Predicting The 2025 Opening Day Roster

Only way I see the Sox making a interesting Soto offer is if the Sox front load a deal.

3 years at 165 or 4 years at 215 on both. Opt outs after both those years on a 450 million dollar deal.

Yeah I’m interested to see if they care more about limiting their payroll and go with a trade like this, or simply spend for someone like Santander.

I like the trade idea but it does present the risk of losing big vs someone like Woo or Miller that you know is a solid MLB SP already (but whether Wilyer could net either of them is a better question)

I would guess that a "Mystery Team" will be in the mix

Curious why Baltimore isn't mentioned here.  New deep-pocketed owner.  Still low payroll.  Contention window now.  They need starting pitching, too, but can you imagine that lineup?  I wonder if Rubenstein would be interested in making a culture-altering splash, sending a signal to industry that Baltimore is willing to mix it up with anyone.  They have a team that's already poised to compete year in and year out for the foreseeable future.  Re-upping Burnes, bringing in another starter, and signing Soto would make them a juggernaut, perhaps unmatched other than by LAD.  AL East is just brutal.

After arb payroll factored in (based on MBLTR estimates), their total payroll will be $110M.  They have sooooo much room to spend.

I think there is next to no chance that Teel ends up a consistent 4 WAR player. That would have made him the fourth best catcher in baseball this year, and all the guys ahead of him are either elite defensively or offensively. I frankly think he has a tough path to hitting 3 WAR with any regularity. Sure the bar is low to have a career at catcher, but there are very, very few guys who are able to be genuine stars at the position.

Jacob Melton in the Astros system seems like a decent enough comp—guy with plus raw power and good swing decisions who should add value on the bases and in the field, but can’t hit lefties at all. Top 50 on Fangraphs, 89 on MLB, and not ranked by BA.

That tracks with my read in Abreu’s value, which is that some teams are gonna value him a lot higher than others depending on how much stomach they have for the platoon issues and the swing and miss in his profile. Gold Glove defense certainly makes his profile more interesting, though.

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I mean… giving $300 million to Devers is a real data point. But the difference between what they paid him and what Soto might get could be like what, 150-200 million dollars more? (I’ve seen estimates of 450-500 mil but I don’t know what the spreadsheets say.) Like the difference being like 50% to 66% of the TOTAL value of the Devers deal? Maybe they value Soto at that number as both a baseball player and for brand/marketing purposes (which they should!), but that’s quiteeeee a large gap

To date I suppose that’s anyone who seriously bid on Ohtani - which weirdly enough did not include the Yankees, Mets, and Red Sox. 🤷‍♂️

Like you and many I don’t expect it to happen. I just want to see a little light flirting with Soto, that’s all I ask for. Buy him a drink, give him some compliments - we can get the ego boost, he can make his significant other Brian jealous for financial gain. Everyone wins! Just give me a meeting where he ambles around Fenway for like an hour before signing in New York for way more money

True. But then again if they’re going to hold fast on that none of the FA starters will be a serious consideration. At some point they’ll need to bite the bullet again.

I don't think it's fair to judge Catcher's vs other positions on the WAR scale and do agree Teel (or any C) will have trouble consistently being a 4 WAR guy when all of 8 guys even topped 3 this year, but what makes you think he can't be an elite offensive one? Rutschman, Smith, Murphy were all between 120-126 wRC+, Teel's raked everywhere with the exception of like a 2 week stretch in AAA that may have been an adjustment period or may have just been a random 3/35 cold stretch. He even followed that up with a 1.058 OPS in September even if his overall AAA line still looks a little weak.

(Defense who knows, so much of that is tied to pitch framing and I don't think there's any public and reliable data on MiLB catchers, all I'm confident in saying he'll be there is worse than Patrick Bailey but better than Connor Wong in 2024)

With Teel right, there are three catchers with 4 WAR per year over the last three years (Raleigh, Rutschman, Contreras). Six catchers have had 3.5 WAR per year over the last three years (The previous three, plus Murphy, Smith, Realmuto). On average, a 3 WAR player over the last three years would be equivalent to Willson Contreras who had 8.9 WAR, I think he can get to at least being a 2-3 WAR player assuming he develops the way we expect him too, with a chance to become a 4 WAR player, but there's probably also a risk that he only becomes a replacement level catcher, and that's just because he's still a prospect and you never know.

I get the argument about Wilyer that he's put up 3 WAR, but that's also one of the best outcomes considering his projections... like his ceiling was being a 1-3 WAR player according to this site, and he hit 3 WAR this year. Mayer being a 3 WAR player is about an average outcome based on his potential. Anthony being a 3 WAR player would be a slight disappointment.

On the one hand that might be true, especially with regard to framing. On the other hand, this is starting to feel like a catch-all argument people use when they don’t like what WAR is telling them.

“I don’t think WAR has any idea how to deal with
𝚍̶𝚎̶𝚜̶𝚒̶𝚐̶𝚗̶𝚊̶𝚝̶𝚎̶𝚍̶ 𝚑̶𝚒̶𝚝̶𝚝̶𝚎̶𝚛̶𝚜̶, 𝚛̶𝚎̶𝚕̶𝚒̶𝚎̶𝚏̶ 𝚙̶𝚒̶𝚝̶𝚌̶𝚑̶𝚎̶𝚛̶𝚜̶, 𝚞̶𝚝̶𝚒̶𝚕̶𝚒̶𝚝̶𝚢̶ 𝚙̶𝚕̶𝚊̶𝚢̶𝚎̶𝚛̶𝚜̶,𝚝̶𝚠̶𝚘̶-̶𝚠̶𝚊̶𝚢̶ 𝚙̶𝚕̶𝚊̶𝚢̶𝚎̶𝚛̶𝚜̶,̶ 𝚐̶𝚞̶𝚢̶𝚜̶ ̶𝚠̶𝚑̶𝚘̶ ̶𝚙̶𝚕̶𝚊̶𝚢̶ ̶𝚛̶𝚒̶𝚐̶𝚑̶𝚝̶ ̶𝚏̶𝚒̶𝚎̶𝚕̶𝚍̶ ̶𝚋̶𝚞̶𝚝̶ ̶𝚊̶𝚛̶𝚎̶ ̶𝚜̶𝚝̶𝚛̶𝚘̶𝚗̶𝚐̶ ̶𝚎̶𝚗̶𝚘̶𝚞̶𝚐̶𝚑̶ ̶𝚍̶𝚎̶𝚏̶𝚎̶𝚗̶𝚍̶𝚎̶𝚛̶𝚜̶ ̶𝚝̶𝚑̶𝚊̶𝚝̶ ̶𝚝̶𝚑̶𝚎̶𝚢̶ ̶𝚌̶𝚘̶𝚞̶𝚕̶𝚍̶ ̶𝚙̶𝚕̶𝚊̶𝚢̶ ̶𝚌̶𝚎̶𝚗̶𝚝̶𝚎̶𝚛̶ ̶𝚏̶𝚒̶𝚎̶𝚕̶𝚍̶, 𝚃̶𝙾̶𝚁̶ ̶𝚙̶𝚒̶𝚝̶𝚌̶𝚑̶𝚎̶𝚛̶𝚜̶, catchers.”

And while we have evidence that teams feel this way about some of these (they really do “overpay” for aces according to WAR), there doesn’t seem to be any sort of premium on catchers who are only pretty good.