moonslav59

No doubt, this "dip" by JH was steeper and seemingly longer than others, but there was a pretty big uptick in the middle of the 2019 to 2024 budgets. Not counting the huge dip in 2020 and the rise to 2021, JH also increased spending from 2021 to 2022 by $26M, according to cots "opening day 26 man" and $30M on the EOY 40 man numbers. Up $30M from 2021 to 2022 was the same as the rise from 2016 to 2018 or 2019. cots has the CBTax going from $239M in 2018/$244M in 2019 to $223M in 2024. That does not seem as shocking as I expected, despite inflation.. We dropped $13M from 2016 to 2017, which is almost the same drop.

You bring up a good point, and concern. The pitcher of the year is not necessarily the best prospect, and I know you are aware of this. Soxprospects says Ingrassia's FB is 90-92 with "solid control" and "jumps on hitters." He's already 22, so I'm not sure about how much velo he can or will add. Their scouting report has not been updated.

I've said keeping him and hoping he improves is our best bet. I do think we should seek out any takers, but paying all but $4-5M is not really worth it, to me. I'd rather bank on Yoshi doing well. Now, if we can get a pitchers at a net cost of $4-8M, in return for Yoshi, then I'd strongly consider gambling on a pitching dump than a DH dump.

I doubt he's even plan B or C. I'm just saying that to show how little we need Yoshida, if he's not much of a drop off. (It also shows how little other teams want him.) BTW, Valdez has a career .743 OPS vs RHPs, out of the gate. He was a really good hitter in the minors. A platoon between him and Ref could very likely top Yoshida's career OPS of .775 or his .765 2024 OPS. I'd rather have a young bat or rotate the DH as plan B.

I'd rather try Campbell or Mayer at 3B and use the money at Closer, SP, set-up man and catcher. Maybe Grissom could work out at 3B, if he could hit well enough. I do not see why we'd spend huge money on Bregman, when we have several infielders that we need to find out about. We are not going to move Devers off 3B, unless we trade Casas, and that is very unlikely. Just find a hitting catcher on a 1 year deal and spend on pitching.

Yes. I've said this several times. The big difference was just how steep the drop was from 2019 to 2020, and then when you factor inflation, it took a few years to come close to where we once were. The other major factor is that a few teams started going nutty with spending and passes the Sox. Our ranking dropped quite a bit as a result. I'll go by cots end of season budget and the percentage gain or drop: +15% 2003 to 2004 -11% to 2005 (down the same $14M as from 2003 to 2004) +18% to '06 +13% '07 -5% '08 -5% '09 +21% '10 +2% '11 -3% '12 +5% '13 -5% '14 +10% '15 +8% '16 -6% '17 +22% '18 -1% '19 -25% '20 +12% '21 +16% '22 -6% 23 Nothing seems way out of place, recently, when you look at the trends. The biggest drop was before 2020, but one of the bigger 2 year jumps was from 2020 to 2020. Two year jumps: 34% 2005>2007 28% 2020>2022 (This probably surprises many) 24% 2009>2011 21% 2017>2019 7% 2014>1016 Largest 2 year drops: -23% 2018>2020 (By far, the largest drop and a clear impact.) -10% 2007>2009 -6% 2022>2024

MLBTR reports... The Red Sox are nearing a deal to hire Taylor Smith for an unspecified analytics-based role in the club’s front office, according to MassLive.com’s Sean McAdam and Chris Cotillo. Smith could be joining the ranks as an assistant general manager, which would presumably also come with some type of VP title like Boston’s other four assistant GMs under chief baseball officer Craig Breslow.

The AP put one loss Georgia ahead of undefeated Penn St. Hmmm.... 1. Oregon 7-0 2. Georgia 3. Penn St. 6-0 4. Ohio St 5. Texas 6. Miami 7-0 7. Tenn 8. LSU 9. Clemson 10. IA St 7-0 11. BYU 7-0 12. Notre Dame 13. Indiana 7-0 14. Texas A&M 15. Ala 16. K St, 17. Boise St, 18. Ole Miss 19. Pitt 6-0 20. Ill, 21. SMU 23. Army 7-0 24. Navy 6-0 25. Vandy

Agreed. I don't want to dump Yoshida for another DH.

I'm not thrilled with E Valdez at DH, but if he played vs all RHPs, he'd have more PAs than Ref and many other subs. My point was that even if we step down from Yoshida to an EValdez-Ref platoon, I don't see a big drop-off, and the odds EValdez hits as well as Garver in 2025 are probably close to 50-50. He's much cheaper.

I'd hope for a better defensive "step up," but I think the 28 HR/650 PA power is a big step forward for our RHBs. Also, Wong has hit LHPs worse than RHPs: .727 to .686, so maybe Jeffers could give us a boost vs LHPs that Wong could not.

We have Refsnyder, who is a top 25 batter vs LHPs, and also should never play in the OF, again. Besides the idea of a Casas-Devers DH/1B, I'd almost be as happy with an E Valdez-Ref polatoon at DH than Yoshida or Garver. Maybe a DHam-Ref DH platoon could match a FT Yoshida's numbers.

Blocking: -4 Jeffers and -12 Wong Framing: both -7 Throwing: Jeffers +2 and Wong 0 (Jeffers had better pop time in '24.) DRS (fangraphs) -4 Jeffers -14 Wong

YIKES! That surprises me and makes me wonder, if he should be a target for us.

Yes, I misread the columns. We'd need to offer more, then. Is jeffers any good on D?

If he could still catch, maybe.

I'm thinking I'd prefer a contract I hate as much as Yoshida, but it being for a pitcher with some hope of a redemption. I fully realize other teams prefer pitchers to DHs, and so that is why the pot would need to be sweetened for them by adding more money than to balance it out or by adding a promising player or prospect they like.

Agreed, more likely, they'd only do this deal, if we included someone like Abreu or a non-40man guys like Meidroth, Arias, Cespedes or Dobbins (Rule 5).

Right now, I'm really liking how we might be able to make a deal with MN. Apparently, they are looking to retool, and we have a lot of young players and prospects, some seemingly blocked or bottle-necked to give them. Ober and Ryan were mentioned, but I'm not sure why they would look to deal them, now, when they both have 1 pre-arb year left + 3 arbs, but they would be the prize of any deal with them. They also have Pablo Lopez, who is owed $21.8M per year x 3, but the lux tax hit is just $18.4M/yr. My guess is, they'd prefer to move him over Ober or Ryan, but they'd get a better return for the the cheaper guys. To me, another big prize would be prying Ryan Jeffers from them. He has just one arb year left, so he's not in their long term plans. Jeffers could give us that big RH'd power bat we need. He has a .784 OPS from 2023-2024 and is just 27. He averaged about 29 HRs and 85 RBI per 650 PAs in those two seasons. That's about what O'Neill gave us. A SP'er and Jeffer for _____ ? Would they insist on Mayer or Campbell? Would they take Wong and Abreu plus others, instead of a top prospect? Would Casas, Wong and Dobbins be enough, or would it take Abreu, too? It's hard to know what MN wants.

That's how I see it. Yoshida is owed $54M/3. R Ray is owed $46M/3. The difference is about $12M/3 or $4M a year. Throw in a blocked player like EValdez or Sogard, and maybe SF does it.

The vast majority of our key returning players are pre-prime or prime. That is something to be optimistic about, along with the 3-5 promising prospects beating down the MLB door. By April, only these guys are end of prime or post-prime, and none are really super-key players, except Story and maybe Hendriks, if we don't add top RP'ers: 31 Yoshida 32 Story & Fulmer 34 Refsnyder 36 Hendriks I think it's unrealistic to think we don't get some major boost from Anthony, Campbell, Mayer, Fitts or Guerrero. It might be unrealistic to expect two to be full timers, as well. Yes, we lose Pivetta, Jansen, Martin and O'Neill. We need to add more than Gio, Hendriks and Fulmer to come close to replacing them and adding more value to improve on 81-81. They do offer some hope and some value, and should help, but we need 2-3 major additions to get significantly better. (I'd like 4, but 3 might be the limit.) I'd add a top closer/RP'er and set up man. Add a #2 SP'er. Add a catcher with some RHB pop. (Trade for Jeffers?) That could be enough. I'd like to point out one more thing: while we lose O'Neill's 473 PAs at an .847 OPS and team leading 31 HRs, he did knock in just 61 batters, and we also lose or should see way less PAs from these guys, which is more PAs than O'Neill gave us: .706 Smith (278 PAs) .633 Valdez (223) .575 McGuire (158) .623 Jansen (96) .410 Dalbec (93) + .455 Cooper (75) .451 Reyes (64) + .584 Westbrook (48)+ .650 Sogard (86) How many PAs DHam .697 (317) and Grissom .465 (114) get and how well they do could be a big factor, but the hope is that Story .733 (106) eats up most of the scrub IF PAs from 2024 and some of Rafaela's IF PAs. Campbell and Mayer offer some better hope than many listed above. Romy as the back-up 1Bman may do better than Cooper & Dalbec, but maybe not Dom Smith. Getting a catcher like Jeffers could boost our RHB power and greatly improve on McGuire and jansen's production in 2024. It would also allow Wong to be more of a back-up catcher and 1Bman. If Anthony and Campbell can improve on Rafaela's OF production, on offense, that could be the boost we need to overtake the loss of O'Neill, all by itself. We do have a lot of "ifs," but having so many promising "ifs" is not a bad thing, and it's not like many are long shots. Many have already shown a lot of promise, such as Casas, Abreu and even Wong & DHam, to some extent. Duran, Devers and Ref vs LHPs are proven producers. Rafaela could take a step back, but we have Anthony & Campbell. To me, adding a solid RHB Catcher with pop is all the offense needs to project better production for 2025. That does not mean we get it, but on paper, it should be better. (I hate depending on Story, but having Mayer and the return of DHam, Grissom, Romy and maybe Campbell improves the depth, too.)

Just curious on why you think SFG would be willing to take on Yoshida's contract more than some other team. Robbie Ray is owed $23M x 2, so maybe taking him back would make a deal more balanced, but I'm still not sure why they want Yoshi.

Love this! That 7th one was

Actually, if we do nothing, we will get worse. Jansen > Hendriks Martin > Fulmer Pivetta> Giolito O'Neill> more PAs from Story (Rafaela to CF to replace most of the O'Neill PAs.) Can we expect the returning players to do better? The optimist might say yes, since most of our returnees are pre-prime or prime. The pessimist might say we saw enough career highs in 2024, so maybe a step back can be expected. Here are the ages of our core players: A: 28 Devers, 28 Duran, 28 Houck B: 28 (29 on 4/1) Crawford, 27 Slaten, 32 Story, 25 Bello, 25 Abreu, 30 Giolito, 36 (FEB) Hendriks C: 24 Rafaela, 25 Wong, 34 (in March) Refsnyder, 25 Criswell, 25 Fitts, 32 (MAR) Fulmer Possibles: 20 Anthony, 22 Campbell & Mayer (Teel), 23 Meidroth Only Story and Hendriks are A/B and 32 or older. The other 8 A/B are 30 or under. Only Ref and Fulmer are 32+ Cs. The other 4 are not. (One could argue others are Cs and not Fulmer.) If we just add the bare min of Nick Martinez & Tanner Scott (notin's picks,)... Martinez> Pivetta Giolito> Criswell Scott> Jansen Hendriks > '24 Martin