Nick

Knowing we likely will have 4 players at $75 M under contract for 2025, (assuming Giolito bolts) it's baffling we are not spending any money. My conclusion is they simply don't want to.

You are probably right. I am just putting myself inside Brez's head as to why we made that trade. 1 opening a spot for two guys that either make the team or gets thrown off Sox island 2 couple with disparity in player controlled years. My guess is Sox likes possible ceiling of the two players that have to make the team or get released. The kid received is cherry on top.

Mediocre = Average to me. To me he is just an average pitcher from what I saw last year. Majority of pen guys are erratic from year to to year. Sometimes during the season. Brasier as an example. Let's hope Mata has higher ceiling than Shreiber. You and I were all over Mata before he got hurt.

Again the trade was to make openings for both Mata and the rule 5 guy. Brez obviously valued those two over Schreiber Samdlin is just a bonus.

It was all about creating space on the opening roster.

Obviously Shreiber trade was to make room for both Mata and Slaten to make the team. I like the move. It's pretty obvious what the road map is going forward. We received team controlled pitcher in exchange who is a hard thrower and has some upside. Bres is trading out mediocre pitchers for younger talent. We can survive Schreiber's departure.

I don't get the negativity on Wong. Is he a finished product? 5 years of team control. Maybe he"ll improve

Someone who is considered a genetic freak of nature should be able to stay on the field. Curious to see what O'Neill does.

Curt Flood says hello.

Good summary, Moon So our starting point is this; I think this is what the management is banking on to keep us competitive while waiting results on our pitching staff. CC Wong (waiting on Teel) 1B Casas 2B Grissom 3B Devers SS Story (waiting on Mayer) LF Duran CF Rafaela (waiting on Anthony) RF Abreu DH Yoshida Super Utility Rafaela We only have $70M committed to 3 players. I can see either Yoshida or Story being traded along with some cash at some point. SP Giolito (1 yr deal unless he has a bad year) SP Bello (let's hope he stays healthy) SP Pivetta (final year, if he has a break out year, he's gone, maybe he'll come back with a mediocre year at lower price) SP Kutter (I think the management is high on him) SP Houck (no matter what any of you say, HE thinks HE's a starter) SP Whitlock (talk is cheap but all indication is he's stronger and healthy, if he breaks down one more time, I'm jumping off his bandwagon) SP Winckowski (I don't see anyway he's a starter despite some optimism by our baseball people) I know most of you are very negative and understandably so. I guess my optimism is on our youth and the baseball people that's been brought into the organization, especially on the pitching side. Theo addition won't hurt. Maybe I'm just weird but I'm looking forward to seeing our position players. Spring Training is critical in terms of NONE of our pitchers getting hurt. It really is a WAIT AND SEE time. How John Henry reacts to this year will be telling....the final straw.

He was start to the team's momentum to a World Series win. Good enough for me. Although we were warned it may cost us later. What stands out to me is the 2019 failure. You can' t blame the ownership for that year. Our highest payroll ever. Probably what soured Henry.

Isn't that issue, signing extension? We have limited budget. Plus I believe he's a Borass client. No way he signs an extension.

Appears Orioles are leaving the Rays model. $122M still under the cap after the trade.

We have $3B to invest in PGA.

I keep hearing this year's starters are worse than last year's. I just don't see it. Bello, Kutter, Pivetta, Houck and Whitlock all have chance to do much better than last year. We are also forgetting how Paxton finished after great start. Let's not forget the 9 starts by Kluber. Sale = Giolito with slight improvement? We may get to 85 wins.

We win it all in 2018 with top payroll. Our payroll goes up in 2019, again leading the league in payroll. We have a rotation of Price, Sale, Porcello, Eovaldi and E Rod. It's a star studded team with Betts, Xander, JD, Devers, Beni, JBJ. Paper tiger but all goes to hell. We purposely throw away 2020. Horrendous season is mitigated by the fact it was shortened by COVID. In 2021, we are up 2-1 vs Houston with a home game coming up. It erases bad taste of 2019 and 2020 seasons. Then it's been a s*** show. Maybe all Henry sees is not getting value from signings of Price, Sale, Story and Yoshida along with last 2 years of Kike or throwing good money on the likes of Kluber. He maybe thinking or is convinced more than ever why gamble on big contracts when you can go with young controllable talent that's cheap. Maybe he's looking at the Orioles model and not the Rangers. (2 years of heavy spending for quick turnaround)

I hate to think we are poor. I get it that Sox may not want to get into a risky long term deals for starting pitching with guys passed their prime but.... What if we offer Monty and Snell 2 year $70M contracts. Sure we'll blow past this year's luxury tax ayroll but it will be at most $180M for 2025 with room to add. I would think that's a risk worth taking. But no way in hell will happen. Payroll budget should be managed on a rolling 3 or 5 years.

I was thinking gathering young talent as Orioles have done but 'go for it' when the time is right. I am just guessing that's what the Sox will do. We will only have 4 players under contract at $75M after 2024.

At some point if younger kids play the way say Casas did last year look for Sox to trade both Story and Yoshida. I also predict Cora will be gone regardless of what he does this year. We want to be like the Orioles.

I don't. The buzz word is providing ' runway' for young talent. Why would I want to watch another has been?

Reality check? Our head baseball guy has said that our rotation is Bello, Giolito, Pivetta, Crawford and either Houck/Whitlock. I believe he has told couple of other players to be ready to start during spring training. Why do we keep putting Crawford/Houck/Whitlock in the pen? Kutter started 20+ games for us and Houck was at 18 or so when he got hurt. Apparently we need more proof as to who can start or not start.

So it's Bello. Giolito. Kutter. Pivetta and likely Houck (based on # of games started by Houck last year) We have a 2nd basemen under team contol for 6 years and a right handed bat in OF. 300 pages of wasted discussion Any more trade ideas or is it more a fantasy from our usual suspect of highly valued posters?

Realistic View at 2024 Not one of you have predicted any of our off season additions. Just tons of BS. Realistic view? SP 1 Bello SP 2 Giolito SP 3 Kutter SP 4 Houck SP 5 Pivetta SP 6 Whitlock Breslow has said that Houck and Whitlock will be stretched in the spring.

Interesting that MassLive article mentioned we had a hard cap of $225M last year. (I think that was the number). So despite what is being said publicly, there's no freakin' way we're going to blow past the first tax limit. (Sorry Moon) I do keep thinking back to what Bloom said when we traded Betts. He said something to the effect we did not have the pieces and won't have it for sometime around Betts to contend even if we signed him. I would have thought betting on a position player was much safer than a pitcher. Oh well. My point being I wonder if the ownership still feels the same way. That there's not one signing that's going to put us over the top at this point. So what do we do? Sox continues to assemble young talent, especially on the positional side and also wait on few more youngsters to develop. Buy time. Our window is pretty large at this point on positional side and it starts with having Devers for next 10 years. Breslow continues to emphasize the importance of acquiring starting pitching but quickly adds we have 'several' pitchers contending for the starting role and pretty much everyone other than short relievers are on his list. He hasn't given up on Houck and Whitlock and Winckowski's name keeps popping up when the discussion of starters pop up. I'm glad we signed Giolito but many of you have mentioned that we don't have any upside on that contract other than 2024 season. If he pitches well, we may still not get into the playoffs and he bolts for bigger contract opportunity. Unless I see a longer term deal on a starting pitcher, I'm thinking we're punting to 2025.

Best thing about Sale going to Atlanta is that now we won't have to hear Cora or anyone else tell us we only need to add one starter because we think Sale can come back and give us 180 innings.