harmony

In the offseason, Craig Breslow traded for Willson Contreras, who this year posted 4.6 bWAR, Caleb Durbin, who posted 4.4 bWAR, and Sonny Gray, who posted 4,3 bWAR. That wasn't enough to offset the departure of Alex Bregman and the regressions of Garrett Crochet, who dropped from 6.0 bWAR in 2025 to a negative 0.5 bWAR this year, and Jarren Duran, who dropped from 4.9 bWAR in 2025 to 0.4 bWAR this year. The Red Sox disappointed in the postseason after an exciting streak in the regular season.

After entering year with sky-high expectations, the Mariners flopped with the most disappointing season in this poster's 64 years of following baseball. Hats off to the Red Sox for posting a better record than the Mariners for the second time in the seven seasons of the 2020s.

The Red Sox need only a two-game winning streak to advance.

I would not give him $45M/3, but someone will give more. Teoscar Hernandez was 32 years old when the defensively suspect righthanded hitter landed a three-year, $66 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers after posting 2.3 bWAR in 160 games with the Seattle Mariners. Randy Arozarena, who turns 32 in February, is a defensively suspect righthanded hitter who has posted 10.5 bWAR in 368 games with the Seattle Mariners.

https://www.oregonlive.com/recruiting/2015/11/west_linn_51_sherwood_7_how_re.html?gift=ab8335d2-e29e-4d84-b28f-8f98c1dc5dc3

Adley Rutschman and the Diamondbacks' Tim Tawa have a history dating back to a high school football field in 2015: https://www.oregonlive.com/recruiting/2015/11/west_linn_51_sherwood_7_how_re.html?gift=ab8335d2-e29e-4d84-b28f-8f98c1dc5dc3

This season Luis Castillo has posted 1.0 fWAR in 110.2 innings while Sean Manaea has posted 0.9 fWAR in 104.2 innings. Steamer and ZiPS project Castillo with rest-of-season WAR of 0.6 and 0.4 in 45 and 39 innings while projecting Manaea with ROS WAR of 0.5 and 0.3 WAR in 43 and 28 innings. Before the season the ZiPS three-year projections had Castillo with 1.9, 1.5 and 1.0 WAR in 2026-28 and Manaea with 1.1, 0.7 and 0.3 WAR in 2026-28: https://www.fangraphs.com/players/luis-castillo/15689/stats/pitching#zips-3-year-projections https://www.fangraphs.com/players/sean-manaea/15873/stats/pitching#zips-3-year-projections Castillo has a 2027 salary of $24.15 million with a 2028 vesting option for $25 million if Castillo pitches 180 innings in 2027 and passes a physical. Manaea, who is 10 months older than Castillo, has an average annual salary of $25 million under his three-year contract, but has a 2027 salary of only $19.2 million with a luxury tax assessment of $22 million: https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/player/_/id/19022/sean-manaea This week Castillo struck out 10 over seven shutout innings as the first-place Chicago White Sox blanked the Cincinnati Reds: https://www.mlb.com/news/luis-castillo-has-season-high-10-strikeouts-in-white-sox-win-over-reds

In some respects Sean Manaea is the lefthanded Luis Castillo with a similar contract and age.

FWIW Sean Manaea is on a streak of four straight quality starts, posting an ERA of 2.16 over 25 innings.

Marcelo Mayer on Rafael Devers' influence in the Red Sox clubhouse: https://www.mlb.com/news/marcelo-mayer-excited-to-join-giants-after-trade-from-red-sox

Some Mariner fans have turned their immediate attention to prospect Boston Smith, who was acquired in the Luis Castillo trade. Smith hit five home runs in his first week with Double A Arkansas, giving the 23-year-old catcher 27 homers on the season.🙂 https://www.milb.com/news/boston-smith-takes-tl-player-of-the-week https://www.marinertalk.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=11053&sid=597100700460e0ceadb9f964b19ad899

A sad, sad season indeed for the Seattle Mariners.🥲

On the Marcelo Mayer trade, Baseball Trade Values determines: Red Sox receive $9.4 million in value The Giants receive $27.9 million in value https://baseballtradevalues.com/trades/220476 BTV needed to update (and downgrade) Mayer's trade value.

The Red Sox almost certainly traded Marcelo Mayer for today's best offer. The issue for the front office may have been whether Mayer's trade value was likely to rise in the future. The trade suggests that the baseball execs were betting against an elevated future value.

A favorite Adley Rutschman video;