sk7326

The willingness for a Tampa Bay grad to field this poor a defense was the most shocking part of the Bloom era.

I don't think Simmons wants to play much anymore.

I don't think it is quite that simple. After all the Brewers traded Josh Hader while still in a playoff chase. It's not that they would punt - but if a team brought them a deal with some real value for a guy they weren't extending, they'd look. That said, I can't imagine they'd take a deal that did not offer some major league ready pitching prospects. The Sox obviously can't offer that.

Yeah - they do have a solid 2nd layer of prospects. Yorke, Romero, etc are all guys who likely have value to pro scouts on other teams. (maybe not ALL other teams, but enough) And Miguel Bleis has superstar upside, but a wide enough range of outcomes and error bars that I'd move him if you could get a good pitcher with some team control.

I think that is passe thinking - though teams should not give them out willy nilly. If a player outplays his contract and opts out - that means the club got a screaming bargain for 3 years. Even if they extend the player, that surplus value is already in the bank. It still gives the club flexibility.

They were all dice rolls that came up about the right rate - alas most of it in 2021. The JBJ reacquisition was probably the only one you couldn't REALLY squint and imagine a good 80th percentile outcome.

I think he had the Blue Jays 17th on his list ... he was a very big fan of the Sox work on the farm under Theo and Cherington. In one of his chats, Law said - as far as rankings go - that his own rankings, MLB.com, ESPN and Fangraphs are all worthwhile. They are opinions - but they all have dedicated people who actually see the players (or as many of the top ones as is feasible). They are limited because they don't have the information that teams have - particularly Statcast data. And of course, all of the scouts at these public-facing services hate your team.

Right. Now, Story's contract looks bad. But if you put the normal sticker shock aside at the price - there is no reason that Story can't be a 2-3 win player at least for this team over the next 2 years of his deal. It's not a great value for the money - but it's a solid starting SS, which is way better than what the team put out this season. I mean, Story has managed to be a replacement level player THIS year despite largely not being an improvement at the plate over just standing there and not taking the bat off his shoulders.

What Dombrowski knows is that you do NOT have 20 major leaguers in your org Top 20 ... almost no team does. And often, the pitchers in your Top 20 are walking time bombs injurywise. It's not so much that the players were overrated so much as simply playing the percentages. So what he did was decide that the org would put their chips behind Benintendi and Devers and largely be willing to use the rest as currency. Could you argue he could have been less aggressive. Sure - the Kimbrel trade is just not the sort of thing I'm into - but that's just my view of relievers. And of course since 2019, even with his own injuries, Kopech has been more valuable than Sale - but that is not a move you monday morning quarterback at all. The goal is to be able to that while keeping the development machine whirring. (insert Dodgers-related praise here) But that's hard to do - and there is likely a reason the Dodgers have been the one team able to get to that place, where the development machine gives them that sort of currency to help the big league club. (and even they are desperately thin at starting pitcher now)

Are we sure Houck is THAT much more than a swingman? Crawford is interesting but similar question. Bello is a keeper tho.

No matter the ranking - if you read The Athletic, ESPN, Fangraphs, MLB.com ... they all say roughly the same thing. The org is loaded with position prospects - best in years ... and a pitching desert, with a lot of arms but almost nothing above a swingman.

Both Rikard and Romero have a lot of experience at this point as well as experience with this club and ownership. Amiel Sawdaye would probably be my top choice - but with knowing that ownership will way not have your back here, that will probably influence candidates' views of the whole deal.

Don't ask me. Teams (like the Astros until recently) fired their entire pro scouting group, just relying on StatCast data. Everybody spends on amateur scouting.

If you look at MLB.com, the Astros have not had a farm system ranked above 27th for a few years. Same with the Braves. The Cubs were 10th in 2013 and fell to 25th by 2017 - the year after they won the title. It'd be nice to have a constant stream of prospects and whatever ... but waves are not uncommon.

It'd be nice for South Shore League All Star Mike Hazen to come back. But he is also a single dad with 4-kids in school out there. I would not bet on it.

Kyle Schwarber is back to having a higher OBP than Yoshida despite batting .197. I love baseball.

Of course, the Dodgers are the ultimate expression of the "Rays way - but with big time $$"

The thing with the farm rankings if you look over time is that it makes perfect sense for good teams to fall in the rankings ... if you graduate prospects or deal them for major league help, well of course. It'd be nice to be the Dodgers who don't seem to have such mortal team concerns, but everybody else has had to deal with that. And it was definitely wild that Dombrowski hado to walk the plank for it less than a year after he delivered on the goal.

The thing that made the firing icky was that "emptying the farm" sort of came on the label when they hired Dombrowski in the first place. They didn't hire him to "not" do that.

Beefing up the scouting departments is in itself a very "Rays" thing. They have the largest pro scouting department in the league. And if you are going to trade someone like Verdugo - the pro scouting becomes vital.

Yankees need a young'in to pop next season for sure.

The team needs to upgrade the pitching and defense ... and I do think they should give real runways for Rafaela and Abreu to play. I am not looking for a full teardown - but lean more into the kids. But - as most of the autopsies of the Bloom era have pointed out - this team as-is would have been a playoff contender if the team just spent resources on pitching!

When you are the Boston Freakin Red Sox - "adding another pitcher" should be a both/and question

I need to hear more. If he did not want to trade Sale for a sack of potatoes because he thought Sale could be better than that - it makes sense. It's not like they weren't shedding payroll either way.

The thing with bloom is that he basically signed one free agent in the deep end of the pool - Story ... who has been too hurt to say a whole lot about one way or the other, though it has not been promising. The other guys have largely been okay - but they have all be fliers on the margin. My view on Bloom ultimately is the same as Dombrowski. Both did exactly what they were hired to do, and management fired them when the optics got marginally challenging. Both cases were equally tawdry.