moonslav59

But, but, but... we used the money to sign this guy named Gio!

Who is this new guy named Giolito?

Sox Injury Updates (MLB.com expected return date) Burdi (June 18) on rehab w Woo Abreu (June 20) Taking swings Houck: (early July) to Minor League rehab June 18 Bregman (July) Ultrasound shows considerable improvement. Slaten (July) Isn't progressing as hoped. Sandoval (possibly after ASB) Began throwing off mound. Yoshida (after All-Star Break) Throwing w more intensity Murphy (after ASB) on rehab, now Hendriks (July at earliest) Started playing catch Crawford (July/Aug) sore wrist prolonged expected pen session. Casas (2026)

A look at possible salary dump trade additions (and a few others) that might actually help. Here are teams the farthest out of a WC slot: 26 COL: I don't see anyone. -14 CWS: Nope -12 PIT M Keller ($55M/3) & D Bednar (1 arb left/$6M in '25, but of course, Skenes would be the grand prize.) -11 MIA Alcantara ($38M/2) is having a tough year. -10 WSH M Gore (2 arbs left) & K Finnegan ($5.3M rental) -9 OAK: Nope -8 ATL Sale ($22M in '25 + option) S Murphy ($45M/3) & R Iglesias ($16M rental) -6 BAL Eflin ($18M rental) Sugano ($13M rental) Borderline -3 AZ Monty ($22M rental) E Suarez ($15M rental) Gallen ($13M rental) Naylor ($11M rental) -3 STL (S Gray $25M/1 + option) Helsley ($8M rental)

I thought the Rys Hoskins comment was interesting, but I guess as long as Toro and Romy are bridging us back to Casas, maybe we look for some expensive pitcher... but a good one.

I thought the same thing about the GM jargon, "repurpose."

That made the whole thing even worse. Then, they failed to replace Porcello & ERod's money. JD and Nates... and on and on...

ERA- makes adjustments based on park factor and other influences. wRC+ is weighted Runs Created, which also factors in park and other influences. Both are better indicators of how well our team is doing when compared to others. I agree our D is better. I thought we were bottom 3-5 in 2024 and are maybe 20th to 23rd, this year. I'd say our O is about 10th and our pitching about 15th. I'd be okay with 10-15-20.

MLB.com has an article on reactions from other team execs. Here are some quotes... Some of this stuff is similar to what we have said, other statements offer some new insights. “Is this trade real?” I think history would show that if you could get out of every long deal after two years, you’d be in great shape,” an AL executive said. “I think it gives Boston the opportunity to reset and repurpose a lot of money,” “On the surface, it feels like a relationship gone bad that was mismanaged from the beginning,” an AL exec said. “This is probably a welcome outcome.” “It’s a pretty good return considering that Boston didn’t have many options,” an AL executive said. “I think there was a path to get him to first base -- maybe in 2026 -- but that would have required some serious diplomacy on [chief baseball officer Craig] Breslow’s part. And in the meantime, they had nowhere to go with [DH Masataka] Yoshida. I was surprised they got real talent back while moving all of that money.” “The Red Sox are worse today, but I wouldn’t want to touch the Devers contract,” an AL executive said. “Harrison could be solid. It’s a good deal for the Red Sox in the long run. That’s a long time for a DH to be under contract.” “It’s crazy for a team to trade a player in year two of a 10-year deal – and maybe even crazier for another team to take on the entire remainder of that player’s contract, particularly when he’s been so outspoken about what positions he is and isn’t willing to play,” an NL executive said. Devers’ contract is already underwater. Giving up Harrison and Tibbs in order to take on an underwater contract is tough. This will look fine for San Francisco in the short-term, but has the strong potential to crush them when paired with Adames’ contract a few years from now.” “What the general public never factors into their knee-jerk trade reactions is what the teams trading away the large contract can now go do with those dollars,” an NL executive said. “Boston should go trade for someone like [Brewers first baseman] Rhys Hoskins right now. Then the deal takes on a whole new dimension.” “They definitely got some good players with upside, so when you combine those guys with whatever they get with the repurposed Devers money, I think the Red Sox did well,” an NL executive said. “But far more important than the player return is the fact that they were able to move Devers and all of his money. They just signed him, so to have changed their mind on that kind of commitment so quickly really means that they felt they had to move him, which is a really difficult spot to be in. They moved quickly, kept it quiet, and pulled it off.”

Look how young our everyday players are... C Narvaez (Rookie) 26 and Wong 29 1B Casas 25 and Romy & Toro (both 28) 2B Campbell (Rookie) 22 turns 23, soon, DHam 26 SS Mayer 22 (Rookie), Story 32 3B Bregman 31 LF Anthony (Rookie) 21 CF Rafaela 24 turns 25, soon RF Abreu 26 in a few days, Refsnyder 34 DH Duran 28 turns 29, soon, Yoshida 32 soon Refsnyder (34) may retire, after 2026 and Story & Yoshida (32) may not be around in 2026. (Bregman 31, may not be here in '26, either.) 4 Rookies 3 players with under 500 career PAs (Romy, DHam, Sogard) 4 players with just 750-1050 PAs: Wong, Casas, Rafaela & Abreu Only 2 players with over 1800 PAs: Bregman & Story

Part of being higher ranked in runs scored is our home park. Another part is that we've played 1-3 games more than most teams, since the week 2-3 in the season. Our ERA suffers from Fenway, a little bit. We are 6th in OPS and 10th in wRC+, so maybe 5-10th in O is more accurate. We are 15th in ERA- and 10th or 11th in xFIP and FIP-, so maybe we are 10th to 15th in pitching. The defensive metrics place us between 11th (DRS) and 17th (OAA), so maybe near average, but I feel we are more like 20th to 25th.

I'm glad you are still around, too. I have my moments of feeling despair over the Sox, too.

Our pitching and pitching depth did improve with this deal, both now and over the next few years, on paper. Harrison and Hicks both seem better than our 12th and 13th pitchers have been, this year and in recent years. They also knock everyone below them down 2 slots on the depth charts, and so in that way, improve the deeper depth that is ML ready. Jose Bello gives us one more quality but far away hopeful arm. That's not a bad thing. We lost some serious offense. Nobody can dispute that or minimize it. We can hope or pray we somehow cobble together replacements and upgrades from several players that may minimize the impact of this loss, but as of now, that's all it is- hopes and prayers. Right now, soxprospects.com has this projected 2026 roster: SP: Crochet, Sandoval, Bello, Dobbins, Crawford, Harrison RP: (Chapman) Hicks, Slaten, Whitlock, Houck, Weissert, Fitts, Bernardino, Alcala (Wink, Criswell) C: Narvaez, Wong 1B: Toro, Romy (Casas) 2B: Campbell, Story (DHam/Grissom) SS: Mayer, Story 3B: Bregman, Story LF: Anthony, Duran CF: Rafaela, Duran RF: Abreu, Anthony DH: Duran, Yoshida (I took the liberty of assigning primary back-ups) Tibbs: LF in POR J Bello SP in SAL

I don't see it all this way, but nothing you said rings false, to me. I lived with "wait till next year" for over 3 decades, and it nearly killed me. Okay, I'm exaggerating. It nearly killed all hope I ever had of seeing my favorite sports team win a championship. Sometimes, I feel the four rings spoiled me into having unrealistic expectations. Afterall, there are 30 teams and fanbases with the same hope and desires I hold. I do think our future (maybe) looks as bright as I have ever seen it look. That is worth something. As much as I enjoyed 2018 and felt that window would be open for 2-4 more seasons, I knew the time would come, where we'd either have to become a massively high spending team or have a complete rebuild. That rebuild came faster than I expected, and JH pushed it along with the Betts debacle and further cuts and poor choices on who runs the team and how. We have a very solid base of young and talented players unde rteam control for many years and at relatively low costs, especially now that the Devers contract is gone and we are one year closer to the end of Story's and Yoshida's deals. Our lack of pitching futures can and should be addressed by spending and trading, as we did in the past, but we need to do better with those choices. The Crochet, Chapman and Wilson signings are three of the best we've seen in the last 5-6 years. The Buehler deal, not so much, so far. The Sandoval deal TBD. It's weird, my wife thinks I concentrate too much on what can go wrong, but my coworkers and students always comment on how optimistic I always seem to be, even in light of all the crap that goes on in education. I guess I'm a little of both and can see both sides of some issues. I'm not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing, or that I'm better than anyone else for this, but I do still have some optimism in this team's future. JH's spending this last winter has given me new hope that maybe they see there is a clear window. I see it as open, now. maybe theys ee it as just starting to open, but either way, I'm hoping the spending comes to fill the gaps in our system.

I do seem to gravitate towards all the marginal pitchers we have that still have a morsel of promise. One of these days, one will surprise us. Oh wait, nobody thought Dobbins would do much.

The results will be good for many years to come, IMO.

No doubt, we needed and still need a bat like Devers in our line-up, and the whole "will he earn is his keep?" argument has merit. There is a limit. Is his bat worth $40M a year? $50M? Look what Vladdy just got. That being said, almost any value rating service had the Devers contract as being under water. In a vacuum, one could say, getting anything plus back makes it a good trade, if you view it just in this light. I don't see it this way, but there is some logic in including the financial aspect of the trade in the final grade. Two things need to happen to turn this trade into a break even or plus: 1) We need to spend the money saved. 2) We need to spend the money much more wisely than we have in recent years. There is no evidence to think we can or will do even one of the above things, so I get the anger and angst shown by many, here. I'm tired of hoping for even #1 and being continually disappointed, until this past winter. #2 has been a constant issue with us and almost all of our biggest signings have been failures or gross failure.

"The hitting got a boost..." Do you even listen to yourself? What planet are you on?

I have to think Refsnyder will DH vs LHPs, so Anthony can play RF vs LHPs, instead of sitting out- not growing and learning on the fly. I might DH Duran vs most RHPs, so Anthony can play LF near FT. Maybe Anthony will DH a few games, himself. Once Bregman returns, we could see some infielders cycling through the DH role, especially if Story, Mayer & Campbell have been hitting well between now and Breg's return. If everyone is healthy and hitting well, we could still have a logjam, but it will be less pronounced with the DH slot open for overfill. (Then, there is Yoshida's return to consider.)

I think most managers attempt to do this to various degrees and success. I can see how a manager might sour, if he's repaid by said player loafing or dogging it.

I gotta think Anthony was wondering about still being in AAA, because the DH slot was not open for him, Duran and others who might open a roster slot for him. Toro and Romy were probably happy they got their chance to play and prove they deserve to continue playing.

Duran is certainly worth $8M. On the FA market, I think Brez would pay him double or triple that, if we didn't already have an OG logjam. Hell, he's worth $14-16M as a FT DH and 4th/5th OF'er. I have suggested Campbell to the OF to make way for Bregman's return to 3B and Mayer moving to a FT SS or 2B position. That would certainly mean a trade, and I also think we might end up being surprised that it won't be Duran or Abreu, but Rafaela, instead. I love Rafaela, but there are a few reasons to trade him and not Duran or Abreu. He costs more, contractually (long term.) Campbell may best be used in CF, but I do think he could learn to play LF, over time. Rafaela might be the one RHB in the OF, but Campbell bats RH'd, too and Rafaela's bat is so weak, the L-R hardly matters, as Duran and Abreu vs LHPs is not all that worse than Rafaela's vs L or R. Both Duran and Abreu blow Rafaela away vs RHPs, who start about 70% of all games. Abreu plays awesome RF defense and Duran offers a great plus with his base running skills. Rafaela would make for a great super sub, but on the expensive side as his contract cost rises in coming years. Then, we will have Arias & Jh Garcia knocking on the door, pretty soon and maybe Romero, Bleis and Cespedes, too- some a bit farther down the road.

I do wonder about the specifics of the whole Devers-Cora-Brez position change talks and non talks. If Brez wanted Devers to play 1B, but Cora avoided even talking to Devers about it, there is a major problem with the chain of command, and/or the expectation that orders be followed with fidelity. Not knowing what was said or asked makes it hard to judge the problem or even if there is a problem or not. At this point, I'm not sure it matters, except to cure our curiosity, but obviously the whole Devers situation reached the breaking point with upper management and maybe Cora, too. We may never know. I doubt Cora ever says anything bad about Devers, whether he believes it or not. My own opinion is that Cora went out of his way to defend Devers and protect him from criticism about changing positions. He may have even chosen not to ask him to play 1B out of respect for his position of not wanting to work on learning a new position in season (or ever.) I feel like Devers did not repay Cora's respect by playing hard and trying to be the best role model to all the incoming younger players he could be. He dogged it, seemed to become more of a loner than before and caused Cora more grief than he deserved, in light of his "walking on eggshells" treatment of Devers, this year.

Bregman is known for offering meaningful advice that players have credited him for helping them improve. He also went and learned Spanish, so he could talk to the many Hispanic players on his team. People make mistakes. I know I have. I'm glad those around me forgave me and allowed me to show I can change and do more good things, while still making new mistakes. I certainly want Bregman back.

I keep hearing how the opt out clauses in the Bregman signing somehow makes the spending effort put forth by Brez and JH, null and void. The guy has $40M on the table for 2026 and 2027. That's not chump change, and it also gives the Sox an incentive to try and restructure it to a more guaranteed control situation for both sides. I think there were doubts about Bregman's recent decline on offense. I think he answered those doubts a little bit, although maybe injury risk is higher, now. In short, we can probably sign Bregman to more years and a lower AAV than $40M- maybe $35M x 3 years, or $32.5M x 4-5 years. If we spend up to the line,in theory, we could sign Cease (solid #2 SP), Helsley (Closer) and Naylor (1B-LHB) Maybe we trade some blocked prospects for another solid SPer. (Arias or Romero plus Bleis or Jh Garcia. Maybe add Cespedes, Tibbs or a pitching prospect to upgrade the return.)