Nick

Will any of this matter if the Mets owner is willing to say "we'll top any offer by $50M?" Perhaps Soto will figure out that $50M over 14 years isn't a big deal if he really wants to play elsewhere. What I hope is No to Dodgers and the Yankees, they already have plethora of stars. No to the Blue Jays. Who wants to play in Hockey country? No to the Mets. They will always be second fiddle to the Yankees, soon or later.

I think it's incredible that we picked up Roman Anthony and Kristian Campbell from the supplemental draft when both Eovaldi and Xander became free agents and moved on. I would bet that both Anthony and Campbell will surpass Eovaldi and Xander in any common metrics you come up with over the course of their careers starting in 2023. I jumped the gun and said "what the hell?" when Pivetta was offered the qualifying option. Considering what we gave up in exchange to acquire Pivetta and that we only paid him accumulatively $16M for his 107 starts, we gotta pretty good return on the investment. You throw in the supplemental draft pick, Pivetta was a good investment.

I'd fire Bres.

Getting back to Casas. I would wait another year to trade Casas, if at all. We'd be trading Casas at lower value than same time last year. I would expect him to have much better year in 2025. At the conclusion of 2025, he's still be under team control for 3 years. That's enough time to get back a decent starter, again assuming he has a break out year. Why is everyone so low on him?

I'm wondering why we haven't moved others to middle of the rubber. Surely an analysis exists to extrapolate success/failure rate for each pitcher if they change their release point relative to the rubber.

Five more years of team control on Justin Slaten. I hope he can continue his success. Always a crap shoot with relievers.

Maybe we should consider this 2024 3.3M 41, 527 per game 2023 3.1 M 37, 686 per game 2022 2.3M 28,108 per game 2024 1.5M 18,715 per game The attendance has increased steadily over his 4 years. From 2007 to 2013, Phillies drew 3M+ fans. They had 5 first place finishes from 2007-2011.

I am on board with Moon about acquiring a top of the line starter. However he missed my point about the likely of THAT happening in my opinion is slim to none. Moon states perhaps we have 8 years of window with our production farm and young players. Obviously I agree with his assessment and to make it clear, we are talking mainly about the positional players. Faced with the possibility of not 'going all out' for a starting pitcher, I suggested maybe we focus on building a kick ass bullpen where the contract value and the length is not so daunting as with starters. I simply threw out five names that came to mind as Sox starters, Giolito, Houck, Kutter, Bello and Fitts. OBVIOUSLY THE STARTING ROTATION HAS TO BE DEEPER. Moon and others are all over me about the starting quintet not being enough. All I'm suggesting is that maybe we should focus on the bullpen first. Acquire enough starters to get us to the fifth inning and let the bullpen take over. A simple league average in saves would have given us 5 more wins. Our save opportunities ranked 6th in the MLB I believe. That too me tells me bullpen upgrade will yield us the biggest win improvement in 2025.

Very good read. Minor detail but Duran is team controlled for 4 more years. It doesn't square up with your "4th year player". To be exact, he has 2 years and 155 days of service time. The Sox did well to bring him up to the majors at the right time.

Moon Had the Sox simply 'saved' the major league average, we would had 5 more wins, bringing our win total to 86. Our 71 savable games ranked 6th in the MLB. We need better bullpen.

I don't believe there's a DD in our organization to make a bold trade. What I really want to say is THERE IS NOT A MAN IN OUR ORGANIZATION. NO BALLS. ANYWHERE.

Why be so impatient? It's possible Abreu's value will go up. Here's my high ceiling lineup. C Wong, Teel as future backup/starter, both can play other positions/DH. 1B Casas 2B Campbell SS Story/Mayer as back up in case of an injury 3B Devers LF Duran CF Rafaela (I'm thinking defense first) RF Anthony DH/OF Yoshida, Refsnyder, Abreu (teach him how to play 1B) Utility IF Hamilton/Romy/Grissom I believe that's a solid positional player lineup. I would want to see the injury situation before I start trading anyone. Sign a starting pitcher and start assembling hard throwing bullpen help.

Assuming Houck, Bello, Kutter, Giolito, Fitts and others can go 5 innings, can we simply load up on the bullpen with some elite resume? Assuming we have a long reliever in Casper, let's build the bullpen with 7 studs. That maybe easier and less costly. Many of them go for short term deals.

I fully agree. Until these young ones are established major leaguers, we really don't know what we have. To say 'plethora' of outfielders in not true as of today. Maybe by mid summer.

No way I would trade 4 years of team control left for Duran in exchange for 1 year of Skubal. Hell just wait another year make him an offer he can't refuse.

Yep JH wonders how come we won 92 games in 2021 while only spending $180M. I think that's what he's looking at. Jays opening payroll this year was $226M and they won only 74 games, finishing dead last in AL East. Not sure what the Yankees will do if they don't get to the World Series. Re-signing Soto will not make the team any better. Not re-signing him make the team worse. He's probably looking at north of $45M per year in real money.

Since Day 1, Brez has advocated for not having a fixed DH. He wants to use rotation of players. I would prefer to start with Ref, Abreu and Romy along with 'resting' of Devers/Casas to having Yoshida as the DH. I rather first see Yoshida go before Abreu. Abreu will still be useful in the outfield, especially if someone gets hurt (Duran, Rafaela). Anthony should start in right.

The biggest problem is they are willing to simply admit, "We tried, we really did, but the price, whether in acquiring a free agent or trading for a player, the cost was too high."

Don't ask me to prove it, but I believe Bloom said something to the effect AFTER the trade yeah we could have signed Betts but as you said and Bloom said that the team would have been gutted, not enough supporting cast to put out a playoff team for three or four years. I would challenge the club now that we have enough pieces to put out a playoff contending team, spend some money to chase the title. Does JH really want to die and his epitaph to say well he was able to retain much of his wealth at the time of his death?

Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Mookie Betts was left searching for answers following another hitless performance in a Game 2 loss to the San Diego Padres. "They're all outs. So, they're all terrible," Betts said postgame Sunday when asked about his at-bats during the 10-2 defeat, according to Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register. "I don't know really what to say about it. I'm giving my best, doing my best. Obviously, it's not good enough right now." The eight-time All-Star is mired in a 3-for-44 postseason slump dating back to Game 4 of the 2021 NLCS. He's gone hitless in six at-bats to begin this year's NLDS. At least I can take comfort in this.

With Pivetta gone, I would be reluctant to trade away a starter that pitched 180 innings. He is not expensive as a first year arbitration guy. Certainly cheaper than Pivetta's $7.5 M. Just keep him as an insurance. Houck, Giolito, Kutter, Bello, Fitts, Criswell and Whitlock (yes, him). Just add Burnes at the top and work on rebuilding the pen.

Yes......where in the hell did I get Buddy Bell? Thanks