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So it's Trout of bust in 2021 because that FA class isn't exactly brimming with superstars. It's this winter or next looking at it realistic. If you do nothing this year you better make damn sure you get what you want in 2020 and that just make the odds even worse. I have been saying that forever. Like Hahn said you have no control over when these guys become available . You wait too long and you miss the boat. The Sox have 2 years to get rid of a high K, low OBP bad defense ,bad starting and relief pitching team and everyone wonders why there's so many pessimistic posts. When either Tim Anderson or Palka is your team MVP you have a shit ton of work to do. Then you see posts like we need better defensive pitchers. Yea we do but lets put that like 20th on the list of what we need like way behind pitchers who can actually pitch. Some times I wonder how smart our fans really are.

I'd be shocked if Robert is here in 2020. The Sox have had him for 2 years now and he can't stay healthy and is getting hardly any AB's. He'll need at least 2 years of no injuries years just to make it to AAA and that's if he performs well and doesn't have to repeat a level. He'd have to put up some Eloy like stats just to be called up in Sept of 2020.

Should I make a thread for the 2nd game or is this one good for both games ?

Machado if he goes back to 3rd base , otherwise Harper.

That should be it for Lopez. Lost command again issuing 3 straight walks to load the bases with no outs. Only gave up 1 run however and Sox down 2 -1.

Through 5 tied at 1.

Kind of surprised I saw no mention of Adolfo in the looking forward to 2019 part of the article. A little less surprised at no mention of Robert since he actually will probably spend the 1st half of the year at Winston-Salem but if he plays very well could be moved up in the 2nd half.

A little problem with command and his own fielding in the 1st but good outing so far through 4 .

Some amazing tributes to Hawk in this thread, Thank you Hawk and thank all of you who have posted here so eloquently.

Game under way already. Free game of the day on MLB. Berrios vs Lopez .

Fair enough.

These are highly competitive young men and the whole point of playing besides the money is winning. I think you are sorely mistaken. If they do sign Machado i expect other moves. Maybe not WS winning moves but moves to be above .500

If that's truly the case wouldn't you think the Sox also make moves to get better and fill some holes around Machado ? I'd have to think if they are trying to sell him there has to be a better reason than Wellington Castillo and a massive payday.

I felt way better about them before the Kopech injury. I'm still skeptical of the Sox minor league talent. The majority of it hasn't reached AA yet which most experts would agree is the big test. I do think Jimenez and Cease will probably be good but the guys at fangraphs think Cease is an RP. After that who really knows. Our system might be a tad over rated . I think San Diego , Braves , Twins, Reds, Toronto maybe even the Yankees , Houston and Dodgers could all be rated higher than the Sox once Jimenez comes up and with Kopech on the sidelines. No doubt all the injuries not just to Kopech but to Dunning and Hansen, Burger, Adolfo and Roberts hurt a lot. Need a mostly injury free year and good performance next year to restore faith in them.

I didn't think any of them were mine. I know what my stance has been. I highly doubt we have much of a shot this coming year on Machado or Harper nor Kershaw should he opt out and he has back problems. Looking at the 2020 list I can only see a few names that might get that amount. Arenado, Perhaps Bogaerts or Gerrit Cole. Maybe JD Martinez if he opts out and he will be 32 then. Sale will be 31 and he has to stay healthy . Boston is sure to exercise their team option on him after this year and keep him for 2019. Trout might be the only one in 2021. Right now I'd put it at 50/50 the Sox sign anyone for the amount you said and I'm being generous with those odds.Depends on baseball inflation .

That probably doesn't happen in the next 2 years. When/if we are in contention yes like the Cubs did when they gave us Eloy/Cease for Q.

Was David Dahl a favorite of Soxtalk when he was in the minors ? I seem to remember hearing his name a lot. He's been tearing the cover off the ball lately. I heard something on the Rockies broadcast today I really liked hearing about him. He was choking up a little on 2 strike counts and doing so well he decided to always choke up slightly and has really taken off since then.

I suppose there will be a lot of impact free agents in the next 3 years. Maybe we can get a list of who you consider to be an IFA so in case we don't sign one you can take that list of saved posts and apologize to them all . I'm not saying we won't sign any, just saying it works both ways. Don't even have to name players if you don't want to. Maybe just what you consider an impact contract.

Off the top of my head Hosmer. Cano, Pujols ,Lester, Sandoval ,Shields. The correlation works the other way too .Players who haven't won a WS signing with teams that they think are more likely to win. It's easier to find guys who haven't won going to contenders but harder to prove if that was the best offer without knowing other teams and offers involved. I also think the hardest thing to find is players who haven't won anything going to a bad team which is the boat the Sox are in with Machado and Harper. I know in the history of baseball its easy to find examples that go for or with the grain on any of these theories and a history of signings probably has been done at one point but any time you ask for something like you did it's easy to come back and say is that all you found ? There have just been a ton of free agent signings and doing research is a time consuming thing.

It's never as simple as players signing contracts with bad teams . Sox probably signed Castillo for any little advantage they can get with Machado. Also a lot depends on if the player has won a world series. Once he has he's more likely to sign with a bad team IMHO.

More discussion of this in new thread.

The quote wasn't just on long term free agents despite the title of the thread . . "If we see long term pieces that make sense, in addition to augmenting the pitching or filling certain needs for 2019,

I wouldn't take that quote at face value. I fully expect there to be some movement in the catching situation. If they can get anything semi valuable for Castillo they will.

Nonsense . He has been the architect of the rebuild for better or worse he will be there until there is proof that it has failed. 2020 is too early for that kind of proof.

I'm glad you posted these 2 tweets since I saw it in the catch all also and thought it was appropriate to what we were discussing in the Shields thread. Unless he's blowing smoke up our asses to appeal to season ticket renewals, I'd say he's leaning more to my side of our argument. But the proof will come later.