moonslav59

We could sure use 5 SP'ers rated as 4/5's, right now.

It has been our major concern, since not bringing back or replacing Kimbrel & Kelly back in 2019. One could argue we needed to add rotational depth in 2019, too, but that looks more like hindsight speculation. It's always about pitching.

Probably so. That does not mean improvements weren't made for the budget and situation he was placed in. It does look like some help for the pen and rotational depth for 2025 and beyond. We will need some major moves made, this winter, as we lose Pivetta, Jansen, Martin, the rentals and more. I hope we don't look at the returns of Giolito, Whitlock, Hendriks, Fulmer, Murphy and better health or production from Slaten, Weissert, ICampbell & others as major solutions to what we need, going forward.

soxprospects.com updated their ranking, which include their draftees and IFA signings: 1. Anthony 2. Mayer 3. Teel 4. Braden Montgomery (I was thinking 5th to 7th) 5. Campbell 6. Bleis 7. Perales 8. Arias (big jump) 9. Cespedes 10. Sandlin (jumped over Fitts) 11. Meidroth 12. Castro 13. Zanetello 14. Payton Tolle (draftee) 15. Fitts 16. E Rodriguez 17. Jo Garcia 18. Romero (big jump) 19. Jh Garcia (bigger jump) 20. Dobbins 21 Wikelman (big fall) 22. Penrod (surprised he's still this high) 23. Conrad Cason (draftee) 24. Early (big jump) 25. Monegro (slight fall) 26. Jordan (significant fall) 27. Juan Valera (huge jump from NR to start season) 28. J Paez (jumped after a fall, last year) 29. Mullins (jump) 30. Brandon Neeley (draftee) 31. Sogard 32. Guerrero 33. Wehunt 34. Dalvinson Reyes (IFA) 35. Bastardo 36. Dean 37. Ehrhard (draftee) 38. Horn 39. Gambrell 40. Hickey 41. Ju. Gonzalez 42. Brannon 43. Anderson (big fall) 44. Brandon Clarke (draftee) 45. Brady Tygart (draftee) 46. Will Turner (draftee) 47. Mata 48. Riemer (jump) 49. Carlson (jump) 50. Ingrassia (jump) 51. McDonough 52. Hoppe (big fall) 53. Taylor 54. Alcanatar (big fall) 55. Musett 56. Drohan 57. Gasper 58. Rogers (big fall) 59. F Encarnacion 60. Duffy Graduated since start of season rankings: 3. Rafaela 7. Abreu 12. Slaten 19. Hamilton 42. Booser (Nobody in the top 30, to start the season dropped out of the top 60.)

Under the circumstances handed to Brez, and the grief he has gotten over the Sale trade, I do still applaud his efforts to improve the pitching staff and future of the pitching staff. Should he have done more with depth signings, including minor league deals? Yes, a resounding YES! Does that mean he should be given an F on building up the pitching staff from crap, just because Gio got hurt, Sale shocked the world, and he neglected to add enough rotational depth, this winter? I think not, and here is why. (I'm not saying he deserves an A or even a B.) 1. The data supports the claim: ERA- 92 2024 (a big improvement over the 103 ERA- from '20 to '23) 93 2021 97 2019 100 2023 110 2022 120 2020 xFIP- 95 2024 (a big improvement over the 100 xFIP- from 2020-2023) 95 2021 96 2019 99 2023 104 2022 105 2020 SIERA 3.84 2024 3.98 2022 4.00 2021 4.10 2023 4.24 2019 4.67 2020 2. The improvement of the existing pitchers Brez inherited, thanks in part to the addition of Bailey to the FO team. 3. The addition of pitchers to the system, some of whom are still TBD: Giolito (has 2025 to add some value) Hendriks (may help in SEP '24 and 2025) Slaten (looked very good, until his injury) Criswell (has been a God send) Weissert (off to a bad start, but has 4 years of control) I Campbell (same as Weissert) Booser (has been a successful "dumpster dive.") Horn: TBD Priester: TBD Fulmer: TBD in 2025 Rentals: Paxton, Garcia, Sims & Keller (added in May) Farm: Sandlin Fitts Payton Tolle Conrad Cason Brandon Neely Dalvinson Reyes Brandon Clarke Brady Tygart Judice I like what I see.

I do think greed is a major aspect of the choice not to spend more. I wonder how many teams spent more than $100M on 3 players, since the winter/spring of 2021/2022. Devers $313M Story $140M Yoshida $100M+ counting fees To me, the big mistake was all these 3 are hitters, and the gap between the $100M spent on Yoshida to the next signing was over $60M. $36-39M on Giolito & Jansen. Then, a $17M drop to $18-19M for Martin and Barnes. We skipped the mid-level deals for SP'ers, too, with nothing more than $19M x 2 for any SP'er since the Sale & Nate extensions before 2019.

No doubt.

I agree, this was likely a very important group discussion and maybe they came to a consensus decision. It's hard to know, for sure. I guess it is possible that Brez or even Brez & Bailey wanted Criswell to start, and Cora disagreed and decided to make him the "long guy," but who knows. BTW, with this staff, we do need a key long guy (or more.)

Yes, but on paper, they also had a better staff going into the winter. In hindsight, they did better, due to Gio's injury and Sale's resurgence, but we didn't just add Gio: we added: Slaten Hendriks & Fulmer (2025) Weissert I Campbell Criswell Anderson Booser Uwasawa Horn Luetge (just opted out) Joely & Mills and pitching farm depth: Sandlin Fitts Judice Brez did swing on several pitchers, but only Slaten and Criswell look like 2024 hits.

I think it rather common for managers to do some things maybe the GM might disagree with, and not cause any major issues between the two. Some GMs are probably more hand-off than others, when it comes to specific or even general philosophical suggestions. When I hear comments like, "Cora played ______, to send a message to Brez," I cringe in disbelief. Cora is out to win, but he also has to account for tomorrow's game, along the way. He is also privy to much more information, including health status, than any of us are. I am critical, at times, but I differ to Cora & Co., knowing they know a hell of a lot more than I do. That's not to say mistakes aren't made, and I'm sure Cora (and Brez) would admit they make them. Overall, I think both have done a pretty good job with what they were given to work with.

Pivetta vs our old friend Nathan Eovaldi. Cora is going with the hot bat, Refsnyder, in the #3 slot vs the RHP. Let's see how it works out. Every game is a big game, from here on out. (OPS last 28 days) 1. L Duran CF (1.005) 2. L Yoshida DH (.807) 3. R Refsnyder LF(1.114) 4. L Devers 3B (1.183) 5. R Wong C (.773) 6. L Abreu RF (1.038) 7. L Smith 1B (.954) 8. R Rafaela SS (.834) 9. L DHam 2B (.500) Except for DHam, this is one red hot line-up! RHB O'Neill (.947 in last 28 days is still out sick.) L/R Sogard .730 R Romy .741 R Jansen 1.083 w Sox only (DHam may be PH for, if a lefty comes into the game.) GO SOX!!!!!

MLBTR reports... Veteran left-hander Lucas Luetge has opted out of his minor league deal with the Red Sox and become a free agent

Agreed. We might have swung and missed on many, but signing 3-4 more guys like Criswell could have easily been done. I know you have been out in front on this, for years and even into the 2024 season. I agree on the mistake of counting Whitlock as SP'er depth. I'm not sure counting Wink as SP'er depth was a good idea, either. There is some debate over the winter SP'er depth chart rankings, especially who was #5 and 6, Houck or Whitlock, but here is my view on what it was: 1. Giolito (lost for season in time to be able to replace him) 2. Bello 3. Pivetta 4. Crawford 5. Whitlock 6. Houck (was actually very decent "depth," but only if you accept Whit as a true #5.) 7. Winckowski 8. Criswell 9. Anderson 10. Murphy & Mata (Walter) were very questionable as SP'er depth Farm (not all ML ready or healthy) Gambrell, Fitts, J Alexander, Van Belle, Wikelman, Penrod, Perales (We added Keller in May and Paxton in Aug.)

Well, when you look at my list of our highest paid pitcher signings since the Sale and Nate extensions, which both we not great or even good, one can understand the reluctance to keep throwing money at pitching, only to watch them fail or get hurt. Of course, you "get what you pay for," and when paying $10M/1 for a pitcher, what is expected? Had we spent the Story and Yoshida money on long term pitching deals, and guessed rightly, we'd be much better off, but what if we guessed wrongly, like we mostly have been since and including Sale's deal? I'm not making excuses. I think we should have spent way more on pitching than hittine, especially since we don't draft a lot of pitchers or develop them well. This HAS BEEN a big mistake for 6 years. (Yes, I count 2019, because we did not replace Kimbrel and Kelly, in kind.)

Unless a pitcher has been lights out all year and has one bad game, usually a real bad game does make me worry about the next start, and vice versa: a really good last game often brings hope a pitcher is "getting it together," except of course, with Pivetta.

Criswell was hurt and rehabbed at Woo. Wink was apparently not following the coaches plan and was demoted for it, but I'm not so sure this was the reason or only reason. We have Martin, Slaten and Hendriks due back, soon, unless they have a setback. This may or may not help. One has to think, they can't be much worse than what we have, now, but when you consider we added Paxton, Garcia and Sims, this totals 6 pitchers on a 13 man pitching staff. Their additions could be a big help, a minor help or more of the same. On paper, they look better than ... Anderson Weissert Keller, Horn, Wingenter, YRam and others. It's hard to imagine that 3-4 or more of these 6 additions cannot do better than this: Last 28 Days' Numbers (listed in order of most IP) 4.97 Bello 4.97 Crawford 5.09 Houck 5.73 Pivetta 5.00 Kelly 6.75 Jansen 5.14 Wink 4.50 Anderson 10.13 Bernardino 11.81 Horn 27.00 Wingenter 13.50 Y Ramirez Not listed (IP rank) 5. Criswell 2.84 6. Weissert 3.86 (demoted) 10. Booser 1.50

Another popular (non-Weaver) saying is that "a SP'er is only as good as his last start." That is scary as hell!

The budget was only part of the problem. 1. The little money we have spent of pitching has been largely misspent: $55M/6 Bello extension: TBD, but not off to a good start. $39M/2 Giolito: Missed first season, totally $32M/2 Jansen: was a very good signing by Bloom. $19M/4 Whitlock extension: TBD (2 years to go) $19M/2 Barnes extension: Bust (traded w cash for Bleier) $18M/2 Martin: started off as a great signing for '23, but... $10M/1 Kluber: Bust for '23. $10M/1 Richards: Bust for '22. $10M/2 Hendriks: was more about 2025 not 2024. $10M/2 Paxton: worked out okay. We did better with the $3-9M deals: $7M/1 Wacha $6M/1 Perez I $5M/1 R Hill $5M/1 Perez II $4M x 2 Diekman (unloaded contract for McGuire) $3M Strahm (one of Bloom's best "bargain deals.") 2. We have not spent much on hitting, either, but it looks like we'd have done better spending it all on pitching, assuming we spent it better. (The Yoshida and Story signings jump off the page. Renfroe, Turner, Duvall and taking on O'Neill's contract not so much.) 3. Winters are the time to improve the staff and staff depth- not the deadline. The deadline should only be needed to fill gaps caused by multiple injuries or unexpected downturns by key players.

These are the pitchers we added or should see added to the 26 before September: Paxton Garcia Sims Martin Slaten Hendriks Maybe Weissert, I Campbell or Keller get another look.

I'm 100% on board with the idea that it was a major swing and miss by the FO on not adding more pitching during the winter, when it is actually cheaper. I think almost all of us agreed on that. After it was know Gio was out for the year, adding nothing can rightfully be called "moronic." On the surface, this didn't look horrible, last winter, but it still looked woefully short on depth: Lost from 2023: IP (team ranking) Pitcher ERA 103 (5th) Sale 4.30 96 (6th Paxton 4.50 55 (9th) Kluber 7.04 (addition by subtraction) 48 (12th) Murphy 4.91 (to injury) 47 (13th) Schreiber 3.86 More additions by subtractions that combined for 190 IP! 31 (15th) Bleier 5.28 30 Llovera 5.46 27 K Ort 6.26 23 Walter 6.26 (to injury/farm) 21 Braiser 7.29 18 Garza 7.36 11 Joely 6.55 (to farm) 8 Bearclaw 12.91 21 combined Dermody, Scott, Faria, Lamet This is nearly 550 IP lost from 2023- about half of those IP were at replacement level or worse, so we were looking at the need to replace 250 or so IP with equal or better IP than Sale, Paxton & Schreiber (about a 4.30 ERA combined.) Brez & Co. added this: Giolito: expected to get 175+ IP but got zero Criswell: viewed as SP depth and has done well w 71 IP at 3.80. Anderson: viewed as SP depth and did not do well w 52 IP at 4.85. Slaten: was maybe viewed as the 4th or 5th best RP, but became our #2 before injury (42 IP at 3.38) Weissert: was expected to make the 8 man pen. Was demoted (47 IP/4.24) I Campbell showed signs of being pretty good w SEA but not here. Booser was one of the few bright spots. Hendriks: expected to join the team in AUG, but looks like maybe Sept. Keller, Horn, Uwasawa, Luetge, Mills plus more add-ons after the year started. Farm pitching depth added, this winter (not ML ready): Sandlin, Fitts, Benitez, Judice This fell way short of what we needed, and still need, now.

Sox OPS Leaders: .996 Devers (424 is second most PAs on team) .909 Refsnyder (224 is 10th most) .901 O'Neill (342 is 4th most on team) .857 Casas (90) .854 Duran 509 is the most on team) .830 Abreu (287 is 6th most on team) .809 Wong (325 is 5th most on team) .756 Romy (114) .722 Yoshida (243) .720 Smith (247) .712 Rafaela (407 is 3rd most) .678 DHam (247) (1.083 Jansen w Sox in 12 PAs)

Injury update (per MLB.com): Hendriks: expected to throw three live batting practice sessions, the first of which is scheduled for Tuesday in either Kansas City or at Triple-A Worcester. If he makes it through those three sessions without any setbacks, Hendriks will then start a Minor League rehab assignment with hopes of being in Boston's bullpen at some point in September. O'Neill: was not in the lineup on Saturday against Cody Bradford due to an illness that could keep him out of the lineup until Wednesday's finale of a three-game series against the Royals. Martin: Martin threw a 35-pitch bullpen session on Aug. 3, and is expected to make a Minor League rehab appearance on Aug. 7, which should position him for a return to the active roster on Aug. 9. Slaten: will extend his long toss progression to 120 feet on Aug. 5. "He turned the corner this week," said Red Sox manager Alex Cora. Grissom: continued his Minor League rehab assignment on Aug. 3, driving in two runs for Triple-A Worcester. His assignment expires on Aug. 8, at which time he will either be activated by the Red Sox or optioned to Worcester. Casas: looked strong in his return to action on Aug. 3, drilling a double as part of a three-RBI performance. It remains to be seen how long Casas will need for his rehab assignment. Story: Alex Cora was recently encouraged when he watched Story hit soft toss, and hasn't ruled out the possibility of the shortstop returning late in the season. Mata" placed on 60 Day IL. Once Mata is healthy, the Red Sox will have to activate him or designate him for assignment. Whitlock: Whitlock will not pitch again until some point in 2025 after he had his UCL repaired by Dr. Jeffrey Dugas in Birmingham, Ala., on May 30. On the bright side, the righty avoided Tommy John surgery and instead underwent an internal brace repair, a procedure that has become more frequent for pitchers with UCL injuries. Murphy: underwent successful reconstruction of the left ulnar collateral ligament (elbow). Dr. Keith Meister performed the surgery at Texas Metroplex Institute for Sports Medicine & Orthopedic Surgery in Arlington. Giolito: was moved to the 60-day injured list on March 24. He underwent surgery to repair his right elbow ulnar collateral ligament on March 12 after two Grapefruit League starts (4 1/3 innings). Looks like we might start getting some help, soon and later this month into September. When Casas is ready, it's a no-brainer. He becomes the starting 1Bman, and My guess is Romy is demoted or Smith DFA'd. When Martin returns, he will likely work his way up to high leverage situations as soon as he shows he can do it. (Slaten, too.) Hendriks will likely need time to work into an important 2024 role, and I'm not sure there is enough. Surely, he will get a chance, if there are no setbacks. The Grissom situation is hard to predict. He has options, so we don't need to call him up, when he is ready, but my guess is he will, as long as he looks healthy. Assuming Casas, Martin, Slaten, Hendriks and Grissom all get healthy, could this be our 26 man roster by September? SP: Houck, Pivetta, Paxton, Bello, Crawford RP: Jansen, Martin, Garcia, Slaten, Sims, Criswell, Wink, Hendriks (to AAA: Kelly, Bernardino, Booser) C: Wong & Jansen 1B: Casas & Smith 2B: DHam-Grissom 3B: Devers SS: Rafaela (& DHam) LF: O'Neill-Refsnyder CF: Duran (Rafaela) RF: Abreu-O'Neill DH: Yoshida Line up: v RHP 1. L Duran CF 2. L Abreu RF 3. R O'Neill LF 4. L Devers 3B 5. L Casas 1B 6. L Yoshida DH 7. R Wong C 8. L DHam 2B 9. R Rafaela SS vs LHPs 1. L Duran CF 2. R Refsnyder LF 3. R O'Neill RF 4. L Devers 3B 5. R Wong C 6. L Casas 1B 7. L Yoshida DH 8. R Grissom 2B 9. R Rafaela SS (Romy & Sogard to AAA)

We had more than enough chances.

They all are. Robo umps are the only answer for balls & strikes.

He's over .900, now... passing O'Neill.