Dojji

Our season doesn't depend on the success of Jake Faria. He's getting a cup of coffee in garbage innings. Agreed that he's not impressing people.

It's garbage innings. We're gonna need our better middle relief later in more high leverage situations.

They need to sell. The window is just cracking open now. But if we roll the value forward into the next 2-3 years, it will open wider then, at the cost of maybe a wild card now. That's a decision you make every single time if you've got eyes on the prize. We need to sell 1, maybe 2 of these outfielders. Not Yoshida, but if we can find homes for Refsnyder and Duran we almost have to.

We needed a statement game so very badly.

Hello there, Mr. Casas!

I actually believe he could have, but I kinda like Cora putting it in the bank and letting Kutter leave on a high note was a good move as long as the bullpen can bring it home. If he wasn't still developing I'd feel differently but this is good for a young guy.

Kutter has been tough, fighting through a couple hholes he dug himself into, through 6 with 0 ER. If he can get through another inning it'll be just what the doctor ordered. EDIT: Nope, looks like Cora decided to put it in the bank. Understandable, Kutter was "effectively wild" all day. It's a blowout, so letting him put his success away and walk away with 6IP 0 ER is an excellent developmental move.

I feel like things are looking up. I think over the next 5 years we'll all get to know Bello and Kutter quite well. Having the farm system come up with competent starters is huge. Before these two I think the last truly homegrown top starter we pulled out of our farm was Jon Lester. Bello could be a 1, arguably may already be a 1. Kutter looks like a possible 3. Getting both beginning to find their feet at the same time is wonderful. I don't think we'll ever see Chris Sale be Chris Sale again but if we do, alongside Crawford and Bello, that'd be one hell of a rotation. even if not, having those 2 for the next few years should give us something stable to build on for the future.

been awhile. Hi guys. Farm system seems to be turning out a couple excellent guys now. Wong, Cheng, Casas, Kutter, all look interesting. Bello looks like he might have ace potential. Couple interesting guys in the wings waiting for a chance/another chance like Hernandez, Kavadas, Van Belle perhaps. Kavadas in particular is kinda low key getting me excited, if he can make the jump he could have a big DH bat. Course remember, I assess prospects differently from the experts. I'll say in my defense though, I correctly called Brock Holt, Jed Lowrie and Daniel Nava May be some light at the end of the tunnel as far as the rebuild goes. We may be over the hangover Dombrowski inflicted on us in return for the 2018 Championship. Certainly there seem to be a lot of middle potential guys begining to percolate onto the team which is a great sign. Kinda reminiscent of 06 when the season went terribly but we had guys like Lester, Gabbard, Buchholz Youk, Delcarmen, Pedroia, Ellsbury, starting to stack up behind our veterans. Not all of those guys work out, but if enough do, you wind up with a contender. And of course, some really good short term signings in the outfield this year!

I remember in 07, Lugo was in this huge slump, I can't remember how longg it'd been without a hit but it was at least 10 games. At a seemingly random point late in one of those games, the crowd starts really getting into him and cheering him on, every at bat the crowd was going Let's go Lu-Go! and trying to will him to get a hit. He manages this piddly little single and the crowd goes nuts like we just won the World Series. Never seen the crowd rally for a guy like that before. It was a fun memory.

E-Rod is basically a bogstandard #2-3 starter who has been better in the past and is on the right side of 30. The answer to all your questions is probably yes. he's the sort of player team might throw money at if they're gambling on him pulling off a good year and need some filler for the middle of their rotation. I honestly think E-Rod will be in demand from several contenders or teams looking to pad their rotation.

I just looked out the window to double check, and confirm that it is actually 2021, not 2001.

At the very worst he's a league average starter and he's been durable for us. You make him a reasonable offer. And then solve other problems.

i think he's being technical about the difference between mass and weight.

What do you mean? We do it with Yards all the time in the US, and Canada isn't as Metric only as they pretend to be because they have to do business with Americans every now and then

An acre as a unit of area can also be used as a unit of distance if you assume a square acre, but yeah, it's ambiguous. It could be a long acre, it could be a tall acre.

No Steven Wright? i know he fell off rapidly after he got hurt but he had it going for a couple years there.

I have no interest whatsoever in trading Tanner Houck by thhe way. If that's the price I'd rather sit tight, go with Iggy and Xander up the middle, and see if we can add some speed off the bench. Do you guys realize that Houck is the first guy we drafted with ace potential that actually got all the way through the development process since Jon Lester and Jonathan Papelbon all the way back in 2005? This has seriously been a major sore area for Boston forever. We've finally got one of those guys I kind of want to use him ourselves.

And the only reason I disagree with that is that we just came within spitting distance of a World Series appearance. i think it's OK to take some risks and see if we can build on that rather than trying to forget what happened this year. After all, the long term plan was to GET HERE. We're ALREADY HERE. In that sense Wren has done an amazing job but if you can't switch from "rebuilding" into "contending" when an opportunity falls into your lap... well that's the difference between a good GM and a great GM. Also while i don't disagree with you about the so called "arms race" but I don't think it's mutually exclusive with building speed into the lineup. Again, this isn't the royals. We can do two things.

The Red Sox have never won the World Series without having above average speed somewhere on the roster. 2004 had Damon, Roberts, and a bit of Cabrera. 2007 had Ellsbury, Crisp and Pedroia. 13 had Ellsbury, Pedey and the Flyin' Hawiian. 18 had Betts and Beni. Right now, we've got 0 speed in our starting 9. the fasterst starter on the roster is a damn catcher. That's the biggest difference between 18 and 21 is the lack of speed. I think that needs to be addressed, and history agrees with me

A catcher. led the team. In stolen bases. it's one thing to not sweat speed if you have decent speed, but when you have NONE AT ALL, you are in a large situational hole. Speed is one of those things where you don't need it until you suddenly do. And if you need it and don't have it you drop playoff games. I still wonder if we'd had some actual speed if we might have gotten past the Astros. We had a fighting chance you know, and a station to station team with no speed turns a lot of potential runs to LOBs

I think speed is our most important need. Ramirez is a way to add speed without sacrificing power. there's other options obviously, but the bottom line is that the Red Sox need to get better at situational speed if they are going to win more baseball games than they currently are. The traditional speed positions are SS, 2B and CF. Kike's great but he's not a baserunner. Bogaerts is a power hitter. And God even knows who we're going to have at second next year. Meanwhile our catcher is leading the league in steals, which isn't a huge issue as it suggests what i already know -- that this team has no real speed.

Devers is a solid-not-great defender who could move to first and potentially be elite there. If you've got the agility to be adequate at 3B, that plays really well at 1B. It worked for Kevin Youkilis. Bogaerts is an average defender at SS and can hold the position if he needs to for a few more years. Dalbec is a useful situational hitter and would be best used in a platoon to hit against LHPs Ramirez has multipositional utility and it would not be a stretch either to move Devers to first, or simply move Ramirez to first. Probably would move Devers. Honestly a Dalbec-Devers platoon at 1B has enormous potential, with Devers perhaps sliding to DH when you want both on the field. (dangit I nearly called him Santana AGAIN!)

Goddamnit. https://www.baseball-reference.com/players/r/ramirjo01.shtml Ramirez, not santana. I am a derp. I looked at "Ramirez" and still thought "Santana" for no good reason.