moonslav59

It's our weakest area, for sure.

That, too, but some felt he set the budgets. By 2022 and 2023, the budgets were not a major issue.

The 2 slot is considered the sacred slot, in modern times. I'm not sure Grissom is best placed there, either, at least to start the season. If we are going to go back-to-back with 2 lefties, just do it 1-2 (Duran, Devers), not 3-4 (Devers, Casas.)

At being higher ranked in the power rankings than the Sox.

It seems like everyone gets this, now. Under Bloom, it seemed like some felt he was setting the budget.

2020-2023 OPS vs LHPs (300+ PAs) 10. Betts .936 15. Story .918 25. Bogey .888 28. JD M .874 43. Dalbec .855 (wRC+ 128) 49. Refsnyder .849 (wRC+ 138) 80. Turner .813 82. Renfroe .812

Recency usually trumps numbers 3+ years ago, but Dalbec had some really good numbers, back then, and he's done well in AAA. If we didn't have Casas, he'd probably get another long look in the bigs. If it wasn't for our lack of 1B depth on the 26, he might not be on the 40. He seems like a lifer AAAA player, but I hope he can come back. The guy had an .819 OPS over his first 156 games in MLB. I've not given up on him, just yet, but I prefer going with a guy who has been our best (current) hitter vs LHPs in the last 2 years. One weakness we still talk about is our hitting vs LHPs, especially in the OF. O'Neill is injury prone, and Rafaela is a big unknown at the plate. Does it really a no-brainer to keep Bobby Dee on the 26 over Ref? I think it's a close call, unless we have nobody to back up Casas at 1B, in an emergency. (We also know Cora will never start Casas 162 games at 1B.)

Sounds right. I do worry about his splits v LHPs, despite doing okay, last year with a .327 OBP. Could this be what we see? 1. L Duran CF 2. L Devers 3B 3. R O'Neill LF 4. L Casas 1B 5. R Story SS 6. L Yoshida DH 7. R Grissom 2B 8. L Abreu RF 9. L Wong/R McGuire C Bench: (McGuire or Wong,) Reyes, Refsnyder, Dalbec ML Ready Farm depth: C: R Perez, T Heineman (Teel) 1B: S Scott © (Jordan) 2B: Reyez, E Valdez (DH) SS: DHam (mayer?) 3B: Meidroth OF: Rafaela, R Gonzalez, M Contreras (Anthony, Rosier) DH: Hickey, Kavadas

Who is our leadoff hitter, this year?

Let the games begin!

They were better than the RH'd choices, when selected.

It's not Brez or Pedey. It's the budget.

He'd need to be the owner.

Red Sox best OPS vs LHPs from 2022-2023 (90+ PAs) 1.038 Bogey .998 JD .900 Turner .889 Refsnyder (The best of all players currently on the roster) .783 Devers .783 Story .777 Casas .772 Dalbec .756 Duvall .746 Yoshida wRC+ 192 Bogey 174 JD 148 Refsnyder 142 Turner 118 Dalbec Just sayin'

sp's always seems brutal in their write-ups, and they seem to have eased off ranking pitchers in the top 2, since DHern in 2019. We have to keep in mind, that sometimes things click for some guys, and they become totally different pitchers. Usually, for us, it's a click to the downside, but look at guys like these and their highest rankings on soxprospects.com: I pointed out the busts, but here are some that did okay or well... 3. Bello (was not ranked in '2021, went to #5 in APR '22 and #3 JULY '22.) 3. Houck in '17-'18, shortly after being drafted in the 1st round, but then dropped to #7-10 for a couple years before his call-up. I'm not sure anyone expected him to do all that well. 9. Wink JULY '22 (was not ranked after the trade, then was around 14-15, before jumping to #12 and #9 in '22) 16. Crawford was drafted in 2017 and never cracked the top 20 until he hit #16 in APR '22. Now, he may be our 3rd best SP'er.

Dalbec seems like such a waste of a 26 man roster spot. Ref, if he could play 1B, would be slightly lesser one.

Do we give Ref a 1Bman mitt, or what?

I agree and agreed then, too. He did acquire Whitlock via Rule 5, and Winckowski via trade (Beni), plus some marginal guys like Schreiber and Bernardino in other low cost ways, but it looks like Brez is taking it more seriously. Let's see how we draft. The IFA signings did not seem to focus on pitching, anymore than we did in the past.

Tigers sign Gio U. to $1.5M deal.

Here is what sp's has for summaries on these you listed: Fitts Potential multi-inning depth reliever. Ceiling of a back-end starter. Has some traits you look for in a starting pitching prospect, but effort in delivery and lack of a third pitch hint at the bullpen being the most likely outcome. Stuff improved as the 2023 season went on and could be a candidate to take a step forward with new development staff, as he was tweaking his secondary pitches throughout 2023. Needs to find a consistent third pitch and continue to refine his slider to have a chance to stick in the rotation. Has a starter's fastball with the command and control to work deep into games. Sandlin High-variance prospect with starter upside. Will show three pitches that are at least average with an above-average command and control profile. Stuff appears to have ticked up during winter workouts heading into the 2024 season but it remains to be seen if he can hold those gains into regular season action. If the improvements with his fastball that he showed in the offseason hold, projection could change. Exciting arm with considerable upside if things click. Monegro Potential up-and-down, multi-inning relief arm. Ceiling of a back-end starter. High variance arm who is still learning to pitch. Still very projectable and has already added velocity, even within the season. Could gain even more velocity given how loose his arm is and the remaining projection in his frame. Stuff took a significant step forward in 2023, making him a much more interesting prospect. Needs to show more consistency and improve command and control as he moves up the ladder. Fastball quality could stand to improve, as could creating separation between his two breaking balls. Has dabbled with a changeup in the past and adding something like that or a splitter could give him a better chance to stick in the starting rotation. Pitches with emotion and swagger. Dobbins Potential emergency up-and-down starter. Ceiling of a back-end starter. One of the more interesting pitching prospects in the Red Sox low minors, but has a wide gap between what he currently is and what he could be. Already shows an intriguing three-pitch mix with advanced feel and command for his age. Stuff at present is on the light side, but has already started to tick up. If stuff continues to tick up, projection could change. Paez Potential emergency up-and-down starter. Ceiling of a back-end starter. One of the more interesting pitching prospects in the Red Sox low minors, but has a wide gap between what he currently is and what he could be. Already shows an intriguing three-pitch mix with advanced feel and command for his age. Stuff at present is on the light side, but has already started to tick up. If stuff continues to tick up, projection could change. Early Durable left-hander with four pitches and a solid command and control profile. Advanced pitchability. If stuff takes a step forward, could develop into an interesting arm. If stuff stays as is, still has a relatively high floor with his feel and ability to locate all of his pitches and change speeds.

Yes. I'm just talking about the money part. The extension for Keller covered 1 year of team control (his last arb year) plus 4 years of basically open market prices. A Bello extension would cover 5 arb year, the last of which might be at pretty big numbers, but only 2 open markey years. I would not expect similar contract numbers or AAV.

Thanks. Any significant hopes for lower ranked pitching prospects?

First, Perales has to have a full & healthy season- maybe 120+ IP. We may never know his true potential, until he does. His highest ranking has been #7. It's like he's our next Mata. Wikelman just seems like he's another in a long line of hyped pitching prospects that fizzled out or got hurt. I hope I'm wrong, but nobody says he has electric stuff. He needs everything to go right to maybe become a decent #3. That would be nice, but we need some 1's and 2's. His highest ranking on sp's is his current 9 slot. We've seen so many pitchers ranked higher than #7 and #9, in the last decade become total flops or get injured. Here are but a few, with their highest sp's rankings, ever: 1. Groome '18 2. DHern '19, H Owens '14 3. Espinoza '17 4. A Webster '14 5. Walter '22, B Johnson '15 6. Shawaryn '18 8. Scherff '18, Raudes '16

I agree. Even if this ends up being a swing and miss, we need to do things like this to increase the odds we end up with a solid SP'er, ASAP. Maybe Fitts ends up being the one. Maybe none of the ones we have added, so far work out, but I like the effort. We have hit on a couple moves, like this, in the past few years, mot notably Whit & Winck, who may be really good pen arms and not starters, but adding quality pitching is a good idea.

Keller was in a different situation than Whitlock and Bello. Keller was making $5.4M, this year and had just 1 ard year left. A 5 year extension is 4 years beyond the team control. If we sign Bello to 7 years. it would be for just 2 years beyond the 5 years of control we already have.