A Realistic View at 2020: Part I

[Slasher9]

speaking of Harper....Station13 - where you at? PM me your signature bet line. You won the bet, Harper did not hit 45 HR's as i predicted he would.

[Bellhorn04]

oh no doubt they all have egos. we all have players we "hate on" for no reason at all. for instances i hate lebron james. why? who knows. but i love that he didnt even make the playoffs last year. as for harper, i love the fact that just 1 season after he left for the big buck$ his former team not only won their very first playoff series but are now almost guar-un-teed to make the World Series. he could be the nicest guy in the world. he could love playing baseball more then anyone on the planet. i am still getting joy out of the fact that the first season he is gone from the team they make the world series.

 

I understand the sentiment 100%. Adding to it is the fact that Harper turned down a totally legit offer from the Nats.

[notin]

oh no doubt they all have egos. we all have players we "hate on" for no reason at all. for instances i hate lebron james. why? who knows. but i love that he didnt even make the playoffs last year. as for harper, i love the fact that just 1 season after he left for the big buck$ his former team not only won their very first playoff series but are now almost guar-un-teed to make the World Series. he could be the nicest guy in the world. he could love playing baseball more then anyone on the planet. i am still getting joy out of the fact that the first season he is gone from the team they make the world series.

 

I don’t think there are any players I hate on for no reason.

 

If there ever was one, I’d think it would be Mike Trout. Just out of sheer jealousy. From what I’ve read about the guy, he’s great at EVERYTHING, maybe not to the level he is at baseball. But great enough. But I still enjoy watching him play.

 

I liked ARod, too, and gave him only my token Yankee Hate. But I also respected that he was on a very short list that actually straight up admitted to using steroids. And I like him in the booth, probably since he doesn’t wear pinstripes when he is in there.

 

But I think the one player I truly hated and just wanted to see straight up fail was Joba Chamberlain. I hated that he constantly head hunted Youkilis. He might be the only player I truly wanted to see get injured. He might be the nicest guy in the world when not between the foul lines, but I don’t care. The game is better off without him...

[notin]

I understand the sentiment 100%. Adding to it is the fact that Harper turned down a totally legit offer from the Nats.

 

And Mookie turned down a life-changing deal from Boston.

 

These are players with an agent encouraging them to hit the market. And they didn’t hire an agent to ignore his advice...

[Jack Flap]

Machado seems like kind of a douche, and there was the whole Pedroia thing, but his teammates all seem to swear that he's a great guy, and I have to take that somewhat into account, too.

 

I'd say the only players I really "hate" (not in the fun, baseball way that I "hate" most anyone in pinstripes) are the abusers...guys like Chapman and Osuna deserve anything bad that comes their way and I will always be happy to see them fail, regardless of the circumstances.

[Bellhorn04]

And Mookie turned down a life-changing deal from Boston.

 

Yes, he turned down 8 years and 200 million. But that is likely only 60-65% of what he eventually gets.

[Slasher9]

And Mookie turned down a life-changing deal from Boston.

 

These are players with an agent encouraging them to hit the market. And they didn’t hire an agent to ignore his advice...

 

and if he signs a contract elsewhere...and we go to the WS in 2021...and the team he signed with finishes .500......i will find joy in that.

[moonslav59]

Absolutely.

 

Especially since the Nationals are now one game away from the World Series but were 10 games behind the Braves on September 16, and in the thick of a 3 team WC race the whole time ...

 

It does happen, but way more times than not, the WS champ is a top 3-4 contender.

[S5Dewey]

I called that and damn, I was right!

 

The interesting thing about those beating their chests about claiming to be right about the cliff in 2020 is that what happened in 2019 was totally unpredictable. This "cliff" was caused by our pitching staff imploding on us and I don't remember anyone predicting that before the season started.

 

Maybe (Probably?) this would have happened anyway in 2021 or 2022 but we'll never know for sure or to what degree. Those who would anoint themselves as being smarter than anyone else because they predicted it were more lucky than smart in their prediction. It's like blind squirrels finding acorns.

[moonslav59]

The interesting thing about those beating their chests about claiming to be right about the cliff in 2020 is that what happened in 2019 was totally unpredictable. This "cliff" was caused by our pitching staff imploding on us and I don't remember anyone predicting that before the season started.

 

Maybe (Probably?) this would have happened anyway in 2021 or 2022 but we'll never know for sure or to what degree. Those who would anoint themselves as being smarter than anyone else because they predicted it were more lucky than smart in their prediction. It's like blind squirrels finding acorns.

 

A few were predicting a reset in 2020 or 2021 despite what happened in 2019.

 

The 2019 season surprised me. I thought our "window" extended from 2016 to 2019 or 2020.

[kenmeister]

if they do make it to the world series, what does bryce harper think? has to be a big shot to his EGO. i love it. let go NATS!

 

There's no way Harper is worth $30 million/year so the Nationals were lucky to have the years they could out of him then be done.

[moonslav59]

Makes you wonder, if Harper stayed, would the Nats have gotten this far.

[cp176]

The interesting thing about those beating their chests about claiming to be right about the cliff in 2020 is that what happened in 2019 was totally unpredictable. This "cliff" was caused by our pitching staff imploding on us and I don't remember anyone predicting that before the season started.

 

Maybe (Probably?) this would have happened anyway in 2021 or 2022 but we'll never know for sure or to what degree. Those who would anoint themselves as being smarter than anyone else because they predicted it were more lucky than smart in their prediction. It's like blind squirrels finding acorns.

 

so very very true!

[moonslav59]

It was obvious the bubble was going to burst at some point.

 

Theo owned up to the mistakes he made before moving on to the Cubs.

 

You can't trade that much of your farm away and not expect some sort of blow back. We can argue all day about the extent and length of the blow back, but the blow back was all but certain.

 

It's not pounding chests any more than using the blind squirrel statement against those who saw the writing on the wall while some of you had your heads in the sand. (One cliche vs another)

 

Maybe it won't be a "cliff," and you guys can claim a hollow victory. Hopefully, we can remain somewhat competitive through the reset and rebuild. Hopefully, we can be highly competitive in 1-2 years (3 tops), and I think that is possible, especially if we start spending again after the reset year. We still have a pretty decent core to build around. Devers and Bogey alone will help. I'm thankful we kept those two and ERod. Maybe Beni can step it up. We have a few promising prospects, mostly far away, but I'm hopeful the next GM will be an expert at building up the farm and developing young players into stars.

 

[Larry Cook]

It was obvious the bubble was going to burst at some point.

 

Theo owned up to the mistakes he made before moving on to the Cubs.

 

You can't trade that much of your farm away and not expect some sort of blow back. We can argue all day about the extent and length of the blow back, but the blow back was all but certain.

 

It's not pounding chests any more than using the blind squirrel statement against those who saw the writing on the wall while some of you had your heads in the sand. (One cliche vs another)

 

Maybe it won't be a "cliff," and you guys can claim a hollow victory. Hopefully, we can remain somewhat competitive through the reset and rebuild. Hopefully, we can be highly competitive in 1-2 years (3 tops), and I think that is possible, especially if we start spending again after the reset year. We still have a pretty decent core to build around. Devers and Bogey alone will help. I'm thankful we kept those two and ERod. Maybe Beni can step it up. We have a few promising prospects, mostly far away, but I'm hopeful the next GM will be an expert at building up the farm and developing young players into stars.

 

 

Isn’t that what Ben did before everybody ran him off? (Excluding starting pitching of course)

[jung]

It was obvious the bubble was going to burst at some point.

 

Theo owned up to the mistakes he made before moving on to the Cubs.

 

You can't trade that much of your farm away and not expect some sort of blow back. We can argue all day about the extent and length of the blow back, but the blow back was all but certain.

 

It's not pounding chests any more than using the blind squirrel statement against those who saw the writing on the wall while some of you had your heads in the sand. (One cliche vs another)

 

Maybe it won't be a "cliff," and you guys can claim a hollow victory. Hopefully, we can remain somewhat competitive through the reset and rebuild. Hopefully, we can be highly competitive in 1-2 years (3 tops), and I think that is possible, especially if we start spending again after the reset year. We still have a pretty decent core to build around. Devers and Bogey alone will help. I'm thankful we kept those two and ERod. Maybe Beni can step it up. We have a few promising prospects, mostly far away, but I'm hopeful the next GM will be an expert at building up the farm and developing young players into stars.

 

 

Don't know at this point. But its not looking good for a soft landing.

 

Oh Danny Boy was on the radio this morning. Much as we hate to admit it, he had DD's demise called right. He now says that the Sox will likely stay in house for DD's replacement after all. His logic:

1) Henry is vowing to take a firmer hand in the day to day (that can't blow a new Pres Baseball Ops dress up)

2) the next DD is just being set up to fail anyway. Team strangling on the various Starter contracts that have blown up

3) likely the next DD has to trade Mookie ( won't endear him or her to fans)

4) barren farm

5) NESN took a whopping -23% hit in ratings, 3rd biggest hit in ML baseball and wayyyyy higher than the general league average of -1%.

6) Boston is not the glorified place to be a Pres of Baseball Ops that it used to be or that we the fans still perceive that it is

7) relating to #6, too much turnover in the job, too much and too often

[notin]

It was obvious the bubble was going to burst at some point.

 

Theo owned up to the mistakes he made before moving on to the Cubs.

 

You can't trade that much of your farm away and not expect some sort of blow back. We can argue all day about the extent and length of the blow back, but the blow back was all but certain.

 

It's not pounding chests any more than using the blind squirrel statement against those who saw the writing on the wall while some of you had your heads in the sand. (One cliche vs another)

 

Maybe it won't be a "cliff," and you guys can claim a hollow victory. Hopefully, we can remain somewhat competitive through the reset and rebuild. Hopefully, we can be highly competitive in 1-2 years (3 tops), and I think that is possible, especially if we start spending again after the reset year. We still have a pretty decent core to build around. Devers and Bogey alone will help. I'm thankful we kept those two and ERod. Maybe Beni can step it up. We have a few promising prospects, mostly far away, but I'm hopeful the next GM will be an expert at building up the farm and developing young players into stars.

 

 

What the cliff deniers fail to recognize is that having a good farm with some minimum wage talent that could contribute also might enable the Sox to retain Betts. And Dalbec alone won’t be enough...

[Bellhorn04]

What the cliff deniers fail to recognize is that having a good farm with some minimum wage talent that could contribute also might enable the Sox to retain Betts.

 

Kind of a tenuous correlation.

 

We're talking about a potential 10 year, 350 million investment to win a bidding war for him.

 

That will be a large and difficult decision either way, and not one that I think will be influenced much by our currently weak farm.

[moonslav59]

What the cliff deniers fail to recognize is that having a good farm with some minimum wage talent that could contribute also might enable the Sox to retain Betts. And Dalbec alone won’t be enough...

 

In DD's defense, he did keep Devers (& Beni) and extended Bogey to a team-friendly deal, but the gap between the call-up of Devers and the next high impact prospect call-up (still waiting) has been way too long and mat still last years more.

 

Chavis, DHern and Lin are the only prospects that graduated since Devers.

 

These names are not all that flattering, either:

Travis (not DD's pick)

Walden (not DD's pick)

Taylor (not DD's pick)

Shawaryn (not DD's pick)

Lakins (not DD's pick)

 

Who might be called up in 2020? (Age-Player- last level))

24 Dalbec AAA

23 Houck AAA

23 Duran AA

24 Chatham AAA

24 Ockimey AAA

23 M Wilson AA

23 Crawford AA

24 Bazardo AA

23 J Diaz A+

 

Likely 2021:

22 Ward A+

22 Feltman AA

20 Mata AA

21 Groome

 

2022 or later?

19 Casas

19 Jimenez

22 N Song

18 M Lugo

20 Decker

19 A Florez

 

The farther away guys look better.

 

I'm not expecting another Devers anytime, soon.

 

Maybe D Hern can get his walks down and be a huge asset. Maybe Ward or Mata might surprise. I just see a long gap between Devers and the next high impact prospect.

 

 

[moonslav59]

Kind of a tenuous correlation.

 

We're talking about a potential 10 year, 350 million investment to win a bidding war for him.

 

That will be a large and difficult decision either way, and not one that I think will be influenced much by our currently weak farm.

 

If we had 4-5 top prospects about to come up, at a low cost, maybe we'd think more about paying Betts top dollar.

 

Yes, it's hard to know, but certainly having very few impact and low cost players makes it hard on managing a budget, especially if the reset is a high priority.

[notin]

Kind of a tenuous correlation.

 

We're talking about a potential 10 year, 350 million investment to win a bidding war for him.

 

That will be a large and difficult decision either way, and not one that I think will be influenced much by our currently weak farm.

 

Not for 2020...

[moonslav59]

Prospects acquired by Sox GMs by 4 Periods:

 

Theo First 5 years (2003-2007)

D Pedroia

A Rizzo

J Pablebon

J Ellsbury

C Buchholz

Dice-K

Okajima

Jed Lowrie

Doubront

David Murphy

J Masterson

D Bard

Cla Meredith

Middlebrooks

C Hansen

 

Theo Last 4 years (2008-2011)

Betts

JBJ

Vazquez

Barnes

Workman

Tazawa

Alex Wilson

Margot

S Fife

Lin

A Ranaudo

Swihart

C Kelly

Brentz

Westmoreland

 

Ben's 4 years (2012-2015)

Devers

Benintendi

Moncada

T Buttrey

M Kopech

L Allen

A Espinoza

D Hernandez

R Castillo

Chavis

B Johnson

M Dubon

Basabe

Basabe

S Travis

Lakins

D Marrero

P Light

C Asuaje

Bautista

 

DD's 4 years (2016-2019)

H Velazquez

D Flores (RIP)

Casas

B Mata

Dalbec

Houck

Chatham

J Duran

G Jimenez

T Ward

A Flores

M Lugo

N Song

Shawaryn

S Anderson

Feltman

Groome

 

I must have missed some names. Help me out....

 

[Kimmi]

Playoff contenders or legitimate ring contenders?

 

If you're a playoff contender, then you're a legitimate ring contender. We might not be the odds on favorite to win the WS, but if we make the playoffs, we have just about as good a shot as any other team. As the saying goes, get to the dance, then anything can happen.

[Kimmi]

Same thing

 

You said that with much fewer words than I.

[Kimmi]

Should I book that with your back to back to back to back prediction for the ALE this year?

 

Book it with my prediction that the Yankees are going down.

[Kimmi]

oh no doubt they all have egos. we all have players we "hate on" for no reason at all. for instances i hate lebron james. why? who knows. but i love that he didnt even make the playoffs last year. as for harper, i love the fact that just 1 season after he left for the big buck$ his former team not only won their very first playoff series but are now almost guar-un-teed to make the World Series. he could be the nicest guy in the world. he could love playing baseball more then anyone on the planet. i am still getting joy out of the fact that the first season he is gone from the team they make the world series.

 

I am not a Harper fan either.

[Kimmi]

And Mookie turned down a life-changing deal from Boston.

 

These are players with an agent encouraging them to hit the market. And they didn’t hire an agent to ignore his advice...

 

Yes, and I am on record as not being happy with Mookie going for the most money.

 

Same thing as with Harper.

[Kimmi]

and if he signs a contract elsewhere...and we go to the WS in 2021...and the team he signed with finishes .500......i will find joy in that.

 

As will I.

[moonslav59]

If you're a playoff contender, then you're a legitimate ring contender. We might not be the odds on favorite to win the WS, but if we make the playoffs, we have just about as good a shot as any other team. As the saying goes, get to the dance, then anything can happen.

 

Yes, anything can happen, and our 4 rings in 10 playoff appearances , including 4 for 4 in the WS, makes it seem like the odds are actually better than they actually are.

 

People sometimes point to our 2004 championship as a wild card team, but that year, we had the 2nd best AL record and 3rd best in MLB. We were a top contender that year.

 

We had the best record in MLB in 2007. That was no crap shoot.

 

Many feel the 2013 season was a fluke, but we had the best record that year, too.

 

The 2018 season was far from a crap shoot.

 

We've had some really good teams that, to me, were a big step up from being called just a "playoff contender."

 

While I agree with you that DD went too far, and we may disagree on the degree of that, I can totally see why GMs go that extra mile to greatly improve their chances and hedge against injuries and/or too many down years from our players.

 

DD got us a ring. I can't really fault him too much for going the extra mile, and I was accepting of the projected consequences for the most part.

 

[Larry Cook]

Yes, anything can happen, and our 4 rings in 10 playoff appearances , including 4 for 4 in the WS, makes it seem like the odds are actually better than they actually are.

 

People sometimes point to our 2004 championship as a wild card team, but that year, we had the 2nd best AL record and 3rd best in MLB. We were a top contender that year.

 

We had the best record in MLB in 2007. That was no crap shoot.

 

Many feel the 2013 season was a fluke, but we had the best record that year, too.

 

The 2018 season was far from a crap shoot.

 

We've had some really good teams that, to me, were a big step up from being called just a "playoff contender."

 

While I agree with you that DD went too far, and we may disagree on the degree of that, I can totally see why GMs go that extra mile to greatly improve their chances and hedge against injuries and/or too many down years from our players.

 

DD got us a ring. I can't really fault him too much for going the extra mile, and I was accepting of the projected consequences for the most part.

 

 

Dude, did you forget to take your meds?

 

Desperate Dave burned all of Rome to get us that ring.

 

We are literally in the same position now, that we were in, in 1918. The only real difference is that it only took 86 years to dig out of that hole.