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A few more years? Not even remotely realistic. The issue with Casas is that his existence is being ignored, and he has shown he can be a relatively cheap source of power and production. He has seen his last two seasons derailed by injury, and clearly many fans have written him off, but do you honestly think the team has?

It does. But he’s also still only 25 (until January), still here, relatively cheap, and has demonstrated capability. Hes far from a sure thing, but that doesn’t mean the team is going to ignore him and banish him to Polar Park for the duration. Heck it doesn’t even mean he has to earn his way back…

My point all along was Arenado is a bad option. Alec Bohm is reportedly available and equally unexciting, but he’s probably a better idea than Arenado…

So do you think he’s out of the picture? Not asking about your personal expectations, but rather potential team plans…

I don’t pretend to know how they allocate the money or what any plans were. I just know right now they need two infielders preferably including one 1b/DH. They might splurge on Alonso or splurge on Bregman. I have my doubts they splurge on both…

Not even if you literally count his .856 OPS at age 23 in 2023 when he had 502 PA?

Bichette did end last season with some lingering injuries. And Casas carries less risk because he won’t tie up $30mill or so if he gets hurt. I do find it odd folks keep insisting the Sox need to replace Devers and Duran/Abreu but never acknowledge that Casas and Roman Anthony should come back…

If the Sox put Mayer at 3b and Romy at 2b, is this better or worse than bringing in Arenado for 3b? Still effectively the same as replacing Arenado with Romy, but now with a better alignment… My point was the internal options are better and won’t cost $42million over 2 years…

He has a huge advantage over Bregman, Alonso, Bichette, Marte, etc. in that he’s already here. His recent health issues are certainly concerning, but are they more or less concerning than those of Bo Bichette?

And many like to forget the existence of Triston Casas. He might not be ready for opening day, but that doesn’t mean he’s dead…

Hes not the ideal 3b, but arm strength is the average velocity of all his throws. As a 2b/1b, hes not necessarily throwing as hard as possible on every play. At 3b, I wouldn’t be surprised to see his numbers go up. He’ll never be Scott Cooper over there, but I think he’d be closer to Bregman. But I doubt either he nor Arenado is the 3b. That we could even debate this shows what a bad idea Arenado’s is. No one wants Romy there and yet Arenado’s is still not a consensus better option….

What makes no sense is this constant need to replace Devers. The Sox were one game over .500 with Devers and 15 games over .500 without him. Why do you keep reverting to that .500 team as the baseline? Also why is power only measured in home runs?

Yes. Do you think he can’t? And even if he struggles, is it that hard to get a decent fielding 3b who can post an OPS+ over 87 for less than $42mill over 2 years?

It shows the team is cheap and reluctant to pay what is client is worth. We’ve seen this before. We have all heard stories about blatantly cheap extension offers given to Bogaerts and Lester and assumed them to be true. But we really don’t know what the offers were. I am not sure what restrictions if any teams have about countering these stories, but does any benefit arise from that potential media war? The benefit is easy to see for the agent - the fans always gravitate to his side? How often have you seen comments about the cheapness of ownership as opposed to the greed of players. But fans don’t cheer for owners, so we don’t want to see the players as greedy. Even as recently as last year, stories around the internet pervaded about Devers’ trade being done so Liverpool could afford Florian Wirtz, despite the numbers making no sense. (Liverpool FC is worth more than the Sox and Wirtz’ contract pales compared to Devers’.) But people wanted to believe Henry was making the Sox worse for his own other businesses they don’t care about. Why? Because it’s easy to vilify owners And when Skubal’s leaves, no one in Detroit will say it’s because of his demands and every story will be about cheap ownership caring more about bottom lines than the product on the field…

If Ryan isn’t an improvement (and he certainly isn't stairs quo), why is Boston wasting time with him?

Well, Ive probably called both bad contracts waiting to happen at some point. Ive predicted thr Sox sign one or the other. I could see them signing Alonso because, as a 1b, he will command a smaller deal than Bregman. But they had this exact choice lasts year, and the Sox signed Bregman, so I could see that happening again…

Arenado’s is a step down from Romy Gonzalez in every way except salary. And Romy dopant be a full time starter. And with $42mill on the books for the next two years, Arenado becomes an expensive albatross. Yoshida straight up is the only trade I’d make for Arenado. And if I thought about it long enough, like say 2 full minutes, I wouldn’t make that deal either…

Cohen/Mets didn’t sign Alonso long term a year ago and instead just went with the one year deal. I have my doubts they view Alonso as a 6-7 year solution and are much more likely to spend their allowance tjis year upgrading their AAAA grade starting rotation. They might be able to get by with Baty and Vientos handling the corner infield roles. And if not, they can fix that situation in July…

Why the anger towards BTV? It’s not the end-all-be-all trade reference, but it’s a good source that takes into account performance and salary, which teams do care about. Is it 100% accurate or 100% definitive? Absolutely not, for multiple reasons. Like it cannot tell you if certain teams like certain players. Heck at its core, it uses projections like Steamer and projections are often inaccurate. But it’s a nice third party reality check. And when it says a trade is “Fair” that can be reported as fact, in that it is a fact that BTV said the trade was fair. No one is using as definitive. And that becomes apparent when people complain about it. To me, there is a huge difference between saying “BTV calls it an overpay” ( where I am reporting factual output from a neutral third party) vs saying “that trade is a huge overpay” (which could easily just be my opinion, supported or unsupported)…

He gets pissy when we don’t base stuff like that on RBIs…

It looked like you viewed him as a continuation of the trend…

Huh? So Sandoval turns 30 after next season ends but youre counting him as a 30yo signing because why? Hes going to turn 30 someday? When Sandoval signed with the Red Sox, he was 28 years and two months old. If that’s too old for a free agent, then the Sox should never sign one ever again…

First of all, I get the concern of not having experience. But at some point, they do need to get it. All of our internal options? Ok disregarding thr injured Houck, and let’s also table Drohan and Uberstine, because they are low ceiling depth. But I would say the ones that definitely need work in the minors include Tolle and Perales. And Fitts probably benefits from a reduced role, like a bullpen role. That leaves Early, Dobbins and Harrison as ready for the rotation. But I do question the ceiling of Harrison and (especially) Dobbins. But Early? I’m not so sure…

Why was it a reckless? The Sox didn’t need him in December or January. And it wasn’t like when they signed Stephen Drew mid-season. They wanted Soto. Understandable. It didn’t pan out. But why go committing 6 or 7 years to your second choice when you’re not really sure about the guy?

No love for Pete Alonso, who signed a week later?