moonslav59

Sounds about right. I agreed with your point about Houck needing to prove he's an ace, beyond a year. MLB history is full of pitchers who had just one really good or "ace-like" season. I think he can and will do it, but it needs to be done.

I'm curious to know how each of us view the amount of aces in MLB, right now. Here is a list of the top 185 SP'ers with 100+ IP since 2023, in order by fWAR: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&lg=all&type=8&month=0&ind=0&startdate=&enddate=&season1=2023&season=2024&stats=sta&qual=100 I'd say the top 12 are, for sure (on this list.) After those 12, I see another 8-10 I would easily call an ace. I'd say the minimum might be 22, and maybe I could go up to around 30.

Me, too, but many pitchers we may consider an "ace" have had some sort of issues over recent years, too. deGrom is certainly an ace, but I'd rather have Houck, so it's kind of subjective. I like to think of the top 30 SP'ers as "aces," but I'm not sure about what sample size to use (1 year, 2 years, 3 years or a mix of all?) and what stat/metric to use (WAR, ERA-, xFIP, OPS Against or a mix of these.) If you created a list of all these sample sizes and all these criteria, some pitchers would be on most of them, but not 30 of them. I guess you could see who is on the most top 30 on these lists, and take the top 30, but a pitcher who did not pitch 3 years ago might get dinged out.

I made the same mistake. Primary position includes players who played some at that base, but it includes all their PAs as if they were all at that base.

We paid Sale a ton of money for just a few starts, too, plus the money to ATL for him to win a Cy Yong with. I'm not sure why talking about them is okay, but Gio is off limits. Of course the money for 2024 in gone, and he's just getting $19M for 2025. We all know this. It doesn't change the fact that he's still getting paid $38M for 1 year, in one context.

I just said this. I get it. I still don't get why you make a big deal over seeing the view that we are paying Gio $38M for one year of pitching. We basically said very similar things about Sale's pay for not playing.

I'm not sure the CBT matters much, unless we get near it, again, but yes the yearly budget matters and by a lot. The winter spending budget is perhaps the most meaningful, and the fact that Gio got paid $19M to do nothing in 2024 does not matter, in that regard. I get that. All of this does not take away from the view that io will essentially be paid $38M to pitch for one full year, assuming he does that in 2025. I never said that was the CBT hit or the 2025 budget hit, or even implied it, so I'm still not sure why you are making such a big deal about that statement.

You never know high highly some teams might value our arms. Would you include Crawford in a trade for Crochet? Mayer, Crawford and Abreu for Crochet and Roberts? Casas, Crawford, DHam and Abreu? (add Fitts over DHam?)

In conjunction with Mayer and Casas, I think he has enough to get the deal done, but yes, mayer's health concerns might be too much for many Gms. I do worry about trading Fitts when his stock may be low.

Let's get back to the 2025 Red Sox outlook. To me, so much depends on 2 things that have nothing to do with player performance projections: 1. JH's willingness to up the winter spending budget. 2. Brez's willingness or authority to trade top players or prospects that focus more on 2025-2026 than 2027 and beyond. (It could be for a player with 4+ years of control, but trading multiple players with 5+ years of control for one at 4 is still more about the here and now.) One of my main concerns is how much confidence is this management team going to put into players that missed all or most of 2024, as being key players for 2025. Story Gio Whitlock Hendriks Fulmer and to a much lesser extent Murphy, I Campbell & others. Plus, maybe full seasons (or full days of availability) from Devers, Slaten, Criswell, Fitts, Grissom, Priester, Guerrero & Penrod Of course, we need to plan for injuries, but there is a lot of possible additional playing time coming from this list, and we already have a core of players that can be expected to be FT players or near that. Abreu+ Ref counts as 1 (or Yoshida + Ref at DH) Maybe together this is 2 slots filled. Casas (1B) Duran (LF-CF) Devers (3B) and maybe Wong (C) and Rafaela (CF) would fill 6 slots. Story/Mayer + DHam/Grissom should fill 7 more. Houck, Crawford, Bello & Gio can maybe be counted as 4 rotation slots filler with Fitts/Priester/Criswell/Dobbins combining to fill the 5th slot. The pen is too mixed up to know what is what, but we do seem to have 4-5 arms that are reliable for slots in the 8 man pen.

Good one!

How does this group of prospects stack up to past ones? (Of course, it's a bit of apples to oranges, as we have the benefit of hindsight for past ones.) 2024: Anthony, Mayer, Teel, Campbell, Bleis, Perales, Fitts, Cespedes, Arias, Sandlin, Meidroth 2006: Lester, Pedey, Jake, Papelbon, Buch, Doubront, Bard, B Moss, D Murphy, Lowrie, Mrerdith, Delcarmen 2013: Betts, Bogey, JBJ, Barnes, Vaz, Iggy, Workman, Margot 2016: Devers, Moncada, Beni, Espinoza, Kopech, Dalbec How about looking at a 4 year windows of prospects? We could add Houck, Whitlock, Duran, Crawford, Wink, bello, Wong, casas, Abreu, rafaela, Slaten and others to this group. Other time periods could add some awesome names, too.

Maybe. I also think you may be undervaluing how some GMs rate Mayer. (Not that you are wrong.) I think some GMs view Mayer as a major "get." I'm not sure how many teams have a better prospect or would offer one up, plus Casas and Fitts.

I know he was injured and S*** happens, but the end result is, we will pay Gio $38.5M for maybe 1 full year of pitching. Why act like the idea is unfathomable?

Very effective but not too secretive.

fWAR/PAs at 3B 3.8/566 Devers 1.7/410 Rojas 0.2/101 Urias 0.2/101 Moore 0.0/22 Sogard -0.3/35 Romy -0.3/32 Dalbec -0.4/35 Reyes at 2B 0.9/96 Moore (by far the best of this group) 0.4/68 Bliss (better than DHam in fWAR per PA at 2B) 0.3/443 Polanco (way more PAs than DHam) 0.2/118 DHam 0.0/42 Sogard -0.1/56 Romy -0.3/39 Westbrook -0.6/109 Grissom -1.0/202 E Valdez

You clicked "primary position" which is very misleading, as some teams have 1300+ PAs at 3B. Better to use "positional splits" and we see: 3B: BOS 14th and SEA 20th https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?lg=all&ind=1&qual=10&season1=2024&season=2024&team=0%2Cts&type=8&month=39 2B: SEA 20th and BOS 30th (where they have been for about 6 years)

16th is actually shockingly good, considering where were were in 2023, once Story went down injured, vs the same situation in 2024. While Rafaela was a negative on SS D, he was nowhere near as bad as Kike and others at SS in 2023. With Mayer joining the mix in 2025 and perhaps a healthy Story, maybe we can get to top 10 in fWAR at SS.

It's not CBT, of course, but do you really not see how we are actually paying Gio $38.5M for 1 year? Seriously?

If he was gambling himself, it is totally understandable he'd set up a way to do it that was not easily traceable. It need not have been some complicated scheme or deep conspiracy set-up. I really have no idea what went down, but it seems absurd to think his interpreter was taking all this money, without it being discovered. That seems as "nutty" as my suggested scheme to hide who was making the bets. Both scenarios have major questions and WTF's.

Is cell phones the only way to communicate? (there are also "burner phones." I'm not saying this happened, but it has to be as plausible as the other scenarion. As for how qa payoff could be done and hidden, I think there are many ways to do that. Or a promise that "we will take care of your family."

How about Mayer, Abreu, Fitts and DHam?

Money talks as much as mafia type threats.

Massive? In what way? Couldn't Ohtani have simply paid the guy to take the fall for him? Nobody else need be involved.

Would they do Mayer & Casas (maybe add DHam & Wink?)