I mean, he still is. Fangraphs still had him as the 3rd overall prospect in all of baseball when they last updated their rankings. He's a great prospect. A 142 wrc+ at AA as a 21 year old is nothing to sneeze at.
I’m someone who wants to avoid a multi year contract for a reliever at all costs….
Shoulder concern? Or are the Orioles one of those teams that uses medicals aggressively with free agents? Seems like there are always a couple outlier teams who object to stuff other teams wouldn't, which is probably super helpful in dealing with agents.
Kinda funny that Jordan Romano (who was injured) and Hoffman (who might be injured) just end up switching teams. Grass is greener I guess.
Mayer may not be MLB ready but I wouldn’t say he’s blocked at SS. Mayer at SS and Story at 2B works.
After reading Alex Speier’s article about adding right handed fly all pull hitters I decided to dive a little deeper into not only who pulls the ball, but who pulls the ball in the air.
Similarly wonder about Lane Thomas. Seems like a good guy to grab as our Refsnyder replacement next year.
I like Profar a lot, but he seems like a poor fit, since he would only play LF at this point and the Sox have a ton of outfielders (notably, he was tied for 231st place last year as the second worst defensive LF in baseball at -8 DRS). And I don't think it likely that the Sox are shopping for a full-time DH at this point.
For the record, I also like the player - I think I was advocating signing him before the 2022 or 2023 season, I don't recall which one, and it really doesn't matter. However, I've always thought of there being a massive difference between an outlier season being "fluky" and being "repeatable" if that makes sense. Plenty of guys have one great year but aren't able to consistently repeat that. Kind of what I think of Profar last year. It's not like he "lucked" his way into that season, but I also wouldn't bank on him repeating anything close to it at age 32. That season was so different from any of his prior (I think 8 years) that it just seems unlikely to be repeated as he gets older.
While there may be a few question marks concerning the pitching staff, I really like the depth that Breslow has built with the starting pitching and I think the pen has the potential to be really good. I think it's a safe bet to say that at some point we see Anthony and Campbell being promoted, but looking at the 40 man as currently constructed it seems that someone is going to need to be moved. Sogard seems to be the logical choice of position players and perhaps someone from the far end of the pitching bench could be sacrificed, but there isn't a whole lot of wiggle room there concerning who gets whacked in favor of promoting someone else. Good problem to have and I suppose that a lengthy IL stint can help ease what might be a tough decision, but it will still be interesting to follow this coming season's 40 man roster transactions. As previously stated, I think at some point in the season we see Hamilton moved to a small market team who is looking for a cost controlled player to man 2B. I think that's where his true value lies and his speed certainly enhances that.
This, and a couple other points. 1.) He is a switch hitter, which is nice for Cora and pinch hitting. 2.) Yoshida may not be ready for ST, so there would be DH bats readily available early. 3.) He is by every account a great veteran clubhouse presence who also happens to be a fellow countryman of Rafaela. His influence on the younger guys could be helpful.
If Campbell and Anthony are developing at the major league level, where is the space to have Profar on the roster? I assume this is poorly phrased and you mean Profar is insurance at the major league level against Campbell and Anthony struggling and not even getting to the big leagues this year. But even so, I don't see the fit. They have Grissom, Hamilton, and Romy as "insurance" at 2B, and Rafaela, Refsnyder, and Romy as "insurance" in LF. Profar had a career year last season at the plate but he's no sure thing to repeat that performance and he's a liability in the field. Rolling the dice on the guys in house seems as reasonable of a bet as rolling the dice on Profar.
No doubt there are ways, opportunity will play as much of a role as anything I think with a timely shifting of someone from the 10 or 15 day IL to the 60 day.
Not only that but he is a career league average hitter from both sides of the plate (.241/.330/.396) vs righties and (.256/.335/.390) vs lefties. I'm not going to rely on one season of data before his age 31 season unless you want to count his wRC+ of 70 vs lefties in 2013 as well. Any ok offense he provides vs lefties will be nullified by his defense.
He doesn't make a lot of sense if Casas and Yoshida are both on the roster too. To fit him in, you're losing one of Romy, Hamilton, or Refsnyder (as the roster currently stands). Alonso covers none of the positions they do, while at least one of them covers Alonso's positions.
I would adore Alonso on something like a 3/$100m/$33m deal to be the DH for the next 3 seasons. Plus, to be clear, with a lot of teams trending away from spending big on 1b/DH I think this could be a place where Boston could / should flex it's financial muscle to employ a monster bat. They did this for Ortiz (starting in 2006 or 07, whenever his extension kicked in) and JDM when they were two of the highest paid position players on the team, and those seemed to have mildly successful seasons.
I was hoping.... Is really the only feasible option for a RH bat the way our roster looks now is to sign Bregman to play 2nd for the time being then shuffle with Raffy to DH later? Not seeing too many options in how we can add the bat we need and some veteran presence.
The value a dirt cheap contract is only realized if the money saved buys or pays for what the team needs. Even with a couple of glaring needs Boston appears to be reticent to use its financial might to cover those needs. That being the case the cheap contracts only matter to help Mr. Henry make even more money.
Sure, but Romy is absolutely miserable against RHP. He crushed lefties and still ended up with an overall line of 286/306/417. It’s really hard to optimally use a bunch of RH who can’t hit RH and LH who can’t LH, you can only make so many moves before four are left with a bad matchup.
You've been asked numerous times by various people to do a better job posting, and so far, you have not done so. Why don't you take a break from here for a while and just read the board to get a better idea of what's expected of you.
Yoshida had labrum surgery on October 3rd. Does anyone expect him to be fully available in Spring Training or to break camp with the big league squad?
Cora mentioned how he hasn’t started throwing yet. I think he’s a long shot for opening day.
The DH doesn’t throw, but I’d be surprised if he’s in the Opening Day lineup.
Since it seems he'll be the primary DH, is it possible he'll be able to swing the bat?
Okay, fair, but that’s not really an argument that a 1B who should be a DH has a role on this team as constructed.
I guess this could make sense if the commitment is small enough, especially if Yoshida isn’t expected to be healthy from the jump.
Very well said.
He hit through the injury all of last season, so I suspect he'll be able to DH long before he's ready to play the outfield. According to this article from last Saturday, he's expected to start dry swinging a bat within the next week or so. That would seemingly put him on track to be the Opening Day DH. Also noteworthy in Cora's comments is the acknowledgement that it was the shoulder that prevented Yoshida from playing the outfield and that if his shoulder is up to it, he'll be in the outfield mix this season.
That's interesting. I thought I clearly remembered him saying the opposite about Yoshida last year. (That is, he wasn't playing OF anyway). Doesn't matter.
I agree that having batters who excel against LHP and RHP is the ideal. And I share the hope that Campbell, Anthony, Grissom, Mayer fit that description, and that Duran, Casas, Yoshida etc can improve a bit. But the Sox did fine last year using matchups and should be in a position to be even better against all pitching this year.
I think that heading into the season Cora did state that Yoshida was going to be the DH with Duran, O'Neill Abreu, Rafaela and RFsnyder being the outfield. I'm not sure how emphatic he may have been about no time in the OF for Yoshida, I think it was more a matter of "here's the plan".
