Predicting The 2025 Opening Day Roster

I prefer Casas at 1b.

First, I'm not convinced the Sox will go big splash over continuing organizational improvement. That path remains to be seen.

Just want to list the pitching assets the Sox have under control (assumes Pivetta and Jansen walk.)

Starters;

Houck
Bello
Crawford
Criswell
Giolito
Priester
Fitts

Swing:
Wincowski
Whitlock (delayed)

Pen (not including MLB ready at AAA)

Hendriks
Slaten
Martin (I'm assuming here)
Guerrero
Booser (L)
Bernardino (L)
Weisert
Penrod (L)
Shugart

This shouldn't be a bad staff.

Other offbeat things I'd like to see:

All starters work on stamina like Houck did last year.
Rafaela and Wong need more good weight.

Other items:

Story, Grissom and Campbell all bat right handed.

2nd this, spend the money keep the young guys like Casas making peanuts that allow you to once again spend the money!!

I get that Duran has a lot of WAR, I like Duran and my preference would be to keep him. 

But no one can honestly tell me that if the shoe were on the other foot, they'd trade away the value that would be in line with a 7 WAR player per year and 4 years of control if Said player literally tripled his best season ever. 

I don't think anyone out there would deny Duran is a good player, and probably even his biggest haters have raised their perception of who he is, and what his floor is, but it's fair to point out that this might also be his best season ever.  

My prefence is sign.  But if people expect a trade for a top of the roation starter you're dealing someone like Duran, Casas, or at a minimum two of your top 4 plus more prospects.  That's just the price of admission. 

Don’t forget they’ll have Chris Murphy and Michael Fulmer as well next year. The former should be solid swing/long relief option and the latter should hopefully be a high leverage RHP late inning option presumably taking Martin’s spot if he walks/retires.

totally agree with this. If Breslow had improved the bullpen sooner, the Red Sox would be where the Orioles are at +4 in the wildcard. Paxton threw something like 11 innings, and Sims and García performed worse than anyone the Red Sox already had (gas on the fire).

I would like to sign Scott and Snell. We need to be a little more left-handed. Scott and Hendriks should be an ideal closing combo.
I think Snell would have been fine had he had a spring training.

I want to keep the Fab Four. We aren’t very good at C, SS and 2b. Voila! Other than Roman. Our top 3 prospects play those positions. I give Campbell a shot to play 2nd breaking camp. Roman starts and bats 2nd. Teel and Meyer should start in AAA.

Wilyer, Hamilton (losing him hurt) and Kutter could be had for upgrades to the staff.

If we’re short a starter, we will be dealing with some assets at the deadline. Monty, Cespedea, Arias, Romero and Password are going to have a hard time breaking into our lineup.

I’m not sure there’s all that much disagreement between those two posts for exactly the reasons you’ve said. There just aren’t very many true-blue number 1s in baseball. It would take more than Duran to get Skenes or Skubal, probably Cole Ragans, too. But beyond that, are there any more number 1s who aren’t already locked down on long-term deals? I’m not sure.

Just as an example, Logan Gilbert’s name has been thrown around a lot over the past year or two. He’s a very good young pitcher, but he also just crossed the 4-WAR mark for the first time in his career and will be going into his Arb2 year next year. He’s an archetypal number 2, a guy who can lead a good, deep rotation and will be in the all star mix every year, but is probably on the outskirts of the Cy Young conversation. That’s still going to cost a pretty penny, but it isn’t going to take the sort of godfather offer it would for Skenes or Skubal.

Speaking of Logan Gilbert, I’m reminded of the conversations a few days ago about the benefit of having an elite framer like Cal Raleigh behind the plate. As successful a season it’s been at the plate for Wong, it’s been pretty a pretty bad one behind it, and his framing is a real issue. I don’t think you can rely on Teel coming out of the gate, either, so I would be very much in favor of finding an elite framer to take on some of the catching duties.

Austin Hedges is gonna be the best one available by far, but I just do not have any interest in watching his bat in the lineup at any point, so I think I’m out on him. Next up seems like it would be Grandal—he’s getting up there, and he doesn’t move as well behind the plate as he used to, but he’s put up a respectable batting line this year and been an excellent framer. I think a one year deal for him would make a lot of sense.

I'm seeing a lot of love for Soto, a terrific player. Are we comfortably certain he'll be playing next year at age 26?

This.  I believe the most important signing of the offseason is catcher.  It's obviously not a sexy move, but I believe more important than a TOR starter and more important than a RHH bat.  Wong held his own at the plate, but his defensive metrics are atrocious. Not only would acquiring a strong defensive catcher be much more cost effective, the raise-all-boats effect he would have on the pitching staff would be a force multiplier.   A strong defensive catcher gets increased length out of starters (fewer wasted pitches leading to high pitch count and early exits), which lessens usage of bullpen, allowing them to perform deeper into the season.  You really can't, IMO, use crude measures like WAR to quantify the aggregate benefit or detriment a catcher can have on team performance.  In that way, it ought to be the most critical item on the offseason checklist.  Plus, since they don't cost a lot of money, we could leverage room in the budget to lock up young guys with extensions and to add in a couple of higher-ticket high leverage bullpen options, along with a RHH bat (a la Teoscar or O'Neill last year). 

As for who, Carson Kelly would be a good fit, maybe on a 2/12 deal.  I'd even be ok going after Hedges (he could probably be had for 2/5-6.  He's a cipher at the plate, but his defensive value is so immense.  He rates at the top in terms of framing, blocking and controlling basepaths.  Plus, he'd be a great mentor for Teel when he comes up.  Only drawback is offense, and if he's in the lineup most nights, you really can't have more than one black hole in the lineup at the same time, so I'd be worried by an 8-9 combination of Rafaela-Hedges.  Pick your poison.  Maybe Wong stays as a backup, or maybe you find a trade partner for him that brings back some value.