Predicting The 2024 Opening Day Roster

[scottysmalls]

Not what I’m predicting/calling for but trading Verdugo for prospects and signing Kiermaier and Duvall makes plenty enough sense.

[bosoxkc]

$.02 worth

Bello
Yamamoto
Montgomery
Trade for young controllable 2-3
Sale


Hader
Martin
Wink
Whitlock
Houck (maybe in a trade)
Crawford
Bernardino
Murphy

Wong
Casas
Devers
Turner
Duran
Rafaela
Abreu
Story
Reyes

Scott
Duval
Hamilton
Dalbec

Trade: Jansen, Pivetta, Verdugo, Yoshida, Houck (if gets a #2)

[trapperdan]

I'm from the future, and — with apologies for spoiling the thread — this is what the opening day roster looks like:

C Wong, McGuire
INF Devers, Casas, Story, Jonathan India, Reyes
OF Duran, Duvall, Rafaela, Abreu, Refsnyder
DH Yoshida

SP Corbin Burnes, Yamamoto, Bello, Whitlock, Crawford
RHP Jansen, Martin, Houck, Winckowski, Pivetta, Kelly
LHP Bernardino, Murphy

Burnes was acquired in a three-team trade that saw Verdugo land with the Marlins, with Perales, Yorke, and Trevor Rogers going to Milwaukee.

Chris Sale was traded to St. Louis for a AAA pitcher, Ryan Loutos; we're retaining half of Sale's '24 salary.

The new GM wanted to upgrade at 2b with a right-handed bat — the Reds had a major surplus with the emergence of their various rookies. Urias was non-tendered, and India was acquired for John Schreiber, Shane Drohan, and Brainer Bonaci.

I take no pleasure in reporting this — it's just what happened.

[keninten]

Sept 19, 2023 21:39:50 GMT -5 trapperdan said:

I'm from the future, and — with apologies for spoiling the thread — this is what the opening day roster looks like:

C Wong, McGuire
INF Devers, Casas, Story, Jonathan India, Reyes
OF Duran, Duvall, Rafaela, Abreu, Refsnyder
DH Yoshida

SP Corbin Burnes, Yamamoto, Bello, Whitlock, Crawford
RHP Jansen, Martin, Houck, Winckowski, Pivetta, Kelly
LHP Bernardino, Murphy

Burnes was acquired in a three-team trade that saw Verdugo land with the Marlins, with Perales, Yorke, and Trevor Rogers going to Milwaukee.

Chris Sale was traded to St. Louis for a AAA pitcher, Ryan Loutos; we're retaining half of Sale's '24 salary.

The new GM wanted to upgrade at 2b with a right-handed bat — the Reds had a major surplus with the emergence of their various rookies. Urias was non-tendered, and India was acquired for John Schreiber, Shane Drohan, and Brainer Bonaci.

I take no pleasure in reporting this — it's just what happened.

India wouldn`t be a bad idea. They could use OFers.

[manfred]

Sept 19, 2023 15:57:32 GMT -5 bosoxkc said:

$.02 worth

Bello
Yamamoto
Montgomery
Trade for young controllable 2-3
Sale


Hader
Martin
Wink
Whitlock
Houck (maybe in a trade)
Crawford
Bernardino
Murphy

Wong
Casas
Devers
Turner
Duran
Rafaela
Abreu
Story
Reyes

Scott
Duval
Hamilton
Dalbec

Trade: Jansen, Pivetta, Verdugo, Yoshida, Houck (if gets a #2)

I’m not sure about trading Jansen then getting Hader. The former likely gets you little; the latter likely costs a lot. There are plenty of thibgs to deal with before that sort of move.

[fenwaydouble]

Sept 19, 2023 23:35:30 GMT -5 keninten said:

Sept 19, 2023 21:39:50 GMT -5 trapperdan said:

I'm from the future, and — with apologies for spoiling the thread — this is what the opening day roster looks like:

C Wong, McGuire
INF Devers, Casas, Story, Jonathan India, Reyes
OF Duran, Duvall, Rafaela, Abreu, Refsnyder
DH Yoshida

SP Corbin Burnes, Yamamoto, Bello, Whitlock, Crawford
RHP Jansen, Martin, Houck, Winckowski, Pivetta, Kelly
LHP Bernardino, Murphy

Burnes was acquired in a three-team trade that saw Verdugo land with the Marlins, with Perales, Yorke, and Trevor Rogers going to Milwaukee.

Chris Sale was traded to St. Louis for a AAA pitcher, Ryan Loutos; we're retaining half of Sale's '24 salary.

The new GM wanted to upgrade at 2b with a right-handed bat — the Reds had a major surplus with the emergence of their various rookies. Urias was non-tendered, and India was acquired for John Schreiber, Shane Drohan, and Brainer Bonaci.

I take no pleasure in reporting this — it's just what happened.

India wouldn`t be a bad idea. They could use OFers.

India isn't any better than Urias. No way I'm giving up multiple valuable pieces for him.

[dcsoxfan15]

Sept 20, 2023 11:27:41 GMT -5 fenwaydouble said:

Sept 19, 2023 23:35:30 GMT -5 keninten said:

India wouldn`t be a bad idea. They could use OFers.

India isn't any better than Urias. No way I'm giving up multiple valuable pieces for him.

Major agree on this one.  If our future GM made this move, we should be back in the market for another one already!

[soxaddict]

Sept 19, 2023 14:34:14 GMT -5 oldfaithful2019 said:

Any thoughts about what position or level of performer the Sox could get back in a Verdugo deal ? I would want a return that becomes a member of the 26 man in 2024. Someone who makes the team over all better than it would be with him. If the Yankee deal for Clarke Scmidt really almost happened is that what we can expect ? I hope not, Schmidt averages less than 5 innings/start, we already have enough of those guys ?

Gleyber Torres.  IMO, just makes sense for both teams. 

[oldfaithful2019]

Sept 20, 2023 19:08:55 GMT -5 soxaddict said:

Sept 19, 2023 14:34:14 GMT -5 oldfaithful2019 said:

Any thoughts about what position or level of performer the Sox could get back in a Verdugo deal ? I would want a return that becomes a member of the 26 man in 2024. Someone who makes the team over all better than it would be with him. If the Yankee deal for Clarke Scmidt really almost happened is that what we can expect ? I hope not, Schmidt averages less than 5 innings/start, we already have enough of those guys ?

Gleyber Torres.  IMO, just makes sense for both teams. 

That would solidify 2B for 2024 and add a needed RH bat. I like it.

[dcsoxfan15]

Sept 20, 2023 19:08:55 GMT -5 soxaddict said:

Sept 19, 2023 14:34:14 GMT -5 oldfaithful2019 said:

Any thoughts about what position or level of performer the Sox could get back in a Verdugo deal ? I would want a return that becomes a member of the 26 man in 2024. Someone who makes the team over all better than it would be with him. If the Yankee deal for Clarke Scmidt really almost happened is that what we can expect ? I hope not, Schmidt averages less than 5 innings/start, we already have enough of those guys ?

Gleyber Torres.  IMO, just makes sense for both teams. 

That's actually a very interesting idea.

[soxfansince67]

Fun to read these, but too soon/too much unknown/too much needs to change (in my view) for me to dip my prediction toes into the water yet. Some interesting ideas in the proposals, though.

[Jimmy]

Alright per your estimate $83M to spend let’s do it… for subtractions I am assuming Urias DFA so that puts me at $87M. I went $5M over but screw it, going over the luxury tax anyways…

C - Wong
1B - Casas
2B - McNeil ($13M) [Mock trade with Mets for prospects]
3B - Devers
SS - Story
LF - Duran
CF - Kiermier ($14M)
RF - Verdugo
DH - Yoshida

Bench - McGuire, Refsnyder, Reyes, IKF ($7M)

Note: Someone will have to figure out 1B to spell Casas, with Dalbec a longer term solution if he gets hurt

SP - Yamamoto ($24M)
SP - Montgomery ($24M)
SP - Bello
SP - Paxton ($10M)
SP - Sale

Bullpen - Jansen, Martin, Whitlock, Winckowski, Houck, Schreiber, Bernardino, Pivetta, Crawford [I’ve included one extra to account for one perpetual bullpen injury]

[soxfansince67]

theathletic.com/4880237/2023/09/21/red-sox-roster-examination-2024?source=user-shared-article

[bg23]

No team trading a controllable starter is going to be interested in one year of Verdugo as a part of a return. If Verdugo is bringing back a pitcher with control it’s likely a reliever, and otherwise he probably brings back a mismatching position player piece from another team or prospects (I.e. the other team needs outfielders, we need infielders, or we need righties and they need lefties). Any team that is trading for Verdugo is trying to compete and as such would have no reason to trade a controllable starter. Any trade idea for Verdugo that involves trading for a controllable starting pitcher is incredibly unlikely unless it’s a 3 team trade, which is also incredibly unlikely.

[greatscottcooper]

Sept 21, 2023 7:39:06 GMT -5 bg23 said:

No team trading a controllable starter is going to be interested in one year of Verdugo as a part of a return. If Verdugo is bringing back a pitcher with control it’s likely a reliever, and otherwise he probably brings back a mismatching position player piece from another team or prospects (I.e. the other team needs outfielders, we need infielders, or we need righties and they need lefties). Any team that is trading for Verdugo is trying to compete and as such would have no reason to trade a controllable starter. Any trade idea for Verdugo that involves trading for a controllable starting pitcher is incredibly unlikely unless it’s a 3 team trade, which is also incredibly unlikely.

I agree with this.  It just seems so unlikely.  You'd need a team that needs offense badly, Particularly in the outfield, is going for it, but yet is loaded with pitching and can afford to offload a starter + you'd have to sweeten the pot by offering a legit prospect and more along with Verdugo. 

How many teams fit that description? I'm not going to bother looking into it but I guessing zero.

Another scenario is a 3 team trade where Verdugo is traded for prospects, maybe the 2nd and 3rd piece of a deal and you have to send a few good prospects the system who may be the 1st and 4th guys ina  deal to go out and get a guy.  While this is still very very unlikely, it at least feels somewhat plausible. 

EDIT: I'm still not sure why we would want to trade Verdugo.  Ideally you want to compete next year.  I'd play him in 2024 and take the pick. 

[incandenza]

1. Trade away one of the best fielders on a horrendous defensive team, a 2 WAR player who will cost only $10 million.
2. ?
3. Profit.

[greatscottcooper]

Ok, I'll throw my hat in the ring here.

C Wong
1B Casas
2B Urias
SS Story
3B Devers
LF Duran
CF Rafaela
RF Verdugo
DH Yoshida

Rotation:

SP1 Chris Sale
SP2 Yoshinobu Yamamto
SP3 Bryan Bello
SP4 Lucas Giolito
SP5 Kutter Crawford

Bench:

Reese McGuire, Roby Refsnyder, Adam Duvall, Pablo Reyes

Bullpen:

Kenley Jansen
Chris Martin
Garret Whitlock
Tanner Houck
Nick Pivetta
Josh Winckowski
Chris Murphy
Brent Suter (I like Peralta and Moore here too)

[manfred]

Sept 21, 2023 8:15:43 GMT -5 incandenza said:

1. Trade away one of the best fielders on a horrendous defensive team, a 2 WAR player who will cost only $10 million.
2. ?
3. Profit.

Well, the LF/CF defense should be better if it is Duran and Rafaela. An average RF would not be much of a step back.

He is 2 WAR strictly on defense. He will likely finish the season as a below-league average bat. If your OF is Duran-Li’l Raf-Verdugo…. I am suspicious of how serious you are about contending.

[scottysmalls]

Sept 21, 2023 8:46:49 GMT -5 manfred said:

Sept 21, 2023 8:15:43 GMT -5 incandenza said:

1. Trade away one of the best fielders on a horrendous defensive team, a 2 WAR player who will cost only $10 million.
2. ?
3. Profit.

Well, the LF/CF defense should be better if it is Duran and Rafaela. An average RF would not be much of a step back.

He is 2 WAR strictly on defense. He will likely finish the season as a below-league average bat. If your OF is Duran-Li’l Raf-Verdugo…. I am suspicious of how serious you are about contending.

Average does not equal replacement level. An average bat is well above replacement level.

[manfred]

Sept 21, 2023 9:22:43 GMT -5 scottysmalls said:

Sept 21, 2023 8:46:49 GMT -5 manfred said:

Well, the LF/CF defense should be better if it is Duran and Rafaela. An average RF would not be much of a step back.

He is 2 WAR strictly on defense. He will likely finish the season as a below-league average bat. If your OF is Duran-Li’l Raf-Verdugo…. I am suspicious of how serious you are about contending.

Average does not equal replacement level. An average bat is well above replacement level.

I changed it from replacement to average for that reason.

[incandenza]

Sept 21, 2023 8:46:49 GMT -5 manfred said:

Sept 21, 2023 8:15:43 GMT -5 incandenza said:

1. Trade away one of the best fielders on a horrendous defensive team, a 2 WAR player who will cost only $10 million.
2. ?
3. Profit.

Well, the LF/CF defense should be better if it is Duran and Rafaela. An average RF would not be much of a step back.

He is 2 WAR strictly on defense. He will likely finish the season as a below-league average bat. If your OF is Duran-Li’l Raf-Verdugo…. I am suspicious of how serious you are about contending.

His WAR total isn't just defense; he's an above replacement level hitter - he's exactly average, in fact, 100 wRC+ - and that corresponds to positive WAR. (B-Ref has most of his value coming from offense, actually, though I don't really understand how they calculate such stuff. And for what it's worth they have him as a 2.8 WAR player, which would make it even crazier to get rid of him if you believe that rating, though personally I like fWAR better.)

If people had ideas about who to replace Verdugo with other than some unproven rookies who project to be not as good as Verdugo, I'd be all ears. But if the idea is that they can just get by with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu... well, that's worse than what they'd have if they kept Verdugo.

[ematz1423]

The problem I have with Verdugo is that his entire tenure in Boston his wRC+ has been trending negative. 125 in 2020 then 106, 102 and now 100. He could easily have a hot end of the season to push it higher though. Also he's at 2.1 fWAR, he was 1.2 last year and 1.9 in 2021, we aren't really talking someone who should be very hard to replace.

I get both sides of the argument and I'm not saying to trade him for a bucket of balls but if he can be a part of a trade to bring in someone to bolster another area of the team and sign someone to replace him for a year or two until Anthony is ready I'd be for it.

I agree with Incandenza though that the answer shouldn't be to trade Verdugo and just try and go with an OF of Duran/Rafaela/Abreu.

[scottysmalls]

Something else that makes me reluctant to trade Verdugo is a strong gut feeling that he’s a guy who has a big walk year. Everything about his performance trends and what we know of his psychological makeup seems to make that more likely for him than the average player

[scottysmalls]

Sept 21, 2023 9:24:43 GMT -5 incandenza said:

Sept 21, 2023 8:46:49 GMT -5 manfred said:

Well, the LF/CF defense should be better if it is Duran and Rafaela. An average RF would not be much of a step back.

He is 2 WAR strictly on defense. He will likely finish the season as a below-league average bat. If your OF is Duran-Li’l Raf-Verdugo…. I am suspicious of how serious you are about contending.

His WAR total isn't just defense; he's an above replacement level hitter - he's exactly average, in fact, 100 wRC+ - and that corresponds to positive WAR. (B-Ref has most of his value coming from offense, actually, though I don't really understand how they calculate such stuff. And for what it's worth they have him as a 2.8 WAR player, which would make it even crazier to get rid of him if you believe that rating, though personally I like fWAR better.)

If people had ideas about who to replace Verdugo with other than some unproven rookies who project to be not as good as Verdugo, I'd be all ears. But if the idea is that they can just get by with Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu... well, that's worse than what they'd have if they kept Verdugo.

I like Kiermaier as a replacement. Go with Duran/Kiermaier/Duvall outfield I’d be pretty okay. Lot of injury / age risk though

[incandenza]

Sept 21, 2023 9:52:03 GMT -5 ematz1423 said:

The problem I have with Verdugo is that his entire tenure in Boston his wRC+ has been trending negative. 125 in 2020 then 106, 102 and now 100. He could easily have a hot end of the season to push it higher though. Also he's at 2.1 fWAR, he was 1.2 last year and 1.9 in 2021, we aren't really talking someone who should be very hard to replace.

I get both sides of the argument and I'm not saying to trade him for a bucket of balls but if he can be a part of a trade to bring in someone to bolster another area of the team and sign someone to replace him for a year or two until Anthony is ready I'd be for it.

I agree with Incandenza though that the answer shouldn't be to trade Verdugo and just try and go with an OF of Duran/Rafaela/Abreu.

Then who should they replace him with??? If he's easy to replace then it should be easy to put some names out there. But the free agent market is garbage. Make a trade? Okay, but then you're giving up assets, and gaining assets is the rationale for trading him away in the first place.

I also think it's pretty convenient to have him under contract for exactly one more season. We'll have a better feel for which of Duran, Rafaela, and Abreu are potential long-term starters by the end of next season, and even Anthony may be knocking on the door.