moonslav59

Saying what? Yorke was likely never going to even get a look with BOS. He had 4-5 guys ahead of him and was Rule 5 in December. I hope he does well with PIT, but I think we simply have to keep making deals like this, knowing some won't work out. It is one way to try and fix the unbalanced nature of our farm system between non pitchers and pitchers. This year, we drafted more pitchers and more of them highly. We added D Reyes through IFA. Last winter, Brez added Slaten, Fitts, Sandlin and Judice. (Weissert, I Campbell and a few others were not prospects, but have just a year or two in the bigs.) I'm applauding the effort, knowing full well, some of these deals will not work out.

I doubt SEA wants Yoshi, unless they can dump Garver and/or Haniger, and they still might want some cash for 2026 and 2027. We don't know how they value Castillo, but most people view his type of contract as front end for value and back end for sunken costs, so maybe they would be interested in some sort of deal involving Yoshi and Castillo plus Garver and/or Haniger. Of course, what else we add would be the clincher. Maybe they like Abreu taking Haniger's place, Yoshi taking Garver's place and some cash saving to pay for a pitcher.

Not at all. I've been saying most assume it was spent on Gio, or allowed us to afford him. That may be true, but we also cut $10M from the budget, so one could say it went all to JH & Co, or one could say it went to affording Henriks and O'Neill. The fact is, Brez had precious little to work with and blew all but the $6.8M paid to O'Neill and Criswell. JH & Co. take the most blame, but Brez is not blameless. The team is doing as expected, so to me, Cora gets little blame or credit.

I think we wait the 3-4 weeks needed to add another year of control. That would also give us time and space on the 40, since neither need to be added to the 40, until we want them on the 26. Remember, you can't have anyone on the 60 day IL, until after opening day, so you can't create slots on the 40, before opening day with them. My guess is maybe one is on the opening day, especially Anthony, if we trade Abreu. Campbell gets added once the extra year is earned. Maybe may be added over Campbell, if he's healthy and looks better in ST'ing. Meidroth will not be on the 40, until midseason, at the earliest, unless a corner IF'er gets hurt.

$21M+ for O'Neill is a "No Brainer," even if we move Yoshida? Certainly, there is room for thought on this. My guess is someone can sign O'Neill for $25-30M/2 or $39-42M/3. If we end up paying just $6M a year on Yoshida and O'Neill takes the QO, we'd be paying $28M for our DH, and for a guy who is hurt a lot. I'm thinking long and hard on offering O'Neill a $15M deal as a FA or a $25M/2 extension, right now.

Did I hear Hendriks just got a cortisone shot in his elbow?

2B has been near the bottom since 2018. Even then, we hastily signed Nunez in February and had to pick up Kinsler, mid summer just to not stink up the winning vibe. That being said, once we settled on DHam at 2B with Romy vs some LHPs, we had a guy with a plus WAR. I'm not saying I'm happy going into 2025 with a DHam- Romy/Grissom platoon at 2B, but I would feel better about that than what we've seen over 5 years, and I still think we see Campbell or Mayer by May. Most PAs at 2B since 2018 (OPS/DRS): 544 Arroyo .739/13 412 Holt .763/1 396 Story .737/6 375 Nunez .615/-15 341 Vadlez .656/-11 304 Kike .901/0 254 Chavis .711/2 141 Kinsler .598/0 131 Marco H .584/-1 123 DHam .556/8 119 Marwin .511/0 100 Reyes .627/-6 91 Arauz .468/ 89 Peraza .553/-3 88 Urias .743/-2 83 Grissom .398/1 55 Romy .694/-1 51 Iggy .914/0 44 Y Sanchez .322/0 40 Sogard .550/-1 39 Westbrook .434/0 36 Lin .294/0 29 Owings .322/0 26 Pedey .361/-1 24 Turner .708/0 23 Downs .581/-1 (17 Chang, 16 Lopez, 15 Phillips, 15 Rafaela, 12 Wong, 11 Gasper, 7 Motter, 7 Munoz, 6 Vaz, 3 Betts & Short, 2 Bobby Dee & 1 Swihart & Devers) 40 second basemen in 7 years! .667 Team OPS -11 DRS, -20 OAA and -0.4 UZR/150 Of course, we don't need stats to remind us how bad it has been. I do think we should be okay for 2025, as whoever does not play SS can win the 2ZB job or platoon: Mayer/Campbell/Meidroth DHam/Grissom/Romy Utility: DHam/Grissom/Meidroth/Romy/Sogard/ EValdez

The Sea Dogs season is over. Meidroth had a fitting walk off walk for Woo, yesterday.

That was my point, yes. They also did not have the idea that Bagwell could play 1B, not 3B, too. Derrrr....

Wrong on several levels.

I've suggested Mayer at 3B, several times... also, 2B. I think we delay the clock on a few of our prospects, and since none are Rule 5, we may wait a year on 1 or 2 of the big 4 plus Meidroth. To me, Anthony is ready. If the date is late April to get him another year, we may (should) wait until then. I think we should plan on one from Mayer or Campbell to be on the 26 (and 40) by May. If we don't, I'll understand why. I also doubt we trade any, but I think we should.

Raffy's biggest defensive challenge is throwing, not his glove work or quickness & range. I think he'd be an average defensive SS in a short time and plus, not long afterwards. Of course, that is just speculation. I just don't see him as being as bad as Casas. I'm not high on Bregman. He seems to have peaked in 2018-2019, and that seems like it's too long ago to expect a reversal. He's still very good, granted, but I think Casas is a better hitter. I like bringing a RHB into the line-up, so I'm not against the idea, but I do not want to spend such a big chunk of whatever our winter budget is on a non-pitcher. Also, I have faith in Campbell- the one RHB that can be added from the farm, unless you count Meidroth. (We might try Campbell or Story at 3B, if we can fill the SS and 2B jobs, well enough.

Yes, we all agree he has more value at 2B than SS. He may have some competition from these guys in 2025: Story or Mayer (whoever does not play SS) Campbell Grissom, Romy, Sogard, Meidroth I like DHam, and I love what his speed brings to the team. I'm not sure he wins anything more than a utility role, and with his limited fielding skills at SS, or anywhere else, he may not win the job. If Mayer and Story are healthy, we got those two plus Campbell as the top 3 contenders. Since Romy can play SS and 1B, maybe he wins the utility job. Meidroth might be a good choice, but he is not Rule 5, this winter, so he might not even be on the 40 for opening day. (We could add him, once the season starts and someone hits the 60 day IL.

Too funny!

Cora even tried excessively resting players all season long, last year, and that didn't work, either. Next year, I heard we were going to try not playing all our starters for the first 2 months, so they will be strong into September. (No green button.)

So true. MLB is almost like the NBA and NHL, now.

Some said we were contenders: I don't think anyone said we were for sure.

Yes, correct, but he does highlight a huge gap. He was nontendered and the Sox traded Renfroe for less than a QO return value.

Yes, he was very likely our best defensive 2Bman, this year, and light years better than EValdez, but he was a liability at SS, as have been nearly everyone used, when Story is hurt.

Despite losing Turner, Dugo and Duvall, and with some posters think our offense would not improve, it did, in these areas: 2023>2024: 11th in wRC (742 >780) 16th wRC+ (99> 106)

The QO is apparent;y $21.6M, this winter. What a steal Brez got for a $5.8M salary! I don't see it happening. I guess it is more likely than I think it is. Why didn't Renfroe get a QO? Ideally, we give him one and he turns it down, but I doubt he would.

Very true. We could do worse, next year w RISP. I'm not so sure the Fewway advantage on offense is a great as some might think it is. The Sox are ranked 3rd in AWAY OPS (.755) and 1oth in HOME OPS (.747.) The pitching shows the opposite. The xFIP is nearly identical (4.02 H and 4.00 H,) but ERA shows that Fenway matters: 4.30 ERA at HOME (23rd) and 3.96 AWAY (10th.) RUNS Allowed: 379 Home/ 327 Away RUNS Scored: 341 Home/ 355 Away Total: 720 Home/ 692 Away To me, it's not just the OPS numbers: it's how many good hitters we have, despite many having issues vs LHPs. The Yanks lead MLB in OPS by 8 points and are 3rd in runs scored. Looking at how unbalanced their line-up is, that surprises me more than how few runs we have scored with our OPS. The Yanks have 11 batters with 220+ PAs. Judge (1.147) and Soto (.981) carry the whole team, by themselves. Stanton (.770 in 423 PAs) and Wells (.760 in 374) are pretty good. The rest suck: I guess .697 by Torres is the new low-end "average hitter) .668 Cabrera .664 Volpe (3rd in PAs on Yanks) .657 Dugo (4th in PAs) .656 Trevino .617 Rizzo .527 LeMahieu Had we hit better with RISP, we'd have jumped a few teams in runs scored: 822 AZ 747 NYY 742 LAD 727 BAL 726 MIL 725 PHI 716 SDP 710 BOS (We are 17 runs scored away from 4th best. NYY are 22 runs away from 7th.)

That's over a third of the season. If we go 6-7, we end up 81-81. If we play .400 ball to end the season (5-8), we go 80-82. 78 wins is still in play, but I hope we can do better than 3-10, and not so we can say "we improved," but just to end the season felling better about this team and how we feel going forward.

He hasn't really had an extended time to find a groove, but I agree with your point. His D has been great, but for too short a time, and it messed up our plans at other positions by trying to cover SS without just going cheap. (BTW, we did try Sogard a tiny bit in '24 and Chang for 33 games in '23.) The year Story played the most, we still had Bogey, so Story played 2B. He's passed the time to earn his keep, but he can still earn his 2025 and 2026 salaries, and to me, that would greatly improve our team in many areas. RHB: check SS Defense: check Improved 2B Defense: check (no more DHam & Romy at SS but more at 2B over EValdez/Reyes.) Improved OF Defense: check (Rafaela in CF more often and Duran in LF more often.) A team should never have so much riding on one player, and a big part of why we have come up short, the last 3 years, is because of Story missing so much time, and hitting .650, when he does play.

I'm not sure how high a risk of giving up Yorke was. I guess they said the same about Bagwell. I just saw too many middle infielders ahead of Yorke.