moonslav59

If you're asking me what I want, yes indeed, along with 2 major pen additions. If you're asking me what JH allows Brez to do? Pivetta might be it for the rotation and maybe there is hope we add one big pen arm and a couple hopes and prayers types. While I've wanted two rotation additions, I wasn't sure we'd add one, since Gio replaces Pivetta. Now that Pivetta looks like he's back, I doubt we add another SP'er, unless Brez tries to find the next Criswell. My hope now is Tanner Scott and one from Estevez, Hoffman or Holmes. That could be a pipedream.

O'Neill came real close to leading the team in S and 19 points over the team O.

Interesting to note that all 4 of these guys projected the Sox get one of the top 2 SP'ers (Burnes 2 and Snell 2.) All four projected a top RP'er (Scott 2, Hoffman 1, Holmes 1) Let's see...

If our winter budget was $40-45M, we may have just spent half of it to keep our 3rd/4th SP'er. I like Pivetta, but he is not going to improve the team, on paper. He may do better in '25, but we can't count on a plus over 2024.

Makes Pablo Lopez look better and better. So, Pivetta says yes, and that likely means we spend nothing more on the rotation, right? Let's hope we spend on the pen. As bad as our pen was, this year, it did look like Brez made an effort to build it up- more for 2025 than 2024: Hendriks and Fulmer. Young pitchers like Slaten, Sandlin, Fitts, Criswell, Judice and others like I Campbell, Weissert and later, Priester. Some did not work well. Some did so poorly, I did not list them, but he made an effort. Bloom made a big effort in 2023 with Jansen & Martin. We need a big investment for 2025's pen.

Gotta think Pivetta will be back with the Sox. Maybe we try to work out a longer and lower AAV deal with him,

I agree, that is what happened. I also think Wacha liked KC and being on a winning team. Pivetta ended up getting the QO from BOS, so I have to think he'll take the $20M/1, try to have a big year and then there can be no QO, next year, as a FA. No QO for O'Neill. I never felt he was worth it, even if we did not have Anthony beating down the door.

Pivetta is post arb. He's a FA.

Nick Martinez gets a QO, so a comp pick will be attached to a deal for him. The Athletic suggested he might get $13.3M x 3. $20M/1 seems high. Severino got a QO, too. Maybe Pivetta will, if this is the trend. Geeesh!

I would say Duran is an excellent defensive player. I am not worried about Anthony's splits, right now. I am worried about Abreu's splits. Rafaela's splits are close together, but neither is good.

Trading for Ober or Ryan makes more sense.

Agreed. Trading for Lopez to save $5-10M a year on a similar FA pitcher seems like a lot to give up to make happen. This kind of begs the question, just how much should any team give to get Lopez, if they can just spend $5M or so more per year to get a FA pitcher as good as he is? I'd prefer to trade Abreu for a cheap and solid RP'er with 3-4+ years of control, and then trade DHam for a one year catcher. Just sign a SP'er and Closer.

His contract is better than a FA contract, but is the "savings" worth trading good players for, when we can just pay a bit more and get an equal or near equal pitchers as a FA?

Wacha signs with KCR for $51M/3 (almost what the Athletic projected.) There are a few incentives. One less SP'er for the Sox to pursue.

He turns 35 in August

You are correct. While he did stay with the same team, it was not on the original contract.

This week's games: 1 ORE v MD 2 GA at 16 Ole Miss 3 Ohio St v Purdue 4 Miami at GA Tech 5 Texas v FL 6 Tenn v MS St 6 Penn St v WA 9 ND v FL St 9 BYU at UT 12 Boise St v Nevada 13 AL at 14 LSU 18 Army at No Texas IN is off.

He was saying his post was a joke about discriminating against women, since there are none in MLB.

This post is not meant to support any opinion that our pitching staff does not need some major additions, this winter. IT DOES and in a BAD WAY! The one area where I think we can be a plus, is with ML depth, assuming we add 3-4 quality pitchers and move others down in the depth chart to places where they can be a plus and not a big question mark. Rotation: Houck enters the first of 3 arb seasons. One could view him as a reason why now is the start of a 3 year window that could go longer. Bello is signed for 5 more years with a team option 6th year. Crawford is year one arb, like Houck, but he has 4 arb years. That's a pretty decent core 3, but none are sure aces, and 2 could be viewed as 4/5 types. Gio has one year left, but his salary should make replacing him, seemless or even easy to upgrade. Criswell might have been a flash, but offers nice looking depth. Fitts, Priester and Dobbins should be able to provide nice depth, even if just 1-2 come through. To me, we need a #1 or two solid #2/3 types. Long Relief (perhaps spot starters): Those who don't start from the above group could fill this role, like Criswell, Fitts, Priester, Dobbins or even Crawford or Bello, if we add a starter or two, of someone like Fitts replaces of of the expected 5 starters, Of course, an injury is almost certain, so we should not plan on any of these guys as pen depth. That leaves Whitlock (2 years signed.) He could really thrive in this role or a short relief, high leverage role. Winckowski can also be a decent long man. I think we need to assume Mata is gone, since he is out of options. Short Relief: Whitlock, Slaten and Hendriks could all be fighting for the closer and top set-up slots on the 2025 roster, but I feel we need to fill the closer slot with a roster addition. These three would all be decent set-up men, and if we could use Whitlock for 2-3 inning relief situations and Hendriks & Slaten as the top 2 set-up men, our pen could be a plus. Add two quality pen arms, like Scott & Hoffman, and our pen could be a clear plus. Closer: Scott. Set-up: Hoffman, Hendriks & Slaten. Long man/high leverage: Whitlock and maybe Wink. That's a pretty solid 5-6 pen core. Relief Depth: Here is where we really gain by adding 2 RP'ers and 1-2 SP'ers. The pitchers we have, all get pushed down 1-4 slots, where their roles fit better to their skill levels. Houck becomes a #2 not a #1, and so on... More importantly, a SP'er or two gets pushed to SP'er depth or the pen gets lengthened, and our current closer becomes our set up guy, and so on. We could have a very long list, and our AAA pen could look a lot like our 2024 ML pen. If 6-7 of our pen is filled with pitchers mentioned above, including 3-4 outside additions, we can choose 1-2 from this list to fill the 7 and or 8 slot in the pen. The rest are minor league depth: Fulmer, Bernardino, Weissert, I Campbell, Booser Kelly, Guerrero, Penrod, Shugart (SP depth used in the pen: Criswell, Fitts, Priester, Dobbins) This looks like decent SP and RP depth, even if 2 guys are on the IL.

With Pivetta, Jansen and Martin about to depart, our pitching staff got worse but much younger and cheaper. Those three cost $33M in 2024 ($31M on CBT.) That may not seem a like a huge number, but when you figure Gio at $19.25M did not even pitch in 2024, the rest of the 2024 pitching staff that actually pitched combined for a fraction of those 3's cost. (Hendriks and Fulmer did not pitch, either and Whitlock started just 4 games.) Now, if we do little to replace their value, both in terms of their skill value and their financial cost, we will not see an improved staff. Gio, Hendriks, Fulmer plus more of Whitlock, does not seem nearly enough to cancel out the big 3 losses. In some ways, Pivetta has been our most dependable and productive SP'er since 2021. One major reason for that is that one year signings and young pitchers not in the rotation since 2021, but the fact is, he has been the closest thing to a dependable SP'er we've had in over 5 years. Jansen and Martin have been light years better than the next best RP'er in the last 5-6 seasons- easily. These losses CANNOT be taken lightly. One of my biggest fears is that the Sox upper brass has convinced themselves that Gio, Whitlock, Hendriks and Fulmer can come close to replacing what we lost. The way I see it, even if we assume they can come close, and we SHOULD NOT, we'd still just be back at status quo and a .500 team, at best. Even the very best teams look to improve their team on paper, every year. We need to double their efforts. Before any additions, our pitching budget is very low (AAV listed) : $19.25M x 1 Giolito $9,2M x 5 Bello (w option for 2030) $5M x 1 Hendriks $4.7M x 2 Whitlock 1st ARB Year: Houck and Crawford (Only Wink is arb eligible for 2026.) There is no excuse for not spending on pitching. When you see what we paid for Jansen plus Martin, paying for Tanner Scott should be very reasonable. (The Athletic projects $

Trade for Pablo Lopez, sign Martinez, Scott and Hoffman, add a decent defensive catcher, and wait for the kids to steal some FT jobs from this opening day roster (assuming Abreu, Arias and Dobbins for Lopez.) C: __add__ & Wong (Teel?) 1B: Casas (Devers, if Campbell, Meidroth or Grissom to 3B) 2B: Grissom-DHam platoon (Campbell) SS: Story, Romy (Mayer) 3B: Devers (Campbell or Meidroth) LF: Duran-Refsnyder CF: Rafaela-Duran (Campbell) RF: Anthony (Campbell) DH: Yoshida-Refsnyder (E Valdez) SP: Lopez, Houck, Martinez, Bello, Gio-Crawford (Fitts, Priester, Criswell) RP: Scott, Hoffman, Hendriks, Whitlock, Slaten, Crawford, Criswell, Fulmer/Fitts/Guerrero/Wink/Bernardino/Weissert/Penrod/I Campbell/Kelly Call me a homer, but to me, this looks real good. Plus, it's not so expensive that it seems undoable. AAV: $18.4 Lopez, $15.2M Scott, $11.3M Martinez, $9.1M Hoffman = under $55M If we can dump Yoshida and save $7M a year, the total AAV add would be about $47M, which would be under the tax line.

With Pivetta, Jansen and Martin about to depart, our pitching staff got worse but much younger and cheaper. Those three cost $33M in 2024 ($31M on CBT.) That may not seem a like a huge number, but when you figure Gio at $19.25M did not even pitch in 2024, the rest of the 2024 pitching staff that actually pitched combined for a fraction of those 3's cost. (Hendriks and Fulmer did not pitch, either and Whitlock started just 4 games.) Now, if we do little to replace their value, both in terms of their skill value and their financial cost, we will not see an improved staff. Gio, Hendriks, Fulmer plus more of Whitlock, does not seem nearly enough to cancel out the big 3 losses. In some ways, Pivetta has been our most dependable and productive SP'er since 2021. One major reason for that is that one year signings and young pitchers not in the rotation since 2021, but the fact is, he has been the closest thing to a dependable SP'er we've had in over 5 years. Jansen and Martin have been light years better than the next best RP'er in the last 5-6 seasons- easily. These losses CANNOT be taken lightly. One of my biggest fears is that the Sox upper brass has convinced themselves that Gio, Whitlock, Hendriks and Fulmer can come close to replacing what we lost. The way I see it, even if we assume they can come close, and we SHOULD NOT, we'd still just be back at status quo and a .500 team, at best. Even the very best teams look to improve their team on paper, every year. We need to double their efforts. Before any additions, our pitching budget is very low (AAV listed) : $19.25M x 1 Giolito $9,2M x 5 Bello (w option for 2030) $5M x 1 Hendriks $4.7M x 2 Whitlock 1st ARB Year: Houck and Crawford (Only Wink is arb eligible for 2026.) There is no excuse for not spending on pitching. When you see what we paid for Jansen plus Martin, paying for Tanner Scott should be very reasonable. (The Athletic projects $15M x 4, a smaller AAV than Jansen, alone.) Signing Scott plus Estevez ($11M AAV projected) or Hoffman ($9M AAV) should be doable. If we do nothing to add to the rotation, we simply MUST bolster the pen in a BOLD way. I'd feel a lot better adding a second tier SP'ers, if we take care of the pen, as I suggested we do, above. (Projected cost) Nick Martinez ($13.3M x 3) J Quintana ($14M x 2) Kikuchi ($14M x 3) Wacha ($18 x 3) Nate ($21 x 2) Flaherty or Manaea ($22.5M x 3) Many here might feel Scott, Hoffman and Nick Martinez is asking for .500, again, but I think this might be just enough to get us to the playoffs with a chance to do more. Make a trade, like Abreu, DHam & Dobbins for Pablo Lopez, and I think we can say we are pretty close to the same level of any other AL team, before we see what they add.

Good thread, Bell. So many 4-3 WS losses really helps the overall record. We've never lost a WS by even a 2-4 record. That is pretty amazing. We are 16-3 in our last 4 WS. Combined there is not enough losses for even one series loss.

Maybe not the Pirates, but we are already near or under the halfway mark, depending on who you use as a source. Bottom 10 tier is where I think a couple posters think we are headed. I am answering the couple posters who are saying we will be cutting the budget, like it's a done deal. My position is, we don't know, and that I am not expecting an increase. JH's trend has been to go up and down. It went up in '21 and '22 (yes from a massive down in '20.) I'm not sure why some are so sure it will keep going down. The rankings aspect does depend on what other teams do. I'm not sure many of the bottom 10 teams are going to start spending big, all of a sudden, so I'm not so sure we can or will keep dropping, unless JH does "keep cutting." I'm still holding onto a hope that someday JH spends big, again, but I doubt it is this winter, and I won't be surprised if he never does again. The outlays made for Story, Yoshida and Devers can be seen as encouraging, in terms of a willingness to spend on single players, but within the context of what we lost, it barely a drop in the bucket. Here is what has changed. Back in 2017 & 2018, we had a bunch of young and low cost players filling the roster, and some high-priced players filling the gaps. We knew the young players would be reaching their big paydays, and some sort of day of reckoning was going to happen. The young player spigot ran dry between Devers and Houck, but DD was able to use some over-hyped prospects to fill other gaps via key trades. After 2018, the dynamic changed, more quickly than almost all of us thought it would. The prospect pipeline began to help, some, but we had too many holes to fill. I think JH saw this and felt like the amount of spending needed to get us back to glory, quickly was just too much. The 2021 season might have made him think he didn't need to spend to be "good enough" to keep fans happy. Now, I see a solid young foundation at the ML level, with very few players even just starting their arb years. The situation is actually quite remarkable, in this sense. The next "day of reckoning is more than 3 years away, in terms of players on the 26, now. Couple this with a top 2-3 farm system in all of MLB, and I find it hard to imagine this not being viewed as a window opening. IMO, it can begin in 2025, with just 3 targeted additions that could be expensive or if we fill 1-2 slots by trade, costly in terms of advanced future outlooks. It really is crucial for JH to allow spending and or big trades to happen, again. When and if he does is the million dollar question. We may be able to get close with just minimal investment and shrewd management, but I think we all feel something bold needs to be done to get us over the top. Almost all our past rings took something bold, with maybe 2013 being the exception... maybe. I hope JH realizes how close we are, and that windows rarely stay open as long as we hope they do. To me, the time is NOW. With JH, the question is... "How Soon Is Now?"