moonslav59

I think they have to wait until the season starts to add someone to the 60 day IL. That may create a little roster crunch, and they may wait to add Campbell or Anthony until game 2 for this reason. Both are not on the 40.

Roman AnthonyKristian CampbellFranklin AriasMarcelo MayerYoeilin CespedesLuis PeralesJhostynxon GarciaMikey RomeroConnelly EarlyMiguel BleisJohanfran GarciaRichard FittsDavid SandlinJuan ValeraDalvinson ReyesPayton TolleHunter DobbinsLuis GuerreroYordanny MonegroConrad Cason

I think we look better than 2024, but better than a .500 team means what? As always, we have too many "ifs" and not enough sure bet stars or even plus players. We have too many players with a major flaw, like good hit/bad D, Great D/bad bat or injury issues- some have 2 such flaws. Duran- the only player we have that is good+ on O and D (add baserunning as a ++) Devers: Great bat- horrible D Casas: real good bat- horrible D Story- real good D- questionable bat and major injury concerns Abreu- sucks vs LHPs, but a plus bat and GG D in RF. Yoshida- sucks on D, little power but decent bat. Rafaela- bat is highly questionable, to be polite, but great OF D and decent 2B D. Wong- plus bat for a catcher, but near worst on D. DHam- decent bat v RHPs, decent D at 2B, sucks vs RHPs and at SS D. Grissom- needs to prove his bat and D. May be a 2B option v LHPs. Refsnyder- a great batter vs LHPs, but sucks vs RHPs and sucks on D Romy- looks ok on D and may be ok on O. Narvaez- looks to be a plus on catcher D, but his O needs to be proven. Anthony, Campbell & Mayer all are unproven but hold a lot of promise on O and D. None are below avg fielders, so the potential for 2-3 all-around good players making an impact in 2025 is real. I know many here hate platoons, but we may be forced into a few: DH: Yoshida v R and ref v L. 2B: DHam v R/ Grissom v L until Campbell gets a look. CF/RF: Abreu v R in RF, Anthony v L in RF and Anthony in CF v R with Rafaela in CF v L (We could also play Duran in LF v R and Ref v L, with Duran in CF v L. That would bench Rafaela as the max utility guy for the OF and middle IF.) C: Wong may start most games with Narvaez coming in for D, late in games, but the risk of injury may force some sort of platoon or match-up by SP'er (caddy method.) The combination values of the platooned positions show some decent promise, in case Anthony and Campbell don't win a position, outright as a FT'er.

I think our pen is deep, and the middle and deeper parts would turn into a big plus, if every RP'er we have was moved down one notch by adding a real closer and two slots by adding a solid set-up man, too. Just adding one might be enough. Imagine this pen: Scott- closer Hoffman, Chapman & Hendriks- set-up Slaten & Whitlock as 7th inning guys Crawford & Wink as inning eater/long men That's a damn good pen that could be had without us going over the tax line. AAA pen depth: Wilson (out of options) Guerrero, Kelly, Weissert, Penrod, Bernardino, I Campbell, Mata, Shugart/Adams

It depends on what numbers we look at, and what site. I doubt we are done spending, so by opening day, we could be higher than last year.

I guess every rotation has several question marks, and our is no different. I think ours got a lot better by adding Crochet, Buehler and Giolito and subtracting Pivetta. I also feel a lot better about Houck and Crawford than I did, this time last year, especially concerning workload and going past 5 IP. There still are questions on those two, but the outlook is better, now. The addition of Priester helps with the depth. Fitts looks better now, as a depth option, than we thought, last winter. Criswell was not even discussed, last winter- now he looks like a nice depth piece. The pen looks way worse, to me, even with Crawford added to it. Maybe someone like Criswell, Fulmer, Fitts or Priester will be transitioned into a innings eater pen role, at some point, but we will likely cycle through 12-16 RP'ers before going to them. I will say we have a lot of RP'er who hold some level of promise. That is never a bad thing, but one problem could arise: we have too many RP'ers, who fail and lose games for us, until we settle on the 8 that work out. Picking the right 8 on day one could solve a lot of headaches. Taking away any SP'er, besides Crawford from the pen mix, here is how I rank them: Chapman & Hendriks share the closer and major set-up role. Slaten & Whitlock (might start season on IL) are the primary set-up men. Wilson will be the token LHP (besides Chapman,) but maybe Bernardino steals the job from him, if he can regain his 2023 and first half 2024 form. Winckowski and Crawford handle the bulk innings, but hopefully not too much mop up innings are needed. That's 7 (counting one from Wilson/Bernardino) Those with a chance at the 8 slot: Bernardino/Guerrero/Penrod/A Adams/Kelly/Weissert. I actually think out 8-14 slots might be better than most teams, but our 1-7 may not be. After #14 is not so bad, either: I Campbell, Mata, Shugart, Jose Adames, H Harris, N Davis, W Olds and AA guys like Hoppe, Troye, Uberstine and Sandlin. Our weakest areas on the other side of the roster are (not in order): 1. Catcher and corner IF defense. 2. RHB w power 3. SS depth, if Mayer or Story are hurt (which is probably likely) Romy is okay, but we should try to avoid using Rafaela there, again, unless his defense improves.

Here is some happy New Year news... “I’m going to be ready for a full Spring Training and a full season,” Giolito told WEEI’s Rob Bradford on the Baseball Isn’t Boring podcast. “I find it funny when I see stuff online saying that I’ll be coming back in June. I don’t know where that came from. I have no idea. … Everything’s going great. I look forward to a full year.” Giolito said he is towards the tail end of his rehab process at the team’s complex in Fort Myers. He indicated he expects to progress to throwing off a mound soon. Giolito added that teammate Garrett Whitlock, who underwent the same procedure in late May, is at a similar stage in his own rehab work.

Happy 2025!

Thanks for telling me they aren't listening. I would never have known. We all complain about what they don't do to fix weak areas. Right now, 3B defense is the talk, since Bregman is the last big man standing. I'm not posting here for JH, Brez or Cora to "listen."

The Sox are 11th in winter spending... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/each-teams-free-agent-spending-thus-far-2.html The Mets spent more on their 3rd and 4th highest paid FA signings than we have on our 4 signings, combined. The Dodgers spent more on their second highest contract than all our 4, together. The Diamondbacks, Yanks, Rangers, Astros and Angels spent more on one FA than our 4. The A's and O's have spent more than us. 11th place. That's who we are.

They know, but they care more about their $313M 3Bman's feelings than building a winner.

Call it a pooch kick.

Breslow and all the non answers... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/12/craig-breslow-discusses-casas-bregman-devers.html

What were the final results?

Weakest Areas of 2024 team by fangraphs rankings: DRS 27th Catcher Defense 24th 3B Defense (26th in OAA) 26th '22-'24 21st 1B Defense (20th in OAA w Smith, a lot.) 29th '22-'24 OPS 30th 2B .533 (Mostly E Valdez, Grissom and DHam) Our pen was the worst in the second of 2024.

cots has the CBT budget at $210M, now.. Last year's was $226M at the end of the year, counting D Jansen, L Garcia, Sims and paying off guys we cut. Opening day payroll only: $174M, now and $171M in '24. Hard to say.

Loved seeing Alabama lose, today. I could see the argument that they were better than others who made the playoffs. but this loss kinda puts the kibosh on that. Penn St plays tonight.

Their only "interest" is if the guy they want will take millions less to play for the Sox. They think if they kick 50 tires, one will take the kick and like it.

What LAD is doing is not really fair to any other teams, and they get out of paying what they should in taxes. I think the loophole needs to get fixed. The JH issue is totally seperate. If we don't extend Crochet and don't try to open the window wider, I'm done with JH and the whole crew. Time is running out, if it hasn't already.

You did not mention Anthony for CF and or RF. I'd say Catcher is the number one positional need, along with balancing the Lefty overload. It's really more about defense at 3 positions (C, 3B, 1B) and offense at one position (CF) with no position lacking in both areas. Maybe Campbell can play 3B, at some point, but that would indirectly squeeze out Yoshida. At some point, someone will get squeezed, unless all three top prospects flop. Anthony can easily squeeze Rafaela to a jack-of-all-trades utility man and or a platoon w Abreu (as Anthony could alternate between CF and RF, depending on who is playing.) Mayer could play 3B, 2B or squeeze Story to 2B. Campbell could push DHam and Grissom to utility roles or push Devers to 1B/DH. It seems like the easiest way to balance the L-R thing is to trade Abreu and sign someone like Grichuk on a 1 year deal, until we know more about the kids. notin mentioned a Story for Sean Murphy deal that would bring us the RHB we need and a decent catcher, but it would lock us into Mayer at SS with not much depth, unless you think Campbell could do better than Rafaela. I'd rather see Romy sub at SS than DHam or Grissom.

One unspectacular move could be to sign Kyle Finnegan. If anything, he is the model of consistency: 4 year ERA: 3.62 in and average 67 gms/yr. His ERA never went over or under by more than 0.14. His games pitched was always within 2 of 67. In 2024, he had 38 saves in 43 opportunities.

I'm not the driver of that wagon. I'd be fine with going all in, but I'm never a fan of "halfway."

I'm with you on this. The Crochet trade should have meant the window is open, now, and other moves should have/be made to build a team around him, Buehler and the existing core. Signing Buehler, instead of Fried or Burnes is okay, I guess. Signing Chapman, instead of Scott leaves something to be desired, but maybe Hendriks can help. We really made no other major improvements, except Crochet and Buehler. When you look at what we saw walk away, it's not a major improvement. Some could argue it's not one at all. Pivetta may have been average, but he was the horse we've needed. O'Neill was out HR leader and only really good RHB, (okay Ref was, too.) Jansen and Martin were no slouches. Rotation: better. Pen: worse. Line-up: worse. Defense: the same.

Over the last few seasons, all we've pretty much had were hopes that just about everything could go right and maybe, just maybe, some magic could happen. For many of us the winter before 2021 was not hopeful, at all. I think I had more hopes going into 2022 than 2021, so I guess anything goes, right? I'm not happy with the totality of our moves, this winter, and maybe something major will still go down, but there are a few things to be more hopeful about than there were, last winter, of the ones before. We had a lot of questions about Houck and Crawford, last winter, and we still do, but I feel better about both, now. I was worried about Wong's bat, last winter, but now I'm not. (I am terrified about his defense, though, while last winter I had hopes he could improve.) I'm about equally concerned about the health of Casas, but I still am pretty sure the guy can rake. I feel way better about 2B than I have since Story was the FT'er there. The health concerns about Story at SS has not gotten any better. Devers at 3B feels the same. I fell way better about the OF, as Duran answered all Qs about him, Abreu looked real good on O & D and Rafaela did okay. The pen looks deeper but more sketchy with our top 2 guys going into 2025. I have to think Buehler should be better than Pivetta, but he has to stay healthy. Adding Giolito to the mix looks good, on paper. Bello looks no better than he did last winter, but having Criswell, Fitts, Priester and Dobbins in AAA helps me think our rotation should be better with quality and quantity in 2025. The pen looks the opposite, to me, but there are so many promising arms that maybe we can cobble together a decent 8 and not take all season to settle on the right one. Catcher looks worse. 1B about the same. 2B better. SS about the same- maybe a bit better. 3B the same. OF much better and the bench looks better than it did, last winter. Overall, this seems to show we should be better, but we needed to get 10-20 games better, not 5-7 better. As always, we must rely on players staying healthy, and the list is long: Story at SS, Buehler at SP, Casas and Devers at corner IF, Giolito & Hendriks, Slaten & Whitlock, Yoshida and others, too. Maybe, by opening day I will feel more optimistic, but I was hoping we could do better than just slightly improving and relying on the same hopes we've seen dashed, year-after-year.

If the plan was to open the window in 2026 or 2027, I wish we'd have kept Teal, Montgomery and Meidroth.