Bellhorn04

Excellent question.

Last 3 seasons is fine with me. We should have a thread on it, after all the signings are done with.

That's nonsense, about what was and is available. There have been top-tier starters available, for money only. It's almost like they're succeeding in brainwashing fans into thinking what they're doing is smart rather than just boosting their profits-of course, boosting profits is smart too, right?

It was a questionable signing not only because of the health concern but because of the questions it raised about the future of Bogaerts. Why not a damn starting pitcher instead?

I posted this a little while ago: this offseason has basically been Crickets/Ohtani/Crickets/Yamamoto/Crickets. I think that's still the case. So what the hell is going on? Why aren't the following guys signed or even rumored to be signing: Snell Montgomery Stroman Bellinger Chapman And plenty more. The Dodgers have gone apeshit but most teams have been relatively quiet-including the hometown team, needless to say! Some guys have gotten more than projected and some less than projected. A lot of guys have gotten nothing yet. I saw one comment that owners might be spooked about the future of certain revenue sources due to the collapse of RSN (to be honest I understand very little about this.) The atrocious World Series ratings might have raised some concerns too.

There are very few aces, is the whole point, and even those we call aces have fluctuations in their performance. We can find flaws in virtually every starting pitcher. The next 1965 Koufax or 1999 Pedro just isn't out there, and may never be out there. I really am seeing a lot of the Goldilocks stuff going on this offseason. This guy is too old. This guy doesn't pitch enough innings. This guy is too expensive. This guy gives up too many walks. This guy has bad numbers against the AL East. This guy really didn't want to play for the Red Sox. So instead we'll roll with Giolito, Bello, Crawford, Pivetta and Houck.

So let me get this straight: Snell was the NL Cy Young winner. Gray was 2nd in the AL Cy Young voting. But no aces were available. Nola has been one of the best pitchers in the game over the last 5 years regardless of your attempts to make him sound s*****. Montgomery was one of the pitchers in baseball last year. But no aces were available. This is Goldilocks stuff, man.

Cohen is an interesting character. He was all in on Yamamoto, obviously, but losing out on Moto didn't compel him to empty the bank for Snell and/or Montgomery. Instead the Mets sign a low-profile guy in Manaea. And of course earlier they signed Severino.

And since they re-set the tax last year, why is staying under a goal for 2024? That seems like a goalpost move in itself.

The elbow injury reared its head for 2023. If you believe his elbow had a red flag attached to it, it was a very stupid signing.

Of course it doesn't work every time. If we want to avoid spending because it doesn't work every time, we might as well be the Pirates. They hardly every spend, so they must be the smartest team in the game.

This isn't a hard concept to grasp either: spending and spending smart beats not spending. Much as I hate to say it, the Yankees are probably the #1 example of spending big and spending smart. They have not had a sub-.500 season since 1992. Thankfully they have been very s***** in the playoffs over the last 20 years or so. The Dodgers are obviously in that category now too.

Here we have the franchise with the 3rd largest market value and the 3rd highest operating income for the year 2022, according to Forbes, and some fans want to give them a license to keep the payroll down for years to come until they get some more stuff figured out. If the majority of fans felt that way it would be like a dream come true for John Henry. Several more years of keeping the payroll down and profits up. It's like getting a big fat bonus for incompetence and negligence.

I get it. It's long term stuff - that frankly may never come to fruition - but is fun to dream about.

So it's all "30,000 foot view" "10 year plan" stuff. I honestly think this ownership would absolutely love it if more fans were willing to think of their team in these terms. For one thing it provides a beautiful justification for not spending on things like free agent starting pitchers that might actually help the 2024 team.

"Competitive" has become a confusing word in the context of the Red Sox now anyway. We were arguably "competitive" the last two years because we were within sniffing distance of a Wild Card spot at the deadline. Those two "competitive" teams both ending up winning 78 games. Maybe that kind of "competitive" is the target for 2024 as well.

I'll be blunt too. When I was reading this, the song "The Impossible Dream" started playing in my head. You're basically saying "Here's a bunch of stuff I hope happens some day, and it's gonna be great if and when it does." Let's start with this one: 2) Downsize and merge positions within their front office. Too many voices , too many people, paralysis by analisis. Yeah, that sounds great, but it kinda looks like they don't really have any intention of doing anything of the sort, so I'm not sure why you think it's ever gonna happen. And this one: 1) Fix their pitching development approach and system. That's cake! But seriously, if it was a simple matter to do this I'm kind of thinking it would have been done by now. Bloom was supposed to do it. What happened there? He had the background with the Rays. Shouldn't that have been enough? But here's the killer line: I wouln't blow my load and go past the lux tax line on this team either, until they managed to get every part of this operation running smoothly. If they wait until "every part of this operation is running smoothly", we might as well find something else to occupy us during baseball season the rest of our lives.

The Sox reputation precedes them now, as the saying goes. Look, I'm arguing with you, but at the same time I admire your positivity, and I hope you're the one who turns out to be right.

Soto and Verdugo should add 6-7 wins. Yanks are rumored to be in on Snell and/or Cease. Yanks also have a massive payroll budget for 2024, apparently. They offered Moto 10/300. Hal has had enough f'king around.

They were 11 games out of a Wild Card spot last year. No one can really argue that one way or the other. It's a numerical fact.

If anyone is truly confident the Sox are going to make a flurry of moves that will make them good bets to make the playoffs, my hat's off to their optimism.

Even with the $19 mill on Giolito, Breslow's other moves, especially trading Sale and Verdugo, pretty much offset that cost. And by today's standards Giolito's contract is dirt cheap.

To me this is all coming down to one simple question now: what the f*** is the budget they've given Breslow for 2024? I'm fixated on that point now. And I'm paranoid as hell, as I know is obvious from my posts. I've completely lost my trust in ownership and their "will", as mvp calls it. It's nothing about Breslow, from the looks of it he's making some intelligent moves.

OK, you hit it out of the park with this comp.

In that case I wouldn't be surprised if Henry skips it altogether. And if Breslow tries to explain that there's still lots of time and possibilities, they've been trying their asses off, and other teams aren't doing that much either.