12:46 pm: According to Ian Browne of MLB.com, the Red Sox are hoping Yoshida will be back in the lineup and ready to play on Opening Day.
11:44 am: Masataka Yoshida had surgery to repair the labrum in his right shoulder earlier this month, the Red Sox announced. The 31-year-old sat out the final two games of the regular season as he contemplated how to address the shoulder soreness that had bothered him for most of the year. He underwent an MRI after the season, and evidently, the results convinced him and the Red Sox that surgery was the best course of action.
The Red Sox described the procedure as “successful,” though it’s unclear what that means regarding Yoshida’s timeline to return. The usual recovery period for position players who undergo a labrum repair is somewhere between four to six months. Reds infielder Matt McLain had labral repair surgery this past March and initially hoped to return in August before suffering a setback. Meanwhile, Padres shortstop Ha-Seong Kim had a labrum repair of his own this offseason, and he is hoping to return sometime between mid-April and early May. Kim’s anticipated timeline is slightly longer than McLain’s, but it’s worth noting that Kim’s injury was in his throwing shoulder while McLain’s was not. Yoshida’s injury is also in his throwing shoulder, but as a designated hitter and a left-handed batter, perhaps his recovery timeline will be on the shorter end of the spectrum. If his timeline is similar to McLain’s original goal, he could be ready to return to game action sometime next March.
The 2024 season was complicated for Yoshida in terms of both his injury status and playing time. There was reportedly tension throughout the year between Yoshida and the Red Sox, both because he sought outside opinions regarding a thumb injury against the team’s wishes and because he was unhappy to be limited to a platoon DH role when healthy. Thus, between his injury troubles, defensive shortcomings, and poor performance against left-handed pitching, not to mention any behind-the-scenes tension, Yoshida’s tenure in Boston hasn’t gotten off to the strongest start. It’s fair to wonder if a change of scenery would do him some good, although his recent surgery and the $55.8MM remaining on his contract through 2027 could make a trade difficult to put together.
If Yoshida remains with the Red Sox next season, it’s hard to imagine his role changing all that much. Boston has two of the best defensive corner outfielders in the league, with Jarren Duran manning left field and Wilyer Abreu covering right. Duran can play center as well, but former top prospect Ceddanne Rafaela is far more valuable as an elite defensive center fielder than a stopgap shortstop, and he needs regular playing time if he’s going to improve at the plate. On the offensive side of things, Yoshida is going to need to slowly earn back playing time against left-handed pitchers; he put up a 103 wRC+ against lefties in 2023 but a dreadful 58 wRC+ against southpaws in 2024. Considering the Red Sox will already have at least four lefty batters in the everyday lineup next year – Rafael Devers, Triston Casas, Duran, and Abreu – it’s understandable why Cora might prefer to sub out Yoshida for a right-handed bat at DH. Thus, if Yoshida wants to be an everyday player for the Red Sox in 2025, he’ll need to make a quick recovery over the offseason and come to camp ready to address his weaknesses at the plate and in the field.
Chances now of being moved….. Zilch!!!
Sox would have to pay most of his salary. I have a feeling they’ll move him.
I agree. Yes the Sox will have to cover most of his salary to move him (at least $10M per year of it I’d guess) but keeping him means paying the entire salary and having him take up a roster spot they can probably make better use of for another player.
Yoshida is a 2 win player. He’s overpaid but it’s not a massive overpay. The reason the Red Sox need to deal Yoshida is more about their roster construction and young talent as opposed to a lack of talent on Yoshidas part.
“Not a massive overpay”…When you watch him play(especially defense)It’s hard not to conclude he’s not a player worthy of a roster spot and is being “massively overpaid”. Most teams should have a better all around player in AAA.
To be precise: Masataka Yoshida posted 1.4 bWAR in each of his first two MLB seasons but only 0.6 fWAR in 2023 and 0.8 fWAR in 2024.
Ken – What you clearly don’t realize is Yoshida has been used as a DH. If he stays with the Sox, it will likely be as a DH.
How do you propose they make “better use” of the DH position?
They are NOT moving Devers to DH next season.
They are NOT moving Casas to DH next season.
So what exactly do you propose? Upgrading with a marginally better DH when the going rate for DH’s iike Schwarber, Ozuna and Bellinger is similar to Yoshida’s salary?
So you want to sell low AND pay $30M of his contract, and then ALSO sign a DH like O’Neill for $21M? So spend $51M for a one-year DH that *may* be a marginal improvement?
Didn’t the Red Sox already make a similar dumb decision last year with a certain skinny tall pitcher? How did that work out for you?
The logical approach is to let him rebuild his value playing healthy over a full season, or at least half a season, and THEN trading him with a minimal amount of salary being eaten.
MLB – If he stays healthy next season, your post will not age well at all.
Overpaid? Yes, of course.
Not worthy of a roster spot? Absolutely comical.
Cant say I have ever watched him play but he doesn’t seem to be that bad on defense. As a Cardinals fan I have seen some all time bad corner outfielder defense with Jordan Walker and years prior Berkman and Beltran.
Ok thanks for sharing Muskie. I do prefer Fangraphs WAR but BR is easier to check. Perhaps he’s not as good as I thought he was.
I agree that it makes the most sense to keep him as a platoon DH, a role that fits his skills. He isn’t going to be Juan Soto, but he’ll be decent enough – and Refsnyder is a solid option on the other half of that platoon. The money is irrelevant, as it is a sunk cost that they can’t recoup in a trade.
His reported complaints are a bit over the top, though. If he doesn’t want to platoon, then he needs to figure out how to hit LHP. And that thumb surgery he wanted would have knocked out two of his better months – July and August this year. The team wants him to be successful as much as he wants to be successful, so maybe they can work together on that shared goal?
The team can rotate numerous players through the DH position, using it to maximize the lineup on any given day while also giving players a partial day off. Having an entrenched DH is largely a thing of the past. Sure, for the handful of teams who have a player who hits well enough to hold down that spot the approach works, but most teams don’t have that. I’d rather have that roster spot take up by a player capable of contributing positives on both sides of the ball than have someone with Yoshida’s profile clogging up the spot. He simply doesn’t bring that much to the table.
I think having a rotating DH can be good but its not needed. Ohtani and the Dodgers are making it work just fine. The problem is see with Yoshida is more about him hitting left handed like so many other Red Sox players do or will do soon with Anthony and Teel and Mayer too I believe. You can’t platoon a lefty hitter when there are 7 other lefty hitters on the team.
Rotate the DH spot to give players a day off.
Platoon means not entrenched. It means part time. Yoshida is a part time DH and when he returns he will still be a part time DH.
then he needs to figure out how to hit LHP.
=========================
I’m not sure it is as bad as some fans make it out to be. He had a .746 OPS against lefties in 2023. It was far worse in 2024, but the entire difference is in BABIP. He has a career 33/21 K/W against lefties, with 5 HRs in 222 ABs.
That’s not indicative of a problem.
I don’t see any advantage of rotating other players. Duran & Abreu are lefties and can field. Rafaela doesn’t hit well enough to DH.
DH’ing Devers makes sense, but we don’t have another 3B. It would’ve made sense last year with Chapman available, but not now.
Ohtani is a freak. He was one of only 3 players who had enough PAs as a primary DH to qualify for the batting title. The other 2 were Ozuna and Schwarber. That’s it. Every other team rotated multiple guys through the spot. That’s what it’s evolved into being. And Yoshida doesn’t being enough power to the table to join that trio.
Your logic is flawed Ken. The Red Sox are paying Yoshida regardless. If he’s terrible on defense then he shouldn’t play defense.
tff – Well said!
BTW – What are your thoughts on Rafaela not even getting nominated for a Utility Gold Glove?
Actually your logic I’d flawed. Its sunk costs. If some other team will pay part of it that’s a savings to the team. They have enough young players on the rise that will actually contribute more that it more than balances out what they’d eat. And in the process they get a more productive overall player on the roster.
They already made this mistake once recently getting sucked into keeping an overpriced and under productive JD Martinez on the roster for all 5 years. They don’t need to do it again with Yoshida.
Ken – So what you’re saying is basically never have your best defensive players on the field at the same time.
Sorry, that doesn’t seem logical.
Which team has gone into a season without naming a full-time DH, other than if their DH was injured?
Well let’s see. KC, one of this year’s playoff teams, never had anyone start more than 38 games at DH this year. Detroit, another playoff team never had anyone start more than 44 games at DH. Baltimore topped out at 51 games. Milwaukee topped out at 40. San Diego was at 51.
Is that enough teams for you?
Like I said, if a team is fortunate enough to have a player who clearly is suited to the role (decent OBP and power) then sure it makes sense. But most teams don’t have that luxury. Rotating players through it has become more common.
Again the Red Sox are paying Yoshida regardless. If he’s the teams worst defender every night it’s best for him to DH. If they rotate guys then Yoshida has to play the field and will hurt the team out there.
Blackpink – I agree and it should extend to Devers.
Ken – You are so off base with your comment on JD Martinez it’s ridiculous. Were you in Boston in 2018? He turned around the loss of Papi and won a ring for Boston. He did it at a cost $8Millon lower than Devers and his numbers were far better than Devers current numbers..
Did you see what JD has done since Bloom dumped him? In LA he had a 136 OPS+ and he got paid so much less than Justin Turner because Bloom was incredibly bad at signing people for fair money.
Way off base with JD comment.
Rafaela played good defense in CF but had a really bad month at SS while learning the position. Overall his defensive numbers are pretty ugly, so I’m sure they’ll find better candidates.
I don’t place much stock in Gold Glove awards though. I have my own opinions of who is deserving.
2018 was the first year of JD Martinez in Boston. Other than 2020 I don’t see a bad season for him there. not really sure about his comment about Martinez either. Bloom didn’t dump Martinez, they just didn’t resign him. Neither did the Dodgers after 2023.
Pads – So when a GM chooses to not resign an all-star I consider it a dumping but if you have a better verb to describe the action I’m good with that. The Dodgers didn’t sign JD for ONE reason, OHTANI was the new DH. I don’t consider that a negative opinion of JD, clearly any DH would have been dumped by LA to make room for OHTANI.
TFF17 – I guess I liked Rafaela’s defense in CF a bit more than you considering he was a 23 year old rookie. I see a JBJ level defender with a strong arm. That’s why I say move him to right field and put Duran in CF because RF is the sun field with as many weird angles as CF. The Pesky pole and the huge area where an outfielder needs to go back and catch balls over his shoulder with a short wall in front of him makes all the weird angles in CF not so bad. I think CF is less dangerous but very spacious with many angles but RF puts the player in harms way whether racing toward the wall by the Pesky pole or backwards to the short fence. JBJ was great but Mookie was just as great in RF so I prefer our best two defensive outfielders playing CF and RF. That way Anthony gets to be the new YAZ. Seriously, Anthony, Duran and Rafaela defensively may be a notch up from Benny, JBJ and Mookie if Anthony proves to be a lot better than Benny on defense.
First, Rafaela played only half the season in CF. It was the other half that wasn’t pretty. Secondly, the Gold Glove award is for performance, not potential, so his age isn’t relevant. Third, I don’t really care about Gold Glove awards because they are frequently ridiculous. Didn’t Palmeiro win one for a season that he played primarily DH?
I agree that Rafaela would be an excellent defender in RF. Abreu isn’t half bad either. And by all reports, Anthony is himself pretty good defensively, and with a strong arm to boot.
I think what some of us are referring to is rotating the dh AFTER potentially trading Koji (assuming the Sox pick up a half way decent utility player)
tff – When it’s a choice between defensive analytics, Gold Glove voting, and fan sentiment …… I value the Gold Glove voting more than the other two options.
In Rafaela’s case, all three are in agreement …. he’s not a great defensive player, not yet anyway.
Sag – Your fondness for Rafaela and dislike of Abreu sounds eerily similar to somebody who stopped posting here not too long ago. LOL!!
In regard to arm strength, Abreu is Top Ten in the league while the others are weaker:
Abreu 94.8 MPH avg, 100.7 MPH max.
Rafaela 92.1 MPH avg 98.3 MPH max
Duran 88.2 MPH avg 93.6 MPH max
And you say Abreu is afraid of the short RF wall in Fenway? Not sure how you missed his many wall-crashing seat-diving catch attempts.
Diving into the seats:
youtube.com/shorts/wwrGA7Uv218
Crashing into the RF corner
mlb.com/redsox/video/wilyer-abreu-s-impressive-run…
There’s others where he crashed into the bullpen wall or leaped onto the wall, but he didn’t make the catch so it’s hard to find footage online.
tff – You say “frequently” yet you had to go all the way back to 1999 to reference a controversial GG award?
There’s typically very little, if any, uproar about GG awards.
And if Rafaela would be an “excellent” RF’er, he’d have played there with Duran in CF and Abreu/O’Neill in LF.
Ken – THANK YOU for bringing up the Royals, who chose not to pay for a full-time DH and ended up with the 5th-worst DH numbers (based on OPS) in all of MLB!!!
One thing you don’t realize, the other teams didn’t choose to not have a full-time DH …. the players they tried at DH either didn’t perform or didn’t stay healthy.
Fever Pitch Guy – I am sure there can’t be more than one guy in Red Sox Nation that likes Rafaela and thinks of him as the better defensive player to Abreu because you are always right. I’ve learned that in the short time I’ve been a member.
I assume somewhere in your background you played baseball so re-watch your links. In the first link, he hesitated as he approached the wall and then jumped and fell over the wall during the jump because the velocity on the ball pushed his upper body backwards unexpectedly. The hesitation is the issue. Great catch. Not something he did often when the ball was beyond him but a very nice play. In the second video link watch the hesitation step that happens two steps prior to the catch. He evaluated distance to the wall and whether he could catch it without crashing into the wall. The hesitation step is precisely what I am talking about. Verdugo had the same issue. Also note, that ball wasn’t over his head. It was to his right because he side saddled it because he knows he can’t reach up directly over his head and keep his eye on the ball so he improvises. That’s a smart thing to do to compensate for his weakness in tracking the ball over his head.
Now go find some old links of balls caught by Rafaela in the outfield and see if you see that same hesitation step. I haven’t seen every ball hit to Rafaela but the ones I have remind me of JBJ not Verdugo.
Thanks for providing the footage to prove my point.
I’m trying to figure out why you suggest that I don’t like Abreu. I fully admit that I think Rafaela is one of the best defensive outfielders I’ve seen in a Boston uniform but that doesn’t translate into I hate Abreu because I don’t think he’s as good. That’s your opinion not mine that I hate Abreu. Maybe you just prefer generalizations to make your points.
I noticed that you are picking on TFF17 about gold gloves. Why attack another writer because they disagree?
As far as your last comment to TFF17, it’s ridiculous. Like many fans and the front office, Duran started the year being mis-categorized as a not so strong CFer. That’s why Rafaela didn’t play RF. He was considered the best CFer so why would he play right? That makes no sense. If he has greater skills than both Duran and Abreu it’s logical they play him in center field. The issue actually comes back to the fact that they were wrong with their initial evaluation of Duran. He’s the second best OF defensively and Abreu is the third best so he should be playing left field. The off season front office posturing clearly supported Abreu more than both Duran and Rafaela but the actual play proved Abreu the weakest link, which is not to say he’s bad, just that he’s not a superior defensive outfielder like Duran and Rafaela.
Two key things to remember. Cora has favorites and Abreu is one of them like Devers and two, the front office is responsible for lots of opinions that are forced on the NESN crew and marketed to MLB outlets around the country. If you spend the time using the MLB channel to watch Red Sox games and you select the other team’s broadcasters you will often hear the exact same comments from the opponents media team because it’s provided by the Red Sox organization.
If it wasn’t identical it wouldn’t be so obvious what they are doing. That’s how you can tell who is supported by the front office. Phrases like Devers has really improved his defense this year can be heard by nearly every team Boston plays from the opponent’s media guys. If they actually commented on what he did on the play I would feel it wasn’t force fed but they don’t. They state the same thing verbatim when Devers makes a play. So if the public relations people want to get a message out about any player, it’s as simple as providing a short game prep document that hits the key points the other team’s announcers are supposed to say. They do the same for the Boston announcers so the days of ECK saying holy crap that was a terrible play doesn’t happen any more.
GGs are a joke. They are a political reward not often earned. Reputation is key. Now that defensive metrics can be a source of getting things wrong, the award is about as useless as the actual metric proving it. There are lots of legitimate wins but as a percentage it’s dropping each year.
It’s a shame that fans need to measure everything in baseball because the beauty of a play is determined by the fan who is watching it, not the measurement that tries to declare how great it was. It’s not enough to watch Willie Mays make his great catch in center field, we now need to rank it among greatest catches of all time!! Why? There is no right answer.
You just spent a lot of time explaining your thoughts to a troll.
Sag – I did not use the word “hate”, I used “dislike” which is very different.
So you’re saying corner outfielders shouldn’t briefly hesitate to gauge how close the wall is? They should blindly run full speed without hesitation, instead keeping their eye on the ball and if they crash fullspeed into the wall then so be it? Well alrighty then …
Rafaela has played all of 3 innings in corner outfield, so there’s no way to provide footage of him trying to make similar catches in the corners.
I think if Abreu was a favorite of Cora, he wouldn’t have been benched so often against LHP ;O)
As always I appreciate your post!
Yep. This is unfortunate.
Hoping he recovers fully and quickly but man I was hoping they could trade him and free up the roster spot for Anthony.
The chances were zilch before the shoulder surgery
Moving him would create better balance and fit, but I still think he will be a solid producer. Despite the injuries, he still produced a 112 OPS+. And we aren’t loaded with guys that actually get on base.
At least he’s productive and isn’t costing an arm and a leg per season. You guys still have Grissom no? I hope he pans out, Sale has been a revelation for the Braves.
How’d Sale perform in the playoffs?
Sale on his worst day was far better than Grissom.
How did the Red Sox perform in the playoffs?
Oh wait…
“How’d Sale Perform in the playoffs”….Word on the street is that Chris Sale got hurt trying to move his huge trophy case. Clearly, he was just trying to make room for a Cy Young award among his other hardware.
He was great until they needed him for sure.
Not ridiculous to play Yoshida and Wong or Refsnyder at DH, using Rafaela to platoon with Abreu in RF (among other things). Not great either.
Over his career, Yoshida has a 121 wRC+ vs. RHP and a 84 vs. LHP. He might not like being used in a platoon role, but with a split like that it isn’t hard to understand. Your typical RHH utility infielder will beat those numbers vs. lefties.
Joc Pedersen has made a nice career as a lefty hitting DH. Yoshida can do the same. A platoon player isn’t a bad thing as long as he’s good when he actually plays.
What does the 121 & 84 become if you adjust for .328 and .257 BABIPs? I often do some crude calculations to adjust OPS based BABIP, and applying my non-SABR approved methods, Yoshida would have identical OPS against lefty or righty.
BABIP is a tricky stat. Many people have a lower BABIP simply because they don’t hit the ball hard.
You can run splits on the Statcast data. Against lefties he hits for a .297 wOBA and .292 xwOBA. Against righties those numbers are .351 and .336. He is legitimately making better contact against RHP. Higher exit velocities among other factors.
TFF17 – I think we can argue about Yoshida, O’Neill and Abreu and how they don’t truly fit in the picture well going forward. People focus on Rafaela because of his free swinging approach but he was highly productive and he is seriously good at outfield defense as is Duran. So with two guys theoretically locking down CF and RF what do you do with Yoshida, O’Neill and Abreu?
This dilemma was caused by bad choices. O’Neill was highly productive and could be the DH to keep from hurting himself but he’s going to want way more than 120 game a year player deserves. Abreu got all the privileges of being liked by Cora yet he didn’t produce effectively in the heart of the order. He is a decent outfielder who doesn’t go back on balls well and it may be because like so many other players that play RF in Fenway he’s afraid of the short wall. Like Verdugo, he’s a heck of a good fielder if he is playing balls hit in front of him. If he didn’t struggle with lefty pitchers, I’d say keep him and move him to LF except we have have one too many or possibly two too many OFers trying to man the three positions. We need Devers to be the left-handed OHTANI who plays DH close to 160 games a year but that’s not going to happen so we will go forward with weak defense at 3B, 5 players who play outfield for 4 spots counting DH, we might sign a guy for $20Million who plays 120 games a year.
Chaos is the only word I can think of to describe the Boston Roster. There is a mess at DH, with the outfield, at 2B, at SS and the 3B is the worst in history. Casas isn’t perfect but he’s the one stable position where things are set. We are going to try to cram an injury prone SS in behind an under performing $23.3 Million dollar man while we have the Minor League Player of the Year blowing in the wind because his name isn’t Mayer. Truly, this team is total chaos thanks to Bloom and Breslow. Maybe Breslow can fix it if Cora stays out of the decision making but I don’t see that happening.
We had an elite SP to pitch at the top of our rotation and we paid to give him away so we are without a #1 starting pitcher. We have 3 excellent young pitchers who line-up nicely behind an all-star level #1 but that spot will likely be empty going into 2025 because of either money concerns or nobody wants to pitch in Boston with the bad defense.
We have an excellent closer in Hendriks and some decent relievers to go with him but not enough reliable relievers to have a bullpen comparable to most of our main competition.
Chaos. Breslow needs to be allowed to be a leader and create his own roster without interference from Henry or Cora. He needs some of the stock pile of money sitting in basement somewhere or corporate account that should be used on the Red Sox since they earned it despite having a bad team. If any of these issues can be resolved we can look forward to a successful future. If not, then like the last several years the fans will simply have to revel in the great young talent ascending to the ball club and being misused. Seeing Duran, Houck, Casas, Rafaela all come up and do so well has been fun these last two years. I expect more to join them and create even more fun but I don’t think it will translate to winning unless Breslow gets his act together and starts running the ship rather than just watching it. If it’s a Henry issue or a Cora issue or simply a timid Breslow, we need somebody to take the reigns and make things happen.
Sagacity
Abreu got all the privileges of being liked by Cora yet he didn’t produce effectively in the heart of the order. He is a decent outfielder who doesn’t go back on balls well and it may be because like so many other players that play RF in Fenway he’s afraid of the short wall.
________________________________________
Abreu’s 2024 defensive results in right field.;
125G, 921.1 Inn, 228Ch, 9Assists, +7 OAA, +18 Drs, +9 FRV , +1.4 dWAR
I’m guessing you haven’t watched enough Abreu games to draw that conclusion.
He’s a Gold Glove contender this season.
Check out the 2024 AL Gold Glove candidates in right field:
Abreu +18 Drs, +7 OAA, +9 FRV
Adell +6 Drs, +1 OAA, -2 FRV
Soto -1 Drs, -5 OAA, -5 FRV
Abreu is a mile ahead of the competition.
Soto is generally considered a “lame horse” among the candidates here.
I hope there won’t be any Jeter crap.
@bogie, the Statcast data gives Abreu positive marks coming in, going back, and for his arm. He appears to be the complete defensive package.
He did muff a few plays spectacularly early on, which might be what some are remembering, but overall he is the best defensive RF we’ve seen since Betts.
You gotta look up the definition of “chaos”
Boogie agreed on Abreu he’s an outstanding defensive right fielder with an elite arm. His defense in right isn’t surprising if you watched him at all in the minors and saying he’s afraid of the short porch in right in Fenway is laughable. He goes after the ball with reckless abandon and without regard to the fence. According to the advance stats there’s nothing he doesn’t do above average and according to the eye test he’s even better defensively then his advance stats say he’s an outstanding defender in the hardest right field in baseball.
The problem for Abreu he also swings and misses quite a bit and Roman Anthony is coming. Roman Anthony should be almost as good defensively as Abreu with Abreu’s arm the only clear advantage defensively. While I like Abreu he’s just a placeholder until Anthony arrives. Anthony’s bat imo is going to be truly special and he’s going to take over right field at some point possibly right out of spring training.
It’s not that I don’t like Abreu I do he’s a hard nosed ball player that goes all out all the time. He’s probably capable of hitting 25-30 homers a year especially if he learns to hit lefties. He’s a really good outfielder but with Duran in left, Rafaela in center, and Anthony in right there little room at the table. I’m so confident in Roman Anthony that I’d at least see what Abreu can fetch in trade.
I like Abreu but the Roman Empire is about to start in right field for the Boston Red Sox.
Bruin1012
Boogie agreed on Abreu he’s an outstanding defensive right fielder with an elite arm. His defense in right isn’t surprising if you watched him at all in the minors and saying he’s afraid of the short porch in right in Fenway is laughable. He goes after the ball with reckless abandon and without regard to the fence. According to the advance stats there’s nothing he doesn’t do above average and according to the eye test he’s even better defensively then his advance stats say he’s an outstanding defender in the hardest right field in baseball.
_________________________________________________
Of course, because Abreu projected as an above-average defender with a cannon arm in right field.
He reminds me of Shane Victorino, who played right field in the 2013 championship season and won a Gold Glove.
I also hope Anthony is the future of the Red Sox.
bogie – We don’t believe in the same things about baseball so I will not waste time with your comments. You are entitled to believe anything you want about defense and metrics, as am I. We can agree to disagree but you may want to go to above comments between Fever Pitch Guy and me because Abreu does have a distinctive issue with his defense and Fever Pitch Guy was nice enough to bring up two examples of what he does wrong.
I’m glad you have a bible to believe in when it comes to stats but you need to recognize not everyone belongs to your religion. Your numbers above are a joke to me and completely meaningless. If I were picking the best defenders, not one of the three players listed would be considered.
Claydagoat – So here is the definition
noun
A condition or place of great disorder or confusion.
A disorderly mass; a jumble.
You need to read the dictionary!!! hahaha
It’s a perfect definition of what’s wrong in Boston.
– A 3B who can’t field
– A DH who isn’t good enough to play but costs $18 Million
– A $23.3 Million dollar SS whose OPS+ in 3 years is 89
– A 2B that cost $17Million and the NL Cy Young winner
– A manager who has no clue and likes to cheat
– Owners who won’t spend money to win
– A new GM without any power to build his roster
Sounds like chaos to me.
Bruin1012 – Do you think Duran is a weak outfielder defensively? If so, then I understand why you relegate him to left field despite his outstanding speed. I was trying to think back to the last left handed left fielder in Boston.
With the wide side of the field not being on the glove side I always assumed it would be a disadvantage that shortened range to the left and created an issue on balls hit into the corner and the extra steps to reposition your body to throw to the infield.
I’m interested to hear your opinion on those two deterrents to a lefty playing left field.
I believe Rafaela is a better outfielder than Duran, and thus would put Rafaela in CF any time both of them are in the lineup.
The Red Sox have three prototypical RFs in Abreu (though I know you don’t believe in him yet), Anthony, and eventually Montgomery. Good range and strong arms.
Duran has tremendous range, which is valuable anywhere but less so in Fenway’s short LF. He doesn’t have a strong arm, which is a knock against him in the more expansive RF.
I believe you’ve suggested Duran in CF and Rafaela in RF? That would make full use of the range for both players, and Rafaela easily has the arm for RF. Abreu in LF makes some sense as he needs to be platooned (for now at least), and it is easier to find platoon partners for LF. Anthony in LF is a waste defensively, but then so is Duran.
If the Red Sox go into 2025 with no trades or acquisitions from this mix, I would be inclined to put Anthony in LF, Duran in CF, and Abreu in RF. Rafaela would start in RF against LHP and pick up additional AB by resting the others (and perhaps on the infield). Doesn’t make full use of either Anthony or Rafaela defensively though it puts Duran and Abreu in their best positions.
But I think it is likely that one of the players above will be traded. Depending on who is traded, the solution varies.
My personal opinion of Duran defensively his arm is best suited for either left or center. Duran has made great strides defensively but imo Rafaela is best suited for centerfield and Abreu is better suited for right. If Anthony makes the team out of spring training he’s a center fielder who has the arm for right field so either way you slice it Duran is relegated to left.
It’s just my opinion saga but if you look at advanced defensive numbers Duran was really good in left as well as center but his arm imo profiles better in left.
Sagacity
It’s not my statistics.
I’ve watched enough Red Sox games this season to watch Abreu’s play in right field closely.
He confirmed scouting reports that he is a decent defender with an elite arm.
And your nonsense about Abreu being afraid of parkans is ridiculous.
You have some fantastic statistics or ideas about defense.
My 2024 AL right field three would be:
Abreu, Tucker, Kepler, if Tucker and Kepler would have qualified.
Name your top three finalists, because your argumentation is at the kindergarten level.
tff17
This is the problem, that such fans as Sagacity saw a couple of mistakes at the beginning of the season and made their own conclusion about the player.
But Abreu, like Rafaela, are newcomers in 2024, but they coped with the pressure later.
No surprise when rookies scuffle for a bit before settling down. Outfielders should rarely be tagged with errors (since most mistakes don’t qualify as an error by scoring standards), but Abreu had *three* errors in the first two weeks. Then settled down. Rafaela was a butcher at SS for the first month (after having barely played the position in the upper minors), then started showing an average/plus glove at the position.
I doubt we’ve seen the best from either one. Hoping that both will improve on their K rates with experience, while polishing their strengths to really shine.
Saga my personal opinion on a lefty in left field is not a problem especially when you have an elite centerfielder who covers a ton of ground in Rafaela. Duran covers a lot of ground and improved immensely on defense this season. I think he could be outstanding in left playing very shallow taking away a ton hits in left and he doesn’t need the strong arm for the very shallow field. Abreu otoh gets elite jumps on the ball and his defensive speed plays up and his arm is elite and thus an excellent choice to play in right. Let me be clear I think that Rafaela could play right if he had to and be very good but he’s already elite defensively in center so why move him. To me it makes no sense and an outfield of Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu from left right is arguably the best defensive outfield in baseball.
…so where do you play Anthony, Bruin? Not disagreeing with anything you wrote above.
ttf depends once he is up I think Abreu is out of the mix. Anthony is solid defensively and imo can play right field. I still like Duran in left in this scenario now you would have three center fielders in the outfield. I could get behind a shift of Duran to Center, Rafaela to right and Anthony in left if it becomes apparent he can’t handle right but I don’t think that happens. I just think that as long as Abreu is starting he starts in right field he’s really good there he’s completely unavailable of the low fences and is a bulldog defender who gets everything out of his athletic ability.
As I said above though I think Anthony makes the squad out of spring training and there’s a chance that they move Abreu this off-season. It’s sucks I really like Abreu and his hard nosed style of play but I really thing Anthony is going to be special he’s just scratching the surface of what he can become and I really think Breslow understands this or at least I hope so and makes his off-season trades appropriately.
“Unafraid of the low fences in right”
Yeah. what’s going on is not a “great confusion or disorder”
In fact what’s going on is exactly what the management group wants.
Try looking at the definition again, Even if you think the management group is awful they definitely aren’t “confused” Worst case is they DGAF.
Bruin1012 – So the off side glove and the turns that take extra steps for a Left Handed Left Fielder don’t bother you? Or do the metrics really not address real issues other than speed?
bogie = Watching the video shows the hesitation. If you choose to ignore it and call something that is on the permanent record as a problem, that’s up to you. I didn’t make him hesitate both times, he did it because it’s a flaw in his game and you got to see him side saddle a ball to try to make up for it. That’s proof whether you acknowledge it or not.
So insulting me is the way you want to go because you refuse to acknowledge what’s in a video. Why would I even want to converse with you after you calling something to be at a kindergarten level?
Next time you want a response show some respect and act like an adult.
Bruin1012 – As a person who focuses on observations you are telling me after watching the two videos of him hesitating you have no problem with that behavior in an outfielder?
Usually you seem to have an open mind and truly observe what’s going on. I’m not sure why the hesitations don’t count. Those were just two examples. I can remember but not put my fingers on the link of him going back and stopping before he got to the fence and guessed wrong how far he was from the fence and the ball dropped in but not for an error even though he should have caught it. Likewise I remember another play when he was going back to his right and his glove passed in front of his eye-line and he simply missed the ball by several inches. It’s a common problem so I would have thought you had seen it many times before. Verdugo was really bad with it. None of this takes away from his strength of going for balls in front of him like Verdugo. Those seem to be the plays that matter most in making a player a GG candidate like Verdugo was in Boston despite not really being a good defender.
If you want to use another word other than afraid to describe Abreu’s condition, then pick a different adjective that causes him to hesitate. Like I said, it’s a common problem, he’s not alone when it comes to hesitating. Lots of players do it and I would have thought you would have seen it hundreds of times in all the years of watching in person. Scouts at the high school and college level often put it in reports.
Sagacity
Did you draw conclusions based on the two videos??? Wonderful…
Do you think Abreu doesn’t deserve to be in the top three candidates for the 2024 Golden Glove?
Why are you afraid to name your top three?
I didn’t see any arguments against Abreu from you that he is n’t worthy of the Golden Glove…
(My top three would be Abreu, Tucker, Kepler.)
Who are the three people who were better in right field in 2024 than Abreu?
Sagacity
I advise you to watch games where Abreu catches balls near the park, and not just two games where he hesitates, as you put it.
And there is nothing in the reports about Abreu to indicate that he is hesitant or afraid of the fences.
As we say in Ukraine: “If it seems, then you need to cross yourself.”
The guy has hit tools. I hope the Sox don’t sell low. Go work on your defense, Masa!
He’s 31. What you see is what you get, until he declines some more. He’s not getting better at defense at this age.
The Red Sox outfield is notoriously tough. I think he could improve regardless of age.
I think most RS LFer grade out poorly relative to their usual production. Crawford was +38 DRS in his 3 seasons before Fenway and then dropped to -0-. Duran shows far better numbers in CF than LF.
Yeah you are a Red Sox fan you see it all the time but I always thought playing there in the outfield with the monster specifically was tough.
It isn’t so much that LF is difficult as it is a matter of counting balls off the wall that are theoretically “in play” but not realistically catchble. The Statcast data (OAA or FRV) seems to handle this better from what I can tell.
Duran still looks a little better in CF, but his skills are also a better fit.
Blackpink in the area
The Red Sox have Duran, Rafaela, Abreu and
Anthony on the horizon.
Why make the outfield defense worse by putting Yoshida there?
I like Yoshida, but he’s no Manny Ramirez, whose deficiencies in defense were made up for by his bat.
I didn’t suggest using Yoshida in the outfield.
mike – When healthy Yoshida is a .850-.900 OPS hitter, which is what he’s been for more than half his two years with the Red Sox.
His OPS by month: .832, .962, .742, .844, .640, .656, .736, .549, .898, .897, .633
His median month is a .742 OPS. Only three of those eleven months exceed a .850 OPS.
His two best months so far have been May 2023 and July 2024, both with a BABIP north of .370. Players with limited speed tend to top out around a .350 BABIP in the majors, so it is unlikely that he can sustain that level of production over longer periods of time.
He is what his card says he is. Career .810 OPS vs. RHP, with very weak contact against LHP.
tff – We just had this conversation less than a month ago! LOL!!
And guess what?
His card still says .894 OPS for 3 1/2 months last year, and 3 months of batting .303 with a .370 OBP and .828 OPS this year.
:O)
If he has an .850 to .900 OPS more than half the time, then why does his median month come in at .742? Is this new math?
He had an .874 OPS in the 1st half and .663 in the 2nd half.
baseball-reference.com/players/y/yoshima02.shtml
Let’s be realistic. Yoshida is an $18Million dollar a year boat that we have to keep in dry dock because we have too many controllable young players who are better than Yoshida that represent the future.
Is he worth $18Million a year? Who cares!! He’s a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. Move him to a team that needs a square peg. His value will never be realized which might be the legacy of this era of the Red Sox. Bloom dismantled the club and left a bunch of disparate parts that don’t make up an effective roster. Ownership pulled the plug on money after the hatchet man left town and now Breslow is stuck with a mess. Yes, lots of individuals with upside but too many in specific positions and not enough at other positions plus a prima-dona who won’t do what’s best for the team.
Whether you like Yoshida or not, he doesn’t fit and we can either waste the money by benching him or push out a higher upside ball player so Yoshida gets to play and we hurt the team as the lesser valued player in a starting position. That’s why a trade makes the most sense.
Breslow needs a sledge hammer to adjust the attitude of the owners and Cora. Not only does the roster need to be pounded into something that makes sense, the manager needs to stop sitting guys all the time to be popular and start trying to win all three games in each series.
tff – Median would be used if you take individual numbers for each calendar month.
As you know, my 3-month and 3 1/2-month numbers didn’t begin on the first day of any month or end on the last day. I used date ranges based on health, usage, etc.
And why would you use median anyway, knowing the disparity in playing time between months?
In June he had only 59 PA’s compared to 105 PA’s in August, so how could you possibly have each of those two months weighted the same? And what about May, he didn’t even play in May!
See this is an example of the wrong analytics being used in the wrong situations. That’s like giving equal weight to a 15-for-50 month and 30-for-100 month!
I didn’t recall the dates you were using, but cherry picking dates leaves you with a contrived result.. The sequence of months shows no period of longer than two consecutive months that meets your criteria, and the first of those was in his initial exposure to the majors when the pitchers were still adjusting to him. His walk rate has dropped precipitously since.
I still think you are overselling Yoshida. I could see an .800 to .825 OPS if used in a strict platoon, but don’t see logic for expecting anything better than that.
tff – I used those specific date ranges only as an example to show what he is capable of doing under normal circumstances ….. ie not injured or recovering from injury, not wearing himself out, not adjusting to a new league/travel/etc.
I really think with his great plate discipline and good health he can be a .850-.900 OPS guy mainly because of a high OBP and those skills tend to transfer well from Japan.
With that said, I am fine with trading him AFTER his value is rebuilt and his contract doesn’t have to be subsidized.. Will it be? All depends on health.
BTW – I was looking at the 2024 team leaders and it really sunk in, many of the top stats were insanely low!
Here’s today Fun With Facts :O)
Duran’s team-leading .285 BA was the lowest for a 162-game season since Pedey batted .278 in 2014.
And Devers’ team-leading 83 RBI was the lowest for a 162-game season since Tom Brunansky drove in 74 runs back in 1992!!!
Fever, my issue with the above characterization is that Yoshida has *not* shown “great plate discipline”. He has swung at 26.0% of pitches out of the strike zone over his career. Last year’s 26.2% ranked #69 out of 207 hitters with 400+ PA. The top players are around 17%.
He doesn’t strike out much, but that is because he has a high contact rate. His 12.4% K rate is among the top ten. The downside is that swinging aggressively and making a lot of contact holds down the BB rates. His 6.4% BB rate ranked #163/207 last year.
Nothing horribly wrong with being an aggressive contact hitter, but that’s a style you tend to see more at 2B than from DH. You have to take a bit off the swing to maximize the contact, so the exit velocities (#158/207) are well below average. It does tend to support higher batting averages, since you never get a hit when you strike out. Think Mike Greenwell?
I agree that it is going to be tough to trade him after the shoulder surgery. If the Red Sox were to sign Bregman, and move Devers or Casas to DH, then I would be okay with simply releasing him. But more likely they’ll hold off on that move for another year. Hope Yoshida rebounds from the surgery and has a nice season.
tff – There’s zero chance the Sox will straight up release him and eat $56M. He would have to be totally worthless with an OPS under .700 for them to even consider it.
They’ll probably end up trading him for an overpaid underperforming pitcher they think is fixable.
You are surely right on that, Fever, but as long as he is on the roster you have Devers at 3B and are blocking talented rookies from coming up and getting their feet wet in the majors.
If the Red Sox were serious about contending, they would need to think seriously about moving on from Yoshida. I’m unconvinced that they are serious about that, though.
Fever Pitch Guy – There was no devious statistical analysis here. The actual stats were copied. I seldom get blamed for bias by doing a data dump of the numbers. Maybe you’ve spent too much time in the statcast world that actual facts now seem biased. I could have copied every month since he arrived but that didn’t seem to be the relevant time frame.
If you simply want to pick the months that support your argument and ignore the others that is your call. I picked a relevant window and there was no subversion in the numbers. The data got pulled straight from Baseball Reference.
Not all data needs to be forced into a summation that supports an argument. It’s ok to present raw data and to call it tainted because the number of at bats ACTUALLY varied among the months sounds a bit paranoid. It’s just data.and it’s not biased in any way.
TFF17 – I am curious. Move Devers or Casas to DH? Would Bregman play 1B or 3B if Casas is DH? I guess what I am really asking is Devers being suggested for 1B? If so, can I shout HELL NO as loud as possible before any small minded manager thinks of something like that. He can’t catch ground balls, can you imagine how bad he would be at scooping throws? He practically covers the infield from 3B to 2B when a ball is hit to his left, can you imagine how many times the pitcher is going to have to cover 1B for him because his judgement is incredibly bad when it comes to range.
Please tell me you meant Bregman at 1B!!!
Bregman would play 3B. The better defender of Casas and Devers would play 1B. Right?
I wasn’t focusing on that aspect anyways. Either way, Yoshida gets bumped, just as he would if the Red Sox were to sign O’Neill or Hernandez.
tff – I just don’t get the “blocking talented rookies” part? If Yoshida was still playing OF, then I’d agree 100%. But surely you don’t expect any of CMAT to become DH’s, do you? And neither Devers nor Casas is being moved to DH next season, not unless health issues require such a move.
Mark my words, Yoshida will be moved …. but it’s not prudent to do so until his value is re-established. Haven’t the Sox already done enough buying high and selling low?
Try putting together a roster, Fever, and you will see.
If there is no full time DH, you can rotate your other starters through the position. Might not take full value of their defensive talents, but it is better than letting a good athlete rot in the minors or on the bench.
When did he get injured?
Pads – Thumb was April 19, shoulder since before his first game this year.
The guy can hit! Keep him
No one in Boston has forgiven Shaughnessy for not voting for Ortiz.
@Terry
And thats relevant to absolutely nothing on this thread, with your admirable consistency.
Relevancy is subjective.
and to the insane, relevancy is rare.
More entertainment value watching money flush counter clockwise down the toilet. Ahahaha!
Bobby Dalbec: My big chance has come.
Ok,.
Extend the QO to O’Neill. If he accepts, problem solved, if he doesn’t, than expect a short term addition that hope will fill the gap and can be easily cut later (Dom Smith reunion?)
They’ll definitely extend the QO, but there is no way that O’Neill accepts. I don’t think they need any further additions, unless they are ready to cut Yoshida.
Obviously they’ll know more by the time free agency begins but “hoping” he’ll be ready by opening day is not the same as knowing that he’ll be ready so i would expect that some sort of contingency is signed (minor league contract) that could be used in the interim
Rsox – So you are willing to pay O’Neill $20Million for 120 games? He was very good when healthy but how do you project any more than a 120 game season for him? Even as the full time DH, I believe he will find ways to pull muscles and get hurt. If he wants to join for $10 Million for 120 games I say yes. Anything more, is pouring money into a non critical area of the roster. Outfield is NOT an area of concern, it’s an area of over crowding.
Sag – Well said! Not to mention O’Neill was a poor defensive OF’er this year and he can’t hit RHP.
The team has stated they need to cut down on the strikeouts, be more selective, work the count more, and make contact more often …. none of that gets accomplished by bringing back O’Neill.
And for a guy whose swing is perfect for Fenway, there’s no better place for him to have a one-year attempt at rebuilding his value … which is why there’s a decent chance he would accept a QO, if offered to him of course.
Will be interesting to see how that plays out. I’ve been figuring that O’Neill will get a $60M-$80M deal, and with his injury history he would be foolish to turn that down in favor of a QO.
tff – This is my source when I kept saying $36M/3yrs.
masslive.com/redsox/2024/09/as-red-sox-hr-leader-h…
“A veteran American League executive said this week that the injuries and swing-and-miss profile make it somewhat hard to project what kind of deal O’Neill will received but estimated something in the three-year, $36 million range. The Red Sox could give him the qualifying offer (projected to be a one-year, $21.2 million deal) but that’s likely too steep of a price to pay. O’Neill would probably accept that but remains more likely than not to hit the open market and hope a team pays up after a strong year at the plate”.
Spotrac puts him at $48M/3yrs, and they usually lean low (sometimes laughably low)… I would be very surprised if he were to sign for $36M/3yrs.
The ZiPS ROS projection (not quite the same as a projection for 2025) reads .255/.341/.495, more or less consistent with what he did in 2024. Compare that to Yoshida at .290/.354/.442 or Refsnyder at .273/.360/.434 and he would seem to be a solid step up offensively?
We’ll see how it plays out? I’m not thrilled with the idea of signing O’Neill to a multi-year contract, but if the Red Sox could land him for $21M/1yr, he could be part of their “best team” for 2025. And it isn’t my money. 🙂 🙂 🙂 Might also allow them to trade Abreu.
It is a confusing off-season, with too much depending on possible trades — and we have no way of knowing what trades are realistic. I hesitate to suggest what I *would* do, and will have to see what Breslow comes up with. He’s a smart guy, even if he is working with (at least) one hand tied behind his back.
si.com/mlb/cardinals/st-louis-cardinals-news/ex-ca…
This article suggests $90M/5yr for O’Neill. That seems on the high side to me (a four year deal would be more realistic).
As always, will be interesting to see how it plays out.
tff – Totally agree, it’s reasonable to expect at least one big name position player (current or prospect) traded away this offseason. It will be a domino effect, transactions will impact even more transactions. Who knows who will be traded for a stud pitcher, it all depends on what the other team is looking for.
tff – This article also references Spotrac, I didn’t even know they do free agent contract projections?
I will eat my Red Sox painters cap if he gets $90M guaranteed.
TFF17 – O’Neill is hard to predict since some teams are desperate for power hitters. $18Million a year is comparable to Yoshida. Who would you rather have? A guy who plays 120 games but is a good defender and an outstanding home run hitter or a high OBP guy who can’t play outfield? I agree that $18Million is high for 120 games. Also, as he gets older will the games missed grow? If so, then it definitely seems high. I still like the guy because he has prolific power so he’s very fun to watch when healthy.
Sag – Good post and I agree O’Neill’s power is fun to watch, he reminds me of Canseco back in the day. The problem is, guys like him who are so obsessed with bodybuilding will ALWAYS end up with injuries because of it. Look no further than Stanton. And it’s the same thing with playing defense, all those muscles makes you stiff which only hurts your game.
And BTW O’Neill used to be a good defender, he’s not anymore. He’s now average at best, rated 30th out of 74 OF’ers in DRS with a minimum of 750 innings.
And BTW for those who erroneously think Yoshida can’t play OF, he rated better than 16 OF’ers in DRS with a minimum of 700 innings. He was run down by the long schedule and travel, that’s the main reason why he didn’t play OF this year. Do you know Yoshida rated better defensively than Duran last year.
FPG I’m not really sure where you were getting your information on Masa defensively.
I guess Baseball Reference is the only one I could find in 2023 that grades Masa as a better defender than Duran but he was still awful defensively in nearly every advanced statistic defensive ratings. This also corresponds with the eye test Masa is an awful defender in the outfield. With the talent that Boston has and the improvement that Duran showed in 2024 defensively to the elite level imo Masa has no business being in that outfield defensively and thus is relegated to DH on this team. The eye test as well as nearly every advanced defensive metric in 2023 says Masa wasn’t close to as good as Duran defensively and then Duran took a huge leap in 2024.
FPG I know you like Masa but he’s by far the worst defensive outfielder on the roster to be used defensively only in case of numerous injuries.
Bruin – I got the DRS stats from Fangraphs, they are usually my go-to for defensive stats.
fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?lg=all&ind…
Of course I agree 100% Yoshida is far, far behind Abreu/Duran/Rafaela defensively. I’m just saying he wasn’t horrible as in Schwarber-level or Ruiz, Walker, etc. He was -4 therefore how many games would 4 runs impact over the course of a season? Not many, if any.
What I’m getting at is Yoshida could play OF with another team, and he deserves a second shot at it.
Fever Pitch Guy
I like Yoshi and so do you.
When he’s healthy, he’s one of the best players on the roster, including his performances against the Yankees this season, but Yoshi is the worst defensive outfielder on the team right now, which is why his position is DH.
Sure, he’s no Big Papi or JD and doesn’t hit a ton of home runs, but he has a good OBP and few strikeouts.
The Red Sox need players like these who can get on base.
As we’ve all seen this season, a ton of strikeouts have been a big problem in the second half of the season.
The Red Sox need to address their high strikeout rate and stay away from players like these.
Their real strength is in their speed players, as we saw in the first half of the season when Duran, Hamilton, Rafaela caused a stir.
Next season they could have 4 players on their roster who can steal over 100 bases in a season (Duran, Hemy, Rafaela, Story (if Trevor is healthy) plus youngsters on the way – Anthony and Campbell.
In fact, the Red Sox don’t have as many roster issues as they did in 2023, when there were obvious issues at second base and shortstop and poor defense in the outfield.
For a moment, the Red Sox have two Gold Glove candidates in right and center field for 2024 in Abreu and Duran, and we have a third player with elite defense for 2025 in Rafaela.
The obvious problems, I see on defense are third base and catcher.
I understand Devers won’t be leaving the position anytime soon, but the catcher issue needs to be addressed this offseason, they need a catcher for 2025 or a half season until Teel is ready.
DRS isn’t bad for infielders, but they never quite got it right for outfielders. The problem there is that every park is a different size and shape – much less of an issue for infielders.
The Statcast fielding data is very comprehensive (including breakdowns for going left, right, coming in, going back) and it judges outfielders based on how far they have to go to reach the ball and how long they have to get there.
Fangraphs carries the Statcast summary as OAA and FRV.
bogie – I totally agree!
I am not suggesting he play OF for the Red Sox next year.
All I’m saying is let him DH as much as possible to rebuild his value as a hitter, and then it will be easier to trade him to a team that is looking for an outfielder. I think some other teams would definitely give him another chance to play OF.
Fever Pitch Guy
Of course, Yoshi needs to regain his value.
It’s very strange to see posts from Red Sox fans about how they want to get rid of Yoshi and Casas quickly.
Just like they wanted to get rid of Duran at one time.
These are our best players at the moment and, I don’t see an equivalent replacement for the above players on the market this season.
I don’t currently see a replacement for Casas on the farm as far as first base is concerned.
Perhaps someone would like to see 34-year-old Walker or 37-year-old Goldschmidt at first base.
Fans need to understand that the main problem right now isn’t first base or DH, it’s the top pitcher, bullpen and catcher that Breslow needs to address this offseason.
Also, I wouldn’t want to trade Abreu this offseason, he has proven he can handle the pressure and tough right field at Fenway.
I understand that Anthony is stepping on toes, but he is 20 years old and there is no telling how he will be able to cope with the pressure next season (see Holliday)…
bogie – Wanting to get rid of players quickly is not exclusive to just Red Sox fans, I see it with fans of other teams as well.
I think there’s three reasons why:
1) They don’t take into consideration injuries or unique circumstances, such as a Japanese player getting acclimated with the adjustment of playing in a different league and country.
2) They demand every player be good both offensively and defensively, which as you know is not that common. There’s not many Durans or Mookies in MLB.
3) They are simply impatient, they don’t care for the wait and see approach.
Look at Suzuki, his first year with the Cubs he had a .770 OPS which is WORSE than Yoshida’s two years in Boston.
Then look how much better Seiya has done the past two seasons!
Its not exclusive to Sox fans but it is annoyingly common among them. Lots of people here wanted Devers gone too and Bogaerts extended and so far the Sox look like they dodged a bullet on Bogey. They can complain about every player signed as not being good enough or “dumpster diving”. I could only imagine the comments if this site existed back when the Sox signed Manny Ramirez or took a chance on Ortiz or traded for Schilling…
Fever Pitch Guy
I agree with your points.
And I would add more.
Red Sox fans need to understand that the core of the team is in place and Breslow, with the experience of this season and the fact that our long-awaited prospects could be out next season, must make the right targeted adjustments to strengthen that core.
This team is ready to contend with the right moves this offseason.
I hope Breslow does a better job than last offseason and the Red Sox at least compete for the playoffs.
Rsox – It’s easy to imagine.
On Manny: “He is awful on defense, they just gave $160M to a DH!!”
On Ortiz: “They already have three first baseman/DH guys in Millar and Giambi and Hillenbrand, why did they get a fourth one?”
On Schilling: “Why did they trade young controllable pitchers for Schilling, he’s 37 years old …. he’s done!”
I’ll add one more …
On Damon: “He can’t play CF, he’s got a noodle for an arm, they just gave $31M for a DH who doesn’t hit for power!”
Rsox
I wonder where all those Red Sox fans are now who were tearing their hair out because they traded Vasquez, Benintendi, and didn’t sign Bogaerts.
Mookie is special.
A generational talent – the only player worth every penny from the 2018 galaxy.
Rsox
I’ll tell you more.
As soon as Bogaerts debuted for the Red Sox, he became one of my favorite players and to be honest, I wanted him to be a Red Sox his entire career.
However, I knew full well that with his defense Bogey would have to move to second base or another position after age 30 and given the fact that he made a one-time discount to Boston in 2019 and his agent was Boras, then hope for a favorable deal the second time was unwise.
I think you’re right when you say the Red Sox dodged a bullet by not signing Bogaerts.
Even a 6 year deal would look bad for this young team considering Story was contracted in the same position Bogie played.
But signing a player for 25 million and transferring him from a premium position makes no sense.
Bogey didn’t hit a ton of home runs and his defense was average at best at certain points.
Did I just see Yoshida compared to Manny, Ortiz, and Damon? Really???
It’s a matter of looking at the whole picture. There are plenty of good players who hit like Yoshida. Brendan Donovan, for example. There are plenty of good players who field like Yoshida. Marcel Ozuna, perhaps? There isn’t anything Yoshida does which is unforgivably horrible — but there also isn’t anything he does hugely well. That leaves him as a fundamentally competent platoon DH, likely the weak link for the Red Sox lineup in 2025 (assuming they fix the 2B and C problems).
If you are happy with the 2024 season, then stay the course. If you believe that the lineup needs some upgrades, then DH is a natural place to look.
Same with Bogaerts. His “not a ton of home runs” and “average” defense was perfectly good in his prime, but his BA is 25 points off his career average, his OBP is down 45 points, and his SLG is down 70 points. If you look at his xwOBA in 2022, the quality of contact did not support his offensive results that year. And it has continued to slide.
Actually that’s not what you saw at all. The reference was the fact that Sox fans complain no matter who they sign/trade for and if this website had existed back in those days the comments from Sox fans would still find fault with the acquisition of each player
bogie – I really think you need to look at what Xander does from 2023-2028 before determining if it was a good decision to not give him that 6 year extension. He’s got a 5.6 WAR during his first two seasons, obviously about 50% less production than expected, but he’s got 4 more years to make up ground.
We were just talking about not pre-judging a player’s future, right?
Okay, that makes more sense. Sure, people can complain about anything, and most players are less than perfect.
Agreed that we need to see the full deal for Bogaerts before we can close the book on it. Not that it stops people from jumping on Bello and Rafaela for failing to tear it up in the first year of their deals….
Still think it is unlikely that he will come anywhere close to justifying the $180M/6yr deal that had been hypothesized. He’s on track for the first two years, but most players fade as they age into their 30s.
Fever Pitch Guy
Of course, I agree with you that we need to look at the period you indicated above.
However, the trend is that Bogaerts’ power has declined each year and he enters his age-32 season with batting averages as he doesn’t hit many home runs.
It is unlikely that he will be Dwight Evans after thirty.
The same can be said about Story.
Let’s give him a chance in 2025, if Trevor stays healthy all season I think he will have a good year and regain his value.
Story has an opt-out at the end of this year. If he is healthy the whole season and plays well, maybe he takes that? Not that I’m betting that way, but if Sale can put together an All-Star season then anything is possible.
tff17
I see that Story as a person is very good and his approach.
There was nothing stopping him from skipping all of 2024 and calmly preparing for 2025.
However, Trevor is a fighter by nature and his return earlier in 2024 than expected – this once again confirms.
His defense is still pretty good at a premium position, but the main goal is to stay healthy through 2025.
He could be a good mentor for the Red Sox youth.
tff17
If you are happy with the 2024 season, then stay the course. If you believe that the lineup needs some upgrades, then DH is a natural place to look.
______________________________________________
1) I can’t be completely satisfied with 2024, given the forecasts that experts gave before the start of the season, but I can note the positive aspects for myself.
2) Depends on how you feel about the DH position – is it a permanent position or a revolving door.
If the DH is a consistent basis, then I see improvement at this position from players of the caliber of Ohtani, Ozuna, Y. Alvarez, Rooker in terms of power and home runs.
If the DH is a revolving door, perhaps the Red Sox can improve it with internal options.
But this isn’t 2018, when the Red Sox only needed a replacement for Big Papi.
They have more problems to solve this offseason and DH is the last problem, if at all this position can be called problematic in the current realities,given the fact that this space is used by many teams in MLB, like a revolving door.
TFF17 = So what you are saying about Statcast is that lots of irrelevant measures are taken, put into a formula and a estimate is cranked out that is supposed to represent something? Here is the problem I have with it since this is beyond overkill.
A fly ball is hit to right field and the outfielder relaxes and takes him time going back for it, is he a lesser outfielder because he didn’t sprint to the ball? See how incredibly absurd these measurements are?
What’s the key point for an outfielder? Running faster or catching the ball? I just showed that running faster in many situations is not a bit critical to the success of the play but you know what is? Catching the ball!!! Everyone young wants to eliminate the critical factor called fielding percentage yet there is NO play that supersedes the impact of that result. Whether you are Usain Bolt or Bartolo Colon if you don’t catch the ball, you failed to do your job. If you catch it, you were successful. It’s an either or situation and only success contributes to winning. The distance can be an assistant to the catch but without the catch the play is a failure.
So young fans who are enamored with measuring everything thinkable in the game, the data is virtually meaningless to the true stats that have been kept for 100 years.
Counting errors establishes who can be the most successful fielding a baseball. If you argue that the farther you run the more you are helping your team, that’s somewhat true but why are you running so far that it’s necessary to catch the ball? Can’t a smarter, slower ball player be more effective? If your answer is no, then you don’t get why smarter players are better than faster players which suggests you either didn’t play or you are not knowledgeable about the game.
I believe Bruin1012 is the person who believes most in watching the player to evaluate their skill and I agree that is more critical than any modern metric, just not the most critical one of making errors. When I pointed out how Abreu hesitates as he approaches the fences I came to that conclusion watching in person and on TV but sometimes you can’t really see it until you slow it down on replay. The two video Fever Pitch Guy provided were perfect examples. Is Abreu a bad fielder because of it? No. Is he a gold glover? No. Go back and watch some true gold glove candidates! They didn’t have to be fast they had to do two things: 1 – catch the ball more often than others and 2 – know the field so well that they didn’t have to hesitate.
It was a long time ago but measuring strides to locations were important for infielders and outfielders. Four steps to second base if you were in spot A and eight steps if you were in the hole by the 3rd baseman. Two steps to the warning tracks and 4 steps beyond that to the fence.
You want to tell me that the modern metrics judge defense properly? I don’t believe it because nothing I just described is part of the fundamentals of the metrics. What the non baseball people measure is speed, routes and the catch. What’s not in the number? What was the actual needed speed to be successful? Did the outfielder make any pre-pitch adjustments to shorten the distance to where the ball was hit? That’s what makes for a good outfielder. The runs saved is completely bogus. Babip was created to try to prove when someone is lucky at hitting. Is there a Babip equivalent for defenders who get lucky? Position themselves inproperly but the ball comes to them anyway? Should that person be down graded? What about when two outfielders collide? Is the one at fault hit with a penalty reflecting they are not a gold glove fielder?
So much lacking that I’ll stick with fielding percentage until something more accurate and consistent is invented. FYI… two different companies create estimates that don’t match because they can’t agree on the components. How is that a standard? And then they have the gall to call their WAG (Wild Ass Guess) which is actually a poor estimate = a stat. What a joke.
Rsox – I’m confused. On the one hand you agree with Fever Pitch Guy that injuries aren’t accounted for but then you turn around and speak poorly of Bogaerts who did well his first year in San Diego considering he had to change positions then the second year he got hurt but still did well considering his injury. In the meantime, you applaud Devers for having a bad year? Why? Because he’s injured just like Bogaerts.
Hardly seems fair to Bogaerts.
FYI… the team hasn’t added an all-star since 2018 when JD came to Boston to fix the hole left by Papi retiring. Dumpster diving has fit since JD.
Fever Pitch Guy – Just to be sure…. you aren’t comparing Yoshida to Manny as a hitter? Right? Just on defense and Manny playing the field when he’s a HOF hitter is different than Yoshida playing the field?
I get your point that people jump to conclusions but Manny, Schilling and Ortiz are exceptions whereas Yoshida and Damon really aren’t and weren’t. I’m not sure the Damon example was a good one. He’s a better fielder than Yoshida but I’m not sure anyone would consider him an elite hitter like Papi and Manny. Just saying…..
Bogie = Bogaerts maintained one of the highest fielding percentages at SS late in his career. SD has already commented that it was a mistake to move him. Your hero deserved the accolades he got during his career as an all-star and his contract has throw people completely out of whack when commenting on him. He had a $20Million a year deal from Dombrowski with a mid-point review to see if he deserved a raise. He did but Dombrowski was gone and Bloom completely mishandled it. My guess is if Dombrowski had still been in Boston Bogey would have got a $5 to $10 million dollar bump for the last 3 years. That’s $15 Million to $30 Million not the ridiculous number that he got in SD. Wouldn’t you have preferred Bogey at $25Million to $30Million than Story at $23.3 Million with his 89 OPS+ for the last three years? Sure if you compare to the SD numbers he looks over-paid but it didn’t have to be that way. That’s on Bloom and the Red Sox for not keeping a home grown star 3 more years at a reasonable cost.
Sagacity
KD 17 , Trollfree welcome to your home harbour…
You can change nicknames, but you cannot change the style of writing your posts.
Are you talking about the percentage of exposure???
And if the fielder’s error did not affect the runs scored, what then?
Name the top three finalists for the 2024 Gold Glove in right field in your opinion, I’m interested, otherwise you’re making a fuss.
Sagacity
How do you think?
Why do players choose Scott Boras as their agent?
to take a discount or maximize your income?
As much as I am a fan of Bogie, he would not have taken the contract you are writing about because his agent is Scott Boras.
And it would be a stretch for me to call a 6/120 contract a discount for a shortstop with average defense (at best) and no pop.
The discount is Pedroia’s 8/100 contract.
The Red Sox are a much better defensive team when Trevor Story is healthy and playing shortstop. He makes everyone better, he has tremendous range and an absolutely elite internal clock. He never seems to be rushed you can see the confidence on the infield increase when he is playing. He’s exceedingly important to this team maximizing their win total in 2025.
Bogey and Story have the same career fielding percentage but that’s where the comparisons end. Story gets to so many more balls then Bogey does their ranges aren’t even close to comparable. Watching Story when healthy he is all over the field his range is elite. When watching Bogey he looks like he’s playing in cement galoshes compared to Story, range wise.
Story is not the hitter that Bogey was at his peak but he is a heavy fly ball mostly pull hitter that when healthy should hit home runs in Fenway. The only thing really holding Story back is health. With good health I think his defense is near elite to elite and he’s a league average hitter with some pop in his bat. The problem is and has been he can’t stay healthy. This year is exceedingly important for him to stay healthy I’m not sure he can but if he does it allows Mayer to play a full season in AAA Worcester show he can stay healthy and most importantly he solidifies the infield defense.
No, you have the wrong idea entirely. An easy fly ball is an easy fly ball – and will be caught almost 100% of the time. Fielders are expected to catch those, and it counts heavily against them if they somehow muff the play.
A line drive in the gap that only the best fielders can reach is caught perhaps 10% of the time. A fielder who reaches it and makes the out gets a big plus. One who doesn’t gets a small minus.
Errors are irrelevant. You either make the play or you don’t. Doesn’t make a game difference whether you break the wrong way and can’t recover (not an error) or reach the ball but let it clank off your glove (an error). Similarly it doesn’t make a difference if you have a noodle arm that the runner easily beats (not an error) or if your throw pulls the receiver off the bag so that the runner reaches (an error).
I recommend you read up on the details of the Statcast metrics yourself rather than relying on excessively brief comments here.
TFF17 – Sale was elite for nearly 10 years before Cora. I fully expected him to bounce back without Cora just like I truly believe Price would have bounced back too except for his heart issue during COVID. Story’s issues don’t have specific links to Cora that I’m aware of like Sale and Price. He simply hasn’t performed in Boston. That’s not exactly grounds for making him a mentor since his 9 year career only has 3 good seasons. Why not just hope he plays better and quit trying to sell him as something he is not. He’s a $10Million a year guy making $23.3Million a year and hurting Boston’s chances of winning while reducing available payroll that could help the team. He’s like Yoshida except Yoshida contributes more on offense. He’s still a massive waste of money but at least he showed up in Boston and played at a level that would be expected coming from the Japanese league. The fact that Bloom grossly over-paid both players are not on the players, they are on Bloom. At this point, with such great young talent, I say DFA the guys and move forward with a young roster and let it grow into a championship. You can’t get the money back and both players participating in the roster limits the young talent playing time.
Breslow should DFA both because those mistakes are on Bloom and he needs to move forward with more talented younger players. Remember, the money rolls off before any of the young stars need to be paid long-term based on proving their worth. No harm, no foul.
Sag – Great post!
Why did I guess you’d bring up the Sale/Cora correlation ;O)
Sag – I brought up Damon only as another example of a not-perfect OF’er who still managed to play a huge role in the team’s success.
There is a very limited number of OF’ers who are really good at both hitting and fielding, so even though Abreu has his flaws he still brings a lot of value.
tff – $160M/6yrs but you get the idea, let’s see how he does over the next 4 years.
As for Rafaela and Bello, HUGE difference …. they were both under team control for many years, they’d still be playing for the Red Sox even if they didn’t sign those contracts. Not the same situation with Xander.
bogie – Yes his power has declined since 2019.
You just said you think Story will regain his value, but Xander won’t? How is that the same?
Rsox – Thank you!
tff – How can you say DH is the best place to look at upgrading in terms of the lineup?
Even assuming Yoshida will not improve from his Red Sox career .775 OPS, he’s still been better than 22 of 30 MLB teams who have WORSE numbers from their DH spot this year.
Yes that’s right, only 8 teams in MLB had a combined better OPS from their DH spot than Yoshida’s.
So I really don’t understand why he’s treated here like he’s 2018 Chris Davis or 2024 DJ LeMahieu?
Obviously the most pressing lineup upgrade needed is 2B!!
Meant to say better than 21 of 30 MLB teams, not 22 teams. LOL
Fever Pitch Guy = I don’t have issues with Abreu except I don’t consider him a gold glove outfielder. He has a very strong and accurate arm. I just wish he had more of the clutch gene. He hit in the middle of the order and his production was bad. I still believe the better hitters should hit at the top of the order and Abreu to me is maybe the 6th or 7th best of 9. I also will be curious to see if Wong will be a one time wonder or a legitimate back-up catcher. So many guys who never did much prior to 2024 had better seasons than expected. Next year should separate the pretenders if they revert back to how they hit prior to 2024.
Damon was an enigma to me. He looked like a good hitter but never broke a 118 OPS+ his whole career. His defense in Boston the four years he was there was excellent. Fan favorite but his hitting was actually his weaker skill than his defense because his defense was quite a bit above average. I think his .300 average often misled people as to how productive he was. Good average, solid OBP but only one year with an OPS over 850 while in Boston. Fun guy to watch.
I think to DFA Story would be huge mistake. He is, by far, the best defensive shortstop the Red Sox have. When healthy he’s near elite to elite defensively. If he can stay healthy, a big if, he solidifies the defense on the infield. He makes everyone better due to his range and defensive savvy. If he can hit to league average he’s an asset to this team. So this is not a guy that you dfa he has value and he’s easily the best defensively at a very important position. Now is worth 23 million a year that’s irrelevant because he is signed to that contract and since we already know that he’s easily the best defensive shortstop Boston can throw out there you don’t dfa Story.
Bruin1012 = So much of the game of baseball isn’t understood by so many fans that believe they know so much.
For example, some fans criticize a player who doesn’t meet a metric related to pitches in the strike zone yet the metric people aren’t even savvy enough about baseball to realize the exact same concept is true for fielding.
Devers goes for far more ground balls that are the equivalent of a pitch off the plate to a batter than Rafaela but nobody seems to mind and they transfer that ignorance to the SS who doesn’t get an opportunity at those balls. Thus Bogey gets blamed for Devers’ bad choices.
It’s astonishing how little the experts know about the game!!. If you send a hitter that is a bit too aggressive to the minors, why doesn’t the fielder who is costing you way more with their lack of self control fielding get sent to the minors or even told to stop it?
I guess there is no justice when the average metric person or fan really doesn’t understand the nuances of the game. They simply like measuring everything.
Saga I’m just curious why would you DFA Story when you already have to pay him 23 million? It really makes no sense even if you don’t agree with me on how good defensively Story there is no one better to take the reins at this point. Mayer is not ready he can’t stay healthy either they could put Rafaela at short but that’s not a good solution when you have a guy who’s better defensively and already signed to a contract. It makes no sense to dfa Story. I could get behind a dfa of Masa more than Story because Masa brings no defensive value to the table still paying him 18 million to play for another team for the league minimum doesn’t make sense either.
Just for clarity I form my opinion about a player based on what I see on the field. I only use advanced statistics to confirm what I’ve seen. Imo this is better than just looking at someone’s fielding percentage and determining if they are good defensively or not. Let me put it a different way if shortstop makes no errors but only has 10 feet of range to around his set position if another shortstop makes a few errors but has 30 feet of range all around who’s the guy do want to play short? I think Bogey is a solid defensive shortstop he makes the routine plays but his range is limited compared to Story.
The Sox are not going to DFA Story and eat the remaining $72.5 million he is owed, this is not the Dave Dombrowski front office that ate the remainder of Pablo Sandoval’s deal. There is still value to be had in Story’s contract if he can manage to stay healthy
I didn’t say it was the BEST place. I said it was a “natural” place.
Second base was easily the worst position last year, but with the trio of Grissom, Campbell, and Meidroth, I don’t think this is the time to be looking for an upgrade there. The catching needs some help, but likely in the form of a “bridge” signing to Teel. Shortstop was weak at times, but Story will hopefully be healthier and Mayer is getting close. You could potentially add a 1B or 3B, but if you were to do so then either Devers or Casas would be moving to DH.
Where would YOU look to add offensive punch to this lineup? I’m hoping for improvement from 1B, 2B, and SS, but that depends on guys who are already in place being healthy and productive. If there are any alternatives to upgrading DH, then I’m not seeing them?
No, Yoshida isn’t horrible. He is a solid lefty platoon DH. But he’s a step down from Tyler O’Neill or Teoscar Hernandez or Alex Bregman offensively — and all three of those are RHH who better complement Devers, Casas, Anthony, and Abreu. Either the Red Sox make no major offensive signings this winter (a real possibility) or Yoshida gets bumped. Right?
They pretty much need to add a catcher (unless you want to see McGuire back in the driver’s seat), but I doubt that would be a major signing.
Bruin, remember also that Mayer has yet to play a single game at AAA. You could jump him to the majors in a pinch, but no reason to go out of your way to do that. He isn’t even on the 40-man roster yet (and doesn’t need to be added this winter), so you can leave him in the minors for half a year and bring him up when Story or another infielder is injured.
Abreu hit .287/.331/.470 with RISP. Only Yoshida hit for a higher BA in that situation. I don’t see Abreu as being a “clutch” player, but neither do I see that as a serious weakness in his game. Better than Wong, for example.
Definitely hope he is merely the 6th or 7th best hitter on the team, as that would imply good seasons from Devers, Casas, Duran, and a couple others. Yoshida is fundamentally a better hitter than Abreu, though that is masked by the fact that he faced more LHP last year.
Abreu reminds me a lot of the 25 year old Trot Nixon, all the way down to the strong arm, plus range, and 7 errors. Nixon’s offensive numbers improved from there (as most players do), and by the age of 27 he was no longer platooning. We’ve talked about the room that Rafaela has to improve. Abreu perhaps doesn’t have quite as much upside, but he should still improve a bit as he gains experience and reaches his prime.
The problem for Abreu is the guy coming for his job. I like Abreu he brings a lot to the table if he was at the back of the lineup in the 7th or 8th spot he was solid offensively. He shouldn’t have been asked, nor was he ready to be thrust into middle or front of this lineup. I can easily see Abreu continue to improve he’s always going to have swing and miss in his game but he hits the ball hard when he makes contact and plays good right field defense. He’s a solid player that should continue to get better as he gets more big league experience.
The issue for him is Roman Anthony whom I could easily see wining the starting right field job out of spring training. Roman Anthony is really young but the talent is massive. I think he might have a little adjustment period but once he does my belief is he hits, he gets on base, and he hits for power, while playing an above average defensive right field. His talent is immense and the Red Sox are going to have to play this guy on a daily basis if not right out of spring training soon after. This is the reason I think Breslow is going to shop Abreu around and very possibly move him in the off-season. I’m not convinced he’s going to be Red Sox come spring training.
TFF17 – I bet there are lots of questionable suggestions for O’Neill. What is the value of a guy likely to not exceed 120 games in a season and who would want him in a multi-year contract. If he gets to February with no big offers, I think it’s safe to say EVERYONE is afraid of his track record. You’ll need a Bloom to show up somewhere for him to get 5 years, unless there are special clauses in the contract reducing his pay for a lack of games per year. Again, fun guy to watch or put on your fantasy team in leagues where you can pull him with a day’s notice due to injury. Otherwise, if weekly leagues, it’s hard to touch him since he gets hurt on Tuesday a lot!! Yep, I got one or two games out of him on several occasions in a weekly league. My bad after the first one!!
Fever Pitch Guy – Let’s hope Breslow changes his pattern and he does not trade away their best player and give them money to take him!!!
Bruin1012 – Just curious. What specific stat or observation has you convinced that Story is the best SS in the organization?
We look at Story very differently. I see a guy who had some talent but it took him 5 years to get to the MLB from High School and then another 3 years to get to an all-star level. That’s nearly a decade. At 25, he was very good.making the all-star team and putting up 3 consecutive OPS+s in the 120s during his 25 to 27 year old seasons. He averaged around 10 errors a year.
Age 28 was his third year in both hitting and fielding decline and then he got a timely trade to the Red Sox because Bloom wasn’t a qualified GM. The downward direction has not really stopped in the three years in Boston. His once high .280 average dropped to .251 at age 28 and since then it’s been .238, 203 and finally his best since the trade of .255. The .255 2024 stats showed his OPS+ peaking at 104 which is basically league average for $23.3 Million a year.
Since coming to Boston his defense has improved in that his fielding % is in the upper .98os versus his career number being about 10 points lower. It’s probably since he doesn’t get to count any balls to his right thanks to Devers.
He came to Boston with questions about his arm strength but all that got lost in the mess that is SS in Boston. Ceddanne Rafaela got 281 chances at SS with 9 errors and a fielding percentage of .968 with league average being .972. Some would consider that good for a player that hadn’t played the position before but clearly it didn’t match 94 total chances in 2024 or his 141 total chances in 2023 but to be fair the difference was minimal and by no means is Story an elite fielder.
Since we have a 3B that averages 16 or more points below league average in his fielding, should the SS spot quibble of a differnce less that four times smaller than that? Shouldn’t the best hitter with a close to comparable fielding percentage at SS be the player that starts for Boston?
You have an outfielder that can play SS, you have a 32 year old SS who hasn’t been good in 3 to 4 years, you have a minor league player of the year who proved he could play there and you have an often injured 4th pick in the draft with improving numbers in the last year since being drafted.
If the future is one of the young guys, what is Story doing other than slowing the growth of the young players. If he plays rather than the others and Devers still plays third does it matter who really plays SS? The defense will still be near the bottom whether they count the errors or not.
I don’t know who should be the SS but clearly your perception of Story being elite is far from the truth based on the numbers. Even during his 3 years of being good out of his nine seasons, he was never more than above league average. NOBODY thinks of Story as the equivalent of Chapman or Arenado at 3B. They are elite like you are calling Story. He’s simply above league average and not terribly different to the other excellent SSs on the team.
Give the spot to the guy that hits unless Devers goes to DH then defense matters again and quality of defense needs to be completely reviewed again. Otherwise, close is good enough as long as you can hit.
In the old days we called it a tryout!!! Novel idea!!
Yes we do look at Story very differently. I really don’t care that Story arrived but for the record he was 23 when he arrived with a really solid rookie season. Much better than Rafaela’s rookie season by the way at the same age. He did have a sophomore jinx season where he played much worse but I don’t want to digress into a mass of statistics.
When I say that Story is near elite to elite I mean that based on who’s playing now. He is an elite level defensive shortstop or at least on the limited amount of time we have seen him since he’s been in Boston. He has an elite level internal clock imo and he makes the infield defense much better. This is based on my observations. It just looks like the infield defenders are much more comfortable when Story is at short that’s just my opinion and not measured by any measurable stat.
Let me be clear I’m not arguing this was a good signing by Chaim Bloom. The writing was on the wall he had a damaged arm and he shouldn’t have been signed to the contract he was, especially when you look at the spike in throwing errors in 2021. It might just be me but I completely discount the year 2020 it is an outlier year and it’s impossible to know how someone’s psyche was affected in that year. That is his outlying year fielding percentage wise and then in 2021 his fielding percentage was second lowest of his career but here’s the thing of his 14 errors in 2021 11 of them were throwing errors far and away. It’s likely that he was experiencing arm issues at that time. Since he signed his contract with Boston, when he has played his defense has been elite. Granted he hasn’t played enough to qualify Volpe is likely to win the gold glove defensively this year and a healthy Story imo is better defensively. He’s a difference maker for this team defensively.
Ceddane Rafaela did play shortstop in the minor leagues. This isn’t the first time he’s played that position. In fact on another site people were saying he was elite defensively in center and at shortstop. I argued while he can play short he’s somewhat careless and not nearly as good defensively at short as he is in center based on minor league observations. I have no doubt that Rafaela can improve defensively but why put him in a position he’s clearly not the best defensive player on the team when he’s a gold glove caliber centerfielder.
The fact is Story is still signed to that contract and he’s the best option at shortstop defensively if he can stay healthy. This is the big if and the team better have an option ready if he gets injured. Perhaps they move Rafaela back to short and let Anthony play center or they try Campbell at short if Mayer looks good at AAA maybe they place him at short. They need to have contingency plans for sure but if healthy Trevor Story should play shortstop he’s clearly the best option and it makes zero sense to dfa him zero.
Sagacity
Rsox – I’m confused. On the one hand you agree with Fever Pitch Guy that injuries aren’t accounted for but then you turn around and speak poorly of Bogaerts who did well his first year in San Diego considering he had to change positions then the second year he got hurt but still did well considering his injury. In the meantime, you applaud Devers for having a bad year? Why? Because he’s injured just like Bogaerts.
——————————————————–
1) Bogaerts didn’t change positions in his first year with the Padres.
2) Story changed his position in his rookie season for the Red Sox from shortstop to second base out of respect for Bogie,.
I understand why Xander wanted to stay in the premium position to maximize his earnings after the 2022 opt-out.
He saw very well what contracts SS received in free agency and his agent was Scott Boras.
3) Bogaerts didn’t switch positions from the Padres in favor of the best defender in Kim in his debut season with the Padres – is this selfishness or Padres tactics?
4) From your statements, it appears that Bogaerts is affected by injuries and can’t be touched, while Story isn’t affected by injuries and can be DFAed, because he blocks prospects.
Story, after returning earlier than expected in 2024, posted a 104 Wrc+ on offense with above-average defense and a Fielding .989.(You deliberately ignore his numbers because you don’t like Story.).
Rafaela wasn’t as good at shortstop defensively and was worse offensively in 2024 than Story, Mayer had yet to make his Triple AAA debut, and Campbell played a dozen games at shortstop in Triple AAA.
And you want DFA Story??? Seriously???
5) Unlike you, I will give both Bogey and Story a chance in 2025.
Fever Pitch Guy
Of course, I will give both players a chance.
But, if you choose at the moment, what would your choice be –
3 years of Story with refusal after 2025 or 9 years of Bogey?
(Let me remind you, they are the same age)
bogie – Of course I wouldn’t want Xander’s current contract. As I mentioned earlier, it was the suggested 2023-2028 $160M contract that wouldn’t have been a mistake.
Fever Pitch Guy
Didn’t the Red Sox offer Bogaerts $160m and he turned it down?
Bogie – No, not prior to his becoming a free agent. They offered him $90M which wasn’t much more than his old contract would have paid him.
After the Red Sox gave Story $140M, Xander wanted $160M. The Red Sox refused. So between the insulting $90M offer and the much larger free agent offers he received, the Red Sox were no longer an option.
I do believe the Sox offered $160M when he was a free agent, but by then it was too little too late.
Rsox
Most Red Sox fans forget that Story has an opt-out after 2025 and if he has a good next season, he could opt out of 2 years, so, DFAing Story now as some posters advise, would be incompetent on the part of the Red Sox.
Bogaerts wanted $200M. Never said so outright, but that is what Boras’ comps were implying. Maybe he would have settled for $180M, but anything over $150M would have been a stretch. Don’t we have enough bad contracts already?
Note also that the Red Sox offer of $90M was said to be “more than $100M short”.
tff17
Bogaerts wanted $200M. Never said so outright, but that is what Boras’ comps were implying. Maybe he would have settled for $180M, but anything over $150M would have been a stretch. Don’t we have enough bad contracts already?
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I’m trying to put together a logical chain based on the facts that are documented:
1) We have a Bogey extension in 2019 for 6 years/120m with a refuse after 2022 (I don’t see this contract as a hometown deal like many Red Sox fans do,
see contracts Pedroia, Acuña –
these are discounted contracts)
2) There was an offer from Bogey during spring training or at the beginning of 2022 for 90 million)
3) There was an offer after 2022 for 160 million, Bogey refused
4) In the 2023 offseason, shortstops such as Turner signed an 11 yr’s/300 m deal and Swanson signed a 7 yr’s/177 m deal.
If we assume the Red Sox didn’t offer Bogaerts 6 yrs/160, looking at the 4th point that Swanson and Turner got, I have serious doubts that the Bogaerts in FA would have accepted the above amount…
I think that entering his 30th summer season, Bogey was looking for the most lucrative contract, based on point 4, the fact that Scott Boras is an agent and this was the last chance to get a very lucrative contract in his career.
I think Bogaerts was looking for a minimum of 200 million in the FA based on my logical deductions above.
The question is different.
When you already have a shortstop signed for another 5 years in Story, should you sign another shortstop for 160-200 million and move him to second base?
tff17
When you already have a shortstop signed for another 5 years in Story, should you sign another shortstop for 160-200 million and move him to second base?
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I think it’s stupid. (Which is what the Padres did with the shortstops they already had on their roster)
I understand why Bloom signed Story in 2022.
He wanted to bolster a premium position on defense and as insurance if Bogey opted out after 2022 or didn’t sign an extension.
I think Dombrowski made a mistake when he extended Bogey in 2019 rather than working on the Mookie extension.
This had a ripple effect with all the pitchers in Sale, Price, Eovaldi, plus Martinez’s contract.
Dombrowski had to realize that you couldn’t sign all the homegrown players and hand out bloated contracts to 30-year-old pitchers without replenishing the roster with cheap homegrown talent.
It will hit you in the ass sooner or later.
But you have to extend the best homegrown player, which was Mookie, not Bogaerts.
I get the impression that many Red Sox fans have become so spoiled that they think management will throw away big money on every player they want.
This barrel isn’t bottomless, as Metz showed in 2023…
tff17
The only thing that the Red Sox management must do is to be honest: “We will not sign 30-year-old players with bloated contracts, but rather we want to mix homegrown talent with experienced players on 2-3 year contracts and if there is a need to sign a player for a longer period, we will game”
Such an agenda would be fair to all Red Sox fans.
Bogaerts could have gotten a larger deal on the first contract, BUT he wanted an opt-out after his age 29 season – the best time to land a mega-deal.
Agreed that anything over $150M didn’t make sense for the Red Sox, and I needed to stretch some assumptions to make even that work.
Not sure that Bogaerts had anything to do with Betts, but signing Betts to a lifetime deal would clearly have been the right move. Better than Bogaerts or Devers.
bogie – As has been stated by many people over the years, if a team is not ever willing to risk an overpay then they are excluding themselves from acquiring or retaining 95% of the most talented players.
One of John Henry’s biggest regrets, and he actually publicly acknowledged it, was the the lowball offer he gave Lester …. who was 30 at the time he left.
It’s really quite simple, is the goal to maximize profits or is the goal to win? Clearly since 2019 the goal has been to maximize profits.
That feels awfully specific for communications…
I’m not certain what their plan is, but they have enough quality depth (certainly on the offense) that they should be aiming high on any future acquisitions, bloated contracts or not. Signing a bunch of mediocrities doesn’t put you over the top.
tff – Well, when I repeated to someone else the plan ownership gave …. I got attacked for it.
At the risk of getting attacked again (not by you, you’re a good guy) the plan has always been to wait until the young prospects become established and then spend money & prospects to supplement the young core.
That’s what many people even here have believed, align the acquisitions of talented players at their peak with the core of young homegrown prospects at their peak. It’s a good concept, if it works as planned. What most of us have an issue with is ownership not even trying to win until that scenario comes to fruition ….. if it ever does.
I agree that is basically the plan, and the internal talent on the team peaks in 2027. However I disagree that this means they need to wait until 2027 to make any major moves. They can reasonably add a top pitcher THIS year (they have the budget and the need) as long as they believe that pitcher will still be contributing in 2028.
I don’t think that 2025 is an “all in” year, but it could be the start of a multi year playoff run that peaks in 2027 if played right.
I don’t pay as much attention to what they say as you do, because I don’t expect them to tell the whole truth. In most cases I expect it is all fluff. (I do trust Breslow more than Kennedy.) Whatever they have said in the past, we will know whether they choose to contend this year by their actions, not by their words. Last year’s team projected to 81 wins and finished with 81 wins. Next year’s team had better project to 90+ if they want us to take them seriously.
tff – I’m thinking if at least 3 of CMAT have strong rookie seasons next year, 2026 would be the GFIN season. But you could be right, if they struggle next year then we may have to wait until 2027.
Sure they could add a top SP and top reliever this offseason …. but will they spend the money or prospects to do so?
Oh I never expect the truth from them, but when they share bad news (ie: 2024 payroll will probably be lower, and they will not try to win until at least 2026) I think there is less reason for them to lie about it.
I agree with you on Bres, I just hope he doesn’t get influenced by Kennedy, Werner etc to become as dishonest as them.
BTW – Did you see the latest NESN ratings? The deniers are gonna hate this, but ratings have dropped nearly 42% over the past 3 years including a 6% drop this year. That could certainly influence ownership to change their plans.
boston.com/sports/boston-red-sox/2024/10/19/red-so…
“The Red Sox averaged a 2.47 local rating on NESN this season, down 6 percent from a 2.64 in 2023.
The Red Sox had a 2.65 rating on NESN in 2022, and a 4.18 in ‘21, which happens to be the last time they made the postseason.”
No reason they can’t be competitive in 2025. Probably not the best team in the league, but at least playoff bound. They aren’t that far away.
They have very few free agency losses before 2028 (Houck), and they have a lot of young talent. While individual career arcs vary, the team as a whole should continue to get better until they start losing players. After that it depends on how many they can sign long term and how well they can replace the departures, but 2027 definitely ought to be stronger than 2025 or 2026.
If you want a championship, you don’t limit yourself to a single year, you arrange for a window of contention that is 3-5 years long. Hard to keep it open longer than that, without a year or two to reset in between, but you need to think in terms of multiple seasons.
For the current iteration, they should try to be competitive each year from 2025 to 2028. Longer if they can sustain it. No reason they can’t do so, it will just require that Henry spend some of his money.
Didn’t see the NESN numbers, thanks for passing them long. That is a big part of the FSG revenues, and will continue to decline unless the team decides to compete again.
Good reason for Henry to spend now.
NESN needs to keep Lou Merloni with O’Brien on tv. Youk and Middlebrooks are kind of bland. I’d love to see Kevin Millar become a regular on the games too
Fever Pitch Guy
bogie – As has been stated by many people over the years, if a team is not ever willing to risk an overpay then they are excluding themselves from acquiring or retaining 95% of the most talented players.
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I didn’t say you shouldn’t sign or overpay for star players, but sooner or later you will find yourself in a situation where you have to make a choice in favor of one or another homegrown player.
In such a situation, you need to choose the right player so that this error does not affect the future roster, of course, easier said than done.
The 2020 Red Sox found themselves in just such a situation, where they could go over the threshold line for the third time in a row, and there was no homegrown, cheap talent on the horizon to plug the holes immediately.
Let’s break down their 2020 roster if Mookie and Price were still a Red Sox.
SP
Sale – $25.6m AAV, 5 Yr’s
Price – $31.0m AAV, 3 Yr’s
Eovaldi – $17.0m AAV, 3 Yr’s
Rodriguez – $8.3m AAV 2nd Arb
82 million allocated for 4 starting pitchers
DH Martinez -$22.0m AAV, 3 Yr’s
SS Bogaerts – $20.0m AAV, 6 Yr’s, opt-out after 2022
RF Betts – $27.0m AAV, 3rd Arb
CF JBJ – $11.0m AAV, 4th Arb (S2)
LF Benny – $5.0m AAV, (1st and 2nd Arb)
C Vazquez – $4.5m AAV, 3 Yr’s
1B Moreland – $3.0m AAV, 1 Yr
2B Pedroia – $13.75m AAV (irrelevant losses), injury
3B Devers – last pre-arb
107 million lineup
Bullpen
Workman – $3.5m AAV last arb
Barnes – $3.1m AAV 2nd arb
Hembree – $1.6m AAV 2nd arb
Brasier – last arb
Taylor – pre-arb
Walden – pre-arb
Brewer – pre-arb
D.Hernandez – pre-arb
$196.5m allocated to 15 players (with contracts, arbitration and irrelevant losses) + 25 players pre-arbitration 15 million = $211.5 m AAV (This doesn’t include upgrading second base, if you were willing to play Chavis or M. Hernandez, needing a closer, a 5th SP, a second catcher, or upgrading the bullpen.)
The first tax threshold in 2020 was $208 million.
Farm as of 2020:
Houck – Triple A
Dalbec – Triple A
Duran – double AA
Casas – A+
Bello – A+
Rafaela – low
bogie – I totally agree Mookie was the one they should have extended. Since they didn’t plan to keep Xander, he should have been traded along with Price in order to lower the CBT payroll. It didn’t have to be Mookie. For that I blame Bloom, he was awful at evaluating MLB players and never had a solid longterm plan.
Obviously the Dodgers had a longterm plan (Ohtani & Yamamoto) which is why they let other star players leave and did virtually nothing in the 2022-2023 offseason.
Fever Pitch Guy
Breslow must make a proper assessment of the talent that is already on the roster, pair it with the prospects that are on the horizon and add free agents that will strengthen this team.
Only in this case will we be able to talk about a sustainable fight for the World Series.
You’re right when you talk about the Dodgers as a model for a sustainable franchise.
They added the free agents they lacked to make the final push.
And they have a good chance, if they win the World Series, to repeat their success next year.
bogie – This offseason there will be at least one major trade by Breslow in which he gives up at least one talented young player. I pray he makes the right choice.
Fever Pitch Guy
I hope, it won’t be Anthony and Duran.
The rest of the blue chips could be in the conversation, if this move lands the Red Sox an Ace.
Fever Pitch Guy
The Red Sox have Story and Rafaela at shortstop, Arias and Cespedes on the depth chart, Mayer with his injuries being a concern, and the feeling that Arias or Cespedes could break out next season and have a good season in the minor leagues (both righties).
Catcher position – Garcia and Brannon could be ready by 2027.
If Teel is in the deal, I’m not too worried about the catcher position.
The Red Sox could add a good catcher for 2-3 years to help with Wong in 2025.
The outfield isn’t anything to worry about at all, as the Red Sox already have a surplus of outfielders – the only untouchable one being Anthony, it feels like he could be elite.
I think in a year when all of our pitchers on the farm have made even more progress, we will have consistent starting pitching help and this issue wоn’t be as pressing as it was in previous years.
Fever Pitch Guy
my hopes on the 2025:
SP:
1. Ace – FA or Trade
2. Houck
3. Bello
4. Giolito
5. Crawford
6. Fitts, Priester, Dobbins
Lineup
1 Duran CF / Rafaela CF
2. Story SS ( If Story is injured, Rafaela can replace him )
3. Devers 3B
4. Casas 1B
5. RHH – power bat LF FA (Anthony later if he doesn’t hack spring training.)
6.Wong C/ 2nd catcher (2-3 Yr’s, If Teel is involved in a SP deal)
7 Yoshi DH
8. Grissom/ Hammy 2B (Campbell could be later, if he doesn’t crack Spring Training or is in a SP deal).
9. Rafaela RF ( If Abreu is in the SP deal)
Bench;
Refsnyder 4 OF, Romy UTL, Sogard INF, 2nd catcher FA
Bullpen;
Closer – FA, high leverage – Hendriks, Slaten, lefty – FA(
It would be a great move to acquire a lefty like Martin) , Whitlock ( 2021 role depending on what he can offer the Red Sox after 2024 surgery ), middle lever – Guerrero, Kelly, Penrod, Weissert, Booser, mid starters – Criswell, Winckowski.
You can vary the composition depending on the moves in the off-season.
Not sure there is room in the pen for two FA acquisitions? Not that I would object if you found a way to make it work. I would aim for a high-leverage lefty as the priority, as well as an ace starter by FA or trade.
If the Red Sox were to trade Abreu and Crawford for some of that high-end pitching, while resigning O’Neill and Pivetta (possibly on a one-year QO), then you could field a 40-man roster of:
22 pitchers:
SP: **Ace**, Houck, Bello, Pivetta, Giolito, (Priester), (Fitts)
RP: **Ace**, Hendriks, Slaten, Bernardino, Criswell, Whitlock, Guerrero, Winckowski, (Fulmer), (Penrod), (Shugart), (Kelly), (Booser), (Weissert), (Campbell)
18 position players:
C: Teel, Wong
IF: Casas, Grissom, Story, Devers, Hamilton, (Campbell), (Mayer)
OF: Duran, Rafaela, O’Neill, (Anthony)
DH: Yoshida, Refsnyder
UT: Sogard, (Meidroth), (R. Gonzalez)
Some flexibility on the 40-man roster at the start of the season, as the minor leaguers don’t need to be added to the 40 until they are activated. Which is good because there are a few minor leaguers who DO need to be added but are probably not ready to contribute yet.
tff17
I overlooked Meidroth, who had a good 2024 season in Triple AAA, looks like he could contribute in 2025.
I like the idea of trading for a top quality pitcher.
However, I don’t know about giving a qualifying offer to Pivetta, even for a year (this is as a last resort if the Red Sox do not plan to acquire a SP in FA or if the trade doesn’t take place).
When signing a free agent pitcher to a three year deal, you expect roughly half the value to come in the first year. So I don’t believe $21M is too much for a league average starter on a one year deal.
I believe Pivetta is a better pitcher than Crawford (though they are both fly ball pitchers who would fare better in a larger park), and signing Pivetta would free Crawford to be used in trade.
Just a thought – I won’t insist on it – but I will be unhappy if the actual 40 man roster is weaker than my off-the-cuff suggestion.
tff17
I believe Pivetta is a better pitcher than Crawford (though they are both fly ball pitchers who would fare better in a larger park), and signing Pivetta would free Crawford to be used in trade.
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Red Sox 2025 Strengthening Needs:
Rotation ace or solid number 2, closer, high-leverage left reliever, second catcher, right-handed power bat.
I see both Pivetta and O’Neil (35 – 40 m AAV) on your list, if the Red Sox have a limited budget up to the first line of the tax threshold – approximately 60+ million for acquisitions, it is not clear to me how they can satisfy all their needs which are listed above.
SP – FA ($25 m AAV, maybe trade )
CL – FA ($15 m AAV)
RPL – FA ($8-10m AAV)
2nd catcher -FA ($5m AAV)
RHH – FA ($15 m AAV)
I don’t see a place on this list for Pivetta and even if they trade Crawford and Abreu for a good pitcher.
Pivetta doesn’t matter at 21 million – it’s a wash and it will eat up a third of the money allocated for 2025.
In this case, it is better to allocate this money to an ace or a clouser in a FA.
For example, Fried $25-27 AAV, the Red Sox do not have long term contracts with starting pitchers and this may be the only long contract.
tff17
Which of the SP compositions listed above would you choose for 2025?
First option:
1. Ace or 2nd SP in trade (Crawford,Abreu)
2. Houck 1st arb ($3.75 m AAV)
3. Bello ($9.167m AAV)
4. Giolito ($19.25m AAV)
5.Pivetta ($21.0m QO)
6. Priester, Fitts – pre-arb
Second option:
1. Ace – FA ($25-27m AAV)
2.Houck – 1st arb ($3.75m AAV)
3 2nd SP – trade Crawford, prospect except Anthony
4. Bello – ($9.167m AAV)
5.Giolito – ($19.25m AAV)
6. Piester, Fitts – pre-arb
From the Roster Resource numbers, I was under the impression that they have $90M under the first threshold to work with. What is your source for the $60M?
$21M each for O’Neill and Pivetta, $40M for the ace starter and ace reliever (save a little in $$$ if one comes via trade), and $5M for that backup catcher. A full budget, but if all goes well there is room to trade from excess at the deadline.
tff – As you probably know, I’ve been a huge supporter of Pivetta since the illegitimate 2020 season. I’d love to have him return at a reasonable price, but I don’t think he will finally become a sub-4 ERA pitcher after turning 32 ….. not in Boston anyway. His numbers this year didn’t improve at all from last year, they were practically identical.
Crawford at Age 29 probably won’t improve either, and he obviously regressed by giving up twice as many HR in just 54 more innings. He gave up 8 more HR on the road than at home, so I don’t think Fenway was a factor for him.
It’s really tough to pinpoint what happened to him this season. He started great, as expected with the new Bailey approach, then he crashed in May, then he improved considerably in June and in July, then he was atrocious in August and September. I don’t think he simply tired out at the end of the season.
So what’s the logical solution here?
Let Pivetta walk, trade Crawford, and then sign Burnes & Snell & Fried and then call it a day.
Sound good?
tff – Is that your wish list, or do you think it can actually happen?
You saw the report that the Sox are highly unlikely to offer QO’s to either Pivetta or O’Neill, right?
Pivetta should rank ahead of Giolito. A better pitcher, even if Giolito were 100% healthy. A +5.4 WAR over the last three years vs. =2.7 WAR for Giolito. Totally laughable if they pay $38M for half a year of Giolito, while letting Pivetta walk because they don’t think he is worth $21M.
I want them to get a true ace, not a “squint and pretend he’s a #2” guy. Pivetta is as good as any of those pretend #2s, and he only costs $21M, not the load of prospects or $45M/3yrs it would take to sign somebody who is at best a tad better.
Check your dollar figure? I agree that $60M to work with would be a squeeze for all those needs, but I wouldn’t go cheap on the #3/#4 starter if trying to contend.
Crawford’s velocity fell over the course of the season. I had high hopes for him after 2023, but his stuff isn’t good enough to survive at 92. Plays much better when he sits at 94.
Age 29 isn’t young. Plenty of players don’t have effective careers any longer than that. I don’t think Crawford’s career is done, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he shows up injured in the spring. A. 2 mph drop in velocity is concerning.
Assume you mean one of those three aces, not all three? I like that one. And expect that Crawford or Abreu could be traded for the relief ace we need.
I saw that report, I just disagree with it. You don’t shed quality talent when trying to contend, and in this situation a one year deal for those two makes more sense than bringing either back for three (even if the AAV is a little lower).
Not really a “wish list”, just a framework for what might be possible, and the direction that I think they should head. I’m assuming Breslow can put together something better than I thought of.
tff – As much as I detested the Gio signing, a totally healthy Gio is better than Pivetta.
Gio got Cy votes during that really good 3-year stretch from 2019-2021.
Pivetta hasn’t even sniffed a Cy vote. If he is going to improve, it likely won’t be with the Sox.
Giolito hasn’t been healthy since 2021 and won’t be healthy next year… Doesn’t matter to me what he did in the past, sorry.
tff – That was my wish list, I would be extremely surprised if the Sox sign any of them. They may get Flaherty though.
If the Sox are truly serious about contending next year, they will trade for Helsley. That would be the sign.
tff – You just pointed out another reason why I believe the Sox saying at least 2026 was the truth.
Because you’re right, you don’t let Pivetta walk if you’re planning to contend next year.
Flaherty is another injury concern, struggling to rebound between starts right now.
They either choose to contend or they don’t. No half measures. If you put together an 81 win team (Fangraphs depth charts pre-season) and end up with 81 wins, it isn’t hard to connect the dots. They need some major improvements to get to the 95 win range that Kennedy was talking about. Ought to be pretty obvious by February whether or not they’ve closed that gap.
tff – That’s why I think the Sox will sign Flaherty, they love getting a slight discount on pitchers with health concerns. His longtime friendship with Gio also helps.
Also friends with Max Fried.
Leo, you said that there was no information on what the injury was, but you put a recovery time in your article? Why? When you don’t know, just say so. We would respect that much more than what you just did.
There is a HUGE difference in recovery time between surgery for a type 2 SLAP tear of the labrum and for a type 3 SLAP tear of the labrum. 4-6 months vs 8-10 months. If it is a type 4 of the throwing arm, the player may not return at all as we have seen with multiple pitchers.
If its a Bankart tear, typically from a dislocated shoulder, we saw how long the recovery time can be with Bellinger and that was not his throwing arm. It can take 9-12 months to recover full use of your shoulder. Even after that full range of motion and strength is effected.
As you said, McClain was not his throwing arm and it was nearly 6 months between surgery and his first game appearances in the AFL.
If its the throwing arm it it can be substantially longer and when a player HOPES to return is rarely when they actually return.
Give Bobby another chance and he will win MVP!!!
Masa is just a bad fit on this team. I think he can hit and could be a fit on another team. The Red Sox have absolutely no room in the outfield for him. They already have Duran, Rafaela, Abreu, and they have a cheap option on Refsnyder.I think with a good spring there’s a great chance that Anthony breaks with the team. They just don’t need him his DH spot would be better served with a right handed power bat if they aren’t moving Devers off third which I don’t think they will.
Perhaps there’s a bad contract swap of some sort available with Arizona. It’s hard to see Monty not being moved after the comments by the owner. Maybe something can be figured out there and Boston can go get power hitting righty in free agency. I just know that Masa isn’t a good fit on the Boston Red Sox.
Yoshida was never a good fit for the Sox, you would think at worst he could play LF in Fenway but they seem reluctant to even do that. That being said, the top prospects were LHB before he signed, lineup was LH heavy, etc.
For potential fits: maybe Pittsburgh or Miami if the Sox eat a good chunk of the deal and take a lotto ticket prospect back or something.
I also think Anthony is on his way to starting the season in Boston so they need to free up a roster spot.
Bruin – There’s no reason to move him unless it’s to make room for a better hitter already on the team, like Casas or Devers.
I do agree swapping him for an overpaid pitcher makes sense, assuming Bailey thinks he can fix him. Monty is not the answer though, not for just one year.
Fever Pitch Guy – Yoshida needs to go for the very reason you stated. The Red Sox need a better DH and if it can’t be Devers then it needs to be someone with skills more similar to O’Neill than Yoshida and the new guy needs to stay healthy. I think there will be several free agents that could qualify but in the end it needs to be Devers some time down the road, sooner rather than later..
No offense to Yoshida or Story but they both are clogging the roster. Cut them loose, eat the money and build without them. There are typically 13 hitters that get rostered at the MLB level on the 26 man roster. Right now we have:
1 – Teel
2 – Wong
3 – Casas
4 – Grissom
5 – Campbell
6 – Hamilton
7 – Mayer
8 – Devers
9 – Anthony
10 – Duran
11 – Rafaela
12 – Abreu
13 – Refsnyder
That’s without Story or Yoshida.
Would the team be competitive without the two of them? YES.
Can one of the 13 listed be swapped for another young player to have one fewer OF and one more corner Infielder? Yes. Can the new Corner Infielder be a powerful right handed hitter that could DH or play 3B so Devers can have more rest? Yes.
I love the new young guys and all Story and Yoshida do is remind us of a time past that sucked. We need to tear off the rear view mirror and focus on the future.
Lou Merloni’s targets for the offseason… Fernando Tatis Jr, Teoscar Hernandez, Tanner Scott, Max Fried, and Corbin Burnes.
Any bets on how many of these five the Red Sox walk away with?
A max of 2 and a min of 0.
tff – I think Scott is a possibility. If not, Helsley would be a good acquisition.
Tatis is on the trading block?
Fever PItch Guy = Is Tatis similar to O’Neill? When healthy, a heck of a player but he’s too much like Bob Horner for me!! If that much money is involved we need no less than 150 starts.
Do you think Helsley won’t be offered something from STL?
Scott as the set-up for Hendriks would be good!! Probably lower cost than other closers.
No on Tatis. He is not on trading block.
Pads – Yeah I have no idea where Loomer got that from, maybe he was hitting the bottle at the time. LOL!
I searched quite a bit, all I saw was one Twitter post about Tatis requesting a trade 5 months ago ….. not one other source was found indicating he would be traded or wanted to be traded. And why would he? The fans absolutely love him and he seems extremely happy there.
I think he will come back and be a better hitter than he was this year, but that’s forever more the reason to trade him. We have too many lefties and he takes up a roster spot. It’s cheaper to trade him and fill his spot with young talent. Who knows if that is possible with the injury…
Why are the Red Sox not hiring Roger Beshens? Nobody teaches his Football Slider better than him. Thousands of pitchers, coaches and others have read Roger say. Here’s My Grip, Tilt and Wrist action, Here’s the On center grip, throw it like a football, 90 degree angle tilt and Stiff Wrist. What pitch do you think is being taught in these so called bogus pitching labs and schools? It’s the RBFS. Roger Beshens doesn’t even need technology to teach it although he tracks every slider from baseball savant and tells ML pitchers, ex, too much vert, you need to shape it this way more and….This is simple for him because he threw his football slider over 20,000 times.
It’s unbelievable pro’s are not even recognizing most cutters are just a traditional slider, Remember Verlander’s slider in Detroit? It just had some late horizontal on it, there was no 2 plane break. Then Verlander in Houston with Cole, Morton learned the Roger Beshens Football Slider. The Red Sox already proved, Boddy has no clue what he’s doing. NONE, Cincy had the same problem, Now that Roger Beshens consulted with Strom ALL 2024 and helped Ryne Nelson in the process, teams should be thinking very seriously about hiring Roger Beshens. Imagine hiring Roger Beshens NOW as head of pitching development, or rover the whole organizaton by Spring Training would be better than the Dodgers and Yankees.