Nick

Moreland on my mind........Freakin' Stanton

I get it that we went with Moreland as a 'bridge' while our penalty rate reset to zero. For $5.5M he's given us what we paid for. 'Absolute' financial constraints come off next year. Why not be bold? You get a chance to pick up Votto or Moreland WITHOUT touching regulars, you do it.

I don't think you're being a smart ass. I always think its prudent to ask. Why not ask the Marlins what they want? DD can always say NO.

Stanton will turn 28 when season is over. He's 6'6" and 245 lbs. Looks pretty healthy to me. How does he look to you, Kimmi?

Won't we have five starters next year?

2018 will be Stanton's 28th year. He will be in his prime. He can be our Ortiz for next 10 years.

It would solve our power outage. Why no go for Chris Sale type? Hitters are different than pitchers. There are guys that can hit until they are 40. I just don't think the risk is as great. Lot less than Price.

I'd like to see Yankees drop couple more games right away in order for us to clinch the Division. Set up the rotation for the playoffs. Hopefully Sale can skip his last start or at the very least pitch him only for 3 or 4 innings.

Here's an interesting stat for all your geekers. This year we are 38-1 when we score at least 7 runs. Last year we were 45-8 when scoring 7 runs or more. Both years we're net 37 wins when scoring 7 or more runs. Offense is important but not as much as run prevention. To put it another way, Sox only had to play 39 games to net 38 wins when scoring 7 runs but it took the Sox 53 games to net 37 wins last year when scoring 7 runs or more. Obviously we can do both. That is increase offensive production (Stanton, Votto...this is for Kimmi) at the same time loading up on pitching staff. note; on the flip side is that we're probably not scoring enough runs to win low offensive output days considering we're headed for similar win totals.

We would have signed Moreland regardless of if Shaw was traded. Devers would not be our starting 3B (perhaps) with Shaw on hand. We're 4 games up. The big mistake was thinking Pablo somehow could come back and be effective. That was worse than any trade we've made.

Miley trade has worked out extremely well even without Carson Smith throwing a single pitch. At least I didn't suffer having to watch ugly starts from Wade.

In my best jeff spicoli voice...."but shouldn't the trade benefit both sides?"

Interesting thing to note about Stanton's current contract. Sox fans are all about the 'tax tracker' when it comes to player payroll. That is we are concerned more about the average value of the contract for the luxury tax implications. We are less concerned about the actual cash flow of one's contract. Why? Henry has money. (actually, sox revenue stream is large) Stanton's contract is back loaded. He was paid $6.5M. $9M and $14.5M the last three years. His pay jumps to $25M in 2018. It will jump to $29M by 2021 and $32M by 2023. Not a big deal for Sox but it is a big deal for cash strapped Marlins. This is why there's talk of making Stanton available in a trade. From Sox perspective, big hurdle is how much concession (players, not money) we'll get from Marlins for the opt out clause in Stanton's contract. Although it may seem unlikely, he can opt out after the 2020 season. Thus only 3 seasons are guaranteed for potential suitors. Realistically it's hard for me to believe Stanton would walk away just as pay is going up but you never know. Maybe the Marlins are committing suicide by trading him but ultimately they know better than anyone else the financial viability of having a player such as Stanton. Simply put. You can't live above your means forever without raising the top line. Marlins made a big deal about the signing three years ago but the new contract was very affordable for first three years. For Marlins, average value had absolutely no impact (Cot's won't even produce that number for majority of franchises distant from having to compute the luxury tax number). Now the rubber meets the road. I would give up any number of minor leaguers for this guy. I like it when DD is focused and zeroing on one target. Close your eyes Kimmi. His contract's average value is little over $25M, only $5M more than Porcello's contract.

Would anyone take half of Porcello's contract for 2018 and 2019? Moon?

Guy calls home and maid answers. "Where's my wife?". Maid reluctantly says "She's upstairs. She has someone in bed with her". Guy says "get my gun and shoot them both". Guy hears two gun shots. Maid comes back and says "it's done". Guy asks "who was the man in bed with my wife?". Maid says "it's the pool guy. He was here to clean the pool". Guy say "Pool? What pool?"......."Never mind. Wrong number". Okay...that was pretty lame. It was funnier back in 1970.

You guys do know that Marlins would have two days to simply rescind the waiver right? This is done usually to gauge interest in the player being placed on waivers. Red Sox can place Hanley on a waiver. I doubt anyone would claim him and his contract.

You are right of course. I seem to be doing lot of finger crossing with many of Sox players.

Every set back is precipitated by some sort of injury. Does he need a surgery or more rigorous work strengthening his knee? He's under team control for 4 more years. I don't know but he seems injury prone and it's not even his throwing arm. “He’s very comfortable on the mound right now,” catcher Christian Vazquez said. “So I think his knee (issue) is still there, you know, but I think he finds a way to pitch with that. and there's this. Just read it on Boston Herald.

16 out of the top 30 are on 4 out of the 15 AL teams. WAR ranking of American League pitchers....mathematically, shouldn't this always be true? Winning teams should dominate this type of rankings?

Well hell, Moon didn't give me all the f***ing details! It's his f***ing fault!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That was in jest Moon.....

DD has done well stocking this this team WHILE resetting the tax rate this year. Moon is correct I think in DD going after a clean up bat this off season. By next spring, Carson Smith should be our 8th inning guy. Our bullpen should be well stocked. My concern offensively is that perhaps 2017 is the norm while 2016 was exceptional year for many of our players. Just because they get older is no guaranty of getting better production. See Dustin Pedroia as an example. I suppose the biggest question mark heading into 2018 is David Price's health. What if his 'issues' persist from time to time? What I'm afraid is him needing surgery at some point and losing out 2 years from him.

Goal is to win the World Series. First big step is to win the Division. (yeah I get the play in game but that's the ultimate crap shoot). Pom has done his part this year to get us there. Acording to some, they'd rather watch lousy baseball for 8 months consoling themselves thinking hey we'll have Espy as our ace in 2022. Hell half of us will be 6 feet and under by then.

Great point.....but my guess is JF ASKED Sale how he felt. Again, JF needs to be the grown up in this case if indeed he left Sale in there because Sale wanted to come back out. JF is the manager, he needs to manage even his star Ace. I doubt Sale would ever say, "I've had enough".

Bigger question, just kidding Is it time to go to 6 man rotation? (not talking about RIGHT NOW but in future). We invest heavily in pitchers. Maybe you don't get a buy in from GM on down, including the pitchers. Say we win the World Series, that's another month worth of pitching. I don't think it would be a bad idea to start 2018 with 6 starters. I think it's too taxing on the arms to go right back at it. Just a thought.

You are right........rankings threw me off.