Predicting The 2025 Opening Day Roster

He's certainly interesting and worthy of discussion especially in the undervalued off the radar type player. Never mind Mayer for the moment, we still have Story who for now at least appears healthy heading into an off-season AND his contract is not moveable and we have several viable candidates at second base between Grissom who also appears healthy heading into the offseason and the Minor league player of the year in Campbell. I don't see how Kim fits, more importantly I think this underscores that if we were to trade on of the big four the players, Mayer appears to be the best candidate to do so.

(EDIT-added this) I think I mentioned this here several months ago, that the earliest I can foresee the Sox being able to move Story would be after a healthy 2025 season AND even then we'd have to pay a considerable amount of his salary. At that point it becomes debatable if you'd even want to but that's a story, pun intended, for another day. 

Campbell's meteoric rise reminds me, not necessarily comparing, just reminds me of another prospect now playing for the Dodgers and I'd really like to see how he does for at least another short period of time before I'd seriously even think about trading him. Of the big 4, the two I'd least entertain trading are Anthony and Campbell and I get the feeling Teel is less likely to get you what it would be worth to trade him. Mind you I'm not endorsing trading Mayer just pointing out he's the most likely piece to trade should they go that route. If we are to trade any of our top prospects I'm also more inclined to do so at next years trade deadline. Therefore I'm more inclined to trade pieces already in Boston during this off-season. This is based on those pieces are a more known commodity and the prospects are more likely to increase in value and yes I understand that there is a decent chance that that is not true but I think those risks are less than 50% and worth taking. 

Nobody is saying they MUST trade for a pitcher, but the reality is there are maybe two starters that are really needle-movers at the top of free agency, and there are 30 teams. It would be foolish to assume that just because the Red Sox have money to spend, that anything is guaranteed. It should be an option for sure, but you also need to be prepared for the likelihood that they sign elsewhere.

I get this attitude that it isn't any of our money, but the argument against this is Sale's extension, which went about as poorly as you could imagine. From 2020-2023 the Sox paid him $85 million for a total of 31 starts, 150 innings and 3.1 WAR. It is pretty difficult to compete in major league baseball when a guy who you are directing significant resources to is just on the shelf.

This will now be the 6th offseason since that extension was given to Sale, and the largest contract the Red Sox have given to a free agent pitcher since then is the $38 million given to Giolito...which also immediately went south.

I personally think Breslow was brought in with the intention of creating a pitching pipeline to match our position player pipeline, so that they don't need to rely on giving a lot of money to pitchers over 30. And I also think it's why they won't be in on either the Burnes or Fried sweepstakes.

I think the difference between Bloom and Breslow, and maybe some of this is hindsight, is that the hype around Bloom was built on “Well the Rays did this and he was with the Rays so surely he can do this too!” Whereas Breslow was actually the one to whom (I am also certainly not using whom right there) the Cubs’ pitching dev was mostly attributed to.

I can see why people would think they’re similar given their backgrounds but it’s too early for me to say they’re all that similar, I don’t think his actions at the trade deadline were necessarily similar to Bloom’s given the way the market as a whole shook out.

I think ematz mentioned it earlier, but the reported offers for Crochet at the deadline were underwhelming (which is obviously why he wasn't traded), but do we really think it'll cost as much as we expect for him? I do believe he's a perfect fit for this roster.

Crocet has been injured so often, I feel like his shoulder is held together with Gorilla Tape and old rubber bands.

They'd be nuts to trade Casas, even if they aren't going to extend him. Never sell low unless the asset is beyond reclamation. That is clearly not the case with Casas.

Crochet killed his value on the trade deadline. Demanding a extension before pitching postseason innings.

It should be completely different this off-season. He can't do that before the season starts with a new team.

I’m not very well versed in team broadcast revenue type stuff, but my understanding is that for the ~1/3 of the league that was impacted by the Diamond Sports Group bankruptcy, MLB covered approx 60% of that lost revenue for the 2024 season, but has no such plans for 2025. I wonder if Fenway Sports Group viewed the enormous growth of regional sports network broadcasting revenues as a bubble, and that partially informed their decision to stay financially lean (and in baseball purgatory) for a few years. My opinion is that’s being way too generous towards FSG, but it is possible that this has been a factor, while simultaneously representing something they can’t talk about publicly. Such a bubble popping does present the kind of irregular market opportunity for which this organization is now well positioned. After a luxury tax reset and with many organizations incentivized to cut payroll, it would be frustrating to let the opportunity pass in favor of continuing to sit around $225m.

  Any trade made this winter will involve positions of strength where there are more than one mlb player or near-ready prospect: 2b, SS, OF, 5th starter, a-ball starter.  There is no replacement for Casas.  There is no replacement for Teel. 

What’s interesting to me in respect to a Crochet deal (or another blockbuster trade) is how the Red Sox are pretty well positioned with ammunition compared to the rest of the league. Only the Cubs have more top #100 prospects (8 to the Red Sox’s 6). While certainly not to extent of teams like Baltimore, the Red Sox have a fair plethora of pre-arb guys who have established themselves as capable MLB players as well.

So if they go to the White Sox on Crochet and propose say, Braden Montgomery (#54 MLB Pipeline) and Franklin Arias (#95 MLB Pipeline) as an opening offer, and the White Sox ask for the Big 4/Casas/“name your trade goodie” in response… it seems like the Red Sox could say “Go find another team that wants to give up multiple top 50 prospects” before having to jump to that level? Like of the 50ish prospects “better” than Montgomery, 4 of them are your own guys.

www.mlb.com/prospects