moonslav59

Kinda how I feel, and I think whatever your goal is determines which way you lean. If you think it's all about a ring, then 2026 seems like an extreme longshot, so sell. If you think it's all about winning games and the here and now. That doing the best you can every year is the strategy, then buy.

...and perhaps more importantly, advancing in the playoffs and maybe even a WS appearnance.

I guess it's hard to know who this team is. A few months ago, many of us felt like we were better than the 2025 team. A month or two later, we were being called "possibly the worst Sox team" in decades or history. Now, we've gone 12-2 and are playing as well as just about anyone else, despite losing half our top 10 SP'ers and a rookie many felt was poised to be a top MLB force. By the deadline, maybe 10 teams will be 4, 5 or 6+ games behind, and I'd say the chance are we won't be in that group. Buy? Sell? Buy and sell? Do next to nothing? Maybe the next 20 games will make the choice easier.

Is that a reason to buy?

I wouldn't do it for 1 year of Pena control.

Brez is not shy about making trades or trading top prospects for the right pieces. Brez traded prospects and their highest ranking on soxprospects.com: 3 Perales (Bennett) 3 Teel (Crochet) 3 Yorke (Priester) 4 Montgomery (Crochet) 5 Jh Garcia & 19 Travieso (Oviedo, Guzman & Samaniego) 5 Drohan (Durbin, Seigler & more) 6 Clarke (Gray) 7 Wikelman (Crochet) 7 Jordan (D May) 8 Dobbins (Contreras) 8 Meidroth (Crochet) 9 Chris Murphy (Ronny Hernandez) 9 Paulino & 20 C Coffey (Danny Jansen) 11 Matthew Lugo & 11 Zeferjahn (Luis Garcia- the other "other" one) 15 Elmer Rodriguez (Narvaez) 17 Luis Guerrero (TGray) 20 Kavadas (Luis Garcia- the other "other" one) 21 Shugart (McShane) 28 Hoppe (Luke Heyman) 33 Aita (Contreras) This list rivals DD's top prospects traded. He's also traded vets like Devers & Sale.

If the idea is to be serious buyers, this winter, the prospects we gain, along with some of our own, may provide just what we need to land some "real" players.

Injury Updates: Suarez missed his pen session and was placed on the 15 day IL. (July 21st at the earliest) Contreras hurt his foot and will serve the 5 game suspension, so maybe that worked out okay. (Return on July 17- game 2 of Doubleheader) Anthony's second opinion revealed nothing unexpected. He will continue rehab in Fort Myers (No earlier than August) Sogard is rehabbing. (Mid July) Early gets a second opinion today (After ASB at the earliest) Mayer has no update since June 28th (After ASB at earliest) IKF has no update since June 26th (After ASB at earliest) Story has no update since June 28th (After ASB at earliest) Oviedo has no update since June 14th (No earlier than August) Crochet has no update since June 22nd (No earlier than August) Casas has no update since July 5th (No earlier than August) Houck has no update since June 25th (Late August at best) Crawford has no update since June 29th. (August or September)

They don't have to, but to get a better return and open up the bidding to other teams, then they should. Kicking in a little money for Chapman might add more teams to the bidding war.

I can see the reasoning for buying, but it also makes a lot of sense to sell now and buy heavily, this coming winter.

Nice start from Sandoval. Maybe he can be this year's Giolito. The pen held on tightly. The staff K'd 9 and walked just 1, while our line-up drew 4 BBs. Big boom by Durbin. He's been coming on strong after a little lull. It looks like he might have 15-20 HR pop, too. We are 2.5 GB the WC. We are just 2 losses behind the 4th best AL team.

Sounds about right. Add Coulombe. Maybe Whitlock.

The chance at making the WS, due to the weak AL, is not as far-fetched as we may think. While I do not think we are close enough to be a top 3-4-5 team in MLB, we might be close enough to be a top 2-3 AL contender. Not sure if needing to be a top 3 MLB team is the bottom line on buying vs selling, but selling does make a lot of sense, as of now.

I think the Astors (and other teams) would grossly overpay to to get Abreu back, but would they give what we need? Do they even have what we need?

Are the Rays beyond our reach? (As in having a realistic shot at beating in the playoffs?) (As of now, the Rays are 5-1 vs BOS.)

The time to be buyers in the winter, and we've done pretty well with those trades, in totality. It does seem like selling makes more sense, but I'm not sure about a wholesale rebuild, plus I don't think the fanbase would handle it well.

Then we cue how Brez is an idiot for trading away so many studs.

I've been waiting for him to "bust out," but it never happens. I do hesitate to trade GG RF'er who is still the 2nd or 3rd best batter on the team, though. You are talking total tear down to go this deep.

Maybe 6:30. The deadline is August 3rd, this year, and we have 21 games to play by then. We play many of the teams ahead of us, and they play each other often enough, that if we win at a 60% rate (13-8,) we will probably be in the 2nd or 3rd WC slot by then. I know some think, so what, but to me, unlike other recent seasons, every AL team is very beatable. Maybe the Rays don't look like that, now, but I think they hit a skid, at some point. They don't look like a WS team to me, either. The Rays have 9 batters over 170 PAs (actually over 210, too.) They have two guys over .900! That's awesome. They have Aranda ar .832, but then there is a massive drop-off: The next 6 are all between .620 and .676, with 5 between .620 and ,639! Imagine the Sox having 5 guys in the line-up under .640. We'd all be saying "non contender!" Hell, we're saying it now with better than that. Like us, they have a nice rotation, but their 5th starter Matz (6.28) is on the IL and Seymour is at 4.11. 2.61 Nick Martinez (pitched over 143 IP only once in career) 2.78 Rasmussen (has never gone over 150 IP) 2.83 McClanahan (never pitched over 167 IP and missed last year with an injury.) rivals our top 3. Griffin Jax is at 3.60. (He's never pitched more than 81 IP) Why are we viewing the Rays so highly going into the last 75 games of the season? Baker & Kelly have done very well in the pen, but are they household names as high leverage guys? Their pen has a 4.30 ERA and .721 OPS Against. Ours is 3.35 and .664, and we call our pen a "weak area Brez neglected." The AL is anybody's for the taking. Even the Tigers could win it, and they are behind us!

The point about Tolle and IP also applies to Early and Bennett. BTW, Suarez has never gone more than 158 IP, and he's on pace for 175. Gray & Chapman seem closer to 50 years old than 25. (Note: Chapman is, but Gray is not.) Anthony & Crochet's returns seem eerily like Hendriks, Crawford and Casas. I'm still leaning sell, and even if we go 14-7 in the next 21, we might need too much to go "all in." I hesitate to say "pretenders," but we are not top "contenders," right now, for sure. Can 1 or 2 big deadline moves get us there? I'd say doubtful, unless Anthony or Crochet return and do very well, too.

Good post. When I look at 2027, I see 3 major adds needed, so we really need those same 3 now: 2 big bats from 3 positions (assuming Duran is traded.) SS Catcher DH/OF (Anthony plays the other) or 2B/3B (Durbin plays the other) To fill even two of these needs to the quality we'd need to be top contenders would be very prospect-costly and maybe money-wise, too. We'd basically have to trade Arias and or Eyanson. If just one, then count on 2 or 3 from Witherspoon, Gonzales, Valera and Azocar/Phillips/Primera. Are we at that position? I think not.

Agreed. Maybe even Florida does no deserve one. I once suggested MIA & TB share a team (40-41 games played at each city.) North Carolina loves baseball and deserves a team, but they don't really have a big enough city, and trying to build a stadium between population centers, makes it too difficult for everyone to vitis. San Antonio? Sacremento? Indianapolis? Buffalo? Maybe it would just be best to go back to 28 teams, instead of looking at 32.

I try to avoid the personal issues, but you make a good point. His personality has interfered with getting the job done, and even if I'm happy about the botched Bregman deal, it's not a good sign for the GM going forward. How the Devers situation unfolded is also a strike against Brez and a reflection of his personality getting in the way of being a top GM. I do think Devers & Cora played major roles, too, but the man in charge mishandled it. I'm okay with GMs making mistakes, as long as the net gains outweigh them, but these are different kinds of mistakes than the Sale trade, which incidentally, I did not view as a mistake, at the time. (Same with the Harrison and Priester deals.) Can Brez listen and learn from the criticism? I'm never one to believe someone can change that much, so I'd guess no. I will say, I think he has made way more improvements to the 26, 40 and farm than mistakes. We still have a long way to go, but he seemingly fixed the major pitching and pitching pipeline issue and for years to come. The sin of omission for the missing big bat weighs heavily, but given the resources he had, it's hard to imagine filling every need. Fixing the bat issue might have whack- a- mole'd another weak area.

I could see the Sox doing neither (again) or just a little of both. Like sell on Duran and Whitlock, but keep Gray & Chapman. Buy on an infielder & bat (maybe the same guy) without giving up a top 5 to 7 prospect.

You said you cared about competitiveness. Right now, only the Rays look out of our reach. One could argue the Yanks, but 4-14 kinda shows a kink in their armour.