moonslav59

We do have many players that look real good, on paper, but have a serious flaw that keeps them from being seen as a "star." Even our one everyday star, Devers sucks on D. (He may be okay or even a plus at 1B, though.) I would argue Duran has the full package to be called a star- right now. Plus-plus offense, Plus speed. Plus defense. I wouldn't say he's not a star because of a weak arm, especially if he plays LF, only. He's an overall plus on D in CF, too. Casas can be a great hitter but sucks on D. I'm not seeing any signs of getting better on D, either. Maybe 1B D is not such a big deal, but he does have one big glaring weakness. Abreu might win the GG and bat .820. What's wrong with that, one might ask? It's his first full year, and the sky could be the limit. Well, his L-R splits are atrocious. As of now, he cannot be viewed as a FT RF'er. His OPS is .860 vs RHPs- an allstar level with GG-type D, but the .479 OPS vs LHPs is horrific. One could claim a 71 PA sample size is not definitive, but there is a good reason it is so low: he sucks vs LHPs. Rafaela is a tremendous defensive CF and could maybe be a plus defensive SS, if given the time to develop there, but his plate discipline is atrocious. It is highly doubtful he can every become a plus offensive players. Even being average might be out of reach. Story used to hit well enough to be thought of as a 5 tool player: Good bat with power, too, great glove and range, good arm (before the injury) and decent speed and base stealing abilities. It's hard to know if he can get his O back to anywhere near what it was 3-4 years ago. Wong looks like he might be one of MLB's best offensive catchers, but his D ranks near or at the bottom. DHam is a great base runner, who showed some decent pop and offense, this year. He's also okay on D at 2B, but sucks at SS. He rates to be a decent 2Bman or utility guy, who can never reach "star" status. Our top 4 prospects do offer hopes of being a "star," someday, but nothing is a given with any of them. I do think, even players flawed in just one area have a lot of trade value. Maybe more than you think.

You make some great points. They may have to decide that although all 4 of our top prospects are indeed "part of the future core," which one is the least part, and who do we have at that position for the future, instead. It might come down to how much faith they have in the next level of prospects at certain duplicated positions. If they are super high on Jh Garcia, maybe they bite the bullet and trade the best blue chip in Anthony for the better pitcher return. Maybe they really like Campbell, Arias, Cespedes and Romero, and think they can part with Mayer, despite viewing him as our SS of the future (w Story at 2B and maybe Campbell at 3B & Devers at 1B/DH.) Maybe they think a Grissom-DHam combo at 2B is good enough to believe they can part with Campbell (Plus the part about having Arias, Cespedes and Romero apply to this equation, too.) I do not see a suitable replacement for Teel, and Wong does not seem to be improving on D as he reaches the normal age and level of experience, where that should be coming to fruition. Teel seems like the least likely to be traded, if you look at positional depth and projected replacement value. In reality, I seriously doubt we trade a top 4 prospects, this winter. I think our 5-8 or 9 prospects are too far away and have too much upside potential to risk selling low on them. I also don't think other teams are willing to part with what we need for A+ level prospects. If we do make a major trade, I think it will involves Casas + Abreu or Rafaela and maybe we add a pitcher or a projected AA prospect like Romero or Jh Garcia. Who knows?

It's an age old question: why would any team trade away a young pitcher who has already shown excellence? Everyone knows pitching is so very important, and that is why the return on trades that do happen, often look like overpays, but we need to also ask: Why did Cincy trade Castillo? (To save money and get something for a player that would be a FA in 1.3 years?) Why did MIA trade Pablo Lopez? (Was it that his big payday was coming after his last arb year in 2024?) Both these guys ended up extending at somewhat reasonable amounts, from the team's perspective. Who are guys like them available this winter? When was the last 5 years of control good pitcher traded? (I honestly don't know.) For one thing, most pitchers with 5 years of control do not have long records of proven success, but some seem to have already proven they have nasty stuff and should be very good to great pitchers, going forward. In theory, I think the Sox should avoid trading Anthony, unless the pitcher blows us away. I'm not sure who that pitcher is. I think Skubal is, but not just 2 years of control for 5+ of Anthony, and I'm someone who values a 1 in 5 games SP'er over an everyday player, to begin with. (Many top SP'ers face 750-850 batters in a season, which is more PAs than any batter ever gets is my reasoning.) This is not an easy problem to solve. Do we first determine who is the best player or players to trade away, and that we can fill their holes internally without a major setback, and then just get the best pitcher we can get with that package? Or, do we find the best group of pitchers who are available in trade and seek to get one with the lowest package offer we can come up with, even if it means we part with Anthony or Campbell, since one is the lowest any team will go in their demands? IMO, trading Casas and Abreu makes the most sense, in terms of maxing out value giving away vs how well we can do without them, but I also fully realize that headline package is not getting even 2 years of Skubal and likely not 2 years of Crochet, either, so where does that leave us? How valuable is Mayer in the eyes of other GMs? I do think we can roll the dice on Story's health, once again and put our eggs in the Campbell basket at 2B, wile also counting on Anthony to give our already very good OF a boost. Maybe a package of Mayer + Abreu gets us better than Casas + Abreu. What does a Mayer, Casas and Abreu package get usvs an Anthony + Meidroth and Fitts package? There are so many permutations of deals we can offer- all with a very nice headliner and some decent add-on, and even packages with 2 very nice headliners that would not deplete the starting 9 or the MLB 13 everyday player roster too drastically. To me, we are very deep at everyday players and the top prospects we have coming up are projected to be better than who we have already. Trading a prospect does not lessen the MLB core we are carrying over, but it does lessen the depth and future outlook of the given position. Trading Casas and playing Campbell at 3B and Devers at 1B might actually be an overall improvement of the team (Defense for sure and maybe the offense.) Trading Abreu and handing the FT RF job to Anthony could be a major improvement, but maybe not right away. Trading Mayer and handing the 2B job to Campbell makes a lot of sense, until Story gets hurt, and our 3 best 2Bmen (Campbell, DHam and Grissom) might all such at SS D, or we end up with Rafaela back at SS, again. What would rafaela bring back in trade? We would also have a full LHB OF by trading him. This is all enough to make one's head spin, but with so many options we can put on the table, it's hard to imagine we can't find one GM taker, since most teams don't have the trading chips we do- both in value, variety and in quantity. Go to work BREZ! Get it done!

You make some great points, as you usually do. I fully realize the SEA pitcher stats are inflated by their home field "advantage" (for pitchers,) and that is one reason I look at stats like ERA-. As much as most fans take into account batters fro Colorado, I think most realize SEA is the pitcher dream park. (Team ERA in 2024: 2.84 Home and 4.23 Away.) This was one thing I looked at when I mentioned Woo might be the better target: AWAY ERA: 3.00 Woo 3.82 Gilbert 4.03 Kirby, 4.25 Castillo and 4.44 Miller For contrast, some Sox AWAY ERAs: 3.08 Houck 4.06 Craiswell, 4.19 Bello, 4.32 Crawford, 4.42 Pivetta Note: the Away ERA numbers do not factor in park dimensions of away games, strength of offenses face and more. For instance, the Sox faced a their own division in more away games- a division that boasts have the #1 offense by runs scored (NYY) and the #2 (BAL) in the AL. (TOR #9 and TBR #14.) SEA faced #6 HOU, #10 TEX, #12 OAK and #13 LAA. One can argue many of their away games were played in "pitcher parks" than the Sox, too. One could look at these away comps and wonder why we'd want to pay bigtime to let Pivetta walk and trade for Miller. That being said, the SEA pitchers are young, except Castillo, and have many years of team control (3 for Gilbert, 4 for Kirby and 5 for Miller and Woo,) and I think all can get better. This does make me wonder if Crochet, Skubal or someone else might be a better target, especially if we are talking a package with Anthony at the top.

Priester pitched for Woo, today. Their season ends, tomorrow. 5IP, 3H, 2ER, 1BB, 7 K (4.38 ERA) Anthony continues to raise his AAA OPS (now 1.000) after going 2-3 w 2B and BB. He had an .856 OPS at AA. The guy gets better as he moves up! Teel went 2-4 to raise his OPS in AAA to .714.

Maybe if he played just one position, all year, he'd have a better chance, but he has had a really outstanding year on defense, while proving he is a legit MLB hitter. Kudos to Duran for an very nice season. I'm not sure how much room there is to get any better, but if he does, WOW! I'll take the same for the remainder of his time, here. He is the Sox MVP, this year. (I'd put Houck 2nd and Devers 3rd.)

And to see No. Illinois lose to Buffalo, the wonderment increases even more. No big upsets, today but #18 Michigan beat #11 USC and #12 Utah beat #14 OKL St. (ND might pass one or both and get to 16th or 15th. Next week, we play #19 Louisville, who may also move up after beating GA Tech 31-19. A win, next week, could put the domers near #12.

The Devers contract would exclude 15-20 teams from even thinking about a trade. Trading Casas and moving Devers to 1B makes sense, especially if we think one of these guys can play 3B: Story, Mayer or Campbell. Grissom & DHam can't. Meidroth could, but I'm not pencilling him into a starting position, right now. If we traded Casas and Abreu for pitching, we'd still have this 13 man everyday player roster: C: Wong + _____ (Teel soon) 1B: Devers (Wong/ Romy/ Meidroth?)) 2B: Mayer (DHam/Grissom/Meidroth/Rafaela) SS: Story (Mayer/Meidroth/Romy/Rafaela) 3B: Campbell (Mayer/Romy/Meidroth) LF: Duran, Refsnyder CF: Rafaela (Duran/Anthony/Campbell) RF: Anthony (Campbell/Refsnyder) DH: Yoshida (Refsnyder-E Valdez) This is good enough for me, and knowing we adding a very nice piece to the pitching staff to reduce depth, I think the defense improves and we get younger and more exciting. We'd still need to add more pitching, but filling one big slot via trade would take the heat off the FA signings a bit.

Unless we move Devers to 1B or DH (or both,) Meidroth would just ride the bench. He can play SS and 2B, so he could be used more, but we already have pretty good back ups for SS and 2B. If he can play 1B, I see Romy falling so far down on every positional depth chart list, that he could be replaced by Meidroth, but if we are also adding Campbell and maybe even Mayer, then we are too bottlenecked to have a slot for Meidroth, unless we trade DHam and or Grissom. There are basically 4 slots 2B, SS and back-up middle infielders (with one being able to play 3B.) Wong can back up 1B, so it comes down to this list for 4 ML roster players. If anyone of Campbell, Mayer or Meidroth is not one of the 4, they will hold off adding them to the 40, until they are needed/wanted in the bigs: 1. Story (SS or 2B) 2. Campbell (2B, maybe 3B, OF and SS in a pinch) 3. Mayer (SS, 2B? 3B? if healthy and if we want to add Campbell and him for the bigs.) 4 & 5. Grissom and DHam seem tied to me. 6. Meidroth 7. Romy (2B, SS he is better than DHam and Grissom, and 1B, where DHam and others cannot play.) 6-7 players for 4 slots. I just don't see Campbell and Mayer being both added for the opening day roster. I'm leaning towards the starting SS being Story and 2Bman being Campbell. DHam and Grissom are the ML back-ups. Mayer, Romy & Mediroth start in AAA. (Mayer and Meidroth are not on the 40, until it's time for their MLB debut.) To me, Anthony is the 100% lock on an opening day roster slot, or at least worthy of it, but with 5 OF'ers, we may try to get an extra year of control by holding him back a few weeks.

On 2, I do too. I see Woo with the same years of control and some better numbers than Miller, but maybe Miller does profile better for Fenway. I'd be happy with any one of SEA's 5 SP'ers.

Agreed. As I said, it falls "way short" of being as bad. Like not even worth mentioning.

Maybe we have a better chance at winning one game in a doubleheader than over 2 days.

I think we had the same record as last year, when we finished 2-6. Yes, I hope we can do better than that, but that doesn't mean the fat lady isn't singing as loudly as last year, at this time.

I really like Bryce Miller, a lot, but why are Kirby, Gilbert and Woo not close to Miller? I do think Kirby and Gilbert would be way more expensive, but only because they are more sure bet pitchers than Miller. The years of control difference is reason enough, IMO, but here is a breakdown of the non Castillo SP'er in SEA's rotation> Gilbert (3 arbs) 4.1 fWAR '24 in 197 IP (3rd in MLB)/ 7.1 fWAR '23-'24 (388 IP) Kirby (4 arbs) 4.0 fWAR '24 in 185 IP (7th in MLB)/8.3 fWAR '23-'24 (376 IP) Miller (pre-arb) 2.6 fWAR '24 in 173 IP (The same as Houck)/ 4.5 '23-'24 (305 IP) Woo (Pre-arb) 0.6 fWAR '24 in 110 IP/2.8 '23-24 (198 IP) ERA- 2023-2024: 88 Woo, 89 Kirby, 89 Gilbert, 92 Miller (Castillo 89) xFIP: 3.45 Gilbert, 3.61 Kirby, 3.82 Castillo, 4.02 Woo, 4,03 Miller (for refernece: xFIP: 3.49 Pivetta, 3.74 Houck, 3.95 Bello, 4.05 Wink, 4.35 Crawford ERA- 79 Wink, 89 Houck, 94 Crawford, 95 Pivetta, 99 Bello. I'll take any of the 5. I think the return for Castillo would be way less, due to his age and contract, but that is what makes him as interesting a get as any of the others. Some of the numbers show Woo might be the best get.

Going up $28M from '21 to '22 may not of been keeping pace, but JH added a lot to the budget. It's been 2 years in a row, he did not keep pace. Calling that a trend that is sure to continue to 2025 is pure opinion. Again, I do not disagree, but I am far from sure about anything JH does. If I had to guess, I'd say he does not increase the budget, but it's pretty close to 50-50. Going back to 2021 to 2022, while the CB Tax number went up $28M, Steve the Ump had the actual salry going up only $15M, which was about a 9% increase. Here is what some other teams did, and I know this matters more to you than the Sox numbers: 2021>2022 Teams that passed us Mets: +$96M PHI: +$46M SD: +$37M (To me, I think is not fair to expect JH to match these three, so going from #3 to #6 was reasonable.) JH would have had to spend $14M more to not let SD pass us ($15M to $29M and over the tax line.) The teams that passed us after 2022 were on JH more than they going nutty with spending. My point is a two year stretch is not something that makes it a sure bet JH goes 3 years in a row like that.

To me, if Mayer is healthy, he's as ready and Meidroth, if not more so. Anthony is "ready now." Campbell's only near issue is what position to play and maybe not having enough experience at that spot, but the kid is athletic enough not to embarass himself, IMO, on D. I like Mediroth, too, and he might be fine at 2B, and passable at SS. If he could play 1B, he'd certainly pass Romy, in my book. (Wong can play 1B, so maybe Romy is out, anyway.) DHam and Grissom are the big blocks ahead of or equal to Meidroth. If we assume these starters: 1B Casas, 2B Campbell, SS Story and 3B Devers, we would not want Mayer on the bench, so to me it's between Campbell and Mayer to even be on the 40 and the 26. Since Meidroth does not need to be on the 40 either, i think they choose to keep him off the 40 to start the season, but for him, it's nto so much about gaining a year of control. It would be about keeping as many viable options on the 40 for as long as possible. Since we only need two back-up infielders on the 26, I think DHam and Grissom win those jobs, and someone like Romy or Sogard might be chosen over Meidroth, as well- just for roster construction and depth purposes, and not because they offer more promise. If Meidroth is raking in ST'ing, maybe that dynamic changes, but I still doubt he passes DHam and Grissom, unless tehre is an infield injury. I'm not sold on Penrod, yet. Fitts and Guerrero seem like they have slots on the 26, unless they do something to unearn their places.

We need to go 8-0 or 7-1 and hope all 3 teams ahead of us to go sub .500. If we go 7-1 or 6-2, we need other teams to go 2-6 or 1-7. The fat lady is singing. I know you can hear her.

Well, we do know who we had in place were not showing any signs of doing what was need to improve our pitching acquisition and development system. Change for change sake is not a sound strategy, either, but in this case, we have to try. I hope the people we chose to add to this area of our system work out well. They may be more important to our long term success than any one signing we make. It may take years to see if it works. To me, we've already seen an attempt to add quality or better pitchers to our system under Brez, in less than a year being here. I applaud the attempt. We haven't seen additions like this since the Nate trade in the summer of 2018. That was 6.5 years ago. (The Sale and Nate extensions were just attempts at keeping the status quo.) When you look at all the pitchers we have lost since 2018, the decline is startling. Under Brez we have seen a serious effort to acquire more promising pitchers than we saw under Bloom and the last 1.3 years of DD. Draft by bonus money spent: $5M OF Montgomery $2M P Tolle $1.3 P Cason $700K P Neely $500K OF Ehrhard $400K P Clarke $300K P Aita $300K P Tygart $250K P Futrell $250K OF Turner $200K P Brooks (3 of the 6 players with $150-$185K bonuses were pitchers.) 8 of our top 10 bonuses given out were to pitchers. I'm not sure when that happened last for the Sox. I realize none of these guys might ever make an impact, but we made an effort. IFA: Dalvinson Reyes looks very promising, but Brez did not really sign more IFA pitchers than Bloom. Brez has also trade for these pitchers, of which several look mediocre, but most look better or have more promise than the bottom 2-3 pitchers on the current 26 man or 40 man rosters. Slaten Fitts Priester Criswell (4 arbs left) Sandlin Weissert I Campbell Judice (2025: Gio, Hendriks, Fulmer)The effort shows. The results are pending, although Slaten has already shown he's one of our top returning pitchers. Fitts is off to a good start.

I agree, but I would put the odds at the CB tax budget declining from 2024 to 2025 at very close to 49-51 or just slightly below that. I don't think it looks like the slam dunk Randy seems to imply it is.

To me, there are two major factors in what we can do about improving the roster for 2025 (and hopefully beyond.) 1. The winter and long term spending budget handed to Brez is crucial. If the budget is slashed from 2024's, then nothing short of 1-2 major trades can possibly help us vastly improve. If the budget is set near 2014's, that would give Brez $35-45M to spend on pitching. That might be enough, if he does not swing and miss like he did with Gio and the Sale trade. If Brez is allowed to spend to just below the tax line, it might be $55-65M, which, IMO, is enough to make us serious contenders- again if he spends wisely. 2. JH's willingness to allow Brez to trade low cost players and or prospects for a pitcher or two that will instantly improve the staff. I'm also assuming Brez wants to do that and won't try to talk upper management out of the idea. It seems obvious to me that we have a very strong everyday player roster, plus several ML ready prospects not on the roster or even needing Rule 5 protection, this winter. We need to trade from strength, hope we pick the right guys to part with and most importantly pick the player(s) we get very wisely. I realize there are 2 things we can get wrong in a trade. The Sale trade emphasizes just how badly it can go, when both parts come up way short, but we can't be afraid to trade quality players for pitching. We are all set at catcher for years, assuming Teel works out. We will not be adding a top catcher, this winter, but we might try a 1 year bridge signing to Teel. 1B is all set, but has very little depth, unless you count Devers as a possible 1Bman. 2B has been a sore spot for 5 years, and SS for 2 years but I think we are more than all set at middle infield with Story and Mayer at SS, and Campbell pllus Story or Mayer at 2B. Our depth looks much better, now, with DHam, Romy and Meidroth. 3B is Devers foreevers (see move to 1B. ) Meidroth looks like good depth. Can Mayer play 3B? Story? Campbell? The OF is overloaded with the addition of Anthony and the return to CF by Rafaela. We lose O'Neill and maybe Ref, but RHB Campbell can play OF, too. I think we can and should trade a LHB OF'er, this winter. DH looks like Yoshida for 3 more years. We have Abreu-Ref and EValdez as DH depth. To me, our pitching staff has 3-4 holes to fill- all with high quality pitchers- not slight improvements over pitchers like Pivetta, Weissert, Bernardino and Kelly. I'm sure Sox management sees it more like 2-3 holes, but if we add only 2, they better be a top SP'ers and very good closer. If it's 3, it better be a solid #2 type SP'er, a good closer and set-up man. I don't think these asks are radical. It should be very possible to make happen, even without massive spending.

True, but your word "several" goes back just 2 years. JH increased spending by $28.5M from 2021 (a playoff season) to 2022. That was the 3rd biggest jump in spending under JH. $47M jump from '17>'18 $30M jump from '09>'10 What killed us is the fact that we saw a $60M slash from '19>'20, and those effects have lingered for 4 years.

I'm not going to disagree, but none of us have any idea how much of a winter spending budget Brez will be handed, and perhaps more importantly, how much will he be allowed to give in longer term deals. I do not believe Sox Nation is content with .500. Many may have bought the "sham" for a year or two, and 2021 really helped JH & Co. continue the deception, but I do not think they actually believe they can continue this for much longer. Again, I'm not predicting or expecting even an uptick in spending, let alone a sizable one, but we just don't know. You can look at the last 2-3 year, 3-5 years and call that the definitive trend that is surely going to continue. I'm saying we don't know. You can look at JH's whole era and see so many ups and downs, with several 2 year below the tax line seasons in a row, long ago, but nothing that really compares to the post 2018 timeframe. A 6 year sample size is large, but despite the refusal to bring back Kimbrell & Kelly or replace them, in kind, we still led the league in spending in 2019, so the sample size really is 5 years long, perhaps beginning with the Betts & Price trade and not replacing the money spent on Porcello and later, other players.. Now, if you want to use the larger sample size of 5 years, then you cannot ignore the fact that there is not 5 year trend of cutting salary. The real trend is other teams have started to spend more than we did- some much more. CB Tax line: $185M in 2020 $208M in 2021 236M in 2022 226M in 2023 223M in 2024 I'm not seeing a sure bet trend of budget cutting, here. If you start from 2022, yes, we have cut 2 years in a row, but looking back at JH's budgets, you can find several times with 2 year budget cutting. These two were $10M and then $3M. In the past, we saw a $14M cut in just one year (2004 to 2005.) That was a bigger cut than these last 2 years combined. Fans complained then, too. We saw a 2 year cut from 2007 to 2009 ($155>147>140.) That two year decline was $15M, again, more than these last 2 years, combined. We also saw a $13M decline from 2016 to 2017. Another one year decline equal to this recent 2 year decline. All I'm saying is that there is evidence that JH is an up and down spender, and that this could just be "another" down stretch of 2 years. The bad part about this one is that it has not been too far removed from the one massive cut from 2019 to 2020. The one that set us back light years. That cut was nearly $60M and cannot be ignored or including in the context of this recent 2 year decline. Compound all this with the fact that 3-4 teams have increased spending exponentially and another 4-5 have significantly increased spending, and the effect is staggering. (It looks like 3 straight years of 78-84 is possible.) I'm not counting on even equal spending from 2024. I'm not counting on slightly more spending, although I do think we might spend up to the tax line- maybe a $15-17M increase from 2024. I''m far from expecting us to go over the tax line in 2025, but I do think it is possible we do, at some point after 2025. To me, with all the salary coming off the books, this winter, it would be easy for JH to cut or keep the budget the same. I hope he doesn't. I think even keeping the budget the same would give Brez a sizable winter budget, if coupled with a big trade might be enough to get us to the next level, but IMO, we need to spend up to the line to have a shot at being serious 2025 contenders. And, this would likely need a big trade or two, along with an increased budget. I don't think that is likely.

Sadly, this is a fitting way to end the season.

The fat lady is singing, loudly.

He was a very good hitter, but to me, trading Burleson was unforgivable. That wasn't Lansford's fault, but the trade poisoned the whole team vibe, to me.