moonslav59

I like the high K rate for Fairbanks and see him as a possible closer. I think you talked me into Nick Martinez over Flaherty. Ideally, it would be Martinez, Tanner Scott, Fairbanks and Finnegan. I think we could get the two "F's" wihtout losing a major piece to 2024, other than maybe Abreu, who may be blocking Anthony (and Campbell to a lesser extent.) I'd be happy with those 4.

I'd say bare minimum. Do you consider Flaherty as better than NM? Could getting Fairbanks be better than Finnegan, as well as a larger package needed.

It's not going to be easy to replace Jansen, and if they count Hendriks as an even swap, that will be a big risk. (Note: they probably do count it as just that.) Counting Fulmer as Martin's replacement would be even worse. Counting Gio as Pivetta's replacement is probably the closest to reality, but it is still a big gamble. I think we'd need to add 3 high quality pitchers to improve the staff over 2023. That's not counting Hendriks, Fulmer and Gio. To me, this is the MINIMUM NEEDED! A RHB, maybe at catcher will probably happen, and maybe we also try to add another Criswell or two, but I seriously doubt we add more than 3-4 quality players. (Trading Abreu for one is a push and is not "adding." IMO.)

Ideally, I'm sure Sox ownership would love it, if we could keep the farm stocked, so a continual infusion could be counted on. Then, we might be able to stay under or "just under," every year and stay highly competitive. If this became the norm, then going over, for a year or two, now and then, would be acceptable, but never 3 years in a row. The penalties, now, go beyond just financial, so keeping the farm strong can take a hit, when you get penalized. I do see a way, if everything goes right or mostly right with our additions, and we don't get killed by injuries, we could build a competitive team, without going over the tax line in 2025. Going up to $2-3M from the line, would give us a hefty winter spending budget (AAV) and enough to fill 3-4 slots with quality players. (2-3 slots with high quality.) Plus, we could trade to fill 1-2 slots and have less players to divide the AAV budget into, thereby increasing the expected quality production.

Had we gone over every 2 years out of 3, that would have been much better, too. Also, going over the one year we had decent comp picks coming our way was dumb as hell, although we still ended up with K Campbell with one of them.

From the 2024 Tax budget, we will be losing... AAV $17M Sale $16M Jansen $7.5M Martin $7.5 Pivetta $5.9 O'Neill ~$19M combine: $4.2M Turner opt-out, $2M Joely, $1.8 D Jansen, $1.5M McGuire & G Cooper, $1.4 Paxton & L Garcia, $1.3 Chase Anderson, $1M D Smith, $0.95 Sims and others. This totals to over $70M. We have some arb raises, but not many and all 3 are ARB 1's (Duran, Houck & Crawford.)

Only 5 teams have gone over in '22 and '23: NYY, LAD, PHI, NYM & SDP. PHI & LAD did in 2021, but that was before the new agreement, so I'm not sure that counts as 3 straight. Projected over for 2024: NYM, LAD, NYY, PHI, so 4 teams are looking at 3 straight. (SDP reset.) ATL, HOU, TOR and TEX will be over in 2024. (ATL, TOR & TEX were over in '23 but not '22, so they are at 2 years and HOU first year.)

Well, with a FT DH, it's hard to do. Also, we saw him change his resting strategy from 2023 to 2024. To me, I'd rather have Devers DH 10 games than sit 5 games. Same with Casas.

Good point. Abreu-Ref would be LF and Anthony RF.

Lackey did okay, once he got over the injury, but we ended up trading him. Clement did well, before the freak injury. Others were Tiant, Eckersley, Saberhagen, Cone, Seaver, Jenkins, Viola, Moyer, Smoltz, Avery, Tom Gordon (to pen), Burkett, Frank Castillo, Portugal, Penny, Masterson & Dempsey

There is a lot of talk about trading the LHB Abreu, but maybe we trade Rafaela and go with Anthony in CF and Abreu in RF.

Of course. I'd say 99% for 2025, it's 3B Devers, 1B Casas and DH Yoshida/Ref. 2026, maybe it's 95%, but things might change. Even if Yoshida is off-loaded, I'd still doubt we move Devers or Casas to DH. They may "rest" some days, there some days, but not as a FT option or 2 man share. (Maybe we see an EValdez-Ref DH platoon in 2025, if we trade Yoshida.)

This makes sense, and Bloom did invest in the pen. He spent more AAV on Jansen ($16M) + Martin ($7.5M) than on total SP AAV for any year, I can remember. '23: $10M Kluber + $4M Paxton = $14M '22: $7M Wacha + $5M Hill +$6M Paxton= $16M '21: $10M Richards + $5M Perez= $15M

We could always just keep Yoshida and hope he hits better the rest of the way, take the hit on his contract, while not paying for him to play somewhere else. That likely means keeping casas at 1B and devers at 3B for 3 years, or trade Casas for pitching.

If Trout agreed to DH ONLY, I'd trade Yoshida, Story and Giolito straight up.

I read that Whitlock is open to doing whatever the medical staff recommends for him to stay healthy.

If we finish in last place 5 more years, I'll still be grateful for 4 rings, but will have a slightly overall negative view on him. Nothing will take away that feeling of thankfulness to him and who he hired to get us to glory. I'm pissed at what he's done, but that does not mean I have to hate the guy. I'm pissed at what some of my family and friends have done, but I do not see only black and white.

He is different because he is the boss. He's not going to send himself packing, unless he's done with the effort, or thinks he can make more money elsewhere. He's not above accountability to the fans, but I guess it depends on how demanding a fan you are, or how much history factors into your length of leash. I admit, I got greedy after the first ring, after thinking for 3 decades, I'd be in heaven with just one ring in my lifetime. 6 years is a long time with just one playoff appearance. I will ask, who hired Lucchino? What about the 2018 Lucchino-less ring? Who allowed DD to go nutty on spending and trading prospects? I'm fine with crediting Lucchino, Epstein, DD and others more than JH, but I still think if we kept the same ownership as pre-JH, we might have 0-1 rings in my lifetime. I don't see the need to re-write history to vilify a guy who has let us down, recently (not that you are doing this.) JH was a major factor in changing the atmosphere of the organization towards winning.

I think we have a very solid 3 year window, and it may be longer, depending on how well our prospects do, and who we have or get to replace Houck and Whitlock, after 3 years. The good thing is, Yoshida's deal end in 3 years, too. I get the point about shortening the window, if we trade a top prospect or two, but I prefer we strengthen the 3-4 year window over lengthening it to 5-6 years. (It may still end up at 5-6 years, if we keep the right prospects and extend the right young players.) I've talked a lot about bottlenecks in the OF, middle infield and LHBs, but there is a way to play all the best, young players and prospects, if we trade other players- like Abreu or Rafaela and Grissom and or DHam. 2026-2027> C: Teel & Wong 1B/DH: Devers & Casas (EValdez 2B: Mayer, Grissom (Campbell/Cespeded '27>) SS: Story, Romy (Mayer, Romero or Arias '27>) 3B: Campbell, Meidroth LF: Duran (Ref & Jh Garcia '26>) CF: Rafaela or Anthony RF: Anthony or Abreu Of course, we don't get the return in trade that a top prospect gets us, by trading Abreu or Rafaela plus DHam.

It's not used like it used to be used.

I'd go.... 1. Ortiz (and not just because of the low cost.) 2. Manny (despite the last year) 3. Uehara (surprised not mentioned) 4. VTek (was technically a FA in 2005) 5. Damon (close call w VTEK at #3) 6. JD (maybe a tie for 3rd with other two) 7. Foulke (one great year) 8. Victorino (one great year) 9. Adrian Beltre (on 1 year deal) 10. Bill Mueller (big get) Honorable mention: Nate (missed time, but still did well) & Mike Lowell (2 good year out of 3 year re-signing in 2008), Napoli, Moreland, Nava (FA?), Cody Ross, Wakefield (re-sign), Renfroe, Carp

Agreed. If he were a FA, what sort of contract would he be looking at? $15M/3? $16M/4? If my numbers are close, we'd have to pay a sizeable chunk of is deal to trade him for basically nothing but salary relief. If that salary relief is applied to the winter spending budget, say from $30M to $35M AAV, that could make a difference.

Nobody likes being near .500, seemingly forever. That's on JH as much as anyone else, if not more so. I'm not happy. I probably don't have many Sox fans sharing my position. I'm glad he took over ownership and am thrilled with the results he helped bring about. I hope to hell, he isn't going to stay a miser the rest of his era, and if he does, my views on him will change, more than they already have, but I will always be eternally grateful. I honestly felt like I was going to die, never seeing the Sox reach glory. Of course, I want more, like everyone else. I'm just not so quick to turn on someone.

From 2023-2024, the Sox had two RP'ers in the top 20 fWAR: T16 Jansen at 2.5 T20 Martin at 2.4 As bad as our pen has been, we are about to lose our best two guys. Slaten offers some big hopes, as his 1.5 fWAR matched the high seasons from Martin (1.5 in 2023) and Jansen (1.4 in '24,) but we need more help than Hendriks and Fulmer promise. I'm sure Brez is aware and already looking for possible targets. I'll admit, I'm not expert on other team's best RP'ers and who might be available by trade, but maybe this can be the area we spend more money on. Jansen and Martin were not cheap, but we need a recommitment to this weak area on the team.

I'd like to see Detroit beat KC in the ALCS and SDP beat PHI in the NLCS. I'm always for the AL to win the WS, unless it's NYY or maybe HOU.