moonslav59

Extending arb and even pre-arb players has become more common, but not every player gets extended or agrees to one offered. The years of team control matters, a lot. There are ways for teams to fix it so a player gets 4 arb years, not three. There are way to start the clock on arbs a year or more, later with the idea that you can have a player on the big club from ages 25-29 or 30, instead of 24-27 or 28/29. That makes a lot of sense, as most players are better at ages 28-30 than from 22-24. Not all, of course. I'm only saying this is and should be one of many factors involved in deciding who and when a player is added to the 40. Most teams hold off adding someone to the 40, until it is Rule 5 time, and sometimes they delay beyond that date, if the determine the player is too far away to be selected, even if very promising. We currently have several minor leaguers, who are not on the 40, but are very close to being ML ready. Some might be ML ready, already. We also have a pretty deep returning player roster, and despite losing 4 big names to free agency, we have 4 guys on the 60 day IL that will fill their slots. Of course we have a few players like Dalbec that can easily be DFA'd to make room, or we could trade some bubble players for prospects not needing 40 man protection, but when winter rolls around, there doesn't seem to be much trade demand for "bubble players," as many teams are trying to squeeze their Rule 5 guys onto their current 40 man roster. I think we were proactive on this front, at the deadline, and "cleaned out" a lot of "bubble players" and players eligible for Rule 5, this winter. I do not see a major crunch to the roster, unless we add several non Rule 5 players to the 40, and this is where I think choices made on a guy like Campbell might be heavily influenced by wanting to keep other options available on the 40, for as long as possible. I do not think we choose to protect these players, but I am often wrong on who we choose to protect: Angel Bastardo, Nathan Hickey, Blaze Jordan (although we could DFA Dalbec and add him), JJ Liu, Wyatt Mills, Noah Song, Jeremy Wu-Yelland Bubble protectees: Alan Castro, Grant Gambrell, Luis Guerrero Certain protectees: Richard Fitts, Hunter Dobbins, Michael Fulmer, Jh Garcia As you can see, several prospects knocking most loudly on the MLB door are not on the Rule 5 list for Dec 2024: 2025: Marcelo Mayer, Chase Meidroth, David Sandlin, Miguel Bleis, I Coffey, H Mullins, J Paez 2026: Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell, Kyle Teel and many more. These 5 underlined players all seem like they will be "ready" by opening day of mid-summer. I doubt we add even 3 or 4 of them before Sept call-ups. I will do a more indepth post on next year's 40 man roster and Rule 5 situation, later. Again, I don't see a big crunch. We can add some of these 5, even on opening day. If we see Anthony as being opening day ready, we could trade Abreu. If we see Mayer as ready, we could trade DHam, Romy or Sogard, of if there are any takers, Story. The back-up catcher situation is fluid, so it would be easy to add Teel over someone like Heineman, but I think adding Mayer and Campbell might be too problematic for roster construction, unless several deals are made.

You and GG crack me up to no end!

Good point, and maybe that had something to do with the revamped development system. It might take a while for him to get back to the top 100. I'm not sure who else has a better chance at jumping that much. Sandlin? Fitts? E R-C? Valera?

An extra year makes a hug difference, when you figure it's at age 27-29, in most cases. I do agree, the job should be open, but unless one guy clearly wins the job, other aspects factor in- like who needs to be on the 40, who is out of options, and starting the clock on years of control and how many arb years you get. I see a stiff competition, unless there are injuries. I see whoever does not play SS, out of Story and Mayer, will be the best odds on player to win the 2B job. (The other will also be the back-up SS.) That makes the back-up 2Bman a pretty crucial job, given the injury histories to Story and Mayer. I do not doubt that Campbell looks like the best player, right now, and maybe he wins the job, but if he is a back-up to healthy Mayer and Story, he will not be even added to the 40, until needed... let alone the 26. I see DHam having the best odds to win the 2B back-up job with a RHB winning the utility role: that would be Grissom vs Romy. Campbell will likely start the year in AAA, unless Mayer or Story are on the IL. Even if one is, I do not think it's a given he will be the guy we call up or make the FT 2Bman. I'm not against the idea, at all, but he'd have to be impressive, while other look lacking, for us to make him an early season FT 2Bman. I could see us trading Abreu and DHam to give more room for Anthony, Mayer and Campbell to win a FT role. If they are not going to play everyday or near everyday, they will not be called up early and start their clocks just to have a better utility or back-up player on the bench. Also, our bench is not our weakness. If we trade Abreu and DHam for a pitcher, maybe we see this by May or June: C- Wong & Teel 1B: Casas (Devers) 2B: Campbell & Story (Romy) SS: Mayer & Story (Sogard) 3B: Devers & Story (Meidroth?) LF: Duran &Ref (Campbell) CF: Rafaela (Duran) RF: Anthony & Ref (Jh Garcia) DH: Yoshida (Ref & Campbell)

I like your inputs, Larry. Keep 'em coming. I know you have a passion for our farm- probably more than I do. MVP has a firm grasp of the skillsets of our prospects, along with their weak areas or need areas. I think soxprospects does a fine job not overhyping our prospects. Sometimes, I think they try to be too conservative, but that's not a bad thing, when you got fans like us looking at players' ceilings like they are reality. Thanks for your contributions, Larry.

I think Rafaela and Abreu, plus DHam and Slaten handled being given major roles, basically right out of the gate, pretty well. I think we learned a few things that needed to be known. Devers is forevers. Duran is for real. Rafaela and Abreu look pretty damn solid, but have a major weak area (Rafaela & the K-Zone, low OBP thing and Abreu struggling vs LHPs.) We seem to have better middle IF depth, now, with DHam, Romy and Rafaela in emergency situations. They seem better than Reyes, Arroyo and EValdez. Casas still has injury issues, but he did not lose any stock with his bat evaluation. Ref solidified his role as a top batter vs LHPs, and Yoshi seems to have calmed the worries of many a Sox fan, after his end of the 2023 season brought on. The big three turned into the big 4, and that has to be viewed as good. Guys like Arias, Jh Garcia and a few others look poised to make big jumps, again, next season. It all comes down to how you view the pitching staff. IMO, we have a little more certainty on what we can expect from Houck, Crawford, Whitlock, Wink and Bello, although the outlook on Bello looked shaky for a while. I do NOT think we can or should view any as a 1-2 SP'er, but Houck looks like a real good #3, who might increase his IP, next season, again. Bello should make a fine #4 or 5, and Gio is still the unknown, but counting on him as the #5 seems reasonable. That leaves two major gaps at the 1 and 2 slots, but Criswell, Priester, Fitts and Dobbins could be nice depth, and maybe Crawford could give us a spot start, here and there, so we can avoid those dreaded pen games that use 5-7 RP'ers. I like Slaten and Hendriks as set-up men for 2025. I think Crawford, Whitlock, Criswell and Wink provide some excellent choices for mid to long relief men or spot set-up guys that can go 2 IP, often. If we add a closer, plus the 6 I just named, that's 7 out of the 8 pen slots filled out, nicely. The amount of pitchers we have for the 8-15 slots on the depth chart looks pretty nice, too: Weissert, Kelly, Bernardino, Booser, I Campbell, Magta-horn (like that?) and maybe Guerrero, Fitts or Priester in pen roles, later in the season. Maybe my pink glasses are clouding my vision, but I think we have a nice foundation, even with the pitching staff, as long as pitchers are placed in roles they can handle.

I can totally understand giving an "F," assuming we continue like this through September and end up near 78-84 or 81-81. I cut Brez more slack, I guess, due to what I perceive as being a mandate to cut the budget further from what it was in 2023. He certainly deserves a hindsight "F" for his two biggest moves: the Gio signing and the Sale + Cash for Grissom trade. Those two chocies, alone, keeps him from getting above a "C" in my book. When you factor in the Paxton, Garcia and Sims additions, a C- to D+ seems about right. I liked the Slaten, Sandlin, Weissert/Fits, and even the I Campbell moves. The Criswell and O'Neill deals worked out well. I don't think those are enough to move the needle up much. I'd say C- to D+ on the MLB roster. I'd say B+ to B on the farm build up and 40 man/ minors depth chart improvements. I'd like to say he's done well improving the pitcher development program, but that will take time to determine, but at least we see some tangible evidence of changes being made, and a deeper focus on adding more pitchers to the farm system via drafting and trading. Maybe this helps bring his overall grade ro a C. I have no beef with people saying "D" or even an "F" as some look mainly at the MLB results and little else. (Nothing wrong with that, but it's not for me.)

I think the bar being set lower, this year, has something to do with the games being more enjoyable, but I also think the play was plain and simple- more fun to watch. The great pitching in April got the juices flowing and maybe got our hopes up much higher than they should have been. Al in all, our catchers and OF were way more fun to watch. The stolen bases by Duran, DHam, Rafaela and others added some excitement. Devers has been playing as good as ever. For once, we found a somewhat decent replacement for 1B, mid season (Dom Smith,) and our middle infield did okay, once we decided to use Rafaela at SS and the surprising play from DHam-Romy at 2B and back-up SS kept us from falling too far behind. The pen even did pretty good for about half the season, but when Martin and Slaten both were out, and the rotation began to tax it further, it imploded. Part of me dislikes saying this team was fun to watch, because in some way, it seems to vindicate what JH, kennedy and others were trying to sell us over the winter, namely, that we could be contenders. A few ifs and buts, and we actually could have been, in reality. Even if we end up 78-84, again, I think we took a step forward, this season. The 26 and 40 man rosters are better than anytime since 2019. The farm is the best it's been for maybe a decade or more. We actually have some decent pitchers and found out what roles they are best placed in, going forward. We lose some real and tangible & skilled players in Jansen, Martin, Pivetta and O'Neill. I think we can cover the loss of O'Neill, maybe by trading a LHB for an equally good RHB. We simply canNOT count on Gio, Hendriks, Fulmer and the return of Slaten to even those losses out. IMO, we should not really count ont hem, at all, except for back-end starters and pen depth. Add 2 TOTR SP'ers and a Closer should be enough. That moves everyone else down into roles they can handle, including Whit and Crawford to the pen as mid-long men. Slaten and hendriks should be fine as set-up men. They guys we counted on, this year as our 4-6 pen guys would now be our 7-9 guys or even AAA depth. IMHO, we are not that far away from being a solid contender, but one can argue being 2 TOTR pitchers and a closer is a long way to go, too. I guess it's how you look at.

Teams have proven they can win without a great or even good rotation. Teams have proven they can win with not so good, or even bad pens. This shouldn't mean we strive to be one of those teams. Clearly, teams have better odds, if they have good to great pitching. While the same could be said about having good to great hitting, to me, it seems like the correlation is stronger with pitching, especially having 2-3 very good SP'ers or a solid 4-5 rotation. To me, it was no coincience the Sox went far or came oh so close to making the dance, only when they had big seasons from Lonborg ('67,) A solid 4 in '72, Tiant, Lee & Wise in '75, Tiant, Lee, Eck & Torrez in '78, Clemens, Hurst, Boyd & Seaver in '86, Clemens & Boddiker in '90, Pedro & Saberhagen in '98 & '99, until the real competitive teams starting in 2002-2003 (Pedro, Lowe & Burkett & Wake), and then the big addition of Schilling leading to our first ring in 8 decades. Add Beckett by 2007 and another ring. Watch Lester mature and the addition of Lackey garner another ing in 2013. Then the string of 1st place finishes under DD, starting in 2016: you guessed it: we added Price, Porcello and ERod to the rotation before the start of that nice run, but it took adding sale to get the ring. (the in season addition of Nate was huge, too.) To me, we only win when we have 2+ ace-type SP'ers or 3+ solid SP'ers. We might have one, now: Houck. We'll greatly improve our odds, if we add two.

I didn't mean to imply the "nutshell" was all about untimely hitting for us and timely hitting for our opps, but just all the ways we seem to be doing better than our opps, but end up with the loss. It can be a misplayed fly ball, an unturned DP, a meltdown by one pen guy or several, after an excellent start. It can be a long stretch where our rotation struggled and put a ton of stress on our pen and O. It just seems like we find ways to snake-bite ourselves into L's. I'm not saying we deserve 5 more wins. We got what we deserved, but many of our losses are more on us than excellent play by our opps.

I'm hopeful the revamp of Pitching Development makes its mark, and it will take some time to start seeing the results at the big level, but I do like the fact that we have added more promising pitchers to the farm in the last 10 months than we have in a long time. Of course, it would be nice to see some nationally ranked, but we have seen many pitchers showing real promise, this summer. I've never been one to favor quantity over quality, when it comes to pitching, but quantity is better than sparsity. We need some young pitchers to make some significant jumps in the next few years, but with so many of them, the odds have improved on that happening. 1-2 years: Priester, Fitts, Dobbins, Gambrell, Murphy, Mata 2-3 years:Perales, Sandlin, E R-C, Tolle, Early, Monegro, Paez, Mullins, Dean, 3-4 years: Valera, Cason, Neely, Wehunt, D Reyes, Clarke, Tygart, Carlson, Ingrassia

He did have a .905 OPS in 1994, although for just 301 PAs. He led the league in 2Bs in '97, while hitting .871. He hit .811 in 1996, .793 in '93 and .781 in '98. From '93 to '98: .845 (21 HRs and 70 xbhs per 162 games) In that 5 year stretch, he was 11th in fWAR at 29.1. He hit .879 from '94-'97 (45th in MLB) and had a 19.4 fWAR . It wasn't a real long stretch of being real good, but I think it was more than just that one great season.

Be careful saying you have enjoyed this team. It upsets some posters.

I totally agree, especially on the part about us being in a "better spot, now" than we have been in a long time. We have a solid and deep everyday roster. We have a few role pitchers that could be major plusses, if we don't ask them to fill roles they are not good enough to fill. Houck, Bello and Gio should be fine 3-5 SP'ers. Whitlock, Crawford and Wink should be fine mid to long RP'ers or solid 1-2 IP set-up men. Slaten & Hendriks could be nice set-up men. Out of Weissert, Kelly, Booser, Bernardino, I Campbell, Fulmer and a few others, we would be fine with pen depth, but we need to add a closer and solid set-up man to move these guys down a slot on the depth chart- where they belong. Criswell, Fitts, Priester and maybe Dobbins would be okay as slot 6-9 on the rotation depth chart, but not in any higher role. In short, while it sounds like adding 4 major pitchers is too much to ask for, with the budget space and trade capital we have, we can pull it off. We can't have any swings and misses, or maybe just 1 miss out the 4 additions, but that is not some pie-in-the-sky dream. Sign a #1/2 like Burnes. Trade for a #2/3 or sign one. Add a closer and solid set-up man. Maybe trade a lefty bat for a righty bat, and call it a day.

Yanks and KCR lost, which just makes our loss seem more hurtful, in some way. I'm not sure we have enough time to reach the dance.

The farm is becoming closer to being more entertaining than the big club. Westbrook hit a granny to lead Woo to a victory. He went 3-4. Story went 2-4 as the DH. Anthony & Campbell went 1-4, Meidroth 1-1 and Teel went 2-4 with a homer & BB. Grissom homered and walked once. POR won 9-1 as Bolden pitched 4 no hit innings. Romero's stock keep rising, as he homered while going 3 for 6. Jh Garcia went 2-4 w a BB. GRE won 6-1, as Monegro went 5 IP, allowing 2 hits, 2BBs and no ERs (5Ks.) SAL completed the farm sweep with a 6-5 win. Ingrassa 2 IP 0H, 0ER, 2BB, 2K. Brannon went 3-4 w a dinger. Nice day on the farm: horrible day in Detroit.

5 Hits & 2BB: 1 run 3 Hits & 1BB: 4 runs The Sox season in a nutshell.

Been using Hill, a lot, after such a short time in the minors. I guess this was bound to happen. He can't be at 100%.

Sox SP'er after their first 4 starts, then since then... ERA/FIP 0.42/2.19 Crawford (4.71/5.07 since) Was at 2.17/2.91 after 10 & 3.00/3.78 after 20. 1.35/2.01 Houck (3.46/3.59 since) Was at 1.91/2.24 after 13 & 2.79/2.93 after 21. 1.75/3.61 Criswell (includes 1 RP gm) 5.20/4.23 since, not counting today. 1.96/3.34 Whitlock N/A (on IL) 3.92/4.72 Bello (4.80/4.32 since) Was at 3.04/4.07 after 5 & 3.52/4.27 last 9 GS.

Duran has really stepped it up, and that is not an easy thing to do, since he was doing great, beforehand.

It is a big gamble to trade top prospects for a pitcher that may get hurt or suddenly decline, but what sort of gamble is it to add no major upgrades to this staff? I'd say it's near 100% certain we will not win a ring with our current pitching staff and farm pitching, for a long time. We simply have to roll the dice, and hope we finally hit on the next one.

I think this topic deserved its own thread. It hasn't even been a year, yet, and Brez has already faced a lot of criticism, rightfully so on a few choices made (Gio, Sale/Grissom & 3 of the deadline deals.) I do not think there has been enough talk on Slaten, O'Neill, dumping Dugo and his whole schtick, and the building up of our pitching depth (Weissert, I Campbell, Criswell) farm pitching... ?? Priester 10. Sandlin 14. Tolle 15. Fitts 23. Cason 30. Neely, 34. Reyes, 38. Horn, 44. Clarke, 45. Tygart and more...

They did do well with the Pablo Lopez trade & extension, buy yes, they are a fine example of a team, like the Sox, dealing with budget restrictions, but they have done better ... for 2024, anyway.

We face a righty, today, in a pretty close to must win game. Brieske has a 4.44 ERA. Rafaela gets the day off, and Ref gets a start vs a RHP. Here is the line-up: 1. L Duran CF 2. L Yoshida DH 3. R Refsnyder LF 4. L Devers 3B 5. L Casas 1B 6. R Wong C 7. L Abreu RF 8. R Romy 2B (too bad DHam is out) 9. L-R Sogard SS I like our chances, today, but then again, I did yesterday, too. Criswell needs to do well.

I agree, and a large chunk of his moves were designed for the 2025 and beyond teams: Hendriks & Fulmer jump out as two. Fitts, Sandlin & Priester, among others 2024 and beyond: Criswell, Weissert, I Campbell & Romy