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I already said Yelich was better in his first few years. I was pointing out he wasn't close to being what he is today and how long that process took and that pigeonholing guys especially a 24 yr old like Mazara as being who he is shortsighted at best. Is Mazara closer to being AVi than Yelich ? Of course he is but when you comapre the amount of Ab's it took for each to show more, Mazara is right at that point.

Let's put it this way . It's more of a rebuilding year than it 's a year to think the Sox can make the playoffs. Sure if everything goes right they can make the playoffs but that's asking a lot of the young guys. I'm all for filling the holes especially pitching and I'd be quite satisfied with stopgaps at positions in need or the fangraphs projected 2 yr commitments to guys like Moose, Hamels and Ryu . Plenty of talent there to contend in 2020 without breaking the bank and leaving payroll flexibility in tact.

If those pan out being accurate then give me Ryu ($16M AAV) Hamels ($14M AAV) Moose ($16M AAv) and Grandal ($15M AAV) Add a stopgap RF and a relief pitcher for a combined $15M AAV. That adds $76M to payroll this year. Add Abreu from anywhere from $14M to $18M. What's that bring the payroll to ? $!40M ? 2 years apiece for Ryu and Hamels gives the young starters time to develop or even remove Hamels and sign someone who costs less or just roll with Ryu and the core starters. Then in 2 years lose Moose, Ryu and Hamels to free up payroll that you might commit to extensions to the core or add in others ways. Of course I don't really believe anyone except possibly Hamels signs for only 2 years especially Ryu who I think is being severely undervalued by the amount of times he gets mentioned as a serious guy to sign. It's always Wheeler pretty much. But if Ryu does only get 2 years i think the AAV is higher for a guy who had a damn fine year.

He won't be 25 til April and already has 4 solid seasons behind him. Nothing spectacular but 20 HR's a year and a steady but rising OPS in each year. When I look at Christian Yelich who also came into the league as a 21 yr old for the 1st 3 years he had very little power but hit for average and got on base so his OPS+ was decent but as a corner OF he was nothing special and his OPS for those 3 years was only slightly higher than Mazara 1st 4 years. If he is like Avi then maybe he has one great year coming. If he is like Yelich without the good fielding and OBP perhaps once he "gets it" he ends up being somewhere in between Avi and Yelich . It's not the worst thing to take a chance on a guy who can be very close to figuring it out. Ignoring his vast upside is a mistake in any discussions of Mazara. It took Avi over 2000 AB's to have that 1 great season. It took Yelich 1400 AB's to show more than a little power and over 2700 AB's to become the great player he is right now. Mazara has around 2200 AB's so if he is going to break out it's coming soon.

But this is another rebuilding year . Just because the Sox are looking much better with the emergence of Giolito , Anderson, Moncada, Bummer and Eloy doesn't mean the Sox are looking to win now. Granted it's much more hopeful than it was last year but Kopech, Cease, Lopez, Robert , Madrigal and Collins still have a lot to prove. They don't have the money to go get anyone they want. How long is that money going to last if you get lucky enough to sign a top starting pitcher plus Grandal ? According to most here you also have to fill DH ,a back end starter, a bullpen piece AND RF. Saying they have the money to sign anyone they want in RF if like saying they have the money to fill all their holes that way. They simply do not. The options at the other positions of need, the candidates are pretty good, unlike RF where the candidates are all not good fits.

Well he did also say It's a bold prediction because it only has a 1.6% chance of happening so that recognizes the 98.4 percent chance he signs with the Angels or elsewhere.

Take a lesson from the Padres ? That is not an organization the Sox should be emulating. Just because you have the payroll space is no reason to throw it away early nor throw away any potential piece to the core. I don't understand your constant referral to the luxury tax limits because the Sox will never come close to having that problem . Their payroll is limited to far below that limit and therefore they have to be much more cognizant of signing elite Free Agents. I could see an argument for signing Cole or Strasburg or even Betts but not trading for Betts and hoping for a miracle resigning. The successful rebuilds didn't sign rentals and give away young talent too early they let that talent play out or like the Cubs traded it away to get a piece for the World Series run and to then try to sustain it afterwards , the same with Houston. The Sox aren't close to a World Series and neither are the Padres. I'd much rather emulate those 2 teams since they had success at it or Tampa that has proven time and time again that extended runs are more about using payroll wisely than signing top name talent. Leave those things to the free spenders like Boston, Yankees and Dodgers and 2 of those 3 teams still have a good farm and the other one just brought in Chaim Bloom from Tampa to try to fix what Dombroski broke by decimating the farm and operating near the luxury tax.

I was giving you the benefit of the doubt on where that idea came from and if you thought before I don't understand now I am really confused because you lose credibility posting fantasy notions that the Sox could resign him. When has a team ever resigned a rental ? The last time posters talked about resigning a rental was Smardzija and thank God everyone who wanted that to happen or thought it was a possibility were wrong. That trade only cost the Sox this years MVP candidate and 3 other players who have been major leaguers . The Sox couldn't get 3 major leaguers for Chris Sale unless Basabe can make it and Sale was a dominant pitcher with a great contract. Sure let the same guys who traded for Smardzija and can't recognize talent give the wrong guys away again for a rental.

Finally found a link for it https://www.mlb.com/news/bold-predictions-for-2020-offseason

Yes him too since I missed him when scanning the lists of players but the point was there are plenty of 2nd basemen. Adding Didi to the list just makes it 10 instead of the 9 who I mentioned.

I will agree that it's depressing given their lack of success in free agency and recognizing and developing talent on every level but I heard something from Dan O'Dowd the other day that for me really hit the nail on the head as far as the Sox or any teams success goes. He said the 2 most important things when building a good team are good young controllable assets and payroll flexibility. We know the Sox have both right now. because of the rebuild I don't think jeopardizing both of those things is prudent especially when teams like Tampa Bay and Oakland can continue to get good results with substandard budgets and a team like Pittsburgh destroys itself by trading young talent. I just think it's much wiser to operate more like Tampa Bay and hoard young talent than it is to screw with the payroll then throw away that talent on a 1 year player with only a scant or even zero chance of him being resigned. I know your idea is born from depression and hopelessness but right now our only options as fans is hope the controllable assets we have continue to find their way to success through their own hard work and dedication which takes it out of the hands of the lack of player development and recognition of talent.

Moose is fine for a backup part time option at 2nd base because he has good hands but he'd be a liability there full time because of his range. I don't expect Madrigal to be traded but he also might not be brought up for a month or longer. 2nd base is the one place that there are quality FA's who could play 2nd base better defensively on a part time basis and still contribute to a quality bench like Sogard, Dozier, Castro ,Kipnis, Kendrick ,Schoop, Asdrubal Cabrera,Gennett and my personal favorite Brock Holt who can also play OF.

I'd do that for Rendon but not even a Moose guy like me would do that.

I might have to add trading for rentals expecting them to resign because the Sox are just such a well run organization and Hahn and Co. really know how to assess talent. ?

I know a trade might be coming and I would be in favor of most upgrades. I think Grandal would be a very good acquisition. I'm just concerned that Grandal plus other areas of need push the payroll too high for this year when next year will give us more time to assess areas of true need , Right now with so many young players it's real hard to pinpoint exactly what we need .Yes we know we need LH balance and more power, OBP, and pitching . My true hope is that by adding the pitching and that Kopech etc will rise to become what we all hope they will. I also hope Rodon and Dunning can also show signs of adding to that strength from which we can deal from. Stopgap option in areas other than pitching might be the way to go as long as we find talent that has been good consistently (Moustaskas) or whose value isn't appreciated (Dickerson). Or maybe a guy who is only a year removed from being very good (2018 All-Star ) like Gennett, but stunk because of injuries but won't be 30 until May. They all should be much easier to sign then others but provide a lot of upside and depth . Undervalued. Right now there is very little to trade who isn't the part of the expected core and they really do need the time to show what they have. If we don't find that out such as with Collins and the others we just don't have the payroll to keep filling roles with free agents. Despite what you personally think of Collins he did go back down the the minors, made adjustments and showed he is capable of more not just with the bat but as a catcher too. Remember people thought we were selling high on Narvaez , one of our best OBP guys, and he turned around and went even higher and might go higher still. The Sox just cannot afford to abandon ship on the very reasons why they rebuilt. The board is filled with people telling us Collins won't make it, McCann is the same McCann he was in Detroit, our OF prospects won't make it . Remember all the doubters of Giolito and Moncada ? Stay the course , don't trade prospects, don't bail out Boston's problems , don't take on bad contracts , don't trade for rentals, Almost everything we need could already be here whether it's Collins,Mercedes or any one of Basabe, Rutherford, Walker, Gonzalez or Adolfo, Continue to look for talent in the minors who seem blocked by guys ahead of them in the majors and undervalued guys in the majors. Maybe one day we can find a Tatis or a Muncy or a Yordan Alvarez or Juan Soto or to a lesser degree Trauchman, Mercado and Luplow. . Right when some of these guys are starting to blossom is no reason to trim the garden . Let it grow into something beautiful and strong.. Time and time again we hear how development isn't linear. It's time we started believing that. How strong would the Sox look right now with Tatis and Semien or even Narvaez.

Please , it has nothing to do with a lack of competency and has everything to do with making the most of your payroll and letting the kids develop for another year. Collins isn't exactly the only one who will need time to show if he's any good. Robert , Madrigal, Kopech, Cease, Lopez ,Moncada, Eloy ,Giolito have 0 or 1 good year in the majors. The Sox aren't winning the World Series next year so testing the McCann/Collins duo is not a terrible thing. There's always JT Realmuto next year. I think half the board expects the playoffs next year by the way they post. If you put Collins in with the 8 young players I listed , that's 9 guys that we still know very little or nothing about. We all saw what Moncada , Giolito and Eloy are capable of and maybe they are capable of a lot more but that still leaves 6 others.

Just so you know the f in fWAR means fangraphs while the b in bWAR means Baseball Reference.

And remember a lot of those 209 AB's were against rebuild pitching.

I'm pretty sure he means watching them run around the bases after a Castellanos double. You always get the green light on a double .

Positional versatilty is also injury/non performance insurance at 3 positions. If you sign EE then you better upgrade the bench too which adds to getting a pure DH cost unless you think Mendick/Leury is fine for long stretches.

That's not a reason to do it again especially when you are at a way different point in the rebuild.. That's just crazy. Last if season you had none of the prospects looking good. In fact Moncada and Gioilto looked terrible. Now they look great and so does Eloy while Robert and Madrigal will be up and Kopech will come back and Cease will get a full year. Another year of experience could benefit Lopez also for 2020.

I'm pretty sure projections for 2020 have Corey Dickerson, Avi Garcia and Castellanos all very close in projected WAR.

@thxfrthmmrs Great use of using 3 different signing classes to project various outcomes. Looks like your "I dig this" is closest to mine where you used Moose, Gardner and Wheeler while omitting Grandal. I do love Grandal but I'm afraid he might be one of those guys who takes longer to sign unless he gets 4/$80M right away just based on how he talks about setting the bar for all catchers worth. I prefer Dickerson in RF but that's splitting hairs. You also used Moose in that scenario which I think would make the team stronger in case of injury and makes the team more versatile without signing a DH. I know you used standard projected WAR and those did not change in the projections. I specifically am looking at the projections of Madrigal and Robert. I can easily imagine a 3/4 WAR from Robert considering his fielding should be above average and his bat can also be a plus right away especially if Eloy can get in his head because it seems pretty clear that Robert will be pitched too in much the same manner that they pitched to Eloy . With Eloy's help maybe Robert can make the adjustment sooner. Your " I Dig This" also gives a bigger role to Collins for better or worse because him succeeding would really make the Sox so much better in the lineup and with payroll. It also give more money to the bullpen. "I Dig This" also leave room to add more payroll for 2021.

If you paid any attention to my posts I've been pushing for Abreu to play more DH because of his fielding. It's the main reason why I don't want to pay for a DH and would rather build the depth with guys like Grandal, Collins and Moustakas who can all play 1st.

Aged well .