moonslav59

I feel the same way, and even if Anthony or Campbell never help in the OF in '25, our OF is still a strength. LF: Duran v R/ Ref v L CF: Rafaela v R/ Duran v L RF: Abreu v R/ Rafaela v L

It was easy to forget just how good he was in differing roles before the 2023 bummer season. He showed some nasty stuff before this season, so I am very hopeful this season was the real Houck.

I might have Castro 28th or 29th.

Mitch Keller is no top of rotation starter, but he'll be just 29 in April. The Pirates extended him, and back-loaded the deal, so they appear to be looking to unload him, already (year 2 of a 5 year deal.) He'll be 33, when his contract ends. His tax hit is a reasonable $15.4M. (He'd get more as a FA.) His 3 year numbers: 4.13 ERA (103 ERA+) 3.92 FIP/1.31 WHIP with about 9Ks and 3 BB per 9IP (1.1 HR/9) Here is how he ranks among 153 SP'ers with 200+ IP since 2022: 15th in IP at 525 and 14th in GS, so looks durable & dependable 35th in fWAR at 7.5 (avg 2.5 per season) Near Wacha & Bassitt 59th in xFIP at 3.91 (Near Flaherty, Monty and Bello) 63rd in FIP at 3.93 77th in ERA- at 97 (Near Singer, Rodon, Monty, Flaherty & Stroman) By the rankings, he looks like an okay #3 SP'er, with a solid workload that pushes his value up to maybe an okay #2. So, to me, he looks like an upgrade over Crawford and Giolito and maybe Bello, depending on what direction Bello takes. I'd like him in our rotation, but would prefer we just sign Burnes or not have to give up anything and just sign Flaherty or Manaea. What would it take to get him? His salary is a drag on PIT's budget: $15,4M>$16.9M>$18.4M>20.4M, but he's not a "dump." I certainly would not give a top 3 prospect for him, and would hesitate to give up Arias, but I would consider Abreu or Bleis, Cespedes or JH Garcia. I'm not sure they'd take Rafaela, even if we added DHam. If we were looking to expand the trade, maybe asking for switch-hitting Reynolds to play LF might be a fit, instead of signing Teoscar or Santander. His career splits are .842 vs R and .772 v L, so he does not really fit the big bat v LHP need. He turns 30, soon and is signed through 2030 at a tax hit of just $13.3M. His pay goes up, too, but not as quickly as Keller's. I'm not sure I really want him. I think I'd rather keep Abreu & Rafaela.

At this point, I'm just throwing things at the wall. Of course, the best plan is to just spend, and then spend some more. Burnes or Flaherty Bregman or Teoscar (maybe Santander) If we can't get one of the above, get one plus Hoffman, Scott, Manaea or Estevez.

Could be, but part of the deal could be to make STL pay it off.

Castillo is better than Crawford, Gio and Bello, but we could get some money thrown in.

I agree: we need to see action, as in some serious spending to show a true commitment. I would not call Crochet "crickets," but Chapman and he are not nearly enough to show an improvement over a team that missed the playoffs. While I agree that Anthony, as well as Campbell and Mayer are pure speculative values, I am near certain one or two will be plusses, this year. I mean how sure are we of DHam, Grissom, Narvaez or even Rafaela (or Abreu v LHPs?) Make big signing or two moderate ones, one more trade from surplus areas and we should be much better on paper. If we look much better but disappoint, well, at least we can say we tried.

One of the stories on the possible Casas to SEA trade rumors was that they were looking for a RHB 1Bman, not a lefty. Now, there is a rumor they are looking at Josh Naylor- a LHB. Would you do Casas for Castillo? If SEA says no, would you add Rafaela or DHam? I doubt SEA does Casas, Abreu & Fitts for Miller or Woo.

They still have Castro 18th. Sometimes they really stick with certain players way too long.

40 Man Roster Changes this Winter PLUS: Crochet & Narvaez by trade, Chapman & Wilson by free agency and Jh Garcia & Dobbins by Rule 5 protecting. MINUS: Pivetta, O'Neill, K Jansen, Martin, DJansen, E Valdez, Sims & Garcia (not counting players who are not on the 40 but still in the system or players who left the team before the end of the season.) Notables who left during the season: McGuire, P Reyes & C Anderson

With Arenado refusing the Astros trade, I wonder if we may have talks with STL, and no, not with Yoshida going to STL. Apparently, STL was willing to pay $5M for each of the 3 remaining years. (COl is paying $5M for the next 2 years, each.) If the number stayed the same, his cost would be: $22M in 2025 ($20.5 AAV) $17M in 2026 ($20.5 AAV) $10M in 2027 ($10 AAV) If we gave them Rafaela, the total money would be pretty close, but the AAV would be: $14M in 2025 and 2026, and $3.5 in 2027, then a savings of about $6M/yr from 2028 to 2031`. He'd greatly improve our defense, and the contract would still allow us to sign a pitcher and maybe TH and a pitcher, or sign TH and trade Abreu and Casas for a pitcher. (Throw in Wink! LOL)

Who takes half-Price at half price? Porcello was a no-brainer, granted, but many were bummed about losing Kimbrel, until he started sucking. Some wanted ERod back. Some wish we now had Sale.

Good stuff. SP's had Romero as high as 8th, so maybe they were not that far off. My ups and downs, right now, are... I'm higher on Cespedes han most. Both he and Jh garcia are top 10. I like Jo Garcia, too, but over a small sample size. I think D Reyes keeps moving up. I've always felt like they had Castro too high. I think they are so high on Cason, because of the Ohtani Effect.

If the bar is just to be "better," I can't disagree. I do think the half-Price dump may have needed to be a 3/4 Price dump. I'd still like to see what the budgets would have been, all those years, and you still did a bit of hindsight picks.

Come on, Man, what? Give nate 33 starts in 2020, and he still is lower than Nick.

I remember reading, at the time of the trade, that Abreu was the real prize, not the recent hard-hitting Valdez. They did seem to undervalue WA and overvalue EV. Who would you say they are short-changing, now?

You could hindsight hand-pick all the best signings from 2019-2024 and make it work at almost any budget above $180M.

Same years as Nate (4). Houck started more games than Pivetta in 2020 (3-2.)

Yes, I asked the question. I do not think small signings need a boards approval. I doubt moderate ones do, either, unless they bring the budget over what was set. I'm not sure how they do it, especially on major deals. That may indeed be a big part of the problem, and why it seems to take forever for a formal offer to even be made. What seams troubling to me, if we hear rumors of player A getting $200M/6 offers, and 2 weeks later, we hear we offered $180M/5.

I was all for keeping Betts, but it would have made for some serious juggling and payroll boosts to make it work. Yes, it was JH's choice. I agree on that.

In 2023, yes, but no so much the other 3 years. 2021: 30 GS/ 1 RP gm 2022: 33 GS/ 0 RP gm 2023: 16 GS/ 22 RP gms 2024: 26 GS/ 1 RP gm (15 days on IL) Nobody else came close to starting as many games for the Sox, since 2019. 107 Pivetta, 73 Nate, 71 Houck, 69 Crawford & Bello IP: 633 Pivetta, 431 Houck, 408 Nate, 392 Crawford, 377 Bello Pivetta leads in both areas from '22-'24, too.

Does JH and Brez really need permission for every signing? I think there is merely input on what the spending budget is and then it's not all that complicated.

Well, I thought the idea was to keep the team intact. Okay, take away Kimbrel and the contract he got and replace him with someone better at $14M. Why do you assume the budget would be higher than the $20M I added? You think trading Price + half his money would be easier without including Betts? Also, what about the need to give Bogey a bigger and longer extension, and how has he been since he left BOS? Do we keep JBJ? We can "best case scenario" this to death and create a decent team, but the costs were going through the ceiling, even with Porcello coming off the books and later, Pedey. Imagine the payroll being $18)m, which is what it was, not $200, like I suggested. Of course, it was JH's "choice" to slash & Burn, and Betts was the poster boy for that, but that roster was a tough one to keep strong without massive spending. The farm help did eventually come, but not really in time to keep us strong from 2019 to today.

The lack of an ability to trade Yoshida makes this the best option. I feel like we'd be selling low on Casas, but it's hard to guess those things. We can get way more for Casas than Yoshida. If we decide to give Anthony a FT OF role, we could trade Casas and Abreu for pitching. 1. Duran LF 2. Bregman 3B 3. Story SS 4. Devers 1B 5. Yoshida-Ref DH 6. Anthony RF 7. Campbell 2B or DHam-Grissom platoon 8. Wong-Narvaez C 9. Rafaela CF (We could also play Campbell in CF, if DHam and Grissom are doing well at 2B) Keeping Casas greatly improves the line-up but turns Yoshida into a bench waste and forces us to ...gasp, gasp, gasp...spend on pitching.