moonslav59

If the team keeps losing, JH does not look like the smartest guy in the room. He can't be so self-absorbed to not see that. He may just be a greedy guy, but no way does he think people are watching the last 5 years of Sox baseball and calling him smart. If that is what he was trying to do, his time is up. He could gain some cred by winning and staying under the tax line by $1-5M, but no way he cons anyone by spending at $200M and losing, again.

I like the trade, a lot. I also think Fitts can be good. I just hope JH isn't thinking they can fill slots instead of adding a quality SP'er.

I agree. I didn't say he (they) knew what they were doing, but JH & Co. did cut salary from 2023 while claiming were were going to be competitive.

How much value do we place on these guys returning from major injuries? Story seems like the most important returning player. His health is essential to improving the defense at 2-3 positions, and his offense could give a big boost from the right side of the plate. Giolito had issues of concern before he got hurt and may start the season on the IL. Hendriks was just slowed down in his attempt to return by the end of the 2024 season. Whitlock looked real good in 4 starts, but many feel he should go and stay in the pen. Fulmer seems like one giant question mark, but he does have some upside potential. I Campbell showed some promise with SEA in 2023, but is also a question mark. Murphy may not help, even if he's 100% healthy. Players who missed significant time or played hurt, a lot: Devers, Slaten, Yoshida and Criswell. Personally, I'm getting tired of hoping on hope we get something from returning injured players. I'm not saying I have no hope, but counting on most of these top list guys to help is asking for a letdown.

Unless he felt Gio was the cheapest way to keep us just barely "competitive."

Actually, Houck, Crawford and Bello were all DD additions. Pivetta was Bloom. Criswell was Brez. Those are our top IP pitchers for 2024. Next up... IP 67 Wink- Bloom, 57 Kelly- Bloom, 54 Weissert- Brez, 52 Anderson- Brez (DFA'd,) 52 Jansen- Bloom, 51 Bernardino- Bloom, 50 Slaten- Brez, 42 Bosser- Bloom, 39 Martin- Bloom Maybe estimates for the 2025 IP list might look like this: 185 Houck- DD 175 Crawford- DD 170 Giolito- Brez 165 Bello- DD 120 Criswell & Priester- Brez & Brez RP 70 Whit & Wink; Bloom & Bloom 60 Slaten- Brez 50 Hendriks- Brez

Agreed. Lugo might not have even been protected for Rule 5. No way paulino would have been. Ovis Portes may amount to something special, but when? 2029? Even if Yorke outshines Priester, I like the effort to improve pitching by trading bats. All-in-all, the only significant deadline moves we made after Nate & Pearce in 2018 have been: Pivetta '19 (Workman & Hembree) Schwarber '21 (Aldo Ramirez) Abreu & Valdez '22 (Vaz) 2 sells and 1 buy

Has any GM, even one who has been long past any chance of getting back into a FO, even written such a book? They barely even discuss one move they made.

I'm not calling him a star. I called him a platoon player who fields a difficult position well to very well, while being a top 30 OPS guy. I'm wondering how you value middle RP'ers. If you respect fWAR, there are only 32 RP'ers with an fWAR at 1.2 or better (Slaten is at 1.2 for perspective.) 40 are at 1.0+. To me, a middle RP'er might be ranked 90th to 120th among all RP'ers. That is a 0.4 to 0.5 pitcher, or which MLB has 38 in that range in 2024 (#89 to #128.) there are 30 more pitchers at 0.3. Abreu had a 0.6 fWAR in just 85 PAs in 2023. He has a 3.0 fWAR, this year. The best RP'ers, this year are at 2.3 fWAR, now. I'm not saying Abreu is better than every closer in MLB, but I think he's better than 2 middle guys, for sure. Hell, 3.0 places him top 30 among all pitchers in fWAR- like Hunter Brown, Zach Eflin, Steele and Cortes. Again, I'm not saying we could trade him for one of them, but he's worth a #3 SP'er or a couple of good set-up men (7th and 8th inning RP'ers,) IMO. He's also very cheap and has 4-5 years of control. That has to be worth a #3 SP'er with 2-3 years of control.

Wong would be a very nice back-up catcher (to Teel,) back-up 1Bman (to Casas) and 3rd/4th string 2Bman (to Campbell/ DHam/ Grissom.) He will stay on the 26 for a long while.

I know this thread is about Brez, but I'd like to look back at some of the players Bloom left for him, and how some of Bloom's questionable moves, might look a little better after the 2024 season results are in. I'm not going to praise Bloom for not trading away players handed to him by DD and Ben, nor for extending Devers, Refsnyder, Bello, Rafaela and Whitlock. Here is a look back at some of his major moes: Betts: still bad, but Wong has slightly improved on the return guesstimate. Whitlock from Rule 5: Still looks good, but only 4 GS hurt us in 2024. Pivetta gave us 4 decent years for such a minimal cost. Wink was part of the beni trade that looked awful for the first 2 years, but now is not quite so bad. Story signing still looks god-awful. There is very little time to redemption, but Story could minimize the negative by giving us a couple good and long seasons. Refsnyder was a steal. Kelly may turn out well. Abreu & EValdez for Vaz looks like a big win for Bloom. DHam was part of the JBJ for Renfroe trade that still looks bad, but not as bad, now. Jansen and martin were good signings. Yoshida may still come close to earning his keep, but has not done so, thus far. Bernardino was decent. Prospects added: Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Teel, Arias, Cespedes, Meidroth, Bleis, Romero, Jo Garcia and more... I'm not defending his overall record, but many of his moves look better or slightly better, now.

Lux Tax Numbers: $104M for 9 players: 29.1 Devers, 23.3 Story, 19.3 Gio, 18.0 Yoshi, 9.2 Bello, 6.3 Raf, 5.0 Hendriks, 4.7 Whit, 2.0 Ref (assuming no retirement) $16M on 3 first year arb players: 6.5 Houck, 5.0 Duran, 4.5 Casas (wild guesses by me.) That's $120M on 12 players. The rest are pre-arb, until we add someone by trade or signings. 14 players at pre-arb prices might be about $10M. Add $17.5M for player benefits, about $4.8M for the rest of the 40 man roster and $1.7M for bonus pool, and we may be close to $145M before any additions. I'm not sure how accurate this is and welcome anyone to suggest adjusting my numbers. I have us $95M under the lux tax, but this does not jive with cots who has us at $135M before arbs and pre-arbs added. Spotrac has us estimated at $137M payroll. If you add the benefits and bonus pool, it comes to almost $165M, which is $20M more than I have.

So, if the rumor that the budget will be $40M under the taxx line is true, that gives Brez $20M AAV to spend on filling 2-4 pitching holes (Pivetta, Jansen & Martin.) YIKES! No way we improve the pitching on $20M and the return of Gio, Whit, hendriks and Fulmer, UNLESS we make a MAJOR TRADE or two.

I'm as pissed at JH as anyone else. His tightening of the budget is a major reason for where we are, right now. That does not mean I'm going to lie about my increased optimism about our direction, and thinking we are better now than 2022 and 2023.

less timely hitting, which is not a sustainable skillset? worse D, but that is captured by fWAR? Bad luck? Id run differential what we should use? I thought it was record. Are those two numbers most important?

Wong, Rafaela and Yoshida all look better than 2023 and maybe better than we expected in Feb '24. Abreu, Duran and the bench are much better. Casas, Devers and Story look about the same as we thought last winter. Who looks worse or failed to meet expectations for everyday players? How many look worse vs better? You tell your opinion on this... one by one.

fWAR Everyday players 19.4 2024 (15th) season not over 13.2 2023 (23rd) 18.3 2022 (17th) Pitchers 13.5 (12th) more season left 13.7 2023 (21st) 10.1 2022 (22nd) These actual numbers show vast improvement. It's not really all that close. 32.9 total fWAR 2024 (Should end up near 34, but could go down to 31.5ish.) 26.9 2023 28.4 2022

It's not drinking any Kool-Aid. Being better than more teams is a good thing, and it's not just because they got worse. IMO, we are better than the 2022 and 2023 team both now and in our future outlook. This is NOT patting JH on the back in any way, shape of form. We botched numerous ways to improve the record, and some of that is on Brez- like the Gio signing, the Sale trade and his deadline deals. It's not JH's fault Brez signed Gio over Stroman or Flaherty, but that is not being a JH apologist to point it out.

Our everyday player pool for 2025 looks strong and deep, despite the likely loss of O'Neill, our new OPS and HR leader for 2024. Not many teams can say that. C: Wong & Teel (Gasper/Heineman) 1B: Casas (Romy/Wong/Devers) 2B: Campbell, D Ham, Grissom (Meidroth/Romy/ EValdez/Rafaela) SS: Story, Mayer (Campbell, Romy, Sogard/Meidroth/D Ham/Rafaela) 3B: Devers, Meidroth (Romy/Sogard/Campbell) LF: Duran, Refsnyder (EValdez, Campbell) CF: Rafaela (Duran, Anthony, Campbell, Abreu) RF: Anthony, Abreu (Refsnyder) DH: Yoshida (Abreu- Ref, EValdez) I count 17 useful players for 13 slots. The pitching is the area with 3-4 gaping holes. SP1 _____ SP2 Houck SP3 ____ SP4 Gio SP5 Bello/Crawford SP Depth: Criswell, Priester, Fitts, Dobbins (Whitlock/Wink) Closer ____ Set Up ____ Set Up Hendriks RP4 Slaten RP5 Whitlock RP5 Crawford RP6 Wink RP7 Fulmer RP Depth: Bernardino, Kelly, Weissert, Booser, I Campbell, Guerrero, Mata, Murphy

Okay. I doubt they make the trade, if we gave them $81M.

I wasn't hurt one bit by Vaz being traded. He had an inconsistent bat, although better than the norm on average. He did not handle our staff as well as his back-ups did. His D was okay. He was getting older and wanted too much money. Getting Abreu and E Valdez was one of Bloom's best trades. How they handled notifying him of the deal was bush league, but the trade was great. Also, in a seperate move, we picked up McGuire by dumping Diekman and his contract on the CWS. McGuire outplayed Vaz to end the '22 season- another win for Bloom, that summer.

It does not change his trade value one penny. If it did, then it would be cancelled out by everybody knowing SEA has a glut of pitchers and is desperate for bats, so we can demand more value for Casas and Abreu, right? Besides, we can DH Abreu, if Anthony wins the RF job. Maybe trade Casas and give Abreu a 1B mitt.

If we are better off because other teams got worse, that is still a good thing. I get the same record argument, and for all we know, we may end up with a worse record than 2022 and 2023, but I feel way better about our future than I did after 2022 and before this season began, and that is not based just on the promise our top prospects bring to our future: it's based on who is returning from the 2024 team and several questions that were answered, positively, over this season. I hate relying on players returning from injuries as a significant factor in evaluating next year's team, but we do seem to have a lot of potential in those players: Giolito, Whitlock, Fulmer and a full season from Slaten. Full seasons from Story, Casas & Grissom. Of course, some of these players may not do well, or get re-injured, and other players might take their places on the IL, but I think going into 2025, we look way better than we did going into 2023 and 2024. Houck looks better now than in March. Gio returns. Crawford showed some promise. Bello has done better, recently. The depth from Criswell, priester and Fitts looks better. Our pen looks worse, with the loss of Jansen & Martin, although the 2024 Martin does not need a great replacement pitcher to do as well. Slaten is a year older. Fulmer and Henriks might impress, and guys like I Campbell, Weissert, Kelly and others have room to improve. Our offense looks way better than we thought it did, over the winter, where we lost Turner, Dugo & Duvall. Our defensive outlook looks brighter, if and only if Story can stay healthy. I guess Rafaela winning a FT job improves the outlook, too. I get the point about not wanting JH to think our optimism is justification for his "plan," but I'm not going to deny it, just to keep him on his toes. (I doubt he reads what we say, anyway.)

I get your point. We were willing to pay that much, when we made the trade- a trade that included giving up Betts. But, let's face it, that trade was absurd, so I'm not sure using it as an example to defend your suggested trade helps your case.

To me, our bench has been one of our strengths. Our team OBP is .321. Our SLG is .431. Ref: .361/.472 DHam: .303/.395 (but does have 33 SBs that acts like turning singles into 2Bs) Romy: .323/.418 They do K a lot, and their D is not very good, but these guys have done okay, as a group.