Jake

I don't really know how I'd grade it. It certainly could have been worse...if they didn't bring in some of these veteran types to build some depth, it's the kind of thing that leaves you a couple strokes of bad luck away from losing 120 games. Murakami was a really fun addition, although it's ultimately hard to interpret given that a two-year contract limits our ability to see him as part of a "young core" even if he is young and hopefully one of the core parts of the 2026 club. If the Sox went out and signed every top of market guy, I guess that would have been fun. But probably dumb, to be frank. So that wasn't my expectation. LouBob trade is okay. They took a gamble bringing him back and it didn't leave them with nothing. We'll see how Luisangel looks. Given that it appears most MLB teams wouldn't have taken him for $20M on the open market, turning him into anything is kind of a plus. And I think there's more potential to Luisangel than what it would look like on the back of the baseball card. So I don't know. I find it weird to see how a lot of national media are patting the Sox on the back like they had a really big offseason. I think I see it as more competent. This isn't the time of year I expect the Sox to be pushing the team forward just yet. It's all about developing the guys on the club. And maybe if they have set things up well, we'll look back on this offseason as more important than it currently seems.

I live nowhere close to where the Sox play, so in scheming some dates to fly out to see the Sox play this season, I thought maybe going to Spring Training would be interesting. That said, I've never done anything like that so I'm not sure what it's like. I'd be going in the second week of March. I'd be taking my wife, who has become Sox-crazed as of late. Can anyone share experiences, suggestions, etc.? Obviously the games themselves would only be a part of the appeal. And if you ever went and thought it wasn't worth it, I'd like to hear that too.

In AAA last season, Sandlin threw: 28% 4-seamers, averaging 97.1 mph. Standard sort of rise-y profile and gets a few whiffs but not amazing. 22% cutters, averaging 91.6 mph and generating decent swing as miss but also got hit hard. 21% sliders, averaging 86.8mph with a lot of sideways movement and pretty good depth. Similar results to the cutter as far as okay whiff rate but lots of hard contact. 14% sinkers, averaging 95.7mph. Seems like an ordinary sinker. Not a ton of sink really but a lot more run than his 4 seamer which is part of the job description. Doesn't get whiffed on and got hit hard as sinkers tend to do. 12% sweepers, averaging 85.3mph. This thing has a ton of sideways movement and wasn't hit very hard relative to his other offerings. I don't know whether it might be the case that Statcast is inadvertently classing his good sweepers as sweepers and his bad sweepers as sliders. 2% 82mph curveballs. Too small of a sample to pay much attention to. 1 changeup. See above. So he's not really throwing anything that moves away from lefties (other than the sinker, which you don't want to use against oppo-handed hitters). From the data, the only change in his approach to pitch selection against lefties was canning the sinker. He threw about 60% of his pitches against lefties in AAA so he was not enjoying platoon advantage very often. Interestingly, righties made better contact against him anyway (xwOBA much higher for righties than lefties, although lefties had better actual wOBA).

FWIW, Hicks had a 4.35 FIP and 4.61 xERA last year, so the back of the baseball card might be a touch misleading on just how bad of a year it was. I think his basic issues are straightforward: can't get swings and misses on his heater because it's a sinker, doesn't have a pitch to get lefties out, and he walks too many guys. I suspect the walks would get better if he had a more reliable whiff pitch, especially against lefties. Not as sure about Sandlin, seems like he showed some signs of being a useful player in AA last year before they started pitching him out of the pen in AAA where he got beat up badly. Not sure if that was a load management thing or what. Boston decided to protect him from Rule 5 for whatever reason, so that tells you something.

A real, live major league outfielder. I can't complain.

Yeah I think it's easy to overrate just about any player if you're making confident claims that somebody is going to be good. But certainly I think if someone wants to move a controllable player to make space for Sam Antonacci, they are almost certainly overrating Sam Antonacci (who obviously has a chance to be a MLB contributor).

To be fair, Noah Schultz doesn't throw with much extension. One of those recent prospect rankings (Law?) cites it as a deficit to his profile.

I have a hard time believing Boston is going to salary dump a guy who was regarded as a top 10 prospect in MLB just a year ago

Abreu and Rafaela are both very good. Rafaela is really not Getz's "type"; takes horrifically bad at bats. Abreu is the more likely target, I think. I don't know what the Sox could give them that would make sense for both sides. Hard for me to imagine Getz giving up something really valuable for a guy who already has 2 years of service time.

Quero hit 17 HR in 111 games as a 19 year old and 16 HR (mostly in Birmingham) in 98 games as a 21 year old. I suspect his power outage has a strong mental component, letting the ball get very deep and taking a contact-oriented pass at it because that was the most comfortable way for him to deal with the very talented pitching he faced. But sometimes it can be as simple as giving yourself permission to start attacking the ball out front. I have a little bit of optimism for Quero just because he's flashed that power before and frankly he doesn't need to do a lot more to be a super useful player.

Wouldn't make any sense to give up talent for Hicks. Same with Sandoval. And Bello is too good to make sense...you wouldn't want to give up the talent that he should cost, given that it's asinine to acquire a veteran MLB pitcher on a long-term deal when you're far from contention. Bello trade is the kind of thing you'd do in a year or two when your strengths and weaknesses are clear and you're willing to gamble a little bit to shore up the rotation.

He was training at Davis Martin's ranch earlier in the offseason: https://www.instagram.com/p/DRfcE0uEaC9/?img_index=1

You're right regarding R5, I was mixing up their names. It's Alberto I think they are more likely to drop (although you could argue that Alberto may be a little more MLB-ready).

For me, part of the calculus is whether I think they are going to get claimed. I would guess neither Bush nor Berroa would given their continuing rehab and already-fringey status. Of course, they might choose to sign as a MiLB free agent elsewhere regardless. My thought process on Paez is that I'm pessimistic about both R5 guys sticking so maybe I'll just rip the band-aid off now. But I do think there's a decent argument for getting a look at the kid first if you can help it.

Bryan Hudson, Ky Bush, Jedixson Paez, Prelander Berroa, Bryan Ramos, Tyler Gilbert would be my long shortlist for guys to cut to make room for Seranthony.

Always catches me off guard when people don't have Braden Montgomery as the top position player in the system. Which isn't a criticism of Bonemer, FWIW

Poor AAA production is why I said I think he was rushed to MLB. Sometimes that happens because the scouts have decided the guy is going to have .650 OPS no matter the level, but sometimes it means a guy is simply being rushed. Of course I don't know that you can fix a guy being rushed by continuing to throw him to the wolves, so maybe luxury utility player is all he will ever be.

I think there is potentially more than meets the eye with Acuna. He was clearly rushed to MLB IMO and that can make the development trajectory a little wonky or at least less predictable. He showed a profound lack of power production in MLB last year. Yet I can see on Statcast that he has some seriously respectable bat speed. In his debut he was moving the bat at the Soto/Springer/Rooker/Tatis tier of bat speed. It dropped a tick last year along with his production. I have a feeling that he was getting a message about plate discipline or contact that was not resonating and it led to him allowing the ball to get deep on him and swinging a relatively flat bat. I think these are the marks of a player in survival mode. Maybe he'll never get out of it. In spite of absolutely putrid production in MLB last year, he still had a positive WAR in both major systems for calculating WAR because he's such an asset on defense and on the basepaths. So you can perceive a kind of high floor here as an overall baseball player despite the floor being clearly rather low at the plate. I'm envisioning a sort of Adam Engel/Leury Garcia hybrid. But if you could get him swinging the bat differently there might be more in the tank. He just doesn't pull or elevate at all. Some guys don't do that because it's hard to do it. But I'm not against seeing what he's got. This isn't like saying you want to see if Chase Meidroth can start hitting for big power if he just starts turning and burning...the Meidroths of the world (to be clear, I love the guy) don't move the bat fast enough to hit the ball hard consistently. Acuna has that physical raw power ability that makes me wonder if lightning might strike. Of course, I am prepared for the reality of a lot of chopped ground balls.

If Getz was crazy for picking up the option then he can't also be stupid for getting a couple pieces in return for LouBob without paying LouBob any of that supposedly ridiculous money. Anyway, Sox can now take this money and work on finding an outfielder!

Not a single one of those pitchers seems very interesting to me at all. Why would we give the Reds $10M and a real live MLB player for even all three?

This should be fun. Low downside, medium upside is how I look at it. $34M is chump change and not going to affect anything long term even if Murakami goes full 2011 Adam Dunn. Of course, if he's great, he's going to take off before the Sox have a real team. But that's a trade chip for you. His manager in Japan was Shingo Takatsu, by the way. Maybe Mr. Zero put in a good word.

Not really seeing anything concrete tying the Sox to him. That said, if they spent 5 years, $80M I'd say why the hell not. It represents trying to win a little bit, which I appreciate. He's a young player. And if it completely flops, it's not an amount of money that kills you in the long run.

I also have a feeling the Sox won't be keeping both of these guys.

FanGraphs on Paez:

Never a ton of leverage for the college guys really. And this kid is supposed to be a high-makeup type who won't want to put the screws to people over a marginal pay gain. I think as long as the Sox don't try to lowball, shouldn't be a signability concern.