moonslav59

No Medium Perales, Sandlin, Fitts, Tolle?

They can shorten the season to 154 or go with 3 games series in round 1 and 5 game series in rd 2. Lessen days off between playoff games.

I see two options, if we move Devers off 3B: FT DH 1B/DH share with Casas (or trade Casas)

Apology accepted and no problems from me. I think if you discount 2016 and 2017, you should discount how badly we played in 2019. That team was a really good team that hit hard times, all at once. He built a damn good team from 2016 to 2019. It's not easy building a 4 year team. He caught a lot of grief for trading away about 20 prospects that were once top 20, but as it turned out, noce were as good as all the experts thought they were. On top of that, he kept Devers and some others like Houck, Duran, Rafaela, Crawford and Bello. On the spending. It was not his fault JH gave him what he wouldnt give Ben or Bloom. But, he was spot on on just about every big signing and trade. Like he had a 90% hit rate. Nobody does that. Bloom was like 30%. Brez was 0% on his 2 biggest deals- better on the rest. Ben swung and missed wildly. I have zero beef with DD.

I totally agree, and much of the beef we had was with the Sox not landing the big FAs the Yanks kept getting. Then, the Joe Rudi & Fingers deal was nixed. We broke up a very beloved team. Let Fisk walk by sending him his contract a day too late. Traded Lynn, Burleson, Hobson, Lee, Cooper and others. Let Tiant walk. That was a sickening time for Sox fans, and maybe why I am not so harsh on JH as some. I'm also not harsh on DD, Bloom or Brez, nor was I on Ben or Theo in the later years. These guys tried more than those back in those days.

According to the Fielding Bible... Abreu was the best RF'er in MLB at +18. Duran was #1 in CF, despite playing just 820 innings there (+17) Rafaela was 3rd in CF is just over 630 innings (+12) DHam was 6th at 2B (+8) in just 267 innings (He's # in DRS/inning) OF: #2 Duran (+23 in 1420) #3 Abreu (+16 in 960) #7 Rafaela (12 in 634) Devers 2nd worst at 3B (-9)

He wasn't too bad in '23.

Agreed, and we do know the Sox management team likes him. RHB: check Decent defensive catcher: check Decent pop: check (29 HRs per 650 PAs) I'd be okay with a 50-50 split between Wong and Jansen, or even more starts by Jansen, as we wait for Teel to be promoted.

Next step: 16 teams make it to the dance, and nobody gets a bye series.

It could be as simple as JH saw the tremendous window we had with the kids, Betts, Bogey, JBJ, Devers and others, so he added Sale, Price, Porcello, JD, Nate and others, but knew all along, he was never going to just keep spending more and more as the star young players reached free agency and the aging free agent signing started their inevitable decline. This does not speak to any plans of creating a new window, but there does seem to be some signs for a new great big picture window opening wide, soon. I have no idea what JH's future plans are, but he did go all in through the DD era. Some will argue, we are paying the price Max is speaking of, now and over 5 of the last 6 seasons. It is pretty telling that the biggest contracts in MLB belong mostly to a handful of teams: LAD: 1 Ohtani, 3 Betts, 9 Yamamoto NYY: 4. Judge, 9. Stanton, 12. Cole SDP: 5. Machado (2 deals) , 7. Tatis, 17. Bogey NYM: 6. Lindor PHI: 8. Harper, 14. T Turner _____________________ TEX: 9 Seager, LAA: 2. Trout, BOS: 13. Devers, KCR 16. Witt ______________________ Highest AAV LAD: 1, Ohtani, 13. Bauer NYM: 2. Scherzer, 3. Verlander, 12. Lindor NYY: 5 Judge, 7. Cole 5 of top 7 w 3 teams and 7 or top 12, too.

I'd put RHB way below Pen and rotation help. We do need a back-up or starting catcher for a bridge year to Teel, so maybe there is a way. I trust Campbell as the RHB we need. I trust Anthony's splits that show he hits lefties well. I trust that almost all our batters are pre-prime or prime and most should improve over 2024. Assuming a limited budget and not allowing a blockbuster prospect trade, we might not have enough resources to fill 1 SP slot and 2 pen slots with high quality and then have anything left for a real good RHB.

I'm fine calling the pen a bigger need, and losing Jansen and Martin from an already stinky pen is reason enough to say it is number 1. That doesn't change the fact that we have Houck and 4 mediocre SP'ers for our rotation.

Yup. I wasn't trying to say Bello was better because he had a couple more starts and a few more IP. I was just trying to show their numbers are close. Here is more: Bello Crawford: 4.31 FIP and 3.6 K:BB ('23-'24) 1.5 HR/9 Bello: 4.36 FIP and 2.6 K:BB ('23-'24) 1.2 HR/9 They are about as close to identical as can be. I can't say why I prefer Bello, but I'm not happy with any of our SP'ers, beyond Houck. We have 4 mehs and Houck.

It's just a way of saying how good they are. If they all stay healthy, they all get 32-33 starts, so in that sense, it makes no difference what we call them, but if you have 5 starters in the bottom 20% of SP'ers, it's worse than 5 that are in the bottom 20-40% (or #4's by my reckoning) and so forth. The middle 20% are better bets than the bottom 20 or 40%. The top 20% have the best chance of bringing a win. Forget the 1-2-3-4-5 labels: we need better pitching. Call them whatever you wish, but just say we need better than what we have.

So, basically, quite a few posters seem okay with running back the same rotation, but subbing Gio for Pivetta and hoping Fitts or Priester plus the returning Criswell is enough depth when 1-3 of our starters get hurt. Houck is a #2 or really good #3. Gio, Bello and Crawford are all decent #5s, with maybe #3-4 upside. Fitts, Priester and Criswell fight for the #5-6-7 slots. It seems some think adding a #2-3 like Nick Martinez or Flaherty is about the best we can hope for, and maybe JH will force that to be, but we don't have to be okay with running back the same rotation.

Close call. 2023-2024 Bello: 58 GS, 319 IP and 101 ERA+ Craw: 56b GS, 313 IP and 104 ERA+

We could use a RHB catcher with plus defensive skills and some pop, but on just a 1 year deal. I'm not sure who fits that bill: maybe Jansen or d'Arnaud. Maybe on a 2 year deal or a 2nd year option with a hefty buyout?

May 16 to end of season: Red Sox staff was 23rd in fWAR. 25th in RP fWAR 1.1 T18th in SP fWAR at 7.3. Yeah, let's roll it back minus Pivetta,

The rotation was not 11th after mid May, and we lost Pivetta, who was our 2nd best fWAR pitcher in 2024. In fact, Pivetta owns 3 of the top 10 seasonal fWARs among all Sox pitchers since 2021. Houck has 2 and Crawford Bello 1 each. Counting on Gio and Fitts is not asking for trouble: it's just rinse and repeating what we've done since 2020. We need 6 SP'ers not named Fitts, Priester or Criswell. YES, we also need pen additions, and I'm fine with saying we need them more than a SP'er, but we need both, of we will be flirting with .500, again in 2025. FYI, best pen fWARs (not my stat of choice for RP'ers) since 2021, by season: 1.8 Schreiber '22 1.6 Whitlock '21 (Hopefully he can return to near this form in '25's pen) 1.5 Martin '23 and Slaten '24 1.4 Jansen '24 and 1.1 Jansen '23 1.3 Barnes '21 1.1 Josh Taylor '21 0.9 Martin '24 Only Slaten and Whitlock remain.

I'm fully aware Crawford is in the 2025 rotation, 100%, but I'm not going to "embrace" mediocrity. As our 6th starter, he can and will be able to start the same amount of games, as last year. No way everyone stays healthy. Chances are Crawford still starts 30 and we see Fitts start some, too. Even if we discount no starts by Gio, which is a big deal, we still got 26 starts by the "depth." (33 Crawford, 30 Houck, 30 Bello, 26 Pivetta and 18 Criswell as the "starting 5.") ... 6 Wink, 4 Fitts & Whitlock, 3 Paxton, 1 Priester and 8 pen games. In reality, we got 0-33 from Gio and 4-33 from Whitlock, so we actually got 93 starts from the expected starting 5 of Gio, Bello, Whitlock, Crawford and Pivetta.

My Pitching staff wish (near 0% chance of happening) SP1 __Addition__ SP2 Houck SP3 __Nick Martinez__ SP4 Bello SP5 Giolito SP6/Long Man Crawford (AAA: Fitts, Priester, Dobbins, Gambrell, Wikelman, Drohan, Sandlin) RP1 __Tanner Scott__ RP2 __Add LHP__ RP3 Hendriks RP4 Slaten RP5 Whitlock RP6 Criswell RP7 Fulmer (AAA: Wink, Bernardino, Guerrero, Penrod, Kelly, Weissert, I Campbell, Shugart, Horn, Mata) In reality, adding 1 top SP'er and 2 solid RP'ers is likely too much to ask from Sham & Co.

To me, Fitts and Priester should be 7 & 8, unless Crawford is in the pen. And yes, our SP'ers ranked 11th, but the lost Pivetta, and nobody is counting on Criswell in the rotation. We had a couple guys have career seasons in IP and productivity. Maybe Bello can be viewed as having a good shot at improving. I don't see why we should count on the others to get better. 11th best is still not good enough, even if we can repeat what we did, last year, without Pivetta, Jansen and Martin. We need a top SP'ers or two decent ones. We need 3-4 solid pen arms, but 2 really good ones might be enough. Almost every aspect of our game ranked about 11th to 12th, except defense, which as 28th to 30th, IMO. We need to stop dicking around by counting on Crawford, Gio, Hendriks and Fulmer to carry us in 2025. If everyone does the same as last year with zero injuries (yea right!) there is no reason to think we'll be any better with pitching. I do see the defense improving, assuming Story or Mayer are healthy at any given moment. I think the offense will be the same or better, despite losing O'Neill, due to almost all our players moving towards prime or entering it, and several good hitting prospects ML ready, right now. Pitching is where we must improve. along with a catcher who knows defense and how to maximize a staff's potential.

Oh, trust me, I am not holding my breath, anymore. I'm not expecting big spending or a blockbuster trade. I'm expecting more of the same, until they show me otherwise. That will not stop me from making suggestions, I think will improve the team, and I even try to suggest moves that mostly will not cost JH more money than the 2024 budget was. Even the deals where I suggest we take back more salary than Yoshida's, still keep us way under the 2024 budget line. (Well, maybe one suggestion got us slightly over it.) We simply cannot just rely on hopes for Gio, Fitts, Priester, Hendriks and Fulmer, plus equal or better production from the returning pitchers. Maybe better from Bello, I campbell and Slaten can be reasonably hoped for, but I'm not sure Houck, Crawford, Criswell, and the group of RP'ers returning can be expected to improve, but even then, someone else will decline to cancel it out. You have to get better, on paper, and hope it translates to more wins, while keeping injuries low. Youi can't look at the paper we have and wish it gets better, by itself.

It took balls to trade Sale, something Bloom could not bring himself to do. Brez aso traded Dugo, but that was no blockbuster. So, no balls to make a bold trade, but somehow you think JH will grow some and spend bigly? Again, I agree that spending is the best way to preserve our everyday 13 and nice depth, but I think a bold trade is more likely than JH spending over $40-50M, this winter in AAV.

You listed 16 names for 13 slots, and we have holes all through the pitching staff, which includes the losses of Pivetta, Jansen and Martin from a staff already not good enough to get us to the playoffs, despite several pitchers having career best years and IP'd. What am I missing? I'm honestly wondering and would love to be schooled into believing we don't need to trade from strength to improve higher need areas.