Nick

At least Dalbec can play some 3B....ugh. Cooper?

I was talking only about Pivetta, Martin and Janssen. No way we can trade Yoshida.......who'd want him?

Janssen and Martin can be replaced by Hendriks and Whitlock in 2025. Unless we try again with Whitlock starting. So the task becomes making the following line up better and coming up with starting pitching. CC Wong 1B Casas 2B Grissom SS Story 3B Devers LF Duran CF Rafaela RF Abreu DH Yoshida Like I say it's a starting point. We should get something in return for Janssen, Martin and Pivetta. Hell we don't even need to get any money back. We're under the tax so we can 'buy' prospects/return.

We are under the cap by $106M for 2025 with following FA to be gone. Janssen, Martin, Pivetta, O'Neill, Smith/Cooper, McGuire are 'major' payrolls coming off. We have Giolito and Liam Hendriks/Whitlock coming back. And let's not forget Story. There will be some arbitration money that will eat up some of that cap space. I've said this before, the budget for 2025 will tell us all about our organization's intent going forward. This was year of discovery, and I think we've all seen enough to come up with the core group. We need to add pieces to make us playoff bound, no not contenders. We need to join the major players in AL East, New York and Baltimore. Hell, we have $100M to do it.

I don't think I can 'buy' what they're selling. We need 3 Tanners and that ain't it.

With Casas returning at some point and Story next year, I think our offense will be effective, just need to find a right handed bat for DH. I'm just not sure how we're going to assemble our starting rotation. There's only three ways to do it, trade, free agency or promote from within. Current regime appears not to be interested spending big money on a free agent. At the current rate, we have following. 1 Tanner 2 3 4 Bello/Kutter 5 Kutter/Bello The team won't be any better unless we fill in the blank. (I know, I know, I'm stating the obvious)

I think he's a good offensive player. It's his defense that concerns me. My thought is he is better than Valdez and he should be playing 2B (easier position in my book than short) to mitigate his defensive shortcomings. Or maybe he can play in the outfield, you know, get more lefty bats in the OF. There's no denying his speed and I like that about this team.....Rafaela, Duran, Hamilton, Abreu, Wong, Story, Refsnyder, they can all run. Casas and McGuire are the slow guys.

I want to know who in the Sox organization thought it was good idea to get Cooper? I've never seen anyone so pathetic. He looks the part too. Oops, he just got his second hit in June.

Jansen and Martin to start. Pivetta unless Sox has a clear idea of what to do to retain him. O'Neill.

We're 10th in runs scored, 4th in ERA among 30 teams. Should we be better than .500? Obviously our defense has something to do with that.....ugh. 2 more unearned runs today.

Nice job by Cora. He knew Cooper's weak contact would get Duran home. Genius.

I think you misread my post....I said sell sell sell and hopefully we'll get someone like Abreu in return, maybe a pitcher with same ability/upside as Abreu. He is one of my favorite players on this team. He's a gamer. To me he's a Red Sox.

Basically Rafaela, Duran and Wong are only future major league starters and Rafaela has a ways to go. Ref is a valuable bench player, not a full timer. You won't win too many games with that lineup. Sell, sell, sell....maybe we'll get something similar to Abreu, hopefully a young starter with potential.

My ranking of hitters, potential starters 1 Devers 2 Casas 3 Abreu 4 Duran 5 Yoshida 6 Wong 7 TBD 8 Story 9 Rafaela This is really bad, but today we have Duran, Wong and Rafaela in the lineup. Not a major league lineup. We're fooling ourselves about making the playoffs. And we're not even talking about the starting rotation as of today. Sell, sell, sell.....Jansen, Martin, Pivetta, maybe even O'Neill if he can garner any return.

I'm surprised that the union doesn't bitch about that.......minimum spending should be a must. Otherwise we'll always have the Washing Generals in MLB.

I just read that Oakland A's had the fourth best "Profit Margin" last year. That tells me that maybe the A's aren't 'valued' asset in a traditional sense but it can generate decent, annual pocket money to the owner. Meanwhile the fans suffer. Ugh.

Not sure why all the negativity about Rafaela. I thought because of his defense, which is superior, we'd just let him bat ninth and work out his chase rate. I think he is doing exactly what we though he'd do. It appears we have found our leadoff man. Cora loves him there. There will be ups and downs offensively, but Wong as a second year catcher is a keeper. Maybe Teel will be a better option, then we have two major league catchers. The nice thing about the duo (wong/teel) is that they can both play other positions and they can both be in the lineup at the same time. I think Abreu is a keeper. Duran, Rafaela and Abreu comprise nice outfield. We bitch about our defense, well that's a good defensive outfield. OUR PROBLEM IS CASAS IS ON THE BENCH. WE ALSO NEED A DH THAT CAN MATCH DEVERS/CASAS OFFENSIVE OUTPUT. OUR BEST OFFENSIVE PLAYERS SHOULD BE OUR 3B, 1B AND DH. RIGHT NOW WE ONLY HAVE ONE AND THAT'S A KILLER. We can't overcome that with weakness at ss/2b. Finally, we need ss/2b combo that's equal in offensive output as our outfield threesome. Starting pitching is another matter. This week we only trust Houck and Pivetta.

To those thinking we should extend O'Neil. He is another 1 year rental. Broken down or ready to break at any moment.

Rafaela getting RBI's from the 9th spot. Just wait until he learns to hit.

I agree. Like you say, he was never in a position to 'wait' for a big payday. 32/2 plus option seems very reasonable. Going from $7.5M to $16M is a pretty good raise imho.

Who is Nick Pivetta's agent? Nothing on Cot's. What do we do with him? Is it too late to extend him?

This is the report Henry sees.......

Our gross revenue is no where near the Dodgers.

Deep down, I just don't get what the big deal is to spend more money. Obviously Henry is licking his wounds over his players getting hurt. Most of us disagree with him. (my real sentiment).

And not to mention Betts ain't no Ruth.