moonslav59

Yup, and a tightening budget. Our opening day payroll went from $207M in '22 to $181 in '23 to $171, this year. Cutting $36M in 2 winters makes the GMs job very difficult.

It's impossible to predict with any accuracy how well all our returning players will do in 2025, but when it comes to how we feel about many of our players, now vs how we felt over this past winter, I'm thinking most are viewed more positively. Devers is heading for a career high in OPS+ and is still in his peak prime years. Duran was largely a big question mark over the winter, but is now a pretty sure bet. He may even get better, next year. Rafaela has shown he can play excellent CF defense and has hit .791 in his last 243 PAs, but maybe .700 to .725 is about all we can expect for a while. Wong might be the most likely player to think his OPS (.775) might decline in '25. Abreu has a career .900 OPS vs RHPs, but is under .500 vs LHPs. Refsnyder offers the perfect platoon for Abreu, as he has been a top 25 MLB hitter vs LHPs over the past 3 years. Yoshida seems to have found his groove and looks to be an .800+ batter, going forward. DHam & Romy have given us decent back-up play, this year, combining for about a .745 OPS and nearly 40 SBs in just 530 PAs.) Casas is a bit of a question mark, but staying near his .838 career OPS or better seems reasonable to expect. Grissom and Story remain the biggest question marks, along with any rookies getting the call in 2025. On the pitching front, we might be okay, if we only counted on the following pitchers for the roles listed, here: SP3-4: Gio SP3-4: Houck SP4-5: Bello SP5-6: Crawford SP7-8: Criswell & Whitlock (long relief) SP9: Priester, Fitts, Dobbins RP3: Whitlock RP4: Hendriks RP5: Slaten RP6: Fulmer RP7: Wink RP8: Kelly, Bernardino, Booser, Weissert, ICampbell, Guerrero, Mata To me, this shows the bare minimum 4 major pitching additions away from having a decent staff. SP1 SP2 Closer Set UP

Yes, in AAA. I hope they both go on to do well, just not against the Sox.

It's not rocket science or anything new. Having pitchers pitch more of their best pitches seems like a good idea, but keeping a healthy mix is important, too.

Whit looked great in his first 4 starts, too. He was a big part of our April eye-opening rotation ERA. 0.82 Pivetta (2 GS) 1.35 Crawford (6) 1.60 Houck (6) 1.65 Criswell (3) 1.96 Whitlock (4) 3.04 Bello (5) 3.50 Wink (2)

I'm not happy with JH's spending, either but the drop in payroll rankings have been, at least in part, due to several owners deciding they were going to go nutty with spending. No doubt, we have cut salary since we were ranked 3rd in 2021. 2021 was not that long ago. According to Steve the Ump, we have seen these changes in some teams' spending: '21>'22>'23>'24 BOS 180>195>176>162 (a drop of $18M from 2021) $18M is dwarfed by these teams: NYM: 167> 302 +235 NYY: 191> 294 +103 HOU: 171> 237 +66 PHI: 174> 236 +62 ATL: 134> 225 +91 TOR: 137> 222 +85 TEX: 85> 221 +136 LAD: 235> 220 (masters of hiding payroll) CHC: 150> 216 +66 STL: 135> 164 +29 SDP: 153 (but 237 in '23) We could have added $26M more to our 2024 spending budget and still been ranked 11th. (Not 12th as we are.) The main reason we dropped in the rankings is due to other owners spending more. That's not letting JH off the hook, but some context is needed. Had JH added $36M more in spending from 2021 to 2024, we'd still be 10th. $40M more would place us 9th, behind the Dodgers, who have so much deffered money, it's not even funny. $45M more gets us to 6th (behind the Braves) $55M more gets us close to PHI but still 5th. We'd have to be spending about $60M more to have kept our 3rd place ranking from 2021.

So, we do throw a lot of fastballs and hard sinkers. It's not like all we throw are sliders, sweepers and change-ups.

True, but some, even when left in longer, were not all that bad: Crawford 8/18 5.1 IP 3 ER (Horn let his runner score on an HR) 8/13 5.1 IP 4 ER (No hitter through 5 IP, then BOOM, and Booser let his runner score.) Had Crawford been yanked after 5, we'd have said it was a good GS. Bello has had 7 straight okay to decent starts with no more than 3 ERs allowed.40.1 IP 3.57 ERA, but the 4.80 FIP suggests some luck. Houck has gone 6 or more IP in 3 straight starts (2.41 ERA in 18.2 IP) Pivetta has been up and down: 7IP 0ER 6.2 4ER (let up 2B and run in 7th) 6.0 0ER 2.2 7ER 6.2 3ER (2 HRs in the 6th) 4.2 2ER 5.0 3ER (HR in the 5th)

Yes, and word was that had Gio not gotten hurt, Houck would be the odd man out, so it looks to me like someone(s) really likes Whit as a starter.

Well, Whitlock replacing $16M Jansen as the closer would be a big savings, too. Hendriks would be a cheaper Chris Martin, too.

I think the pen being so god-awful has forced Cora to stick with the starters longer than maybe he wanted to do. It seems like many of our most recent starts looked good after 4 or 5 IP, then the wheels came off. The D is looking almost as bad as in April.

I could be wrong, but I think we had Whitlock ahead of Houck on the rotation depth chart, which to me says Whitlock was no emergency starter, this year. I'm not sure about 2025, but I hope they finally learn the lesson.

How often do they throw 2 seamers?

That could well happen, but I would place him as our 3rd best SP'er going into 2025: 1. Houck 2. Bello 3. Gio 4. Criswell 5. Crawford (I hope we stop thinking of Whitlock as SP'er depth, once and for all.)

It might help, if our guys could throw unhittable fastballs, but your point is well-taken.

You don't think 2B or 3B will work?

I don't disagree. I will say, we are still losing games due to poor D as well as a poor pen. Brez did try to stock the pen, last winter and at the deadline, but not many did well, and Slaten got hurt. He added these guys and some were supposed to be okay to good: Slaten Weissert I Campbell Criswell (uses as a SP, a lot) Hendriks Booser Horn Deadline: Garcia & Sims The Martin step back and Slaten injury really hurt, but you need to plan for that. I get it. Brez cam up short, here, too.

I guess Haniger would offset some of Yoshida's cost, and he does bat RH'd, but he's 33 and has 2 straight seasons under .640. Garver is another 33 y/o RHB, but he offers more hope on O and could back up Wong until Teel is ready. I think maybe Casas, Abreu & Yoshida plus cash for Miller, a RPer and Garver might do it.

As far as ever day players go, we look pretty set for 2025 and beyond, even if we do not replace O'Neill and D Jansen or Refsnyder after 2025. We are certainly LHB heavy, and our top 3 prospects all bat LH'd, so maybe a swap of a LHB for a RHB would make sense, but either way, we have a solid 9 and solid depth and prospects at just about every position. Some of the depth is barely replacement level, but we do have some very promising prospects that should be better than replacement level, quickly. Here is a look at the depth chart with prospects farther than 1 year away in parenthesis. C: Wong, Teel, Gasper, Heineman, Hickey (DH) (Jo Garcia, Brannon) 1B: Casas, Romy, Jordan (J Gonzalez) 2B: Story/Mayer, Grissom, DHam, Romy, Campbell, Sogard, E Valdez (DH) (Cespedes) SS: Mayer/Story, DHam-Romy, Meidroth, Romero (Arias, Riemer) 3B: Devers, Mayer/Story, Romy, Meidroth (Zanetello, Cason, Anderson) LF: Duran, Refsnyder/Abreu, Yoshida (DH) E Valdez, Campbell (Castro. Ehrhard. Turner) CF: Rafaela, Duran, Anthony, Campbell (Bleis, Jh Garcia) RF: Abreu-Refsnyder, Anthony, Campbell DH: Yoshida, Devers/Casas, EValdez, Campbell, Hickey (Jo Garcia)

I could see something like this. (No Gio?)

So, maybe... (assuming Casas trade) 1B: Devers (Romy) 2B: Story (DHam-Grissom/Romy) SS: Mayer (Story/Romy-DHam) 3B: Grissom (Devers/Romy/Meidroth)

I only mentioned Rafaela's offense may still need more evaluation. I didn't come close to writing him off. (He's one of my favorite players and reminds me of a previous fave of mine, JBJ.) I'd say our rotation is more like this for 2025: SP1_____ SP2_____ SP3 Houck SP4 Bello SP5 Giolito SP6 Crawford SP6 Criswell SP7 Whitlock/Wink/Fitts/Dobbins

Hardly any players on the Sox were around in 2020 or even 2021. Only a few were here in 2022. SEA has made more trades than any team in MLB. I'm not sure why it matters what the records were from 2020-2023. The Sox have several everyday players that are better than yours. If you think only Casas offers and upgrade, I'd say you are selling Sox player short. I do realize it is not all about being better on offense. Better D is part of the reason your team has a better record than us, over the years- that and better pitching, but let's look at fWAR, which measures O + D: OF: (I think SEA would love to add Duran, Rafaela, Abreu or maybe even Ref.) 5.5 Duran 2.5 Abreu 2.2 O'Neill (FA after '24) 2.0 Julio Rodriguez 1.5 Dylan Moore (UT) 1.4 Refsnyder 1.2 Arozarena (2 teams) 1.2 Raley 0.9 Rafaela -0.5 Haniger (371 PAs) Corner IF (There will be no Devers to SEA trade.) 4.5 Devers 1.6 Rojas 0,4 Casas (Ty France>Justin Turner) Casas would be a big upgrade at 1B. Middle IF (I doubt SEA wants DHam, granted.) 1.6 DHam 1.4 Crawford 0.3 Romy C (No match for trade here) 3.5 Raleigh 0.9 Wong DH (Maybe Yoshida+ cash would work out.) 1.1 Yoshida -0.5 Garver (371 PAs)

He thinks every Mariner everyday player is better than every Sox player. Maybe not Devers, but he's not available. Out of the top 11 batters by PAs on the Mariners, only 2 have an OPS above .690, and none are above .737! Conversely, out of the top 11 Sox batters, none are below .682. The top 10 are all above .699. Seven of our batters have a higher OPS than SEA's top batter's .747: .966 Devers .884 O'Neill .863 Refsnyder .845 Duran .836 Abreu .826 Yoshida .775 Wong DHam's .723 would place 3rd. (THis isn't even counting Casas .816 or Romy .760.)

Could be, or we could wait on starting the service time clocks on Mayer, Anthony, Teel, Fitts and others. I'm not sure how much more we have to "find out" about our everyday players, except maybe Rafaela's bat and if 2024 was a fluke by Wong. The pitching staff is mostly a mess, although putting a few guys into different roles could help, but that would take adding 4-5 pitchers into the top of the rotation and pen slots, from outside the organization. I don't see that happening, so it won't matter much how well the everyday players do.