Predicting The 2025 Opening Day Roster

TORONTO — How to judge the first year of Craig Breslow’s tenure as the Red Sox chief baseball officer?

There are different ways of evaluating it: How did the team perform relative to expectations that were set last offseason? On Opening Day? At the trade deadline? What happened in terms of player development this year, and what does that mean for the team’s future? Which trades and signings flopped and which were hits?

All of those matter, but in sports, performance is whittled down to straightforward yes/no, bottom-line questions. And so, with the Sox facing near-certain elimination, Breslow didn’t gloss over his team’s standing.

“We play these games to make it to the postseason, win the World Series. And so falling short of that, it should be a disappointment. I want it to be a disappointment. I want it to hurt,” said Breslow. “That doesn’t mean we can’t find things that we did well or things that are encouraging or reasons for optimism, but at the end of the day, you play these seasons to win games and get to the postseason. We are potentially looking at a season where that didn’t happen.”

▪ Breslow suggested “it’s pretty clear heading into the offseason what we have to address,” sounding themes that he acknowledged were similar to the ones he raised a year ago. The Sox need more righthanded balance in the lineup (which, he said, could come via free agency, trade, and/or internal options Vaughn Grissom, Kristian Campbell, or Chase Meidroth), upgrades to the rotation, and bullpen help, particularly given the pending free agency of Kenley Jansen and Chris Martin.

▪ He said the team needs to explore opportunities via trade and free agency, and suggested trades are likely given a crowd of young, talented position players in Triple A and the big leagues. “We have seen the ability to be competitive in the AL East with a young group that’s really exciting, really dynamic. We’ve got to figure out what the right pieces are to add to that,” said Breslow. “I think it’s likely some of that comes via trade, because there’s only so many middle infielders and lefthanded hitting outfielders we can play at any given time.”
More at rhe link

www.bostonglobe.com/2024/09/25/sports/state-of-the-red-sox-future-craig-breslow/

The rumor is that the Marlins don't intend to trade Alcantra in the offseason, that said, if he's available? I would, especially if it's Abreu and not having to give up one of the big four but a lesser prospect they find interesting.

Burnes probably gets 30m AAV, and Fried probably 25M AAV, both probably 5-6 year contracts atleast for guys 30. Alcantra is 30, but it's a three year deal with a team option in the third year if things go poorly.

I would rather target someone with years of control in general, ideally younger. My ideal one is taking a Mariners pitcher, probably Kirby since Miller and Gilbert performed the best this season, while Kirby is at 102 OPS+ on the year, and Kirby is in the middle in terms of team control between the two. Mayer/Abreu might get it done. Sub 2 WAR this season for Kirby but he had a near 4 WAR season last year.

I'm as high as anyone on Abreu, and trading him for an Abreu equivalent pitcher is going to lead to a continuation of the last three years.

These quotes today were extremely underwhelming, even accounting for the massive grain of salt needed to be applied.

Man, I wish Abreu would net a 3 WAR SP pitcher. 1.5-2 WAR is more realistic. He absolutely needs to be packaged with someone else to get someone with true upside/established stuff.

Perhaps but was just using WAR as a comparison tool in a trade since they said trading abreu for an abreu equivalent pitcher would be a bad move. Abreu is at 3.1 fWAR. For reference Bryce Miller has 2.8 fWAR which is 42nd in the league for pitchers. Wilyer at 3.1 is 66th for hitters, I guess it's not apples to apples so perhaps not a good barometer.

Yeah I definitely follow the logic, I just don’t love any pitcher leaving Safeco and going from a top 3 catcher in Raleigh to absolute crap in Wong. It almost feels like an inevitable overpay unless there’s some untapped upside there

I think any package will be around Abreu or maybe Mayer and basically any of the arms in our system (Perales would have been an interesting chip). Overall, the best move might be standing still, but that will really irritate all of us…

One of the local papers seems to think Casas is the guy that gets moved in the off season. I'd rather not but wonder if the rib cage thing is likely to reoccur. I also wonder if him not taking the home town discount last spring has anything to do with it?

As have been discussed on trade thread, the biggest 2 names that could/should be moved (barring a unexpected trade with the Mariners giving up a big arm) is-

Michael King and Crochet. Michael King is the best available if the Padres move him for more controllable pieces.

It seems like if you're going to move Abreu, that would be the 2 guys.

You would need a extension done, but I would love King here. The Padres have a lot of good relievers to add to a package, too. Take your pick at any one of them.

Friede will probably command 6 years 180 million plus. Burns will probably command 6-7 years 210 plus million.

The Mets have 150 million dollars of payroll coming off the books. The Nationals are ready to spend. The Orioles billionaire owner just bought the team.

Abreu and one of our cost controlled starters should bring a significanty better starter (and clear a roster spot)

Don't want to take the discussion too far off topic and I certainly don't mean to use this as a defense of my earlier points on whether Abreu nets you a TOR guy but . . .

In his rookie of the year article, [https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5790069/2024/09/25/mlb-awards-2024-keith-law-picks/], Law mentions that Wells and Abreu are platoon guys that WAR overrates bc they don't get "penalized" by not facing lefties. So, as I understand it, the theory would be that if he DID face lefties, he wouldn't be a 3 WAR player?

Again, I don't mean this to be a "see I told you that we're not getting [insert pitching target] for Abreu" because I don't know enough about WAR to know if this is rubbish or not (though it would seem to make sense). But does it make sense?

It would not bother me at all if they sign the next Lugo, Flaherty, or Imanaga, rather than the next Montgomery or Rodon. Even with Giolito and Whitlock out for the year their rotation was 6th in MLB in ERA and best in the AL East. It is not an area of desperate need where they just *have* to spend $200 million in free agency (or trade one of their best players or prospects) to address.