moonslav59

MLBTR... Reese Olsen out for year. Santander may miss the whole season. Lindor may need Hamate surgery. Astros seeking LHB OF'er for Paredes. Verlander signs with Tigers.

Why is Cease & Desist so surely better than Bichette & Bassitt? I didn't even want Cease. I liked Okamoto, but he's surer bet than Contreras. Why do we put so much trust in other teams' returning from injury pitching, when we've seen first hand how that almost always works out. I do agree that Rodon should be fine, but "early May" often turns into June or July. I would rank the Jays and Yanks ahead of the Sox, but the Yanks just barely. I think the Contreras OPS might equal Bregman's and our infield defense improved by enough to cancel out the loss of Bregma's defense. To me, it's the loss of Devers that hurt the most, but if we count on Cole's return, why not Anthony, who will be 100% on the first day of ST'ing?

What did the Yankee, Oriole and Jays franchises do over the winter? The Yanks basically stood pat. The Athletic gave them a C. They added some depth and lost very little. You want to count their players returning from injury, but not Anthony, Abreu, Mayer, Crawford, Sandoval, Slaten, Casas, Masa... The O's added a lot, but started off pretty low. They still don't have an ace but did add Baz. The addition of Helsley, Alonso and Ward were very nice. They lost a couple key players too. The Jays added some big names (Cease & Okamoto) but lost Bichette and Bassitt. We lost Bregman, Gio, Ref, 1/2 Devers but also Buehler. We added Suarez, Gray, Contreras, Durbin and Oviedo. I'm not seeing anyone kin the ALE but the O's doing much better than we did.

Not what's happening here? Huh? They set the odds based on 50-50 betting. If it's opening odds, they set in what they think will be 50-50 betting, and not on what they think the results will be. The end results may be similar, but vegas odds are not projections.

Betting odds are not projections.

"Never a threat?" like you mean when they played them in the actual series they played? They outscored the Dodgers 15-13 in their series. PHI beat LAD 4-2 during the season. I'm not sure why you have to speak in such absolutes.

Thanks. That's pretty damn close. BTW, Vegas sets odds based on how people are expected and are betting and NOT on who they think will win. They seek to get 50% to 50% and win the vig. They don't seek to pick the winning team- that would be gambling.

While I do think we should not neglect the fact that no big bat was added, Contreras is no slouch and may feast on pitchers at Fenway. Maybe Durbin can improve on his rookie year, as may Anthony, Narvaez & Mayer.

Found this... Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodón is recovering from October 2025 surgery to remove bone spurs and loose bodies in his left elbow, putting him on track to return to the rotation in April or May 2026. He has begun throwing and reports improved mobility, feeling "great" during his rehab in Florida. This is his second major elbow procedure following Tommy John surgery in 2019. Late April and early May is the targeted return time for Rodon Cole was really good back in 2023. He has to prove he's back. Gerrit Cole is recovering from March 2025 Tommy John surgery with internal bracing for a right elbow ligament tear and is expected to return to the Yankees in May or June 2026.

You listed 5 and a fully washed up Goldschmidt being mentioned cannot be serious. Stanton? LMAO. He just turned 86...errr...I mean 36. (If he can get 500-550 PAs, maybe, but you can say that about a lot of players.) Ben Rice is at the age where he could add enough to hit 30. Grisham never hit over 17, until last year, but yes, he can be counted. Chisholm did it once, too, but he counts. Judge might hit 10, if he's on the IL. Of course, he counts. I'd say 5 is pushing it, 4 could happen, and 2-3 is most likely. Now, give Abreu 600 PAs in '25 and he hits 30. Contreras in Fenway might have a better chance at 30 than Stanton. If you can count Rice and Stanton, I'm counting Casas! That's three! No doubt, the Yanks kill us in power and overall offense. Their pitching depends totally on 3 returning from injury pitchers and a 32 year old Max Fried.

"At best?" Really? You think the chances are too low for us to be third place at best? Of course, we might finish last (at worst...LOL.) I think we are better the the O's and very close to the Yanks. You do know that Cole, Rodon and Schmidt are expected to start the season on the IL, right? We've all seen up front and personal how many Sox pitchers started on the IL and came back to do great, right? Dozens and dozens, right?

I never said or implied he puts winning above profits. I expect most business owners put profit near or at the top of their priorities. BTW, Tom Werner said "full throttle." I'm not even sure he was lying, as he might have actually believed they were going to spend more. If he knew they were not and said it, I'd agree he was a liar or dishonest.

soxprospects.com no longer lists them as beginning the season on the IL, for whatever that is worth. If Sandoval is expected to start the year on the IL, what is his trade value worth?

The severe budget restraints on Bloom were real, and he kept losing top players, year after year. Even when he lost players that were no longer great, the contract money was not returned to the budget. Brez has been allowed to spend more, and it shows. Still, maybe restraints, like NTCs hampered his ability to spend like he wanted. Some like to blame Cora, and we did win less that the Pythagorean estimated. The blame game has been on full display for years. Our GMs have made enough bad choices to be worthy of large chunks of blame- I agree.

I'm not buying the returning Yankee pitchers point. I've seen our hopes dashed enough to not count on that. Name the 3 potential 30 HR Yanks. I'm not so sure BAL is as good as some think, but I do think they underperformed, last year and COULD bounce back. I think TOR is #1 and NYY, SEA and BOS are closely bunched. It's also not as bad having to play in the toughest division as years past. We don't play them as much.

It's what he thinks that makes it dishonest. The key component is saying something you know is wrong...not what others know or think is wrong. He may be deliberately lying. I think he may actually think many of those teams had a good chance. I have said before that I think 2021 set the team back, because it convinced management they could compete while being cheap. It took a few years to sink in, and now they are spending more.

Okay, but maybe the other two? I've never been all that high on Eaton, and I'm not sure we need him for OF depth. BTW, Eaton's Home and Away splits in larger sample sizes than Rodgers with HOU: .458 Home .638 Away Maybe he's really a great batter and KC held him back! LOL

I think we'll be better than 85 wins, but I know I am biased. We lost a lot of our best hitters. We improved pitching and defense. With so many changes, it's hard to figure wins gained or lost.

Sounds right, but could number 1 be true?

I get that. My point was that he may be better than some on the 40. When you have guys like Eaton, Sogard, Seigler and maybe even Monasterio, the bar is not set very high. Hell, less than a week ago, we thought DHam might be starting vs RHPs at 2B.

It's hard to know what the true number is, and I'm not even sure the Sox know. Maybe the third line is the limit. We may add salary at the deadline. We've traded away a lot of pitching depth, already. We've added some back in trades and the Suarez signin pushed almost everyone back a notch, but I'm not sure we can afford to trade away Sandoval. Last year we had nice depth too and traded away Priester- later we had to trade for D May and ended up staring de Leon in a game, too. We also added early and Tolle to the roster, when very few expected them to be needed in 2025.

This is no small change in trends. The biggest beefs on this and past sites has been over the loss of our stars to free agency. Some of the talk focused on our inability to lock up Betts, Bogey and others before they became FAs. Well, now we have done it to 4 of our best young players- 5, if you count Crochet. I'd call Devers #6, but we saw what we did there. Since DD left, we've signed two players to long term contracts, and neither was at or very close to top pay: Story & Masa. Now, we just signed Suarez- the first large and long FA pitcher signing since Price. Sure, big picture we are still lacking in some areas. I'd like to see the no giving a NTC relic banished. I'd like to see more creativity with deferred payments but not if it lets a key target walk away. I'm really not upset about choosing to never grossly overpay for top talent. I wasn't for paying even what we offered Bregman, but the reported offer to Alonso was embarrassing. I'm not sure what is worse: thinking it was a fair or thinking it was a competitive offer. Either way, we looked pretty stupid. We've spent a long time overhauling the roster, and with the addition of Breslow, we have quickly transformed the team into a pitching dynamo from top to near bottom of the system. I'm not sure any team has ever turned a corner that sharply. We look at our offense and cringe or question, depending on how optimistic or pessimist we are, but almost every good player we have is locked up for 3+ years. When has that ever happened to a good Sox team? There are some things to admire about this management team, if we look for it. We all know about the bad and the ugly.

We did subtract a lot, even not counting Devers, but in terms of AAV added, we have to be top 3-5, but we must believe JH has shown an empty wallet. When you count what STL is paying Gray and Contreras, the combined AAV of our actual salary paid roster is even higher than 7th.

He may fall way short of his career numbers that were aided by his games in COL, but some of these other infielders we have have not had much more offensive success than DHam. My point was to say he may end up being better than some of the guys on the 40, now. The bar is set pretty low (on offense) and Rodgers has a GG on defense, so he doesn't even have to be equal on offense to maybe pass a couple/three guys up on the depth charts.

You've said this many times, but you assume you know that JH shares the same definition of the word "winning" as you do. he would have to for it to be a lie. A lie is saying something you know to be false. 1. He may believe we built teams good enough to win, even by your definition. 2. He may think winning means 82-80 or going into a season with a legitimate shot at making the playoffs. Then, it's not a lie. Yes, he "has the resources," as many owners do, even some with lesser revenue streams, so using that point does not do anything for me. The lowest revenue team's owner could easily double his spending in one year and maybe 3X or 4X and on and on... They choose not to. Yes, they may not be telling the fans"We are committed to winning," and that is a difference, but JH is spending huge amounts of money. He's spending more than 75% of the teams and all I hear is "cheap" and "empty." If it's all hyperbole, I'll shut up and take it the way it was meant, but when I call it out, you guys often double down. We both agree we should spend more, yes, yes, YES! We both think he could and should and wish he would spend more, but he ID spending more- just not enough for most of us. I've seen a shift, of late, and I have no issue hearing "too late" or even "too little- too late." I expected bigger moves after losing Devers and hearing talk about the need for a big bat. I've never hears anyone from the Sox say they felt Contreras met that criteria, so at least they didn't try to pull that one over on us. We failed to get that big bat. We are used to seeing Sox ring teams with 2 big bats. We failed to get a top 2B/3Bman and settled on Durbin & I K-F, instead. I'm not happy with the choice, but I do think we got better from 2025 by a little more than you seem to think. We are 7th in spending and 7th in projected team fWAR. How's that for a criteria? If we were 5th in spending, we'd probably be a top 4 contender, because 5th place is $40M away! (Alonso away) There are various ways to build a winning team, and this is not like any WS-winning or attending Sox team I have seen. I've never seen pitching like this. Top 3 SP'ers, SP depth, top 3 RP'ers. The defense might be close to the best I've ever seen a Sox team have on the roster. It's not sure who will play and where, but we can likely put the best defensive team I have ever seen a Sox team have on the field and still have a GG'er as depth. The offense is a huge concern but not without promise.