Nick

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.

Assuming we're sending $17M to the Braves for Sale, Sox paid him $104.5M for 151 innings pitched the last three years. For a team now concerned about money, we sure have pissed away much. And that's the bottom line. That money wasted would have paid for 3 years of Mookie.

So this is our potential, positional lineup Age as of 7/1/2024 28 CC Wong (5 yrs of team control) 26 1B Casas (5 yrs) 23 2B Grissom (6 yrs) 27 3B Devers (10 yrs) 27 31 SS Story (4 yrs plus 1) 27 LF Duran (5 yrs) 23 CF Rafaela (6 yrs) 25 RF Abreu (6 yrs) 30 DH Yoshida (4 yrs) 30 29 O'Neill (1 yr) Go spend $30M on a starting pitcher and we have something to build on.... 25 Bello (5 yrs) 39 GS, 214 IP 28 Kutter (5 yrs) 36 GS, 208 IP 29 Giolito (1 yr) 178 GS, 1013 IP 31 Pivetta (1 yrs) 153 GS, 883 IP 28 Houck (4 yrs) 41GS, 252 IP 28 Whitlock (3 yrs + 2 opt)19 GS, 223 IP Sox have said that both Houck and Whitlock will be stretched out during spring training.

Cot's has Sox at $38M under the cap after posting Giolito's contract. Assuming savings of $10M in Sale's trade, we still have $48M to go after top of the line pitching.

Time to move on from injury prone guys....especially past their prime.

But maybe we now have our 2B of the future. (Does this goes to show you that Sox not impressed with Yorke.....a surprise 1st round pick?)

The trade to get Sale was excellent, the extension not so much....now I can finally move on from my love affair with Sale.

On December 31 each year, there's only one winner. Ask the Dodgers. After winning 100 games and the Division, they get swept 3-0 by the team winning 84 regular season games. Despite supporting 2 super stars in Betts and Freeman, they invest over $1B in two players, including one that has never pitched in the majors. They won it all in 2020, season that deserves an asterisk. You have to go back to 1965 to make the Dodgers a four time winner. How about our rival Yankees? Team with opening cash payroll of $277M in 2023 and not even making the playoffs, they have added a rental at estimated $32M plus prospects in desperate search for ever evasive World Series ring, last won in 2009. I really only care about winning the Oct/Nov series. I like our position players. Sure, we can upgrade it but the young core is there. I'm patient. Texas Rangers won the last game played in the majors. Everyone else lost. Positives Casas (5 yrs) Bello (5 yrs) Duran (5 yrs) Wong (5 yrs) More to come? Rafaela (6 yrs+) Abreu (6 yrs) Don't we have a window of 4-6 years?

At this point we need to stretch out Whitlock and Houck. I'll believe it when the contract is signed or a trade is completed. Until then 1 Bello 2 Sale 3 Pivetta 4 Kutter 5 Houck 6 Whitlock Wake me up when something happens....

We agree on many things. Some posters are near sighted. We will have close to $140M to spend for 2025 assuming all FA for the Sox after next season (ie Martin, etc)are gone and Sox does not pick up Sale' s option. Why not blow past the tax limit for 2024? Go spend $140M. We can reset after 2024. It can be done.

Not sure it's been dicussed. Cora when asked about Sox outfield going forward he mentioned Duran, Abreu and Rafaela. Duran will get a long leash from Cora. He loves Duran' s speed. Cora said Abreu has strong arm to go with his offense. He also thinks Rafaela's defense will balance out his offense at the start but says he needs a look.

I try to watch every game Bello starts. That's what gets me excited. Wong Casas Devers Duran Rafaela Abreu Bello Houck Whitlock And I'm perfectly okay players above getting 'replaced' by better talent. Go get 2 top of the line starters..... I will judge the new 'regime' by one thing. Produce in-house starters. Trade top young positional players for top young starting pitchers.

Is he any good? per overthemonster "It’s hard to say for sure, owing to the fact that he doesn’t have much of a track record yet, but he looks promising. Campbell has pitched just 28.2 Major League innings in his career, having made his debut last July. Prior to that, he was a four-year college pitcher who missed significant time due to Tommy John surgery, and then spent an additional two-and-a-half years in the minors, so it’s not like he’s some young phenom (he’ll be 26 on Opening Day). But having said that, the 28.2 innings he pitched last year were pretty good ones. He gave up just two homers and struck out 33 hitters while posting a 2.83 ERA. He throws a mid-90s fastball, a slider, and a sweeper, with the slider being a very effective wipeout pitch that yielded just a .137 batting average and .157 slugging percentage against. Where he struggled last year was with control, as he walked over four batters-per-nine-innings. But what’s notable about that number is that it represented a marked jump from his time in the minors, where he kept that number down to 2.5 over the course of 89.1 innings. If he can figure out how to keep getting hitters out while limiting the free passes, he can turn into a very effective late-inning reliever for the foreseeable future" Lots of ifs but maybe promising. Still need another lefthander in the pen.

Is there any evidence that teams actually use BTV as an analytical tool to evaluate trade possibilities? I'm with Old Red on this......I have no interest in it.

I will be first Duran fan to scream out "bench him" if he's not doing his job. But he has some unique skills that make me want him to succeed. His 4 doubles game without a ball ever getting to the fence was incredible.