harmony

The Los Angeles Angels and Texas Rangers should be significantly improved this season after going a combined 20-45 against the AL East last year. In 2022 AL East had atypical success against the AL West in the regular season before the AL West went 5-0 against the AL East in postseason games.

Agreed. On another baseball forum an analogy was drawn between forum contributors and those who still play beer league softball or baseball. Those still playing in the beer leagues harbor no delusions about competing at the MLB level. Fans who question front office decisions face a similar disparity of knowledge and expertise. Metaphorically we forum fans are trying to hit big league pitching when we question front office decisions. Beer league softball is a worthwhile pastime even if the players can't compete at the MLB level. Likewise, fan discussion of baseball decisions is a worthwhile pastime even if the contributors lack the information and expertise of their front office counterparts. Of course front office personnel were not born with their current knowledge and expertise. At some point they probably had no more knowledge and expertise than the average contributor to this forum. But those persons kept asking questions and seeking information. In a high competitive field those persons eventually landed a job in an MLB front office. No shame in what we do on this forum.

Would a projection be realistic if it fell 50-75 points lower than those from the established publicly available services? Reliance on those services helps avoid the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

Who is cherry-picking in this thread? A first post cited Rafael Devers’ career OPS and his significantly higher OPS over the past two seasons. Not all agree. The ZiPS projection of an .887 OPS is higher than the OPS projections from FanGraphs, Steamer and Marcel.

Corrected. Thank you.

FanGraphs, Steamer, ZiPS and Marcel are likely familiar with the “bell curve into prime years” in projecting Rafael Devers with 2023 OPS of .871, .854, .888 and .851, respectively. Nothing wrong with optimism … or an optimistic thread.

Rafael Devers has a career OPS+ of .854, including an OPS+ of .885 over the past two seasons. Is this a realistic thread?

Seattle returns seven starters who made multiple starts last season without being sidelined with an injury. All seven pitchers are at least two years younger than Chris Sale, James Paxton and Corey Kluber. The Mariner staff should not rely on continued health but it should be an interesting season.

ZiPS currently projects the Red Sox with a last-place finish in the AL East: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/the-2023-start-of-spring-zips-projected-standings-american-league/

Well stated, Bellhorn04.

Calm questioning critique is good. Vitriolic personal attacks are not. IMHO

Perhaps a bit of both. FanGraphs projects regression for, among others, Logan Gilbert, George Kirby and Cal Raleigh in their age 26, 25 and 26 seasons after the trio posted fWAR of 3.2, 3.0 and 4.2 last year (the latter two in partial MLB seasons).

The latest FanGraphs WAR projections have the Red Sox fourth in the American League East, just ahead of the Seattle Mariners, who are projected fourth in the American League West: https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=9 In the projections the Red Sox edge over the Mariners comes entirely in projected pitching WAR. Surprising.

The Red Sox offseason has been puzzling. No one has been blamed but this “realistic” thread invites responses to the posted optimism.

FWIW Roster Resource lists Nick Pivetta as the No. 3 starter for the Red Sox: https://www.fangraphs.com/roster-resource/depth-charts/red-sox Other projections have Pivetta as the No. 3 or No. 2 starter for the Sox: https://soxprospects.com/future.htm https://sports.yahoo.com/red-sox-2023-opening-day-175000054.html https://www.nbcsports.com/boston/red-sox/red-sox-2023-opening-day-roster-projection-lineup-rotation-and-bullpen By how much, if at all, will 26-year-old Garrett Whitlock exceed the 82.1 innings the righthander tossed last year across three levels? Whitlock made only nine starts with his remaining work coming out of the bullpen.

Many teams have up to 15 prospective starters of the Chris Murphy/Josh Winckowski promise.

On The Athletic's Top 100 prospect list Keith Law ranks Marcelo Mayer No. 11, Ceddanne Rafaela No. 37, Triston Casas No. 40 and Miguel Bleis No. 72: https://theathletic.com/4132943/2023/01/30/top-100-mlb-prospects-2023-keith-law/?source=pulsenewsletter&campaign=6026672 Subscription required.

Indeed. Justus Sheffield was the centerpiece of Seattle's trade of James Paxton to the Yankees in November 2018. Last November the Mariners traded Erik Swanson, a lesser piece in the Paxton trade, to Toronto for one year of outfielder Teoscar Hernandez.

Justus Sheffield cleared waivers and was outrighted to Seattle’s Triple A Tacoma roster.

The trick would be to find a player with negative trade value who would not require a slot on the 40-man roster. Does that player exist?

Chaim Bloom talks about the decision to designate Matt Barnes for assignment: https://nesn.com/2023/01/chaim-bloom-explains-difficult-decision-for-red-sox-to-dfa-matt-barnes/

FWIW Baseball Trade Values assign Matt Barnes a negative trade value of $7.8 million: https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/players/7632/ Perhaps the Red Sox can find a trade of bad contracts.

What do the departures of Matt Barnes and Josh Taylor mean for the Red Sox bullpen?

Matt Barnes is owed $8.375 million this year so a trade might be tough to negotiate. The Barnes extension was a "highway robbery steal": . https://www.talksox.com/forum/threads/20141-Barnes-extended?p=1401762&viewfull=1#post1401762

On second thought, perhaps the Royals did not have a dire need for a lefthanded reliever with Aroldis Chapman and Amir Garrett already in the bullpen.