Originally Posted by
jacksonianmarch
I will give you some stone cold locks, JM style!
1. Sale will return healthy around the ASB, but his velocity will never get back to what it was pre-shoulder injury. He will be an effective starter and should toe the slab in 2022 from opening day onward. His production will be more in the 3-4WAR arena than the 7+ WAR area he occupied when he was throwing smoke.
2. ERod will struggle with his conditioning for a lot longer than most starters do. He will post his high level velocity early in starts and it will fade come the middle innings. He will go from a 200+IP starter from 2019 and will likely be more a 5IP and shower guy for most of the season. If his health dictates it, you will see him start to get deeper into games come late June into July, just in time for the sox to deal him for a prospect haul
3. Eovaldi will have one month where he is absolutely dominant, 1.5 months where he is absolutely terrible, 1.5 months where he is tolerable and will spend two months on the IL or "skipping starts" with various ailments. If the dominant month is early, the sox might be able to pawn him off on some sucker and get out from the 22 commitment
4. JD will make a mild rebound, but he looked pretty cooked in 2020. His inability to use video seemed to hurt him and his bat looked really, really slow. You may see a rebound to the .800OPS range, but the days of seeing him as an elite offensive force seem to be over
5. Beni will be on another team come opening day
6. Devers will have an all star caliber year
7. Vaz's 2020 was his career best OPS. It also came with a .341BABIP and a 3% absolute rise in his K rate. He will perform worse than 2020
8. Chavis will hit 15 homeruns in 2021 if he plays enough, but will post a poor OPS and will be a benchwarmer or minor leaguer by the ASB
Let's look at something else you are missing. JBJ is gone. He quietly put up a 1.4WAR in a 50 game season. Mitch Moreland and his 1.2WAR in 22 games is gone. Now Moreland wasnt gonna keep up that pace, but he definitely helped. Dalbec slides in for Moreland and will he be more exposed as the team's 1b? He did pop 8 homers in basically a month, but he K'd 39 times in 80AB (49% of his AB's). His BABIP was nearly .400. He makes Aaron Judge look like a contact hitter. Houck was billed as a reliever because he has essentially two pitches and his command leaves a lot to be desired. I also think Houck starts 2021 in the minors so Bloom can monkey with his service time. Renfroe is a good bet to bounceback, IMO, especially at Fenway. Brandon Workman is gone. Heath Hembree is gone. Now Hembree and Workman weren't world beaters in 2020, but they were previously reliable pen arms. You've got nothing back there now. DHern and Barnes with maybe Smith (who knows if he is any good). The rest of the pen is horrendous with no help in sight in the farm system. Strong likelihood they will rely on the pen heavily with ERod being eased in, Sale being eased in once he is back, Perez being a 5IP pitcher at best and the rest of the rotation being a pile of goo
Ultimately, I do think the sox can improve on their .400 win percentage, especially since ERod will occupy a slot in their rotation for most of the year and Sale should return for at least half the season. When you aren't having AAAA pitchers throwing every day, you tend to run into more wins. But as currently constructed, this sox team is no better than a 75-80 win squad. That might be generous, but it also has to do with the fact that the AL is down