Nick

Our pitching saved us this year. Look it up.

But it does point out the fact that our current position players are OVERVALUED by Sox fans. I therefore snicker when we do our daily 'sky is falling' routine with so called pending cliff. They suck. With our resources, it can't really get that much worse. Go BIG or Go Home. Go get Stanton AND Votto.

I'd be curious to see where our 3B ranking would be if we projected Dever's production for 162 games. Basically we failed miserably at what I would call 3 power positions, DH, 1B and 3B. One top 10 out of 9 'positions' is horrendous. Upcoming cliff? HELL, LOOKS LIKE OUR POSITIONS PLAYERS ARE ALREADY DOWN IN GRAND CANYON RIGHT NOW. AND WE'RE WORRIED THAT WE MAY LOSE THESE FREAKING LOSERS?

I'd love to have Kimbrel back but it's always risky giving closers a long term deal. I'm obviously opposed to given him Chapman deal.

My ONLY criticism of JF is he is stubborn to 'come off' a player even when the said player is struggling mightily. Holt is having a bad year. His numbers tell you that he's having a bad year. Now he's doing the same thing with Young. He's having a horrible year. He needs not to be on the playoff roster. Quit beating a dead horse. Best thing we did was to call up Devers (instead of trading away prospects for overpriced veteran), picking up a 'hot' bat in Nunez who continued to stay hot and added bullpen depth with Reed. Not sure what kind of team this would have been without Kimbrel, Sale and Pomeranz. DD has delivered. Back to back Division titles. Now that we've reset the penalty rate for 2018, we can add that power bat. Wasn't that the plan all along when we signed Moreland to one year deal? We'll have close to $60M coming off the books after 2019 season (Porcello, Hanley and Pablo). Must signs are Pom (2019) and Sale (2020) and Betts (2020).

I think I'm just excited that Chris Sale is pitching game one and we certainly have a chance to pull ahead 1-0. Early run or two would help. I like him pitching with a 2 run lead.

Congrats to DD for Sox winning back to back Division titles for first time in franchise history.

I'm realistic. Hell I give up Beni and whatever they want in our minor league system for Stanton. A 60 homer guy. I'd do it in a heartbeat.

Yep....blaming it on hitting coach is asinine. He was good in 2016 but bad in 2017? Okay.

And yet we don't want to talk about trading for Stanton and Votto.

He's very affordable right now. I really don't want to break up the outfield unless we're getting Stanton. Cather, shortstop and center field....must play defense.

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?