moonslav59

Per MLB.com Five of Boston’s Top 30 Prospects must be protected to avoid inclusion in the Rule 5 Draft: OF Jhostynxon Garcia (No. 12), OF Allan Castro (No. 19), RHP Hunter Dobbins (No. 21), RHP Yordanny Monegro (No. 25) and 3B/1B Blaze Jordan (No. 26). The deadline for clubs to add players to their 40-man roster and protect them from the Rule 5 Draft is Nov. 19 at 6 p.m. ET.

I hate the Dodgers, but it was nice seeing the Yanks lose, and lose this way.

I know a lot of people think we could have gotten Bogey to sign for $160M/6, long ago. I'm not so sure, but for argument's sake, let's say we got him to sign for $180M/6 or $220M/8, how would Sox Nation be talking about that extension, right now, assuming he put up the same numbers as he did with the Padres? .747 OPS (106 OPS+ vs 117 with BOS and 133 from '18-'22) per 650: .276 17 60 These are Yoshi-like numbers. All the talk of how we messed up the Bogey extension MAY HAVE BEEN premature. (Emphasis on "MAY.")

Good point, and that was Bloom not Brez that chose to spend on the pen, and not the rotation. Bloom also likely chose to spend on Story and Yoshida over the rotation, but maybe JH directed him not to spend large and long on any SP'ers, except Bello, which was more long than large, anyway.

I don't think we choose to spend really big on a SP'er like Burnes or Fried. Neither seems to jump out at "the guy," to me, and even if JH & Co really like one, they always set a price that gets beat by someone else, anyway. If there is one thing these guys have consistently done, they never go above the price they set as reasonable. To me, the best bet for getting a #1 or #2, or whatever you want to call it, is by trade, but I'm doubtful we give up on the long term plan and farm building, this year. IMO, getting a young SP'er with 3-4 years of control is not like trading away the future to get. 4 years is about as much time as a prospect can give us, anyway. Giving up 3 prospects with 5-6 years of control is taking a big chunk out of the future promise, but it is just "promise." I've spoke of bottlenecks and duplicated values, a lot, and I realize much of this is based on the belief that most of our top prospects are going to pan out. It's just speculation, and we can see many examples of underachieving from our top farm prospects, in the past: the prospects DD traded jump to mind, but also guys like Lars Anderson, Casey Kelly, Michael Bowden, Kalish & Middy, Swihart and Cecchini, Owens and Groome. However, our everyday player roster is loaded with good to decent players or promising to very promising players, along with guys like EValdez, Gasper, Sogard, Hickey and others that still hold some remote hopes of being helpful. All these guys have 3 or more years of control: C: Wong 4, Teel 5+, Jo. Garcia 5+ (Brannon) 1B: Casas 4, Romy 4 (Ju Gonzalez) 2B: Campbell 5+, Grissom 5, DHam 5, Cespedes 5+ (Nunez) SS: Story 3-4, Mayer 5+, Arias & Romero 5+ (Cason) 3B: Devers 9, Meidroth 5+ (Nunez) LF: Abreu 4, Jh Garcia 5+, Ehrhard 5+ (Castro, Asencio) CF: Duran 4, Rafaela 7, Bleis 5+ (Fermin) RF: Anthony 5+, Montgomery 5+ (Yuten) DH: Yoshida 3, %+: B Gonzalez , Jordan, W Turner Our pitchers don't look all that great, but many of our best have 3+ Years, too: (Whitlock has 2.) 3: Houck 4: Crawford, Wink, Kelly 5+ Bello, Slaten, Criswell, Fitts, Priester, Guerrero, Weissert, Sandlin, Campbell & more

JH has shown he's willing to spend on good RP'ers (Jansen & Martin on 2 year deals.) I hope he does not consider Henriks and Fulmer as capable replacements to those two, but I do think we just might sign a top RP'er, this winter- maybe Scott or Estevez. Again, I'm not expecting big spending, but I don't consider this type signing as all that "big." I'm not sure we add any SP'ers, and the trend has been to add 4/5's, some with hopes of being a #3 type, and I'm going with my definitions, here ( a 3 is a 60-90 ranked SP'er, a 4 is a 90-120...) I'm thinking Nick Martinez or Flaherty might be the best we can expect. Maybe a trade for a younger and better one could happen, but I'm not convinced the philosophy or long term strategy will allow for that. Probably, the best we can expect is Scott, Matinez and maybe a trade of Abreu and DHam for another decent RP'er and a decent defensive catcher with 1 year left on his control. I'll be genuinely surprised if we spend more than this or trade for more than this.

To me, and ace is different from a #1. A number one, in the context of looking at one team, means your best pitcher, but your best pitcher might be a #4 or 5 on another team. For simplicity, I like to think a number 1 is a top 30 SP'er in MLB based on the recent year, recent 2-3 years and various stats and metrics. We all have our favorite stats/metrics, but to me, fWAR/bWAR, ERA-, OPS Against, xFIP and maybe WHIP matter the most. It's not an exact science. To and older pitcher, the last year may matter more than the last 3. To a 2-3 year pitcher, maybe the last year matters way more than the 3 year numbers. Some pitchers jump all over the rankings, when you switch the stat/metric. Some are top 20-30 on every list. I'd say those that are top 20 or so on every list, can probably be called an "ace." Take a guy like Houck: he was #14 in fWAR, this year among SP'ers with 70+ IP. The fact that we need to go to 70 IP to get a sample size of near 150 (30 teams x 5 SP'ers) is pretty telling. The 3 year sample size is 190 IP, and Houck places 60th. The recent one year sample makes Houck a clear #1 and maybe even an ace, but the 3 year sample puts him around a bottom #2 or top #3. I'd say he rates to be a solid #2, but with questions. Other pitchers have more questions and context needed.

Bogaerts gets a l ot of his value from positional points (SS) and hardly ever being hurt. The fWAR per 600 takes the injury aspect away. Here is a breakdown of value on fangraphs value page: Bogey: 1530 games 128 Batting -30 Fielding 26 Base Running 60 "Positional Vlaue" Chapman: 1022 games 94 Batting 49 Fielding 7 Base Running 15 Positional Value Take away positional value, since Bogey was a negative on defense, here is the "value" per game of Batting+Fielding+ Running: Bogey 0.120 (184/1530) Chapman 0.147 (150/1022) That's 23% more than Bogey

Long swings can be adjusted, but the encouraging part about his swing is the bat speed does not seem to be reduced by its longness.

I do think our second 4 (Monty, Arias, Cespedes and Garcia) could end up moving into the top group. Most likely 2-3 will now, but even those that don't, could still be useful players. I know my pink glasses are bigger than Elton John's, but I'm loving this farm. I know a lot has been said about the lack or quality pitching on the farm, but I'm hopeful that out of the couple dozen pitching prospects we have, maybe 3-4 might rise to the levels we need to reach glory. Perales looks like the real deal, but he has a major injury to comeback from. Fitts, Sandlin and Tolle are recognized as very promising pitchers, already. The rest seem more like longshots, but with so many of them, I'm thinking a couple or three might jump in the rankings, real soon: Valera, Ingrassia, Dobbins, Monegro, Cason, Guerrero Kelly, Penrod, E Rodriguez, Early, Mullins, Paez D Reyes, Neely, Wehunt, Clarke, Tygart, Carlson Sena, Kwiatkowski, Bonnin, G Jackson, Hoppe, Shugart Dean, Rogers, Troye, Liu, Webb, Sansone Ehrlicher, Judice, Aita, de la Cruz, Polanco, Y Ruiz Bastardo, Gambrell, Wikelman, I Coffey, Drohan, Mata This list is almost 50 pitchers long. Granted, some have less than a 1% chance to even sniff the Bigs, let alone do well, there. I get that, but I do think 24-36 have maybe a 5% or better chance, with some having a better than 33% chance. (Perales and Fitts might be 50-50. Sandlin, Tolle, Kelly & GUerrero might be near 40%.)

Maybe similar, but I think Jansen gets 2-3 years. I think we want a one year bridge to Teel. Now, if management does not want Wong catching as much, due to his awful defense. Will we trade Wong? I doubt it, but we have to think he's not a long term solution, unless he improves his defense, significantly and soon. Would we even want him as a 20-25% catcher? I'd prefer Higgy or Jansen, but I just don't think we give the years these guys want.

Youk was one of my faves. I'm a guy that loves OBP.

Your idea of a 4-5 makes it look like there are zero 2's and 3's. To say "at best" makes it even worse. It's like you see him as a 6th SP. How many pitchers are #1's? I'd say about 30. #2's? about 30 (one for each team) #3s? yup, 30 more. You are saying there are 90-120 better SP'ers than Flaherty? I'd say you are way off. Of the 125+ Pitchers with 120+ IP, Flaherty placed: 17th WHIP 22nd in FIP and ERA 24th in ERA- 29th i fWAR Can you name even 60 pitchers better than him? He's a #2, at worst. Okay, okay, 2024 was a fluke, you say: how about 2021 to 2024 (130+ pitchers with 300+ IP) Flaherty places... 63rd ERA and 73rd in FIP (about a #3) 64th ERA- (top #3) 77th in fWAR (about a #3) I'm fine thinking he's a good #3 with #2 upside. He's not a 4/5.

Sure. I'm thinking he'd be our #2. He might be the guy we can get for the budget.

He'd be a better SP signing than anyone since Nate.

This week... 1 ORE at Mich 2. GA at Florida 3 Penn St v Ohio St. 5 MIA v Duke 6 Tenn v KY 10 TEX A&M at So Carolina 11 IA St v TEX Tech 12 Clemson v Louisville 13 IN at MI St. 18 PITT at SMU

I don't think Mayer starts on the 26 for opening day, unless someone is hurt, or he is raking in ST'ing. I see that we have 4-5 ML ready prospects, who all are NOT even Rule 5. It makes sense to not add many of them, and take away a roster slot. If you wait until day 2, we can place a plyer on the 60 Day IL to create a roster slot for Mayer (or Campbell or Meidroth or Teel.) We may even wait long enough for an extra year of control to kick in, but that is up for serious debate, and rightfully so. I see Campbell as the guy most ready, and he can play 2B, while Story plays SS. I think they want to keep Mayer at SS for as long as possible, so Story's health affects the timing on Mayer. I also think his late season injury might affect his opening day status, but who knows? I kinda like a Yoshida-Ref platoon at DH and not use Ref in the OF, unless needed or as a PH'er. If we don't trade Abreu, which I'm fine with, since he shows more promised, to me, than Rafaela, I'd allign my OF like this: LF: Abreu v RHPs, Duran v LHPs (Ref as the back-up, not an OF platoon) CF: Duran v RHPs, Rafaela v LHPs (Campbell as a possible back-up, especially if Rahaela sucks.) RF: Anthony FT (Abreu as the back-up, not Ref)

I think it is fair to say Nate missed 25% of his starts in 2020 (3/12.) In 2019, he pitched some in relief, but only started 12 out of 32 games and had a 5.99 ERA (5.90 FIP.) In 2021-2022, he started 52 out of maybe 65 possible starts. (That's missing 20%.) He pitched real well, those two years (3.80 ERA, 3.36 FIP and 119 ERA+) 2020's numbers were similar to these, so he put up good numbers in 3 of the 4 years and missed 16 out of 77 starts or 21% of the starts. I'd say he earned his salary. Price was another story, despite the ring influence.

I only listed Grandal, because I think he can be signed to a one year deal, and that is what JH will want. (He will also cost less, so double bonus for JH & his wallet.)

No doubt. I've highlights just how poorly Bloom did on his biggest spendings and listed them in order of cost. I am not sure he was given any directive to not spend on SP'ers long term, and if I had to guess, I'd say no, he was not, but they may have said no to a few specific offers he wanted to give. For all we know, maybe even Brez asked to go longer on Imanaga, and JH & Co. said no, but I'll assume that was not the case. IMO, the GM was handed a winter spending budget that included limits on AAV and length of bigger deals, but the GM chose how to spend it. Spending on Story and Yoshida, instead of SP'ers was a huge mistake. He did spend a bit on the pen... Barnes, Diekman, Jansen, Martin... Without a decent rotation, it was kind of a waste.

What choice does a GM/CBO have, if the boss lays down the gauntlet?

I agree. He'll be 22, in 2025, and that is not "super young." What is this talk about?

I've been disgusted by our rotation since 2020. I hate the plan of trying to continually improve our #4 or 5. I've always been for adding to a rotation at the top (as in acquiring a #1 or #2,) almost every year. I was not happy with the Gio signing, especially since we added nobody else, except Chase Anderson, Criswell and Uwasawa. Whe Gio went down hurt, and we did nothing, the sham was double exposed.

Yes, and some felt he should be in the 5, especially those wanting Whitlock in the pen. I read, somewhere, that Houck was going to be the one "left out." I know the season opening order might not have much meaning, but we started out with... 1. Bello 2. Pivetta 3. Crawford 4. Whitlock 5. Houck I'm not trying to argue we had great SP'er depth, because we did not, but the 6th and 7th guys (Houck & Criswell) did better than the 1-5, combined. Fitts did damn good, too.

They have to know, but I do think they felt the guys they signed would do better. Had Gio pitched 190 IP at 4.25, we'd likely make the playoffs. It's not like we missed by a mile. Had we kept Sale, we make it, for sure. We kept him for 5 years, and missed by a year. We can't blame anyone but ourselves for that one. The Kluber, Richards & Perez signings were stabs in the dark, and I guess the Wacha, Hill and maybe the Paxton signing kinda balanced them out. The weird thing is, the year we chose right (Wacha & Hill) we still sucked.