moonslav59

Yes, but Bello's AAV is $9.2M.

2 groundball singles sandwiched around a HBP, then Schwarber rocked a dbl to the base of the RF-CF wall that cleared the bases. Basically, one big hit. Houck looked very good, to me.

True. The cots numbers include no arb costs, but it does include the $17M for player benefits and the estimate for rounding out the 40 man roster with minor leaguers. According to cots, it's about: $117M for Devers, Story, Yoshida, Giolito, Bello, Rafaela, Hendriks, Whitlock & Ref's option. That's just 9 players from the 26. $20M for player benefits, the 0-3 year bonus pool and a little for Hosmer. This brings us to about $137M before arbs, pre-arbs and 40 man roster salaries. The good thing is, many of our players are pre-arb and contributing. Here is a very early arb guess by me: 6.5 Houck (1st of 3 arbs is usually a gross underpay) 4.0 Duran (1st of 4 arbs) 3.0 Crawford (1st of 4 arbs) 2.5 McGuire (3rd of 3 arbs) 1.0 Dalbec (1st or 3 or non tendered) I could be way off, but this is about $13M added for arbs. That brings us to an even $150M for 13 players (14 w Dalbec.) That leaves 13-14 pre-arb players before any outside additions. I think their pay will average between $725K and $750K. $750 x 13= 9.8M. I'll call it $10M. With no additions, we'd be at about $160M. No Pivetta, Jansen, Martin, O'Neill, Smith, Anderson. We could fill all those slots with current minor leaguers to get to 26, and add $3M for the 14 players on the 40, but in the minors. Let's say we get to $163M. That would leave... $78M to spend to improve this projected 26 and 40 man roster: SP1 Houck SP2 ____ Crawford SP3_____Bello SP4 Criswell (Crawford) SP5 Fitts (Bello) RP1____ Hendriks RP2 Whitlock (Hendriks & move everyone down on slot) RP3 Slaten RP4 Bernardino RP5 Weissert RP6 Fulmer RP7 Booser RP8 Winkowski/I Campbell C Wong & McGuire 1B Casas 2B DHam & Grissom SS Story & Romy G. 3B Devers LF Duran & Ref CF Rafaela RF Abreu DH Yoshida 14 Minor leaguers, assuming no additions 1 from ICampbell/Wink/Booser and Perales, Wikelman, Horn, Uwasawa Heineman (or another catcher) + 6 Rule 5's: Bastardo, Dobbins, Guerrero, Jh Garcia, M Lugo & Yorke (Doubtful but take 2 from: Jordan, unless we nontender Dalbec, Hickey, Sogard, Castro, Paulino) Big assumption, but let's say we spend $77M. I'd spend it something like this: $27M SP $20M SP or $10M on SP and $10M on SS/2B (see RHB) $16M Closer $14M RHB (1B/DH/middle IF?) Do I think this happens? NO! I doubt we even come close.

I fully understand how spending big often fails, and sometimes very badly. To me, that does not mean never try again. We can't keep counting on finding a Houck, every year. We look to have at least 3 major holes, next year- some might say 4-5. SP2 Closer RHB 2B/SS SP3 We have seen what $5-10M/1 yr deals get us (and others.) We need to step up spending to have a real shot, and yes, we need to hit on some of our signings.

He's Vohnderfool.

I never realized Janssen was Swedish.

Yes, right after pitching.

We tried hard.

Gotta gain on MN for that WC slot. 37-32 MIN 35-34 BOS -2.0 33-35 DET -3.5 33-35 TOR -3.5 33-36 TBR -4.0 32-35 TEX -4.0 31-38 HOU -6.0 (KC at 40-30 might still be catchable. I doubt BAL is at 45-23.)

phright PHoo PHahr

Is Wink out of the doghouse, yet? 6IP, 3H, 1ER, 0BB, 8K Woo wins 14-1 w no HRs and just 3 2Bs. (18 hits and 8 BBs) Meidroth 1-3 w 3BB (.806) Sogard 3-6 Yorke 2-5 w BB Hickey 3-5 w BB Lugo 0-6 Alvarez & Heineman 3 hits each POR lost 8-6 Jordan 2-5 w HR (.797) Teel 2-3 w BB Campbell and Mayer 0-5 GRE won 8-5 Mullins 10K and o BB in 5IP (3H and 2 ER) Coffey homered and walked 3 times Bleis 1-4 w BB SAL won 12-6 Seems like the whole system was hitting, tonight as the 2 DSL teams combined for 15 runs.

Love it.

Fixed foreyew

Now, that was a sweet win. Very enjoyable.

Agreed.

Nola's ERA went from 2.77 to 3.48 vs the anemic Sox O.

Rumors of O'Neill's demise were greatly exaggerated.

This is the Sox offense?

I thought you said we need to hit rock bottom for any real change to occur. Sorry for mischaracterizing your position. I have been on the sell train every deadline,since 2019, except 2021.

I’m fearful JH is never going to spend big again or is waiting to spend once all the kids are showing they are 1-2 big players away. I’m thinking 2025, but I doubt he agrees.

I’m pulling for DHam in the 2 slot, but golly-gee!

It’s kinda hard to prove the league is getting better, worse or is the same. Yes, it’s all relative, in the end, and we have been about in the middle from 2019 to today, with a low blip on 20 and a higher blip in 21.

Brez has not had a big signing, yet, unless you count Gio. The thing about spending $20-25M on good FAs is that you rarely get that for 1-2 years. JH may not approve a 3-6 year deal at that AAV. That dooms us to 1-2 year lower level FAs like Gio.

That's how I see it. Replacing the 2024 Jansen and Pivetta may not be easy. Finding another O'Neill at $6M and a '24 Martin at $8M should not be hard. At minimum, I see us needing a solid SP ($20-25M), a closer ($10-15M) and a RHB ($5-15M.) That should be able to be done, well, with $40-60M. We could add a second solid SP'er or middle IF'er for $20M and get 4 solid players for $80M. Even if we get nothing from Mayer, Anthony and Teel, we should be much better. The problem is, JH might not even want to spend $20-50M.

It also looks like our worries about depth and ML ready minor league depth were surprisingly wrong. We lost our apparent #1 SP for the full year, Whitlock for almost the full year, and others for starts here and there, yet our rotation, despite recent issues, is still ranked very highly in almost every category. Our pen has seen Jansen struggle, early as well as Martin and his recent IL stint. I Campbell was supposed to be nice depth, and he has yet to do anything good. The pen has been a clear strength. The loss of Casas has hurt, and no good replacement has been found. It took some trial and error (literally and figuratively) to find the middle infield that has not killed us. We went through EValdez I, Reyes, Short, Grissom and a poor start by DHam to finally seem okay with DHam, EValdez II, Westbrook & Romy. Many saw Refsnyder as expendable, last winter. He leads all of our OF in OPS. Rafaela and Abreu have done fine. Even players we have yet to use from the farm have been getting closer and closer to ML ready. The fact that a roster of a lot of Woo North players on it is still at .500 is a testament to out depth. That being said, if we never get healthy, .500 might be where we stay for longer than any of us want, except Randy, who wants us to bottom out, first.