moonslav59

It's hard to know what SP'ers might be on the block, this winter, and most will likely be too high-priced for JH's liking, but I will look through some teams that might be regrouping and come up with some names, later today. Who might those teams be? TOR CWS LAA DET MIA COL OAK WSH ??? TBR CIN SFG CHC TEX

I'm super high on Campbell, and his RHB is needed, but you have to give to get, and I want to hold onto mayer and Teel. I think having Jh Garcia lessens the blow of losing Campbell. I think Cespedes and Arias are too far away to have great trade value. Bleis maye, as well, and I doubt SEA wants 2 OF'ers for a TOTR SP.

Word was they were open for offers, last winter. I wonder if a guy like Castillo would be "more" available. (I'm not sure JH accepts his contract, but the return would be less.) What top pitchers might be "on the block?" Miami's don't look so good, anymore.

I would not assume his offense will be horrific, but it could be pretty bad, to start off. I wonder how much rehab he will get before being called up. If we are out of it, we may decide to not risk another injury and just let him do light rehab with Woo. His .681 OPS w BOS is not far from the league average, now.

Yes, and SEA has no room on their 40 for those two. We'd likely have to add a non 40 guy like Jo Garcia or Cespedes.

Would BTV accept one of Kirby or Gilbert? We could add EValdez and Wikelman.

I think he helped stabilize the SS position, a little bit, but his defense hurt the team in many games- maybe 2-4 losses, which could very well be what we miss the playoffs by. The position was so bad, after Story went down, that "stabilize" does not mean he did well. The DHam-Romy (Westbrook-Sogard) depth helped, too, but they had defensive short-comings, too. Counting on or "hoping" on Story staying healthy, seems like the new heartbreaker reoccurrence.

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.