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I imagine soon. It’s been $8mill for a while now while FA prices have been climbing…

A lot of that depends on your expectations. The longer term contracts almost always go bad before they expire. How many good years make it acceptable?

The 40 man slot occupied by Sandoval may already be filled. Once he’s eligible to move to h to he 60 day IL, someone like Morán, Fulmer or Adam’s probably gets added in his place…

Now you have…

Lackey signed that contract in 2009, over 15 years ago. Not sure what the f*** 2013 has to do with this…

That is another way to look at it. But Lackey’s minimum wage year was also his best year (5.8 bWAR). On a different team in a different ballpark with a different pitching coach, and a different defense behind him. Does he have that same year in Boston? Lackey’s contract was also the biggest ever for Sox pitcher at the time, but dealt with numbers that look miniscule compared to today’s deals. And he barely justified it, largely with another team. But if you want to say it was, then giving a big deal to a free agent starting pitcher did work once for Boston (and St. Louis) nearly two decades ago…

I don’t prefer one over the other. But as Fangraphs mobile page can take forever to load, and B-R generally doesn’t, I tend to go their first. I also like bWAR because it gets broken down by team when a player switches mid-season. But if I want to see how a player (or team) ranked at an individual position, fWAR is the one that does that. Really, any sort of sorting and comparing or historical data is much easier on Fangraphs. So my choice of one WAR over the other is more based on access and application. It’s not like I have any clue which one is more accurate…

If Fangraphs wants me to use fWAR, they can make their page more mobile friendly. Also, B-R, unlike Fangraphs, splits up WAR for a player who played on multiple teams in one season, like Lackey did. And what he did for St. Louis is irrelevant. I only counted performances for Boston for any of those pitchers.

The goal posts are moving. First of all, a lot of these guys were the result of going cheap. Second, a much bigger number of them are not working out. I mean, Taijuan Walker has been worth 1 bWAR over 2 years in Philly. Carlos Rodon has been worth a total of 1.1 bWAR to NY. Did Boston really cheap out and miss these guys, just because they make less money? Do we need pitchers averaging less bWAR per season than Cooper Criswell? The Sox haven’t gone crazy buying an “ace.” But they did land Crochet and already had Houck. I am not wild about Buehler, but they did land rest of this staff is looking better. And it’s only Christmas. Oh, and Merry Christmas!

Whatever your theory, for the first 54 games of the season, Fox got nearly if not all the save chances. Whether or not they decided to go with him all year is moot. After 54 games, they acquired Byung-Hyun Kim. The bottom line is there was never a committee. A committee by definition is “a GROUP of people appointed to a specific function.” And the definition of a group, per Merriam-Webster, is “(n) Chad Fox”.

I’m not wild about Bregman, but he’s a better option than Arenado, whose last two seasons have shown OPS+ of 108 and 101. Bregman will cost a lot and decline the last few years. But getting the shorter Arenado contract is like deciding “ok let’s skip the early, productive years and jump right to the last few when he’s expensive and mediocre.” Id’d just assume hand 3b to Vaughn Grissom. Or just leave Devers and get elite production on one side only. Now if STL takes Yoshida in this deal for some reason, that’s different.

I’m not wild about him either. And it doesn’t help that he sucked last year. But as long as they have the depth…

The counter argument is how good is it going expensive? Especially on starting pitching? Price and Sale cost the Sox about $305, if you only look at Sale’s extension and remove COVID money plus money paid by LA and Atlanta. And for that $305mill, the Sox received a grand total of 12.3 bWAR. For 8 seasons of pitching, they got roughly twice what Sale gave Atlanta last year. Nate Eovaldi signed a 4 year $68mill contract, which became a 3.4 year $57mill deal. Eovaldi gave Boston 7 bWAR in 3.4 seasons, making him, by averaging just over 2 bWAR per year, the best starting pitcher free agent in team history The Sox dont have many long term free agent pitcher contracts in their history. Since Duquette extended Pedro, they’re sparse. After Price and Sale, the only other one that leaps to mind is John Lackey. Now as Lackey had a great postseason in 2013, he’s remembered as a success, and not as a pitcher who was mediocre his first year, horrible in his second, and didn’t even pitch in his third. Lackey was worth a total of 3.9 bWAR for his 4 and a half seasons in Boston, all for the (definitely not at the time) low, low price of roughly $80million (And Lackey was also the subject of an urban legend regarding threatening to retire instead of playing his contractually obligated minimum wage year; he did earn minimum wage in St. Louis in 2015.) Not so sure spending heavy on Fried/Burnes/whoever does anything more than keeping fans from calling the FO cheap…

The “closer by committee” is right up there with beer and chicken along side “bridge year” as the most ridiculous controversies in recent years. The committee was Chad Fox. And no one else. Just Fox. But as Fox was an inconsistent pitcher capable of highs and lows, if the Sox said “Chad Fox is our closer,” many would have thought “but he sucks!! He’s wildly inconsistent!!” And they’d have been right. But since the Sox called it “closer by committee”, it then impugned an entire strategy that can actually work pretty well, and everyone ignored that the committee was just Chad Fox…

You did leave out the extremely unoriginal Death Valley image…

Because Refsnyder is worse at outfield defense than Stephen Hawking is at ballet. And just because Anthony isn’t starting in April doesn’t mean he is off out of the picture. Platoon Yoshida at Ref at DH Platoon Abreu and Grichuk in RF. Until Anthony comes up at some point. And yes, get a catcher !! (The Sox could trade Abreu for a catcher and solve this logjam as well.) There is some merit to keeping Crawford in the rotation and moving Bello to the bullpen into a high leverage role. But don’t post about out or else the guy who came up with it will let it go to his head…

If the Sox signed Grichuk to platoon in RF with Abreu, that would make sense. Grichuk crushed LHP last year and is a capable OF who’s played all 3 positions (and isn’t a defensive wasteland like Refsnyder). Ramon Laureano also makes sense as a RF weak side platoon/4th outfielder. Neither should be a full time starter in Boston. But platooning with Abreu, who cannot hit LHP? They fill a NEED…

Or he could replace Buehler should he go down before Sandoval is fully healed…

.852 OPS on the road last year, as opposed to his .632 at home. So, yes. Not surprising splits for a lefty pull hitter in that ballpark in SF, with its deep Death Valley in RF.

They had to replace Buehler with Snell. Otherwise that rotation would have lead MLB in sutures…

No catcher?

No one will remove them. You will learn to live with your shame…

The Sox bullpen last year relied on Jansen, Martin, Slaten, Weissert, Bernardino, Kelly, Winckowski and at one point, Chase Anderson. This year they have Hendriks, Slaten, Chapman, Whitlock, Wilson, Adams, Guerrero and maybe Fulmer. It might be better. It might be worse. It’s definitely been overhauled…

And a RP that has never pitched for the Sox before but has had a season as high of 3.2 fWAR…

Not the worst idea. Although I still have faith in him as a starter…