissom's god-awful 31 as encouraging, but after watching EValdez, Reyes and others botch up the middle infield for a few years, I guess it didn't take much for me to feel better about 2B. DHam & Romy combined for 44 SBs in under 550 PAs, so that makes up for some of the low offense. Both looked pretty good at defense- something we haven't seen in a while. Okay, we're missing O'Nell's 473 PAs, but we will not be missing the over 475 PAs of EValdez (.633) McGuire (.575) and Jansen (.623.) Between DSmith, Dalbec and Cooper, we have another 450 PAs of sub .650 batting, easily replaced. Last, but not least, we have Campbell, Anthony and Mayer as total question marks with high ceilings and unknown floors. All are ML ready or very near that. Our biggest needs on offense are at 2B, SS and a RHB OF'er. Low and behold, Mayer plays SS, Campbell plays 2B and OF and is a RHB, and Anthony plays OF with decent splits on the farm. On defense, we need better catching, corner IF and maybe SS, if Story gets hurt, again. The 3 kids can't help much with C, 1B and 3B, but Mayer could help at SS, and maybe Campbell could play 3B, someday. Again, we have a lot of questions, but we have a lot of options that don't all need to come up smelling like roses. Counting Narvaez, who I did not mention, we loom to have 16 everyday players for the 13 slots. That may be just enough. It may not be. I'm feeling pretty good about our O. Our D still scares us and is too dependent on Story, but the 3 kids can help, if they get a look. I'll go over the pitching, tomorrow.

ESPN still says Mar 1st. CBS says "probable" for opening day.

I certainly think this is a big reason for coming up short, but I was for selling in 2023. I don't think trading for Garcia, Sims and Paxton was doing nothing. All were doing pretty good in 2024, but other teams added more or ones that did better. The year we got Schwarber, we almost made the WS, but we also got Robles, Davis, Rios, Iggy and Shaw. These were all guys, we'd be pissed about, had they not did much better than anyone expected. To me, we need to set ourselves up with winter moves, so we don't need 6 summer moves to work out.

The Devers injury hurt. General malaise. The failure of Paxton, Garcia and Sims to even do just okay. Luis Garcia: 3.44 w SDP '22-'23. 3.71 w LAA in '24. 8.22 w BOS. Lucas Sims: 3.10 w CIN in '23. 3.57 w CIN '24. 6.43 w BOS. Paxton did okay, but only gave us 11 IP in 3 GS and got hurt after 3 starts. Martin was not nearly as good as 2023, and missed some time. Slaten went on the IL, and the pen was a disaster. Our starters came down to earth after the first 4-6 weeks, but still did okay (99 ERA- after May 15th.) I mentioned your weighing the second half more, because you mention it a lot. Sorry, if I assumed it mattered more to you than it does. It's a long season, and there is a reason baseball plays 162 games and not 81. I get the argument that you are what your record says you are, but the schedule is not balanced (not blaming it on thet, this year) and some teams just have worse luck than others (not saying we had worse luck.) I'm just saying the 2024 team seemed like a winning team. Not a playoff winning team, but better than a .500 team. I see MIN had a better record than us, despite a negative run diff, but such is baseball. Looking at fWAR, we had the 12th best pitching fWAR and 15th best everyday player fWAR. That averages out above average at around 13.5 ranked or at the 55% spot by fWAR. I'm not saying I have a lot of data that shows we should have won 82-85 games, but they felt like it to me.

Agreed. I can be both. In theory, a tight spending team should realize when a window is open, and choose that time to spend more. I'll ask again, "How soon is now?"

Personally, I'd feel slightly better with jansen as our opening day closer than Handriks or Chapman.

Well, they did go 17-11 from March 31st to May 1st and had the best ERA for a while. They had some bad and real bad stretches, too, so .500 took it all into account. We were 10 games over .500 after 96 games. I understand weighing the second half more highly, but I don't see it that way.

Our roster is loaded with pitchers. The 3 that will go to the 60 are not being counted on. We have 16 everyday players on the 40 with one being JH Garcia, who will not play MLB in 2025, and another being Sabol, who is there just for catcher depth. Essentially, we have 14 with 13 starting on the big club. Hell yes, I think we add 3 everyday players. The ones I chose seemed like the most ML ready and possibly healthy listed on the Woo roster. Campbell and Anthony should be two, but I think we hold back on Anthony to gain a year of service. Mayer could be added, if Story looks shaky or we have a MI injury. If you had to pick 3 everyday players, who are yours? Toro, Hickey and Binales?

I respect your opinion. I disagree. We were at or above .500, everyday, except one from opening day to June 3rd, when we were at 30-31. Then, the same from June 9th to Sept 17th. I'm not saying this is my metric, but the team felt like a winner, to me, for most of the year. I hate to blame injuries, and our staff stayed pretty healthy, after GIO and Whitlock went down, but the Devers injury really hurt us, badly. I realize those last 4 games, where we went 1-4 matter just as much as the others, but we were out of it. I'm fine with anyone thinking we were lucky to win 81` games, but I disagree. I'm not expecting 100% health in 2025, but I think it's safe to expect near the norm. We have a few layers with recent or pro-longed injury histories, so maybe our odds are higher than others, but none of these returning guys are looking to start the year on the IL. (Murphy and Perales don't count. Maybe Whitlock missed a week or two.) We have Gio and Hendriks about to play their first game in a Sox uniform. Whitlock started 4 games and had an ERA under 2, then missed the whole season. Story missed over 500 PAs, Casas over 350 and Yoshida and Ref enough to have an impact. (O'Nell is not coming back, so his missed games don't really factor into things, except we don't have 650 PAs to replace- just 473.) Devers played hurt and missed a couple weeks. I don't expect as many injuries, but who knows. If we have the same amount, I still think we finish ahead of TOR & TBR and win 85-90 games. (That's without Grichuk and or another RP'er added.)

I think we'll add Campbell, who will be our starting 2B on opening day, Nate Eaton (if not Anthony to the 26) and Sykes. I think we holf off adding any pitchers to the 40, until we've cycled through 15 or more.

I think STEAMERS tends to be conservative on projections, but we all expect they are consistently the same with every player and team. I don't disagree. They are not changing the formula when projecting Sox players, of example. There are other player projections, like Duran's, where other fans are scratching their heads. I get it. Certainly, TOR could finish above us, and we have sown a knack for finishing in last place, even when we were not projected to do so. I've always been big on pitching (especially SP'ers and the closer) and defense (especially up the middle and RF D.) Maybe, I'm overly biased, but I thought our rotation sucked, last winter, and did not give us much of a chance, because of that. I've always felt age matters. I'm not changing my goalposts. We have a young team, and our older players do not hold key positions, except our 9th inning pitchers. As the season went on, last year, I thought we were were better than expected, thanks in large part to our younger players doing well and Houck, Crawford, Bello and Slaten holding their own. I know we ended, poorly, and that matters a lot to some people more than to me. I felt like our team was better than a .500 team, but ended up at .500. Who knows? Maybe we have the same amount or more key injuries. Maybe some young players take a step back- more than one should expect. Maybe 2024 was Duran, Abreus, Rafaela, DHam. Wong, Houck, Crawford, Slaten and others' career years. I get that, but by and large, I expect pre-prime players to improve, overall. I expect prime players to have good years more than not. I don't think that's being a homer. I realize all of this is part of these site's projection models, but they are often wrong. Someone mentioned they have Duran going minus on D. To me, that is absurd and a clear mistake. I'm not projecting Story & Casas to play 145+ games, but if just one does, that should be a huge boost. I'm not thrilled with this team. I have said we are not a top contender. We could have and should have done more, but I also look around at what other teams have done in the AL, and nothing really jumps out as being way better than what we did, and I actually think we blew Houston's winter away. BAL has a lot of kids on the rise, but they lost some talent. The Yanks got some nice talent but lost Soto and others. SEA seems to be stagnant. KCR, CLE and DET? Ummm... I think we look to be a very slight favorite to squeak into the playoffs or just miss- maybe an 85-90 win team, as of now. I haven't looked real closely at what other teams have done, but I think we got significant; better than a team that should have won 82-85 games, last year. (IMO)

I said, I think they did. It's an opinion. We were over .500 for most of the season and got bitten by injuries. I think we were better.

"around the start of ST'ing" sounds vague. Clearly, they need to be on the 40 during Rule 5. It's good to know that we could sign Grichuk or Robertson/jansen during ST'ing and not have to DFA someone.

I fully agree, but I think he might end up being our best option to close, especially if Slaten regresses. There are some closers who go 2 IP, at times. I think Miller did, a few times. I'd like Whitlock to pitch the 7th and 8th or 8th and 9th in some games- maybe every 3 days.

I googled it, and it say a player can be added, at any time.

I'm not happy with the amount of improvement we made, this winter, but I've always been much higher on pitching than most, and I'm stoked about our rotation and starter depth. I wish we had gotten a lockdown closer and big RHB, but I think we are better. I'm not hung up on how we ended the season playing poorly. I think our team played better than a .500 team, but the P number say we deserved 81-81.

I'm not "trying to find away around" data. Steamers has us below TOR. I've never valued them much at all, even when they had us doing better. I think our batters will improve more than regress in 2025. We have to make up for the loss of O'neill, but also EVladez, McGuire, Jansen, Reyes, DSmith, Cooper & Dalbec, who total more PAs than O'Neill. I look at who TOR added and their ages of key players, like Springer 35, Gausman & Bassitt 34. Why should we expect they improve? TOR did get better, and I admit I am no expert on players from other teams, so maybe I am undervaluing their improvement, but they finished in last place in 2024, and I think we got a lot better, despite losing our best batter vs LHPs.

Baseball Prospectus and Daveport have us ahead of TOR and TBR. Fangraphs has us 0.1 behind TBR in team WAR. Not all data has TOR better.