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Gravemen does have experience closing but Lopez seems like the most likely candidate given he pitched better than Gravemen and you could keep Gravemen in the role he had last year.

If the Dodgers are thin in the middle infield the Sox have Lenyn Sosa and Jose Rodriguez who are redundant to the Sox as infielders . If one of them can snag you Outman.... Dodgers still need to beef up their OF core though somehow and if they trade for one ,some of those Dodger prospects are going to be moved. I wonder if the Dodgers might be interested in Ian Happ. Even though the Cubs are building they still might recognize the need to move Happ rather than risk keeping him and getting nothing for him. Outman could be traded to the Cubs rather than taking another prospect for him. Cubs could be interested in Cartaya and make it a bigger trade. According to MLBTR the Dodgers did have some interest in Happ at the deadline last year.

Monaco, Montenegro, Montreal, Montrose ?

What you quoted from me , you aren't disputing. I already said Swason was great defensively the last 2 years and TA had just about his worst defensive year.

Unfortunately spread the money ,spread the risk is hardly even a concept when you have Bellinger getting 1 one year deal for $17.5 M and a guy like Gallo may get $10M and you trade for Kimbrel, pick up his option and trade him for another older guy who came here , only to have his worst year ever in the Toxic Sox environment. Then you pay Leury for 3 years and give an injured pitcher 2 years $17M. Right now it's spread the money and watch how badly it all goes while my boss picked our manager and the whole core crumbled. Expecting JR to cover his and Hahn's mistakes that led to the mess was never going to happen. He figured $190M was enough but can't seem to grasp they need a strong infrastructure to support that payroll. He's invested in making the park a better place to watch a game but isn't close to investing in how to create a model for being a winning franchise.

Exactly where Jerry likes them to be in a weak division. JR is like I'll show those fans what happens when you don't do white flag trades and boo my manager. There are times to retreat and regroup and pick up reinforcements. Now as usual with this team have have nothing to show for those players. Tampa Bay may not win World Series with their way of doing it but at least they are a franchise that knows who they are and acts accordingly. If JR wants to win by creating a perfect balance of payroll and player peaks without investing in player development or play in the murky waters of Int'l. signees he also knows he's handicapping Hahn from the get go which is probably why he won't fire him. It's hard to find puppets. It's really amazing that concept actually worked once in 2005

"JR wants to find the perfect equilibrium of where exactly what’s needed meets exactly what it would cost and never risk going above it that equilibrium." This is it in a nutshell. 2005 was when that happened and it took all kinds of luck and some very good and career years from quite a few of the guys on that team. That's exceedingly rare . Just look at the Sox talent. Moncada's best was 2019. Gio's best came before Cease became really good. Keuchels best came in the short season. Hopefully we havent seen Eloy's best yet but so far in was either 2019 or 2020 depending on how you view the short season. The best we have seen from Robert was 2021 but only for 68 games and now he's had a major injury to go along with all the minor injuries he's had so far. Had a great season from Rodon but he was never going to be able to pitch like he did early in the year to the end of the season.

There's very few choices out there who can both field and hit. I mean what else am I supposed to look for ? AAA stars are not a bad thing. He took a while to get to where he's at now. That's what happens when you take a guy in the 7th round with a great body and a great athlete who didn't have much of a college career. I wish the Sox could develop a guy like that. WE always have to keep in mind that minor league players players missed all of 2020 which is the case with Outman. In 2021 somewhere between A+ and AA the things the Dodgers had been working on him with all started clicking. The 2nd half of 2021 in AA he started blooming. In 2022 the Dodgers started him off in AA again to make sure the changes would stick and he did even better . Then promoted to AAA and did even better. So basically he's had only 1.5 years of good results with only .5 seasons in AAA. Based on that I can't call him a "tweener" because he's hasn't been bouncing back and forth between AAA and the majors. If he had done in 2020 what he did in 2021 he might have started getting some national attention in the rankings and then higher after if his 2022 performance came in 2021. Will he be a good player ? I don't know. 1st round draft picks bust all the time too. I'm just going by skill set and recent performance. I don't have much else to go by. Speed, power and defense. Most guys the Sox have picked up in the OF never had this guy's skill set. Haseley, Cordell, Palka. If it helps there's Jarred Kelenic too . He's only 22 and he might hit MLB pitching well some day. He needs time to develop too. If he becomes a star 2 or 3 years from now with another team I don't think that team will mind at all. Even a guy they let walk like Luis Gonzalez showed he can play in the bigs. Who else are recent OF that the fan base had high hopes for in the last few years ? Rutherford ? Basabe ? Adolfo ? Nothing wrong with targeting players who have skills in a position lacking talent and depth. You show how good he's been and how far he's come and list everything you can about the guy and then some wise ass says you're basing in it all on a 4 game sample (1.400 OPS) with the Dodgers. Even if I was basing it on that a 1.400 OPS for 4 games its better than going 0 for 16 and looking bad . But as you can see from above with his progression and the missed year in 2020 there's more to him than 4 games in MLB. For all we know if the Dodgers don't fix their own OF problems he might get 300 AB's with them in 2023. But the Dodgers have all kinds of money to spend but even they are having a hard time finding a guy ATM looking at retreads like McCutchen and Heyward. The Sox aren't the only team looking for OFers in a barren desert. It's slim pickings and even more so for a LH OF with skills and 6 years of eligibility. On the bright side I see his name more so I've convinced some people he might be worth a try. I'm not going to apologize for hoping the Sox get better and making suggestions on how they can do it given the apparent payroll restrictions.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

And if you have approached this season realistically and post about acquiring youngish players to improve the team because as a Sox fan you want to feel you are making wise choices for depth you get kicked in the head by our fans hoping for money to pop up out of nowhere and belittling that approach or the players you pick when Cespedes was your best depth OF until a few weeks ago and it's not really much better now. It's just sad being a fan now.

Then we definitely won't be able to compete. Might as well leave the roster as talented as it can be , take your chances on Lopez as a closer star getting some new blood for the team in a position of need. It won't guarantee the World Series but neither will fantasizing about Gallo finding 4 War again when he's just not the same hitter or fielder that he was.

I doubt Lopez fits into the BP heavy payroll if what he meant was BP guys getting high salaries like Hendriks, Graveman, Kelly. Even Diekman and Bummer are making more than Lopez. It'll be pretty close depending if the Sox make a higher offer than his projected Arbitration raise of $3.3M.

If you thought Hendriks might be traded picking up arms could solidify taking that position. Everyone moves up a notch. Lopez, Graveman, Bummer , Lambert then the rest. Avila,Kelly, Diekman, Ruiz. Crochet either put in the minors upon his return in August. Barring any trades of course if Hendriks goes.

Gallo played 6 innings in CF in 2022. Before that he played 1 inning in 2020. In 2019 he played 310 innings in CF and that was when his sprint speed was 69.8 so faster than 70% of the players in baseball. In 2022 he was faster than only 46% of all players in baseball. We saw Pollock in CF last year and he is faster than 60% of the players in baseball. This is on Baseball Savant. He should never play CF, But hey the Sox have put square pegs in round holes in the OF before. I'm sure he do fine but if you want a guy to flag down doubles and triples into the gap he's more likely to give up more of those hits than he is going to prevent them in CF.

Also .950 OPS in AA and over 1.000 in AAA last year. Over 200 AB's in each level. Very few around here were clamoring for Daulton Varsho either after his 2021 season which was a decent year. Defense gave him a lot of his WAR when he was only 106 wRC+ but had a 4.6 fWar.

He's 25 , 26 in May. I mean really dude if you have a baseball argument for why he stinks give it. Just because you said so ?

Oh lol you want to go back to that now? . They called Nick Williams up and he's just supposed to sit on the bench 100% of the time Right ? Take up space do nothing while Vaughn was floundering like a fish out of water. I never said play him all season. It doesn't hurt to a play guy you have already in the dugout super early in the season when your other options suck so Williams sucked too big deal . Of course as usual you left out the details They did give him a small shot and he failed . You can laugh all you want but they did exactly as I suggested. Imagine that. Vaughn has put up a -.7 WAR in 2 seasons playing the OF. My suggestion was just to let Vaughn clear his headand try something different and you want to crucify me for that. As usual your baseball mind is a sieve. Keep throwing out s%*# without context . Yermin probably would've never got a chance to help either under your management.

Those bonuses are paid by the team but the league reimburses them . Way to get that bonus pool money !

Had Varsho on my radar last year off season. I know I made at least one post about it. Nice to see he had such a good year

Well a few of the better bums were DFA's who might have required a little more than a minor league contract. It just goes to show that better depth pieces were not a priority or they were content to sign the dregs because an extra $1-2M would kill them. These things add up on the margins, better defenders, more options, more speed, more power. These better bums were snatched up early.

Last year was not one of tim's best defensively but he also didnt play that many games. ANd his ratings were pretty close to the same as swanson except the last 2 years.

I took liberty's with the definition. A rare instance where we got a young player for nothing and he basically became very good.

LOL and you wonder why I want Outman ? Question is if the Dodgers are willing who is he worth. Sosa maybe ?

They got Quintana for a song and he became very good. Many here refused to believe he would continue to be good . You kept hearing the phrase "smoke and mirrors" about Q.

While Swanson had the 2 best years of his career defensively in 21 and 22 , Tim is not and has never been a below average defender. He may not be the best fundamentally but his range has always made him a plus defender. You can see it quite clearly on his fangraphs page all the way to the right in the dashboard stats where it has offensive and defensive ratings and then total fWar.