Nick

Oh I'm with you on strong defense, but are they rewarded? Not really. There are more good glove no hit players than good glove, good hitters at those defensive positions. We're pretty happy with our catching tandem. I doubt that they get a $20M year contract combined any time soon.

My point is is the incremental difference in performance for SS and 2B worth their contracts? I rather overspend on 1B, 3B, DH than on middle infielders. But that's just me. My order of importance by positions, and therefore willing to pay top dollars SP 1 SP 2 Closer SP 3 LF/RF/3B/1B/DH....really doesn't matter in which order CF/SS/2B C SP 4 SP 5 Relievers You get 3 great starters and a lights out closer, then you have a winning team. In theory, we should have 3 good starters in Sale, Price and Porcello and latter two are being paid as such. Having healthy Pom and E Rod as #4/#5 is a big plus for this ball club. I'm not sure too many clubs can match that. Obviously Kimbrel as a closer was a good pickup. We're weak at DH, 1B. Hanley and Moreland are just adequate at best. JBJ makes up for lack of power out of our LF position. SS and 2B should be above average but at what cost as Xander becomes a FA? We've received maxium value from our catching and relief corp.

I'm with MVP on this....There aren't many teams willing to give us much for taking over Dustin's remaining 4 years. He's Pedestrinisque. Only spoiled Sox fans think he's a bargain. Red Sox Pedroia, Dusti $15,125,000 Yankees Castro, Starlin $9,857,143 Rays Miller, Brad $3,575,000 Orioles Schoop, Jonathan $3,475,000 Altuve is making $4.5M this year and has club options for 2018 and 2019 at $6M and $6.5M. Now that's a home team discount.

Josh Donaldson $17,000,000 Evan Longoria $13,166,667 Chase Hadley $13,000,000 Todd Frazier $12,000,000 Manny Machado $11,500,000 Rafael Devers League Minimum Henry Approves!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3B is money position. I would argue that SS is a defensive position and you should not spend great deal of money on it. I'm just not keen on giving out long term $20M contract to Xander.

Basically, if you were in comma and just woke up to this stats, there's no way in hell you'd think we're in 1st place by 4 1/2 games on August 11th. No FREAKIN' WAY. Good job by DD for acquiring Kimbrel, Pom, Sale and Nunez and NOT trading away Devers.

I agree. For me, it was all about why not give the kid a shot issue? I didn't care if he went hit less in few games. Every rock should be looked under with the situation we had at 3rd. Luckily he started off hot. I fully expect him to go through a slump. I think there was a line in Godfather, something to the effect, "my employer wants to hear the bad news fast". If Devers was not ready, why not find out sooner rather than later? You can do all the scouting you want, but there's no substitute for playing in a real major league game. He's young. He would have bounced back.

The left field defense has not shown improvement from last year and in fact does not seem any better since the season started. He is a decent hack out there. "Oh but UZR and DRS say this and that!". Ah blow me. I see what I see. Spudboy...My exact sentiments....couldn't have said it better.

But Kimmi at the helm, Sox would have #1 farm system every year. AAA team would be better than Sox.

It's hard for me to believe that near MVP sesaon produced by our RF was matched by our CF position.

Discussion was on how to make up for Ortiz' loss. Having Beni play entire year in LF was one of ways to make up for Ortiz' loss.

So one premise going into 2017 was that full year of Beni would upgrade our LF production. It's not working so far. I'm curious to see if he can raise his game. Or did he come to mlb fully developed? He's peaked?

Problem with long term deals is you are stuck with the contract and forced to do things you may not do under normal circumstances. Curious case of Pedroia. Truth is he is beginning to break down. He's going to require more and more off days. His body won't hold up. Because of his long term deal, Betts was moved to OF. Sure he's been great in RF. But what if we had his bat as a 2nd baseman? Also because of Pedroia, Moncada was moved to 3B. Now I would do Chris Sale all day long. But asking a young player to move off his primary position while trying to adjust to a new position at the major league level seems tad overwhelming. You can talk all you want about team friendly contract but the truth of the matter is that no one is willing to take his contract, let alone give up a player of any significance. Any other park, he's basically a singles hitter.

Now that we have Nunez, is there a need for Holt? Brentz should learn to play 1B.

I don't even have Holt in my calculation. Big raises for Pomeranz, Xander, JBJ and Betts. Throw in Leon (arb 2), Vazquez (1st year arb), Kelly (3rd year arb)....they are beginning to add up. I don't care that we go WAY OVER Tax plus $20M, I'm just being REALISTIC and playing the what if that's the magical number for Henry game. HELL IF IT WAS UP TO ME, I'D TRADE FOR BOTH VOTTO AND STANTON, RESIGN NUNEZ AND EXTEND BETTS, JBJ AND XANDER. I would love for Henry to say f*** IT, we're the Sox, our budget is $300M. If I had his money, that's what I would do.

Our raises are going to be significant, starting with picking up Sale's option. Look at our arbitration eligible guys. This is right up your alley.

I think we can field a very highly competitive team over the next two years by just going over the luxury tax limit by $19.9M and no more. Once we reach 2020, we'll likely be at the 50% tax bracket with some big financial decisions to be made. With a much more difficult system for rich teams to rebuild their farms, I'm guessing we hit some hard times by 2021. If Henry didn't go nutty after 3 last place finishes, I doubt he will after a nice 4 year stretch (2016-2019). According to my numbers, we don't even have $20M, more like $15M.

Then why didn't we just sign a big bat this year? All the talk about resetting the penalty rate was for naught? You are not serious.

2018 We'll have $130M tied up to 7 players, one of which will be playing for the Giants. Price,Sale and Porcello, Kimbrel, Pedroia, Hanley. Throw in another $16M for benefits and player salary for 15 outside of 25 major leaguers. Cap is $197M and we have approximately $50M left to field following positions. C Leon (arb 1 = $1.3M) arb 2 estimate $2.5M C Vazquez (league min $561K) arb 1 estimate $1.5M 1B Travis (league min) say $1M SS Xander (arb 1 = $4.5M) arb estimate $7M 3B Devers (league minimum) say $1M LF Beni (league min) say $1M CF JBJ (arb 1 = $3.6M) arb 2 estimate $7.5M RF Betts ($950K) arb 1 estimate $7.5M Say you go cheap with 3 non arbitration players coming off the bench $3M That's $32M .. We have $18M left for two starters and 6 bullpen arms. Two remaining starters, Pom and E Rod will be in their last and first arbitration years. (one of four for E Rod) Pom (arb 2 = $4.45M) Arb 3 estimate $8M E Rod (league minimum) Arb 1 estimate $4M Now we have $6M left for following arms Joe Kelly (arb 2 = $2.8M) arb 3 estimate $4M Matt Barnes (league min) estimate $1M Heath Hembree (league min) estimate $1M Brandon Workman ($635K) arb 2 estimate $2M Carson Smith (leauge min) arb 1 estimate $1M Tyler Thornburg (arb 1 = $2.05M) arb 2 est $2M That's total of $11M, we are over the cap by $5M, And this is without adding big bat at 1B. Moon, even going over by $20M as we've talked about, there's not much money left. f***ING PABLO. $19M DEAD MONEY. Tell me again how we're going to extend Betts for $500M over 10 years?

Is Nunez going to cost more than Young did in FA market? Sure love to have him back as a super sub. With Pedroia, Hanley, Beni and Xander, he would almost be a full time player.

Sale, Kimbrel, Nunez and Pom....now they are nice pickups by DD. We'll see what Carson Smith hype is all about. He's under team control for next three years, 2018-2020.

Can we afford to pay Sale $50M, Betts $50M, Price $31M? And that will be Deves 3rd arb year. Who knows what that will cost. No worries, Henry has tons of money, right BsTHcpr?

Is that you, Bernie?

Betts is not having a MVP year.

As i responded to other poster, we are already paying Price $31M per year for additional 5 years. There has to be a limit to how many 'big splash' we can afford. There's a difference between Henry's money and Red Sox money. Henry is willing to spend Sox money (generated from baseball revenue) but Henry is unwilling to spend Henry's money. Sox has a budget. Not sure if they have 'surplus' but one thing Henry won't do is to make additional cash infusion to Sox.

Let's see if ANY team can pay that much and field a competitive team. UNLESS THERE'S A HUGH INFLATION WE ARE CLOSE TO MAXING OUT ON BOTH GATE AND TV REVENUE. LOOK AT NESN VIEWERSHIP AS ONE EXAMPLE.