moonslav59

We'd have to insist on them taking Yoshida and or Story as just a partial money balancing aspect to this trade, but I'd consider it. I'm not sure taking on a declining high-priced player ia good gamble, though, but a change of scenery may help.

I think Romy can add a big enough spark to make a difference. The return of Anthony- no date in sight- could be a major factor. A couple trades for BLowe & Jeffers types could tip the balance just enough.

The Yanks are losing 6-0 to MIN (a team we need to pass,) but it's nice to see they are about to go 1-5 after our 4 game sweep of them a couple weeks ago. The Yanks will be 1-9 in their last 10 games, if they lose today. Even the best teams of this weak league are beatable. Are the Rays really this good?

A healthy Story could have hit better than his replacements have done, especially if he hit like 2025, but his SS defense was a minus, and there was no sign of moving him to 2B in 2026. I don't view his loss as a sure negative to the team. Anthony & Romy, yes. IKF was hitting well, when he got hurt, too. I don't think our everyday player injuries has been overly excessive or even above the norm. Losing Anthony seemingly hurt, but we don't really know how well he'd be doing. Our injuries to the rotation were extreme, even within the context of all the league wide injuries to SP'ers. We lost 5 of out top 9-10 SP'ers, including our ace. Crochet was a clear #1 going into 2026. Houck was our ace 2 years ago Crawford was widely viewed as having a real chance to be a solid #2/3 Sandoval was a solid 2.5 to 3.5 type a few years back. Oviedo was projected by some to be our #5 to start 2026. (Bello was demoted.) It's hard to say we were severely hurt by these injuries, in light of the results given by Tolle, Bennett & Early, but one could argue we could have bolstered our pen with some of these guys (Crawford/Bello/Sandoval/Bennett/Early/Tolle)

I'm thinking we should be able to expect a .750ish batter for the rest of Durbin's control years. Couple that with near GG defense at 3B, I'm happy. .750 might beat out Bregman's next 4-5 years, too. That's an added plus, when you factor the money differential. For now, I count Rafaela (CF) Contreras (1B) Abreu (RF) Anthony (LF/DH) and Durbin (3B/2B) as the only sure keepers for the opening day 2027 line-up. Romy can shore up a FT role by showing he can hit righties the rest of 2026, and if he doesn't he's a sure platoon bat in 2027 (1B/2B/DH.) That gives us 5. 5.5 or 6 core everyday players. We'll need 3 serious additions this winter: SS, C and 2B/3B or DH/OF.

Good points, but have we really had more injuries than most other teams, especially on offense? Anthony & Romy hurt. Story's replacements have hit better than he did.

Agreed, and RF defense is huge in Boston. (Glove & arm) I expected a career year in 2026, and it's not too late to see it. He's only .017 from his career high OPS. His OPS+ 118 in '24 118 in '25 118 in '26

Basically, the only thing a GM can do is make good moves to try and improve the team. Nobody disagrees on Gray, Suarez & Contreras being good to great moves. None were overly costly in money or players traded. (We got Gray & Contreras for less than what we gave up for Crochet, and we even got the other team to pay us money, for once.) IKF, Durbin & Coulombe have worked out pretty good, too. Those were the second tier moves. This doesn't ignore the mistake "non move" on adding a big bat, but it should have more than made up for it.

In any other year, it would be 99% sell, but when the last WC slot is at .500, that changes everything.

The other factor I look at is how almost all of us and probably most baseball experts viewed Harrison, Priester & Drohan at the times we traded them. What's also interesting about those three is that Brez acquired them before trading them. People scoffed at the idea that Harrison might be the prize of the Devers trade. Many liked Tibbs more. Not many were wow'd by the Yorke for Priester deal, but many are pissed at Brez for trading him away. Drohan is Drohan. I doubt he keeps this up. Then, we hear, "Oh, I forgot about Bennett." Who is crying about trading Perales, Clarke, Aita, Fajardo and several others? (I should bite my tongue, because someday they may do so.) We bitched about Bloom's reluctance to trade top prospects and his paralyzing indecisiveness, especially at the deadlines, but Brez has been the opposite. The amount of players and prospects he has traded and traded for is staggering. (I only mentioned a few of those he traded for and then traded away.) In less than 3 years, he has made the 26, 40 and farm mostly his. That may be unintended hyperbole, but it must be close to being true. Looking at 40 man roster seniority, which is not the same as system seniority, the 9th most senior member is Weissert- a player Brez traded for. That means only 8 players on the 40 were on the 40, when Brez took over. The vast majority of the next 32 were acquired by Brez, not promoted from the system as Bloom or DD players. Now, some might say, "so what- we suck," and that has merit, but take a look at the roster and farm Brez took over and compare it to this one. Take a look at the budget and bad contracts, and you'll see the worst 2-3 were inherited. Take a look at the pitching pipeline and tell me it's not vastly improved. (True, the hitting side is lacking, though.) When you trade away about half the system, you have to figure some will do well elsewhere. The Sale trade is an example- the big one- but even that trade had some serious merit to it, at the time. Nobody expected this from Freakin' Chris Sale. I like what Brez has done. I realize it doesn't mesh with our current W-L record, and that doe ssuck, badly. Ultimately, the record is on him. He missed the boat on adding bats. Thatw as a major blunder, but it's not the whole story, IMO.

While Durbin is 26, he still has under 800 PAs in the bigs. In his two seasons, he's been a slow starter. He was in the .520's last late May, too. I'm not saying his ceiling is what he's done the last month or the .887 forty-two game streak in 2025 from near the end of May to mid July, but doing this twice opens up the idea that his ceiling may be higher than his career 96 OPS+. Durbin played 5 seasons in the minors but only has 1274 career PAs there. He did hit .858 in AAA (443 PAs) but was between .734 and .765 at the other levels.) He has a career .782 OPS on the farm, so thinking maybe that is his ceiling is understandable. To me, with his glove, .775 would be very very nice. Mayer has about half the MLB PAs and a 76 OPS+, so of course, his ceiling is more speculative and easily placed higher, but his minor league numbers are not all that impressive, and his injury history is frightening. Mayer also has 5 years in the minors and slightly more PAs than Durbin (1411) so maybe the durability factor differential is not so clear. (I'm not sure why Durbin's minor league PAs are lower than Mayer's.) Mayer has less than half the AAA PAs as Durbin and a lower OPS (.818) His AA PAs rank first in level at 524, and his OPS was a pedestrian .763. He did much better in single A than Durbin, but to me that is not what I look at when determining "ceiling." Mayer can play plus D at SS, so that is one thing in his favor.

I mentioned him often, too. I liked him better than Donovan. I think signing him might work well, this coming winter. He has power we need and should fix the 2B position once and for all. It's been a decade of a circus carrousel at 2B. I'd also look to maybe signing Jeffers, although he may be more of a DH than a decent catcher. The Catching and DH positions both need a big boost on offense. Neither of those two signings are earth-shattering, but they won't be budget busters, either. That would leave a major trade as the last part of the plan to add 3 major bats to the line-up. Assuming we trade Duran, we could trade for any position, except 1B (Contreras) or 2B (BLowe.) Catcher or DH would still be fine, as Jeffers could play the other. OF would be fine, as Anthony could DH. SS would be best, but trading for a big bat SS would cost us some serious young arm talent (Early or Tolle plus maybe Bennet or Eyanson.) I can't see us trading Arias, but if it's for a long term SS, I guess he could be the centerpiece of a trade. Who can we get for Arias and two from Early/Witherspoon/Phillips/Valera/Holobetz?

Thanks for this. I would be okay with one trade like this, but everything else would need to be about adding top quality to the 2027 starting line-up and the high leverage pen.

There are times when you need to deal the no control players, but I fully agree. This cannot be a major teardown, even if you hate the foundation, as is. We've watched a slow tear down beginning in 2019, when we failed to replace Kimbrell and Kelly. That's 7 seasons of mostly last places with a couple wonder years sprinkled in. Right or wrong: we need to identify the keepers, fill 3-4 slots with top quality players and go for it in 2027. It's fine to try and get players for beyond just 2027, but we can't ignore 2027 and load up on prospects that have ETAs in late 2027 and early 2028 and beyond. We just CANNOT!

You me the Will-DA-Beast? He was so set in his opinions, nothing could budge him. I made the mistake of agreeing with him that Ellsbury was not good on defense, and he wasn't year one and two, but when he started improving, softlaw would have none of that. Once he called him sucky, he had to stay that way. (We both were happy we did not signing him to big money.) He also agreed with me on my "No Manny- No Rings" thread which broke records for most posts and disagreements, but that was about the end of any similar views. I found it nearly impossible to have a person exist whereby I disagree on 99.9% of all his opinions. At times, I felt it was all staged or trolling, but I think he really believed every absurd idea he had. At least he was articulate in presenting his views and did not distort other's views- he just bashed them relentlessly. The whole "pink hat Theo apologist" rants were epic, and of course wrong on several levels.

At this point, trading Duran for the best offer is okay, even if we dislike the return. Yoshida & Story? Sure, try to save $4-7M. This would open up 3 roster spots, and allow some of our current starters (1 from Narvaez/Wong and 2 from Mayer/Seagler/Monasterio) to become decent bench players for 2027. I'm not so sure about trading Chapman, as he is under control for 2027, if he reached 40 IP. (He is on pace for close to that.) I have no idea what Gray and Chapman bring back. Their BTV value is shockingly low, so I would not go by that, I'd rather keep both and hope for a miracle than trade them for scraps. IKF, Coulombe and Sandoval will also be dealt, if we are sellers. None have any more team control. They won't bring back much, but they should have value to several contending teams in desperate need. The problem with deadline deals is that few teams will trade a ML ready top prospect or good established MLB player, because they need them, now. They want to trade single A prospects or maybe a AA one or two. I don't see the Sox thinking 2028 and beyond rebuild here, and I also think they are terrified of giving off that message to the fanbase. We will need immediate or near immediate return values, and that is not easy to pull off. Then, add to this the calculation that prospects or young players have more speculative value than proven value, so we have to trust we do well or "guess right." There are too many examples of failed guesses to list, but Vaughn Grissom, Jeter Downs and Kyle Harrison.... oops.... I mean YRod & Holobetz are but a few. I really can't see this team turning it around so strongly that I have faith they can advance to the WS, but stranger things have happened, and I and many others felt this team on paper was as good or better than 2025's teams, and they got me encouraged, last year, so maybe I'm wrong (again.) As of right now, I'm leaning sell, but not totally teardown mode. Just the one year guys and maybe Chapman. (Duran, Story and Yoshida should be traded. Keeping Story as 2B depth might be okay.) Sorry I can't offer specifics on who we can get for Gray + Chapman, but it should be someone viewed as a very good or better starting player in 2027- hopefully a SS, 2Bman or Catcher- maybe two.

Look how all the talk on Bogey has stopped on a dime. I'm not predicting a Devers decline, but him not hitting .890 helps when thinking "what if?"

So has Durbin. My guess is Devers hits .825-.875 a couple more years, then starts declining slowly. Maybe he hits .900 again. When we extended him, I expected .900 for a few years, or the high .800's. He's a streaky hitter, so it would be foolish to write him off. He could end up over .850 or even .875, this season.

We've sucked at 1B too long. I agree on keeping Willson. Maybe we can trade for brother William.

...and Early, Sandoval, plus maybe Mayer, IKF & Bello?

.500 is a WC berth, so yes.

Maybe 50-50, now.

Sale is a close call and may need a season or two good seasons to get him in. I think Evans belongs. I think the reason he's not in is because he never really had an amazing season. Never hit 35 HRs in a season. While he led the league in OPS, twice, he only got as high as 3rd in an MVP vote. To me, consistent excellent play on O and D deserves the Hall, I think many voters want to see the best of the best for at least a season or two. Evans only dipped below .745 twice in his 20 year career: year 2 at .703 (328 PAs) and season 19 at .740. (522 PAs.) He had a 130 OPS+ from year 3 to year 18 (16 seasons.) Every season between .750 and .990. OPS+ 110 year 1-5 (age 20-24) 126 year 6-10 (age 25-29) 133 year 11-15 (age 30-34) 133 year 16-20 (age 35-39) He got better with age. fWAR: 30.4 first 10 seasons (ranked 36th in MLB) 34.7 last 10 years (ranked 21st) His best 10 years was 1979-1988 at 43.7 (11th ranked)

Some lower level or lower ranked prospects are doing well: #25 Luke Heyman .878 #27 Mason White .863 #29 Garielvin Silverio .740 #31 Dylan Brown .646 OPSA in 61 IP #32 Dawvris Brito homered and is now at 1.090 ($1.2M bonus as IFA in Jan 2026) #33 Brooks Brannon ,899 #34 Jo Garcia .822 #35 Y Rod .774 #36 Isaiah Jackson 3 for 5 tonight (.733) #37 Louis Andujar (promoted to SAL .724) #39 Gage Ziehl 3.94 in 64 IP #40 Jack Winnay .896 #41 Barrett Morgan .508 OPSA #46 Jojo Ingrassia .622 OPSA #47 Maximus Martin homered, too and is at 1.274 (10th rd in '25) #53 Adonys Guzman .792 #56 Jorge Rodrigues is at .921 (IFA 2024) #58 Devin Futrell .606 OPSA (63K:9BB in 56IP)