moonslav59

I forgot about K. Good call. I've all but given up on Wikelman, although his OPS Against was decent, this year. I think 2025 is a make or break year for him, but I said that about Mata, last winter. My guess is he end up like Mata- on the farm but not the 40. Unlike Mata, he might get snagged off waivers. Depends on how he looks, this year. Soxprospects.com has him as the closer for Portland, to open 2025. If he never gets promoted to AAA, that may be telling. Speaking of soxprospects.com, they still project us adding 2 SP'er (I'm guessing one) and a closer (I'm guessing someone like Hoffman or Holmes.) If we just add two pitchers, the 13 pitchers on the 26 might be: Houck, ___, Bello, Gio, Crawford, ___, Chapman, Slaten, Hendriks, Whitlock, Wink, Guerrero & Wilson. That would leave a pretty decent looking AAA pitching staff: Criswell, Priester, Fitts, Dobbins, Gambrell/Drohan Penrod, Kelly, Bernardino, Booser, Weissert, I Campbell, Fulmer, Kwiatkowski/Mata/ Shugart/ Mills/ Cellucci AA, not so bad either: I Coffey, Early, Wehunt, Mullins, Monegro... Sandlin, Wikelman, Hoppe, Troye, Uberstine, Wenn, Sena, Liu...

I think Covid played a hand in the signing before free agency, also the amount offered. I'm not sure, if Betts would have take $360M from BOD, had we offered it before the trade, so yes, maybe it wasn't 100% about wanting to test free agency. Personally, I think he might have taken $360M, had JH allowed that offer. We'll never know. I'd rather have Betts at $365M/12 than Soto at $650M+/14 years.

Sad, but true. The let down will be higher, because the thought will be that we left the $600+M for Soto on the table by not spending it on other big names. (We could get two big FAs for Soto money- maybe not AAV but surely total money.)

I'll be bummed but not surprised. I expect something like Nate or Pivetta and/or some sort of moderate to major trade (Crochet or Pablo Lopez?), maybe Holmes or Estevez, a Danny Jansen type catcher on a 1 or 2 year deal. Maybe some type of deal to improve our hitting vs LHPs. (Abreu for a RHB?)

Top Sox Prospects in AAA (ML Ready or near ML Ready) 1. Anthony CF/RF 2. Campbell 2B/OF/3B 3. Mayer SS (2B/3B) 4. Teel C 8. Meidroth 3B (2B/SS/1B) 11. Dobbins SP 12. Fitts SP 21. Guerrero RP 24. Penrod RP (47 Gambrell SP) I could see 5-6 of these guys given a significant look in 2025.

I agree, and I have little confidence in Chapman and/or Hendriks as our 2025 closer. Hell, they may be suspect 8th inning guys, as is. I am nearcertain Whitlock will be in the pen. He could end up winning the closer role, be our best set- up man or be that 1-3 inning guy for high leverage situations from inning 6 to 9. He could also bomb out or get hurt, again. I like Slaten as a 7th or 8th inning guy, and I have some hopes for Wink & Bernardino. We have a ton of AAA/AAAA type depth, which is fine, but I agree, we need another solid addition to the 8th and 9th inning group of RP'ers. I'd like a bonafide closer, but I doubt that happens. We could also add 2 SP'ers and push Crawford, Bello or Gio to the pen, but noe rate to be a closer or top set-up guy. After SP1 or 2, I still think Closer is our second highest need, above a big RHB and catcher.

Yes.

29th might as well be 30th, and we did suck after June 21st. We can't blame that on Slaten getting less than 18 IP, and while we did have 7 RP'ers with a plus FWAR and 10+ IP in that time frame, we also had some real stinkers: -0.8 Kelly (26 IP) -0.5 Horn (18) & Bernardino (22) -0.3 Keller (10) -0.2 Sims (14), Booser (17) -0.1 I Campbell (0.1) L Garcia (15) Hill (4) Anderson (14) and Wingenter (2) I don't see Chapman and hendriks even breaking even with jansen & martin, so we have a long way to go. Whitlock can help. Maybe adding Criswell, Fitts or Priester to the pen could be a boost, but we need them as starter depth.

A lot of people disliked the Story signing, but it was a major one, nonetheless. In terms of money, it was about the same as JD's. His defense was supposed to fix a major problem the Sox had for many seasons before the signing. His away numbers on offense were decent, but not great. They were not too far away from Bogey's away numbers, when signed. He certainly has underperformed on expectations, due mostly to injuries but to me, it does not change the fact that it was a major addition. Within the context of all the key players we lost, starting with Kimbrell and Betts, it was far from enough, that it's easy to just discount it all together. I get that and don't disagree with that take. I don't see the Yoshida deal in the same light, although he was mainly a DH, like JD was. When you factor in inflation and rising MLB contracts, the dollar amounts between JD and Yoshida are too far apart to count as close to the same level of signing. The two year deal for Gio is the next highest deal given to an outsider since JD, and that speaks volumes about what we have done since 2018. The extensions given to Sale and Nate, then the long gap to the Devers one compared to all the players who walked or were traded away is equally shocking: Betts, Bogey, JD, ERod, Price, Porcello, Beni and eventually Nate and Sale. No Sox fans is happy about that mass exodus of talent, even if some was over-the-hill, at the time. Not replacing them, in kind, sometimes at even a fraction of their cost was ever-occurring since not replacing Kimbrell & Kelly in 2019. Year-after-year, it seemed more talent walked than was added. Only the farm's resurgence and some surprising input from DD's farm kept us from being bottom 5 in MLB, most years and allowing us to keep some sort of hope for the future..

I kinda think Story was as big as JD, but within the context of losing Bogey, shortly afterwards, and the constant injuries to Trevor, it pales compared to JD.

If you believe Cohen will not be outbid, then it can't be an embarrassment to lose the bidding war. We'll know it's all a sham, if we lose and don't pivot to spending big on at least 2 of the remaining 5 or 6 high end FAs on the market- or one with a blockbuster trade include. Offering Soto $45-50M a year, and losing out, followed by spending $25-30M on plan B won't cut it for this poster. If, instead, we go all out on plan B, I'll cut some slack, even if it does not end up working out. What does "all out mean?" At minimum: 1. Burnes and or Fried 2. Scott, Hoffman, Holmes or Estevez 3. Teoscar, Bregman or Adames or a trade for a big RHB 4. D Jansen or some capable catcher to bridge to Teel (5) We might also need a trade to add one more piece to cover expected injuries. To be honest, I have serious doubts we do even 1, 3 and 4.

If we never bid on Soto, we could still see our plan A come true! LOL!

So, they are still messed up, then. LOL.

He wanted to test free agency and sign with the highest bidder, even if it was Boston.

It's closer to $11M, and he's gotta be viewed as their idea of a closer.

So, it would have been better had JH never made a play for Soto?

So why more concern about Bregman?

True, but Soto might get 14-15 years. Soto has two more years in prime, but both contracts may end up around the same age on the back end.

Marwin pre 2017: 90 OPS+ Marwin 2017: 146 OPS+ Marwin after 2017: 83 OPS+ Bregman in 2016 116 OPS+ (rookie year) 125 OPS+ in 2017 157 in 2018-2019 122 OPS+ 2020>>>

Even if we sign Soto, I won't be able to avoid asking, "Why didn't we just extend Betts for half that cost?"

So, if it's not the Mets, you think the other 29 teams have exactly the same odds. Got it.

Just don't say 100% or 75% or 51%, right?

If we don't get Burnes at a cost of about $29M x 7 or Fried, who may cost $28M x 6, besides trading for someone, not many look to be all that much better than Pivetta. Here in MLBTR's top SP'ers with estimates +about $1M a year: $24M x 5 Flaherty $23M x 2 Nate $21M x 3 Manaea $20M x 3 Pivetta (MLBTR has $21M x 1) $18M x 3 Severino Nope: $16M x 1 Scherzer, $15M x 1 Buehler, $13M x 1 Verlander, Gibson or Bieber (Nope: $13M x 2 Heaney or $10M x 2 Quintana) Nobody jumps out as being much of an improvement over losing Pivetta. Nate looks good, but his age and injury history are worse than Nick's. I'd rather have Nick than nobody, and he's pretty close to everyone on this list.

Indeed, same as you thinking Cohen will never be outbid.

My $240M roster: $45M x 14 Soto $29M x 9 Devers $27M x 6 Fried $23M x 3 Story 19M x 1 Giolito $18M x 3 Yoshida $11M x 4 Hoffman $11M x 1 Chapman $9M x 5 Bello $6M x 7 Rafaela $5M x 1 Hendriks $2M x 1 Wilson & Refsnyder $12M x 1 Arbs for Houck, Duran & Crawford $207M +$19M player benefits & arb pool + $10M (14 Players on ML roster) + $4M (14 players on 40 in minors)