moonslav59

Outstanding post, Max. 100% spot on. Certainly, paying so much of our spending budget on players not giving us much value, if anything is a major reason for our lack of success. That is on the GM/CBO's. Not spending enough is the other major reason and that is on JH & Co. It has really been a tag team event since and including DD's final year with the Sox. Here is a look at some of the failed big contracts by year, starting with 2019 (in $millions): 31 Price began his steep decline, 21 Porcello had a god-awful season, 17 Nate (5.99 ERA in just 12 GS), 15 Pedey (nada) and 15 Sale (4.40 in 25 GS) In some ways, the 2019 saw the biggest waste of big money contracts over a long period of time... more than any year of Bloom, Brez and maybe even Ben & Theo. 2020 was a total disaster and was Sale's first extension year (25.6M and 0 GS). Even JD 22M hit .680. 17 Nate did okay but missed 25% of his starts. 14 Pedey gave nada, 8 ERod sat out the year. The 6.5 spent on Martin Perez pales when compared to those listed ahead of him, but was still a bad choice by Bloom. 2021 was the feather in Bloom's cap, but in reality, we still saw a lot of wasted salary, including the $10M Bloom paid Richards and 5.5 on Perez. We also saw... 25.6 on 9 starts by Sale and 8.3 on ERod's 4.74 ERA. The others pulled their weight, so this was one of the better years for least amount of sunken cost, and it's no fluke, we did well. 2022 saw another 25.6 wasted on Sale's 2 GS. 17 Nate did okay but missed 12 GS, 23.3 on Story missed, badly (Bloom,) 22 JD was down at .790. The $12M spent on JBJ and 7 on Kike hurt, as well. The 9 Barnes extension fell apart mid season. (Bloom did okay with the Wacha, Hill, Strahm and Renfroe deals) 2023 saw yet another letdown by 25.6 Sale w only 20 GS and a not-so-great 4.30 ERA. 23.3 on Story was another year missed. Bloom's 18 on Yoshida, 10 on Kluber and 10 on Kike were near or total busts. (Bloom did okay with themis to lower deals like 16 Jansen, 11 Turner, 7.5 Martin & 7 Duvall. 2024 saw a frighteningly low amount of additions, especially large ones. Brez's 19.5 on Gio was a complete wiff. Paying 17 for Sale to win the Cy Young w ATL was worse than a total bust. 23.3 on Story (Bloom) was yet another wasted year. 18 on Yoshi looked a little better, but he missed time and still has not earned his contract for 2024, alone. 16 on Jansen was okay, 7.5 on Martin was not. (Only the 6 paid for O'Neill and 1 for Criswell worked out well.) 5 Hendriks gave us zero for 2024. I'm not going to total all this up, but it has been a huge percentage of our budget.

It really has been a big kick in the gut of Sox Nation. When you look at as a one-two gut punch with the Betts trade, it sickens me. We'd be 2-3 games up in the WC race and breathing down BAL's neck for 2nd in the division. Visiting this thread should have a health warning attached to it.

#1 Georgia just barely beat Kentucky 13-12!

He did not help, but this all started when we let Kimbrel & Kelly go with no replacements, and the budget, especially on big ticket pitchers was slashed and slashed. IMO, there is no doubt JH caused the pitching issues we face now. Also, here are some interesting numbers that cast doubt on the claims that are pitching is getting worse: Team fWAR Pitching by year: since 2017: 23.2 '17 18.5 '18 16.5 '19 (a massive 3 yr decline of 6.7) 20.4 '21 (under Bloom was better than '18 & '19) 10.1 '22 (an unforgivable and horrible cliff dive by JH & BLOOM) 13.7 '23 13.9 '24 (projected) So, a 6.7 decline in DD's last 3 yrs and a 2.8 decline in Bloom's 4 yrs (16.5 to 13.7 in 2023.) Now, we got so horrible in 2020 (0.1) and then very good in 2021, that the drop from 2021 to 2024 is almost as bad as DD's 3 year drop. (20.4 to 13.9 under Brez, or a 6.5 drop.) One can see it as cherry-picking to point out our improvement since the terrible 2022 season (10.1 to 13.9 and a 3.8 fWAR gain.) I also want to point to defense NOT pitching. SIERA is a metric used to like FIP, or in other words, taking the defense out of the ERA. 3.77 2017 3.72 2018 (Best in 10 yrs) 4.24 2019 (Restgate & no K & K) 4.58 Covid year (Year 1 under Bloom: No Sale or ERod) Now watch... 4.00 '21 (Bloom's second year and better than 2019- Bloom.) 3.98 '22 (So, maybe not so bad pitching, afterall- Bloom.) 4.10 '23 (got worse, but still better than '19-Bloom) 3.94 '24 (best year since 2018- BREZ) I gotta think the 3.94 shows improvement, but when you see the drop off over the last 4 months, that becomes questionable. 2024's ERA- of 96 is the best since 2018. (2019 was 97 and 2023 was 100.) Another stat that shows improvement, Please don't take this to mean I am content with our pitching "improvement." I'm not at all. I'm only highlighting how the defense is a major cause of our decline in run prevention, while our pitching needed to be improved by way more than it was. I'm hopeful that a healthy Story can make a big improvement in 2025, as he would also push Rafaela to more playing time in CF (or even 2B.) I think our 2B defense will improve with Campbell and DHam taking over the most innings on D from E Valdez- one of the worst defensive 2Bman I have ever seen. C, 3B and 1B need improvement, bigtime, but I doubt we add anyone or shift these guys around to new positions in 2025. 1

It's hard to know, if the SEA GM covets any of our bats we can afford to part with. If they insist on Anthony or Campbell, we may have to cave in. They may not even like Casas or Abreu. They may not want Yoshi at $3M a year. It's just hard to know. If JH wasn't such a miser, we could take on salary dumps like Haniger and or Garver, not because we want or need them, but just to lessen the return value demanded by SEA. Both are also RHBs and offer some hope of a bounce back season in '25. (Garver could serves as a 3rd string catcher, too.) Who knows, maybe they really want someone like DHam or Rafaela, but I doubt it. We have a lot to offer, and they have 5 really good SP'ers. Seems like a fit, to me.

Hard to disagree. I will say this... Signing Story and letting Bogey walk was an effort to improve the defense. Signing Jansen and Martin was a good strategy, 2 years back. Signing Gio was the largest contract given to a SP'er since the Sale & Nate contracts prior to 2019. (That's not saying much, but it was a better attempt than the $5-10M/1 deals offered to new blood pitchers every winter since 2017. I'm in no way defending JH & Co. Gio was way too little, especially in light of trading away Sale and the loss of 19 starts Paxton had in 2023. We added Slaten, Weissert and I Campbell along with Criswell, and thought that was enough. The absurdity is overwhelming.

Boy, MIN is playing like crap. They sure gave other teams a shot at the dance. Too bad, we dropped the ball, and two teams are now between us and MIN. Still, a sliver of hope... 78-70 MIN 76-73 DET -2.5 75-73 SEA (Tied in the 8th) -3.0 pending game 75-74 BOS -3.5

We all agree on this- a rarity on this site.

Indeed. If we find out SEA has no interest in Yoshi, even with cash, then work on something else to pry a pitcher from them. Abreu and Grissom/DHam will not be nearly enough. It would likely take Casas or a top 4 prospect as the centerpiece. I'm willing to do that, if need be. I'm thinking Yoshi is not desired, even at a low cost, so Casas might be our best option. harmony does not think they'd want Mayer, and Anthony or Campbell fill needs we have. SEA has a great catcher, so I doubt Teel is a big want. Casas and Abreu for Miller might work. Casas, Abreu and Yoshi for Miller, Haniger and Garver might work.

Think of it this way, would you be happy, if the Sox signed a FA Castillo for $21.6M x 3 years? I know I would be. He does turn 32 and may have been showing signs of decline, but he still worth it, IMO. If I were the GM of SEA and had to trade a pitcher to improve the offense, I'd keep the other 4 and trade Castillo for offense. Then, take the money saved to add another bat via free agency. Taking back salary kind of defeats that aspect of the idea, but if you can get two bats for him, then it may be worth it.

ND won 66-7 over Purdue, who is not a good team. Steve Angeli went 6 for 9 for 100 yrds and 2 TDs. We had two 100 yards runners: Love & leonard. Price ran for 86 yards on 8 carries. The ground game was a mega mismatch: 362 yards to 38 for Purdue. LSU barely beat South Carolina and Missouri sneaked by 24th ranked BC. It doesn't look like any major shake-ups, this week. It kinda sucks in college football, when your team has an early season loss, especially to a bad team.

I'm loving it. The articles are great. It seems like they fuel more discussion and seem unbiased and factual. The only thing I dislike, and it's no big deal, is it seems harder to find the most recent posts than the last format, especially when the game thread is in full use. I have to find the game thread category, click on it, then click on the game, then the latest post. I'm not sure this is something that needs to be fixed. It's a minor inconvenience for me. I'd like to say, kudos to you and your writers for taking this on. Great job!

I conceded the improvement might just be "incremental" and that better than crap cans still be crappy, but how quickly can a new management team turn around a whole system? My point was that the farm additions of Houck, Whitlock, Crawford, Slaten and Wink were better than the previous 5 or more years. The incoming farm infusion for the end of 2024 and into the start of 2026, looks better than it has looked in many years (Fitts, Priester, Dobbins, Sandlin, Guerrero and maybe a couple others.) The longer range pitchers are almost total speculation, but we have more promising pitchers than we have in this group for maybe 10 years. I'm fine with calling it incremental. I'm first in line to say we need vast improvement. I am encouraged by drafting more pitchers and drafting them higher than past years as a sign we are trying, anyway. After drafting Montgomery, who almost everyone thinks was a lock-solid pick, we spent our bonus money as such: $2.0M Tolle (2nd pick) $1.25M Cason (8th pick) $700K Neely (3rd) $400K Clarke (5th) $300K Aita (6th) That's ober $4.6M on pitchers 2 through 8 picks and just $750K on non pitchers (Ehrhard 4th and Turner 7th) That looks like s hift, to me. It may not work, but the effort looks pretty clear, to me. (Now, if Cason turns out to not be a pitcher, the numbers shift to $2M for batters and $2.4 for pitchers.)

I love this article, and I'm a fan or Rafaela, who still liked the extension we gave him. While I do agree than an OF of Duran-Anthony and Abreu looks better, on paper, I'd modify it to put Rafaela in CF and Anthony in RF vs LHPs. To piggyback on the point about the short-coming of Yoshida at DH, I'd much prefer to see this alignment: LF: Duran (Ref/Abreu) CF: Rafaela (Duran/Anthony) RF: Anthony (Abreu/Ref in short RF parks, only) DH: Abreu-Ref platoon. Sit Rafaela vs some or many tough RHPs and maybe DH E Valdez, if he's on the 26 and go with the OF suggested in many games with RH'd SP'ers. Vs LHPs, Rafaela is playing over Abreu in 100% of the games.

Pointing out that our offense is doing very well is not misleading, though. We all know there is more to winning than good hitting. Perhaps, Sox fans know this more than any other city's fanbase. Our offense has also done poorly in situations like with RISP and with Men on Base and high leverage situations, but we both agree those types of stats are not a sustainable thing or a skillset. It's not misleading to point out really bad defense and a pitching staff in steep decline from the first few weeks of 2024 is the main reason we are only at .500, either. Good hitting, average pitching and horrible D puts us at about .500. It is what it is.

It's not a strategy. I am recommending we add 3-4 solid pitchers to our staff- maybe even 5, which is more than many suggest. I have always advocated quality over quantity as a "strategy," so this is not my chosen method. I am just pointing out that the quantity of pitching prospects showing some "hope" is high that I think it's been in a very long time, and that this is not a bad thing. I am also aware that guys like Houck and Crawford were once considered "hopes" more than sure bet quality pitching prospects. Back then, we have very little quality and quantity, and I am seeing improvement, even if just incremental. Soxprospects.com top ranked pitchers: NOV '22: 6 Mata, 8 Walter, 10 Perales, 12 Wikelman, 13 Murphy, 19 E R-C, 22 Seabold, 23 Ward, 25 German, 26 Drohan, 27 Kelly NOV '20: 3 Mata, 7 Houck, 8 Ward, 9 Seabold, 10 Aldo Ramirez, 11 Song, 12 Groome, 18 Murphy NOV '18: 3 Groome, 5 DHern, 7 Mata, 10 Feltman, 12 Shawaryn, 16 Lakins NOV '16: 4 Groome, 5 Kopech, 8 Johnson, 16 Raudea, 17 TBall, 19 Shawaryn NOV '14: 2 Owens, 5 ERod, 6 Johnson, 7 Barnes, 9 Ranaudo, 11 TBall, 14 Kopech, 19 Stanki NOV '12: 2 Barnes, 4 Webster,, 8 Owens, 10 D Britton, 11 Workman, 13 Johnson, 14 A Wilson, 15 Ranaudo, 19 Pimental, 20 P Light Granted, better than crap can still be crap or pretty crappy, but how quickly do you think a farm pitching staff can be significantly improved? I think the in-home pitchers we have added over the last 5 years are better than the previous 5+ yrs: Houck, Whitlock, Crawford, Bello, Wink, Salten and others. I think the ML ready or near ML ready pitching prospects are better now than in the last 10+ years: Priester, Fitts, Dobbins, Guerrero, Penrod, Sandlin and others like Wikelman/Gambrell/Rogers/Mata/Murphy/Hoppe/I Coffey. I think the pitching pipeline that is more than 1.5 years away is also better or more promising than it has been in over 10 years: Perales, Monegro, Tolle, E R-C, Valera, Cason, Early, Mullins, Paez, D Reyes, Neely, Wehunt, Bastardo, Clarke, Tygart, Dean, Carlson, I, too, wish we had a better pitching pipeline but it is better or improving in all 3 areas I broke down, and I think Brez and Bailey are rightly focusing on it. In less than a year, they added Fitts, Priester, Slaten, Sandlin, Judice and way more pitchers drafted than years beforehand. Draft slots on pitchers: 2024: 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 (paid 3rd biggest bonus) 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 & 20 (6 in top 10 and 11 in top 16) 2023: 4, 5 (after 2 comp picks in 4th) 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 16, 1, 20 (4 in top 10 and 7 in top 16) 2022: 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20 (6 in top 10 and 10 in 16) 2021: 4 in top 10 and 6 in 16 2020: #3 and #4 out of 4 losts total. 2019: 5 in 10 & 9 in 16 2018: 3 in 10 (6, 7 & 8) and 7 in 16 2017: 5 in 10 and 8 in 16. This was the last year, we seemed to focus highly on pitching: 1B Kopech, 3 Cosart, 4 McAvoy, 7 Reilly, 9 Steen. I still think 2024 tops 2017.

The Sox have apparently pre-empted their Rule 5 protection choices by adding several players to the 40 before the 2024 season ends. Fiits, Guerrero and now Penrod, who I viewed a sa bubble protectee. My view of possible Rule 5 protectees to come: 3 Locks: Dobbins, Fulmer, Monegro 3 Possible: Jh Garcia (I'd protect him.) Gambrell, Liu 6 Long Shots: Bastardo, Castro, Jordan, Hickey, Sikes, Troye I think we add 4 to the 40 with Jh Garcia being the 4th. With 7 FAs coming off the 40 (not counting 60 Day IL Paxton) and 6 IL palyers needing to be added (Gio, Hendriks, Whitlock, Mata, Murphy & I Campbell,) we will need to DFA or trade 3 to make room for the 4. I think these might be the 3: 1. Shugart 2. Gasper 3. Horn or Sogard, Murphy, Booser or Mata I don't see a roster crunch, until we add our 3rd or 4th FA, and even then, it does not seem to be a big issue. We might also trade 2 for 1 or one for a non 40 prospect.

It's a big assumption to count on JH seeing it as a "ton of room." You and I agree there should be a ton of room, but I've thought that for several years, now, and it never turns out that way. Our biggest spending winters were offset by our biggest contracts lost: Betts 1/2 Price and Porcello in 2020. We added a lot of contracts in 2022, but lost Pedey & JBJ. The winter before 2023 was a joke. We lost JD and Nate plus Kike, Wacha, Hill & Strahm. This past summer saw a net drop in payroll, despite adding Gio & O'Neill.

Duran is a plus defender in CF and top 3 in LF. Story, when healthy is top 5 at SS and top 2-3 at 2B. Rafaela is top 5-6 in CF. Abreu is top 10 in RF/ Anthony should be above avg. Why would Devers be a dumpster fire at 1B? It might take a few weeks to adjust, but his main issue at 3B is not his glove or range, but his arm. Half his career errors are throwing.

I totally agree, but there is the aspect of how much a team thinks a position can be upgraded from within the system, and there is a significant chance those choices can go wrong or horribly wrong. Even adding someone from outside the system can go horribly wrong, as in Grissom's 2024 value. If you go by team positional fWAR : Catcher 20th: with Teel in the system, I doubt we go big, here. We may look for a decent 1 year deal- maybe even Jansen on a 1-2 year deal. 1B 22nd: but with a healthy Casas, I think they see 1B as a net plus, despite the poor D. Maybe near top 10 with a potential for top 6-7 in MLB. 2B 30th: has been a major thorn in our side since 2018, but with Story returning and Mayer & Campbell ML ready in 2025, plus decent play by DHam and Romy and Grissom lurking around, we will not add, here. SS 19th: thanks to Rafaela playing "out of position." I see SS like 2B. We will not add a SS. In fact we may trade Mayer or DHam. 3B 13th: we are not trading Devers or adding a 3Bman. The Devers move to 1B is likely a longshot idea for 2025, anyway. We stand pat, here and hope Devers has a decent year on D, like he has a couple seasons. OF 2nd to NYY: I'm lumping them together, in part to say no outside additions will be made, and with Anthony looking ML ready and Rafaela's likely return to FT CF, we should be top 2, again, here. DH13th: should be about the same in 2025, unless we find a taker for Yoshida. We will not add, here, and if we do trade Yoshida, an Abreu-Ref platoon could easily be a major improvement, here with Anthony in RF. To me, the next to positions scream for outside the system additions: Pitching 13th but has fallen off a cliff and is 0.5 WAR from being below average. SP12th: at 10.8, which is just 0.8 from 16th. Losing Pivetta will not help. His 1.7 fWAR ranks second on the Sox in SP WAR. I'm also not sure we can count on Crawford repeating 1.7, Houck repeating 3.7 and Criswell repeating 1.1. IMO, only Bello rates to repeat or improve on his 2024 fWAR 0f 1.6. Houck might be the other. RP 18th: but in reality is worse, and with the losses of Jansen (1.4) and Martin (0.8), it looks bottom 5-6, IMO. Jansen and Martin are #1 and #3 in RP WAR, this year. When you see Booser is #4, Weissert is #4 and Bernardino is #5, you know this is a high need area. Inside fixes might be Whitlock, Hendriks, Fulmer and a full season from Slaten, but that does not come close to improving our ranking. To me, we need: SP1 Closer Set-Up SP3 or RP 4 or 5. I doubt JH & Co see it this way. They likely think we need a SP3 and a couple decent set-up men.

If they seem him in that light, then maybe a deal can be made. I'm not sure how much appeal Yoshi has to the fanbase, or specifically the Asian fan base, but maybe some.

The idea is SEA needs hitting and Yoshida seems like an upgrade at DH over Garver and or Haniger. Is it enough to move the needle? Maybe not. Is his cost, even if we pay some of his contract a turn-off for SEA? Maybe- maybe not, especially if we pay a lot or take back Garver and or Haniger. I do not think SEA views the Castillo contract as a burden or net negative, but trading away the last few years of his contract does make some sense, if they use the savings to add a FA bat somewhere, thereby improve their offense at DH and another slot. To me, if I was SEA, I'd rather trade Castillo than 5 years of Miller, Gilbert or Kirby. Maybe even more than trading Woo. I've always liked Castillo, so I know I am biased, there, but I think we can come up with something that works for both teams. Our depth at offense is such that I think we can overpay there to get the upgrade we need at pitching. I think 4 or 5 of SEA's SP'ers would slot #1 for us. At worst, some might be #2's behind Houck, and that is precisely what we need.

I'd call our OF defense better than "decent." Having to use Rafaela at SS, so much hurt, but it is what it is. In terms of numbers, our OF D ranked: 2nd in DRS at 40 (just 2 from #1) T6 in OAA (13, which is 1 out away from being T 4th and 2 outs from T 3rd.) 13th in UZR150 (+1.3) a stat falling out of favor. I know you are not talking 2025, but an OF of Duran-Rafaela-Abreu/Anthony looks top 2-3, to me. I agree our catching looks bottom 5, if not #30th. I agree that Casas and Devers are dumpster fires on D. Our middle IF was stabilized a bit, by Rafaela at SS and DHam-Romy at 2B, but it was still below average. The hope of a healthy Story seems to be more and more like some dream, but there is a chance he brings the MI up to plus status. Who plays 2B might affect that, but if it's DHam-Romy, I think we'd be a plus. Campbell and Grissom are largely unknown on 2B defense. EValdez should never play an inning at 2B for us, again. If all the stars align, maybe we see: Big PLus at SS, LF, CF Plus at RF and 2B Real Bad at 3B, 1B and C Moving Devers to 1B and Casas to DH or another team may change 1B to average and 3B to unknown. Teel may eventually improve the Catcher D, but these are big what ifs.

It may come down to us needing many of these guys to see an uptick in velo or spin rate or whatever, to make a jump in the rankings, but I am encouraged by the number of pitchers we have in our system that are poised to make a jump. Some don't need a big jump. Many will not improve. Some will look worse, next year. I'm usually not one to be happy about quantity over quality, but I think our quantity has enough quality to keep the hope alive. Perales already has been recognized as "having the stuff" needed. As with too many Sox pitchers, it comes down to health and role assigned. This group may not need a big jump: Priester (not a prospect,) Fitts, Monegro, Tolle, Sandlin, E R-C, Dobbins, Valera, D Reyes, Neely, Ingrassia These guys need to fix something, bigly or may settle into a RP role: Penrod, Wikelman, Early, Mullins, Paez, Wehunt, Bastardo, Clarke, Tygarrt, Dean, Carlson and Mata. While this second group does not look impressive, one-by-one, there are 12 listed, and the hope that 2-3 might jump, next year is not unrealistic. So, we can hope Perales gets healthy and one or two from Fitts, Priester or Dobbins can help in 2024. Add maybe 3-4 from the other 8 on the first group and 2-3 from the second group, and maybe we see 7-10 pitchers take meaningful jumps in 2025. Even if it's just 4-6 that take big jumps, that might be enough. 3-4 real big jumps may work even better. I might be overly optimistic. I get that way with our prospects, but I do think there is a lot of hope in our system, and more so than we've had in a long time.