moonslav59

Certainly, this makes a lot of sense. This is the management team that has gone out of it's way to gamble on injured pitchers coming back, from Richards & Kluber to Paxton, Hendriks and Fulmer, and what do they do? Give up on the best of them all: Sale. They guessed wrongly, like they have a lot, lately. They tried to fix the 2B issue and gave up on hopes of Sale returning after a half decade of letdowns. It's not like it made zero sense, but they sure know how to swing and miss.

Browns upset the Ravens- showing just how much Watson sucks. My Pack pulled out a win. Lions are rolling. Texas with a big win.

Wow, the AP moved ND up to 8th after their top 25 win at Navy. 1. ORE, 2, GA, 3. Penn St, 4. Ohio St, 5. MIA, 6, TEX, 7. TN 8. ND 9. BYU 8-0, 10, TEX A&M 7-1, T11 Clem 6-1 & IA St 7-0 13. IN 8-0 14. AL 6-2, 15. Boise St 6-1, LSU 6-2, K St 7-1 18. PITT 7-0, 19. Ole Miss 6-2, 20. SMU 7-1 21. Army 7-0 The Coaches have Clem 8th, ND 9th and PIT 17th

two of my favorites. You are obviously one of my 3 or 4 tops.

The silly contortions continue. ATL not only "knew something," but they had "evidence." What a complete joke.

A decent attempt to fix the Sox worst position for 6 years!

Agreed, even with a limited budget. He can sign one really good pitcher or two decent ones and trade Abreu, DHam and Wink for two more, or one with a catcher. That's minumum.

I'm watching the series, now.

What baffles me about all this is that notin and Bell are two of my favorite posters, and I feel like I agree with both of them most of the time. I don't understand why you two are always at each others' throats. How can I mostly agree with two posters who never agree with each other?

The first College Football Playoff Rankings come out Nov 5th. ND is off, this week and should be ranked from around 10th to 13th. 4 Ohio St plays at 3 Penn St, but the loser will likely still be top 12. 19 PITT is undefeated and plays at 22 SMU, if they win they could move to near 12th. 13 & undefeated Indiana plays at Mich St 11 & undefeated BYU is off in week 10. My guess is the crowd from about #9 to #15 will be very bunched together.

I don't see us adding any everyday player, except a catcher, most likely on a 1 year deal- perhaps w a 2nd yr option. I know the kids are "unproven." I know they don't even need to be added to the 40 to stay protected, and the whole years of service equation plays into those choices, but these guys are ML ready, and I think at least one will make the 26 man roster on opening day or day 2. The others may wait until they "gain the extra year." Even without any added prospects, here are the players vying for the 13 everyday slots: Wong + _____ (Gasper) Casas DHam, Grissom, E Valdez Story, Romy Devers (Sogard) Duran, Refsnyder Rafaela Abreu Yoshida It's easy to place E Valdez in AAA on opening day, and we have our 13. The weak spots look like ... C, 1B, 3B defense Back up catcher and OF, but Ref is serviceable in LF, while Duran can play CF, well. Romy can be replaced, but some see hope in his skills profile. A DHam-Grissom platoon at 2B could be pretty good, but is an area that could be improved and turned into less of a question mark. 2B has been one of the worst positions in all of MLB, almost every year since 2018. Rafaela's offense is highly questionable. All of these weak areas can seemingly be solved by prospect infusions. Teel may not solve the catcher defense problem in 2025, so a temporary outside addition is needed there. 1B and 3B defense could be improved, if we make the ballsy choice of moving Devers to 1B and using Campbell, Mayer or Grissom at 3B. The defense issue is the most complex of all, because it involves major changes to positions, or replacing plus bats for lesser bats and better D. The OF depth is instantly solved by adding Anthony, or even Campbell or both. Romy can be replaced by Campbell or Mayer. Rafaela's offense can be put on the bench as a 4th OF'er/Defensive OF by starting Anthony in RF (Duran CF and Abreu LF vs RHPs and Duran LF and Rafaela CF vs LHPs) or CF (with Abreu in RF.) The questionable platoon at 2B, between DHam and Grissom could be replaced by a FT Campbell or Mayer at 2B. BTW, here are the career splits of the suggested 2B platoon: .727 Grissom v LHPs and .695 DHam v RHPs (.729 in '24.) DHam also played very good defense at 2B in '24. Grissom's sample size was small but bad. I do not see us having the worst fWAR at 2B in 2025. It should not even be bottom 10, IMO, no matter which way we go. I'm really encouraged by the possibilities we have for these 13. We have a lot of depth and flexibility, and I didn't even bring up Meidroth. It's the pitching that is riddled with some major questions and several minor ones. We do have some decent depth, but as I mentioned before, most can be be better viewed as excellent minor league depth rather than the 10th to 13th best pitchers on the ML roster. Guys like Fitts, Priester, Criswell and Dobbins would be very nice AAA starters and deep depth for the rotation. (Criswell and Fitts could be long men from the pen, as well, but there may be room for just one to fill that role.) Our pen has a lot of promise, but there is an issue with having so many mediocre RP'ers with promise or lack of recent success due to injury or whatever. IMO, our current RP'ers should be slotted like this, with 3 significant outside additions: Closer: __add__ Set-Up1: Hendriks Set-Up3: __add__ RP4: Whitlock (coudl be excellent as a #4 or end up as our #2) RP5: Slaten (could be one of MLB's best #5 or move up to #2 or #3.) LH'd RP6: __add__ RP7: Criswell or Fitts (the other starts in AAA) RP8: Fulmer AAA Pen (maybe one of the best in AAA) Guerrero, Penrod, Wink, Weissert, Bernardino, I Campbell, Kelly, Booser/Shugart/Horn/Murphy/Mata (out of options) Others: Wikelman, Gambrell, I Coffey, Drohan, Mills, Kwiatkowski, Sandlin, Early, Monegro, Mullins, Hoppe, Troye In short, we need a one-year catcher who is good on D and 3 solid RP'er. I'll settle for 2 really good RP'ers, with one being a lefty, if possible. (I'd like a SP'er, too, but I think Brez & Co. thinks we have the horses, with a returning Gio and Fitts, Criswell and Priester as depth.)

1. Trading Yoshida is a long shot. If AZ wants to dump Monty, they can get someone better for him. 2. Fried might be too high-priced. (I thought you felt JH would only go "moderate.") 3. I'd love to see us trade for a quality SP'er, but I think it's a long shot. 4 and 5 should be locks. My wish list is too unrealistic. My guess is we do this: 1. Trade Abreu, DHam and Wink for a good RP'er and Catcher. 2. We sign Nick Martinez of Jack Flaherty, 3. We sign 2 RP'ers, but it won't be Tanner Scott and probably not Estevez, either. 4. We start the season with just 1 top prospect on the 40., maybe 2. Since I say we trade Abreu, I'm guessing Anthony is on the opening day 26, and Campbell gets added as soon a ssomeone goes on the 60 day IL. Mayer will only be added, if Story goes on the IL, or his service time clock clicks, and we need a better middle infielder than we have going, mid season. Teel may not be added until 2026. Meidroth- the same. We may try to prolong the Fitts service time clock, too.

I can't believe i left Montgomery off the list! I think our farm is deeper than many think it is, and it goes beyond the 5 or 6 that are ML ready, now. I also think the pitching will prove to be better than many think it is. Most, including me, never expected to see so many homegrown arms doing well in 2024: Houck, Crawford, Slaten, Bello, Fitts, Wink, Weissert, Kelly, Guerrero, Penrod, Priester... We have a solid core of young players and top prospects.

Big FA signings aren't the only way to have a higher budget. I also feel like JH wants to avoid ever signing anyone like Price again, although he did just fork over more money for Devers than Price got. I'm still not sure he never will, again. You make a very good point, but here is the issue and flaw I see in this presented plan scenario: while our rosters in the last few years had enough holes in it to spend on several FAs moderately, rather than spending on 1-2 at much higher prices, I don't see a 26 man roster with 5-6 holes in it. The might not even be 4 holes. The only thing not totally squeezing the 26 and 40 man roster, right now, is that out most promising ML ready prospects are all not even Rule 5, yet, and they do not need to be added to either roster until opening day or day 2, at the earliest. I see 3 major holes, and we don't need to spend like Price on any of them, but we can spend more than Kluber or Richards money. JH did spend $16M x 2 on Jansen, so I could see him allowing Brez to sign Tanner Scott. JH did allow a $38M deal for Gio, the biggest since Nate in 2019, so I do think he may allow Brez to go for someone like Flaherty or Nick Martinez at somewhat high money, but not break the bank levels. The third guy could be another RP'er (LH'd?) or a catcher on a short term deal. (or both for 4 signings.) Is this what you mean by "moderate?" If yes, I agree that this could be something JH could go along with. Is this a playoff roster? The 26: Houck, Nick Martinez, Bello, Crawford, Giolito, Fitts (long man) Scott, Hendriks, Whitlock, Slaten, Chaffin, Guerrero, Criswell Wong, Grandal Casas DHam-Grissom platoon (Campbell added during season) Story Devers Abreu/Duran Duran/Rafaela Anthony (added before opening day or after) Yoshida-Refsnyder platoon The rest of the 40 Gasper, Romy, E Valdez, Sogard Priester, Dobbins (R5) Wink, Weissert, Kelly, Bernardino, I Campbell, Penrod, Fulmer (R5), Booser or Jh garcia (R5) Gone: Mata, Murphy, Shugart We can add Campbell, Mayer, Meidroth or Teel, after opening day, perhaps when someone goes on the 60 day IL. This might be the best we can hope for, and I do not think this puts us over the tax line.

If $300M/10 was as high as JH would go, it seems they were pretty far apart. I do not think Betts ever countered with $360M/12, so who knows. It was stupid to let him go. It seems like $60M + 2 more years is not that much. Yes, this was on JH, and he will forever be to blame. I do wonder how we would have deconstructed the roster had we kept Betts at that amount, while coming close to the same budgets we saw in 2020 and 2021. He'd have had to have dumped full-Price and probably JD. Maybe they don't extend Sale and or Nate, instead. I guess we have to take Betts at his word, or do we?

Lots of teams bunched up around #12 with a lot of the season left to go. Here is my top 20 rankings: 1. ORE 8-0 2. Penn St 7-0 3. Georgia 6-1 4. Texas 7-1 5. Ohio St 6-1 6. Miami 8-0 7. Tennessee 6-1 8. Iowa St. 7-0 9. Clemson 6-1 10. Notre Dame 7-1 11. BYU 8-0 12. Indiana 8-0 13. Pittsburgh 7-0 14. Texas A & M 7-1 15. Alabama 6-2 16. LSU 6-2 17. Boise St 7-1 18. Ole Miss 6-2 19. KA St 7-1 20. Army 7-0 & SMU 7-1 Some big games coming up... Next week: Ohio St at Penn St, Oregon at Michigan and PIT at SMU Wk 11: GA at Ole Miss, MIA ay GA Tech, AL at LSU, MI at IN Wk 12: TN at GA, Clem at PIT Wk 13: Vandy at LSU, IN at Ohio St, Army at ND Wk 14: Tenn at Vandy, TX at TX A & M, KA St at IA St, ND at USC, MI at Ohio St Wk 15: Navy at Army

Some near-misses, today... #4 Ohio St held off NEB 21-17 #5 Texas beat #25 Vandy 27-24 #3 Penn St is up 14-13 at WI in the 4th Q #8 LSU lost vs #14 Texas A&M (Maybe A &M belongs in the 12.) Undefeated IN beat Wash 31-17. Undefeated BYU beat UCF 37-24. Both might be top 12, this week. Who drops out? #12 ND won big vs a top 25 team (Navy) 51-14. #16 K St barely won vs a bad Kansas.

Apparently, Mookie says he'd have stayed with BOS for the same as what LAD paid him ($365M/12.) https://www.sportskeeda.com/baseball/news-absolutely-i-just-didn-t-get-it-when-mookie-betts-revealed-he-d-stayed-red-sox-365-million

My suggestion was for pitching, and pretty damn good ones. I agree that Yoshida will be our DH, this year- maybe a platoon with Ref.

He said not the "primary factor" not "no factor." I do not think the budget would have allowed for Gio and Sale, unless we did not sign O'Neill and traded someone else- like Martin or Jansen. (Some reports were out that we were shopping Jansen.) Maybe we should have tried real hard to dump Yoshida, last winter. (Maybe Story?) As it turned out, I know-I know, another scenario, we could have not trade for O'Neill, traded Martin and kept Sale and also signed Gio. That's pretty close to what we "saved" by trading Sale.

Fragile little birdies.

Maybe so, but you said No, not TOR. TOR is going nowhere and fast. They may look to dump a high-price pitcher to cut salary. They may lose Vladdy and want Casas. I can understand TOR saying no, but why you?

Can't you find someone who is not a DH?

I'm looking for a way to get a good pitcher at below market price. I also think the line-up without Casas could be about as good as with him, but this is no knock on Casas. It is my optimism on Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Meidroth and others that thinks they can come close.

We've been suggesting trades and signings based on tight budgets for several years. The Story and Yoshida signings were kind of surprising, and neither were mega deals. I'm going on the assumption that we don't spend more than '24 and may cut some. I also think we might spend a little more and get close to the tax line, but I am far from expecting it.