moonslav59

He had just 114 ABs in AA, but the concern is legit. I'm higher on him, than most, but he is not going to be a force on the big club for 2025, for sure. His brother might have more promise (not for 2025.)

Second best as a percentage. (12%) I'd love to think we are not done, but I'm close to giving up hope. There is still Bregman. Maybe we could add Estevez & Grichuk or make one more trade for a catcher or solid pen arm, but I think we'll wait on that, until we get a better read on our top prospects and how some others look to start the season. Some areas to watch: Catcher & catcher defense: Has Wong improved? Can Narvaez hit well enough to stick on the 26? 2B: A DHam-Romy platoon shows a lot of promise, based on 2024 splits and defense, but Grissom is still trying to prove 2023-2024 was the outlier and not his first 1-2 seasons. Campbell could storm the position and pull a Pedey... or not. SS: Story's health remains a years long question that has rarely been answered in the positive. RHB: Will Rafaela play RF v LHP, or will we give Abreu a chance to play FT. As of now, I think Ref plays LF and Duran CF vs LHPs, but Ref could platoon at DH w Yoshida. Closer: Will Chapman or Hendriks win the position and save 85-90% of games? Can Slaten or Whitlock step in, if they don't? (Will it be too late, even if they can and do?) Corner IF defense: Is there any hope Casas can improve his 1B defense? Devers has showed he can go extended periods of time playing okay or near average defense at 3B, but can he do it for a full season? To me, the rest of the team looks pretty solid and has decent depth (C and 3B not so much depth.)

I agree that injuries or the lack of them can and will be the difference-maker, as with many other teams. As of now, we will be entering the season with just 2 guys that will likely be placed on the 60 Day IL on opening day: Sandoval & Murphy. Whitlock might begin the season on the 10 day IL and may take a few weeks to join the big club, but there is a chance he starts the season on the 26. Gio is saying he will be ready, but maybe he has a setback. We can argue all day long about which players are injury prone and what sort of chances they have at staying healthy for 90-95% of the season, but these names jump out: Story, Casas, Buehler, Hendriks and Whitlock. (Gio & Sandoval are dealing with a recent injury but don't have long histories of injuries.) I'm not so sure our complete roster looks anymore susceptible to injuries than the norm, but staying as healthy as the norm or better would put us in the 85-90 win range, IMO. Much better than the norm might get us to 91-94 wins. I've mentioned this before, and I realize many other of the top contending teams have a lor of young talent who still have not reached peak prime, but I see a lot of room for age/experience- related improvement on this team. The whole roster and beyond is full of pre-prime, prime, peak prime and not-yet-out of prime players. It's easier to just list the ones that are past prime, and note how few of them are being counted on to fill a major role on the 2025 team, except as a closer: 36: Chapman 35: Hendriks 33: Refsnyder (short-side platoon) & Bernardino 32: Story (turns 33 after the season) Still in "Prime:" Yoshida (turns 32 in July) and Giolito & Buehler (both turn 31 in July)

Indeed. Guys like him are everywhere, and there is a good chance he gets DFA'd, this year. I can see a change in the focus on identifying better young pitchers, or one with higher upside, better focus on developing them by setting tangible objectives for them to reach, and by making several trades of everyday players and unneeded pitchers for pitching at all levels. There will be swings and misses, for sure, but I applaud the effort made by Brez & Co, to remake the whole system's focus on pitching. Brez has been the CBO for about 15 months, and these are just some of the pitchers added to the roster: Crochet, Buehler, Slaten, Giolito, Criswell, Sandoval, Chapman, Hendriks, Wilson Fitts, Priester, Sandlin, D Reyes, Weissert, Wehunt, Tolle, Delzine, Cordero, Neely, Clarke, Cason, Tygart Fajardo, Judice, Aita, Brito, J Moran, H Harris, A Adams, J Adames, I Campbell N Davis, R Stock, E Rivera, Kirwin, Booser, Shugart, The more forgettable: Paxton, Hill, Luis Garcia, L Sims, Joely, Chase Anderson, B Keller, B Horn, Uwasawa, Jaques, Y Ramirez, Wingenter and others

Exactly. It's all about giving fans the perspective that we MIGHT have a chance at sneaking into some sort of magical season ending. I do think they did a better job, this winter at actually getting us closer, but they always come up short of doing what it takes to get us over the hump.

We may not even get the comp pick.

Yes, he never actually promised to go over, this or any year, and the criteria for success is only if they think we can win 90-95 games, not that we actually do it. Just get to the point where they "think we can."

I'd rtaher make moves like this, than to trade for a 5 year minor leaguer with very little chance at making the bigs.

It would help if they'd stop licking the window frames.

MLBTR Top Free Agents still on the market: 3. Bregman *** 7. Alonso 8. Flaherty 16. Profar 22. Estevez *** 25. Heaney 28. Pivetta 31. Quintana 33. Scherzer 41. Gibson 42. Kahnle 43. H-S Kim 47. Robertson *** 49. Bader 50. Turnbull Honorable Mention that might fit w Sox*** : K Jansen, P Sewald, C Martin, R Grichuk

Word is the Tigers and Bregman are at a "standstill." Expect a signing, at any moment.

Agreed, but taking the next step seems beyond our imagination.

It looks more and more like even the rest of the top 10 spending teams can't keep up with the Dodgers, how can the middle 10 think they have a shot? Forget the bottom 10. They've been toast for decades.

When did I say you said that? Playing scarecrow, again.

You forget, a lot, and only remember when the blind squirrel runs up the broken clock.

You crack me up.

Probably using lead paint.

Weird fascination with metric makers.

Well, the Sox can still sign Bregman and be comfortably under the first tax line. They could maybe even sign Bregman to about $25-26M and still add a decent RP'er. Extensions could kick in after opening day, if that's the way the want to structure the budget. Again, the only way I'm okay with signing him is to play 3B. 1. L Duran CF 2. R Bregman 3B 3. L Casas DH/1B 4. L Devers 1B/DH 5. R Story SS (Mayer) 6. L Abreu RF/R Refsnyder LF 7. L Yoshida LF/ R Rafaela RF (Anthony) 8. R Wong/ R Narvaez C 9. L DHam/ R Romy 2B (Campbell?)

Many of the highest paid FAs were not all that good year one or year two. 1. Ohtani '24 MVP (but did not pitch 1 inning), Yr 2 pending 2. Machado '19 (.796 yr 1, 3rd in MVP yr 2) 3. Seager '22 (.772 yr 1, 2nd MVP yr 2) 4. Yamo '24 (3.00 ERA in 18 GS/ yr 2 pending) 5. Cole '20 (4th in CYA, 2nd CYA- won CYA yr 4) 6. T Turner '23 (.778 and .815- both below career OPS) 7. Bogey '23 (.790 & .688 first 2 years) 8. ARod '07 (MVP, 8th MVP) 9. ARod '01 (6th MVP, 2nd MVP) 10. Rendon '20 (.915 then collapse to .712 and down every yr afterwards) 11. Pujols '12 (.859 yr 1 was almost 200 pt drop, then .767) 12. Cano '14 (.736 yr 1, then injuries) 13. Price '16 (dropped from 179 ERA+ to 112 yr 1 and 135 yr 2) 14. Fielder '12 (.940 to .819) 15. Scherzer '15 (CYA 5, CYA yr 2 and 3) 16. Greinke '16 (4.37 ERA then 4th CYA) 17. Correa '23 (.834 and .711) Top Extensions: over $300M: Trout (kind of a bust), Betts (BAM), Judge (BAM), Lindor (.734, .788 OPS) Machado, Tatis, Harper, Devers

Top 8 FA signings in 2024 (Total Money) 2 NYM (Soto & Manaea) 1 LAD (Snell) 1 NYY (Fried) 1 AZ (Burnes) 1 SFG (Adames) 1 TOR (Santander) 1 TEX (Nate) Top 16: 3 NYM (add Holmes), 3 LAD (add Scott & Teoscar) 2 TEX (Pederson) 1 NYY, AZ, SFG, TOR, TEX, OAK (add Severino) LAA (Kikuchi) HOU (Walker) BAL (O'Neill) Top 24: 5 NYM, 4 LAD, 2 TEX, 2 TOR, 1 NYY, AZ, SFG, CHC, CLE, BOS, CIN Top 32: 5 NYM, 5 LAD, 3 TEX, 3 TOR, 2 SFG, 2 BOS, 2 DET Top 40: 5 NYM & LAD, 3 TEX, TOR & BOS, 2 SFG, DET, NYY, LAA, CLE, CHC, OAK (The top 40 is all players paid $10M or more. Yates not included.)

I do see somewhat of a contradiction in my lifelong philosophy of what makes the Sox a top contender. I have always felt that we are at our best when we have a better rotation, especially 2-3 really good ones, along with a solid defense, especially up the middle. I've always hated the strategy of trying to build up the rotation by replacing the #4 or #5 with a supposedly better #4/5. My mantra has always been to "build up the rotation from the top, not the bottom." Also, for the past few years, when many have been saying we need 2 SP'ers, I was calling for 3. When many said 1, I said 2. Well, since the start of last season, we have added Crochet, Buehler and essentially Giolito and depth like Priester, plus a more well-known Criswell. Yes, we lost Pivetta and moved Whitlock to the pen, so one could view the net addition as just 1-2, but to me, it seems like more than that. Crochet is a legit #1 or #2, despite some lingering questions about durability and repeatability. Buehler is the real deal, if healthy and fully recovered from major surgery. Giolito is an unknown, but he is not old, and had 3 really good seasons, not too long ago. Houck and Crawford answered the durability questions we had, last winter, but of course doubts still linger. Houck proved a lot more, while Crawford might have pitched better in 2023 than 2024. Bello did not improve his standing, but he has shown he can take the ball every 5 days with 58 GS in the past 2 years. For the first time, in a long time, we have 5 pretty solid SP'ers with better than average AAA depth in Criswell, Fitts, Priester, Dobbins and non 40 man Fulmer. This should be enough to make us a contender, based on my lifelong beliefs, but for several reasons, my doubts and pessimism over certain aspects of this team have squashed or diminished those hopes. Our catching and corner IF defense is about as bad as it could ever be. I'm not sure we have ever had a worse defensive C-1B-3B group, since I started following the Sox in the early 70's. Our middle IF and OF D look fine or better, as long as Story is playing, and these positions, other than catcher are more importnat than 1B and 3B, so maybe I'm overblowing how bad our team D really is. Mayer, Campbell and Anthony are no slouches on D, so the future does look brighter. The more DHam plays 2B over Grissom, the better 2B D is. The more Story plays SS D over Rafaela & Co, the better. The more OF D Rafaela plays, the better. Duran-Rafaela-Abreu is a better OF Defense than one with O'Neill and Ref playing 161 OF games, not to mention 15 OF games by Romy, Dalbec, Wong, Valdez, Westbrook & Yoshida. There is hope for improved defense. Bregman at 3B would help, a lot. That leaves the pen. We had the worst pen in MLB, over the second half of 2024, and we lost Jansen and Martin. We also lost and equal amount of pen IP by scrubs and failed relievers like Garcia, Sims and others. We added Chapman, Hendriks, Whitlock and Wilson. We might see Crawford, Fitts, Criswell or Priester take some major innings in the Sox pen. To me, we have a very deep pen, that stretches 8-10 deep into the minors, but we lack a true lock-down closer- something every Sox champion had, this century. Should I really be so discouraged by just 3-4 major weaknesses? (Closer, Catcher D, corner IF D and poor RH'd batting vs LHP'ing?

I could see top 3 in SP'er ERA+ but not overall pitching staff combined.

I can see reasons to be higher on KC than Anthony. I'm glad we have both! My love of Mayer is wavering, but maybe he changes that in 2025. I'm very high on Arias and Cespedes, and I think the Garcia brothers jump in teh rankings, this year.

There are a few that scream out, "DONT START ME Vs THIS HANDED PITCHER!) vs LHPs: Abreu & DHam vs RHPs: Romy & Ref All these 4 are also among our leaders in OPS vs the "better handed pitcher," so 2 platoons jump out at me: DHam-Romy at 2B (The other makes for a decent utility guy when not starting.) Campbell could end the whole 2B platoon with a call-up. Ref (LF)- Abreu (RF) with Duran moving to CF, when Ref is in LF. (Both can PH or Abreu could be a late inning defensive replacement for Ref.) We can "tolerate" Duran's low OPS vs LHPs, since he still had an acceptable .320 OBP and is such a great base stealer. Rafaela needs to start hitting both hands, better, or he will become our super utilityman. Devers and Casas hit LHPs well enough to never need a platoon. Story remains the great unknown on O. Yoshida could be platooned with Ref at DH with Rafaela & Abreu, if Anthony (or Campbell) win a FT OF slot in 2025. Grissom needs to prove, a lot, in 2025- beyond splits. With no additions, could these be the line-ups? vs RHP 1. L Duran LF 2. R Story SS 3. L Casas 1B 4. L Devers 3B 5. L Abreu RF 6. L Yoshida DH 7. R Wong/ R Narvaez 8. L DHam 2B 9. R Rafaela CF vs LHP 1. L Duran CF 2. R Refsnyder LF 3. L Casas 1B 4. L Devers 3B 5. R Story SS 6. L Yoshida DH 7. R Romy 2B 8. R Wong/ R Narvaez 9. R Rafaela RF 8.