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The additions they've made? Lol Perfectly reasonable to say the Sox could contend for a playoff spot next year. You guys are honestly hilarious.

The Sox O/U on wins this year will not be much more than 62. That's my guess. Ill guess their O/U as of today is 66-68 wins which isn't too far from 62. Not a lot of margin for error!!

We’re going to need another hell of a pitch from Boyer and Getz.

Fully agree

It's going to happen. All signs are pointing towards it. Unfortunately this board has decided to go full-on Parkman and be overly pessimistic about it.

This is where @WestEddy needs to chime in with the Sox finding the new market inefficiency. International players that the rest of the MLB isn’t completely sold on due to the transition/translation and Getz getting them on short-term and reasonably cheap deals since he isn’t allowed to sign top US free agents to massive deals. That strategy I would actually believe.

Oh s%*#…I’m starting to smell some smoke!

Kay endorses the Imai pursuit (and gives Mune a Schwarber comp): Some other notes from the full episode: Directly cited Fedde's first year success here as a big consideration in signing, including the org having familiarity with the transition (back) to MLB from NBP. Mentioned the workload adjustment specifically (from ~110+ pitches once a week to a 5 day rotation). He said he's talked to "all the pitching guys" both before and since signing, and feels they are on the same page and "had everything [he] was looking for" Said adding a sinker is one of his major improvements he made, since it let him stay in the zone more in a league where guys don't chase/K as much.

I just mostly saw posts whenever Kelenic hit a bomb since he was such a player of contention on this board. It looks like he has played every outfield spot in his short career thus far. Anyone with good knowledge on Kelenic’s defense care to share some insights?

That’s right. What’s fascinating is they have the pitching staff going backwards from 11.5 fWAR last year to 9.2 next year. That’s primarily due from losing Houser and projected regression for Taylor (which doesn’t make sense to me). Personally, I think they beat that 9.2 figure with ease with normal health. Add Imai and another reliever and they should blow it out of the water. On the positional side, people are forgetting we got terrible contributions from several players who dragged our total fWAR down including Vaughn (-1.3), Rojas (-1.3), Amaya (-0.8), Robertson (-0.8), Palacios (-0.5), & Noda (-0.3). Those five guys were worth a combined -5 wins over 685 plate appearances. I know people don’t love the guys on the back end of the 40 man roster like Tanner Murray and Tristan Peters, but they are intended to provide some floor to avoid sub replacement production in the event of multiple injuries.

Kelenic did have a 2.1 bWAR in 2023 with the Mariners. That would be amazing and better than any season Benintendi has had with the Sox. But yeah, two seasons have passed since then.

Yeah, a Kelenic/Pereira platoon may hold RF, and Baldwin plays LF, or vice versa.

He might have a decent enough spring to be your placeholder until Montgomery. He might suck and may never even be mentioned again.

Work him out with Fuller, play the s%*# out of Kelenic in Spring Training, and maybe he makes the team. But yeah, 10-D is a league average hitter. Kelenic is a little better than you and me at this point.

They have us getting 3 GS from Schultz and 3 GS from McDougal (plus 8 relief appearances) for a combined 0.3 fWAR. Nothing from Smith.

It isn't too surprising when you factor in some regression to the mean in 1 run games + continued development, since they were around 70 expected wins last year.

Thanks for sharing James and love that Haber / foodie stuff.

Wow I didn't know we were already that high....I would have thought maybe around 70 flat....did they take into account Schultz or Smith? If we are at 76.5 before Imai...we aren't far off.

FWIW, Steamer has the Sox at 24.5 fWAR next year (15.3 for positional group + 9.2 for pitchers). That puts our baseline projected win total 76.5 wins. Add Imai, an OF like Tauchman, and a high leverage reliever and we’re approaching 80. From there, you just need some of the young guys and good luck to beat projections. So yes, I believe we can compete next year for the last playoff spot (87 wins last year) if we keep adding and all goes well.

Yeah, what you stated was perfectly reasonable. I think with the additions they've made, they're already somewhere above 75 wins. If they add Imai and keep Robert, getting above .500 wouldn't surprise me, and a couple rookies breaking out could push them into contention.

Yeah, it’s a nice pickup for nothing and I wouldn’t be opposed to Kelenic in LF to see what he might do if you could dump Benintendi’s contract, but salary be damned, Benintendi is better than Kelenic.

Nope, hits to hard to home unfortunately.

You don’t think Getz is going to watch his boss Vecna in his final appearance?

Tonight most likely is my guess. Thankfully Getz has no New Year’s Eve parties to attend and doesn’t watch Stranger Things like other GMs.

I said with the right additions (including Imai), the right breakout performances, and some luck they could sniff the final playoff spot. And I stand by that claim.