It's been almost a week since Chaim Bloom did anything to improve this team! And now all the best right-handed-hitting, part-time outfield bats are off the market. What the hell is this guy waiting for?
Red Sox in season discussion
- Thread starter Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat
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I'd consider adding Fitzgerald to the list of potential outfielders, especially if his spring training continues to go as well as it has. He hit .271/.351/.505 in AA last year and backed up a promotion to AAA by hitting .262/.340/.571. He's also 27... so if the team sees him as a viable big-league option, now's the time to try him out. Could also provide some infield depth if needed.
View: https://twitter.com/peteabe/status/1507037010720133134?s=21
This seems like a bluff, somewhat. The Sox defensive woes with JDM in the outfield became a spectacle last year, and I don’t know why they (or he) would risk an injury (in a contract year). I suppose Dalbec could DH, though that contradicts the new strategy of using him at 2B/3B/LF. But then who plays first? (Don’t say Travis Shaw).
This seems like a bluff, somewhat. The Sox defensive woes with JDM in the outfield became a spectacle last year, and I don’t know why they (or he) would risk an injury (in a contract year). I suppose Dalbec could DH, though that contradicts the new strategy of using him at 2B/3B/LF. But then who plays first? (Don’t say Travis Shaw).
If they do this it means they are playing Arroyo around the diamond and mixing in guys at DH as partial off days.
Fitzy, despite his hot spring, is probably behind Refsnyder in the pecking order in terms of non-roster guys brought up to the big club. He's fully under team control while Refsnyder as a ML vet has an out clause in his minor league deal so the window to give him a shot is shorter. If one of them breaks camp on the Opening Day roster, it's Refsnyder.
I never said there was no hope of improving. I said it looks like they may not. I left out hope for a trade. You are whining about people whining more than the original whining.
Still doesn’t make sense. Arroyo can’t play shortstop or first. He could theoretically play second and shift Story to short, bumping Bogaerts to DH, but doing that against every lefty starter is quite a lot of games.
And with Bogaerts at DH, we wouldn’t have another player on the bench (as constituted) who can play 2B/SS.
And while I'm not sure of the sample size, his offense is considerably worse when he plays OF.
Since literally every indicator from the eye test to defensive metrics says that this is an awful idea, I can only assume there's some other reason for saying this. Maybe they've got a trade working and need to signal that they're OK with JDM in the OF if the trade doesn't work out.
Fair point, and Refsnyder's deal wasn't something I considered. That said, I really hope they choose the guy who's lighting it up in AA-AAA and spring training over 31-year-old with a 70 career OPS+. Plus, Fitzgerald gives us depth in the infield, as Chawson noted as a concern above. Scouts have said he's got a fantastic arm and elite defense.
Fwiw, Arroyo has played SS, and Cora just included SS when discussing Arroyo’s positions.
I think Dalbec will get days off against righties so he would stay at first. Arroyo would be giving days off to the big 3. If you need to pinch hit for him late in the game then JBJ goes to center and Hernandez moves to 2nd.
Seems like a lot of shuffling just to get a guy who tripped over second base taking his position some more time to wander the outfield.
Yeah, while he hasn't played a ton of SS in recent years he's played more than 300 games at the position in the minors. I'm sure they can put if out there when needed.
Refsnyder rocketed up to an OPS+ of 86 given his corrections cited above. I think that's likely his ceiling. If you're going to field a sub 100 OPS+ guy they should be bringing more to the table than a mediocre OF defense.
Honestly, I'd rather roll the dice with Francy again.
Every indicator has said JDM in the outfield is a bad idea since he was signed in 2018. He's still made 135 starts in the outfield over those four seasons, which is roughly one in every four games (so not a matter of staying in the lineup in NL parks). I don't think they're blowing smoke or signalling anything other than they intend to continue to play him in the outfield once a week or so.
If I understand the MLB rules relating to opening day rosters, the roster will be expanded to 28 players for the month of April. Plus, there is no limit to the number of position players versus pitchers, so you can have 14 of each or 15 of one and 13 of another. Then in May, it reverts back to a 26 man roster with 13 pitchers and 13 players.
Can anyone confirm this?
Can anyone confirm this?
The first and third sentences are correct as of now (they could decide to keep rosters expanded longer depending how things are going), the middle one is less clear but probably also correct.
Well, in a SSS, his OPS v LHP was .783 last year, 200 pts above his OPS v RHP. We’re talking about him as a likely short term platoon guy v LHP, right?
The middle sentence is correct too, as confirmed by Aaron Boone today.
View: https://twitter.com/bryanhoch/status/1507082308544876548?s=21&t=JSQ9VBThPJeTfFmuYyXiSg
It's a fair point. Savant https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/rob-refsnyder-608701?stats=statcast-r-hitting-mlb suggests he had a hot start v. lefties then fell back to earth. Looks like he was out for June and July.
Maybe he's figured something out. But I kind of doubt it.
From The Athletic article linked below:
"...When Bradley sits, Arroyo typically will play. Cora said Arroyo will be in the lineup most games against left-handed pitchers, and often he’ll be in the field so that either Story, Rafael Devers or Xander Bogaerts can have a less taxing day in the DH slot (whether Arroyo or Story plays shortstop in Bogaerts’ place, Cora said, will be up to Story; if Story wants to keep playing second base every day, that’s what he’ll do).
When the DH spot is otherwise occupied, Cora plans to use Martinez in the outfield, and often in right field because Alex Verdugo has gotten comfortable in left and, according to Cora, prefers to stay there. Martinez had a .945 OPS as a DH last season, but only a .641 OPS as a left fielder and a .462 OPS as a right fielder. His career OPS, though, is actually highest when he plays in right field, and Cora said he’s not concerned with last year’s splits. Nor does he think Martinez is a liability in the field.
“We feel like we put him in the spot and he makes the play,” Cora said."
https://theathletic.com/3207981/2022/03/24/the-red-sox-plan-for-right-field-a-center-fielder-and-a-designated-hitter-with-an-infielders-help/
If the Sox are in contention in July, they will trade for an OF. JBJ/Arroyo/JDM just need to hold down the RF fort for 4 months.
That's one guy who really needs to be DHing as much as possible, one guy who is notoriously streaky to the point of often being unplayable for weeks at a time, and one guy who can't stay healthy and has never played the outfield.
They need another guy before July.
Let's face it, he was unplayable for an entire season last year. It's really hard to believe that they're going to give him significant at bats.
The Sox went into the Astros series last year with Travis Shaw (.200/.286/.373 in 2021) and Danny Santana (.181/.252/.345) as bench players. Hard to believe they're going to rely on somebody who was even worse (.163/.236/.261) to be a semi-regular.
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Why? Renfroe hit .156 the year before last, and was more than fine for the Sox. People are obsessing way too much over one horrible awful year for Jackie in an unfamiliar situation amidst a pandemic. We know what kind of player he can be, and it’s not as if he’s at the age where he should be cooked. It would be nice to have some more depth, sure, but he’s going to be a lot better than he was last year…and if not, they’ll replace him.
IMO it's not just JBJ's terrible season in Milwaukee, but he has a record of struggling through long slumps. I also think that it's a bit iffy comparing those two seasons. I'll buy the pandemic affecting the 2020 season. In fact I'll give anyone a pass on that season because there nothing normal about it. Players were sick, some for prolonged periods. Others may have been healthy, but had to quarantine because they were were in close contact with player testing positive. At times, entire lineups were greatly altered. Beginning to end it was a fucked up season, but not so much in 2021. Just 42 games and 139 PAs for Renfro in 2020 compared to the 134 games and 428 PAs by Bradley in 2021.
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I get that, I just think there’s a good chance that a return to a familiar situation and environment will potentially be good for Jackie; he’s always been the kind of player that needed a consistent routine and I’m guessing that didn’t happen in Milwaukee. As far as the Renfroe comparisons go, he was awful the second half of 19 too- so both players were coming off really bad play for an entire calendar year. Ultimately, JBJ was awful last year but that’s already happened; the Red Sox have him for this year and I expect that they think he will be much closer to the guy he was with the Sox over many years as opposed to the guy he was in one weird year with the Brewers.
Renfroe was also going into his age 29 season coming off his awful play. JBJ is entering his age 32 season.
Maybe he's not at that age where he should be cooked, but it's not unheard of. It's also not like he had much wiggle room to begin with. Even if you chose to ignore 2021, any type of real decline offensively from 17-20 will make him a hard play.
I agree with this. I think JBJ will bounce back decently. Milwaukee’s a smart team but it’s totally plausible that whatever process that worked in Boston to keep his mechanics intact wasn’t available, maybe exacerbated by pandemic conditions and his late spring signing.
It seems like a timing thing. JBJ went from murdering fastballs at a .523 wOBA mark in 2020 (20th in MLB) to a .243 wOBA clip against them in 2021. I’d be more worried if there were any slippage in his bat speed/exit velocity, which there is not. His chase rates and whiffs on balls out of the zone were way up, which seems like a downstream effect of missing fastballs and a lot of 0-2 counts.
That said, he’s unlikely to be a part of this team’s future, so the leash won’t be long. A deal with the A’s is quite possible, and I still do not buy Cora’s plan of DHing one of the infielders against lefties and playing JDM in the outfield.
As currently constructed, I would rather have Renfroe's 7.65M salary and additional year of control over JBJ's 12M salary for this season. If/when the Sox make a move for a RH corner outfielder with a decent glove and bat that settles Bradely in as the 4th OF/late inning defensive replacement the team will feel more complete to me. Also it can't be ignored that a big consideration in making this deal was that the Sox were able to buy a couple of prospects in the cost of taking Bradley back.
Agree YTF, while I'm optimistic about a JBJ bounce back why not go after a guy like Bryan Reynolds now? Seems like a good longer term fit for RF - he's 27 with some contract control, power plays well in Fenway, and we have the chips to do it.
He ain't Pedro, of course, but this inning demonstrates the kind of potential that makes it very unlikely, in my opinion, that Bello is traded.
View: https://twitter.com/redsoxstats/status/1507449801599766532?s=20&t=5TzzxOQdNKgTI2blVQXj8A
What chips are those? Reynolds is extremely valuable, a proven MLB CF with 4 years of control left, BTV has him at an 85 value. It's hard to see how BOS gets there without at least one of Mayer, Casas or Yorke, and still they'd need to add a bunch to that.
https://www.baseballtradevalues.com/trade-simulator/
Edit: BTV has Reynolds as the 21st most valuable player in all of MLB currently, factoring in production, salary, control, right between Rutschman and Bobby Witt Jr. (!!).
For anyone keeping track (which might be no one), my skepticism about Bloom pulling the trigger for a big money free agent was, of course, wrong. Acknowledging that now, though in my defense I did say it was possible he would sign someone, though it just wasn't clear yet what his approach was going to be after two years of relative thrift. Anyway, wasn't being avoidant about being wrong, just had a massive work project open while also putting my dad in hospice care ... so been busy.
I like Story being on the team for 2022. Do worry a bit about how his signing impacts other guys after this season - Xander, and Yorke, particularly. Would have preferred an outfielder, but Story undoubtedly makes the team much better now. Meanwhile, I think the team is still a couple players shy ... another outfielder to at least platoon with JBJ (as is discussed so much above), and frankly another starter. I hope Bloom fills at least one of these holes before opening day.
I like Story being on the team for 2022. Do worry a bit about how his signing impacts other guys after this season - Xander, and Yorke, particularly. Would have preferred an outfielder, but Story undoubtedly makes the team much better now. Meanwhile, I think the team is still a couple players shy ... another outfielder to at least platoon with JBJ (as is discussed so much above), and frankly another starter. I hope Bloom fills at least one of these holes before opening day.
The question that also gets forgotten with most of these wishlist trade targets is "why does his team want to trade him?" Reynolds, like you say, has four years of control left and he's still inexpensive even for a cheapskate team like the Pirates. We're at least a year if not two away from the Pirates shopping him around.
Sure, but I also think that the organization really values Jackie and the plan has always been to start him most of the time. He makes little sense as a back up (check out his career splits as a sub / PH) or defensive replacement given the other OF.
I suspect he starts vs RH at least, and if he’s terrible, they will make a move or ideally, he will be replaced by Duran. The fact that they don’t have much in the way or competition in camp suggests they have a lot of confidence in JBJ, hopefully that’s rewarded.
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(I'm sorry to hear about your dad. Hang in there, man.)
I was keeping track, and I'm pleased to see the acknowledgment. I think what everyone was saying was that we still don't really have a long enough track record with Bloom as the principal decision maker on a big market team to really have a sense of who he is and what his patterns are. Until basically right now, we've only seen him trading guys, making low-cost, buy-low acquisitions, and reloading the farm — and he's done pretty well at those things, in context. So now Trevor Story is his first big win-now type acquisition, and the first nine-figure deal of his career. We're going to see how he handles a few more "firsts" as we get a little further through the success cycle: his first time incorporating a top prospect, his first time unambiguously buying at the deadline, his first time extending a young player, etc.
Just like different statistics stabilize faster than others, it takes a long time to really get to know a GM. Dombrowski, to pick somebody out of a hat, gave a sense over his long career how he preferred to operate. Promote prospects aggressively, trade prospects aggressively to acquire top talent, give out long contracts to established stars in order to build good-but-brittle rosters, talk ownership into spending... but we'd seen him do those things over decades with multiple organizations.
I liked the trade. I think Bradley is better than we saw in Milwaukee, I think both of the prospects are pretty interesting (Hamilton is hitting line drives all over the field this spring), and I like the buy-low, sell-high sequence we followed with Renfroe. Bradley's defense is good enough (and Renfroe's bad enough, despite his strong arm), that a Bradley with a 94 OPS+ (his career line in Boston) is probably a comparably-valuable player to Renfroe with a 108 (his career line overall). I think I would bet on a JBJ rebound, with Cordero and Duran and Fitzgerald and Stewart, etc., providing fallback options behind him: in short, see if someone in-house can seize the opportunity. If not, you upgrade mid-season.
But I don't really have any idea what to expect from Bloom. Maybe he goes with the guys we have on hand. Maybe there's another FA signing coming (Brian Goodwin? Dexter Fowler? Juan Lagares? Matt Joyce?). Maybe there's a high-end OF available in trade (Mitch Haniger?). Maybe he picks up some Renfroe-last-year type guy from the margins of another team's roster (Oscar Mercado? Jordan Luplow?) who has a chance to blossom here. Maybe he takes on a salary dump corner outfielder like Wil Myers or Steven Piscotty in order to get another prospect or offset the cost of a pitching or catching acquisition. Maybe he flips Bradley to a team that needs more OF defense (Philadelphia? Cleveland? Detroit?) while bringing in another piece... I think any of those paths would be defensible.
I dont think theres any meaningful comparison between Renfroe and JBJ - Renfroe was always a average to slightly above average hitter outside of the one year in Tampa that consisted of only 140 plate appearances. Bradley had 430. Players have bad streaks - 140 plate appearances is about a quarter of a season; 430 is like 75-80%.
For Bradley, there has been a meaningful increase in his strikeout rate (which isnt all together uncommon for players in their early 30s who arent good hitters to begin with). Back when he was a mediocre hitter (2016/17), he struck out in the low 20s and rose to 25% in 2018 and 27% in 2019. Last year was 30% (with a blip at 22% in the 200 PA COVID shortened season). Maybe he bounces back a bit, but it seems pretty likely that hes more in the 26-28% range than 22%. He's pretty unlikely to be better than 220/310/400 and theres a meaningful risk that hes more of a 200/280/340 guy, which is basically unplayable. Or hes just completely cooked and is what he was last year.
In the second half of 2019, Renfroe hit 161/263/299 in 205 PA. In 2020, he hit 156/252/393 in 139 PA. So it was ~350 terrible plate appearances in a row over a close to one year period, about 80% of the plate appearances of JBJ’s 2021, that’s all I was trying to say. And heck, Renfroe hit 167/235/250 in his first month in Boston. So over the course of 400+ consecutive plate appearances, Renfroe was a .160 hitter.
There’s also a lot of weird circumstances over the past few years, too, obviously. Renfroe bounced back, Bradley could, too. Or might not.
Possible that last year is really who JBJ is now, sure. But for whatever reason, the Sox seem to be betting on a bounce back.
Will be interesting to see what happens; RF, SP, RP, and 1B seem like the potential problem areas for this team, but at this point it seems like the team is best served starting the season with what they have and figure out what they need after a while- with the potential that for several of these potential positions of need, they will very likely have help from within.
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I'd start with Verdugo and go from there. Gives us the two CF we covet and sets up for more options at an easier position to fill - LF. As we're hearing Cora say JD is going to get reps in RF it only emphasizes the reality that RF is the position to attack. Reynolds would be the perfect guy to target.
Why would the Pirates possibly want Verdugo (a corner OF with three years of control) as a major chip in a deal for Reynolds (a CF with four years of control)? Trades need to make sense for both teams, I do think the Pirates are willing to move Reynolds but they will need major prospects in return, and not a bulk deal as they already are having trouble protecting everyone they want on their 40 man. It's really hard to see a deal that makes sense both ways. Now that BOS has Story and Bogaerts (for now) and Yorke coming, would you trade Mayer along with Duran and Dalbec for Reynolds? That's almost an exact match in the BTV system, that's the best I can come up with.
But wouldn't trading Verdugo put us right back where we started? We'd still have a hole in the outfield we need to fill.
Chad Jennings with a nice piece on Ryan Fitzgerald falling victim to the rule 5 draft cancelation. The guy's been so fun to watch this spring, and his interview makes me like him even more. I'm really rooting for him to play his way onto the team.
https://theathletic.com/3210411/2022/03/26/red-sox-infielder-ryan-fitzgerald-having-a-spring-worthy-of-rule-5-draft-selection-if-only-there-was-one?source=user-shared-article
https://theathletic.com/3210411/2022/03/26/red-sox-infielder-ryan-fitzgerald-having-a-spring-worthy-of-rule-5-draft-selection-if-only-there-was-one?source=user-shared-article
So, Pittsburgh is giving us a 26 YO CF coming off a 6.0 bWAR season for a 25 YO LF/RF coming off a 2.2 bWAR season? This makes zero sense on their end.
Yes but finding a LF is a little easier than a RF suited for Fenway.
I understand trades need to make sense for both teams - and I must confess to start I really have no idea what Pittsburgh needs or wants so my putting together a scenario would be lacking right out of the gate. I said I would start with Verdugo as he's a fairly valuable player that would play right away for them in the outfield and then add from there to make it happen. I'm not married to any of our particular young players when it comes to going after a proven guy coming into his prime years at a need position and with control. I'm not saying break the bank but I am saying we should be aggressive for the right guy. Reynolds could be that guy. He's already what we hope many of our best prospects will be so it's worth pursuing from my view.