oldtimer

My loook ahead for 2019 does lose a number of our current players. Just can't keep everyone. We may get some pressure from the minors but not much. I see Pearce, Pomeranz and Eovaldi going. We are unlikely to hold onto Kimbrel for a reasonable contract so it may be to the FA market for a replacement. I hope we can keep Sale for a reasonable contract but if not, we will need a quality starter as a replacement. My view of the spring likely to start the 2019 season include a haziness at Catcher and with numerous possibilities in deep relief. Here it is and is just an adjustment to the 2018 roster, which means it is pretty strong. Boston Red Sox 2019 Possible Roster? Position players: 1. 1st Base: Moreland (Righties) 2. 1st Base; Swihart (Lefties) 3. 2nd Base; Pedey (with Utility backups) 4. SS; Bogaerts 5. 3rd Base; Devers (Righties) 6. 3rd Base; Nunez; Lefties) plus utility for 2nd 7. LF; Beni 8. CF; JBJ 9. RF; Betts 10. DH; JDM 11/12. C; Leon, Vaz or 11/12. C; Vaz, FA or 11/12. C: Leon, FA 13. Utility; Holt Pitchers: Starters: 15. Sale or FA (Can we resign him reasonably) 16. Price 17. Porcello 18. E-Rod 19. Wright Other Relievers: 20. Closer; FA or Kjmbrel (Can we resign him reasonably?) 21. 8th Bridge; Brasier 22. 7th Bridge; Barnes 23. Left Specialist; Poyner 24. Other Relief; Workman 25 Other Relief; Hembree or 25. Other Reliever; Smith or 25. Other Reliever; Maddox or 25. Other Reliever; Thornburg Think relief pitching will be determined during spring training.

Who else other than Kimbrel on the Sox would beat him out? Barnes maybe?

My view of where we are with the PO Roster. I see it as subject to change due to injury or due to last minute performance considerations. Boston Red Sox 2018 PO Roster? Position players: 1. 1st Base: Moreland (Righties) 2. 1st Base; Pearce (Lefties) 3. 2nd Base; Kinsler 4. SS; Bogaerts 5. 3rd Base; Devers (Righties) 6. 3rd Base; Nunez; Lefties) 7. LF; Beni 8. CF; JBJ 9. RF; Betts 10. DH; JDM 11/12. C ; Leon, Swihart or 11/12. C; Leon, Vaz or 11/12. C; Vaz, Swihart 13. Utility; Holt 14. Utility; Swihart or 14. Utility; Lin Pitchers: Starters: 15. Sale 16. Price 17. Porcello Long Relief: 18. E-Rod 19. Wright 20. Eovaldi Other Relievers: 21. Closer; Kimbrel 22. 8th Bridge; Brasier 23. 7th Bridge; Barnes 24. Left Specialist; Poyner 25. Other Relief; Workman or 25. Other Relief; Kelly or 25 Other Relief; Hembree Those marked in red are areas with vaiances possible. I would take Workman at 25, but either of the other two could beat him out. In the case of catcher, if either Vaz or Leon are paired with Swihart, then Lin might well be chosen for a utility role. If not, the utility role will probably go to Swihart.

If you believe Pedey can't recover enough to give us at least half the games then 2nd is a problem with utility guys our current answer. I'm willing to see what Pedey can do as Kinsler is an $11 million answer we can't afford what with arb costs and pitching to locate. Spending heavily on a young 2nd baseman and eating Pedey's contract is an alternate but can we afford to spend there? At catcher, if you believe 0 for 30 stretches at bat are acceptable then Leon is your guy. I am looking for a reaasonably priced alternative. Third base will be Devers again. Hope his fielding and hitting improve and back him up with Nunez. They could go righty, lefty and it wouldn't be optimum but Devers may start to bloom.

For next year, both are well thought of but not can't miss prospects. Chavis to the Arizona league, a plus move and Dalbec our offensive and defensive player of the year. We have a couple of others but one needs seasoning and the other has power but has not reached ML status as yet. I do hope one of the guys makes it next season since we need some lower cost players to balance our roster.

Of course many would want Wilson Ramos and he would be great, but very expensive and probably beyond what we could pay. A more realistic choice would be Jonathan Lucroy, who plays for Oakland now. He has a lifetime CERA of 3.62, which I believe is equivalent to Leon.s. He is a .240 hitter and his current salary is $6.5 mil. He is 32 and caught in 118 games so is hardy. Continuing with our current catchers means we get reasonable defense but poor defense. I am for looking for shoring that area up for next year.

He has value as a utiliity player, not because he is a great defender at one position but because he is versatile and can play many. If he was a plus defender in one infield position, he might well have held that position as a everyday player.

And he appears to have returned to health.

What about picking up a quality FA who can catch and hit better than either Leon or Vaz? That certainly should be an option.

No, I thought Devers would be a lock and Nunez the utility. Either way, I think both make it.

With as many pitches as we have on the roster now, why even put Pom in. He has nothing at all. He shows the fastball, but never on the plate and then he mainly throws a knuckle curve which he can't command. Enough already. Someone like Mookie will get hurt trying to make a play on one of his hard hit balls against. I am officially on Holts wagon. If you say there are 8 field player locks and one of the two catchers, then say Nunez and Holt are on. Pearce appears to be a good bet and who then is the second catcher. If its Swihart then Lin has a chance for his running. If we take both Leon and Vaz, then I think Swihart makes it over Lin.

Wright and a 1 run lead in the 9th doesn't sound w right to me. I just tuned back in to get another case of heartburn?

Now we see why Hembree may not make the Post Season team. Walking the leadoff batter with a one run lead? Nothing good can happen from it. Pom was awful and now Hembree putting a man on gratuitously. These guys are being paid to play? I can't watch and will come back in an hour.

With all the pitchers on the roster, there are better options. Just realize that he can't get it done and don't put him in the game. Getting Betts injured is a side effect of keeping Pom in.

Velazquez needs to think situational baseball. Three run lead, you don't want walks or hit batsmen. If you throw a strike and a guy gets a hit, tip your cap to him and realize that will only happen once in maybe three for a batted ball in play. Don't give gratuitous runners. Think and I hope he can execute.

It was reasonable to think Brock might not return well from his concussion issues and add value to the team. I was skeptical about him as well. Holt has returned and has helped in many ways. Not to denigrate Nunez, he was making his way back from knee issues and only fairly recently showed signs of being fully healthy, according to Cora. I now believe both would help the team again next season as well in utility roles. Pedey will need help during the 162 game season and Devers is by no means a top 3rd baseman and is still developing. We have a strong core back next season. Along with them, at catcher I would let one of our current guys go and try to sign a FA. Lecroy comes to mind. With that group we would need one more probably as a backup at 1st for Moreland. Let it be a contest with Swihart, Dalbac and Chavis having a shot.

I agree both in the matter of the degree that we emptied our prospect bin and also in the overpaying for some players both in prospects and in cash, strapping the team going forward. We also got unlucky with both Smith and Thornburg not really contributing even though we expected more. Like you say, if we will it all even for 1 year it would be woth it. I don't see us on any cliff like decline in 2019 and we do finally clear Panda from the books giving us some additional cash after that. It looks like we will have 4 starters back next year Price Porcello E-Rod Wright With Sale and Eovaldi hitting the FA market we will have to get competitive for a 5th starter. Would love Sale back but only for a reasonable contract in both $ and duration. So we should be active for a very good quality starter if Sale is too unrealistic. Too bad the farm doesn't have strong candidates. Other teams develop pitchers, we should too although our draft picks will be at the end of the line. I expect Pomeranz and his $8.5 Mil contract to go and probablly we can use Johnson as we did this year as a 6th starter. In the area of the BP we will need 6 in addition to the staff mentioned above. Barnes, Brasier, Workman and Poyner come to mind and we probably will not be able to resign Kimbrel at a contract that makes sense (let others go to 5 years at $18 mil a year, we shouldn't). I would think we could find a decent closer for less than he will demand. For other relievers we have Hembree, Kelly, Smith, Maddox and Thornburg. Maybe one or more of them can fill in the pen for us. Certainly some good arms there and even Cuevas has promise. I look forward to 2019 as another strong year.

I would rid myself of one of the two (Leon or Vaz) due to insufficient offense and go for Lucroy in the FA market. Most FA's are going to be in their 30's and Lucroy is 33 but he would be a noticeable improvement and shore up our catching in 2019. He wouldn't be that expensive and maybe a 2 year deal would work.

I hope the Sox players will get hot for the PO's. Right now they seem a little worn down and guys like Mookie and JDM especially need to come in rested and raring to go.

Its too bad but neither of them can get the job done and Thornburg looked bad the last time out as well. Hate to give up on kelly as he still has the velocity. Maybe he can be resserected for next years team.

Probably going to be a pattern going forward into the playoffs as Leon is on a 0 for roughly 30 run while Vaz is not much better. All the more reason to carry 14 position players.

Yes, today we saw continued good performance from our bullpen Wright, Poyner, Brasier and Kimbrel. Probably only Poyner is a bubble player. Also, Devers hit the ball and Holt proved his value once again. The game was also meaningful as we don't want to slump at the end of the season. The Yankees are essentially out of the pennant race. now the goal can be to assure HF advantage.

Hope so. The Yankees are down 8 to 7 in the bottom of the 9th with 1 out.

Generally speaking, the front office will be limited to what they have to spend. Priority one will be to resign and/or pay arbitration costs the core of our field position players. Pretty easy to see who they intend to return: 1. Moreland at 1B 2. Pedey at 2nd but will probably need a lot of help to manage 162 games. I believe his contract was one signed from the heart, not the head. 3. Bogaerts at SS 4. Devers at 3rd but will need a backup player if he again isn't really ready to contribute. 5. Beni LF 6. JBJ CF 7. Betts RF 8. JDM as DH 9. Leon or Vaz as primary catcher That leaves room for 4 utiliity players. I see Nunez as one of those as he can play 3rd and 2nd and is a professional hitter, largely over his knee problems I see Swihart as another as he can fill in at catcher and/or fill multiple slots If Michael Chavis is ready, he might well offer an inexpensive up and coming player at either 3rd or 1st. Kinsler is likely to be too expensive to resign for part time use at 2nd. He may actually be a superior player to Pedey at this point but the die is cast. Pearce will probably not be resigned although having a player that can hit lefties might be helpful Possibly we could find a more complete catcher to go with whichever we keep and do it for reasonable money. For shortstop support we might have to call up a person like Lin as needed. What to do with our pitching is more fluid at this time. We are only locked in to a few and I have made a list but am not ready to put it forth as yet. Want to see a few more auditions for guys like Eovaldi.

Yes, I left Eovaldi out and that was an oversight. I did mean Scott, who was awful. Barnes is now throwing a side session so is making progress. Lets see who Cora brings in during a meaningful game, probably like the one this afternoon.