moonslav59

I agree. All we've heard is talk on some b ig names, and almost anytime a number gets released, we are way off the final price tag. I love the Crochet trade, but I wanted to see some money where there moth has been, and all we've seen is a little more money spent on the same type of FAs- ones that are looking to re-establish themselves, because they have been recently injured or had a down year or two. So, we spent more on Buehler than Kluber, Richards and Paxton. So, he's been better in more recent years than they had been. It's still the same thing but with more fluff, due to his last 10 IP of 2024 (the playoffs.) Chapman is a worse signing than Jansen or Martin. I was hoping for actions not talk, and so far, no money deal has impressed me into thinking anything is different. You are right, there is still time, but I seriously doubt we sign Burnes or Bregman. I'll be surprised, if we sign Teoscar or Hoffman. They have me looking at Estevez as the best I can hope for, now.

If we weren't so thin at catcher, he may have been traded or DFA'd by now. The bottom of our 40 is getting better, and a little closer to a crunch, especially when you figure we may want to add Campbell, Anthony and Mayer, at some point in 2025. We could wait for players to go on the 60 day IL to do that, while also adding an extra year of control by waiting. The DFA/Trade list is shortening... Shugart Chris Murphy, Bernardino or Penrod would be traded, not DFA'd. I could see one of these three traded: DHam (the lefty,) Grissom or Romy. Yoshida has been discussed, a lot.

AAV Budget Update: 29.1 Devers- 9 23.3 Story- 3 + opt 21.1 Buehler -1 19.3 Giolito-1 + opt 18.0 Yoshida- 3 10.8 Chapman- 1 9.2 Bello- 5 + opt 9.1 Sandoval-2 6.3 Rafaela -7 5.0 Hendriks- 1 +opt 4.7 Whitlock- 2 ~4.5 Houck (Arb 1 of 3) ~4.3 Duran (Arb 1 of 4) ~3.0 Crawford (Arb 1 of 4) ~3.0 Crochet (Arb 2 of 3) 2.3 Wilson- 1 2.1 Refsnyder- 1 (All others are at pre-arb or minor league pay.) 175M Sub Total $7.2 Pre-arb + $2.6 Minors on 40+ $1.7 Bonus Pool and about $0.5 Hosmer - Ref credit for no buyout= $12M. Add $18M for player benefits and the total comes to about $205M AAV. That leaves us $36M under the first tax line and $56M under the second one. There is room to sign any remaining FA, including Burnes or Bregman. We could maybe sign Teoscar plus Hoffman for under $36M AAV. If we go to the second line, we could sign any two FAs, but we all know, we won't. In theory, we could sign Teoscar $21M x 3, Hoffman $15M x 4 and trade for Arenado and cash and stay under the second line.

Just don't call it a "sham," I guess.

What broke is our pitchers. The solution: sign more pitchers with injury histories and hope the don't all end up on the IL, at the same time. Sorry, if I'm not jumping on your bandwagon, just yet.

I probably wouldn't have known about his injury history and liked the deal. BTW, I was a stat geek as a kid, too.

He's on a minor league deal, so this opens a slot on the 40 for Buehler. No biggie. Narvaez was ahead of Gasper anyway. (We still need a catcher, IMO.)

Agreed. Tell me what you would give up. (I might give up what I listed minus Abreu.) We'd still have Anthony, Campbell, Arias, Perales, Bleis and the Garcia brothers (and Abreu.) This guy might be as good as Crochet, who cost us 3 of our top 8 prospects.

I've been rather pessimistic, recently. The state of the world and the recent loss of my dear mother and hospitalization of my 97 year old father might be part of it, but Christmas is here, so here is a joyous look at what might be in 2025. Here are the best fWAR years by our current pitchers, since 2015 (last 10 years) 2019 was a good year for many on the pitcher list. 5.2 Giolito '19 (4.1 in '21 and 2.0 in a 12 start '20!!) His 11.3 fWAR '19-'21 ranks 7th, just ahead of Buehler at 11.2. 5.1 Buehler '19 (3.1 in '18) 4.7 Crochet '24 3.9 Houck '24 (2.3 in '21) 3.9 Hendriks '19 (2.7 in '21 and 1.6 in '22) 3.7 Sandoval '22 (2.3 in '23) 3.6 Fulmer '17 (3.1 '16) 2.7 Chapman '16 (2.1 in '19, and he had a 3.2 in 2012) 2.4 Crawford '23 (1.9 in '24) 2.0 Bell0 '24 (1.6 in '23 and 1.3 in 11 GS in '22) 1.6 Whitlock in ;21 (1.4 '22) 1.5 Slaten '24 1.5 Wilson '15 (1.1 in '16 and '17) 0.8 Winckowski '23 Could we possibly see a 4.0 to 5.0 fWAR from Buehler, Giolito, Crochet and Houck? Hey... why not? MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

The other end of the spectrum has also proven to be very risky and nonproductive. I agree. There is a middle ground, and the Giolito signing was perhaps our one example of trying that route, and it blew up in our face. Relying on injured pitchers has continuously blown up in our faces, too, and when we finally tried to end one such deal, that one blew up, too (Sale trade.) Last year was not the norm, but so many mid level signings worked our very well. Gio was not one of them. $75M/3 Sonny Gray (top end of mid level signing along with Snell at $62M/2) $53M/4 Imanaga (looks like a steal) $45M/3 Lugo (maybe the steal of the winter) $39M/2 Gio (bust) and Stroman (meh) $32M/2 Wacha (nice) $28M/2 Manaea (nice) Lower mid levels: Monty 25/1+, Maeda 24/2, Mahle 22/2, Montas 16/1, Fedde 15/2, Flaherty 14/1 and Severino 13/1 were mostly ok to good. (Gibson 13/1) How about 2023? (Hmmmm) $75M/5 Senga (upper end) $72M/5 T Walker and $68M/4 Tailon $63M/3 Bassitt, $40M/3 Eflin and #39M/3 T Anderson $34M/2 Nate and $26M/2 Quintana $25M/2 Manaea and Heaney 2022? (Not good) $77.5 ERod, 71.3 Stroman, 56/4 J Gray, 50/2 Verlander, 44/4 Matz, 44/2 Rodon & 36/3 Kikuchi As much as none of these roads look wildly successful, I guess I'm just sick of sticking to one for failure after failure.

Would you give Mayer, Abreu, Cespedes, Fitts and Dobbins for him?

I suggested such a trade, long ago. Word is STL does not want to trade Helsley, but then there were rumors afterwards of teams talking about him.

I said your point was literally correct, but within some context. Now, upon further review, I think I was more right than I thought. Also, Fox did not get all the save opportunities until we got Kim. Here is every last inning save opportunity after opening day and up to Kim. Game 2, we took the lead in the 16th, and stuck with Lyon, while Fox was in the bullpen. Game 3: Fox got the save going in up 7-5. Game 4: We entered the 9th up 8-3, and Mendoza allowed 4 runs to create a save situation, but Fox remained on the bench. Mendoza was allowed to finish. (Fox blew a 1-1 game in between here) Game 10: Sox were up 8-4 going to the bottom of the 9th. Fox was rested. Timlin remained in the game and nearly blew the game by letting up 3 runs. We could have brought in Fox for a save and did not. Game 12: Sox up 2-0 and Wake got the 2 IP save not Fox. Game 14: Fox pitched the 8th, the Sox scored for in the 8th and Lyon pitched the 9th for the save. I'm stopping here, because this was clearly a closer by committee, right after game 1.

I think we can try to get STL to pay down Arenado's contract by adding a moderate piece- someone who is kind of blocked with us, anyway, like DHam. If we sign Teoscar, we could trade Rafaela and the $48M/7 still owed him to further reduce the $6.3M AAV hit on our budget. For argument's sake, lets say STL takes Fitts and Rafaela for Arenado, and they pay $10M in '25, $10M in '26 and $5M in '27. COL is already paying $5M for each of the '25 and '26 seasons. That brings the total cost to: $17M in '25, $12M in '26 and $10M in '27. The AAV would be $15.5M a year, but then subtract Rafaela's $6.3M and it comes to $9,2M a year for 3 years then a savings of $6.3M a year for 4 more years. That's pretty close to a washout in total dollars and AAV over 7 years. Bregman will cost $25-30M x 5-7 years, plus a comp pick lost. Yes, Bregman is better and younger, but he has a .795 OPS over the last 5 years. He is likely never going to hit like 2017-2019's .924 OPS (147 OPS+) His .795 OPS since then is still a 122 OPS+, so he's no slouch, but he turns 31 around opening day. Arenado has shown a very steep decline, but he is also as close to his last big O year than Bragman is. Bregman had a 134 OPS+ in 2022, while Arenado was at 151, the same year. Arenado turns 34, shortly after Bregman turns 31. His OPS+ dropped from 151 to 108 to 101 over the last 2 seasons. It's entirely possible he slips below 100 in 2025, maybe as low as 93-97. Bregman was at 122 and 118, the last 2 years, and his decline should be slower. He's still young enough to have a rebound year, too. I think getting Arenado instead of Bregman might allow us to also add Hoffman, Teoscar or more likely Estevez or Kittredge.

I'm with you 100% on others, but you were acting like JH would not try to outbid others for Sasaki, when it is not really possible to outbid anyone for him.

I get that, but do you really think the chances of injury are less for Buehler and Sandoval than the norm? Also, forget the injury aspect, how about something based totally on the records not speculation? Can we view this as a possible "floor?" Just repeat your last 28 or 44 GS'd.... Buehler: last 28 GS ('22-'24) 4.75 ERA (83 ERA+) 1.43 WHIP Sandoval: last 44 GS ('23-'24) 4.45 ERA (98 ERA+) 1.51 WHIP Certainly, we could get this, too. (I'm not expecting this, but these two guys present more than just injury concerns.)

He "succeeded?"

Sox asked about Jones... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/red-sox-discussed-jared-jones-trade-with-pirates-during-winter-meetings.html

I'd be fine with Narvaez as the back-up catcher, since he is a defensive catcher, but only if we fix 2 of the remaining 3 areas of need I see: RP: Hoffam (We wont get Scott) or maybe Estevez, if we get Bregman, who would check off 2 boxes, at once. Corner IF D (Bregman or Arenado) RHB: (Teoscar or Bregman) I think adding just Teoscar and hoping Crawford and Whitlock fix the pen might be wishful thinking. No way are Hendriks, Wilson & Chapman making up for losing Jansen and Martin, by themselves.

I totally disagree. We all knew Fox was never going to be our wire-to-wire closer. We knew we'd likely have to try several others to find one that might end up being okay, at best. It ended up working out just as many expected. Sure, we started the year with Fox as "the one." it did not really start with the idea that we'd use one guy day one and another day two, so in that sense, your point is correct, but nobody viewed Fox as the season-long closer. As it turned out, these were our game-ending pitchers (GF leaders): 35 Kim 31 Lyon 15 Embree 13 Timlin 10 Fox (would have been more had he done well) 8 Mendoza, 7 Jones, 6 Shiell & Williamson and 26 by 11 scrubs. Saves/Save opportunities 16/19 Kim 9/12 Lyon 2/6 Timlin 3/5 Fox (I was at that opening day game in TB!) 1/2 Embree and Shiell 0/2 Williamson 4/9 by 9 scrubs

I've made my views on Buehler-type signings very clear from day one. At least he is younger and not so far removed from great seasons, but he's still a big dice roll. I fully realize that Burnes, Fried and guys like Gio are/were dice rolls, too, but they all have/had better hopes for giving 30+ GSs than Buehler has. (Same with Sale, Nate, Sandoval, Kluber, Wacha, Hill, Paxton and Richards) I'm totally fine with people having high hopes for Buehler (and Sandoval, too.) I think they can be good or great again, as well, but it's not my choice. With our past history of failures on these types of pitchers, I'm not sure why you guys don't seem to even understand why I am not so joyful. Surely, you can at least understand my position, right?

Well, I was assuming Grichuk was for an Anthony-less OF. I'm all for opening the season with Anthony pencilled in a a FT OF'er (CF v R and RF v L.) I do not think playing Ref in LF vs LH"d SP'ers (maybe 40-45 games a year) is going to be a major hit on our defense. His bat is amazing vs LHPs. Yes, he could platoon at DH with Yoshida, but Yoshida does better vs LHPs than almost all our other lefties not named Devers and Casas. I do not think we need to add another OF'er, unless it is a big difference maker on offense, like Teoscar would be. (Santander would be nice, but 5 years is absurd.) If we sign a RHB or trade for one, I'd much prefer Bregman or Arenado (with cash involved.) Depending on how much STL pays (COL already pays $5M x 2) on Arenado, I'd be mildly happy with an Arenado (for Fitts) & Hoffman end to our winter. 1. Duran LF v R/CR v L 2. Abreu RF v R/Ref LF v L 3. Casas DH/1B 4. Devers 1B/DH 5. Arenado 3B 6. Story SS 7. Campbell 2B (or start the year with DHam-Grissom platoon- Romy if Grissom sucks) 8. Anthony CF v R. RF v L 9. Wong and Narvaez (with Narvaez catching more than many expect) Bench: Rafaela, Wong/Narvaez, DHam/Grissom/Romy and Yoshida SP: Crochet, Houck, Bello, Gio, Buehler>Sandoval (once Buehler hits the IL) RP: Chapman-Henriks co-closers, Hoffman, Salten & Whitlock (7th-9th inning set up) and Crawford, Wink and Wilson as longmen or lefty specialist. This, I might be optimistic about. I guess it's doable, if we are okay with going over the tax line to do it, or we get STL to pay down a bigger chunk of Arenado's deal- maybe by adding DHam to the package.

I was hoping a big chunk of the $700M offered to Soto would be spent on Fried or Burnes plus maybe Bregman or Teoscar. I doubt we get any of those 4. We have not fixed the pen, the defense, the RHB issue or our catching. There is still time, but we just spend $50M on hopes and prayers (Buehler, Sandoval and Chapman.) That is a $40M AAV out of the $60-70M top estimated winter budget. I can see reason for hope, but this is not what I hoped for.

The deconstruction of the record-setting 2018 World Champion roster has been well documented and discussed for years. I'm going to focus on just Sox management's choices on adding pitchers to the team. Many were vain attempts at replacing some very productive pitchers, although some of which had already begun to drop off, such as Kimbrel, Kelly, Porcello, Price and ERod. I won't get into the lack of high draft choices and top bonuses for pitchers, but that did not help the situation. Some trades, like the ones for Pivetta, Wink and hopefuls like Slaten, Fitts and Priester worked out fine or may work out that way, but others did not work out well (most deadline moves) or were okay (Ottavino.) My focus will be on Free Agent additions starting after the Sale and Nate extensions/re-signing, both of which involved SP'ers with serious injury concerns and could be viewed as the start of the team's philosophy of spending less than top market prices, due to dependability concerns. Although many felt Sale was an overpay, to me, he clearly took less than market value had he been viewed as 100% healthy. Nate's contract was also less than his true worth, due to his injury history, but these points are debatable, and have been discussed often. After 2018, we did not bring back Kimbrel, Pomeranz and Kelly, Pom was 6th in GS and Kimbrel and Kelly were our two best RP'ers, although a bit shaky at the end of the 2018 regular season. (Kimbrel was shaky through the playoffs, too.) We added zero pitching that winter, and put all our eggs in just bringing back Sale & Nate. (I won't go into everyday paydays like Bogey's extension.) To me, this was the beginning of the end- clear and simple. When the vaunted rotation of Sale, Price, Nate, ERod and Porcello imploded, it was not a pretty sight to see. What did we do to improve the pitching staff situation for 2020 and onwards, even after knowing ERod & Sale were going to be out for all of 2020? Next to nothing. 2020 additions: Martin Perez at $6M w option and $500K buyout and Collin McHugh to a min wage contract. Perez was never viewed as quality. He had a career 95 ERA+ , when we signed him, including an 84 ERA+ in his previous 2 years. This was essentially a throw away deal with no past history of doing very well and no hopes for significant improvement, although he did have a 1.5 years nice stretch, the second we dumped him. Perez was the replacement for both Price & Porcello. That pretty much says it all. McHugh fit the profile of a pitcher who had some past glory, but with major injury history. He missed all of 2020 with COVID. (He never pitched more than 70 IP, afterwards.) 2021 was the beginning of a template we have used for 4 winters in a row, counting this one. That winter, we took on Ottavino's contract after a 5.89 year with the Yankees in just 18 IP. It was a stab in the dark in hopes that a 35 year old pitcher could regain the glory he had over 2 good seasons he had in 2018 and 2019 and one way before in 2013. He was a trend-setter. We brought back Perez, after a ho-hum 2019 season at less money ($4.5M + the $500K buybuyout of the second year option.)out we used the following winter, after he did poorly.) We also began the one year trend by signing Garrett Richards to $10M/1 (actually $8.5M with the $1.5M. He was essentially Price's replacement, skipping a year. Pererz remained Porcello's replacement. 2022 seemed like they made a significant attempt at filling the holes left in the pitching staff since 2019, but again, we saw the same types of "cheap" choices, instead of going for tried and true quality pitchers. We had some success in 2021 and knew we were losing ERod (the 3rd starter lost from the 2018-2019 rotation.) We signed oft-injured Wacha, Hill and Paxton, along with a head-scratching Diekman & Sawamura signings for the pen. (The Strahm signing worked well.) All toal, we spent $36M on mostly 1 year deals. Paxton was known to be out for most of 2022 and was mostly a 2023 signing with hopes that he could be plugged into the late 2022 rotation at a $10M cost. He could easily be the poster boy of our 4-5 year philosophy of going cheap on flawed pitchers with histories of plus pitching. Paxton was several years removed from his decent years from 2014-2019, but even in that stretch, he missed a lot of starts. Paxton missed all of year one, and did okay year two before, you guessed it, going on the IL, when we needed him most. Wacha ($7M/1) actually worked out better than we should have expected. His "glory years" were way back in 20214-2015. His 6 prior seasons were pretty awful: 89 ERA+ while averaging about 20 starts per season. Hill was a 42 y/o going on 83 y/o pitcher, when we signed him. I don't think I need to go over his long history of injuries among spotted times of glory. Like Wacha, he did better than we should have expected. We were lucky to be able to dump Diekman's $8M/2 contract for McGuire, at the deadline. Sawamura's $3M/2 deal ended before the 2 years were up. Strahm at $3M/1 was maybe the best pitcher (or pitching deal) signed by Bloom. 2023 was a joke, in terms of fixing the rotation and replacing Wacha and Hill. Kluber $10M/1 was it. The Paxton return was the other great, "cheap" hope. Although Kluber had looked okay, the season before, his ERA+ was just 84 in 2022. He was 5 years removed from his real glory years, which were very significant and 5 years long. No doubt, the guy was once great, but there was no indication he'd regain that glory at age 37. It was a total punt based on faint hopes of past greatness. We did make some very serious moves to improve the pen with Jansen ($32M/2) and Martin ($18M/2..) Both worked out well for us, but even looking closely at these two signings, we can see the same philosophy at work: avoid signing the best of the best, who still had some prime years left for aging pitchers, in hopes they can eek out a couple more years of greatness or good enoughnness. Jansen was 35 and 36. Martin was 37 and 38. Both were "cheaper," because they were older and were expected to decline. Lucky for us, they mostly did not. Diaz was signed for $102M/5 in 2023 and Hader was signed for $95M/5, last winter. I'm not saying we should have gone there, but the fact is, we purposely went cheaper to avoid spending on more dependable pitchers. 2024 broke the mold. The Giolito signing was based almost entirely on dependability, but he was still a "cheap" signing based on a piss-poor second half of his previous season and no real great history. The Hendriks signing mirrored the Paxton one, and we still have 2025 to look at, to judge how good that one was, but he never gave us 1 IP in year 1, despite an extectation of a late season arrival. Chase Anderson and Criswell were not really noteworthy signings, except that Criswell worked out well. 2025: $21M on Buehler, three years removed from his greatest season and 5 years removed from his only other 138+ IP season of excellent pitching. Another "cheaper" and shorter contract based on past glory. Sandoval's $18M/2 deal is also from the Paxton-Hendriks mold- more about year 2 with hopes of a year 1 appearance. Sandoval has never pitched more than 150 IP and is 3 years removed from his nice 2022 season of 138 ERA+ pitching in 149 IP. In 44 GS, over the last 2 years, his ERA+ in 98. Yet another cheaper signing based on hopes of years ago decent pitching. Chapman at $11M/1 is another stab in the dark, although he has had some recent success and relatively, little injury history. His reason for being "cheap," like Jansen and Martin beforehand, is his age. He turns 37 before opening day. He's already shown he is not the pitcher he once was. 2021-2024: 1.326 WHIP and 2.4 K/BB (14.4/6.0) 2012-2020: 0.990 WHIP and 4.0 K/BB (15.2/3.8) I'm counting Wilson as a step above a minor league signing- one also based on long-ago success. This trend is as clear as day. Nothing changed, this winter, except the dollar amounts are higher and these guys are not 5 years removed from greatness or success, but rather 2-3 years away. Buehler and Sandoval are much younger than other stabs, but Chapman and Wilson are not. There is certainly a lot of upside potential in these guys, but what remains is also a lot of doubt about their health (SP'ers) and or age (RP'ers,) and the common denominator over the last 5 years is going CHEAP!.

Assuming Anthony is out of the picture, why not just do this and use Grichuk's money on a RP'er or catcher (via trade?) vs RHP: LF: Duran, CF: Rafaela, RF: Abreu (PH/4th: Refsnyder) vs LHP: LF: Refsnyder, CF: Duran, RF: Rafaela (PH/4th: Abreu)