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Predicting The 2025 Opening Day Roster
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Post by fenwaydouble on Sept 26, 2024 13:19:22 GMT -5
I am bewildered by the sentiment on this board that the Sox are almost there and that there don't need to be many upgrades to get them to the promised land. First, I don't think making the playoffs should be the goal. Winning the World Series should be the goal. Second, with three games left in the season they are 80-79. It is a .500 team and it's hard to find ways to improve? Yes, there were a lot of injuries. But all that shows is that the team did not make adequate decisions regarding depth players. They did not resign Turner and thus when Casas got hurt we got Dalbec, and others they had to pull off the scrap heap. With regards to starting pitching, which was a weakness the year before, they lost Sale and Paxton and signed only Giolito. His injury left them a starter short in April. And the starters they have coming back are not championship caliber ( excepting Houck) or totally unproven. Which rotation would you rather have: Sale, Price, Porcello, Eovaldi, and Rodriguez (2018 Championship rotation) Houck, Bello, Crawford, Giolito, and  ? (Current pro projected rotation for next year with no additions) The Red Sox are currently 16th in WHIP and 17th in ERA this year. That is not World Series caliber pitching. And they are set to lose Jansen, Martin and Pivetta with Giolito and Whitlock returning from injury and none of their highly rated prospects being pitchers. They need pitching help. All kinds. They need righthand hitting. They need to make sure their middle infield defense is better even if Story gets hurt again. They need to make sure they have the depth to withstand the inevitable injuries. The big 4 prospects might provide some of that depth. But they aren't going to provide the pitching help that is needed unless you trade one or more for pitching. It is either that or free agents. They have good players at 1B, SS, 3B, LF, CF, RF. They have adequate options at C and DH. They have so many options at 2B that at least one is bound to be good. They are bringing back a rotation that was essentially league average. They have got, according to Red Sox Payroll's spreadsheet, something like $65 million to play with before they hit the tax.
I guess it depends on what you mean by "almost there." It would be bad if they just didn't spend that money and came into next year with the team that's walking off the field this week. But they don't need to turn water into wine here - they need to turn $65 million into $65 million worth of production. If they do that, they should absolutely be contenders.
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Post by incandenza on Sept 26, 2024 13:21:11 GMT -5
Stats to ponder: 1985 Boston Red Sox Statistics ; Record: 81-81-1, Finished 5th in AL_East Team WAR leaders:
Wade Boggs 8.8 Rich Gedman 5.6 Oil Can Boyd 5.6 Dwight Evans 4.0 Bruce Hurst 3.3 Bob Ojeda 3.1
Team wRC+ of 110 and ERA of 4.12. They were 5th in the majors in positional WAR and 5th in pitching as well. Their run differential was +80. What the hell happened there?
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Post by incandenza on Sept 26, 2024 13:27:58 GMT -5
I don't think anyone said this? But I think I came closest to saying this when I said they didn't have to trade any of their best players or top prospects this offseason (since this thread is about opening day 2025, not 2026). I then went on to say that trading Abreu or Hamilton could make some sense. For the record, I would consider all of these guys potentially tradeable: Abreu Hamilton Rafaela Yoshida Grissom Valdez Story And, you know, never say never about anyone. Like dcb26's scenario of signing Soto and then trading Duran is not crazy to me. Mostly I am just taking issue with vague calls to deal Duran or Casas for pitching, without specifying which pitcher anyone even has in mind.
Literally you, higher on that page. Lol. You know, I really think it would be totally fine if the Red Sox didn't trade away any of their best players or prospects. I like having those guys! If you make it all the way to the second sentence of my comment you'll see it pretty clearly laid out that you misinterpreted what I originally wrote. |
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Sept 26, 2024 14:29:10 GMT -5
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Post by ematz1423 on Sept 26, 2024 14:34:51 GMT -5
Pretty much said the same thing last offseason and not that they were cheap they spent a reasonable amount but that's just boilerplate baseball front office talk.
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asm18
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Post by asm18 on Sept 26, 2024 14:36:17 GMT -5
Feeling pretty subdued on this first day of irrelevance and thinking maybe I won't get fired up by tweets, or over-parse statements from the FO this year. My plan is to wait until moves are made, look into the players coming this way, focus on things like splits and what people in the know say about spin rate and bat speed; then I'll take a little time to reflect before I comment. Is that weird? Maybe. But that's where I'm at. When you're snowed in with nothing to do and someone on Twitter has a novel theory about the meaning behind Juan Soto's wife's Instagram beach vacation pictures you'll get sucked right back in. The fact that all the best free agents are Boras guys is going to be excruciating. He’s going to want to make up for last year, so it’s going to be like Valentine’s Day and Boras is still going to have Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell and Pete Alonso all unsigned, as he negotiates with teams with all the tact of a rogue state that just stole a nuke |
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Post by greenmonster on Sept 26, 2024 14:44:35 GMT -5
Pretty much said the same thing last offseason and not that they were cheap they spent a reasonable amount but that's just boilerplate baseball front office talk. We have entered the "talk it up" time of year. Soon we will hear from Sam Kennedy and possibly John Henry. They will tell us about all the great things they have in store for the off-season, their unequalled commitment to winning, the nostalgia of Fenway Park, and then everyone can go buy their 2025 tickets and give them as Christmas gifts, etc. |
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Post by ematz1423 on Sept 26, 2024 14:52:17 GMT -5
Pretty much said the same thing last offseason and not that they were cheap they spent a reasonable amount but that's just boilerplate baseball front office talk. We have entered the "talk it up" time of year. Soon we will hear from Sam Kennedy and possibly John Henry. They will tell us about all the great things they have in store for the off-season, their unequalled commitment to winning, the nostalgia of Fenway Park, and then everyone can go buy their 2025 tickets and give them as Christmas gifts, etc. Every team does that type of stuff, that's just business so really at this point I couldn't really care less so long as the words full throttle don't come out of their mouth. We should all know better than to take anything they really say as any indicator as to what is actually going to happen. |
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Post by jdb on Sept 26, 2024 15:11:52 GMT -5
I think Boras players might sign a little more quickly than they did last offseason when he had egg on his face waiting for deals that never came.
Does anyone else besides me want to see Campbell in the OF? I know they say he can work himself into an average 2B but we have Grissom and Hamilton who can platoon this year and Story can slide over when Mayer is ready. Story isn’t going anywhere and would be a good mentor to Mayer from 2B. If you go Campbell LF Duran CF maybe Rafaela can handle RF if Anthony isn’t ready and when he is CR turns into the utility guy. Assuming Abreu is traded for pitching.
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Post by ematz1423 on Sept 26, 2024 15:24:09 GMT -5
I think Boras players might sign a little more quickly than they did last offseason when he had egg on his face waiting for deals that never came. Does anyone else besides me want to see Campbell in the OF? I know they say he can work himself into an average 2B but we have Grissom and Hamilton who can platoon this year and Story can slide over when Mayer is ready. Story isn’t going anywhere and would be a good mentor to Mayer from 2B. If you go Campbell LF Duran CF maybe Rafaela can handle RF if Anthony isn’t ready and when he is CR turns into the utility guy. Other than Soto I think you may be right, Soto can wait until the cows come home and he's still going to get the brinks truck. The other guys he might be more inclined to act faster so he's not having back to back offseasons where he loses money for his clients/himself. I'd rather see Campbell play 2nd than OF. If his bat is as good as advertised it'd offer more value at 2nd than a COF spot. Not saying he shouldn't play some OF but 2nd seems a better spot for him to offer value. Not to mention as things currently stand, they have Abreu, Duran and Rafaela to play OF and all are established enough in the MLB that we can probably pretty reasonably pencil each in to be above average to elite. We can't pencil in a combo of Grissom and Hamilton to do so even though I am cautiously optimistic on them. |
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Post by incandenza on Sept 26, 2024 15:37:25 GMT -5
I don't think Soto will take forever because teams will be actively bidding against each other and the whole market will be held up until he signs - including Boras' other players.
Burnes/Alonso/Snell are interesting because they're a lot like the Boras Four from last year (identical in Snell's case): guys with a star patina who also have various red flags attached to them. Alonso will be especially interesting - he turned down a $158 million extension and then hired Boras, Boras has been heard speculating about a $200 million contract, and as near as I can tell his market value ought to be about $50 million.
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Post by ematz1423 on Sept 26, 2024 15:41:12 GMT -5
Alonso should seriously think of taking that QO if/when he's offered it. 3.8 fWAR in 2022, 2.9 in 2023 and 2.3 this year as soon to be 30 year old 1st baseman. Teams are not going to be lining up to sign that guy even if the QO wasn't involved. Add on that QO and his market is not going to be strong, at least IMO. Burnes and Snell I think should do just fine, Snell with no QO attached now and Burnes has a solid track record of durability even though his #s have been slightly regressing for years now.
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Post by dcb26 on Sept 26, 2024 16:21:00 GMT -5
Just go Nola on Max Fried - not a Boras guy, likely the safest of the top available pitchers, and the Sox can afford to overpay him by a couple million AAV to get the deal done early. Then you can have a plan for the rest of the offseason, don't have to deal with Boras and his games, and if you're going to sign someone (and I believe they should) might as well get to reap the benefits of telling fans and other potential acquisitions "see, look how committed to winning we are!" for the rest of the offseason. If the dust clears and Soto is sitting there for the taking then do it and move literally anyone you have to to make the money work, but I really hope the Sox don't get so focused on one player this year (possibly what happened with Yamamoto last year?) that they just kind-of decline to participate again.
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Post by dirtywaterinla on Sept 26, 2024 16:26:46 GMT -5
When you're snowed in with nothing to do and someone on Twitter has a novel theory about the meaning behind Juan Soto's wife's Instagram beach vacation pictures you'll get sucked right back in. The fact that all the best free agents are Boras guys is going to be excruciating. He’s going to want to make up for last year, so it’s going to be like Valentine’s Day and Boras is still going to have Juan Soto, Corbin Burnes, Blake Snell and Pete Alonso all unsigned, as he negotiates with teams with all the tact of a rogue state that just stole a nuke I think Boras has to act relatively quick with at least one of the big names this offseason to avoid a publicity crisis like the one he had to deal with this season. Not to mention, to avoid losing clientele. |
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Post by trotnixon7 on Sept 26, 2024 16:33:51 GMT -5
Ownership could operate in 1 of 2 ways.. 1. Make smaller moves, have the kids come up and hope they produce as rookies and hope it's good enough to "compete" into late Aug and maybe sneak in (maybe not) while being much lower in payroll than they should 2. See this as the beginning of a strong window to compete with the leagues best and supplement this young core with aggressive moves and actually get into the top 3 or 4 in payroll. As of now? I'd be stunned if they pick option 2. Henry doesn't seem to worried about competing. The current "young core" only exists because the Sox made smaller moves, had the kids come up, and hoped they produced as rookies (or took a step forward.) It's why we have Abreu, Rafaela (and Houck established as a #1.) Maybe the young core gets supplemented by more promising rookies, kind of like Baltimore has done over the past few years. So now you're plan is hoping not only this wave of talent REALLY hits but now the goal is to wait until cespedes/arias/montgomery etc? The fact you're OK with boston using such a conservative approach is insane to me. This isn't for me to say I want to operate like dombrowski but at the same time, act and operate like a team that's worth what they are. |
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jimoh
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Posts: 4,171 
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Post by jimoh on Sept 26, 2024 17:48:31 GMT -5
Stats to ponder: 1985 Boston Red Sox Statistics ; Record: 81-81-1, Finished 5th in AL_East Team WAR leaders:
Wade Boggs 8.8 Rich Gedman 5.6 Oil Can Boyd 5.6 Dwight Evans 4.0 Bruce Hurst 3.3 Bob Ojeda 3.1
Team wRC+ of 110 and ERA of 4.12. They were 5th in the majors in positional WAR and 5th in pitching as well. Their run differential was +80. What the hell happened there?
hmm, one thing = 29 saves (no one had more than 12), 20 blown saves. where can you look up how many one-run losses they had? |
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Post by dangermike on Sept 26, 2024 17:54:55 GMT -5
I think a good exercise could be what do you NOT want to see - and for me thats whitlock or winck starting a single game in 2025. not to sound hyperbolic but any scenario where that happens is a disaster and one that we've seen so many times already- lets wash our hands of the shit we know doesn't work.
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Post by dirtywaterinla on Sept 26, 2024 18:04:11 GMT -5
I think a good exercise could be what do you NOT want to see - and for me thats whitlock or winck starting a single game in 2025. not to sound hyperbolic but any scenario where that happens is a disaster and one that we've seen so many times already- lets wash our hands of the shit we know doesn't work. If Winck is starting games next year, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. |
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Post by ematz1423 on Sept 26, 2024 18:05:27 GMT -5
I think a good exercise could be what do you NOT want to see - and for me thats whitlock or winck starting a single game in 2025. not to sound hyperbolic but any scenario where that happens is a disaster and one that we've seen so many times already- lets wash our hands of the shit we know doesn't work. Agree on Winckowski don't want to see him in much of anything other than low to mid leverage games from the BP but if they feel like Whitlock can start then so be it. He was pitching well enough until his injury. I don't really put much stock into a pitcher being able to stay more healthy as a reliever than a starter. There's just no way of knowing. That being said he's probably behind houck, Bello, Crawford and possibly if not likely giolito in the pecking order and you gotta expect at least one if not two SP acquisitions this offseason. He seems more likely ticketed for the BP than the rotation when he's able to come back. |
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Post by bettsonmookie on Sept 26, 2024 18:10:41 GMT -5
I think a good exercise could be what do you NOT want to see - and for me thats whitlock or winck starting a single game in 2025. not to sound hyperbolic but any scenario where that happens is a disaster and one that we've seen so many times already- lets wash our hands of the shit we know doesn't work. The organization had Whitlock starting ahead of Houck coming out of spring training, and we know what type of season Tanner went on to have. Are we so sure his health would be better in the bullpen? Whitlock is perfectly fine in the swingman/6th starter spot. Winckowski, on the other hand, should spend the entire season in AAA if all goes as it should. |
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Post by ematz1423 on Sept 26, 2024 18:17:14 GMT -5
I think a good exercise could be what do you NOT want to see - and for me thats whitlock or winck starting a single game in 2025. not to sound hyperbolic but any scenario where that happens is a disaster and one that we've seen so many times already- lets wash our hands of the shit we know doesn't work. The organization had Whitlock starting ahead of Houck coming out of spring training, and we know what type of season Tanner went on to have. Are we so sure his health would be better in the bullpen? Whitlock is perfectly fine in the swingman/6th starter spot. Winckowski, on the other hand, should spend the entire season in AAA if all goes as it should. I think winckowski is young enough with some upside left that he's a perfectly fine option as a middle reliever who can give you 2-3 innings in a mop up duty game too. Who knows maybe something clicks and he can ascend to a high leverage arm. The pen is losing enough in Martin and Jansen that they don't need the added headache of having to go out and try and add more middle relief types. Definitely don't want to see him starting any games unless it's just as a pure opener though. |
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Post by Darwin's Curve on Sept 26, 2024 20:54:31 GMT -5
The current "young core" only exists because the Sox made smaller moves, had the kids come up, and hoped they produced as rookies (or took a step forward.) It's why we have Abreu, Rafaela (and Houck established as a #1.) Maybe the young core gets supplemented by more promising rookies, kind of like Baltimore has done over the past few years. So now you're plan is hoping not only this wave of talent REALLY hits but now the goal is to wait until cespedes/arias/montgomery etc? The fact you're OK with boston using such a conservative approach is insane to me. This isn't for me to say I want to operate like dombrowski but at the same time, act and operate like a team that's worth what they are. Did I say we should be waiting for Montgomery and doing nothing in the meantime? (Reads post again.) Hey, guess what? I didn't say that. |
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Sept 26, 2024 23:05:59 GMT -5
Stats to ponder: 1985 Boston Red Sox Statistics ; Record: 81-81-1, Finished 5th in AL_East Team WAR leaders: Wade Boggs 8.8 Rich Gedman 5.6 Oil Can Boyd 5.6 Dwight Evans 4.0 Bruce Hurst 3.3 Bob Ojeda 3.1 Team wRC+ of 110 and ERA of 4.12. They were 5th in the majors in positional WAR and 5th in pitching as well. Their run differential was +80. What the hell happened there?
The bullpen killed them. Bob Stanley lost his full time closer role. Bad things would happen when he came in. Steve Crawford got some save opportunities, and was meh. The bullpen was just bad. Wade Boggs was unbelievable that year. 240 hits. 100 plus walks. .368 BA and rising. He actually batted .400 over a 162 game stretch from mid June 85 until mid June 86 when he understandably went into a slump when his mother was killed in a traffic accident. Rich Gedman has his best season. Evans had a really good season but was better in others. They really missed Clemens who got hurt mid way through and didnt return until 86. Tony Armas also dealt with injuries which lead to Steve Lyons getting called up. Barrett's had an off year and SS was a mess. Buckner had 201 hits and reached .300 in his next to last AB but McNamara refused to take him out, he made an out in his last AB and finished at .299. Hurst got off to a rotten start and I gave up on him ever amounting to anything. As soon as I did that, Hurst started to blossom. 85 was a big disappointment. After being good in the second half of 84, 85 was a step back, at least until 86 when Clemens returned. My biggest memory of the 1985 season was when the Sox added Bruce Kison who was never shy about hitting a batter. He hit Jorge Bell of the Blue Jays who charged the mound and karate kicked Kison in the balls. Ah, memories, lol |
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Post by dmdmd on Sept 27, 2024 0:07:55 GMT -5
The following article might be worth pondering for the posters that have such high expectations for the Red Sox Big5. I am certainly not routing against any of them, but history does not support across the board success (especially not the first year) for prospects. In fact, history would suggest that only 2-3 of the 5 will be considered successful. Pruning the entire major league team to clear a spot for an unproven prospect, regardless of how good they might eventually be seems like a mistake. I think they need to come up with reasonable expectations, bat 7th or 8th in the lineup and and grow into their role whatever that might be. www.royalsreview.com/2011/2/14/1992424/success-and-failure-rates-of-top-mlb-prospects#:~:text=About%2070%25%20of%20Baseball%20America,20%20succeed%20in%20the%20majors. |
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Post by sharkyw102 on Sept 27, 2024 0:47:32 GMT -5
We are losing 4 bp arms 2 starting pitchers one hitter and one catcher. I want the team to not trade anyone and I hope we sign 3 bp arms 2 starters one hitter and a catcher with all money we can spend. I would love all the talk about who we can get with the money we have to fill those 7 holes to make the team a playoff team.
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? (Current pro projected rotation for next year with no additions)
