ChiSoxTrojan

I'm not talking defense. I'm talking offense, particularly against RHP.

In your scenario, who is the DH/1B when Vaughn or Eloy take a day off, or Eloy is in the OF? Particularly against RHP? I like Sheets on the bench for that role, and for late-game pinch hitting opportunities. So my bench to start the season would be Sheets, Leury, Romy, and Zavala. I don't think it's necessary/worth giving a roster spot to Marisnick/Hamilton/Reyes. I'm fine with Leury in CF once every week or so (Leury is a better CF than RF), and Leury/Romy in RF. Give Romy a shot to prove all the offseason work we've been hearing about translates to success. If he isn't cutting it over the first month of the season he can be sent down and one of the minor league OFs can be brought up. But if Hamilton or Marisnick are given a roster spot out of Spring Training, even if they're struggling offensively (which is likely) they'll be given a long leash because getting rid of them means they need to be DFA'ed. Romy's spot can be temporary. Leury is going to get a few months on the roster regardless, and I'm pretty confident he can have a bounce-back to being a useful back-up after an injury-plagued season, if he's used sparingly. If not, and other players are showing they're more deserving, he could get cut in July. Injuries can throw everything into a blender, so it doesn't make any sense to be cutting players now that might be needed later on.

If Marisnick and Romy are on the roster with Leury DFA'ed, then Romy is the only backup infielder. I realize Leury is not great against RHP either, but last year was definitely the worst year of his career and he was playing injured for a good part of it. I'm confident that when healthy he can bounce back to more along the lines of what he's been his whole career, which is below average but not awful. I don't have as much confidence that Romy will be anything but awful against RHP. If it turns out that all that offseason work with the hitting coaches pays off for Romy and he's made strides against RHP, and Leury is still looking like the awful player he was last year, then you can DFA him. Until then I don't see the point.

I don't think I'd trust Romy to be the only backup infielder. He provides power against LHP, but has not shown the ability to hit RHP in the majors. Career .482 OPS against RHP, .874 against LHP. Fortunately the starter who is likely going to need the most time off early on (Colas) is left-handed, so Romy should play pretty often against LHP.

Or here's another way they could run it. Romy is the primary reserve (infield or outfield) when a LHP is on the mound, and Leury when a RHP is on the mound. I think Romy could probably start most of the time against LHP (who he has shown he can do damage against) - primarily in RF earlier in the season (until Colas gets more comfortable), then all over later on.

They're not going to DFA him out of Spring Training. Maybe later in the year if he's really struggling and someone at AAA is pushing for a call-up, but right now they need the depth and there's no obvious better choice for the bench. I don't see someone like Marisnick or Hamilton pushing Leury off the team. The Sox don't really have a full-time backup IF or OF who is a sure thing to make the roster, so they can have two guys play the "Zobrist" role.

I can still see Romy making the team and getting half the starts at 2B against LHP. He has more pop than Andrus, he just hasn't shown the ability to consistently hit RHP yet and thus wasn't a good idea for the starting 2B gig.

I could see him going unclaimed. Regardless though, with Bummer, Diekman, Banks, and eventually Crochet, the team should be set at LHRP at least for this year. No more of the Severino/Sousa tryouts.

Sheets would be the backup 1B, DH, and pinch hitter. While neither Eloy nor Vaughn really need to be platooned, they both are going to need days off, and those days off should come against RHP. There's nobody on the roster I can even imagine who would be suitable to DH or play 1B against RHP other than Sheets. Also FWIW, Sheets hits RHP significantly better than Vaughn does (at least thus far in their careers).

FanGraphs also projected Andrus getting a 2-year, $20M deal in free agency this winter, and that didn't happen. I imagine ZiPS assumed he was going to be offered a starting SS gig, which is what he's been for most of his career, and projected his playing time accordingly. These projections were made before it was even known what team he was going to be playing for. If I were a betting man, and we were somehow able to watch the season fold out with each of Andrus/Romy/Sosa as the starting 2B, my money would be on Sosa to finish with the best batting line. But I agree Andrus has a much safer floor, and that's why this is a good move regardless.

Most of the roster is set, the main decisions are: Starting RF: Colas or Sheets. I think it'll be Colas. 5th starter (Clevinger vs. Davis), depending on the outcome of the investigation Last RP: Avila, Foster, Santos, or German. Avila has the edge due to being a rule 5. Bench: Zavala and Leury are sure things, I'm going Romy and Sheets for the other two spots. Romy and Leury combined can cover the infield and outfield. Sheets would be the backup 1B/DH where the starters are opposite-handed.

To be fair, the difference in their projected WAR has a lot to do with projected playing time, so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison. ZiPS has their projected OPS's almost identical (.642 for Andrus, .646 for Romy, and .664 for Sosa). All that said I agree with you that "heavily favored" is a stretch, and it's better to have Andrus than not have him.

That would be dumb and counter-productive, at least now. Leury is fine as a backup, and even in his terrible, injury-plagued 2022 season he was better than Romy against RHP.

The only opinions that matter are the opinions of the coaching staff, and they weren't even around last year. And honestly if Rick Hahn thought he was a sure-fire starter at 2B, he would have given him $8M a month ago. That move would have been rightfully criticized. But at $3M, he'll definitely by on the opening day roster but past that we'll see. I could see a situation where Romy gets most of the starts against LHP and Andrus against RHP, because Romy hasn't yet shown the ability to hit major league RHP. But it's fluid, at least there's a little more versatility now.

The Sox haven't announced the signing yet, so he has not been "declared the 2B." I think Passan and Nightengale mentioned that the Sox signed him to play 2B, but that's just reading the situation, not some sort of declaration that he is going to be the undisputed starter. Sosa has more upside, but he's 23 and has like 2 months in AAA. It's not a crime for him to go back there and make sure his one good professional season wasn't a fluke. Romy I don't think has any more upside than Andrus (and has a much lower floor), but I still think he makes the team.

I wouldn't say "heavily favored" that one of the internal options outperforms Andrus. It's certainly possible, but even in that scenario it's better to have the depth than not have it. If it's clear that Andrus is hurting the Sox offensively and Romy or Sosa could do better, $3M isn't a big deal.

No room for Sosa, I agree. But Romy can play the OF. Not CF (I don't think), and not as well as Marisnick, but he can play either corner. And he offers more pop against LHP than Marisnick or Leury.

The people who are bitching about the move are the ones that think Romy or Sosa could hit just as well as Andrus, with probably more upside. Count me in that group - especially Sosa I was hoping would get a chance to break out, and now he's really blocked. However, I'm rationalizing it as still a good move (at least better than nothing), for the following reasons: It raises the floor significantly, as we don't risk dealing with a month or two of a rookie struggling to acclimate to MLB pitching He should be better defensively than any of the other options, despite never playing the position before it shouldn't be a hard transition Provides middle infield depth, which was essentially non-existent before Gives Sosa some more time to develop at AAA and prove last year wasn't a fluke It's dirt cheap. At $3M, if Andrus struggles, the Sox can phase him out or cut him by mid-season if Romy or Sosa looks like they could do better. I've been thinking that 4th OF is a more important position to fill, but with this move it frees up Romy to maybe take that role? If they keep both Leury and Romy, then between the two of them that's enough roster depth to cover the infield and outfield. CF is the thinnest spot, but Colas, Leury, and even Benintendi are options there.

Why? He's basically passive aggressively throwing Clevinger under the bus. I have no problem with that.

Yes, the Sox underachieved last year and Cleveland overachieved, based on an objective assessment of their rosters last offseason. That doesn't give me much hope that the Sox will overachieve this year.

I was trying to be a bit generous. There's a range of outcomes for every player, but the guys I mentioned are safer bets IMO. The rest of the roster though is filled with extremely high-variance players. How many of them not meeting expectations (whether due to health or performance) would it take to derail the season? It's not a big number, considering the lack of depth across the board. I imagine if we were to simulate the season a million times (or whatever the projection systems do), a big proportion of those simulations would have enough underperformers to result in a .500 or lower record. To be fair, one thing that I don't think the projection systems can accurately capture is the effect of the new coaching staff. That's basically all we have to hang our hopes on as Sox fans - that the new coaching staff will be able to push some magic buttons to get the whole team playing well and staying healthy.

It's also the question marks that have popped up for other players, like Eloy and Robert (health), Giolito, even bullpen guys like Bummer. Really, how many players on the roster are you confident in that you know you're going to get positive contributions from them? Benintendi, TA, Cease, maybe Lynn? A few bullpen arms like Lopez/Graveman/Lambert should be fine. There's a lot of potential, but there are also question marks up and down the roster, and no depth anywhere (except 1B) if anyone fails or gets hurt.

Clevinger

I agree that Vaughn has a higher ceiling. But that doesn't mean that Sheets has been worthless, which is what was implied by previous comments (in this thread and others). The comparison to Vaughn is just to show that, over their first two years, they've had similar offensive production - in fact Sheets has the slight edge according to OPS+ (105 vs. 102) and wRC+ (107 vs. 104). As for where he'll play, in a world where all the outfielders are healthy and Colas is productive out of the gate, Sheets can still get plenty of starts at 1B and DH against RHP. Injuries of course could force him into the OF again.

I don't get all the Sheets hate. He slumped badly to start last year, but other than that he's been a solid LH bat on a team that couldn't hit RHP. Obviously he should stay far away from LHP, and ideally shouldn't set foot in the OF, but from a strictly offensive perspective the Sox could do a lot worse. Compare him to Vaughn, who gets a lot of leeway from people saying that his offense has suffered because the Sox have asked him to do too much defensively in the OF. Why does that same logic not apply to Sheets, who was in the exact same situation? The two have comparable overall numbers (Sheets has been better against RHP, Vaughn better against LHP) so I don't understand why Sheets is apparently worthless while Vaughn is the 1B of the future.