moonslav59

70 wins would take near season-long injuries to 5 or 6 of our best 8-9 players.

I may adjust by the stat of the season, but as of now, I see this... 91 NYY 90 BOS 87 TOR 86 BAL 92 SEA, 87 DET, 85 CLE, 84 HOU, 81 TEX

I noticed fangraphs projects a 2.1 fWAR for Durbin. They project Contreras as 2.2. Here are some selected projections: 2B/3B: 4.5 KMarte, 3.9 Bichette, 3.8 Bregman. 3.7 Neto, 3.4 Hoerner, 3.1 Donovan 3.0 Semien, 2.9 CJ Abrams, 2.8 G Torres & Devers, 2.7 E Tovar, 2.6 Keaschall 2.5 Meidroth, 2.4 Paredes. 2.3 B Stott, 2.2 Okamoto, R lewis 2.2 2.1 Durbin, A Bohm, 2.0 Murakami. 1.8 Polanco, 0.6 M Shaw Basically, Durbin fell about 1.6 short of Bregman, 1.3 short of Neto and 1.0 from Donovan. He's almost even to Paredes, Okamoto & Bohm. He looks better than Polanco, Shaw & E Suarez. 1B/DH: 2.7 Schwarber & Alonso, 2.5 Yandy Diaz. L Arraez 2.3 2.2 Contreras 2.1 Rooker, 1.3 E Suarez It looks like Contreras is not too far (0.6) from Alonso & Schwarber, but his defense probably helped him close the gap. He does look like a better choice than E Suarez.

If we hit a reasonable 90 wins, then "at best 4th place" is nearly impossible.

I noticed fangraphs projects a 2.1 fWAR for Durbin. They project Contreras as 2.2. Here are some selected projections: 2B/3B: 4.5 KMarte, 3.9 Bichette, 3.8 Bregman. 3.7 Neto, 3.4 Hoerner, 3.1 Donovan 3.0 Semien, 2.9 CJ Abrams, 2.8 G Torres & Devers, 2.7 E Tovar, 2.6 Keaschall 2.5 Meidroth, 2.4 Paredes. 2.3 B Stott, 2.2 Okamoto, R lewis 2.2 2.1 Durbin, A Bohm, 2.0 Murakami. 1.8 Polanco, 0.6 M Shaw 1B/DH: 2.7 Schwarber & Alonso, 2.5 Yandy Diaz. L Arraez 2.3 2.2 Contreras 2.1 Rooker, 1.3 E Suarez

I think Cora's line-up choices give us a look at his intentions. I think we see this as the general template, but maybe some tweaks are made for L-R starters. 1. L Anthony 2. R Story 3. L Duran 4. R Contreras 5. L Abreu 6. R Durbin After this it gets murky, but he seemed to like Narvaez, last year. I'll go with... 7. R Narvaez 8. L Mayer (R Romy) 9. R Rafaela

No. I took projected total value /divided by year. I left out the salary.

100 wins is not out of the question has no relation to our final at best position in the standings? Are you saying if we win 100, the Jays, Yanks and O's all win 101 or more?

Here is how each roster slot looks between the Sox, Yanks and Jays: Sox-Jays-Yanks SP1: Crochet 5.8/ Cease 3.9/ Fried 3.9 SP2: Gray 3.7/ Gausman 3.0/ Rodon 2.3 SP3: Suarez 3.4/ Ponce 2.2/ Cole 2.1 SP4: Bello 1.9/ Yesavage 2.1/ Schlitter 1.7 SP5: Oviedo 1.1/ Bieber 2.0/ Warren 1.4 SP 6-7-8-9: Sox 2.3/ Jays 2.0/ Yanks 2.2 RP1: Chapman 1.7/ Hoffman 1.0/ Bednar 1.3 RP2: Whitlock 1.3/ Garcia 0.5/ Doval 0.9 RP3-4-5: Sox 1.0/ Jays 0.8/ Yanks 1.4 C: Narvaez 1.9/ Kirk 4.9/ Wells 3.2 1B: Contreras 2.2/ Valddy 4.8/ Rice 2.6 2B: Mayer 1.0/ Clement 2.6/ Chisholm 3.1 3B: Durbin 2.5/ Gimenez 2.8 /McMahon 1.7 SS: Story 2.3/ Okamoto 2.5/Volpe 2.0 Utility: Romy 0.9/ Schneider 1.4/ Caballero 0.9 LF: Anthony 3.5/ Sanchez 1.3/ Bellinger 3.3 CF: Rafaela 3.2/ Varsho 2.7/ Grisham 2.8 RF: Abreu 2.4/Barger 1.9/ Judge 7.3 DH: Duran 2.4/ Springer 2.4/Stanton 0.8 Utility 2-3-4: Sox 0.9/ Jays 2.2/Yanks 1.8 Rotation: Sox have 3 first, 1 second and 1 third & the best depth. Pen: Sox have the best 1-2 punch and second best depth. Infield: 2 second and 3 thirds (worst) Outfield + DH: 3 first and 1 second (best)

Today, Anthony DHs... 1 Anthony DH 2 Story SS 3 Duran LF 4 Contreras 1B 5 Abreu RF 6 Durbin 3B 7 Rafaela CF 8 Narvaez C 9 IKF 2B

This goes wildly against your "at best" statement we contested a week ago.

Didn't you say 88 wins, at one point? 91 is out of the question?

Ooops. I missed them. 88 wins last year.

According to BTV, these are the most valuable Sox, Jay, Yanks players by Value/year (no money counted) Value per year (only 8+ players listed) 40 Crochet/ 33 Cease/63 Judge 33 Gray/ 30 Gausman/36 Chisholm 31 Suarez/ 26 Vladdy/ 30 Cole 26 Duran/ 25 Kirk/28 Fried 25 Anthony/ 24 Varsho/22 Grisham 19 Bello/ 22 Springer/21 Bellinger 17 Abreu/ 16 Bieber/21 Wells 17 Sandoval/ 14 Gimenez/19 Rodon 15 Early/ 12 Barger/ 17 Rice 15 Contreras/ 11 Clement/15 Bednar 14 Mayer/9 Berrios/11 Warren 13 Rafaela/ 8 Yesavage/11 Schlittler 12 Chapman/8 Hoffman/11 McMahon 12 Durbin/ none/11 Volpe 12 Story/none/ 9 Dominguez 11 Campbell, Kutter/ none/ 8 Weathers 9 Tolle, Narvaez/none/none While the Yanks have better top quality players, the Sox have 19 players valued at $9M or more. I do think the Sandoval score is way too high, but maybe some Yankee and Blue Jay scores are too high, too. The Yanks have 16 players at 9 or more. The Jays have 13. Once you get past the top 9 players on each team, the Sox win every match-up. In the top 9, the Yanks win 6, including the one with Chisholm apparently overrated, the Sox win 2 and TOR 1 . According to BTV, we have the Jays clearly beat in projected value per year.

Does this mean you will stop suggesting trades?

I think Duran is one of our best players, but I've suggested more trades of him than anyone. My suggested trades of Duran are mostly based on my belief that Yoshida might have a similar OPS as him at DH this year, and the drop off at DH would be less than the gain where we add someone. I am higher on Casas than most and see him as a DH. I think Casas is a better hitter than Masa. The main reason I've wanted to trade Masa is not a dislike of his hitting, but more about the DH logjam and his pay level killing our budget. Wanting to trade someone is not disliking them.

Duran is no sure bet to catch anything.

Some AL team might put it all together and win 95+ game, but none did it 2025. The two 94 wins teams arguably did nothing to improve over the winter. I think what the naysayers are missing is looking as hard at the other top AL contenders as they are at the Sox roster and winter changes. 94 wins TOR- I think they stayed the same over the winter- at best. 94 wins NYY- same as TOR. 90 SEA- did they get better? 89 BOS- most think we got marginally better. 87 DET- they look like they got better. 87 HOU- did nothing to get better. 82 KCR & 81 TEX- same The team that improved the most was BAL who had 75 wins. Only 3 NL teams were worse, last year.

I thought about that after I clicked submit.

Listened to the Soxprospects.com podcast and they (Andrew Parker & Ian Cundall) spoke about the Romy injury and not really having a back-up 1Bman on the 26. They have been working out Sogard and IKF there in practice and even Monasterio was seen taking reps there. If Romy's injury is prolonged, something will need to be done. Casas probably won't be ready. Romy's bat vs lefties will be missed, too, especially with Ref gone. Looks like Durbin at 3B and Mayer at 2B, but they will start giving them flipped reps, at some point. With Romy out, maybe they platoon Mayer at 3B with Eaton, and then they flip when Romy returns. (This is the podcast discussion.) Both predict the Sox get back to the playoffs due to the rotation strength and depth. Having Tolle & Early begin the year in AAA is amazing. The rotation health is the key. Bello went from our #2 to our #4. They see Oviedo as the wild card. The "ceiling raiser." He could be in AAA in June or pitching like our #2. They see the trade deadline as a chance to make an Impact on the offensive side. So many players have a chance to "elevate their value," that they can have enough trade chips to get what we need. They think Sogard takes Romy's slot, but maybe Monasterio wins the job. They likened Sogard to Brock Holt. Tidbits... Glowing report on Eyanson as "sticking out" and hitting 95-97 in camp. Crochet is adding a pitch- a splitter. Was working out at Vandy over the winter. Durbin has not reached a year of service, yet, so he has 6 years of control. (He missed by 8 days in 2025.) They think TJ Sikkema is a big unknown and could be the NRI guy that could advance. (He broke Anthony's bat twice.) Christian Foutch is getting a lot of buzz- throwing very hard. He is starting out in the pen, so no need for transitioning, later. (Never started in college.) Brady Tygart has battled health issues, but is healthy now. Hitting 96. Could see him reach potential, this year. Good shape and spin rates. Holobetz has a great fastball but his secondaries were weak, last year. He throws strikes. He's working on changing his change up grip and needs to improve his slider. Brandon Neely has not made his pro debut yet, but is up to 95 and might be used as a bulk pen guy. "Look out for him." Cason will still be used as a pitchers and position player, this year, but coming off the surgery, he'll hold off on pitching for a while. They think Gonzales is more like 6-6 or 6-7 than his listed 6-4 height. He's "massive" but can still "move well." They spoke about Bloom & Brez both being underwhelming at the trade deadline. They attribute it to GM "inexperience" and not something from upper management or organizational issues. They think that Brez thought he had the Joe Ryan deal done, and then had to scramble when it didn't go down. They think that shows Brez was willing to be bold, but fell short. (Sound familiar?) They like what Bloom did with STL, where he was given the power to completely rebuild. The Cards have 6 picks in the top 86, and they credited Bloom for the Anthony pick, so to watch the comp between Bloom & Brez could be interesting.

Tolle starts game 1 of ST'ing, today. Here is the line-up: 1. Anthony RF 2. Rafaela CF 3. Abreu DH 4. Contreras C 5. Yoshida LF 6. Wong C 7. Monasterio 3B 8. IKF SS 9. Rodgers 2B Pretty good up the middle defense.

They floated the idea of broadcasting the games at a frequency only dogs could hear, but decided it would be too costly.

While I agree that we needed to get a bigger bat than Contreras, Willson is pretty good. We don't have a top 30 SLG% guy from 2024-2025 (900+ PAs). That might be a first for the Sox in a long time. We do, however have 2 in the top 46. 32 Duran .468 46 Contreras .455 (Abreu would have finished 34th, had he gotten 36 more PAs to qualify, and Anthony's small sample size places him around 36th.) It looks like we could have 4 players in the top 50, but still nobody in the top 30. Will that be good enough? Damned if I know! I think we'll see Duran 3rd (v R) and Story 3rd (v L.) Contreras bats 4th. Anthony leadoff, so who fills the top modern day slot (#2)? Story with an OBP around .300 vs L? Durbin? Abreu v R? If Duran and Abreu didn't have such bad splits, we could have both in the top 4 with Story hitting 5th. Maybe this... 1. L Anthony 2. L Abreu/ R Story (half the time) 3. L Duran/R Story (half the time) 4. R Contreras 5. L Duran or Abreu (see the 2-3 slots) 6. R Narvaez 7. R Durbin 8. L Mayer (R Romy/KC?) 9. R Rafaela or do we just bite the bullet and bat Story 2nd all the time? This fits Cora's lefty-righty thingy, and has a good power bat up 5th every game: 1. L Anthony 2. R Story 3. L Duran (maybe bats 6th v L?) 4. R Contreras 5. L Abreu 6. R Durbin (maybe bat him 3rd v L?) 7. R Narvaez 8. L Mayer/ R Romy or KC 9. R Rafaela

Bregman was not "the big bat" we needed. (Nor was Bichette.)

Fair enough. The last part of the post you replied to was about making a deadline deal for a big bat.