moonslav59

I'm fine calling the pen a bigger need, and losing Jansen and Martin from an already stinky pen is reason enough to say it is number 1. That doesn't change the fact that we have Houck and 4 mediocre SP'ers for our rotation.

Yup. I wasn't trying to say Bello was better because he had a couple more starts and a few more IP. I was just trying to show their numbers are close. Here is more: Bello Crawford: 4.31 FIP and 3.6 K:BB ('23-'24) 1.5 HR/9 Bello: 4.36 FIP and 2.6 K:BB ('23-'24) 1.2 HR/9 They are about as close to identical as can be. I can't say why I prefer Bello, but I'm not happy with any of our SP'ers, beyond Houck. We have 4 mehs and Houck.

It's just a way of saying how good they are. If they all stay healthy, they all get 32-33 starts, so in that sense, it makes no difference what we call them, but if you have 5 starters in the bottom 20% of SP'ers, it's worse than 5 that are in the bottom 20-40% (or #4's by my reckoning) and so forth. The middle 20% are better bets than the bottom 20 or 40%. The top 20% have the best chance of bringing a win. Forget the 1-2-3-4-5 labels: we need better pitching. Call them whatever you wish, but just say we need better than what we have.

So, basically, quite a few posters seem okay with running back the same rotation, but subbing Gio for Pivetta and hoping Fitts or Priester plus the returning Criswell is enough depth when 1-3 of our starters get hurt. Houck is a #2 or really good #3. Gio, Bello and Crawford are all decent #5s, with maybe #3-4 upside. Fitts, Priester and Criswell fight for the #5-6-7 slots. It seems some think adding a #2-3 like Nick Martinez or Flaherty is about the best we can hope for, and maybe JH will force that to be, but we don't have to be okay with running back the same rotation.

Close call. 2023-2024 Bello: 58 GS, 319 IP and 101 ERA+ Craw: 56b GS, 313 IP and 104 ERA+

We could use a RHB catcher with plus defensive skills and some pop, but on just a 1 year deal. I'm not sure who fits that bill: maybe Jansen or d'Arnaud. Maybe on a 2 year deal or a 2nd year option with a hefty buyout?

May 16 to end of season: Red Sox staff was 23rd in fWAR. 25th in RP fWAR 1.1 T18th in SP fWAR at 7.3. Yeah, let's roll it back minus Pivetta,

The rotation was not 11th after mid May, and we lost Pivetta, who was our 2nd best fWAR pitcher in 2024. In fact, Pivetta owns 3 of the top 10 seasonal fWARs among all Sox pitchers since 2021. Houck has 2 and Crawford Bello 1 each. Counting on Gio and Fitts is not asking for trouble: it's just rinse and repeating what we've done since 2020. We need 6 SP'ers not named Fitts, Priester or Criswell. YES, we also need pen additions, and I'm fine with saying we need them more than a SP'er, but we need both, of we will be flirting with .500, again in 2025. FYI, best pen fWARs (not my stat of choice for RP'ers) since 2021, by season: 1.8 Schreiber '22 1.6 Whitlock '21 (Hopefully he can return to near this form in '25's pen) 1.5 Martin '23 and Slaten '24 1.4 Jansen '24 and 1.1 Jansen '23 1.3 Barnes '21 1.1 Josh Taylor '21 0.9 Martin '24 Only Slaten and Whitlock remain.

I'm fully aware Crawford is in the 2025 rotation, 100%, but I'm not going to "embrace" mediocrity. As our 6th starter, he can and will be able to start the same amount of games, as last year. No way everyone stays healthy. Chances are Crawford still starts 30 and we see Fitts start some, too. Even if we discount no starts by Gio, which is a big deal, we still got 26 starts by the "depth." (33 Crawford, 30 Houck, 30 Bello, 26 Pivetta and 18 Criswell as the "starting 5.") ... 6 Wink, 4 Fitts & Whitlock, 3 Paxton, 1 Priester and 8 pen games. In reality, we got 0-33 from Gio and 4-33 from Whitlock, so we actually got 93 starts from the expected starting 5 of Gio, Bello, Whitlock, Crawford and Pivetta.

My Pitching staff wish (near 0% chance of happening) SP1 __Addition__ SP2 Houck SP3 __Nick Martinez__ SP4 Bello SP5 Giolito SP6/Long Man Crawford (AAA: Fitts, Priester, Dobbins, Gambrell, Wikelman, Drohan, Sandlin) RP1 __Tanner Scott__ RP2 __Add LHP__ RP3 Hendriks RP4 Slaten RP5 Whitlock RP6 Criswell RP7 Fulmer (AAA: Wink, Bernardino, Guerrero, Penrod, Kelly, Weissert, I Campbell, Shugart, Horn, Mata) In reality, adding 1 top SP'er and 2 solid RP'ers is likely too much to ask from Sham & Co.

To me, Fitts and Priester should be 7 & 8, unless Crawford is in the pen. And yes, our SP'ers ranked 11th, but the lost Pivetta, and nobody is counting on Criswell in the rotation. We had a couple guys have career seasons in IP and productivity. Maybe Bello can be viewed as having a good shot at improving. I don't see why we should count on the others to get better. 11th best is still not good enough, even if we can repeat what we did, last year, without Pivetta, Jansen and Martin. We need a top SP'ers or two decent ones. We need 3-4 solid pen arms, but 2 really good ones might be enough. Almost every aspect of our game ranked about 11th to 12th, except defense, which as 28th to 30th, IMO. We need to stop dicking around by counting on Crawford, Gio, Hendriks and Fulmer to carry us in 2025. If everyone does the same as last year with zero injuries (yea right!) there is no reason to think we'll be any better with pitching. I do see the defense improving, assuming Story or Mayer are healthy at any given moment. I think the offense will be the same or better, despite losing O'Neill, due to almost all our players moving towards prime or entering it, and several good hitting prospects ML ready, right now. Pitching is where we must improve. along with a catcher who knows defense and how to maximize a staff's potential.

Oh, trust me, I am not holding my breath, anymore. I'm not expecting big spending or a blockbuster trade. I'm expecting more of the same, until they show me otherwise. That will not stop me from making suggestions, I think will improve the team, and I even try to suggest moves that mostly will not cost JH more money than the 2024 budget was. Even the deals where I suggest we take back more salary than Yoshida's, still keep us way under the 2024 budget line. (Well, maybe one suggestion got us slightly over it.) We simply cannot just rely on hopes for Gio, Fitts, Priester, Hendriks and Fulmer, plus equal or better production from the returning pitchers. Maybe better from Bello, I campbell and Slaten can be reasonably hoped for, but I'm not sure Houck, Crawford, Criswell, and the group of RP'ers returning can be expected to improve, but even then, someone else will decline to cancel it out. You have to get better, on paper, and hope it translates to more wins, while keeping injuries low. Youi can't look at the paper we have and wish it gets better, by itself.

It took balls to trade Sale, something Bloom could not bring himself to do. Brez aso traded Dugo, but that was no blockbuster. So, no balls to make a bold trade, but somehow you think JH will grow some and spend bigly? Again, I agree that spending is the best way to preserve our everyday 13 and nice depth, but I think a bold trade is more likely than JH spending over $40-50M, this winter in AAV.

You listed 16 names for 13 slots, and we have holes all through the pitching staff, which includes the losses of Pivetta, Jansen and Martin from a staff already not good enough to get us to the playoffs, despite several pitchers having career best years and IP'd. What am I missing? I'm honestly wondering and would love to be schooled into believing we don't need to trade from strength to improve higher need areas.

I'm 100% all for signing who we need and making minimal trades (no big names,) but we all know we CANNOT count on JH to come through. Why impatient? I think sitting through 5 of 6 years of crapola is all the patience an Sox fan should endure. The time is now. The window could have opened in '24. Look how close we came, despite the Gio and Sale deals. If we don't start the window in '25, we are shortening it.

Why assume all 5 of those starters get the job done? We just saw us get way better results from our starting 5 than anyone, in their wildest dreams, expected. Now, we assume they will repeat? That Giolito, with an 86 ERA+ in his two prior seasons, is going to replace Pivetta with a 108 ERA+, the last 2 years? That Fitts is going to outpitch Criswell, who the team went 12-6 in his starts? That Houck, Bello and Crawford are going to do as well or better? We need to get better, not stay even. The rotation was a big part of the problem, as was the pen. We need to fix both, and with major additions- not upgrading our #3/4 SP'er of middle releif guys. We need to upgrade at the top, and improve lower slots by attrition and further additions.

If you can't count on Anthony more than Rafaela, Abreu and Ref, then why be against trading him?

Of course, the OF is better without a big trade. LF Abreu v R/Ref v L CF Duran (maybe Campbell v L with Duran in LF) RF Anthony 4th Rafaela But to improve pitching, we have to look at where we are strongest and deepest, and that is clearly the OF. I share the concern about trading Mayer. If Story gets hurt, I'm not sure Campbell is the defensive replacement Mayer would have been. I am probably more okay with a Grissom-DHam platoon at 2B than others, but that's just me, and it's just in case of injury.

It's 2 years of Skubal, according to cots. Skubal makes $8.65M in 2025 (just what JH loves) and has a final arb year in 2026, which could break records, but still be just one year at below FA market value.

We have to give to get. When you look at our blue chip trade candidates, nobody wants to trade them, including me. To get what we need, the second and third tier trade chips just won't get it done. That is the reality. I think we need to identify one player from this group as being the least likely to help us over the next 3-5 years, and get the best return we can for him. (We could add secondary pieces, if needed.) Anthony, Campbell, Duran, Teel and Mayer (in order of who I'd like to keep most.) I'd trade Mayer, Abreu and Dobbins for the best pitcher we can get. We'd still have this core of everyday players and Fitts/Priester as SP'er AAA depth: C: Wong, __add__, Teel 1B: Casas (Romy/Wong) 2B: Campbell, Grissom-DHam SS: Story, Romy (Meidroth) 3B: Devers, Grissom/Campbell/Romy (Meidroth) LF: Duran/Ref CF: Rafaela/Campbell (Duran) RF: Anthony/Campbell DH: Yoshida/Ref (EValdez)

I'd add Rafaela and added package players like these, but only if we get a significantly better pitcher in return: Crawford, Fitts, Priester, Dobbins. I do not think it would be wise to trade Braden Montgomery, but the return would be more than Meidroth's and maybe Arias.

I love the idea of keeping the "fab four," and since all are ML ready or just months away from being so, we could start seeing tangible results in 2025. However, we can't deny the bottleneck situation in the OF and middle infield. We are not trading Story, even if JH & Co. wanted to. With Story and Mayer's injury history, we probably should not trade Mayer or Campbell (who could also play OF,) but maybe they think between Grissom, DHam, Romy and the two guys they don't trade, we'd be all set at middle IF for years to come. (Arias, Romero, Cespedes and others are in the pipeline, too.) If we don't trade Duran, Anthony or Campbell, that could be our OF, as soon as summer '25, and we could make Rafaela the 4th OF'er and trade Abreu, like almost everyone thinks will be. We could platoon Ref at DH with Yoshida, so that solves that bottleneck, but to get a really good pitcher, it's going to take a headliner like Anthony, Mayer, Campbell or Duran. Can we do it without a blockbuster? Yes, of course, but now we are back at hoping, wishing or praying for JH to spend way more. I'm sick and tired of that routine. If it happens, it happens, but I'm making suggestions based on it not happening, or only partially does.

Unless we make a blockbuster trade of Anthony (doubtful,) I'd bet on Abreu, the wrong side platoon OF'er, is traded. Many seem to think he's not worth much, due to not hitting LH'ers well, but he's still young, is a plus defender in a difficult position and has 5 years of pre-arb and arb control. He won't bring back an ace, but he might bring back a solid #3 SP'er (top 45-75 SP'er in MLB) of a real good RP'er- maybe a good RP'er and back-up catcher. I think we also will trade DHam. His stock might have peaked, and the running game is becoming more valuable, these days. Maybe package DHam with Dobbins or Priester for a better pitcher. Maybe trade him for a decent RPer or a good defensive catcher.

Only if it would part of a bigger plan to add elsewhere to get us over the top. Almost every ring we won, involved a blockbuster trade a year or two beforehand. All were top prospects, not a guy like Duran. I get that, but would the alternative of trading Anthony be a better idea? That is the "how a team with the resources of the Red Sox" often "addresses their needs." I'd be torn between trading one of those two, but we have a solid OF of 4-5 players. We don't get a top pitcher for Abreu or Rafaela. We have 3 middle infielders, but with Story & Mayer looking so fragile, trading an OF'er seems like the best idea for a blockbuster headliner. Yes, if JH spends much more than recently, we can cobble together a contender by signing and ace and closer and trading Abreu and DHam for a couple good RP'ers and a back-up catcher, but I'm not counting on that. Also, even if JH did agree to spend on what I just mentioned, I might still want a blockbuster trade to make it overkill. I think back to 2018, when some said DD "overkilled it," and didn't need to trade as many players as he did or spend as much as he did, and we'd still have won. I'd rather be sure, and plan on injuries or unexpected decline and still have a legit shot at glory.

I only brought up Skenes to make the point that anyone could be traded for a better return. I'm not sure we get Skenes for Duran and Mayer, plus Priester and Dobbins. Skubal has 2 years, so maybe they'd take Duran & Crawford plus Dobbins. Playoff teams don't often trade their ace for 3 pieces, though.