2024 Core
- Thread starter BaseballJones
- Start date
Not as much as you or sportswriters assume. The Statcast data, which is now pervasive, has changed the nature of scouting at the professional level. We now actually have better data than BABIP and IsoP to build hitter profiles. Not to say that they're useless, but the Statcast data just brings greater context. And the statcast hitter profiles have been infinitely more valuable than derived statistics since 2015 or so (and took a leap forward in 2020 with better technology). Put another way, it's a lot harder to fool GMs with luck now, and you don't need to worry about "selling high" because if the hitting/pitching profile doesn't match the results other GMs/DBOs are going to be looking at the whys.
I root for the laundry. And…The hardest of hard passes on Ronald McDonaldson. He’s not even a good baseball player anymore, and he appears to be worse in his personal beliefs.
A thought: we need to add a RH outfield bat to the lineup, ideally a better defender than Yoshida. People are talking about Ohtani, but the likely-departing Angels superstar who fits our team needs better (assuming he can pass a physical) would be... Mike Trout. The Angels say they'll trade him if he requests a trade, and frankly they should. They just went all in at the deadline and trashed their already terrible farm, and then immediately fell apart. There's basically no future over there, Trout's deal is expensive and probably somewhat underwater, and they should be considering a deep rebuild.
Trout is 31, and posted a .858 OPS in 82 games this last season. He has 7 years and about $250m remaining on his 12/$427m deal, ~$35m AAV. He is signed through 2030, when he will be 38. These next 7 seasons are clearly not worth what he'll be paid, but he's still a very good player when healthy. Health is an issue, as he's had trouble staying on the field the last few seasons; that said, it's been a combined .968 OPS across those seasons, so he hasn't fallen off much with the bat, if at all. He's still right around average defensively in CF, too. He has no-trade protection. But if we're looking for a RHH corner outfielder with the defensive chops for Fenway's RF, top-of-the-order OBP, and middle-of-the-order SLG, we could do a lot worse. Dude can still light up statcast.
If and only if Trout can pass a physical, I would gladly send the Angels a decent-to-good prospect package (we'd pitch Duran as the headliner; they'd ask for Bleis...) for Trout and, I dunno, ~$125m.
I mean:
RH Rafaela CF
LH Devers 3B
RH Trout RF
LH Casas 1B
RH Duvall LF
LH Yoshida DH
RH Story SS
LH Valdez 2B
RH Wong C
Thoughts? Is this crazy? I'm genuinely not sure.
Trout is 31, and posted a .858 OPS in 82 games this last season. He has 7 years and about $250m remaining on his 12/$427m deal, ~$35m AAV. He is signed through 2030, when he will be 38. These next 7 seasons are clearly not worth what he'll be paid, but he's still a very good player when healthy. Health is an issue, as he's had trouble staying on the field the last few seasons; that said, it's been a combined .968 OPS across those seasons, so he hasn't fallen off much with the bat, if at all. He's still right around average defensively in CF, too. He has no-trade protection. But if we're looking for a RHH corner outfielder with the defensive chops for Fenway's RF, top-of-the-order OBP, and middle-of-the-order SLG, we could do a lot worse. Dude can still light up statcast.
If and only if Trout can pass a physical, I would gladly send the Angels a decent-to-good prospect package (we'd pitch Duran as the headliner; they'd ask for Bleis...) for Trout and, I dunno, ~$125m.
I mean:
RH Rafaela CF
LH Devers 3B
RH Trout RF
LH Casas 1B
RH Duvall LF
LH Yoshida DH
RH Story SS
LH Valdez 2B
RH Wong C
Thoughts? Is this crazy? I'm genuinely not sure.
Story is a pretty good SS. Rafaela by all accounts is a great CF who plays a good shortstop.
Someone else proposed this idea in a different thread and the general consensus was that Trout's contract was so under water that people would pass
This is for JM3, and the others who follow the prospects closely. Is Roman Anthony strictly a CF, or is there a scenario where he goes to RF and Raffaela stays in CF? Or vice versa? It seems with both projecting as plus defenders that they'd be wasted in LF.
The fact that Roman has a chance to stick in CF has been an awesome revelation - everyone always just sort of assumed he would have to cycle down to a corner OF role (in fact in my rankings list I still have him written down as a LF). I don't really think you can ever have too many good defensive outfielders as long as they can also hit.
Rafaela should be the better defender, so if he hits well enough to stick, I would envision him in CF & Anthony in one of the corners most of the time, & I wouldn't consider that a waste at all.
I don't think anyone would argue the other side of that. In my best case '26 OF its Anthony/C Note/Bleis, though.
Thanks for the responses.
For 2024 it would seem keeping Verdugo, despite pending free agency, is the play while looking to cash Duran for pitching/RH power. Matasaka/Rafaela/Verdugo with Abreu and Refsnyder isn't terrible next year, with Anthony and Bleis due soon thereafter.
For 2024 it would seem keeping Verdugo, despite pending free agency, is the play while looking to cash Duran for pitching/RH power. Matasaka/Rafaela/Verdugo with Abreu and Refsnyder isn't terrible next year, with Anthony and Bleis due soon thereafter.
In the Glob article about Cora saying he is coming back next year, he also talked about our left-handed hitters not going to left enough.
He publicly named a few players, and of course Verdugo was one of them:
He publicly named a few players, and of course Verdugo was one of them:
Since it looks like Cora will be back, I really doubt Verdugo will be. Cora has publicly commented negatively about him multiple times in the past year and benched him twice for various reasons, while not (publicly at least) benching anyone else. Cora seems to have a lot of pull with the decision makers left in the front office, and with all the LH outfielders we have, I would be surprised if Verdugo is back next year.
Wait.... Cora had all year to push for LHH to hit opposite field and he just couldn't? That's a double indictment on him as a coach! Wha????
It makes very little sense to me. Savant sorts by pull/center/opposite field outcomes, but won't sort by home-games, so I'd be curious to see what the difference is for Devers and Verdugo in Fenway from 2022 to 2023. There might be something but the overall does not look that stark at first glance.
When Verdugo and Cora had their most recent dust up, Verdugo talked about not wanting to publicly get into what their beef was about and instead focusing on the remaining 7 weeks of the season. On the one hand, that could be taken as we're working on making a run into the playoffs. On the other hand, it could be taken as I'll hold my tongue now and in 7 weeks I'll be out of Boston for good. We may find out in October.
Last edited:
No need to start a new thread on this but wasn't sure where to put it. BUT.... Sox are once again raising ticket prices - and Fenway is already the most expensive fan experience in MLB.
Meanwhile, the MLB playoffs start today and look at what you can get PLAYOFF tickets for in some of these places:
Insane.
Meanwhile, the MLB playoffs start today and look at what you can get PLAYOFF tickets for in some of these places:
Insane.
I think Philly is the comp for Boston when it comes to fan interest, and as one can see, Philly tickets are not cheap.
Those numbers say more about the commitment (really lack of commitment) of fans in Tampa, Milwaukee, and Minnesota.
Those numbers say more about the commitment (really lack of commitment) of fans in Tampa, Milwaukee, and Minnesota.
That's an interesting take. I view that entire exchange as Cora not throwing the player under the bus for being late. It was a test for Verdugo, and he failed. Verdugo had a change to "own it" and instead decided to "keep it in the house". I think it speaks volumes about Verdugo. I don't think he will be with the team in '24 as he had the opportunity to hold himself accountable and choose a separate path.
I continually see posts about Urias as our 2b. I really don’t get the love affair with the guy. He had one decent season with ops+ 118 and the rest he’s been ineffective or not playing.
Anyhow, I see this team needing major changes. A lot of people are banking on internal growth and incremental improvements, but we are light years away from three teams in our own division, let alone the rest of the league.
We are saddled with large amounts of mediocrity in the lineup and the rotation. I would expect big changes this off-season or we are gonna be bitchi about 78-84 again.
Anyhow, I see this team needing major changes. A lot of people are banking on internal growth and incremental improvements, but we are light years away from three teams in our own division, let alone the rest of the league.
We are saddled with large amounts of mediocrity in the lineup and the rotation. I would expect big changes this off-season or we are gonna be bitchi about 78-84 again.
Not sure where you're getting your facts. He struggled to adjust to the big leagues after being very aggressively promoted ( he reached the bigs at 21) and then was worth 3+ WAR in two straight seasons for Milwaukee. Urias had two straight full seasons of wrc+ over 110 prior to this year, where yes, he was injured. Those numbers would have made sandwiched him between Yoshida and Turner at a position where it's tough to get good offensive production.
I'm his time in Boston he posted a WRC+ of 99, including an OBP north of .360, which blew most of the dross we played at 2B and SS ojt of the water. He missed a lot of time and had an overall terrible year. I expect him to compete with Valdez for the 2B job next year and to probably win it, since he can field the position.
A .361 obp is nice, less so when it’s accompanied with a .337 slg. Urias is interesting but i am not sure he’s worth the ~$5M he’s likely to get in arbitration. Wonder if there’s the potential to work out a deal with more incentives to avoid arb.
Yeah, if he posts a .337 slugging percentages again that would be painful, but he was a guy who was slugging north of .400 prior to the hamstring injury. I think the hamstring injury may have sapped some of his power. With a full off-season I would imagine he'll be back to hitting homers. If not, Valdez is there as insurance.
The free agent second basemen this offseason are Adam Frazier, Brad Miller, Donovan Solano, Tony Kemp, Kolten Wong, Christian Arroyo, and Cory Spangenberg. Next year’s free agent second basemen (if we’re looking at stopgaps) are Jose Altuve, Brandon Drury, Whit Merrifield, and Gleyber Torres.
Could we go out and trade for a 2B we’re more certain plays better than Urias and Valdez? It’s possible, but I don’t see the point. It seems pretty likely that one of Yorke or Mayer gets called up in 2024, and either scenario would give us our 2B long term.
The only options that almost makes sense are A) the Angels trading Brandon Drury in a salary dump. But that won’t happen—and neither should it, because Drury’s not very good. Or B) signing Amed Rosario to play second, which doesn’t seem realistic because he’ll probably get more to play shortstop, and he’s not a better hitter or fielder than Urias.
Could we go out and trade for a 2B we’re more certain plays better than Urias and Valdez? It’s possible, but I don’t see the point. It seems pretty likely that one of Yorke or Mayer gets called up in 2024, and either scenario would give us our 2B long term.
The only options that almost makes sense are A) the Angels trading Brandon Drury in a salary dump. But that won’t happen—and neither should it, because Drury’s not very good. Or B) signing Amed Rosario to play second, which doesn’t seem realistic because he’ll probably get more to play shortstop, and he’s not a better hitter or fielder than Urias.
I’m leaning towards hoping Cedanne-Super-Sub as
I was leaning towards trading Duran and holding onto Verdugo for one more season but now I'm leaning towards getting any value out of Verdugo as possible and going with 2B combo of one of Urias/Reyes as majority starters there and having Rafaela play 33% time there.
Rafaela starting a majority in CF with Duran getting the starts there when Rafaela is at 2B or SS (giving Story occasional breaks)
Yoshida mostly DH, 33% in LF and Duran getting most of the reps there.
Abreu in RF.
I generally see an improvement in defense and perhaps an overall drop in offense but not enough to have a major effect. I could convince myself that Devers will rebound, Casas will continue to rake right out of the gate and Yoshida won't start as slow and won't hit a wall. Story will improve. Abreu will provide equal offense as Verdugo.
It really comes down to the starting pitching. The Sox REALLY need to get two good guys there and the overall club will be tremendously better.
There's a lot of "ifs" here, but I guess the strategy is Story is at SS next season with hopefully getting by with good defense and okay offense at 2B. Either Yorke or Mayer is ready to take over and Story moves to the other spot. Also there's a big "IF" for Story going into the future as discussed in another thread, but with his salary, it's a commitment actually.
I was leaning towards trading Duran and holding onto Verdugo for one more season but now I'm leaning towards getting any value out of Verdugo as possible and going with 2B combo of one of Urias/Reyes as majority starters there and having Rafaela play 33% time there.
Rafaela starting a majority in CF with Duran getting the starts there when Rafaela is at 2B or SS (giving Story occasional breaks)
Yoshida mostly DH, 33% in LF and Duran getting most of the reps there.
Abreu in RF.
I generally see an improvement in defense and perhaps an overall drop in offense but not enough to have a major effect. I could convince myself that Devers will rebound, Casas will continue to rake right out of the gate and Yoshida won't start as slow and won't hit a wall. Story will improve. Abreu will provide equal offense as Verdugo.
It really comes down to the starting pitching. The Sox REALLY need to get two good guys there and the overall club will be tremendously better.
He is exactly the same as Christian Arroyo. His numbers all align… again, not sure why we are excited about him. We had a very similar player and released him.
I don't know if anyone's truly "excited" about Urias, but he's two years younger than Arroyo and has an extra year of team control so that probably plays into why he's still here and Arroyo is not. They're not exactly the same player though.
Urias: 445 MLB games, 1641 PA, .234/.333/.385/.718, 97 OPS+
Arroyo: 295 MLB games, 992 PA, .252/.299/.394/.693, 86 OPS+
Even over the previous two seasons, when both players were better than they showed in 2023, Urias sported OPS+ of 112 and 108 while Arroyo put up back to back 103s. Urias appears to have greater upside to me.
Arroyo is 2 years older than Urias & has less PAs in his career (992) than Urias had in '21 & '22 (1,042), & has a career fWAR of 0.3 to Urias's 4.5 (4.4 of which was during that 2-year stretch). In bWAR, Urias had 6.4 during the 2-year stretch & 7.0 total to Arroyo's career 2.0. Urias also has a 10.7% bb rate in his career to Arroyo's 5.1%.
They are not the same.
You can argue that Urias isn't good enough & that he won't bounce back to his '21 & '22 levels, but he is not a comparable player to Arroyo & his midrange outcome is much higher than Arroyo's.
They are not the same.
You can argue that Urias isn't good enough & that he won't bounce back to his '21 & '22 levels, but he is not a comparable player to Arroyo & his midrange outcome is much higher than Arroyo's.
Yeah, this.
They have a lot of money to spend but not an unlimited amount. If they literally spent every penny on starting pitching, I'm cool with that, assuming reasonable deals. I'm expecting something kind of close to that, save for some marginal spending elsewhere and perhaps an unexpected opportunity that arises where the price for a hitter is cheaper than expected and too good to pass up.
Which is reflected in his walk rates, which is why he has such a better floor than a guy like Arroyo. Even if Urias isn't hitting a bunch of home runs, he'll get on base at a decent clip, something you couldn't say about almost any of the Red Sox starters besides Casas. Here's the team organized by OBP.
I like this proposed team in the field, SaLTy. Thanks for taking the time to put this together. Gives me hope and a clear understanding of where they should spend their money and resources this offseason.
I like it too, and think it's absolute (I guess obvious) they need to acquire two good starting pitchers. Though I think they also really need a blue chip RHH power bat, too. So so lefty heavy.
I'm hoping that there's also some way to get Trout and have an OF platoon of him in RF with Abreu, DH platoon with Yoshida.
1B Casas
2B Urias/Rafaela/Reyes
3B Devers
SS Story/Rafaela
RF Trout/Abreu
CF Rafaela/Duran
LF Duran/Yoshida
DH Trout/Yoshida
C Wong/McGuire
I'm not sure how to deal with the backup corner IF for rest and/or injury though.... can Trout learn to pick up a 1B mitt?
By my count, you've got 12 players there. Room for one more on the bench.
Trout seems like the longest of long shots. I have my doubts that he'd waive his no-trade to come to situation where he'd be asked to play brand new positions. He might come to play RF instead of CF (especially in the context of the difficulty of Fenway RF), but unlikely he'd pick up a 1B mitt even if it's just a few games a year.
I've been going back and forth on Duran and I'm starting to think his change is for real. Maybe not quite as high as he went this past season but I'm willing to bet that he can hit for a high average and that the BABiP will continue to be around .370. A lot of posters were hoping that the defensive changes in the shift would allow him to find some holes and his speed would turn several singles into doubles and that pretty much came true. His defense improved and I could see it being even better in LF (while I don't think Yoshida's D is as bad as the stats indicated, he's still not good). He also brings an element of the offense that is missing from basically everyone else that has been undervalued over the past 25-30 years.
I definitely would kick the tires on a Trout deal (the future of the Angels looks dismal while I can see with adding pitching that the Sox' looks much brighter) but if he can't be brought back then I would push for Turner. Yeah, they need a RH power between Casas and Devers clearly.
My primary concern with Duran is just how bad his underlying numbers are, and the BABIP it requires to mask them. Even at a .404 BABIP (June) he still only managed a 104 WRC+; he's never had a positive WRC for a month at below 400 BABIP.
Second, I don't like how much of his value is tied up in his legs. He's going to be 28 and I don't see him sustaining that speed, and it doesn't take much decline for those electric hustle doubles to just disappear.
I think he's got a year or two max to coast on his pure athletic ability, and unless he suddenly gains a healthy dose of baseball intelligence to offset that decline, the drop-off is going to be severe. I'd rather sell high if another team is valuing him at anything more than that.
Second, I don't like how much of his value is tied up in his legs. He's going to be 28 and I don't see him sustaining that speed, and it doesn't take much decline for those electric hustle doubles to just disappear.
I think he's got a year or two max to coast on his pure athletic ability, and unless he suddenly gains a healthy dose of baseball intelligence to offset that decline, the drop-off is going to be severe. I'd rather sell high if another team is valuing him at anything more than that.
Almost nobody maintains a BABIP over .350 for their career, nevermind .370. Here are the all-time leaders:
You'll notice that most of these guys were born before the Titanic sank, and the ones who are modern players have only played a couple of full seasons (Brandon Marsh and Alfaro), so there's probably a lot of luck involved in their appearance here.
All told there's just 5 guys in the history of baseball with career BABIPs over .370 and only 30 over .350. It's really hard to do.
It's not impossible Duran is one of those guys, but I do think it's very unlikely.
Here's a link to that leaderboard: https://www.fangraphs.com/leaders/major-league?pos=all&stats=bat&lg=all&qual=y&type=8&season=2023&month=0&season1=1871&ind=0&team=0&rost=0&players=0&sortcol=11&sortdir=default&pagenum=2&pageitems=30
I should add that I like Duran, I just don't want him starting in center field.
I'm betting Duran gets moved. It's time to sell high on him. A starting outfield of Rafella, Verdugo, and Abreu with Yoshida at DH makes a ton of sense. Spend the money on pitching, and if we get to June and the outfield is not producing, it will be a lot easier to trade for an outfield bat than a starter. If you want to go after Trout, than Duran could be the centerpiece of that deal, depending on how much the Angels are willing to eat.
This is great, thanks for the info!
I agree we need pitching above all else, but I do believe that we are lacking that one more offensive difference maker on this team, which is why I really don’t want to just roll with the same 9.
Nope, not going to do it. Not going down this rabbit hole again with another megastar
Yeah. This is starting to feel like an agent taking advantage of a frustrated "big market" fanbase and a front office in limbo to goose the market. Not going to fall for it and raise hopes. I'd rather be pleasantly surprised if he signs here.