jung

I don't see any evidence that Bloom has attempted to build an organization under him that is the equivalent of what the Rays have. Why not? Is he afraid to see it get around that he is not the genius behind how the Rays are constructed year after year....that it is actually a total organizational effort? Bloom was disallowed from talking to Rays staff and offer any of them jobs till 2021. But its 2023 now. Still nothing that I have seen. It looks to me like the Sox Brass bought in on Bloom and not on the Rays systemic methodology and I simply do not think Bloom is some sort of baseball genius. DD is a pure baseball guy. If you buy in on DD he will rape your farm system, spend lots of your money and give you a genuine shot at the title. Does not make DD a genius either but it does make him a guy with a proven track record for championships. I don't think Bloom can give you a reasonable shot at a title and I don't think he can do what Tampa does without the entire top to bottom organization that Tampa has or at least a very reasonable facsimile of it. Worth noting that Tampa has no titles. Didn't before....don't have any now. But they play an exciting brand of baseball that keeps you watching. Had they a decent baseball market in Tampa I expect they would pack the place out especially with the rules changes. Maybe they have no titles because it takes big important players doing their thing in big moments in the post season to actually win one of these things and maybe that is where the Rays deficiencies come home to roost. But the more accepted thinking is that you get to the post season and the hottest team wins the thing. Not sure I have ever really agreed with that. But that is the accepted thinking. I do think the Rays can adapt to the rules changes faster than other teams. That might help put them over the top. And actually I don't think its money as much as its an inability of the Sox brass to actually make a definitive decision beyond bringing in one guy....Bloom. Bloom maybe does not have his hands tied by a lack of money but an unwillingness on his part to let us see behind the curtain and recognize that what was making and does make the Rays the Rays is the organization in total....NOT BLOOM himself. So from my seat, we are four years into Bloom's reign. He has done nothing that I can see that is even an effort to build a baseball ops effort that is a reasonable facsimile of wha the Rays have. He does not have a team that is a reasonable facsimile of the Rays team. The younger players we have that we developed that were anything are gone other than Rafi. What we have left for young talent seems painfully lacking and the ML team seems rather old, well onto the back 9 and past it. So none of that feels particularly promising. IMO if what we headed into post Bloom's hiring is not a 5 year plan but a 10 year plan with the team neither playing exciting baseball nor winning championships, that is a problem. I think the canary in the coal mine for this tweener mentality is not paying Xander and having to watch what we are forced to toss out there at SS without him.

I agree with that at least in part. The Sox were never really committed to this "bloom thing". I don't know if the Sox brass were simply oblivious to the fact that what the Rays do involves an entire organization aimed at building what we have grown to recognize as a Rays Team at the ML level year after year or just hired Bloom as a marketing effort and hoped for the best. One guy alone was not going to get them what the Rays have. For example has there been any recognizable effort by the Sox to build their pitching staff the way the Rays build theirs.....any effort to even make it resemble the Rays staff? Not that I have seen and we are what....four years into Bloom time. Its not a terrible Sox staff but it is not even a reasonable facsimile of the Rays staff. How does are ability to pump everyday players up from the farm and cut them loose when they are ready to start hauling' home the heavy iron look? Either you are all the way in or all the way out. This halfway s***, ain't cutting it from what I can see. Not surprised by that. When you let MLB's current best SS go so you can torture yourself seeing what we now have at SS, something went wrong.

Detroit, wake me up when they wake up. That said I suspect we are going to see a whole bunch of abysmal baseball teams this year. Detroit will not be alone in that category. At least we are not that. Players with horrid defense have been able to hide it behind the shift for one thing. Over the course of the 162 at least this year, that is likely to yield comical results. But this bullet had to be bitten at some point. Just as well be now so that MLB can sift through the chaff.

As meh as our starting pitching has been, our hitting has been MEH squared. Do they have a way to protect Rafi in this batting order when he is actually in the lineup? If they have a way to protect him they better break it out pronto.

Yeah that was the Piveta game...well pitched by Nick.

I think this is the best performance by a Sox starting pitcher of the year so far. Did Penata have one that was close to this? When Kluber gets tired his breaking stuff flattens out and it looks so hittable coming up there. I think that is in part why the Rays have been able to get wood to pitches outside the strike zone. They start out there and stay out there when Kluber is tired and that is like playing pickle for these guys.

OB and YouK desperately trying to sell the idea of how LUCKY the Rays are. Think again OB. The Rays are not as good as 12-0 might suggest. But they are a damned good club that has been constructed to be what they are which is also what we have grown to expect to be a Rays type of team.

I am not but I would think the BLOOM is off the rose and it might be time to move on there. I have posted here before that IMO, the Dif between what the Rays do and what teams like the Sox do even when they try to emulate the Rays is that the Rays have an entire organization geared to a method of Baseball Operations that suits them. Hence, they are top to bottom doing what it takes to acquire players, draft players, develop them etc. I always had my doubts about getting one guy, Bloom and trying to duplicate an entire organization functioning as to create what the Rays have. We don't even look like we belong on the same field with them and a bunch of their key players are still ON THEIR FIRST CONTRACTS. ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH

Did not want you guys to think I had died or anything. Just as last year when things did not look so good I decided not to expose you guys to my normal level of pessimism about the ole town team. So I guess I will just say, they can't pitch, they can't hit and they can't field. That about sums it up and leave it at that. If there is anything to suggest things changing I will post more often again.

Within reason as opposed to the unreasonable influence it has had in recent years.

Agreed....they can't actually hit even a decent curve. You can tell because they look terrible....bat not even in the same zip code with the baseball....just like I used to look. If you gave them a base fiddle, they could not hit the thing. Schwarber for all his qualities hitting FB's won't even try to swing at Curves even right down Main Street. He does have a great eye though. He sees that thing spinning up there and won't even attempt a swing. Just stands there and ignores it. Heck it seems he will ignore it down in the count with two strikes hoping it drifts outside the strike zone. But I am glad to see the game drifting back to its gloried past. Baseballs that fly like baseballs and not super balls. No more shift next season. Computer geeks that have no clue clearly in decline. Heck they will almost have got this game back to actual baseball again.

So, has anybody noticed that nobody AND I DO MEAN NOBODY can hit a curveball to save their skins? This used to be the thing that knocked you out of organized baseball. It certainly knocked me out of organized baseball. You know what these million dollar babies look like trying to hit a curveball? They look like I looked....the three H's....Hopeless, Helpless and Hapless.

I actually think the plethora of arms out in the pen only benefits teams that are truly pitching biased. We have never been pitching biased developmentally and we have never been all that amped up about bullpens in spite of the direction baseball has gone. How did we end up with so many arms in the pen. Baseball tried to turn this into a power game. They f***ed with the baseball and balls started flying all over the place and hitters started swinging for the fences every AB, every batter. Then teams told their pitchers to pitch max effort every pitch until they could not go any farther. LAAAAAAAAA

Bullpen, Bullpen, Bullpen I don't think Cora is one of the top Managers and he is really poorly suited to a club like this. But this team was doomed to be a mediocre or worse team from the start. Their only shot at any post season activity was through the expanded post season and they could not even manage that. It is what it is folks.

A good time for me to check in again. I have not been posting. I am far too caustic for the forum when the Sox are the sort of team they were destined to be from the very start of the season. Even I did not think it would be this ugly. As for playing in Tampa, a team really has to fight all the negativity they must feel going there to play. No fans, no energy, a tough team with a great bullpen (seemingly always) and the park itself which is an abomination. Our Sox don't have that kind of metal this year. Not sure I can blame Cora entirely for fielding a team that caves in Tampa. I suspect the entire field and front office just does not really do much to generate much enthusiasm for playing there. But Cora IS uniformed management. He is the pointy end of the management spear.

I definitely think JD is about done. EO is gutting it out. If he can't get his back to cooperate on the FB, it probably hurts him every pitch. Maybe if he gets his back straightened out he will make some sort of comeback.

Rafi flashing glove

Thats not actually the point. Each organization has about 280 players. Probably 150 of those are everyday players. Ask if they have a guy that can lay down a bunt ANYWHERE in the contemporary baseball organization. Most often the answer will be NOPE. How many can play a position competently, let's say just a hair over average. I would say maybe 50 including the guys on the major league 26.

So OB mentions that this one game counts as a "series" clearly trying to pump the narrative that if they win this game tonight the Sox can claim to have finally won a series in the AL East. Hummmmm....seriously OB........seriously???

Not convinced they had more than their share though. 162 game seasons are brutal and either you have enough depth to mitigate "your share" of injuries or you don't. In fairness, I do not see the depth in organizations that I was used to seeing decades ago. Nobody has that any more from what I can see. Narrowly focusing on a combination of power hitting and pitchers spent after 3 innings has more downsides than what we can see within the dynamics of a single game. They have an impact over the entire season and over the entire organization.

Hopefully it will take at least 4 innings for the dignity of the GT to hit bottom. Its a bit like measuring how long the starting pitcher will be around......4 innings.....5 innings????

This pen was suckage from day 1. All you could say for it was that "it had its moments". But on balance.....It sucked. Needed Whitlock right from the start and for the whole season. I don't know who to blame that one on.

Pen could not even keep the Sox in the game. Who did not see that coming?

Why is it that our pitchers regress? I mean OK....we really do not have a reputation for developing pitching. There is John Lester, Papelbon, Lester, Lester, Buckholz, Lester. We develop hitters and buy pitchers. We always have. In fact now that I think about it, this might be another problem for Bloom. If he cannot reach down into the organization and have personnel there that can develop ML pitching, it hardly matters which pitching prospects he brings in now does it.

Oh come on. Can we please DFA Hernandez....just for the satisfaction.