moonslav59

I hope so, too, but not if we make little or no effort to significantly upgrade the pitching staff. I'd rather gain an extra year for at least one of them by holding them back a few weeks without a decent pitching staff. While making the playoffs is a worthy goal, and I'd love to see us make it, after 3 pretty bad years, if we will not be serious contenders, I'd rather add a year 5-6 years from now. These two could be beasts in 6 years. That being said, I'd be fine with both on the opening day roster- maybe even Mayer, too.

Anthony is feared. Tonight, he went 1-1 with a 2B and 4BBs! (HJis OPS is now .982.) Binelas went 3-5 w an HR (1.800 OPS in a tiny sample size.)

The thing is, we could sweep MIN and still see the "tragic number" go down to 4 or 5. Detroit is making a move.

I know a lot has been said about the benefits of finding a taker for Yoshida and a big chunk of his contract, or returning a big contract to offset the cost per team. To me, it would really set up our 26 man roster, very well. We could pencil in Anthony to RF and have an Abreu-Refsnyder platoon at DH, with them both also acting as reserve OF depth. (Duran is out: Ref or Abreu play LF. Rafaela is out: Anthony plays CF & Abreu RF or Duran plays CF and Abreu/Ref play LF. Anthony is out: Abreu plays RF) I'm not expecting anything special in return. It might be nice to get an over-priced pitcher, who still has some value (maybe a LH RP'er or 6th SP.) Maybe we just get a far away prospect to clear a space on the 40. I think this should be the first attempt. If no takers, or the return cash payments are too high, then the next likely trade candidate is Abreu. There has been some disagreement over his value and what return value we might be able to get for him, alone or in a package with someone like DHam or a lower value pitcher or prospect to sweeten the return. After Abreu, we start getting into some complicated territory, such as the idea to trade Casas, move Devers to 1B and have someone play 3B (Story, Mayer, Meidroth or sign someone.) Other ideas might be to trade a top 4 prospects, but we better pick the right one to trade, and get the right return. I'm not sure if JH & Co. are even considering this idea. We could also include a pitcher in any deal, as long as the pitcher get back is significantly better and has several years of control, as well- maybe Fitts, Priester, Dobbins, Crawford or Criswell as part of a bigger package. I realize these 2 and 3 for 1 deals are very hard to make in November, because teams are making difficult Rule 5 decisions and are squeezing the 40 man roster, as it is. For those teams, maybe we have to take back an unwanted player making too much money, just to get the team to accept. (Guys like Garver & Hanigan have been mentioned several times, recently, but other teams have the same types of players, they would not mind unloading. IMO, we should try to avoid trading a top 4 prospect, but I'm not dead set against the idea. We have to give to get, and if the "get" is good enough, then we may have to bite the bullet and just do it. I think we've beaten the SEA ideas to death, and deals for Crochet have been suggested, a lot, but what other pitchers might be out there?

Yes, they place a naked lady behind 3B for distraction purposes.

I'm looking at your SP'ers: 129 Woo 120 Miller 113 Gilbert (106 in '23) 101 Castillo (118 in '23) & Kirby (118 in '23) To replace Pivetta 99

Yes, that was why I separated those.

Best ERA- on Sox, so far this year... (14 pitchers with 40+ IP) ERA-: Slaten 71, Houck 75, Martin 78, Booser & Weissert 79, Jansen 80, Criswell 90 SIERA: Martin 2.35, Slaten 2.71, Pivetta 3.23, Jansen 3.44, Houck & Bernardino 3.69 xFIP-: Martin 61, Slaten 69, Pivetta 83, Houck 86, Bello 94 K%-BB%: Martin 28, Pivetta 24, Slaten 23, Jansen 19, Crawford 16 HR/9: Houck o.57, Slaten & Jansen 0.68, Criswell 0.92 Not much has been said about how the loss of Slaten really h8urt the team.

The 9:1 K:BB ratio is terrifying, but these numbers are not: Stats where more PAs help, Rafaela places: T4 HRs (w 15), 3rd RBI (w 70), 4th Runs (68), 3rd SBs (19) Stats not based on more PAs (14 players 1ith 150+ PAs): 9th in BA (.245), 11th SLG (.394), 12th OPS (.669), 14th OBP (.275), 11th ISO at .147 I would say, despite the K:BB rate, his first full year was pretty good, and certainly not bad. His defense is tremendous, and although he was not great at SS, he was better than DHam, there.

Yes! I'd gladly include a 4/5/6 type pitchers with 4+ years of control (like Fitts, priester, Dobbins or even Crawford) in a package for a 1/2 type pitcher with 3+ years of control. I'm not sure what a package of Abreu, Crawford and Priester gets us- probably not a # 1 or #2, but maybe a really good #3. (Someone much better than Crawford.)

Trades for good young pitchers with promise are made, every year. Yes, they are costly, but they do happen. Here is one: BA leader Luis Arraez for Pablo Lopez and 2 minor leaguers. Shortly afterwards, he signed a 4 year extension for $73.5M for an AAV of $18.4M. (The contract took the place of 1 arb year remaining.) At the 2022 deadline, SEA traded Edwin Arroyo, Andrew Moore, Noelvi Martre and Levi Stoudt for Luis Castillo. They extended him at $108M/5 ($21.6 AAV) plus a vesting option. Both signed reasonable extensions. The cost was high for both, but we have that value to trade.

Not surprising.

Chris martin is talking about retiring after 2025. Should we offer him $5-7M/1?

Detroit seems to want it.

I looked at all players from 1975-2024 with 3,000+ PAs and their K% vs BB%, here is what I found: The answer is no. Almost 7:1: Miguel Olivo 6:1 Javier Baez, T Anderson 5:1 Zunino, S Dunston 4:1 Story, Adam Duvall, Teoscar, D Espinoza, J McCann, Corey Snyder, Grichuk, R Odor, Y Gomes, N Castellenos, C Patterson, Sa Perez, D Young, Hillenbrand plus others Rafaela is 27.3% to 3.0% (9:1)

Nothing is even close to as bad. Even the Renfroe for JBJ, DHam & Binelas is looking slightly better, now, and falls way short of beig as bad as this one.

The thread that will never die. (Nor should it.)

AUG & SEP 21-25 MIN (RS 198- RA 205) 19-26 BOS (RS 192- RA 217) JULY>SEP 33-35 MIN (RS 309- RA 317) 32-37 BOS (RS 333- RA 362) I find it hard to say MIN is worse than us, right now.

Some Woo Numbers: .952 Anthony (.856 POR) .897 Campbell (1.045 POR & .976 GRE)) .835 Sogard .834 Meidroth .776 E Valdez .758 Grissom .736 Hickey (.716 POR) .716 Teel (.852 POR) POR .850 Mayer (0 PA at AAA) .800 Romero (.817 GRE) .706 Jh Garcia (.998 GRE & .882 SAL) GRE .894 B Gonzalez .812 Castro SAL 1.063 Jo Garcia .746 Bleis .710 Arias (1.055 FCL)

Maybe adding the Abreu to TEX and Josh Smith to SEA might get it closer. A lot depends on how much SEA values losing Castillo's salary vs taking on the lower Yoshi deal. They could "spend the saving" and add another piece that might tilt the balance to a "Yes."

Some have potential for growth, but except for Slaten, I agree that they all look mediocre, right now. Slaten Criswell Weissert & I Campbell Fitts & Priester Sandlin & Judice Gio, Hendriks & Fulmer

I hope just count them as depth, not as our #5.

Super hard. I get it, but we have seen some traded in the past few years. Plus, what other teams have better everyday players to package up to land one?

I'm not sure he can "make it" with an OPS below .650, but I'm not sure he will be there, more often that not. .586 for 1st 203 PAs (2024) .787 next 273 PAs .441 in last 68 PAs The two really bad sample sizes, combined is about equal to his nice one, so it begs the question, which one is the "real" one? Maybe he will always be up and down and end up between .650 and .700: maybe not. I think .650 is about the cut off, these days, and the norm seems to be around .680-.690. With Anthony banging on the door, and Rafaela being the only RHB in the OF, I'm thinking Abreu might be the odd man out, as in being traded, this winter.

Maybe unnoticed through all this: Since Aug 27, the Sox are... 4th in SP ERA 2.74 (4th in ERA- at 64) T 10th in SP FWAR 2.0 Wasted good starts in too many games.