Nick

I agree about E Rod. He gave us great five innings. You KNEW that his gig was going to be up at some point. Someone else should have came in. Cora was playing with fire and got burned.

Looking at 'Sox' developed players and their first major league season, determined by "significant" plate appearance. Year Name Pos Age HR RBI OPS (# of AB) 2018 Devers 3B 21 21 66 .731 (450 AB) 2017 Beni LF 23 20 90 .776 (573 AB) 2016 2015 Betts RF 23 18 77 .820 (597 AB) 2014 Xander SS 22 12 46 .660 (538 AB) 2014 JBJ CF 24 1 30 .531 (384 AB) 2014 Holt Uti 26 4 29 .711 (449 AB) 2007 Pedroia 2B 24 8 50 .823 (520 AB) I just don't see any evidence to indicate that Devers and Beni were brought up too quickly. Betts probably had to best debut. Others will go through normal 'rookie' struggles. Moral of the story is obviously you can't have nine rookies starting but as an organization you have to break the kids in at some point.

Betts, JBJ, Beni, Barnes,Vazquez and Swihart were all drafted by the Sox. International draft yielded Xander and Devers. JD, Price, Moreland and Brasier were all free agent signings. The rest came by way of trades, Sale, Pom, Pearce, Kinsler, Eovaldi, Hembree, Holt, Kimbrel, Porcello, Kelly, Nunez, E Rod and Sandy. You can argue that trades were made possible by having a strong farm system. We just seem to struggle developing starting pitchers.

And that's not even taking into account Rusney Castillo's money.

You are correct sir. But I still think there's a difference between a turnover in NBA finals game with 10 seconds remaining versus turning the ball over with 30 point lead.

Yes they have......look it up. Thus the language I use, CB Payroll includes benefits. I can count.

Cot's Baseball has Sox CB Payroll at $233,300,600. If we are breaking records, I want to be accurate.

I thought it was the Germans.

Maybe it's easy being more gracious when you are winning (speaking for myself). If we get there, this will be Sox's 4th championships in 15 years, ahead of Giants' 3 and Cardinals' 2. That's pretty amazing. We will have done it with 3 GM's (I'm counting DD as a GM) and 3 different managers. I think we have at least one more go at it in 2019. Yankees are probably our main competitor with young core and money to burn. I think little things matter when it comes to winning the world championship. We were not going to overtax ourselves to have the best record but having the home field advantage I think still matters. IT DOESN'T HURT FOR SURE. In hindsight, signing Eovaldi along with Pearce and Kinsler were huge, especially Eovaldi. You prepare for the marathon (regular season) but you also have to have a kick (playoff games). Eovaldi certainly has bolstered Sox's resume for the playoffs. Pitching still wins big games and getting a #2 type pitcher goes long ways in winning the big series come playoff time. Many here advocate a depth piece at #5/#6 starter for 2019, but I would argue someone in line of Eovaldi talent is needed to get us over the hump come playoff time. My guess is Yankees will go hard after Eovaldi. I hope DD will too. Do we say f*** it and bring back Kimbrel, Eovaldi and Kelly? We have approximately $34M before we hit the 47.5% surtax. But if you go over by say $10M, That's 100% penalty, $2 for $1, (30%+12%+47.5%=say 100%), that's only $10M penalty. I'd say it's worth winning the 5th world series ring. Not my money. For less than $150, I can watch almost every Red Sox game. Still the best bargain in the world.

To me, making an error means nothing. What I want to know is did it cost the team? How many of Devers errors lead to runs? The guy just turned twenty two. With a team full of high priced players, you need the Devers of the world sprinkled into the lineup. I'm glad the clown at 3B is a Red Sox. He's come up with big hits in the playoffs. His hit before being pulled for Nunez was the go ahead RBI I believe. He has a high ceiling and you have to live with his mistakes. Obviously not in the world series but you've got to pick your spots to get him out for defensive purposes. Please don't trash the kid.

Is it time to reevaluate bringing back Kelly? Perhaps as a closer candidate? He will be cheaper than Kimbrel. I think with relievers, you got to ride the 'wave'. Maybe he's found something with repertoire of off speed pitches. Both Kelly and Barnes have stepped up. It's all about being able to throw strikes and throwing something other than a fastball, no matter how fast it's thrown.

Cot has updated CB Payroll for 2019 with projected arbitration pay of $63M for 13 players. Basically 40 man CB Payroll which includes player benefit is now up to $212M before adding any players. We lose Kimbrel, Pom, Kelly and Nunez (he's NOT in $212M, Moon). Tax threashhold for 2019 is now $206M and say we get right up to second tier, or $206M + $39M for $245M. Basically we have $33M to come up with a fifth starter, a closer, a platoon partner at 1B and maybe depth at 2B. Just for the sake of easy numbers, we will pay 30% on $40M instead of 20% as a second year offender in 2019. That amounts to $12M instead of $8M. We'll also pay a surcharge of 12% on $20M, or $2.4M. The first surcharge (between $20-$40M overage remains the same. So we'll pay $14.4M instead of $10.4M in penalties because we are a second year offender. To me, spending $20M to $39.9999999M really has no real consequences. You're geting hit with $2.4M ADDITIONAL penalty, which is not a big deal. We've already decided that losing 10 spots is really not a big deal either when you're drafting 30th every year. At that point, you're basically throwing darts on draft board. Question then becomes how creative can DD get with a 'budget' of $33M? Realistically, he'll spend $20M and pocket the rest for August trades.

I don't believe we'll re-set CB Payroll to come under the tax for next year. DD will want to "go for it" in 2019. Hopefully back to back scenario. Yankees will be on our heels. In the past, he's always been very single minded about getting what he thinks Sox needs AND getting it done, regardless of cost. With that in mind, 1) Kimbrel maybe too expensive for Sox. Will he look to trade for a closer, or go with cheaper closer alternatives? It's highly unlikely to think HE thinks we have internal option. How about Britton or Miller? 2) My guess is he LIKES to have Eovaldi back. I don't think he'll be all in on him but if he perceives Eovaldi is in Sox price range, he'll bump up the $$ or a year in length of the contract. 3) Need a back up plan for Pedey and another 1B. Moreland is breaking down. One bad tweak and he's out extended period of time. Chavis may not be ready until July/August. I'm guessing he is working out at 1B. 4) Having JD play some 1B will go long ways in adding 'depth' to our line up. 5) Why not entertain the idea of playing Betts full time at 2B? It's probably easier to sign a DH with some power opposed to super star 2B. 6) When your payroll is north of $230M, you have to cut corners somewhere and that's our bullpen. Our farm system has to produce relievers. We certainly can't spit out quality starters. 7) Sox will have won 4 world series titles in 15 years, ahead of Giants (3), Cardinals (2), Cubs (1), Yankees (1), White Sox (1), Phillies (1), Royals (1), Astros (1). We're good. And always remember this. It's not important what you think, it's more important what you think DD is thinking.

Pom's got too much going on inside his head. I hate to be in it.

I don't think it's a bad idea to sign a starter this winter with both Sale and Porcello becoming FA after the 2019 season. What position would you rather be in? A) Price, Sale, Porcello, E Rod, Wright/Johnson/Hector for 2019. Then having to sign either Sale or Porcello versus Pirce, Sale, Porcello, E Rod, Eovaldi for 2019. Then having to sign just Sale, Porcello or another starter? Surely each team has a 1 yr, 3yr and 5 yr plans.

Let's end the Hanley debate. Sox did what was best for the franchise. Period. Again, let's not forget that his $22M will pay for 11 arbitration raises for 2019. That's huge. If we have a 2019 budget similar to 2018 budget, we have $39M to replace Kimbrel, Pom, Kelly and Nunez. (Moon this is based on Cot's new spreadsheet for 2019 which does not have Nunez on the roster and arbitration estimates by mlb trade rumors site. I know that you have sharp eyes fro details.)

4th World Series title since 2004? Let's do this. Get this done and go for #5 in 2019.

Well Cora has done one thing that will help the Sox in 2019. Cutting loose Hanley. We saved $22M for 2019. That amount just happens to be the expected pay raises for 11, count them, 11 arbitration eligible players. Say what you want but that was prudent thing to do. He's managing his personnel well. I don't think we re-sign Kimbrel. I'm guessing we'll trade for another cost controlled closer. Book it.

Yep, I'll say what she said.

Good points. Having someone that can pitch multiple innings is HUGE. His style is so different that it's added bonus. Fire hoser to limp dick to hire hoser. I thought we were aggressive with pinch hitting and part of that was due to having three catchers. I approve.

I only use one stat. How many runners' bases do you advance including yourself divided by plate appearance.

Also, it was full count, runner on 1st was breaking with the pitch. He would have scored easily.

Not true. We were under the cap in 2017. So going into 2019, we are going into it with 1 year of tax limit payroll.

I'd like to see JD get some reps at 1B during spring training next year. I think that's easier than asking Betts to play 2B.

I was good with JBJ, Devers, Price and Kimbrel.