sk7326

1. Given the shoulder injury, I am not sure the Sox would get the sort of return that Mayer would justify if the shoulder is healthy. I don't think they trade him until during the 2024 season at all just on that basis. 2. Can you get a top 20 starter for him with some control? If so, yeah you consider it. But Reynolds and Bednar or Keller seems like selling low. 3. Ultimately, "Full speed ahead" really has to be focused on throwing money at pitching. The franchise has to take its medicine there after all the neglect on the run prevention side. While they need a decent corner OF or two, I almost want to just give a runway for the kiddos as much as possible.

Casas is the best option we have. That said, it will be hard to move past Henderson and Bibee.

Further down the list, for a RHB someone like Teoscar Hernandez could make sense as a bounceback play.

The Athletic's Top 20 FAs ... a bad class for position players, for depth pitchers fairly interesting 1. Shoehei Otani, RHP/DH, 29 years old for 2024 season 2. Cody Bellinger, CF/1B, 28 3. Aaron Nola, RHP, 31 4. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, RHP (NPB), 25 5. Sonny Gray, RHP, 33 6. Jordan Montgomery, LHP, 31 7. Blake Snell, LHP, 31 8. Eduardo Rodriguez, LHP, 31 9. Matt Chapman, 3B, 31 10. Lee Jung-hoo, CF (KBO), 25 11. Shota Imanaga, LHP (NPB), 30 12. Kyle Hendricks, RHP, 34 13. Max Kepler, OF, 31 14. Jeimer Candelario, 3B, 30 15. Rhys Hopkins, 1B, 31 16. Jorge Soler, OF, 32 17. Seth Lugo, RHP, 34 18. Mike Clevinger, RHP, 33 19. Kevin Kiermayer, CF, 34 20. Michael Wacha, RHP, 32

Bloom has been in baseball forever - and he was tabbed in the industry as a rising star for a very long time. Playing experience is a non-issue here ... or more to the point, being an ex-player is not fairy dust in handling players or not. It just likely that Bloom's interpersonal skills were meh in general. What is definitely true is that his public-facing skills were bad - and while it sounds shallow, it IS an important part of the gig.

probably should have looked at trading him this past one

Napoli was excellent. Drew was solid defensively. They absolutely had good fortune there. But the biggest part of it was that Pedroia and Ellsbury were both healthy enough to be 5+ win players and Victorino of course was nuts. And Lester and Lackey were able to be a legitimately good 1-2 starting rotation, which they had been starved for.

Right. There were lots of reasons for 2011. But the biggest was the team flat ran out of pitchers. They were also decimated by injuries in 2012. 2013 in a lot of ways was as simple as their best players actually playing games and then an out of nowhere MVP-caliber season out of Victorino.

Sure - why I used "best team". I'll let Yankees fans stand up for other teams.

I don't think this qualifies as a bizarro rollercoaster at all. 2002-2011 ... every single season they entered the season as some flavor of contender. They were remarkably consistent - 2006 and 2010 were the only seasons they did not hit 90 wins and both times they made big offseason moves afterwards. Now, while there has been a bizarro ability for the Red Sox to just be normal since 2011, I will say that most years there was some ex ante hope entering the season. The thing now is 2021 and 2023 where the first two seasons since 1997 where I entered the season thinking "anything is possible, but I'm not sure I see a good team here". 2021 I was pleasantly surprised. 2023 I was not.

Oh of course. Baseball is the consummate "life comes at you fast" playoffs. Honestly, the Red Sox in 2018 being the best team wire to wire and having a fairly comprehensive playoff run is quite the exception. Even recently: 2014- Giants won a road Game 7 2015 - Royals came back from 2-1 down in the ALDS 2016 - Cubs had to come back from 3-1 down, won a road Game 7 2017 - Astros had to win a road Game 7 2019 - Nationals won a road Game 7 2020 - Pandemic season, whatever 2021 - 88-win Braves stun the Astros 2022 - Astros romped

Sam Kennedy has had a zombie like ability to survive the other FO turnover. The thing with Larry Lucchino is that part of his job was to be the ******* that fans hate. But he also had a TON of real baseball experience and accomplishment and a real eye for front office talent. Not liking him was part of his role - but he clearly was good at his job.

10000000000000%

If there is grumbling NOW - then they obviously should not have hired him. Now, Bloom came from another organizational tree - and while he certainly had his faults, it also seems like there were institutional impediments to implementing The Ray Way ... and if you hire a guy from a specific shop, you should be willing to let him shape the org that way. Like Tampa spends more on scouting than anybody in the league - did Bloom get to do that? Good questions. Now MAYBE working in the Cubs FO helps Breslow fit in here better - we know there is a lot of shared organizational DNA.

I am 45, so 1986 was my first. Now, Buckner did not crush me - I fell asleep. I was 8. My dad said he'd let me know what happened if I passed out. Famous last words. But I was crushed by Game 7, where the Sox had a 3 run lead! That is what is wild sometimes. Like in 1975, the Reds lose one of the all time stomach punch games and still won the next road game. I was in business school in 2003. We had a happy hour on the Thursday night, and me and a few buds went. They had Game 7 on the big screen. I was the only Red Sox fan in the group - but Yankees losing can unite lots of neutral fans. I was going to drive somebody home afterwards - but when Boone's homerun went over the fence, Todd (the guy I had to drive) looked at my face and said "I'll figure out how to get home." I nodded, "Thanks". I went home and stared. My mom called saying "I'm so sorry". I've never had my car stolen, but I felt what I imagine how someone feels walking up and down past the empty parking spot where the car was taken from. It was also the first time I felt like I was going to be another one of those "Sully from Revee-ah" guys who never saw his Sox win it all. Of course 2004 happens - and indeed the way it happened was such that I am almost grateful for 2003 as its place in the two year dramatic arc. The other titles are great - I am certainly not going to pooh pooh them ... but no team's fan base anywhere (short of something like Leicester City winning the Premier League) will have as sweet a championship as 2004. All of the circumstances together are nearly impossible to find. That said, if Texas wins it all - I will be happy for them. They were on the losing end of either the greatest (or IMO 2nd greatest) game of this century - one of the real stomach punch losses in baseball history - so it would be nice for their fans. And of course, I am happy for Nate. It is also worth remembering that Texas is doing this after losing their ace after just 6 starts this season.

The layoffs at ESPN seem to indicate that there might be an upper limit to TV money. But the streaming deals have barely been tapped into - particularly with how many you could do. I mean right now MLB has by my count 5 different national TV deals (ESPN, FOX, TBS, Apple TV, Peacock). But the gambling thing is huh-yooge.

Given it was Rangers-Diamondbacks, even not knowing anything else we knew it would be low rated. That said, I hate the idea of people making any huge talking points out of television ratings. If fans say they are tired of the Yankees and Dodgers, then act like it. There are lots of reasons for baseball's slippage in the public imagination - part of it is less people watch any individual anything now (besides football games). And I do think the rules changes probably helped some of the reasons. But the big issue is that the sport doesn't market its players. I mean, you look up and down major league baseball's OWN media arm and with some notable exceptions (Sarah Langs, Pedro), it is chock full of commentators who rip the current product. Indeed, one of the guiltiest parties is working the World Series!

They got more than enough swings at great talents that it was worth it. HOWEVER, personally - nobody is charging fans lower prices for this. And from a consumer of baseball, it sucks. At the same time, fans in a lot of cases have been brainwashed into feeling that there is some moral obligation to do this. But we also see this with some fans arguing with trading players whose name sounds like Pookie Jetts too.

One of the real ironies is that implementing a salary cap would have forced those teams to spend more. Like, a salary cap would - assuming 50% of baseball revenue from what has been published before, would be something like $160M. ($160M coincidentally is the mean 2023 payroll number) And you could tie that to revenue sharing.

Something like this would be fair. Now - ideally it would be a percentage of revenue, but the players did not get that visibility in the most recent negotiation. (so the players are likely getting less of the pie than their peers in other sports) But that train has left the station. Looking at 2023 payroll figures $100M would have been 23rd ... 25th percentile or so. I'd go to more like $120M but whatever. I also think teams need room to rebuild and go young, so you could use a 3 year window. If a team falls below the $120M line in 2 of 3 seasons, they give up competitive balance picks.

I don't think tanking is a problem in baseball - or the tanking of baseball does not really impact the draft. That said, in baseball the draft should just be abolished.

I think doing this would not be difficult. The pool can be calculated post draft. One thing you can do is guarantee 90% of first round slot value to be spent on the first rounder - so a team can't trade up to #1 just to have more money. Trading picks would be great - and more than anything, it would make the draft itself fun.

The answer is likely that the "boss" was the one the fans knew and disliked and so was easy to kneecap.

Hey, he was a pretty important contributor to the 2013 banner. We also know that the Cubs FO has a lot of Red Sox DNA - so hopefully the transition here is smooth. And of course, if he can establish a high level run prevention operation it's worth it.

I will say Breslow being pegged as the frontrunner makes me think the Sox are going to land on someone off the board or just go with Romero.