hogan873

With the winter meetings beginning next week, I'd expect to see a furry of trades. Hopefully the Sox will be involved and so something creative. As much as I like Hendriks, he's probably the most valuable trade piece that can be backfilled the easiest. I'm sure there will be several teams looking for a closer/late inning relief that the Sox could match up with to grab some OF or 2B help.

I really don't care about who is coaching 1st base. I'm much more concerned with who the hitting coach is. And the baserunning coach. And who focuses on defense. And having a competent coach at 3rd who will make less bonehead decisions than we've seen in the past is more important. As far as Boston being retained...yawn. I'm not angry about it. I just don't really care.

Interesting, but not surprising.

$20 million per year seems like a great deal for Jose, and not a bad deal for the Astros. The last year might be rough, but they have the money. There was no way the Sox were going to give him a deal like this.

They didn't lose him. They chose not to sign him again. They could have signed him if they wanted to. I understand needing to make a decision between Jose and Vaughn, unless they were content with having Vaughn play out of position again. But damn it'll suck to see him in an Astros uniform.

Good for Jose.

Clevinger is a fine addition to fill out the rotation. Even if he gives the team 5-6 innings every outing and sports an ERA around 4.0, he's worth the $8 million or so. I think he could be better than that and may well surprise a lot of people. If Giolito can improve a bit (and not necessarily return to form) and Lynn can stay healthy, this is a very good rotation. Now, go out and get a LH hitting outfielder who can hit for power.

I’m all for signing Clevinger if the price is right. Doing so would most likely mean Cueto isn’t returning or Giolito is being traded. If 2023 performance is similar to 2022, I’d take Cueto. But Giolito’s value is probably relatively low, and the return would be underwhelming.

Sounds like there is a lot of interest by multiple teams. I imagine he'll sign somewhere other than the Sox for an amount that half of Soxtalk will be angry that the Sox didn't spend. He'll then have a decent season with his new team, causing much teeth gnashing and fist shaking. I do believe he'll play better wherever he ends up. I don't think he'll ever return to what he was in 2019, but a change of scenery could allow him to get some of that magic back. I honestly don't know what to think about what he might end up signing for. If I had to guess, I'd say a one year deal for $12-$14 million with a team option for a second year.

Yeah, I think the bigger issue with Eloy is his propensity to get hurt and/or endanger others. I would hazard to guess that the Sox are going to add someone for the OF, and Winker wouldn't be a bad fit. Eloy is going to have to get used to being primarily a DH. Now, of course, a lot of who plays the OF will be determined by whether Abreu comes back or not. If not, which seems likely, Vaughn is the 1B. If he does come back, does that mean we see Vaughn stumbling around out of position again?

As much as I like Hendriks, it makes a lot of sense to find a trade partner for him. If the reliever market is indeed thin, there will be several teams looking for a very good closer/late inning guy. The Sox could fill a more urgent need, such as LH outfielder with power or 2B or even a starter. Of all the guys on the roster, Hendriks gives them the biggest potential return with the lowest negative impact on 2023.

If the Sox are indeed going to make more improvements via trade than free agency, you'd almost have to think guys like Giolito and Hendriks could be traded. I don't think it would happen, but they could get real ballsy and trade TA for a more significant upgrade and then sign Segura or Andrus for cheap. Who else could they realistically trade to make an improvement? Without hurting themselves (Cease, Vaughn, Kopech).

If Vaughn plays 1B every day, which he should be, and gets consistent ABs, he's going to be a very good hitter. I love Abreu, but it certainly seems like it's Vaughn's turn, and I'm perfectly okay with that. That being said, your last sentence hits the nail on the head. After 2022, it's hard not to think that the tanking was for naught. So far, with TLR gone and a competent manager in place, things are looking better. We'll see what they do in the off season, though.

He might get $25 million a year, but probably for one year or maybe one year plus an option.

And that's fine. Drastic changes aren't really possible unless they were planning on rebuilding again. Address 2B and RF, hopefully with at least one LH power bat, and this team is better.

So it sounds like TLR essentially woke up from a nap, haphazardly put together a lineup, stood around on the field during batting practice (most likely achieving some standing naps), and then napped in the dugout.

Man, if he can unlock Eloy's power and get Moncada back to even near where he used to be... Vaughn, Robert, even Anderson...lots of work for this guy to do, but the rewards could be significant.

Yeah, a new manager and new coaches is a step. A step up a steep mountain. The Sox can either make some tough decisions and massively overhaul the roster (and spend money), or they can twiddle around and spend money on crap like they have been doing. I don't see huge changes coming, but it's the only way to put together a team that could even hope to compete with the perennial playoff teams.

Royals have new management, and they had ties with Quatraro. The Royals not hiring Grifol tells me only that they wanted Quartaro. It tells me nothing about Grifol.

If telling a group of underperformers to shape up hurts their feelings, then they can go elsewhere and be shlubs. Grifol shouldn't need to rule with an iron fist. Hopefully a change in leadership will result in better performance. Long term ass kicking does get stale fast. It's not a recipe for success. But coddling and babying of adults doesn't work either. There needs to be expectations.

That's a leadership problem, but these guys are adults. Even adults need a swift kick in the ass at times. They didn't get that from TLR. They got coddled and were told not to hustle.

I think they could have been a bit better than that. But, yes, there were many problems. Grifol needs to come in and say, "Look assholes, what happened last year will never happen again. Get your s%*# together."

Anyone know if Grifol has thoughts on a hitting coach? Menechino has to be gone, right?

Good news. I like that aside from Katz, no other coaches are safe. I hope he brings in a good hitting coach.

We don't know if he was on anyone's radar or not. He may have interviewed with other teams. And there's no saying he was an afterthought and interviewed at the last minute. For all we know, the Sox have been in on him from the get go. I'm glad they're actually conducting a search and are interviewing plenty of candidates. Now, if they were to go through this whole process and hire Ozzie, that would be concerning. Luckily it doesn't sound like he's a likely option.