JUSTgottaBELIEVE

You’re an idiot. You’re the one comparing Colson Montgomery to Bobby Witt.

I’m sure you had the Royals winning 86 games AND a playoff series in 2024. The argument you’re making now was made by many re: the royals last winter, I’m certain.

Kim is a 2nd or 3rd tier player like Luis Robert. Those are pretty valuable or so I’ve been told, very valuable.

They lost 106 games in 2023! You would be having this same argument as a Royals fan last winter. “This team is nowhere near contending anytime soon, why waste resources on old guys like Hunter Renfroe, Seth Lugo, Will Smith, Garrett Hampson, and Michael Wacha?”

And mentioning Witt and Colson Montgomery in the same sentence is ridiculous. Witt hit 33 homers between AA and AAA as a 21 year old including a .936 OPS in AAA with plus plus defense and speed. Colson had a .710 OPS in AAA as a 22 year old with questions about his defensive ability to stick at SS. They are not in the same arena. Colson might turn out to be a good mlb player and should get his opportunity to show what he can do but this is not even closely remote to a Bobby Witt situation to where anyone should be worried about “blocking” him. Literally, the only position I’d be worried about blocking right now is catcher. And that’s because they have two T50 prospects in AAA at the position and another 26 year old that’s shown he’s probably good enough to be a serviceable backup.

Years?? How many guys from their 2021 mlb roster were key contributors to the 2024 team?

and the 2003 Detroit Tigers made it to the World Series 3 years later. Another fluke I guess. But you can’t even luck into a “fluke” if you aren’t trying. Give me 9 starting position players that produce like Josh Rojas and Ha-Seong Kim and perhaps we will be the ones on the right side of a fluke season in the future. But not signing ANY meaningful free agents over the next few years will assure that the Sox are still “rebuilding” in 2027.

Not true at all. The Royals lost more games in 2023 than any other season since 2005. How is that not the absolute bottom? The only guys that were sure things coming out of the 2023 season were Witt, Perez, and Ragans. The rest of the roster was young and unproven or downright bad.

No more half assed roster building is exactly what you’re advocating for and what they did during the last rebuild. Waited to spend “big money” to sign Grandal, Kuechel, Pollock, etc. I’m not interested in doing that again. Start signing FA players to reasonable 3-5 year contracts a couple years before you’re ready to be competitive rather than rushing to sign the left over scraps once the contention window smacks you in the face. Hell, the Royals went on a mini spending spree last winter and turned a 56 win team into a 86 win team. Sometimes it doesn’t take much.

And that’s fine. Colson can get 90 games at SS in 2025 (if he’s ready, which isn’t a given based on his 2024), and there’s still plenty of value in a guy like Kim bouncing between SS and 2b. Again, $12-14M AAV is barely above an average salary for 50% of the league.

I guess I’m an advocate for signing quality big leaguers on the right side of 30 when it only costs money, they fill a need, and they’re actually within the Sox budget and won’t hurt future payroll flexibility regardless of where they are at in their competitiveness. Let’s be honest with ourselves here, the Sox aren’t signing guys like Ohtani, Soto, Burnes, Bregman, Snell, Alonso, Adames, etc. even if their contention window was open right now.

Guessing? There is an immediate need right now and for the foreseeable future unless you disagree with majority of evaluators that say Montgomery is unlikely to stick at SS.

Yea, and they already tried that. Waited until 2020/2021/2022 during the last rebuild to sign veterans once the holes were clearly identified and were left signing Grandal, Eaton, Kuechel, Pollock, and a bunch of relief pitchers. Awesome plan.

Don’t whine when they lose 122 games then like you did in 2024 when they lost 121.

I understand that but the argument was that Kim wouldn’t be a part of the “future” given his age and duration of his contract I guess? If you sign him for 5 years, doesn’t that make him part of the future? It’s pretty rare that a player in his 20s hits free agency at a position of need and is actually within the Sox budget. Typically, FAs within the Sox budget are already in their low 30s (Grandal) or just not very good (Benintendi).

Montgomery, Kim, Meidroth, Ramos, Sosa, Baldwin. Plenty of ABs to go around this group of 2b, SS, 3b over the next few years. Rojas will be lucky to be with the team past July anyways. Some will get hurt, some will flame out. I don’t see the concern, at all.

He might make the club ahead of Amaya. TBD but not a given. Let’s see what they look like in two months.

I’d much rather have Baldwin playing the infield utility role than Romy Gonzalez and it’s not even close.

If he’s signed to a 5 year deal, he’s under team control for the same length as guys like Lenyn Sosa and Miguel Vargas.

Quero won’t be on the mlb club at the start of the season. Meidroth might but that’s not a given either.

Even picking spots, romy was worth just 0.2 fWAR. I would expect a guy like Brooks Baldwin can do that in a utility role, which is where he should be unless he proves otherwise.

Romy was a 0.2 fWAR player last season. Rojas was 1.9 and has been 1-2.5 in each of the last 4 seasons. The two aren’t comparable..

Colson absolutely should not break camp with the mlb team. Ramos is 22 and needs more time in AAA as well. Not like he tore it up last season down there.

At this point in time, I’m not worried about there not being enough PAs to go around. Some guys will get hurt, some guys will not perform despite an extended look. This 40 man isn’t even close to having enough depth on the position player side. Maybe after another couple trades and FA signings they’ll be approaching that point.

I thought so too. I figured he’d get close to Robert’s remaining contract in AAV (~$18M AAV). Maybe he will. But if he’s close to $12M AAV, that’s a steal imo and fills a big need because I’m not confident Montgomery sticks at SS.