moonslav59

They do seem to have gotten building up the farm right, and I like the new focus on building up young pitchers. When was the last time we've seen a list of homegrown and acquired young or prospects pitchers like the one we have now? Houck, Bello, Crawford, Wink, Weissert, Kelly, Guerrero Slaten, Fitts, Priester, Crochet (trade) While this list is not great, it is better than we have seen in a long time. Most of our best staffs, in the last decade have been stocked by FAs or blockbuster trades.

I doubt we run to a board with every lage contract. Parameters are set that may allow for an occasional big contract, and my guess is, and it's only a guess, JH is the guy to give the final thumbs up or down to Brez & Co.

Stay healthy, hit .800 v LHPs and .700 v RHPs, and I'll be thrilled!

Our hitting vs LHPs was a big issue and looks to be even bigger in 2025, agreed. I don't want to minimize the concern in any way, but even bringing back the sporadic O'Neill would be no guarantee we do as good or better in 2025. He has not always "killed" lefties and has not always even been healthy enough to play. Here are some other good batters v LHPs since 2022, not better than O'Neill, but pretty good: .974 O'Neill .941 Grichuk .910 Refsnyder .901 Teoscar & .895 T d'Arnaud (not available anymore) .875 Ryan Jeffers & .866 Garver (trade? Not good defensive catchers) .817 Sean Murphy (trade?) .816 Vladdy (not a big step up from Casas at .772.) Right now, we need boosts from Story, Casas, Devers (.746) and others to improve their splits, or we will get killed by lefties.

Yoshida should hit better, but Story can improve by more, IMO. ("break out")

He will replace many of his PAs- not his production. Agreed. The word "replacing" does not mean in kind.

He has been replaced- just internally. Most likely Rafaela's 285 PAs in the IF will move to the OF (CF.) They may let Abreu and or Ref bat more against off-handed pitchers to make up part of the other 200 "replaceable" PAs. Otherwise, they will come from Romy, Anthony or Campbell. Then, there is the Grichuk type option.

I 'm not sure.

None finished 6th in BA in the AL, even if you lower the qualifying ABs. My pick is Story with Yoshida close behind. "Break out" implies a jump. For Yoshida to break out, he needs to go from .285 to .325. For Story to "break out" from .235 to .275. I have little faith in Grissom.

Rafaela playing more SS in 2024 helped with that choice, but yes, O'Neill was going to play, when healthy vs LHPs and RHPs. There may have been a more prevalent platoon with Rafaela and Abreu had Story been healthy, of maybe they'd have played Rafaela at 2B, instead of pivoting to DHam and Romy after EValdez & Grissom imploded.

Kelly or Forest green?

I'd bet on O'Neill, but if I could take Grichuk or Laureano combined, I think one is more likely to do better. Which one? Who knows?

They both fit the profile: will take one year and not cost much. Also, do NOT be surprised, if one of these guys does better than O'Neill in 2025.

We've gotten so many 4+ deals wrong, in a row, that I can see why JH is a scaredy cat. BTW, when was our last 3 year deal or extension? Bogey opted out after 3 and Barnes had a 3rd year option, but I can't think of the last one. Have we had one since Vic?

We are far enough away from the tax line, that there does not seem to be a reason to wait, until the season starts, unless we also want to extend a younger player or prospect, too. Maybe, we are waiting on Bregman to choose the timing aspect of the signing, but who knows with these clowns?

Hey, we've done okay with the revolving door OF add-ons: Pillar> Renfroe>Duvall>O'Neill. This year we have "Joe Diddilee." Maybe Anthony of Campbell becomes the next add-on OF'er. We still have... LF: Duran (Anthony/Campbell, Romy, Ref & Yoshi) CF: Rafaela (Duran & Anthony) RF: Abreu (Anthony/Campbell, Rafaela, Ref & Romy) It's not like our OF is barren. The depth involves some shuffling, at times, at least until a top prospects gets added to the 40 & 26 (at the same time.) I still think we sign Grichuk or Laureano as a cheap one year bridge to a kid or two.

It has become an ugly pattern. A few is fine, but every signing has become one and dones or take a half season or more to get off the 60 Day IL, then give us one season.

I think we are on to something!

Yanks talking extension for Boone. LOL!

So these are the prospects added to the soxprospects.com rankings, since the end of the season rankings. (Trades and IFA signings) 28. Narvaez (ERC trade) 30. Dorian Soto (IFA) 36. Yhoiker Fajardo (Booser trade) 37. Harold Rivas (IFA) 38. Hector Ramos (IFA) 39. Sadbiel Delzine (IFA) 52. Andruw Musett (attrition) 58. Eduardo Rivera (attrition) 59. Danny Kirwin (attrition)

If it's 4-1, there needs to be an asterisk. LOL. (The fix has been in, all year.)

I do think last year's team had some excitement and exciting players. We inched up slowly with the record and standings. I think we look better, on paper, now, but we need a bigger jump, IMO. The reliance on the kids to boost us over the top is an age-old plan, but I can't help but feel like we could have made a strong statement that the Sox are back, with the kids knocking on the door as the fall back not "the plan." I've always been big on building up the rotation from the top and continuously, along with decent up the middle defense and a closer. I gotta say, we've done a very nice job constructing a solid rotation along with better than decent depth. We took a stab at boosting the pen with the Hendriks and Chapman signings, but to me, Jansen and Martin were better. Our up the middle defense can only improve greatly, if Story can stay healthy for a full season. We may improve a little at 2B, now that EValdez is gone, CF if Rafaela plays there more often, and Catcher if Wong can improve or the back-up does better than McGuire and Jansen, but none will likely be a huge boost. I think the O will be about the same. The defense will improve a little, but going from bottom 5 to bottom 10-15 may not be enough. The rotation should be much better, and it wasn't bad, last year. The pen is the wild card. It is deep with promising pitchers but shallow on sure-thing arms.

It's the signing part. Trades, homegrowns, waiver wires hardly ever get hurt, for us.

The pattern of signing pitchers we know will start the season on the IL is ongoing: Paxton> Hendriks>Sandoval. So is the pattern of signing "healthy" pitchers who used to be good to great, missed extended time with injuries and are now supposed to regain past glory: Richards> Wacha/Hill> Kluber> Buehler. We even tried to start a new club: pitchers with hardly any injury past who immediately get hurt when they pitch for us or just think about pitching for us: Giolito, I Campbell and I hate to go to far back, but Thornburg rings a bell.

More like when you stole that bag of Cheetos from the corner store.