moonslav59

We all agree, we did too little, and dumping Sale just added to the void in rotation depth. I will say that Houck and Criswell were considered SP depth before the Gio injury, as it looked like Whitlock, Pivetta and Crawford were the choices over Houck. Gio Bello Pivetta Crawford Whitlock 2 deep in depth was woefully inadequate, but it's not like we had nothing. As it turned out, those two depth SP'ers turned into 2 of our best in 2024. Sadly, the rest were let-downs.

Not a prediction, but I think we could do something like this: Trade: Anthony, Campbell & Fitts for Logan Gilbert (3 arbs) or George Kirby (4 arbs) Sign: Eovaldi ($15M x 2) Jansen ($15M x 1) Sewald ($7.5M x 2) Martin ($5.5M x 1) SP: Gilbert, Houck, Nate, Gio, Bello, Crawford, Criswell, Priester, Dobbins, Murphy RP: Jansen, Sewald, Hendriks, Slaten, Martin, Whitlock, Wink, Kelly, Bernardino, Fulmer, Weissert, I Campbell, Guerrero C: Wong, Gasper (Teel and Jo Garcia not on 40) 1B: Casas (Gasper) (Jordan not on 40) 2B: Story, DHam-Grissom (platoon) SS: Mayer (Story) Romy (Romero not on 40) 3B: Devers (Meidroth not on 40) LF: Duran, E Valdez/Sogard (Castro not on 40) CF: Rafaela (Duran) (Jh. Garcia not on 40) RF: Abreu-Refsnyder (platoon) DH: Yoshida (Hickey not on 40) Is this enough? Is this even possible?

He's arb 1, so maybe we just find a min wage guy like him or go with Gasper, who can also play 1B. I do not think we add Teel to the 40 until midseason or later.

No, Grissom was no sure bet, but he instantly became the front-runner for the FT job. Also, much of the downside of his WAR was on defense at SS, and the idea was his defense at 2B would be near average, soon and maybe plus, after a short time. We can haggle over the terminology of "counting on" vs "hoping," but the fact was that "hope" had come up short for 5 years in a row, and Brez decided 5 was enough. He guessed wrongly. We had guessed wrongly on several other SP'ers with injury histories, in recent years and been burned on everyone, except maybe Wacha: Richards and Kluber both cost $10M. I think we all agree, the deal turned out badly, but this team was relying on "hope" for far too long. Brez attempted to move towards more durability and missed wildly. Of course, all GMs are judged in hindsight, and Brez failed on this deal. My point is only that it made some sense, at the time. Initially, I was highly skeptical about the move. Over time, I felt like there was some logic to the deal, but I was wrongly assuming we'd spend more on pitching than we did in 2023. We did not: 2023: 25.6 Sale 10.0 Kluber 4.0 Paxton 2024: 19.3 Gio 17.0 Sale 1.3 Anderson Had we spent more on the rotation and found our 2Bman, we'd still be lamenting losing Sale, but it would not hurt, so much. I like to use the wording "counting on" or "not counting on," because going into 2024, we had very few SP'er we could count on for anything- even a healthy Gio was no sure bet. I get the logic behind keeping all your chances alive, and trading away Sale lessened the pool of possible contributing SP'ers. It was a big risk, but when you look at 5 straight seasons of dashed hopes, it didn't seem like this big of a risk.

Sox lead MLB in 2Bs. 4th in 3Bs 1st in 2B+3B 6th in HRs (1 from MIN) 6th in SBs (3 from PHI) 5th OBP (.002 fromLAD, .003 from MIL and .004 from ARI) 2nd in SLG (.010 from PHI) 3rd in OPS (.001 from BAL and .004 from NYY) XBHs 431 BAL 430 BOS 418 MIN 415 LAD 396 NYM 394 ARI & NYY 378 KCR

Starting this thread earlier, this year, but this should not be taken as a sign of giving up on 2024. It is not. Again, there are a lot of unknowns going into 2025, including the budget and how and when we can or will improve our pitching staff. I'm not sure we have ever been so sure about the everyday player alignment going into 2025, but a few choices need to be made there: Do we swap a LHB for a RHB? Do we count on using one or two of the big 3 prospects, early in the season, or do we wait it out and play the years of control game with 2-3 of them? Other than that, I think we look pretty set on the everyday 13: C: Wong & ____ (Teel AAA or someone like Gasper or Heineman) 1B: Casas (Romy) 2B: Story (DHam-Romy) SS: Mayer (or Story) 3B: Devers LF: Duran CF: Rafaela RF: Abreu-Refsnyder platoon (Anthony in AAA) DH: Yoshida We all know the area that needs serious attention. We simply cannot go into 2025, expecting success without some major additions, and I'm not talking 1-2. We need to add 1-2 above and beyond replacing Jansen, Martin & Pivetta. That looks like 5 solid additions needed, minimum. This can be done via free agency or by trading some bottle-necked prospects or younger players for quality pitching. This is by no means a sure bet to happen. JH has been reluctant to spend on the rotation or to trade any top prospects away. The last highest ranked prospects traded were Beeks in '18 for Eovaldi, Aldo Ramirez in '21 for Schwarber and Matthew Lugo and Nick Yorke, this summer. That is not a solid track record of trading prospects for top quality players. I'm not making predictions. There will plenty of those made by many of us, in the coming months. Here's a quick look at the budget situation (AAV dollars): FAs: Jansen, Martin, Pivetta, O'Neill, Paxton, DJansen, L Garcia, L Sims 29.1 Devers 23.3 Story 18.0 Yoshida 9.2 Bello 6.3 Rafaela 5.0 Hendriks (option) 4.7 Whitlock 2.0 Refsnyder Arbs (Est.): 7.4 Duran (1 of 4) 7.0 Houck (1 of 3) 3.0 Crawford (1 of 4) 1.0 Heineman (1 of 3, may be non tendered) This comes to about $116M. Add the pre-arb contracts, 0-3 bonus pool (1.7) and player benefits (17.5) and it comes to about $150-155M. The CBT first line is $241M, so to spend up to that line might mean we have about $80-90M for the winter spending budget. (That is not to say JH will agree to that much spending.) I'll go over the 40 man roster, next, but here are the 5-6 essential needs for 2025: SP1-2 SP2-3 SP5-6 Closer Set Up RP or RHB The Projected 40 Man Roster before any trades or signings: Red= Bubble (Non tender, Rule 5 Bubble, DFA or trade?) Blue= Likely Rule 5 Protected SP Houck, Bello, Giolito, Crawford, Criswell, Priester, Perales, Fitts, Dobbins, Monegro Mata, Murphy, Wikelman, Gambrell RP Hendriks, Slaten, Whitlock, Winckowski, Kelly, Bernardino, Weissert, I Campbell, Booser, Fulmer, GuerreroHorn, Shugart C Wong, Heineman or Gasper 1B Casas Dalbec 2B Grissom, DHam SS Story, Romy 3B Devers LF Duran E Valdez, Castro CF Rafaela Jh Garica RF Abreu, Refsnyder DH Yoshida There may not be a big roster crunch, unless we start adding more than 5-6 FAs or trade additions for no 40 man roster players. Not needed to protect for Rule 5, but roster depth, if needed: SP: Penrod, Drohan, Sandlin, Early RP: Mills, Cellucci, Liu, Hoppe, Troye C: Teel 1B: Jordan/Meidroth 2B: Mayer/Campbell SS: Mayer, Romero 3B: Meidroth LF: Sogard CF: Campbell RF: Anthony DH: Hickey/Gasper This could be an eventful winter or more of the same ole sham. Maybe, somewhere in between. I'm not optimistic, but I have not lost hope.

A big improvement to our D in 2025 could be... SS 122 Mayer 40 Story 2B 112 Story 50 DHam & Romy CF 152 Rafaela 10 Duran LF 142 Duran 20 Refsnyder RF 122 Abreu 40 Refsnyder (Anthony) 3B 157 Devers 5 Mayer 1B 157 Casas 5 Romy C 122 Wong 40 _____ (Gasper/Teel)

2B 91 Valdez 51 Arroyo 25 Reyes 24 Urias 23 DHam 22 Grissom 14 Kike 13 Westbrook 9 Sogard 6 Romy 4 Turner 2 Chang 1 Short & Rafaela

GS at SS from 2023-2024: 61 Rafaela 59 DHam 54 Kike 43 Story 30 Chang 26 Reyes 8 Romy 2 Arroyo & Sogard 1 Dalbec

It doesn't look like KCR and MIN are going to roll over. Right now, they are pulling away. There are still 37-39 games left for everyone, so there is time for a comeback, but we better start soon. We are 3.5 behind KCR, 4.5 from MIN and 7 from NYY. The 4th place Rays are closer to us than we are the KCR. Time to pull it all together. It looks like the rotation might be coming around, but we need the pen and D to get better.

Anthony had a nice game with Woo. 2-3 w 2BB. Woo won 10-8. POR lost 7-3 and had 3 unearned runs score on Sandlin, and GRE lost 6-3. SAL lost 11-8, as Valera finally had a bad game. Arias went 3-5 w BB.

Sounds good. If a winning thread poster forgets to post by 11 am, I guess the MOJO aspect may get sidetracked, but it's not like our MOJO has been doing all that well, in recent years.

Maybe he meant Bloom's was sub mediocre, and Brez is the upgrade.

We are talking 2025's back-up catcher, and I said a "guy like Heineman," so maybe it will still be Gasper. (BTW, our back-up catcher is really Jansen, now.)

Wasn't there a recent game where both DHam and Rafaela messed up a DP or made an error?

O'Neill is hitting .900 and is one of the few good RHBs we have. The other is Ref. Abreu can sit vs LHPs, but we still have 3: Duran Abreu-Ref O'Neill It hurts the O to play Rafaela over any one of these guys, but it is still worth it.

We can easily add a guy like Heineman or just go with Teel, but I think we hold off starting his service clock. I think we do NOT add a RHB, unless we trade a LHB for one. We should spend every penny and trade asset on upgrading and replacing pitching.

Plus, Yohan Ramirez. Brought back Jacques and Joely (and Mills.) There were many players who were added and never made it.

Out hit 7-3 and up 4-0. Damn it!

I still think the odds are better we trade for pitching and not spend more on it. Still, if we just spend equally, the money spent on Jansen, Martin, Pivetta, Paxton, Garcia, Sims and others is enough to get 2-3 nice arms.

While Rafaela did help stop the bleeding at SS for a while, I think we need to stop playing him there. I know that will squeeze out a big bat in the OF, but we need better SS defense, ASAP.

I didn't count no-names and players that did not make the ML roster, but I might have missed a couple of those.

I counted 17-25.

28 HRs allowed is more than Devers has.

I'm no expert on acquiring and developing young pitching prospects. I'm not sure about your "mediocre stuff." You may be right. I'm just looking at how well many of our pitchers on the farm have been doing, this year. I know the numbers do not always tell the whole story, but it seems to me, we have more promising young pitchers than a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago and on and on. Young pitchers can move from mediocre to better stuff as they age and move through the system. Sure, it would be nice to have a few pitchers that start out with electric stuff that most ranking services rate as worthy of being in the top 10, 20, 50 or 150 prospect rankings. Maybe we reach that point, in the next couple years. It was a shame to see Perales join some lists, then need TJS, but that seems to be a more and more common thing for young pitchers ranked highly at a younger age. I'm not sure about the improvement of our acquisition and development systems, and maybe I'm wearing dayglow pink glasses, but I think I see improvement, even if just in quantity. Adding more pitchers with hopes, even if slight, does increase the odds on more pitchers making meaningful impacts at the big league level, at some point. We've seen a few surprises in recent years- more than we saw for over a decade after the Lester-Buch era. I'm going to stay optimistic on this. These are some OPS Against, this year.... .360 Valera (52 IP) #27 is astounding! FCL>SAL .360 D Reyes (16) DSL #34 .506 Y Ruiz (46) DSL .542 Dean (74) SAL>GRE #36 .548 Ingrassia (53) SAL #50 .561 E R-C (76) SAL>GRE #16 .576 Wehunt (78) SAL>GRE #33 .579 Kirwin (59) SAL>GRE .608 Dobbins (99) POR #20 .623 Cohen (84) SAL .624 Sansone (58) SAL .628 Early (85) GRE>POR #24 .631 Perales (34) GRE>POR #7 (TJS) .634 Duffy (84) SAL #60 .638 Penrod (54) POR>WOR #22 .639 Paez (82) SAL>GRE #28 .643 Monegro FCL>>GRE #25 .646 Cellucci (52) POR>WOR .647 Kwiatkowski (64) POR>WOR .653 Sena (48) GRE .658 Brand (49) GRE>POR .665 O'Donnell (52) SAL .665 Fogell (55) SAL>GRE .671 Carlson (59) DAL>GRE #49 .677 Wikelman (65) POR #21 .682 I Coffey (92) POR .682 Stebens (55) SAL>GRE .685 Mullins (74) GRE #29 .692 Guerrero (46) WOR #32 .693 Jackson (69) GRE .706 Rogers (66) GRE #58 .718 Gambrell (84) WOR #39 .725 Shugart (60) WOR .784 Fitts (100) WOR #15 .796 Sandlin (44) GRE>POR #10 47. Mata (IL) 52. Hoppe 56. Drohan Draftees: 14. Tolle 23. Cason (SS/3B too) 30. Neely 44. Clarke 45. Tygart Again, this list does not blow anyone away, but to me, it looks like step in the right direction. One can count 30-45 or more pitchers with promise, here.