JUSTgottaBELIEVE

Greene doesn’t have the track record though

Colome is such a stud. Easily the top closer on the trade market this July if the Sox make him available.

Nova would be a stud in the playoffs. He wouldn’t have to face the Orioles, Tigers, Blue Jays or Mariners and apparently owns the Indians, Yankees, and Astros.

Maybe but we know Yoan can hit Cole and Devenski though!

So Ivan Nova has quality starts against the Yankees, Indians, and Astros. Apparently he only pitches well against good teams.

I had them at 70 wins this year, an 8 game improvement from last year. I think that’s still about right but they might squeeze out 73/74 wins which would be a great improvement from last year. All while carrying the 6th lowest payroll in baseball is pretty encouraging.

Nice jinx!

Hammered it!!!

Charlie!!!

James has a great arm

Break this thing open Eloy

You know you’re screwed as the opposing team when Alonso gets on base in 2 of his first 3 at bats in a game...

Gerrit Cole just got bombed by an offense that combined to score 3 runs the previous 3 games ?

Just left my daughters softball game. Checked the gamethread to see how many posts there were almost an hour into the game. Checked to see there were less than 2 pages, thought to myself Sox must be winning. Sure enough..

7 of the Sox top 30 minor league prospects are being groomed for relief roles. How exactly are these a bunch of “retreads, no-names, has beens, castoffs”? That makes no sense. Not every relief prospect around the league is a top 100 MLB prospect. In fact, I don’t think any are. And not every relief prospect has to be a future MLB closer to contribute in a big way to an MLB bullpen.

Yea that wasn’t my point at all

You just love to argue for no apparent reason don’t you? I said the bullpen is in pretty good shape as is with a good chance to be average or slightly above average next year with reinforcements such as Burdi, Thompson, Ruiz, Hansen, etc close to contributing at the big league level later this year or early next year. Plus, I anticipate further development from the young guys already on the 25 man - Bummer, Fry, Burr, Viera, etc. I guess simply leaving it at that wasn’t good enough for you. Whatever dude.

Again, they are slightly below league average by fWAR (#20) so what’s your point? They have a decent bullpen already with a reasonable path for improvement to average or above average next year via AA/AAA reinforcements in the near future.

I’m going by fWAR which considers all of those

Their bullpen ranks #20 in MLB per fangraphs (aka peripherals).

Yes, of course. $65M a year gets you Rendon, Cole, and a late inning reliever. That’s a solid combined 10+ WAR for next season.

Almost a third of the WS top 30 prospect list consists of guys that will likely end up in a relief role. Plus, the big league bullpen already rates as only slightly below league average. The bullpen is already decent and wouldn’t take much contributions from current minor leaguers to push it to above average.

It’s certainly possible but you get what you pay for (unless you are the Tampa Rays). If they have no intentions of spending at or just above league average payroll, this rebuild never stood a chance from the start, Machado or not.

I don’t see a need for innings eater types or stopgap position players starting next year. Assuming health, the rotation should consist of Giolito, Lopez, Cease, Kopech, FA or trade (hopefully this is a middle or top rotation SP rather than back end). The bullpen is actually in pretty good shape as is and with forthcoming AA/AAA reinforcements assuming they hold on to Colome and Herrera. Position player wise, 2b and RF are probably the two most glaring holes. Past teams didn’t have guys like Tilson, Cordell, etc to fill the fringey roles but those guys are sufficient for utility roles and/or starter roles in a pinch. CF should be filled by Robert by mid April if not sooner.

If they brought back the same team next season (including Rodon and Abreu) but replaced Nova, Alonso, Castillo, and Sanchez with some combination of Cease, Palka, Collins, and Mendick (or other AA/AAA players on league min salary), their team payroll will be just a tick over $60M. So again, unless they are planning to run out the lowest payroll in baseball next year, they have ~$30M to play with just to hit their already sub $100M payroll, 25th ranked payroll of this season. If they want to get really crazy and spend in line with league median payroll ($127M), they have ~$65M to play with. You can buy a lot of talent for $65M a year...