Predicting The 2024 Opening Day Roster

So something that I feel like maybe isn't appreciated enough when we are discussing the Red Sox roster...over the last 24 months this organization had major decisions to make about the direction of this team. I want to go back to this tweet, from RedSoxPayroll, about the state of the team entering the 2022 season:




Prior to signing Story in 2022, the only players this organization had under contract beyond the 2024 season were Whitlock and Houck, plus young and unproven prospects in the high minors: Duran, Crawford, Casas, and Bello. Eovaldi, JDM and Xander were set to hit free agency after 2022, Devers the year after, Sale and Verdugo the year after that. Eduardo Rodriguez had just left. The roster was more or less a blank canvas and the team had to make decisions on what free agents to sign, what players to extend, what prospects to retain and give starting jobs to, what trades to make.

Flash forward to now and a lot of those roster decisions have been made. Devers, Story, Yoshida and Whitlock are all under contract through 2027. Casas, Bello, Duran, Houck and Crawford are all fairly well established major leaguers at this point and also under team control through at least 2027. Grissom, Abreu and maybe Rafaela probably fall in the category Duran, Casas and Bello were in 2 years ago - under team control but the jury is still out on if they are major league players. After moving Sale and Verdugo I would argue that there aren't any major pending free agents, unless you count Pivetta.

I guess what I am trying to say is, all of these decisions over the last 2 years laid the groundwork for the 2024-2026 teams in my eyes. And realistically I don't know how much of it can be changed. I know Bloom was fired but you can't really backtrack on these decisions just because a new executive is brought in. There could always be a crazy trade of course to try and get the Yoshida or Story contracts off the books, we saw that with Carl Crawford and then Price. But those types of trades don't really happen that often.

They will add another pitcher or 2 I am sure of it, who will join that group of players they have through 2027. But the awkward position the Sox are in I think is that the 2024-2025 teams are probably going to look a lot like the 2023 team, which won 78 games.

Here’s my hack at it:

SP 1: Giolitto
SP 2: Bello
SP 3: Lorenzen
SP 4: Pivetta
SP 5: Crawford

Bullpen:

Whitlock
Houck
Bernardino
Campbell
Martin
Winckowski
Weissert
Schreiber

Lineup:

2B Grissom
3B Devers
SS Story
1B Casas
DH Yoshida
CF O’Neill
RF Abreu
LF Duran
C Wong

Bench:

UT Reyes
1B/3B/RF Dalbec
OF Refsynder
C McGuire

My guess is that Lorenzen is signed for 2 yr/$25-28 mil and that Kenley is traded for a SP prospect that still needs time in the minors.

I do think there’s a shot that Reyes is traded/released and Rafaela is slotted into the super utility role should he tear up spring training // rake in Worcester in April/May.

At this point, I don’t think there’s a shot in hell they sign a RHH power bat unless one of Duran/Abreu/Rafaela is traded for pitching and I think there’s less than a 2% chance they sign Snell or Montgomery.

Really like that roster. Three pitchers who are #3 but who each could have a #2 season and two innings eaters to stabilize what looks like a very good pen. Improved overall defense, maybe not as much pop but decent/improved OBP and baserunning. Gives a good look to a number of young players in case a trade deadline deal emerges (either because the team is in serious contention or someone else offers something too good to miss).
I will be excited to see how that teams works out.

Also, most likely trade Houck and use Valdez instead of Reyes.

No thanks on Valdez. He’s an incompetent defender and a platoon bat.

Hard to say because I think this collection of outfielders is best served by a lot of mixing and matching—they’re all probably better off getting 450ish PAs than 600. If Abreu gets 50+ PAs against lefties this year, for example, I’d see that as a roster-building and/or managerial error. Along that same line of thinking, I expect O’Neill to be the regular right fielder against lefties, and then hopping around the outfield against righties based on matchups. And I expect Yoshida to get a good amount of time in left, and likewise for Duran. Between the 3 OF spots and DH, that’s 2500ish PAs to go around, they should be able to fit a fifth bat in there.

As for Lorenzen, I just straight up don’t think he’s particularly good and would genuinely prefer giving Houck or Whitlock another shot in the rotation to signing him.

All I see is a guy who throws a lot of strikes. That’s nice, but there’s very little else about him that’s remarkable. He’s 32 years old, has a short track record as a starter and has never been more than a fifth starter type. Maybe Andrew Bailey can help him improve but I’d rather he help the cheap twenty-somethings they already have lying around.

I really would hope the Sox would not entertain trading Rafaela in a deal to create a 40 man spot for a couple of low minor lotto tickets. I feel like Rafaela probably has a fair amount more value than Busch does, Busch might not be an MLBer due to having no position right now so his bat is going to need to really carry him. Rafaela's floor is a cheap 4th OFer who can give you gold glove caliber defense in CF while also being able to pitch in as a capable MI. That should be a really valuable player worthy of more than some lotto tickets. 

Very much disagree with this part. Busch and Almonte who is a capable low leverage ML caliber RP with two years of control left brought back two low minor lotto tickets. Grissom brought back a basically free Chris Sale. To me a free Chris Sale is worth a heck of a lot more than two low minor lotto tickets so Grissom's value would appear to be higher than Busch's by a fair amount based off their returns. It's not necessarily apples to apples comparison since the situations of the trades were different since the LAD needed to the clear 40 man spot but they could have done it in other ways if they were that high on Busch. Meanwhile the Braves needed an SP and Grissom is blocked by Albies at 2nd. 

To me Rafaela is going to be a ML caliber player no matter what with his defensive capabilities who is still just 23 so he's got some room for projection. Busch is a 26 year old bat first 2nd/3rd baseman who put up -4 OAA in just 99 innings at 3rd base in the majors last year. 

I'd have figured he'd have brought back something more as well but from what I read the pitcher they got back does have a lot of upside so perhaps the Dodgers just really zero'd in on him. Who knows though, probably getting into the weeds on the whole thing. I agree overall I could see Rafaela being dealt to bring back a pitcher or something. I thought I read something a little while ago that some execs feel like Rafaela is one of the Sox better trade chips. 

I am doing the Price is Right $1 bid: I say we are looking at our opening day roster.