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Evaluating the Front Office and Ownership
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Post by benzinger on Jan 20, 2023 10:06:06 GMT -5
A few deals I would have liked to see the Sox kick the tires on: -Cody Bellinger 1yr/$17.5m -Dansby Swanson 7yr/$177m-Would have been a good plan B for losing Xander…but, apparently, there was no plan B -Mitch Haniger 3yr/$43.5m -Michael Conforto 2yr/$36m -Jose Quintana 2yr/$26m -Sean Manaea 2yr/$25m -Mike Clevinger 1yr/$12m -Brandon Drury 2yr/$17m -Noah Syndergaard 1/$13m? There are some other assorted 1 year deals that looked interesting: Johnny Cueto, Matt Boyd, Wil Myers, AJ Pollock, Kyle Gibson & David Robertson among them. Bellinger. Swanson, Quintana and a couple bullpen arms would have been a decent offseason, no? This would have cost like $130 million in 2023 AAV. You have to pick and choose if you want to compare this to what they've actually done. Wait, you aren’t under the impression that I was saying the Sox would/could sign ALL those guys, right? I specifically said Bellinger, Swanson, Quintana and a couple bullpen arms. Those 3 would cost about $55m and then you could address the bullpen. How much have they actually spent this Winter?
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Post by incandenza on Jan 20, 2023 10:08:09 GMT -5
This would have cost like $130 million in 2023 AAV. You have to pick and choose if you want to compare this to what they've actually done. Wait, you arenât under the impression that I was saying the Sox would/could sign ALL those guys, right? I specifically said Bellinger, Swanson, Quintana and a couple bullpen arms. Those 3 would cost about $55m and then you could address the bullpen. How much have they actually spent this Winter? Yeah sorry, I just updated my comment above with this:
ADD: Oh, I missed the last line. Yeah, I don't know what to say to that other than I think their actual moves are better than this suggestion. I like Duvall about as much as Bellinger and he's way cheaper. Quintana at that price seems fine, but Kluber at his price seems fine too. I HATE Swanson on that contract plus he'd cost them the QO penalty. And without Turner and Yoshida that would seem like a really anemic offense.
Like post-Story injury we're looking at a lineup of:
Kiké Devers Swanson Casas Bellinger Arroyo Verdugo Dalbec as DH?? McWong
Blech.
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nomar
Veteran
Posts: 11,501
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Post by nomar on Jan 20, 2023 10:15:54 GMT -5
Red Sox ranks last year and outlook:
wRC+: 12th. Prognosis: Should be around the same, but with potential to drop a few spots. Yes Bogaerts is out, but Yoshida comes in and fills a spot in what was a horrendous OF last year. A lot of unknowns with downside though.
BSR (baserunning): 27th Prognosis: Better - should be closer to neutral. They lose Martinez (3rd worst in baseball) and Vazquez (worst in baseball, Red Sox stint alone would have been 2nd worst full season). They also lose their two best baserunners in Bogaerts and Story, but their total baserunning value was still less than either of JDM or CV’s individual negative baserunning sadly.
SP WAR: 18th Prognosis: Better. There’s a lot of volatility here between young arms (Bello, Whitlock) and old, injury-prone guys, but injury is what really pushed this rank down last year. I’d still expect material improvement here.
RP WAR: 27th Prognosis: Better
In: Jansen, Martin, Rodriguez. Maybe Mata, German, Walter etc as the year goes on. With the SP depth, the odd man out should help the pen too.
Out: Diekman, Darwinzon, Danish, and Robles (bottom 4 in WAR on the team). Big addition by subtraction here. They lose Whitlock and maybe Houck though (they combined for about 1.2x Brasier’s innings so it’s not quite as big of a loss YoY). They also lost Strahm, but I think he and Rodriguez will essentially offset each other. Austin Davis and Brasier were very unlucky relative to their FIP/xFIP, but it’ll be nice to shed Davis’ 48 IP of 6.19 ERA pitching still if the next man up isn’t as bad.
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In sum, it looks like they’re better on paper, but not enough to catch up to the top 3 in the division without some friendly bounces for Boston and unfriendly ones for their rivals.
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Post by julyanmorley on Jan 20, 2023 10:25:37 GMT -5
The Jean Segura deal is pretty much the only one I really wish we had. He may have just really wanted to live in Miami though, who knows.
The Jensen deal is the only one we made that I'm unhappy about. Not really sure what I'd rather have spent the money on, though. The obvious spot is upgrading the SP they got, but Kluber signed one of the most team friendly deals of the offseason so I don't want to give that up.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jan 20, 2023 10:32:42 GMT -5
Red Sox ranks last year and outlook: wRC+: 12th. Prognosis: Should be around the same, but with potential to drop a few spots. Yes Bogaerts is out, but Yoshida comes in and fills a spot in what was a horrendous OF last year. A lot of unknowns with downside though. BSR (baserunning): 27th Prognosis: Better - should be closer to neutral. They lose Martinez (3rd worst in baseball) and Vazquez (worst in baseball, Red Sox stint alone would have been 2nd worst full season). They also lose their two best baserunners in Bogaerts and Story, but their total baserunning value was still less than either of JDM or CV’s individual negative baserunning sadly. SP WAR: 18th Prognosis: Better. There’s a lot of volatility here between young arms (Bello, Whitlock) and old, injury-prone guys, but injury is what really pushed this rank down last year. I’d still expect material improvement here. RP WAR: 27th Prognosis: Better In: Jansen, Martin, Rodriguez. Maybe Mata, German, Walter etc as the year goes on. With the SP depth, the odd man out should help the pen too. Out: Diekman, Darwinzon, Danish, and Robles (bottom 4 in WAR on the team). Big addition by subtraction here. They lose Whitlock and maybe Houck though (they combined for about 1.2x Brasier’s innings so it’s not quite as big of a loss YoY). They also lost Strahm, but I think he and Rodriguez will essentially offset each other. Austin Davis and Brasier were very unlucky relative to their FIP/xFIP, but it’ll be nice to shed Davis’ 48 IP of 6.19 ERA pitching still if the next man up isn’t as bad. ———————————— In sum, it looks like they’re better on paper, but not enough to catch up to the top 3 in the division without some friendly bounces for Boston and unfriendly ones for their rivals. Sounds about right. I think people are somewhat forgetting how much the bullpen killed them last year, as well as other assorted defense/weirdness. There's a very real chance they get better based off of return to the mean level of normalcy alone, let alone the improvements they've made in non-SS areas. If Story hadn't have gotten hurt, I'd feel pretty comfortable with the quality of the team, under the assumption there was one move pending.
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Post by incandenza on Jan 20, 2023 10:34:45 GMT -5
The Jean Segura deal is pretty much the only one I really wish we had. He may have just really wanted to live in Miami though, who knows. The Jensen deal is the only one we made that I'm unhappy about. Not really sure what I'd rather have spent the money on, though. The obvious spot is upgrading the SP they got, but Kluber signed one of the most team friendly deals of the offseason so I don't want to give that up. I think I'd slightly prefer downgrading from Jansen to a reliever in the $5-7 million range and upgrading from Turner to Abreu with the savings. Even there, though, I wouldn't love being on the hook for three years with Abreu.
I also wanted Segura. Also Eflin, but the Red Sox actually gave him his best offer; apparently he just couldn't resist the siren song of legendary baseball palace Tropicana Field. Whaddayagonna do.
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Post by thegoodthebadthesox on Jan 20, 2023 10:36:27 GMT -5
The Jean Segura deal is pretty much the only one I really wish we had. He may have just really wanted to live in Miami though, who knows. The Jensen deal is the only one we made that I'm unhappy about. Not really sure what I'd rather have spent the money on, though. The obvious spot is upgrading the SP they got, but Kluber signed one of the most team friendly deals of the offseason so I don't want to give that up. I think I'd slightly prefer downgrading from Jansen to a reliever in the $5-7 million range and upgrading from Turner to Abreu with the savings. Even there, though, I wouldn't love being on the hook for three years with Abreu.
I also wanted Segura. Also Eflin, but the Red Sox actually gave him his best offer; apparently he just couldn't resist the siren song of legendary baseball palace Tropicana Field. Whaddayagonna do.
The Abreu thing is fine in theory, but in practice it was never really feasible given how early Abreu signed. You would've been putting the cart before the horse, in a way.
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Jan 20, 2023 10:39:29 GMT -5
Let's say that the Red Sox re-sign Xander Bogaerts (let's say on a $28M AAV deal; the Padres deal just added some years on the back end to manipulate the AAV so I think $28M is closer to reality) this offseason rather than, say, Yoshida ($18M) and Turner ($10.5M). Is that a meaningfully better team? They'd be going into the season with big question marks in one corner outfield spot (Duvall/Duran/Refsnyder) and at DH (Hosmer/Dalbec) and I don't know that you'd project them to be more than a couple wins better at most. For the skeptics out there, is that really enough to turn this from a bad offseason to a good one? The lesson I take away is that it's really difficult to build your team solely through free agency. Unless your ownership is willing to spend way past the luxury tax threshold a la the Mets, even big market teams need young, cost-controlled players in order to be able to spend big on free agents. The real failure isn't not signing Bogaerts (though that does hurt, both from a wins perspective but especially from a fan perspective). It's guys like Duran and Dalbec and Jeter Downs (all top 6 prospects as recently as November 2020) not being the kinds of building blocks you need to have on your roster to be able to spend on guys like Bogaerts (or whichever other big money SS you like) rather than needing to fill gaping holes by spreading that money around on guys like Yoshida, Turner and whoever they acquire for the middle infield between now and opening day. but they have signed 7 FA's this year. And there may be another or 2. It could be a turnover of as high as 25-33% of the roster. That doesn't signify building through FA for you ? And that turnover is because the guy who has had the roster for 3 years has been making the decisions. I don't really have an opinion of whether that is good or bad, the product will show that, but really the bold doesn't square with the reality of this offseason. That is a lot of new bodies by any measure.
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nomar
Veteran
Posts: 11,501
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Post by nomar on Jan 20, 2023 10:41:29 GMT -5
———————————— In sum, it looks like they’re better on paper, but not enough to catch up to the top 3 in the division without some friendly bounces for Boston and unfriendly ones for their rivals. Sounds about right. I think people are somewhat forgetting how much the bullpen killed them last year, as well as other assorted defense/weirdness. There's a very real chance they get better based off of return to the mean level of normalcy alone, let alone the improvements they've made in non-SS areas. If Story hadn't have gotten hurt, I'd feel pretty comfortable with the quality of the team, under the assumption there was one move pending. They were awful on defense too yes, but I’m not sure how to project that yet until we see the final roster because MIF and CF aren’t set in stone yet and those are important spots. You are right about the weird stuff though. They were the bad news bears last year. Just painful to watch. Hopefully that black cloud has moved on.
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Post by iakovos11 on Jan 20, 2023 10:47:29 GMT -5
I think the following is my assessment of where the Sox are and what's going on with their thought process -
The Sox are in transition. They have some talent that just reached the majors (Casas, Bello - might consider Yoshi here) and they have even more potential talent (of various degrees) laced through AAA, AA, A+, A and Ft Meyers.They need more of this talent to start percolating up the Boston and AAA so they can have low cost rookie contracts to better offset a couple more mega-contracts.
They also realize the current strength in the Yankees & Jays & Astros (Not to mention the Braves, Mets, Dodgers, & Padres) and that the reality of going all in from their position is a fool's errand right now and would quite likely hamstring their flexibility and opportunity when they are better positioned. But they can make some reasonable moves with shorter term contracts to get them in position to compete for a wild card spot if things go well. From there, anything can happen. Once they get the stream of prospects with the most potential closer to Boston (I'm guessing 1-2 years), and a better, more full stream of prospect potential throughout the system), I think they'll be better positioned to compete and sprinkle in a few more large (and hopefully smart) contracts. Some of the other (current powerhouse) teams will have weakened by then as well.
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Post by benzinger on Jan 20, 2023 10:50:53 GMT -5
The Sox had a better offer for Mitch Haniger this off-season? I hadn’t heard that, either. Is there any source on that?
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Post by patford on Jan 20, 2023 10:55:40 GMT -5
In my opinion one of the best moves Bloom made was not resigning Bogaerts. Bogaerts was unwilling to take a deal for a limited number of years and refused to move off SS. His agent misrepresented the Sox initial offer to him after the 2021 season and created a season long drama which hurt the team on the field and in the pursuit of free agents. Bloom should have traded Bogaerts at the deadline but at that time the Sox were in contention for the Wild Card and it looked like they had Sale and Paxson returning as well as a number of other key pieces getting healthy. I get we are in a new "crazy money" era but Bogaerts is not a candidate for crazy money in my opinion.
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Post by oldfaithful2019 on Jan 20, 2023 11:11:25 GMT -5
With maybe one more move to go for an infielder, although I'd be fine with Valdez in that spot, the front office has done its job to put a competitive team on the field in 2023. They have done so without giving up a single prospect in a trade. Ownership has done its part to insure that the star player with the most prime years left will play those prime years on the Sox. The front office and ownership have done their job well in my opinion.
My suggestions of signing Rondon, Swanson, Nimmo or trading for Reynolds were typically met with cost to high responses on this board. That's OK. But if the Sox are not fishing in that pond, lets get enough good fish out of a lower priced one. A far as the Xander loss, it sucks and he will be missed, but he had already given the home town discount once. He was not likely to sign for less than full market value.
Don't overpay. Done. Don't give up prospects. Done Field a better, deeper,more competitive roster for 2023. Done
I grade this an A-. Time to play the games and see what it all results in.
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Post by seamus on Jan 20, 2023 11:37:23 GMT -5
In my opinion one of the best moves Bloom made was not resigning Bogaerts. Bogaerts was unwilling to take a deal for a limited number of years and refused to move off SS. His agent misrepresented the Sox initial offer to him after the 2021 season and created a season long drama which hurt the team on the field and in the pursuit of free agents. Bloom should have traded Bogaerts at the deadline but at that time the Sox were in contention for the Wild Card and it looked like they had Sale and Paxson returning as well as a number of other key pieces getting healthy. I get we are in a new "crazy money" era but Bogaerts is not a candidate for crazy money in my opinion. Is this referring to the Heyman tweet that the Sox's offer was 120m (presumably over 5 years) versus the 4/90 number that kept getting bandied about? If so, I definitely agree with that assessment - 5/120 would have been a reasonable negotiating stance to take in last offseason's climate (especially since you'd probably wind up around 6/150 after Bogaerts' counter). I don't know if there's been any other reporting on that, one way or the other. If it is true, Bogaerts breaking off negotiations definitely suggests that the "just offer the Story deal and he takes it" idea is off-base and that he wasn't going to settle for a sub-$200m contract without testing free agency.
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Post by scottysmalls on Jan 20, 2023 12:02:28 GMT -5
Red Sox ranks last year and outlook: wRC+: 12th. Prognosis: Should be around the same, but with potential to drop a few spots. Yes Bogaerts is out, but Yoshida comes in and fills a spot in what was a horrendous OF last year. A lot of unknowns with downside though. BSR (baserunning): 27th Prognosis: Better - should be closer to neutral. They lose Martinez (3rd worst in baseball) and Vazquez (worst in baseball, Red Sox stint alone would have been 2nd worst full season). They also lose their two best baserunners in Bogaerts and Story, but their total baserunning value was still less than either of JDM or CVâs individual negative baserunning sadly. SP WAR: 18th Prognosis: Better. Thereâs a lot of volatility here between young arms (Bello, Whitlock) and old, injury-prone guys, but injury is what really pushed this rank down last year. Iâd still expect material improvement here. RP WAR: 27th Prognosis: Better In: Jansen, Martin, Rodriguez. Maybe Mata, German, Walter etc as the year goes on. With the SP depth, the odd man out should help the pen too. Out: Diekman, Darwinzon, Danish, and Robles (bottom 4 in WAR on the team). Big addition by subtraction here. They lose Whitlock and maybe Houck though (they combined for about 1.2x Brasierâs innings so itâs not quite as big of a loss YoY). They also lost Strahm, but I think he and Rodriguez will essentially offset each other. Austin Davis and Brasier were very unlucky relative to their FIP/xFIP, but itâll be nice to shed Davisâ 48 IP of 6.19 ERA pitching still if the next man up isnât as bad. ââââââââââââ In sum, it looks like theyâre better on paper, but not enough to catch up to the top 3 in the division without some friendly bounces for Boston and unfriendly ones for their rivals. Pretty much agree with all this, just would add defense: Red Sox were 19th in MLB with -28.4 Defensive Runs Above Average. Personally, I think this probably overstates things because a lot of the positive value is coming from Bogaerts, and my understanding is a lot of that came from the Red Sox positioning him well, which means that part of his score wasn't truly runs above average because any short stop would have seen similarly good positioning. As it stands they should be: Improved at: Catcher, 1st, Shortstop, Centerfield Neutral: 3rd, Right Field Worse: 2nd Question: Left field I know people might be skeptical on them being better across the outfield, but the thing is Tommy Pham, Christian Arroyo and Franchy were really really bad. Yoshida would have to be truly terrible out there to have them be worse, which is maybe possible but I think unlikely. In right, Verdugo was better there than left, and when he's not there it should be Duvall who is quite good. Duran stays the same but now instead of the three guys I named they can play Allen or Tapia who are much better, and they get a full year of Kiké, some of which will be in the outfield, and he's excellent. Overall they should be better in the field. A good defensive middle infielder add would help even more of course. ADD: Something else to add here, they were 18th in clutch wins at -1.50. If you don't think that's predictive (my opinion), then we should expect them to be closer to zero. If you do happen to think it's a skill then their six biggest negatives from last year are either off the team (JDM, Plawecki, Hosmer, JBJ) or going to see much less playing time (Dalbec, Story).
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Jan 20, 2023 12:20:25 GMT -5
With maybe one more move to go for an infielder, although I'd be fine with Valdez in that spot, the front office has done its job to put a competitive team on the field in 2023. They have done so without giving up a single prospect in a trade. Ownership has done its part to insure that the star player with the most prime years left will play those prime years on the Sox. The front office and ownership have done their job well in my opinion. My suggestions of signing Rondon, Swanson, Nimmo or trading for Reynolds were typically met with cost to high responses on this board. That's OK. But if the Sox are not fishing in that pond, lets get enough good fish out of a lower priced one. A far as the Xander loss, it sucks and he will be missed, but he had already given the home town discount once. He was not likely to sign for less than full market value. Don't overpay. Done.Don't give up prospects. Done Field a better, deeper,more competitive roster for 2023. Done I grade this an A-. Time to play the games and see what it all results in. honest question (not coming at you with fist raised here - ha), how can you assess the bold ? I take it you mean by large contracts, but within the structure of 2023, which is what you gave a grade on, how do come to that conclusion ? Right of the bat, for me, the Jansen and Yoshida contracts are very risky propositions and can very easily be underwater assets for 2023.
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Post by manfred on Jan 20, 2023 12:23:14 GMT -5
Red Sox ranks last year and outlook: wRC+: 12th. Prognosis: Should be around the same, but with potential to drop a few spots. Yes Bogaerts is out, but Yoshida comes in and fills a spot in what was a horrendous OF last year. A lot of unknowns with downside though. BSR (baserunning): 27th Prognosis: Better - should be closer to neutral. They lose Martinez (3rd worst in baseball) and Vazquez (worst in baseball, Red Sox stint alone would have been 2nd worst full season). They also lose their two best baserunners in Bogaerts and Story, but their total baserunning value was still less than either of JDM or CVâs individual negative baserunning sadly. SP WAR: 18th Prognosis: Better. Thereâs a lot of volatility here between young arms (Bello, Whitlock) and old, injury-prone guys, but injury is what really pushed this rank down last year. Iâd still expect material improvement here. RP WAR: 27th Prognosis: Better In: Jansen, Martin, Rodriguez. Maybe Mata, German, Walter etc as the year goes on. With the SP depth, the odd man out should help the pen too. Out: Diekman, Darwinzon, Danish, and Robles (bottom 4 in WAR on the team). Big addition by subtraction here. They lose Whitlock and maybe Houck though (they combined for about 1.2x Brasierâs innings so itâs not quite as big of a loss YoY). They also lost Strahm, but I think he and Rodriguez will essentially offset each other. Austin Davis and Brasier were very unlucky relative to their FIP/xFIP, but itâll be nice to shed Davisâ 48 IP of 6.19 ERA pitching still if the next man up isnât as bad. ââââââââââââ In sum, it looks like theyâre better on paper, but not enough to catch up to the top 3 in the division without some friendly bounces for Boston and unfriendly ones for their rivals. Pretty much agree with all this, just would add defense: Red Sox were 19th in MLB with -28.4 Defensive Runs Above Average. Personally, I think this probably overstates things because a lot of the positive value is coming from Bogaerts, and my understanding is a lot of that came from the Red Sox positioning him well, which means that part of his score wasn't truly runs above average because any short stop would have seen similarly good positioning. As it stands they should be: Improved at: Catcher, 1st, Shortstop, Centerfield Neutral: 3rd, Right Field Worse: 2nd Question: Left field I know people might be skeptical on them being better across the outfield, but the thing is Tommy Pham, Christian Arroyo and Franchy were really really bad. Yoshida would have to be truly terrible out there to have them be worse, which is maybe possible but I think unlikely. In right, Verdugo was better there than left, and when he's not there it should be Duvall who is quite good. Duran stays the same but now instead of the three guys I named they can play Allen or Tapia who are much better, and they get a full year of Kiké, some of which will be in the outfield, and he's excellent. Overall they should be better in the field. A good defensive middle infielder add would help even more of course. ADD: Something else to add here, they were 18th in clutch wins at -1.50. If you don't think that's predictive (my opinion), then we should expect them to be closer to zero. If you do happen to think it's a skill then their six biggest negatives from last year are either off the team (JDM, Plawecki, Hosmer, JBJ) or going to see much less playing time (Dalbec, Story). Who are you imagining at SS and CF? It seems hard to judge defense without knowing the lineup. If Kiké is at SS, I can accept that as improved… but then I’d say they are worse in CF. If he stays in CF, they are improved there (in that he missed a lot of time and fill-ins were often, er, not so good), but SS is then totally undefined (almost certainly not on the current roster). I think defense is really hard to predict. Catcher might be improved. 1b is about the same. 3b stays. But the middle is totally up in the air. Verdugo in RF is a push likely (better than some they had there, worse than others). Yoshida is TBD, though expectations have to be low vased on reports.
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Post by scottysmalls on Jan 20, 2023 12:30:15 GMT -5
Pretty much agree with all this, just would add defense: Red Sox were 19th in MLB with -28.4 Defensive Runs Above Average. Personally, I think this probably overstates things because a lot of the positive value is coming from Bogaerts, and my understanding is a lot of that came from the Red Sox positioning him well, which means that part of his score wasn't truly runs above average because any short stop would have seen similarly good positioning. As it stands they should be: Improved at: Catcher, 1st, Shortstop, Centerfield Neutral: 3rd, Right Field Worse: 2nd Question: Left field I know people might be skeptical on them being better across the outfield, but the thing is Tommy Pham, Christian Arroyo and Franchy were really really bad. Yoshida would have to be truly terrible out there to have them be worse, which is maybe possible but I think unlikely. In right, Verdugo was better there than left, and when he's not there it should be Duvall who is quite good. Duran stays the same but now instead of the three guys I named they can play Allen or Tapia who are much better, and they get a full year of Kiké, some of which will be in the outfield, and he's excellent. Overall they should be better in the field. A good defensive middle infielder add would help even more of course. ADD: Something else to add here, they were 18th in clutch wins at -1.50. If you don't think that's predictive (my opinion), then we should expect them to be closer to zero. If you do happen to think it's a skill then their six biggest negatives from last year are either off the team (JDM, Plawecki, Hosmer, JBJ) or going to see much less playing time (Dalbec, Story). Who are you imagining at SS and CF? It seems hard to judge defense without knowing the lineup. If Kiké is at SS, I can accept that as improved⦠but then Iâd say they are worse in CF. If he stays in CF, they are improved there (in that he missed a lot of time and fill-ins were often, er, not so good), but SS is then totally undefined (almost certainly not on the current roster). I think defense is really hard to predict. Catcher might be improved. 1b is about the same. 3b stays. But the middle is totally up in the air. Verdugo in RF is a push likely (better than some they had there, worse than others). Yoshida is TBD, though expectations have to be low vased on reports. Well Kiké actually played more center than I thought, so after checking the numbers there I can see moving that to neutral, but I'm a believer in Duvall out there, his numbers are really good. If Kiké plays more center than I'm anticipating then it should be improved. SS is still TBD to me - but I think in almost any likely scenario (Kiké, Andrus, heck even Goodrum) it's improved. 1B should be better simply because they won't get a -7 OAA from Franchy, he was insanely bad there and Vazquez and Shaw were awful in limited innings too, while Casas was a positive in his time (I also think Dalbec is worse than his range numbers say). The other positions I think we pretty much agree on.
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Post by oldfaithful2019 on Jan 20, 2023 12:43:04 GMT -5
With maybe one more move to go for an infielder, although I'd be fine with Valdez in that spot, the front office has done its job to put a competitive team on the field in 2023. They have done so without giving up a single prospect in a trade. Ownership has done its part to insure that the star player with the most prime years left will play those prime years on the Sox. The front office and ownership have done their job well in my opinion. My suggestions of signing Rondon, Swanson, Nimmo or trading for Reynolds were typically met with cost to high responses on this board. That's OK. But if the Sox are not fishing in that pond, lets get enough good fish out of a lower priced one. A far as the Xander loss, it sucks and he will be missed, but he had already given the home town discount once. He was not likely to sign for less than full market value. Don't overpay. Done.Don't give up prospects. Done Field a better, deeper,more competitive roster for 2023. Done I grade this an A-. Time to play the games and see what it all results in. honest question (not coming at you with fist raised here - ha), how can you assess the bold ? I take it you mean by large contracts, but within the structure of 2023, which is what you gave a grade on, how do come to that conclusion ? Right of the bat, for me, the Jansen and Yoshida contracts are very risky propositions and can very easily be underwater assets for 2023. Yeah, I am looking at that within the context of 2023 FA signings and recognizing the breadth of the Sox class for the total outlay, and mostly short term commitments vs signing a smaller class of higher AAV , longer term contracts. Now, I do think Rondon, Nimmo and Swanson would all have been good signings on shorter deals than they got, but not on the length of deal they got, when the primary strategy is to build from the farm and supplement with FA. I'll optimistically trust the F.O. on its belief in Yoshida and acknowledge that Jansen is a roll of the dice.
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Post by patford on Jan 20, 2023 14:39:40 GMT -5
I think the following is my assessment of where the Sox are and what's going on with their thought process - The Sox are in transition. They have some talent that just reached the majors (Casas, Bello - might consider Yoshi here) and they have even more potential talent (of various degrees) laced through AAA, AA, A+, A and Ft Meyers.They need more of this talent to start percolating up the Boston and AAA so they can have low cost rookie contracts to better offset a couple more mega-contracts. They also realize the current strength in the Yankees & Jays & Astros (Not to mention the Braves, Mets, Dodgers, & Padres) and that the reality of going all in from their position is a fool's errand right now and would quite likely hamstring their flexibility and opportunity when they are better positioned. But they can make some reasonable moves with shorter term contracts to get them in position to compete for a wild card spot if things go well. From there, anything can happen. Once they get the stream of prospects with the most potential closer to Boston (I'm guessing 1-2 years), and a better, more full stream of prospect potential throughout the system), I think they'll be better positioned to compete and sprinkle in a few more large (and hopefully smart) contracts. Some of the other (current powerhouse) teams will have weakened by then as well. Bloom looks like part of his thinking is to acquire as many high reward prospects as possible. High risk is almost not a factor because as we have seen a lot of prospects we all get excited about completely flame out. Duran (maybe still hope), Chavis, Downs, Flores, Jimenez, Darwinzon, Swihart, Ball, Cecchini, (is this too painful? I'll stop). So basically you acquire as many intriguing high reward prospects and hope that one out of ten becomes an All-Star. People run down a list and say, "Downs bombed, Franchy bombed" But no one knows.
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Post by congusgambler33 on Jan 20, 2023 16:06:08 GMT -5
Everybody has a point of view and this forum provides this. I am not happy about not getting under the threshhold more than anything last year, but overall they did most of what i expected to be done. It is big to note that they didn't move any prospects in this offseason except Inmer Lobo who is far away from knowing what he would become. I really don't believe that they wanted to resign Bogey and be locked up in a long term deal knowing that Mayer was in the wings in a couple of years. Bogey showed a little less power this year and that may have been noted in their decision. Now you can all cut me up with that belief.
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Post by oldfaithful2019 on Jan 20, 2023 16:13:14 GMT -5
Everybody has a point of view and this forum provides this. I am not happy about not getting under the threshhold more than anything last year, but overall they did most of what i expected to be done. It is big to note that they didn't move any prospects in this offseason except Inmer Lobo who is far away from knowing what he would become. I really don't believe that they wanted to resign Bogey and be locked up in a long term deal knowing that Mayer was in the wings in a couple of years. Bogey showed a little less power this year and that may have been noted in their decision. Now you can all cut me up with that belief. F.W.I.W. I've believed that since the day they drafted Mayer.
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Post by grandsalami on Jan 20, 2023 19:18:21 GMT -5
"Fake Dombrowski" misses the entire point of why he was let go. and makes absolute zero sense..
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Post by Oregon Norm on Jan 20, 2023 19:29:30 GMT -5
... urged on by constant, unending, and largely uninformed commentary from a media that cares little about real ideas and much about noise. It's who we are these days.
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Post by grandsalami on Jan 20, 2023 19:29:52 GMT -5
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