moonslav59

Agreed. We've been watching that strategy fail for a half a decade. One of our biggest hopes was a return to form by Sale. I'm tired of hoping. I gave up on expecting, a while ago.

Teoscar took less to play in LA, where he wanted to play. He's 32- not in prime. O'Neill got $50M/3 and had only one season with 390+ PAs, before 2024. He's 29. I suggested Kikuchi at age 27 (28 in 2025.)

I don't disagree, but are we sure JH would have nixed a higher bid on every FA that has signed, already? He said "No" to $65M/3 for Kikuchi and $220M/8 for Fried? It looks like Kennedy was either lying when he said the tax line was not a priority or JH stabbed him and Brez in the backs by saying no to every ask.

I'm not. The only reason for having any hope we do signing him is that he is the only real major guy left, next to maybe Scott. I have no expectation we signed either of these two. The guys I liked are all gone. Some seemed intent on signing with a team and nobody else, Like Burnes and Teoscar, so it's hard to get pissed on losing out on them. Others got so grossly overpaid, I can at least understand why we didn't go higher. A few I thought were worth the overpay and maybe we should have bid more than what they signed for, but I'm not sure if that would have been enough. I was not high on Kikuchi, but $63M/3 looks pretty good, to me. $218M/8 Fried was a close call on going to $220M/8 or more. $60M/3 Walker??? (Would have to trade Casas or DH him.) $75M/3 Nate and Manaea is borderline, but I'm fine with missing out here. All the others were too overpaid for me or bound to certain teams. I suppose I could think there isn't too much to get so upset about. Fried or Kikuchi? So, what's left? Bregman or Scott? Alonso (trade Casas?) Give Santander 5 years? Flaherty? I'm not thrilled with any choices left. More likely we sign Estevez and Grichuk.

Our largest new FA signings since Price in 2016 and JD in 2018 are... I'd say Story and Yoshida are lower range major signings, and it's just 2 of them in 7 years. 3+ Years: $23.3 x 6 Story '22 $18M x 5 Yoshida '23 (not counting posting fee) 2 Years: Maybe 2 significant and 2 near significant, in terms of money spent. $19.25M x 2 Giolito '24 $16M x 2 Jansen '23 $9.125M x 2 Sandoval '25 $8.75M x 2 Martin '23 $7M x 2 Kiki '21 (extended for $10M/1 '23) $5M x 2 Hendriks '24 $4M x 2 Diekman '22 1 Year $21.05M Buehler '25 $10.25M Chapman '25 $10M Kluber '23, Paxton '22, Richards '21 $7M Duvall '23 & Wacha '22 $6.25M Pearce '19 $6M Martin '20 $5M Martin '21 & Hill '22

Very few of those 30 look like fits, although plenty of pen arms are there. When we look at the context of Kennedy's 90-95 win and the tax line statement, all the best fits are off the board. While I agree on your Santander comment, signing one of the best FAs almost always includes paying beyond projected usefulness and overpaying in AAV, too. You just have to bite the bullet. Tradses mean giving away possible future assets and are fine, but not too many, at the same time.

The Sale trade shook the ground. To me, it was the biggest deal the Sox made since signing Manny. The 3 years of control was a huge part of my excitement on trade day. We got the best pitcher in MLB: "Chris Freakin' Sale!" (The Pedro trade was probably the most impactful in my lifetime.) The Nate trade rivals the Schilling trade. Both led to rings and legendary playoff performances. The Kimbrell trade seemed like an overpay, at the time, but shortly afterwards the price of closers skyrocketed. The Pom trade seemed like an overpay, as well, but he did give us a very nice 2017 season. He was no help in 2018. The Thornburg trade looked good, at the time, but the injury ruined it. The hindsight, all the prospects DD traded did not equal the returns we got. I counted over 20 players DD traded that were, at one time (not always at the time of the deal) were a top 20 prospects. It's easy to lazily blame him for the long lull we saw in farm help from his era into Bloom's, including the stretch from Devers to Houck/Duran, but as it turned out, he kept almost every prospect that amounted to anything, including Devers, Houck and Duran, and some of his far-away prospects have ended up doing better than the top prospects he did trade, namely Moncada (1) , Espinosa (3) Margot (4) Kopech (5) Beeks (6) and Guerra (6) He kept Devers, Houck, Duran, Casas, Bello, Crawford and others.

I'm not really for playing Yoshi in the field. I'd rather bench him or trade him for whatever we can get. I think Cora mentioned that the 2024 injury was the main reason he did not play in LF, and that he was open to playing him there, once cured. (I could be wrong.) Again, Bregman was not who I wanted, but he would fix 2 problems, maybe 3, if Devers is better at 1B D than Casas (Casas to DH.) If the only problem he creates benching an $18M DH, then it may still be the best FA choice remaining. We aren't signing Scott or Santander. Profar and Santander creates an OF squeeze and may force a Rafaela and or Abreu trade. Hoffman would be nice, but none of these other guys move the needle like Bregman would, IMO. To me, this really highlights the disfunction of our FO and ownership group. Even if we end up signing Bregman, it looks like a knee-jerk reaction based on no pre-planning and a need to just "do something" that helps. From the "full throttle" statement, last winter to this by Kennedy: "Even if it takes us over the CBT, our priority is 90-95 wins and winning the ...division for multiple years." We are not a 90 win team, unless nearly everything goes right and injuries are very low. We are over $30M under the tax line with square pegs left to sign and round holes to fill.

Exactly! Very well said. By not thinking Wins is an important stat to judge a pitcher by in no way diminishes how much wins matter for a team. Pitchers have a huge impact on winning, and SP'ers even more do, due to more IP. The more they prevent runs, the better they are and the chances of winning increases. A pitcher can allow zero ERs and still get the loss. Nuff said.

How about 2010, when Felix won the ERA crown but went just 13-23 in 34 starts? No decisions with these ERs allowed 0 NDs with 4 or more ERs allowed 2 w 3 ERs 2 w 2 ERs 2 w 1 ER 2 w 0 ER Any poorly pitched wins? Nope! 2 wins with 2 ERS 6 with 1 ER 5 w 0 ERs Now, look at all the "unfair" losses: 0 ERs in 6.2 IP once (6 unearned runs) 1 ER in 8 IP once 2 in 7 IP three times 3 in 8 once Not really as bad as I expected.

I looked at the game logs. He certainly could have won more, but let's start with some of his wins: 5 ER in 5 IP 4 ER in 9 IP, 3 times That's not a lot of "lucky wins." Now the No Decisions: ER/IP, including a 10 IP 0 ER game 4/7, 0/10 WOW!, 5/5 and 4/5 (He could have gotten a couple losses here.) Now, some of the losses 2/7, 3/9, 4/9 (part of 6 losses in a row, some bad starts) later... 2/11 and 1/8 I think there are about 3-4 games where a win was a near must, but maybe 2-3 where he could have gotten a loss in games he won or got a no decision.

Felix still ended up with 169 wins and just 136 losses in 15 seasons. (13 full seasons) He probably could have gone 200-105 with a high scoring team.

Yes, I can see why he wants his big payday, next winter. Hopefully it works out for him, since that would mean he did great for us.

The main problem with Devers' defense is his arm. I think he would be fine at 1B. Since Casas sucks on D, my guess is Devers might be better or equal. Devers and Casas can share the 1B and DH slots in the line-up. They would not need many days off, as they could "rest" at DH. Okay, that causes an issue with out $18M DH, but we'd improve our 3B D and maybe our 1B D and add a RHB at 3B. We fix 2-3 problems by adding a good RHB 3Bman. I don't want Yoshida in LF, but if that is what we have to do, I'd rather have bad LF D than really bad 3B D. Maybe once Yoshi gets healthy, we can trade him and take a salary hit. I can see how that sort of makes signing Bregman cost Bregman's contract plus what we have to pay off Yoshi's deal, assuming he'd be our DH, kif not traded, even after we add Anthony, Campbell and Mayer to the line-up. Without trading Yoshida... 1. Duran CF 2. Bregman 3B 3. Casas DH/1B 4. Devers 1B/DH 5. Campbell 2B 6. Abreu> then> Anthony RF 7. Story SS 8. Yoshida LF v R/Refsnyder LF vs L 9. Wong-Narvaez C Utility: Rafaela & DHam (Romy/Grissom) Not ideal, but an improvement, IMO.

That's clue #1. LOL.

No prob. It was not highly advertised. I think Narvaez is #2 and Zavala #3, but it's just a guess.

I'd be fine with Bregman as our 3Bman, only. I do not think he is the right guy to "pick and see through on signing," but at this point, he's the best of the rest. He'd make us better in 2 significant ways: RHB and 3B defense.

Nick. Bregman is a pretty good defensive player and may be better or equal to Campbell at 2B. Maybe not. Bregman has done worse in his last 4-5 seasons over his first 3-4 seasons, but he's been pretty steady of the last few years, with slight decline in the last 2 years.. OPS+: 117>113>134>122>118 fWAR: 2.1>5.4>4.5>4.1 3B DRS: 2> -4> 5> 6 (OAA: 0>4>1>6)

It turns out there is an option on the Buehler deal. That makes it better, to me, although it's a "mutual option," so if he does great, he'll say no. $3.05M signing bonus. $15M contract $3M buyout on 2026 option of $25M. So, here is my question: if we want him back, and he says no, we don't pay the $3M, right? That should makes the 2025 contract only $18.05M, if it works out as I suggested it might. I wish it was a 100% team option.

We need a lot to go right to be "better," but that was said every year, since the obvious 2020 decline season. We could simply look at Anthony, CamPbell and Mayer and think we will be better. We could simply hope for better luck with injuries and nice returns to form from Story, Casas, Yoshida and full seasons from Devers, Ref, Gio, Hendriks, Slaten and others and think we will be better. We can hope Chapman, Wilson and Hendriks will do better than Jansen and Martin, but I think this is only a hope. I do think our rotation looks better on paper: Crochet > Pivetta and the return of Gio gives us another choice. Maybe Sandoval returns in August. It looks fine to be optimistic here. The defense will be better, if Story returns. If we play DHam more at 2B or try Campbell there, we should be better there. Unless we trade Abreu, our OF defense should improve with more OF time for Rafaela, Abreu and maybe Anthony than we saw O'Neill and Ref get in 2024. Our corner IF and C still suck on D. On paper, we should be better. It does look like TOR, TBR and BAL did not do much to improve, on paper. I'm not sure the loss of Soto, Torres, Holmes and Cortes was made up by the additions of Fried, Devon Williams and others. Our additions range from very nice (Crochet with some durability concerns) to a risky Chapman to an eye on 2026 Sandoval. Others like Wilson and Narvaez are not spectacular, Our back up catcher declined, on paper. I guess we look like an overall plus. but didn't we need a clear and significant plus?

I just asked for your opinion. You don't have to give it. It's not a witness stand, but normal conversations and debates usually see both sides answering each others' questions. I'm not sure why you see asking twice as being contentious. You rebutted many of my points made. I did not view that as being contentious. You made a statement that that we "go along with it because it seems like the thing to do. " I chose not to view that as contentious, but I guess it's all about perspective, but when someone disagrees with you- they are being "contentious." It's never you.

Well, I was asking for your opinion on what group you felt was best. I guess we'll never know. Of course, it's all opinion, even to those who value fWAR more than wins. I don't know all the algorithms and calculations fWAR makes, but I do know it takes into account batting, fielding and running based on analyzing years of data to determine what events on the field is more likely to lead to a run being scored. Then, they break it down to runs created or lost, for batters. For pitchers, they look at events that relate to run prevention and scsale to how much a pitcher has pitched, and this is why pitchers who pitch way more innings might have a higher WAR than a better pitcher with less IP. fWAR is a quality and cumulative number, which makes it difficult to compare to other traditional stats. BA does not account for more PAs. HRs and RBI can and often do. fWAR uses FIP as it's main value determinator, and I think that is flawed. (FIP is Fielding Independent Pitching, which basically counts HRs, Ks and BBs and does not look kindly at good pitchers who induce many weakly hit balls but do not K many batters.) fWAR does make some adjustments, like a pitcher's defense behind them. I don't need to know all mechanisms to trust that their numbers are useful. I trust they know the math and have refined it over the years. I don't use WAR very often. I prefer the flawed combo stat OPS and OPS+ for batters and OPS Against for pitchers, as well as ERA-, which factors in parks and defense over just ERA and Wins or winning %. But that's just me and my opinion. The way I see it, if Wins was a major factor in determining the best pitchers, I'd like the wins leader board about as much as ERA and WAR leader boards. I don't, and that sort of confirms my bias.

I think we all know why he didn't sign w BOS, and this one is not about JH's stinginess.

I tried not to cherry pick a sample size, so I searched the pitchers by GS since 2020 until I found a group 5 or 6 pitchers within 10-12 GS of each other. Here what I found (411-423 GS) W-L list 198-127 Wainwright 169-135 Felix 165-142 Zito 163-122 Hamels 160-154 AJ Burnett 146-142 Lohse fWAR List 54.1 Felix 51.7 Hamels 46.5 Wainwright 41.6 AJ Burnett 30.6 Zito 24.1 Lohse ERA 3.42 Felix & Hamels 3.54 Wainwright 3.98 Burnett 4.02 Zito 4.41 Lohse Just my opinion, but fWAR and ERA are ordered almost the exact same, and both look way better than the Wins list or even win% list. Do you disagree?

How do you know the reasons we "go along with it?" I don't know a single person who goes totally by fWAR to determine who did better over whatever sample size is chosen. Not one. So, "going along with it" means just using it as one more fact to use to choose who you think is best. W-L tells mostly what team is best and what pitchers happened to meet a weird criteria for giving the win to one guy over the other. Why does it help to know what 21 wins means over 19, when we know the way of choosing the "win" is highly flawed? No, I don't know exactly how fWAR is determined, but I know it's not based on warped rules about 5 IP and if your team happened to have scored more at that point in the game- not to mention run support and great vs poor defenses behind the pitchers in question. When I look at teh lists of fWAR and ERA, or ERA+/ERA- leaders vs Wins leaders, I fell very confident the fWAR and ERA measures are not only better, but way better at telling me who the better pitchers are. I'm not saying you go by just wins, but you seem to count it more than fWAR. I've tried to answer your Qs as best and fully as I can. Why not answer mine? Of the 3 groups of pitchers I listed from 2022-2024, which group did you think was better? Both looked flawed to me.