Red Sox name 47 players to their player pool

DeadlySplitter

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so our 5th outfielder now is a nobody minor leaguer (JD should be DHing in almost every game)? ouch.

I don't understand how Downs & Casas aren't on the initial cut
 

nvalvo

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I must have missed something. Jonathan Lucroy?
They signed him to a mL deal over the winter and he played in Spring Training (27 PA, .881 OPS). It feels like 20 years ago to me, too.

He was available cheap because he is recovering from a neck surgery for an injury that sapped his offense for the last few years. If he is actually healthy, a Vazquez-Plawecki-Lucroy tandem could be good on both sides of the ball. That he isn't included on this roster suggests that he may not be healthy.

edit: McWilliams follows up! "[Lucroy] not being on roster is due to his contract being reworked."

edit 2: Alex Speier clarifies that a bunch of teams are reworking deals that had minor league deals with opt-outs if players were not on the 25-man roster by a certain date. Their contracts need to be made compatible with this season's roster rules.
 

DJnVa

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so our 5th outfielder now is a nobody minor leaguer (JD should be DHing in almost every game)? ouch.
Who was our 5th OF last year? Gorkys Hernandez? This seems like typical roster construction, no?

We lose Betts and Hernandez and add Verdugo and Pillar.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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A four man outfield rotation of Benny, Bradley, Verdugo, and Pillar isn’t too bad. Obviously lisping Betts is kinda a big deal but this isn’t a bad group.

But man it’s so clear that the Sox are in major rebuild mode.
 

JimD

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so our 5th outfielder now is a nobody minor leaguer (JD should be DHing in almost every game)? ouch.

I don't understand how Downs & Casas aren't on the initial cut
They can still add additional players since they are below the 60-man limit.
A four man outfield rotation of Benny, Bradley, Verdugo, and Pillar isn’t too bad. Obviously lisping Betts is kinda a big deal but this isn’t a bad group.

But man it’s so clear that the Sox are in major rebuild mode.
Seems like a good time to be in rebuild mode. I'd be be very frustrated if a long-awaited window of contention for my team was opening now, or about to close.
 

scottyno

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But man it’s so clear that the Sox are in major rebuild mode.
I don't agree with this at all, they still have one of the better lineups in the league. Obviously the pitching needs work, but I'd be shocked if this mini rebuild lasts more than one season. They're going as much money as anyone that they can spend starting in 2021.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I don't agree with this at all, they still have one of the better lineups in the league. Obviously the pitching needs work, but I'd be shocked if this mini rebuild lasts more than one season. They're going as much money as anyone that they can spend starting in 2021.
Yeah, there's no way you can look at a lineup that has Bogaerts, Martinez, Devers, Benintendi, Vazquez, and Bradley and call it a "major" rebuild. A major re-build, IMO, would involve shedding a couple more of those guys for prospects and truly punting 2020 and 2021. They're not doing that. If anything, it's a retooling motivated primarily by resetting the luxury tax. Just because the Yankees and Astros are built for bear, that doesn't mean the Sox don't have a good team.
 

YTF

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I've seen August 31.
This is going to be so strange. With half the season to go and expanded playoffs nearly everyone is going to have a shot at the playoffs. That said how many teams are going to be willing to part with good players and or prospects for a title that isn't going to mean a whole lot in a season that could abruptly yet end without a champion.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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This is going to be so strange. With half the season to go and expanded playoffs nearly everyone is going to have a shot at the playoffs. That said how many teams are going to be willing to part with good players and or prospects for a title that isn't going to mean a whole lot in a season that could abruptly yet end without a champion.
Yeah I see a lot of salary dumps for marginal upgrades/spare parts and not much else. Personally I agree this champion won't be the same, but hey, flags fly forever, yada, yada.
 

jon abbey

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It will be even harder to make major trades at the deadline since only the 60 players on the active rosters are eligible to be dealt.
 

LostinNJ

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(1) I don't think they are expanding the postseason -- it's still ten teams. (2) I would really like to see Jarren Duran on the roster just so he can get in some work at the highest level possible. I saw him play a couple of times, and they need to find out if his skill set can translate to the majors.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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There's also the question of the wisdom of trading anyone this season. Are the testing protocols for every team sufficient to clear a player from, say, the Diamondbacks, to be sent to the Yankees or Red Sox? Would that player be subject to local quarantine requirements before he can join the team (if a negative test isn't sufficient) or are ballplayers going to be exempted?
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Yeah, there's no way you can look at a lineup that has Bogaerts, Martinez, Devers, Benintendi, Vazquez, and Bradley and call it a "major" rebuild. A major re-build, IMO, would involve shedding a couple more of those guys for prospects and truly punting 2020 and 2021. They're not doing that. If anything, it's a retooling motivated primarily by resetting the luxury tax. Just because the Yankees and Astros are built for bear, that doesn't mean the Sox don't have a good team.
Have you seen their pitching staff?
 

Manramsclan

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A four man outfield rotation of Benny, Bradley, Verdugo, and Pillar isn’t too bad. Obviously lisping Betts is kinda a big deal but this isn’t a bad group.
I agree. Bett-th doesn't have the same ring to it.

But seriously folks, there are bound to be more AAAA guys on this roster than legit prospects who are a year or more away. Service time still counts.

Tip your bartenderth.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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I agree. Bett-th doesn't have the same ring to it.

But seriously folks, there are bound to be more AAAA guys on this roster than legit prospects who are a year or more away. Service time still counts.

Tip your bartenderth.
LOL what? I didn't even check that. I typed that out on my phone and didn't notice that's what it auto-corrected to. Holy crow that's embarrassing.

I'll leave it up there because it's funny, but my god that's awful.
 

scottyno

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Downs has to end up in the pool right? Even though it's highly unlikely he'd actually play you'd think they at least want him around and working out with the team all year for development assuming there's no minor leagues at all.
 

nvalvo

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Downs has to end up in the pool right? Even though it's highly unlikely he'd actually play you'd think they at least want him around and working out with the team all year for development assuming there's no minor leagues at all.
I would say yes. I expect Duran, too, and probably even Groome, who needs innings desperately.

The question for me is what you do with guys like Casas and Jimenez.
 

Al Zarilla

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LOL what? I didn't even check that. I typed that out on my phone and didn't notice that's what it auto-corrected to. Holy crow that's embarrassing.

I'll leave it up there because it's funny, but my god that's awful.
Losing (I assume you meant to type) doesn’t even have the same number of letters as lisping. Weird for spell-check to do that. We’re gonna have to see the source code on that, fella. Or, to keep in the Daffy Duck vein, sourth code.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Losing (I assume you meant to type) doesn’t even have the same number of letters as lisping. Weird for spell-check to do that. We’re gonna have to see the source code on that, fella. Or, to keep in the Daffy Duck vein, sourth code.
Haha. Sometimes when I type on my phone I just butcher things and if I don't take a moment to double check things, weird words can come out. This must be one of those cases. Yes, I meant "losing", as you astutely deduced.
 

Al Zarilla

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Haha. Sometimes when I type on my phone I just butcher things and if I don't take a moment to double check things, weird words can come out. This must be one of those cases. Yes, I meant "losing", as you astutely deduced.
Of course. If an "i", right next to "o" slipped in there as one hurriedly typed, liosing could easily be changed into lisping.

So, baseball this year, huh? I hope our "interim" manager can motivate the guys, if managers really can do that anyway.
 

nighthob

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Jul 15, 2005
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Haha. Sometimes when I type on my phone I just butcher things and if I don't take a moment to double check things, weird words can come out. This must be one of those cases. Yes, I meant "losing", as you astutely deduced.
Hey, man, I feel your pain. As the official "Russian spy" around here I've had people spit fury at me for iPhone and Android autocorrect errors. (And given the size of my hands relative to my iPhone SE those errors are legion.)
 

BaseballJones

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Ok Sox fans....there's 30 posts (mine makes 31) in this thread. Baseball is ostensibly coming back, and we're, you know, huge baseball fans. But there's been almost no conversation about this "season" and the 2020 Boston Red Sox. I'd have thought that the announcement that there would be a season - however short it is - would prompt some excitement among fans here and that we'd be talking about all kinds of baseball-related things.

But it's been eerily quiet. Why is that? And I'm as guilty as anyone.

Are we just down on the 2020 Red Sox?
Are we so beaten down by covid and everything else going on in the world that it's just hard to get excited?
Are we down on a short season that feels artificial?
Are we still super wary about things such that we aren't even confident there will be a season at all, and so why bother talking about it?

What's going on here?

For me, it's the last one more than anything. I'm just not confident at all that there's going to be a season, so it's hard for me to get excited at all about it. But what about the rest of you?
 

jon abbey

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Also there's not much to talk about yet, there should be more in a few days once camp actually (hopefully) starts.
 

JimD

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Ok Sox fans....there's 30 posts (mine makes 31) in this thread. Baseball is ostensibly coming back, and we're, you know, huge baseball fans. But there's been almost no conversation about this "season" and the 2020 Boston Red Sox. I'd have thought that the announcement that there would be a season - however short it is - would prompt some excitement among fans here and that we'd be talking about all kinds of baseball-related things.

But it's been eerily quiet. Why is that? And I'm as guilty as anyone.

Are we just down on the 2020 Red Sox?
Are we so beaten down by covid and everything else going on in the world that it's just hard to get excited?
Are we down on a short season that feels artificial?
Are we still super wary about things such that we aren't even confident there will be a season at all, and so why bother talking about it?

What's going on here?

For me, it's the last one more than anything. I'm just not confident at all that there's going to be a season, so it's hard for me to get excited at all about it. But what about the rest of you?
The second one for me. Investing my emotions into caring about who wins or loses a game seems so silly right now.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Are we just down on the 2020 Red Sox?
Are we so beaten down by covid and everything else going on in the world that it's just hard to get excited?
Are we down on a short season that feels artificial?
Are we still super wary about things such that we aren't even confident there will be a season at all, and so why bother talking about it?
All of the above, with the caveat that in some alternate universe where this does happen and make it all the way to the end, even though the Sox don't have the best team on paper, it's an absolute crap shot with the format they have set up. But it will not feel anything like playoff baseball to me. It's going to have a decidely WBC type feel to it.

I'll add I also don't think they should be playing, as well as that this doesn't bode well for the next CBA negotiations; this wasn't exactly harmonious negotiations. The owners crying poor mouth and back and forth games can't sit well with the MLBPA.
 

jon abbey

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it's an absolute crap shot with the format they have set up.
Isn't the current plan for the postseason the same as every other recent year? They didn't end up agreeing on an additional round of playoffs, so it will be 5 teams from each league again, including the bullshit wild card coin flip game.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Isn't the current plan for the postseason the same as every other recent year? They didn't end up agreeing on an additional round of playoffs, so it will be 5 teams from each league again, including the bullshit wild card coin flip game.
Yes and the playoffs are always kind of a crap shoot, but at least we had a better sample size to determine who got to toss the dice. Look at various records after 60 games last year and how many teams flourished and how many floundered during the last 100 games. If I'm not mistaken, the Nats had the second worst record in baseball at that point.
 

jon abbey

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Yes and the playoffs are always kind of a crap shoot, but at least we had a better sample size to determine who got to toss the dice. Look at various records after 60 games last year and how many teams flourished and how many floundered during the last 100 games. If I'm not mistaken, the Nats had the second worst record in baseball at that point.
Eno Sarris wrote a good article in June before the number of games were decided that 60 games actually is more definitive than one might think:

"In any case, by Game 60, you’re likely to know as much about that team’s rest-of-season win percentage as you’ll know."

https://theathletic.com/1864747/2020/06/12/sarris-how-much-more-legitimate-is-an-80-game-season-than-a-50-game-one/
 

burstnbloom

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For me, the real problem in my head is how far from possible a 60 games + playoff season feels. Hockey up in Canada seems do-able. The NBA's bubbles seem do-able. I'm skeptical and they obviously have some major risk factors, but what we know about MLB's plan just doesn't seem like its going to work. I actually like watching a team rebuild its foundation. This was going to be an interesting year to watch but I just can't get my head to a place where I see it happening.
 

Red(s)HawksFan

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I'll be excited when there are games to watch. I'm wary of that even happening so I'm not keen to get too invested just yet. Also, we've already done the off-season into spring training thing so there isn't much to talk about that hasn't been beaten to death.

As for the short season, I'm not a fan of citing all the "team X was out of the playoff at the 60-game mark of season Y" stuff like it's meaningful. A 60-game sample when it's ~40% of the whole isn't equivalent to a 60-game sample that is 100% of the whole. Teams are playing the 60 games knowing that it's the full season and they're going to treat it differently than if they're looking at playing 162 games. It changes the whole mindset. OF COURSE it's not going to be like a full season. Doesn't make it any less of a real season, though.
 

NJ_Sox_Fan

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The lack of excitement I think is in part due to the owners and players argue over BS instead of coming up with a plan to play baseball while people with real jobs are far more at risk than any athlete, and while making a fraction of, or being totally out of work altogether.

Don't get me wrong; I am sure I will watch when it is on, but 60 games was never that appealing to me especially when you add in the MLPA and owners struggles to agree to anything. They should have been playing back at the end of May.
 

Papelbon's Poutine

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Eno Sarris wrote a good article in June before the number of games were decided that 60 games actually is more definitive than one might think:

"In any case, by Game 60, you’re likely to know as much about that team’s rest-of-season win percentage as you’ll know."

https://theathletic.com/1864747/2020/06/12/sarris-how-much-more-legitimate-is-an-80-game-season-than-a-50-game-one/
I'm on mobile so will look later, but I've read several that fly in the face of that. Matter of perspective I guess. I'll check it out and see where he comes up with that.

Edit: The only thing I'll really dispute there is that it's not taking in all the factors here. Players dropping out for stretches with COVID; pacing for a sprint instead of a marathon; rosters twice the size; etc. As Red(s) Hawks Fan notes, you're going to manage differently. This will be far beyond normal variance on injury luck (good or bad). So while the author came to the conclusion that 60 is where you start to see some legitimacy to it, it's still not there yet. And I strongly disagree that it's a "real" season, but to each their own on that.
 
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Lefty

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I agree with NJ_Sox_Fan, the MLB owner's greed manifesting in both the negotiations and what they've done to gut Minor League Baseball (somewhat cloaked by COVID-19) has soured me a bit on baseball. I think I'll be more excited by the return (hopefully) of the Cape Cod League in 2021.
 

jon abbey

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I'm on mobile so will look later, but I've read several that fly in the face of that. Matter of perspective I guess. I'll check it out and see where he comes up with that.

Edit: The only thing I'll really dispute there is that it's not taking in all the factors here. Players dropping out for stretches with COVID; pacing for a sprint instead of a marathon; rosters twice the size; etc. As Red(s) Hawks Fan notes, you're going to manage differently. This will be far beyond normal variance on injury luck (good or bad). So while the author came to the conclusion that 60 is where you start to see some legitimacy to it, it's still not there yet. And I strongly disagree that it's a "real" season, but to each their own on that.
Yeah, nothing in 2020, sports or otherwise, is normal, except people being idiots, which seems to be constant and close to universal. I only posted initially because your post sounded like it was talking about the extra round of postseason games.
 

Manramsclan

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Ultimately my lack of engagement boils down to the uncertainty of everything right now. I'm excited that things are getting going but I am afraid to get to attached to the outcome of games actually being played.
My 7 year old son asked me today what I thought a lineup would be and I had no answer. Usually I would have so many opinions.
He had one though. And it wasn't bad!
 

LostinNJ

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Jul 19, 2005
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I'm okay with the 60 games thing. That's about what a D1 college team plays, and that championship has meaning.
 

nvalvo

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Ask your son what he thinks the rotation will be. Now THAT will be bad...
It looks a lot better IMO if Collin McHugh is actually healthy.

Rodriguez (3.94 career FIP)
McHugh (3.73)
Eovaldi (3.97)
Perez (4.48)
Weber (4.37)

Still not anything anyone would confuse for a *good* rotation, but most teams' rotations look thin after their Ace has surgery. Given the injury to Sale, that looks like a rotation less likely to completely implode than Rodriguez–Eovaldi–Perez–Weber–[Bullpen Game].

Edited to add: I'm expecting to see guys like Darwinzon Hernandez and Ryan Brasier in the first pretty frequently, especially with Perez and Weber as bulk guys.