50-Man Roster

I think it depends on what the minor league setup would be. If there is some form of organized development going on for the minor league guys, I would imagine the taxi squad would be just most of Pawtucket's roster.

But if the minor league season gets completely axed, I could see them (or at least would hope to) going with this distribution:
- 8 slots for injury depth - a couple starters, relievers, utility infielders/outfielders and a third catcher.
- the last 12 or however many spots would be the top prospects across all levels that you want to keep around the organization and develop. Dalbec, Chatham, and Houck are legit prospects who would probably still be considered group 1 guys which is nice, but then maybe guys like Downs, Wong, Duran, Mata, Groome, even as low as like Danny Diaz or Brainer Bonaci. Those guys obviously wouldn't contribute to the big league team but if there's no minor league season you're going to want to make sure your top guys are still getting work in with the coaches, so it allows them to retain their long-term development plan to a reasonable degree. And after a certain point, if you're so injured that you need to add someone from deep in the taxi squad, there's not going to be much difference between John Andreoli or some major league free agent you can sign mid-season. So the marginal benefit of comprising the taxi squad of all high-level guys is pretty miniscule.

Not very good..Ed R. is the only remaining, proven starter. Others listed are known and mostly career flotsum. Eovaldi #2?? In what competitive universe? #5 maybe.

Relief pitching is also sub par to top teams. Beyond Workman, (hopefully not a mirage) there is ball, strike, ball Barnes, Hernandez and Taylor..ok but certainly not lock em up tight. Everyone thereafter is a mystery.

Offense will be ok even w/o Mookie. Average or better but not come from behind dominant.

We need a couple of good drafts and sage FA pickups to consider being back in the mix. I think it's a 2-5 year project.

Agreed Sarasoxer. This is a 75-80 win team. Pitching is worse than lackadaisical starters they had in 70's, only no iron man in Tiant at the top. Feel bad for those expecting much results wise out of this team as-is.

A 75 - 80 win team? In an 82 game season??? I'll take it!!!

Nah, honestly if they played a 162 game season in 2020 I'd agree with your point. The pitching is pretty bad and in Boston usually when things go good they really go good, but when they disintegrate, they fall apart. This year's time might have lost 90 plus games given how bad the pitching looks and that the offense isn't good enough to get around it.

I know they're talking an 82 game schedule. I'm not convinced that this season really happens. I think the COVID 19 problem isn't going to let up enough and the war they're going to have over the owners trying to convince the players to take less money if they can't fill the ballparks....the Sox might be spared their 2020 season of mediocrity.

I do hope they play baseball because if they do hopefully things are getting better, which is the #1 reason (as opposed to the owners and players want to make money), plus I miss baseball like crazy, even mediocre baseball, and for selfish reasons, I'd like to see the Sox get their "under the cap" season over with and doing it in a messed up year like this one is an ideal situation to do it in.

I do wonder if they don't play the season and this leaks into next year, how do they evaluate all of those minor leaguers and what level they'd be ready for?

I mean it's possible a Jeter Downs could be ready in 2021 even without playing AAA ball or having that much experience in AA ball? Guys who are getting older (like a JDM) might be candidates for performance regression?

I think the closest parallels were when a lot of the soldiers were coming home from WWII, like could Ted Williams still be the same hitter he was prior to the war, etc? How rusty will they be? Will their skill level still be the same?

Without a season, that's such a hard thing to judge.

75 -7 Sounds Good to Me.......

A big question for me is whether the entire 40-man roster needs to be on the 50-man list. In particular, Aybar and Wilson strike me as guys who aren't ready to help and who the Red Sox would gladly replace on the taxi squad. And then there's the issue of fringy 40-man guys like Valdez, who might get put on waivers to open up taxi squad spots.

Also, can you have MORE players playing with your "taxi squad?" Can, say, a Duran be off the taxi squad, but still working out with them?

Is it safe to assume that putting someone on the 50 man this year doesn't neccesitate that they be on the 40 man next year ?

I'm pretty much the same as danr in what interests me except I'm more into World politics than USA only politics. In that venue, politics has helped fill the baseball void. Right now I'm keenly interested in the multi-nation military buildup in the South China Sea that is affecting Asian stock markets right now.

To me, the 40 man plus 10 NRI, minor league free agent types makes the most sense. There will be replacements also, Pedroia, Sale for example. That would also give the remaining free agents a chance.

It's getting scary there. What I love about baseball is that there is no space for insanity and it basically is the same game of 100 years ago showing that there can be traditions and consistency in life. When I was in the book business I had a baseball instruction book from the early 1920s. God, I wish I still had it, but it was too valuable to keep. It provided instructions and position diagrams for playing every position in all normal circumstances. Any Little League coach today could use the book and not miss a thing.

I'm not sure why people think the taxi squad would count as service time. Has that been written anywhere? You're not the first person I've seen assuming that.

(Also, I was under the assumption Chavis would be up all year. Were you not? I figured he was going to get about 400 PAs this year.)

My assumption has always been that being on the taxi squad would be the same as being in Triple-A, and you don't get service time unless you're on the MLB roster. Now, that's 120 extra guys getting service time every day because of the expansion from 26 to 30, but I don't think you're going to see young players getting the 30th spot on the roster just to sit there and be an extra player, in part for that reason.

The point of the taxi squad is they would be with the MLB club (or nearby) working out. That's the idea - it's in lieu of having a Triple-A team, these guys would be nearby and ready to come up. I've posited that they might put them in Pawtucket since it's so close, but they also could be in Boston as well, working out during the day.

Chavis got 164 days of service time last year, or 8 days short of a full year. He'd need a LOT more than 3 weeks in the minors to manipulate his service time. The Super 2 cutoff was 2.115 last year, so he'd need to stay down for 49 days (or whatever the equivalent is this year - 25 I guess if they prorate?) with that low of a cutoff. You can't keep a key contributor down for a quarter of the season like that, especially in the sprint they're trying to have this year.

While the "he still has things to work on" garbage argument works for rookies (and survived Kris Bryant's grievance this year), I doubt a team would get away with it with a guy who was up for almost a full season the year before.

If Chavis plays well, he stays. If he doesn't play well, then you can send him down and maybe get another year out of him. But it feels at this point like he's past the gimmicking his service time stage.