moonslav59

That very well may be the reality, but it is hard to know just how high other teams will go. I'm not sure anyone expected $700M, even after the signing of two-way Ohtani. No doubt, we lost out to the Mets with Soto and the Yanks with Fried and with the Dodgers on a few guys, over the years. JH is famous for setting a line and not crossing it- more so with his own vets reaching free agency than guys he trades for and extends (Schilling, Beckett, Agon, Porcello and Nate.) He has won a few bids, like Foulke, Damon, Dice-K, Price, JD, Story and Yoshida, but since the Yanks, Mets and Dodgers were not involved, I guess they don't count.

I forgot about him. We also won the Dice-K silent auction- not sure who else made serious bids.

I'm a firm believer in the need for a lock-down closer. No, I don't think JH will okay signing Scott- maybe not about the 2 years of success thing, but more about his need to get 4-5 years at about $15-17M per year. I'd be okay with Hoffman or a trade for Helsley, but Helsley only has one year of control. I realize RP'ers are up and down, often, and the best you can do is just build up a good pen on paper, and hope they don't all tank at once. To me, we have about 8 pitchers who profile and very nice 8th men in the pen or AAA pen depth. That's not a put-down. I think we will need that depth, as we always do. I think we have a decent 2-7 guys in the pen, but when you make them 1-6, they may not even be average. (This is assuming Crawford is in the pen.) We need a closer, or at worst, a very solid set-up guy, AND Crawford pushes to the pen.

You have to ask, why and who would leak this information. What purpose would is have?

I can agree our pen has the potential to be better and even way better. It's not hard to improve on the worst second half pen in MLB. We'd need near perfect health, bounce back years from Hendriks, Whitlock and others, AND a rotation that goes deep and does not create "pen games." If we sign a solid SP'er, we should have a nice and deep rotation with Crawford joining the pen and helping there, too. We could also see Criswell do well in the pen. We have some wild cards like Guerrero, Penrod, Weissert and even non 40 man guys: I Campbell & Mata. I think Slaten is poised to be a very nice set up man. To me, add a closer and the rest of the pen looks much nice- knocked down one notch. As is, I would not project our pen as being top 15.

I'm not saying we have outbid them, recently. I'm not sure who of the 3 teams you mentioned are still in on guys we are currently talking to. I'm just saying, the next guys are the big 3's second choices, so maybe JH can and will make the highest bid. We just don't know. To me, it's more about Henry drawing lines than his ability to out bid everyone else. Reports were that not many other teams were bidding near what the Sox did on Yoshida and Story. Maybe we bid against ourselves, but those two guys are examples, where we identified someone we wanted and we bid highly for them. (Some say nobody else was close on Yoshida. Story was a late signing with an injury issue.) Granted, I don't think any of the big 3 were in on those two, but I'm not sure about JD, Price and Nate. We could also go way back to Lackey, Damon and others, but that was before the Mets were the Mets.

I do not think Chapman, Hendriks & Wilson are better than Jansen & Martin. The return of Whitlock may help, a lot, but someone else will get hurt. Crawford to the pen would help, too, but we need a real closer. Chapman, Hendriks and Slaten would be nice set-up guys. Whitlock, Crawford & Wink would be nice 2-3 IP guys. Our pen depth looks okay, to me, as long as we bump everyone down one notch by adding a closer- maybe Scott (FA) of Helsley (trade.)

I doubt we get one of B & B. I was just saying we could. We might sign Teoscar, Santander or Flaherty to a 4-5 year deal and then some fluff,

$3M is the cots estimate, for what that is worth. I think his previous inaction factors into the numbers. Also, he was not a SP'er, before this season. Maybe he gets $4-5M?

I don't think it's so simple that the richest guy will always outbid the other less rich guy. If JH bid $800M, I'm not sure Cohen goes higher. In that sense, JH chose to bow out. My point was that even if Cohen wants a few guys JH wants, it does not mean he will treat every bidding war like Soto's. He may think, it's not worth it and pivot to someone else he likes, too. In other words, I don't think it's a done deal on every FA. Since Cohen got Soto and the Yanks got Fried, I'm not so sure the bidding dynamic will be the same, if the two NY teams are in on Burnes, Bregman, Teoscar, Santander or anyone else the Sox are also bidding on. They both got their prize, and may not feel it is worth it to one up JH on one of these guys. While it may still be true, if they will never be outbid, eventually JH will drop out, but we don't know if that will apply to every FA 2 or 3 of else teams are seeking. Cohen does have a history of backing off, at times, and the Yanks have been roasted by fans for many years for not going one step further on spending. I just don't think it's a foregone conclusion we lose every bidding war, going forward. If we do get one, you'll say it's only because the two NY teams didn't really want the guy, and we did not outbid them.

This did not clear it up for me. I thought, all along, it was about nobody can outbid Cohen. It did not matter how far JH went.

Here are my rankings after today- assuming GB wins*, tonight: 1. Buffalo 11-3 2. Kansas City 13-1 3. Detroit 12-2 4. Philadelphia 12-2 5. Minnesota 11-2 6. Green Bay 10*-4 7. Baltimore 9-5 8. Pittsburgh 10-4 9. Houston 9-5 10, Washington & Denver 9-5

Pretty much nails our position. There "HAS TO BE A NEXT!" Burnes or Bregman are the two big prizes, but I only want Bregman, if Devers moves to 1B/DH. Casas at DH over Yoshida would be great, but trading him for pitching might make more sense. If we miss on one of these two, I think we'd need two from this group: Teoscar or Santander Flaherty, Manaea, Scott, Hoffman and maybe Pivetta or Estevez, plus a better catcher than Wong-Narvaez/Gasper. This doesn't seem absurd, when you figure we bid $700M for Soto.

I thought we could never outbid Cohen, and now you say it wasn't Cohen. On outbidding the Yanks, too much is unknown, but yes, I do not think there has been any reported outbid by JH. Who knows. There was a stretch where we were spnding more than everyone.

1. Vlad won't take $550M, so the whole point is lost. I'd rather pay Soto $800M than Vladdy $650M to $700M in 2026. 2. He will demand a top 3 prospect or two, and two might very well be worth $200-300M or more. 3. Adding Soto to a crowded OF would force a trade like Abreu and maybe even Abreu + Rafaela for something useful, while adding a 1Bman would allow us to trade Casas. That might be about even, but now we are stuck with Devers at 3B forever, or we dump Yoshida and move Devers to DH. Maybe this comes out about even, but I don't want to have 4-5 DH/1Bmen on the 26. (Casas, Devers, Yoshida, Refsnyder and Vald.) What do you think we'd have to give up for 1 year of Vladdy?

I doubt we outbid the Yanks on Soto, too, but we'll never know, if we might have, if Cohen wasn't forcing us to stop bidding.

Wong still has time to improve, but he showed zero gains, last year.

MLBTR has reported these teams are interested in players linked to the Sox: Burnes: BOS, TOR, SFG Flaherty: BOS, BAL, NYM Buehler: BOS, NYM, NYY, CHC, DET, OAK Castillo (trade) BOS, NYM, BAL, CHC Cease (trade) BOS & BAL Bregman: BOS, PHI, TOR, DET (No LAD, NYY or NYM) Maybe we get Alex. Teoscar: BOS, LAD, TOR (NYM were before Soto signing) Santander: BOS, NYY, TOR Arenado approved a trade to 6 teams: BOS, NYM, PHI, SDP, LAD, LAA Although there was no money bid on Crochet, the NYM and NYY were interested. I realize this is not the same as outbidding for a FA. Now, if the NYM win on any of these guys, they will likely drop out of the race for some others, so maybe the Sox win one of those bidding contests, although one may not be able to say we "outbid Cohen." I am not sure the Yanks are going to bid heavily on some of those they were linked to, earlier. It does look like lAD< NYM and NYY will not win every bidding war on all the players listed, above, so I do think we can win one or two of them, if JH refuses to be outbid.

Okay. That makes sense but dDo we know if these three teams were not bidding on Chapman, Yoshida, Story and JD? We might have outbid the Yanks on Soto, but not the Mets. We might have out bid LA and NYM on Fried, if they made bids, but not NYY. We may outbid LAD on Teoscar and still miss signing him. I'm not sure who is bidding on Burnes, Bregman and Santander. I am as doubtful as you, we will out bid the 3 teams or maybe even another team, but I do hope JH decides that he will not be outbid on a really good player, this winter.

Oops.

Agreed, but Rafaela's offense looks so bad, I'm not sure counting him as a RHB is worth mentioning. (He also has reverse career splits in 2024; .610 v L and .684 v R) With Anthony in the mix, who does not have split issues in the minors, we could do this: LF: Duran v R/ Refsnyder v L CF: Anthony v R/ Duran v L RF: Abreu v R/Anthony v L This is better than anything with Rafaela, and the D is really good, too, despite Rafaela's superior D. Trading Abreu creates this nice set-up, too, and Abreu should bring back a much nicer return than Rafaela would. LF: Duran v R/ Ref vs L CF: Rafaela v R/Duran v L (Rafaela plays reverse splits) RF: Anthony

We can't really pencil in Narvaez as the majority innings catcher, but he is really good on D. If we improve in other high need areas, I think we can carry a weak hitting catcher. (Narvaez did have 20 HR power and a .360 OBP on the farm, so maybe he won't be real bad on O.)

Are one of these three going to be in the bidding on every big FA remaining?

Agreed: Crochet> Pivetta Chapman = 2024 Martin (maybe) Wilson= Horn (maybe) Who replaces Jansen? Replacing Chase Anderson (11th in IP) and others should be easy, but we are still Jasen short of being close to just even with 2024. Hendriks and a full season from Whitlock could even that out, but we need to better than even with 2024's staff. Improving the defense would be one way to improve our run prevention for every pitcher, but we seem locked in on keeping Devers at 3B and Casas at 1B. Our middle IF has great potential to significantly improve, if Story stays healthy and Campbell & DHam play most of the 2B innings over Valdez and Grissom. (Last year, Valdez led all 14 players who played 2B in innings!) We also need to improve catcher defense, in a bad way. (Narvaez looks like a good add, but he may just be AAA depth, for 2025.)