drewski6

I look forward to someone telling me the issue is my expectations then pointing to our record vs vegas spread. Heres my expectations - over a 10 year period, more playoff series wins than fourth or fifth place finishes. And Im even willing to punt on a couple years in between competitive teams. I feel like my bar here is not particularly unfair. The one thing I will not compromise on, is my expectation that they treat human beings like human beings, and that doesnt always seem to be the case.

Its not going to be the status quo, hes going to trade abreu, duran, and contreras for pitching and there will be much rejoicing.

SS who can hit are not really available. And there arent a ton of 2b/3b who can hit either. You have a quality bat way too low, which is why I do not like a position by position view. Need 1: A hitter as close to .900 OPS as possible, I care not where he plays (he can even play OF or be a DH) Need 2: A second hitter as close to .900 OPS as possible, for this one, infield preferred but not necessary. And yes, I move guys around defensively if I have to. When you say we want a SS who can hit and field...you cant get all of that so you start compromising on this hitting ability for positional fit. I say compromise on ideal positional alignment before you compromise on hitting.

if we are out of it by deadline and we dont move chapman or gray, thats a bit of a fail. So as we tick closer to the deadline (hour wise), could see us starting to settle for those guys. Get the best we can. But with Contreras , you meet my selling price, or hes not getting traded.

I agree. Im a little surprised there is a contingent here saying he doesnt have much value. But I guess its relative to what people mean when they use terms like modest value. Im obviously not expecting a soto package for him, but i would expect a pretty significant return, and it still might not be enough for me. Going into next season with Abreu, Contreras, Cedanne, Anthony....Add 2 good hitters and we could be in business. The challenge is getting 2 good hitters. Im listening on Contreras because anther team would get him for 2 playoff pushes vs one for us (2027, and thats if there is a season), so like youve said about Duran , he may have more value to another club, so im listening. But im not settling.

3 good points

First of all, I fully expect Breslow to get fired after this season. There is a multi-year trend of us moving towards noodlebat land, and now that we are squarely in it, Im hearing trade Duran (our best hitter in May) and trade Contreras (our best hitter in June). Par for the course , I s'pose. Breslow lucked into contreras, he got contreras because he could fit the 17m alongside Bregman. He didnt expect this. Nobody did. That doesnt mean he gets 0 credit, im sure there were things about contreras offense that breslow liked. Id move contreras, but i completely reject your seemingly devaluation of good hitters who play dh/1b and your overrating of defense first guys. 80% of the value comes from the bat. Contreras has a ton of trade value. And Im not moving him excpet for a big package.

I like that you are eyeing bat first players.

I disagree that Roman needs to play the OF. But I have been fine with trading Duran since he dropped that ball. Well, aside from when he hit a HR off sale in WBC (or spring I forget). Then I put him back on my do not trade. But at this point, gotta be open to really any move. Prospects are fine as a temporary value storage. A team that would be acquiring him is probably buying and therefore not looking to move any ML talent. Problem is that with more prospects comes more earmarked positions, and thts gotten us in a bit of trouble. So Id err towards flipping those prospects eventually.

No kidding, its used as a platitude to never replace a struggling prospect

If you are my late basset hound jorge, goose crap is interesting.

That was prior to a mini Contreras resurgence.

Im not sure the exact line between good and great return package, but for Contreras Im not settling. Mostly because I completely reject the line of thinking on this board that DH/1B dont carry any value. A good hitter is a good hitter. And they arent exactly easy to find/acquire these days, even if they play 1b. But I do think Roman is the 1b of the future.

How many good hitters are we going to trade away or let go, and just keep rolling over a lineup with less thump year after year. Its kind of been a multi year trend.

The optics are terrible and even if you expect some regression for 2027, he still projects to be one of our better hitters. It would have to be a great offer.

He has a ton of trade value, thats first of all. Id have to be blown away. I dont think a team would meet my demands which is pretty much a close to MLB ready great hitting prospect.

I agree, didnt meant that we need the bats right now, especially if we are selling. Understood that you use the prospects as value storage vs aging major leaguers who lose trade value every year. I would be pumped if we sold for propsects then flipped the prospects for 2 very good hitters this offseason.

Im open to listening on Willson because of his age and that he could have immense value to another club trying to make a playoff push in the short term, which feels potentially out of reach for us right now. But it would take a real lot. Im not against getting 2 very good bats for 2027, one for DH and one for infield and trying again next year with that in addition to what we have. And im not worried about a little redundancy, someone will prob be benchable or hurt by May next year.

Brez de-prioritization of offense started even before this offseason. For example, last trade deadline, he allowed us to go into the playoffs with a lineup of Lowe, Sogard, Eaton, Yoshida (cleanup) and one hot hitter (story) - who (was it you?) who referred to as another noodle bat. Not getting like Josh Naylor at the deadline, for example, was pretty bad. He also gets some fault for Devers because of the pattern of behavior. Every time Brez gets involved in some kind of situation requiring the need to communicate like a human being, that conversation gets worse (and no, thats not limited to interactions with the media). Then yes, everyone knew we needed more offense, and I agree with you he dropped the ball on adding 2 more bats. Even Breslow knew the offense was dicey (at best), and he dealt with this by gleefully proclaiming that we are a pitching and defense team now. And this pitching and defense team cant get to within 10 games of .500 in one of the weakest AL's Ive seen in the last 40 years. Its not hard for me ask to ask for Brez to be sacked. Now Ive carefully considered your defense, well, a lot of random fans on a message board screamed for moves that Breslow didnt make, and many of those moves wouldnt have saved us. And its not enough for me. Varitek, Cora, Devers, Bregman, the beloved scout who didnt realize he was on mute when he called Brez a stiff. Looking like an absolute clown at last years trade deadline and in the bregman negotiations. Losing the support of theo. Taking us straight to last (and not even like .500 in a great division last) in a terrible AL....... Its past time to remove Breslow. And I saw how well it went for the Celtics when they moved Brad Stevens from coach to president, and i bet breslow saw that too and wanted to remove the possibility. Why are we letting Breslow run things in a self serving manner?

im not against cheap solutions , im against more glove first players.

if cedanne can play cf and 2b at the same time, can we bat him twice in the lineup?

ive decided this week to fall in love with cedanne.

the else is cedanne, a streaky abreu, and old man contreras

actually i read recently we were slightly above average in this metric. I think we should swing more. Lets be like cedanne who im about ready to make captain.

yoshida and verdugo were both kinda slow slap hitters who absolutely loved to roll over the baseball into a routine ground out. The only real difference was yoshida probably wasnt as slow (or verdugo was just always jogging, which is possible) but verdugo could throw somewhat. But Im smelling similarities.