The Sox won 92 games and made it to the ALCS last year with JD and his personal views. Simmons might not be peak Simmons anymore but his babip was low for his career last year and as noted above his defense was actually pretty damn good. If he does continue on his offensive downward trend you at least have solid defense. For low-ish money and few years he could be a decent bridge. The steamer projections for next year looks at least decent. (And yes I understand they are just projections)
It's a very Tampa move to do exactly this, but I don't think Bloom necessarily follows that script all the time, and Bogaerts is an unusual case as a franchise cornerstone on a team that might not want to keep trading its franchise cornerstones?
I think you’re missing the context of my post as it relates to the circumstances Beantownidaho posits in the post directly above it. I don't think present circumstances warrant worrying about trading X. If they sign a glove first SS to be a cady, then definitely not. If they sign Story, maybe, but he could also shift to 2B under the plan I thought would work with Baez. If they sign Correa, well, then a lot of things are on the table...
Simmons very well might not be a great fit (although it is nice to see that he does appear to still be a very good defensive shortstop).
Yeah it was a total let down year. They were they supposed to win more games than 92 and make the world series... but you know JD made it even worse.
No, signing Andrelton Simmons would make it even worse.
I don't think I was suggesting that Xander to Simmons isn't a down grade at short offensively, of course it is. But it seems to me Yo La Tengo has it right
If you think Simmons views outside of baseball would ruin the team I disagree. There are weirdos on any given championship team.
A weirdo is one thing, hell, I'm a Manny Ramirez fan, I love a weirdo. Bring me your Julian Taverezes, your Baergas, your Gomeses. And I've rooted for more-than-a-couple professional athletes whose politics are odious to me, we all have: it's part of the deal, like it or not. When I first googled Simmons and found his story of opting out of the end of 2020 because of mental health issues and suicidal thoughts, I thought, that's the kind of mental health awareness I want out of my team's players. But then I found his openly anti-vax tweets. I think it is totally fair to be concerned about adding anti-vax players to the team, and it's not about being "weird".
It's been gone over a million times here so we don't need to belabor the point much further do we but really though, do you think these kind of risks are not already on the team? Or that the Sox wouldn't sign someone solely based on that consideration? I'm vaccinated mysefl and I think other people should be. I do, however, recognize that there are going to be professional athletes that don't think like I do no matter how much I wish they would. And it's not going to be a small number of them. Teams should weigh that risk obviously but to what extent I don't know, I'm sure they have more internal info at their disposal for their risk tolerance considerations. The question then is would Simmons as a bridge with resources spent elsewhere make the team short and long term better? I think yes, like Yo La Tengo spelled out. Since you brought up other teams, Aaron Rodgers straight up lied about his status, was down for a week and the Packers are currently about to win the NFC. Simmons is no Rodgers talent wise clearly but these dudes are out there and they are not going away.
Brad Miller would fit nicely as a backup/platoon with Dalbec and Arroyo, but he hasn't played more than 35 innings at SS since 2016. Expecting him to play there with any regularity at age 32 seems like a non-starter.
So there are scenarios where he's a bit more expendable, but absent a Correa signing, he's still a contributor on a contender and they'll be in GFIN mode? Agreed. My Tampa point was that he comes from a line of thinking that is always willing to flip the asset, and also are we sure he's an expiring contract? Technically yes, but he doesn't seem to want to leave and the Sox shouldn't want him to.
I was envisioning him manning 2B primarily, and serving in more of a platoon role at 1B with Casas/Dalbec + backup for SS be that X or his replacement.
If they wanted to sign an elite talent at shortstop, they'd just extend Bogaerts. Maybe a better use of resources is to maximize defense at SS and try and supplement offense elsewhere on the diamond - a couple power bats in the corner outfield, 1b, dh, etc.
This is about where I'm at, although I probably wouldn't give him the opt out after year 2. If there's an opt out I'd go with after year 3, although if the 2023 offseason projects to have a much larger class of lower tier SS hitting FA I might be OK with 2 year opt out. I'm not sure we will be confident about Mayer in 2 years, but there's a solid chance that we will have a good sense of what we've got in 3. I'd also be willing to offer an even higher AAV than this most likely, although only after trying to extend Devers first.
This makes sense. On one hand, it's pretty unlikely that Bloom doesn't the same deficiencies in Vazquez that we could see. On the other, given the roster and the price tag, they couldn't really *not* pick up the option.
A few times over the past couple of seasons some here have suggested/speculated over a possible deal between the Sox and Padres. The idea behind this is the Sox take on Hosmer's or Meyer's contract in return for one of San Diego's young pitchers. I came across this article a week and a half ago and didn't bother passing it along, but given the quoted post I figured I would share it for discussion.
I took it as the Sox being on the hook for 20 M over for years. Meanwhile, Myers has just one year remaining on his contract at 22.5 M. I wonder what sort of relief might come back in a deal for him. Primarily a RF since Hosmer arrived, but has plenty of experience at 1B and a little at 3rd. Fills a need at 2 positions and you'd only be committed to him for a year.
HUGE if, but if they get Hosmer at somewhere in the neighborhood of 5M per year they may be able flip him or move Dalbec at the trade deadline if Casas is ready.
Let's talk Bats. Assume to compete, we need 3 or 4 core hitters, plus a greater number of more fungible complementary pieces.
This is a good post, and the reason that the Myers rumors a few years back made more sense than this one.
Since that was written he's had 38 terrible MLB PAs (.272 OPS — oof.) and 326 excellent AAA PAs (.295/.365/.541). Again, he's 23, and still has less than a year's service time after two cups of coffee. If he's actually being dangled in salary dumps, we should be very interested. That's all.
Franchy, like Dalbec, hits the ball so hard when he makes contact that it is hard to ignore. 118.6 Max exit velocity, but only 3.9% barrelling the ball, which explains his low average velocity.
Uncanny resemblance between the two... Perhaps more similar than Franchy and Dalbec? Time will tell.
How about quasi GFIN now instead of punting, with this very quality core likely breaking up after the season, and a youth-led rebuild to follow. I hope they GFIN because I think patience will be required hereafter as fans (but the good kind of patience with lots of good young ball players to follow).
I think it is a quasi-GFIN, quasi-punt, sort of like last year. So maybe we'll see a Schwarber like trade if they're in the scrum.
We know if they bring Santana back, we're in GFIN mode and not punt mode. I just want this lock out to end, so I can read the news he's back!
