Elktonnick

Maybe they shouldn’t, but he’s not as hopeless as this board portrays.

 

His similarity scores by age do include Pablo López and Kevin Gausman, which would be terrific if that trend continues. Of course they also include guts like Jason Dickson, who had a minimal career cut short by injury…

Bello's problem is between his ears. Hopefully experience and maturity will cure what holds him back from reaching his full potential.

With the young talent in Worcester, trying to predict the 2025 outfield alignment or the whole starting lineup for that matter is a real crap shoot. I am certainly looking forward to my annual sojourn to spring training to see this young talent compete for starting jobs.

That is not to say that I have given up on this season, hardly! KC has a tougher schedule remaining than does Boston. I am liking the Sox chances to make the playoffs. Heck, once in, anything can happen.

I must say this year has been a pleasant surprise and Duran is my Red Sox MVP regardless of what the stats say. He is the most exciting player on the field whenever the Red Sox play.

The record was almost the same as last year?

I think the remaining schedule is tougher this year than last.

Haven't seen anyone comment on this but I think the Red Sox have the toughest schedule of any team for the rest of the season.

One of the big reasons the Sox record improved so dramatically before the ASB was they played a number of horrible teams.

Well they are going to largely face the whirlwind from here on out.

I just do not think they have the players to finish strong, unless injuries to other teams come into play.

The big move to watch for is not in baseball. It is if Henry decides to make a bid for the Celtics. Reportedly the asking price will be around 5 billion. If Henry makes a bid it will deprive the baseball team of financial flexibility needed to sign any high end players.

Because of the expense, I am hoping Henry decides the Celtics asking price will be too rich for his tastes. Although he has not yet ruled out making a bid.

John Henry has said we Sox fans have unrealistic expectations.

 

Right now I'm pretty bitter about these Sox--just like everyone else on Talksox.

 

But it might be worth noting that in the so-called golden era of David Dombrowski when the Sox had the highest payroll in MLB, the Sox were were killed in the ALDS's in 2016 and 2017. Then they had that insanely great season in 2018, but then, with basically the same players, who were really pricey, they didn't even make the postseason in 2019.

 

In comes Chaim Bloom with restrictions on what he could do/spend. Forget 2020, a non-season. In 2021, the Sox had a better season than 3 of 4 teams DD had: they made it to the ALCS before losing to the Astros, 4 games to 2. Meanwhile, of course, the Sox budget was paying Price big bucks to play for the Dodgers and big bucks for Sale, who wasn't playing at all. Then came 2022 and 2023, which were bad, but not as bad as 2014 and 2015, which is why DD was hired.

 

And, lo, this season we have the Sox 5th CBO under John Henry and the 6th manager (two of whom were single year models). So, given all those hirings and firings, I'd say John Henry is at least as impatient and demanding as the Sox fanbase.

But not committed to fielding a winning team. Henry's goals in firing CBOs was not the same as Red Sox fans desire to produce winners. Henry's goal was for the Red Sox cash cow being more effecient at fulfilling his real goal of financing expansion of FSGs portfolio.

and the explanation for tonight ??

I guess it is an unrealistic expectation for a Henry owned team to win 2 out 3 against the worst tram in baseball.

@OverTheMonster

Craig Breslow Vows to Pick a Lane at Trade Deadline

 

In each of the past two seasons, the Red Sox approached the trade deadline with records that were more or less right around .500. This led to some confusing moves by former chief Chaim Bloom, who seemed to struggle with the choice to either push for the postseason or build for the future. This year, the Sox will likely again be right around .500, but new chief Craig Breslow hopes to avoid the muddy path that Bloom took, saying that, while they haven’t yet decided on what path they’ll take, the Sox plan to “pick a lane” this time.

Passing lane or breakdown lane?

I think that portion of his comments of getting far more attention that it deserves, when the rest of the commentary is far more informative, and not in a “good news” way…

It may not be good news but it does represent the consensus of what most serious fans have been thinking about Henry's point of view for the last few years. No surprises for me.

Every CBO/ Genmgr or whatever the hell you call them will make mistakes. What counts is the net overall result of their tenure.

As for the Henry years one must admit that DD was more successful than the one who followed him, with the jury still out on Breslow's tenure.

Considering all the injuries. This is actually a miracle.

I am very pleased that we are a few pitchers and some returning injured bats away from being a really good team.

Speaking of injuries, in the nearly 70 years of closely following Major League Baseball, I can not recall a time when injuries have been this prevalent throughout the game. Something is fundamentally wrong. MLB at the commissioner and ownership level needs to recognize the threat that the frequency of injuries especially among pitchers poses to the long term future of the game.

There is no reason for this injury frequency should be acceptable as the normal cost of doing business and producing a winning team. Baseball needs to commission a high level study by leading sports medicine experts and physiologists to chart a best practices study with the expressed purpose of reducing injuries to players.

Yes, that seems to be the story and it's a plausible one. I also think it says a lot about Henry's ego that he thought he could just cut loose DD (and Betts), go in a whole new cheaper direction and continue to succeed at the same level.

Yup I

Link please.

For what it's worth, I do not think DDs dismissal had anything to do with money. There were published reports that Henry did not like DD management style. Other front office personnel complained that DD cut them out of his descionmaking process. Henry wanted a more collegial consensus operation. Word was that they were going to fire DD after the 2018 season but couldn't after the world series win. The poor 2019 start and season overall then made it easy for them to cut DD out of the picture.

And Grissom responds by getting injured again. Talk about not being able to catch a break.

Why would anyone think they could catch a break? They can barely catch anything at all!LOL

I'm staying for 4 days with an old friend I haven't seen in 30 years, who lives an hour from Sevilla, after landing in Barcelona.

 

We are later meeting some friends from Mexico who are travelling the area around Porto, Portugal.

 

After spending some days with them in Porto and Lisbon, we will rent a car and drive down the coast to Faro.

 

From their, we fly to Bilbao for 3 days, then to Madrid for 2 days before coming home in mid July.

 

We went to Europe 12 years ago for 9 weeks. It took us 2 months to plan, almost every night after work for 2-4 hours.

Enjoy! If you get a chance, take a tour of Sevilla,if you never been. The Barrio de Santa Cruz is a wonderful neighborhood. I lived there for a couple of years in the early 80s. Sevilla is my favorite city in the world.

Henry has been MIA for YEARS !! Scared to show his face around town.

I know but it shows his total lack of class and respect not to acknowledge Dustin Pedroia 's contribution to his ball club.