Jose Abreu

They certainly bucked the trend in their handling of Tatis, but I personally think they’re going to regret letting him play those handful of games in April come 2024 when he hits free agency a full year earlier than he would’ve under normal circumstances

I also don't think it's fair to lump James in with all of them. He has a very good track record with this stuff.

I love how after 4 hours this didn't even get a negative response. Soxtalk has really changed

To build off this, I am of the opinion that Revenge of the Sith, "high ground" and all, is the best of all the Star Wars movies. I know I'm in a vast minority, but the story is executed so perfectly.

For 12 or so games, I don't think it'll matter much

Adding EE won't preclude them from adding a backup IF

Agree with both of you. I just think they'd trade Collins instead.

I know your Padres are having a rough offseason but EE is far from "low end mediocre"

Signing EE probably ensures that he gets traded. Or McCann, but I'm guessing they'd rather trade Collins

In the event that the Sox sign EE and do not trade McCann, I think there's actually a path (if everyone stays relatively healthy) where Grandal can still catch ~110 games, DH/1B 35-40, while EE still plays in ~130+ (taking reps from Abreu at 1B on occasion). Let McCann catch the other ~50 and sub in as needed of course.

Castellanos and Willie Calhoun in the corners with Choo at DH and Santana moved back to the infield would be pretty nice.

Wasn't Gallo playing a good center field last year? Why would he of all people need to DH?

It was better the second time I watched it. Not really sure why

It's not just about losing a game on a bad strike call. The difference between an 0-1 count and a 1-0 count, or a 2-1 count and a 1-2 count, for instance, is massive with respect to the outcome of the plate appearance, and calls are messed up extremely frequently that muddle this.

Well if he's the personal catcher for both Keuchel and Giolito, then Grandal is capped at 98 starts as catcher, which wouldn't make any sense. I think McCann has a much smaller role next year than people anticipate.

Brock Holt, Edwin Encarnacion, and a Harris/Cishek type reliever

Or Dylan Covey? I feel like his presence on the 40 man is more of a weird inside joke between the FO at this point

Of all the proposed Manfred changes, I'm not sure why this is the one that would upset you. In fact, I'm not sure how anyone who watched more than a few Sox games over the past couple years could be against this.

Alex Bregman and Walker Buehler

Anderson’s expected BABIP last year was above .350. There’s no reason to think that last season was completely luck. He made real changes and improvements and simply writing them off as an outlier is lazy

Yeah, this was my reaction and the general consensus I'm seeing online. It was meh, it was ok, it was fine. Some of the decisions they made in this movie (not the ending, but the overall context) still leave me with a lot of questions though.

That's fair, and something I considered, but based on how the contract is structured, I'm not as convinced as you are that he's opting out at 30 years old even if he turns in two more Arenado-type seasons.

Grandal, who is supposedly only catching about 100 of the games. Having him rot on the bench when he's not catching would be a horrible misuse of resources

The way I see it, a star is a star, so I'd be fine acquiring one and moving the inferior defender (in this case, Moncada) to a position of need. I do get where you're coming from. My problem is that I struggle to identify that cost-controlled SP who may be available. Snell would likely cost Robert+, and Syndergaard doesn't have much control left so I wouldn't be comfortable giving up that much for him.

I'm pretty surprised by the reaction here. I'm generally with you guys when it comes to these hypothetical Vaughn/Madrigal type trades. There are very few players I would trade them for, and I especially wouldn't entertain trading either one of them for a player with just one year of control (Betts). But assuming a decent amount of cash is included, I would absolutely consider moving them for one of the greatest defensive players of all time, even if Coors inflates his offense. You'd kind of have to move Madrigal since you'd be shifting Moncada to 2B. Adding Vaughn is just what I think it would take to get the Rockies to accept.