moonslav59

soxprospects.com podcast had Justin Willard, the Sox Director of Pitching, on for a talk. http://news.soxprospects.com/2025/01/podcast-ep-348-director-of-pitching.html There are about 30 pichers at Fort Myers, right now. The "development period" has grown in MLB, so there is less down time for many pitchers, and they have more time to spend with them on health, nutrition, pitching mechanics, "pitch design" and skills more so than actually having them pitch very often during the winter. Willard boiled it down to two things: nasty stuff vhe zone.s throwing in the zone. Some do one more than the other, and the idea is to improve on the area where a pitcher struggles. There are various ways to try and maximize velocity, and there is a lot of focus on this area. He said this last season saw more focus on this area than ever before. "Take off the governor" was common with several pitchers, and they also gave pitchers a day off every 6 weeks to compensate for the added stress on arms. (Wehunt, Early and Gabriel Jackson were some that did very well, in this area.) The main idea, last season was to change the culture to more of an objective-oriented system with individualized plans set up for every player. Talk on the Sox IFA signings spoke on we hardly ever spend very much on one guy. They seemed to really like this year's class, when compared to last year's top picks. They like Soto, "a high end talent," a lot, although he may not stick at SS. He's 6-3 185. Very deep signing group with a lot of skills and upside. Lots of switch-hitters and smart baseball kids. They raved about 17 y/o Sabdiel Delzine, who they think is 6-4 220. We don't give $500K to many pitchers, so they think the Sox are very high on this guy. Rankings will be update winetrs.d, next week, so look for more new IFAs than past.

I do think adding Estevez or one of the others would make it a significant upgrade for the pen over 2024, but we ended the season as the worst pen in MLB (2nd half,) so "significant might mean just getting to the middle tier. Add: _____, Chapman, Hendriks, Wilson, Whitlock and more pen IP by several pitchers already in the system. Lost: Jansen & Martin, but also Anderson, Keller and many more bad IP from others. The rotation was not bad, last year and saw the most improvement of any other area on the team. We added Crochet, Buehler, Giolito and maybe a half season from Sandoval. Our depth looks better than last winter. We have a better looking Criswell & Fitts, but also Priester & Dobbins. Our offense took a hit by losing O'Neill, but some returning players and some age progressions could more than make up for the loss. We also have Campbell, Anthony and Mayer banging, loudly on the MLB door, yet none are even on the 40, yet. Our defense, once again, will rely on the return of Story for there to be an upgrade. The OF D might improve with more games from Rafaela and none from O'Neill, but if Yoshida plays a lot more, that would be nullified. Corner IF still sucks and has to be the MLB worst, when combined. Our C sucks, despite the promise Narvaez brings on D. I will say, I think our 2B defense has to be better than 2024. Losing E Valdez (468 innings was the leader at 2B in playing time, by far) and Westbrook (102,) Reyes (39) and Gasper/Wong's 49 innings comes to almost half the total innings. DHam (267) and Romy (130) looked real good at 2B D, but Grissom (245) did not. How much we improve at 2B D might depend on how much Grissom plays or if he improves or not. Campbell cannot be any worse than the team average at 2B in 2024. I see a sure plus at 2B D, especially if DHam and Campbell or Romy gte over 1000 innings, there. So, hopefully better MI D and OF D, while staying the same at corner IF and C. I'm not sure this moves the needle much, but better D at SS. 2B, CF and RF can't hurt. Add a decent RP'er, and we should be faves to just barely make the playoffs, but we'd need a ton to go right to advance far,

Dodging Dodger Denominations: 700/10 Ohtani '24 365/12 Betts '21 325/12 Yamamoto '24 182/5 Snell '25 162/6 Freeman '22 140/10 Will Smith '24 137/5 Glasnow '24 74/5 Edman '25 72/4 Scott '25 66/3 Teoscar '25, 22/2 Treinen '25, 17/1 Conforto '25 + Sasaki 24/2 Muncy '24 60/4 Taylor '22 I probably missed someone.

It's absurd, today.

Their rotation does look very impressive, but like our rotation and many others, these guys all have some serious questions. Snell: no doubt, he'd be a #1 or #2 every on every MLB team. He's missed about an average of about 6-7 starts over the last 4 years and just turned 32. His 142 ERA+ over the last 3 years is amazing. Ohtani: it has to be all about health with this guy. He's coming off a major injury and has only started more than 23 games, once. (23, 28, 23, 0 in the last 4.) He had a 151 ERA+ in his last 3 seasons, pitching. Glasnow is the poster boy for injury-prone pitchers. Since becoming a SP'er in 2018, he never started more than 14 games, until he managed 23 in his last two. He has a 124 ERA+ in his last 4 seasons (59 GS= about 15 per season.) Yamamoto is just 26 and showed he can pitch in the bigs (129 ERA+ in 18 GS.) Again, he missed time with an injury, so there are now doubts on that front, but he might be the surest bet of the top 4 Dodgers SP'ers, in terms of health and skills, combined. Sasaki is a wild card, but one every team would have loved to have had. Hard to find a comp to him. Gonsolin turns 31 in May and had a great 2022 season, although it was just 24 GS- a career high. He was good before that, too, but had an 87 ERA+ in 2024 (20 GS.) Another injury risk guy. D May is just 27, but he has never started more than 10 games in a ML season. A 132 ERA+ over the last 3 years is damn good, but it was just about 7 GS per year. By contrast, here are some cherry-picked sample size of our top 6 SP'ers: Crochet 128 ERA+ (career, including 33 GS and 73 gms as RP) Houck 125 ERA+ (137 in 2024) Buehler 125 ERA+ career (146 from 2018-2021) Sandoval 108 career (132 '21-'22) Bello 99 career (101 last 2 years and 107 in 2023) Giolito 98 career (106 from '19-'23 and 129 from '19-'21) Crawford 95 (104 last 2 years and 113 in '23)

Is anyone else having enormous issues with typing messages on this site? My cursor keeps flipping to various places within the text I have already typed. It is happening almost every sentence, for me.

The pen looked like the one area the one area the Dodgers looked comparatively weak.

This is not sour grapes, but the Dodgers are making a mockery of the system.

Adding Estevez, Yates or maybe Finnegan might move the needle, a little bit, and Bregman is probably the biggest impact player left for the Sox, but to me, he is not the one FA I'd have chosen to go go large & long on. I doubt we get Bregman, anyway. I guess another meaningful trade could get me optimistic, but we fell short of what I had hoped we might do. Nothing has changed.

All these Dodger additions keep piling up. It will make it more fun to watch, if they don't win the WS, but they are sure doing their best to ensure than cannot happen.

Tanner Scott to Dodgers for $72M/4. To me, he was the best fit for the Sox, out of who was left. Oh, well. No big surprise on who got him.

There is probably a slim chance all 3 top pjury at MIrospects win a FT job over the season, even if there is an in MI and OF, but this could be the look, if it happens without any injuries: C: Wong/Narvaez 1B: Devers/Casas DH: Casas/Devers 2B: Story/Campbell SS: Mayer/Story 3B: Campbell/Devers LF: Duran CF: Anthony/Rafaela RF: Abreu/Campbell/Anthony 1. Duran 2. Campbell 3, Casas 4. Devers 5. Story 6. Anthony 7. Abreu/Rafaela 8. Mayer 9. Wong/Narvaez

He had 58 saves vs BOS. Anyone know how many blown saves he had vs the Red Sox? Including playoffs?

What would you say the odds are we sign Bregman or Scott (not both?) I'd say 1 in 3. What about one from Estevez, Yates, Finnegan and Grichuk? I'd say better than 1 in 2, with maybe a 1 in 3 chance we sign Grichuk and a RP'er.tor that could One factor that could limit those chances is an extension to Crochet or a top 3 prospect or two.

Pedro was "the man," for sure. He was an intense competitor and a winner.

That is verygood, but there is a reason he has been used less and less as a "closer" since 2019, which was 6 years ago. BTW, Jansen was not great, in 2024 and he was 27/31 in Sv situations (no holds.) He was 29/33 in 2023. Kimbrel was 92/102, including 2 holds w BOS. Uehara was 86/96, including 14 olds w BOS (34/37 in 2013) Papelbon was 39/42 in 2007

He "was" a legitmate closer." 2012-2019 481 games (272 Svs in 301 Sv Opps) 2020-2021: 74 games (33 Svs in 39 Sv Opps) 2022-2024: 172 games (29 Svs in 39 Opps) Save Opps per game: 63% '12-'19 53% '20-'21 23% '22-'24 His role as a closer has declined since 2019. He went from almost 2/3rd of his games in sva e situations to less than 1/4. Go ahead, and pencil him in as our "legit closer" and get back to me in August/September. Even if he does well, he'd be better placed as our co-setup man with Hendriks. Slaten and Whitlock would also make formidable 7th inning guys. Adding a real or legitimate closer would transform the rest of the pen into pluses at every slot. Hendriks and Chapman rate to be a top 10 eighth inning duo. Slaten & Whitlock might be a top 5 seventh inning duo. Wink, Crawford & Wilson would be a top 10 or 15 bottom 3 guys in the pen, and I still think our AAA pen depth beats 2 out of every 3 MLB team's depth.

Yup, and 9 different winners in the last 11 years (HOU & LAD have 2 each.) If we go back 12 years, the Sox join the 2 time winner club.) Go back 13 and the SFG make it 4 teams with 2.

Fangraphs Projections: Rotations: BOS: 4.8 Crochet, 2.7 Houck, 2.5 Bello, 1.8 Crawford, 1.4 Buehler, 1.2 Giolito LAD: 3.7 Glasnow, 3.4 Snell, 3.1 Yamo, 2.5 Ohtani, 1.0 May, 0.9 Gonsoli Pens: BOS: 1.1 Chapman, 1.0 Hendriks, 0.7 Whitlock. 0.6 Slaten LAD: 0.9 Treinen, 0.7 Phillips, 0.4 Miller, 0.3 Vesla, 0.2 Banda Everyday Players: BOS: 4.2 Devers, 3.3 Duran, 2.4 Casas, 1.9 Campbell, 1.6 Abreu, 1.3 Rafaela, 1.1 Yoshida, 1.1 Story, 0.8 Anthony, 0.7 Ref/Grissom, 0.6 Wong/Narvaez LAD: 6.1 Betts, 5.6 Ohtani, 4.1 Freeman, 3.1 Smith, 2.4 Muncy, 2.3 Teoscar, 1.8 Edman, 1.4 Kim, 1.3 Conforto/Edman On the everyday players, the LAD look to be Betts + Ohtani better than us. Start with our #1 and their #3, and we match up okay. That is pretty damn bad. Our pitching seems pretty close to theirs.

I kinda like the Texans chances at KC, today. I think WSH will give the injured Lions a run for their money, tonight. The Eagles should beat the Rams, tomorrow afternoon and I like Baltimore to win at Buffalo in the Sunday evening game. Detroit should beat Philly to advance to the Super Bowl to face Baltimore, who should beat HOU, next week. I'll take BAL as the champ.

Hey, they were forced to play a guy named Mookie at SS, so how good can they really be?

14 saves in 19 chances. I guess that is "real," but not real good, and certainly not lockdown.

I guess you could argue Hendriks and Chapman are "closers," but when was the last time either was a lock-down closer? I'll save you some time: Hendriks was for 2 - maybe 4- years of his 13 year career: 2021, 2022 and '19-'20. (2019-2022 2.26 ERA and 114 saves) I guess that wasn't that long ago, but the guy had major surgery and turns 36, before opening day. Chapman was for many years (2012-2021,) but that was 3 years ago. 2022-2024: 3.68 ERA & 29 saves. Gotta love the 14 K/9 but yikes on the 6 BB/9. He should not be a "real closer." Maybe Whitlock or Slaten can grow into the role, but when I see our closers for our 4 ring years, I cringe at who we have now. Foulke, Papelbon, Uehara, Kimbrell Those 4 were REAL CLOSERS!

Good point. Estevez would just be adding another good set-up man into a closerless mix. Yates was a closer in 2024, though. Finnegan was, too. I'd take him... maybe over Estevez, for that reason. (He'd probably be cheaper, too.)

Yates turns 38 in March, but he seems to be aging very well. The thing a bout him is that it would be a one-year deal, so the risk is lowered. Yates has 60+ IP for two straight years. 2.21 ERA (188 ERA+) 3.55 FIP 1.01 WHIP 12.2 K/9 and a bad 4.3 BB/9 0.9 HR/9 OPS Against: .407 in '24 (.409 v R/.403 v L) .619 in '23 (.657 v R/.574 v L) I'd roll the dice on a 1 year deal.