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How about Verdugo on a cheap one-year deal coming off a bad year? I’m just done with the old man Tauchman experience. He will get injured again. It’s inevitable.

Let’s be honest. He signed with the team that made him the best offer.

I mean a veteran who has shown some success in the majors.

"How did you handle getting unwanted advice from more established Japanese players when you really just wanted to figure it out on your own?"

Don't we have that in Tristan Peters and Dustin Harris?

Was going to mention his baserunning but wasn’t going to blame that all on his old age, considering he probably came back too early from that hamstring strain and also tore his meniscus. Either way, he isn’t going to be getting any faster.

He can also barely play the outfield and is painful to watch him run.

Tauchman was limited to 93 games last season due to injuries. He just turned 35 and he is only going to decline further. If he wants to accept a minor league deal, fine.

Honestly, I’m fine with going cheap in the OF for now as long as they add another decent SP and leverage reliever. I think some combination of Benintendi/Baldwin/Pereira/Kelenic can hold it down in the corners for the time being.

Kelenic is on a minor league deal…give him playing time in Charlotte first and see if you can fix him there. If he performs well, then find him a spot on the major league roster. I don’t understand the desire to hand a guy who has been bad in the majors across multiple seasons and who was terrible in AAA a starting spot. Pereira is a different story because he actually was good in AAA and hasn’t had a lot of major league opportunities. With the lack of options, he should land a major league role to start the season, although I’d probably build the roster around him being a short side partner for Baldwin. As such, we should probably go sign a LH hitting corner OF to serve as competition and/or a placeholder until someone is deserving of this spot. If healthy, Tauchman is a perfect fit of what we need. It’s ok to have veteran stopgaps at a couple of spots.

Are you at all concerned the Rays will try to push him down to 2 (assuming he’s still the clear 1) with their enormous pool, or am I just being paranoid?

That’s what I figured. It wouldn’t make much sense for a young team to acquire Pereira and even Kelenic to then give playing time to older players like Tauchman and Conforto that are already nearing retirement.

Yeah I can’t see them adding more than that unless they got someone via trade

He’ll likely beat bonus record by quite a bit and still come in very underslot. Sox are in a great spot.

The Sox would be one of the few teams that could feel good about giving him a rotation spot of out of the gate. I wouldn’t be shocked to see him get like 1/3m or something. He could be a useful back end starter on the high end, but there just isn’t any real upside barring some transformational change to his arsenal. He's big, strong, and stable, which has allowed him to develop good command, but his stuff is maxed out and just not that exciting.

Having a Murakami Jersey for potentially only 2 years isn’t all that much longer.

Seems headed that direction. He doesn't miss a lot of bats. If you wouldn't sign Sugano, you wouldn't want Takahashi.

Good article. Thanks for sharing. So you think the Sox want to give Kelenic a shot and would only add another cheap outfielder at the level of Tauchman/Conforto?

Agreed.

MLBTR has him projected as a 5th starter. Not exactly exciting.

I wouldn’t be surprised if no team signs him. His strikeout rate is ridiculously low. He’d have to come cheap for a team to take a chance on him an also pay a posting fee.

Bro, he's a pitcher. Don't overthink it.

One year opt-out? Another trick in Boras' bag. No reason to invest team resources in a guy that is going to book after one season. Fans would not even invest in a jersey with his name on it.

Agreed. The numbers can especially be misleading for pitchers because we don’t know what they are being asked to work on.