Dojji

I agree with you. Blackburn had a better outing than his final line looked like. Kotsay left him out there to die in the 6th.

If Kotsay hadn't rolled out Blackburn for the 6th he would have had a 5 IP, 2 ER start against a very explosive offense. Just saying. As a bottom rotation guy, you take that 15 times out of 10.

I know you said it, but yea, let's not go overboard about a performance against the Oakland AAAA's.

Dunno, I actually liked a lot of what I saw from Blackburn, but mostly as a middle/long relief guy. That third turn through the lineup was pure murder.

Great inning.

Christian who?

I looked around for that guy and he pretty much doesn't eist, unless you want to take on Verlander's entire salary. Most of the veteran pitching, even the overpaid guys, are on contenders right now.

Not sure we really need it. One, I don't think our chances of making a run this year are particularly great, I see this as more of a development year. If we get into the playoffs at all the only significance will be that the young guns get a taste of what that feels like. Two, I doubt a trade can be made for a pitcher who makes sense considering that it's always a seller's market at the deadline three, I don't think we actually have a longterm hole at SP. Not until Kutter shows us he's not ready, which he might, but if he holds up, we actually have good depth, at least once it all trickles back in.

So? If you're going to buy, buy, if not, don't.

Why would anyone shed tears about not adding Paul Blackburn to the roster? I mean he's not literally the worst pitcher in the entire universe, he's even probably slightly above average, but it just seems like a really weird hill to die on. Let me pick my own guy to go after it would be someone more like Seth Lugo, or if that's too expensive in talent, a guy like Trevor Williams -- solid bottom of the rotation inning chewer. To put it mildly, another inconsistent guy who has some vague notion of more or less unproven ability, like Blackburn, is simply the last thing we need right now. We need inning burners, guys who will take their turn in the rotation and be there and pitch 6+ innings, not Scrhoedinger's pitchers who are simultaneously pitching and not pitching.

Everyone's probably dinged up a bit by postseason time. I still have no idea how Curt Schilling delivered that last start against the Rockies with 3 pounds of ground beef where his right shoulder shoulda been.

I think it says even bigger things when a guy like Kutter can go out there, battle, struggle, not have his A stuff, and still scrap it out and deliver a high quality start. He didn't have his A command and still delivered an A+ outcome. Made the pitches he needed to make even when not at his best. Kid better be careful because he's beginning to develop a bad case of reliability. Might be seeing him in the rotation going forward.

The media is even dumber and even drunker than the fans thoug. You can't do things b ased on what the media might think. Let them stew in their own sewage.

If Bloom actually used fan outrage as a reason not to make a practical move, THAT is a bigger cause for concern. You can't listen to the fans, they don't know squat and more than half of them are drunk at any given time. (yes, I am quite aware of the irony, thank you)

34 walks in 50 IP for the Worsox says that Drohan isn't fully cooked anyway.

He does! I'm not the only one who didn't see this potential in Connor Wong.

I didn't like the Vaz trade either. Good starting catchers are hard to find and CV was a a good starter. That said, Vaz' bat completely disappeared the moment he left Boston ,so.. I mean, if Bloom saw that coming, new that his bat speed was getting a bit slower or something, that makes it a lot more understandable in hindsight. I'd rather have Wong than 2023 Vazquez.

Mm. I'm looking through the 2022 roster trying to purge my mind of the actual frustration. I try to be objective. you know that. Frankly, I can see what the plan was. The talent was there, it just didn't fall together. Every big league team always gambles to a certain extent on player progress in order to forge a roster that can win games. We didn't get lucky in some key areas. Lot of guys you'd think you could count on to take steps forward just didn't. On the other hand the failure of the plan in 2022 was what gave guys like Duran, Bello, Crawford, Casas, Wong, etc, the opportunity to start their careers and get the experience that's helping them stand up and be counted today. The only mistake I really see in 2022 was letting Wacha sign elsewhere for so little. We coulda used him this year. even if he reverted more to his career form he would have been a good 4-5 inning chewer. Bogaerts though, he needed to go like Nomar needed to go in 04. He's getting slower and isn't what we needed at SS anymore.

What do you guys think of Ronaldo Hernandez as a possible C/DH? He's hitting good at AAA, I'm looking at the numbers and the numbers say don't count on him for defense as a catcher but as a DH who could back up at catcher, that's kinda interesting. Could have him on the roster as a DH who could play as a third catcher, he seems to have the stick for it, or at least the potential stick

I'm not sure what they woulda spent on that would have meant a damn in this situation TBH.

O stop it. Faria isn't a farm product, he's a guy we brought in off the scrap heap to pitch some garbage innings so our actual arms don't have to.

Needlesss to say that at a bare minimum Bello looks like he's gonna play out better than Beckett did. Here's hoping anyway.

My personal opinion is that the scorched earth Dumbo inflicted on the farm system was simply gonna take time to correct. It was worth it for the championship, but we all knew years after 2018 were going to be tough, especially after it became clear that the rotation Dumbo assembled wasn't gonna hold up I don't care how big your budget is, if your farm system isn't producing effective starting players from time to time you're not gonna do much. That goes double if you can't keep a stable rotation. We were dealing with ordinary attrition and didn't have ordinary replacements. Now we're starting to see those ordinary replacements in guys like Chang, Wong, Bello, Kutter, etc. The farm system has healed and is starting to put talent on the roster again. Until that started happening, especially in the same division as a player development dreamteam like Tampa, it wasn't realistic to expect dominance.

Don't get me started about the consistent inconsistency of Josh Beckett. We'll be here all month, lol. At least he was on when it mattered in 07.

That's kinda my point, we had to go deeeeeep into the well that year. and it started at the beginning of the year when Clement and Wells turned into pumpkins. On the other hand some of those guys played roles in the championship season. Kyle Snyder matured into a decent inning chewing MR, Gabbard spun some gems in June and July before being traded (I still wonder what his career mighta been if he didn't blow out his elbow), and I think there were a couple others that showed up at times.