moonslav59

I'm hoping I might approach this attitude by game one. I do know, I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to try and watch every pitch of every game, once again. I've been through lean times and hopeless stretches longer than 2 seasons. There have been worse Sox teams than this one, and the thing that upsets me the most is that this team is actually good enough to be two major additions away from being a playoff contender and maybe even more. I would not be this down, if we needed 4 SP'ers, a closer and 3 everyday players to compete. Just getting up to the tax line could get us there.

I have no proof or evidence to show JH intends to spend big, again, sometime soon, but there is also no evidence to show he will continue being a budget miser.

I said "should."

Same boat on pitching, yes, but adding those three is no minor blip, hopefully. Perhaps, ownership will wake up and see a window has arrived and spend more than $12M on the rotation for the first time since the Sale and Nate contracts.

According to Steve the Ump, the Sox ranked as such in player payrolls: 6th in 2003 ($7M from 3rd) 2nd in '04 2nd in "05 & '06 2nd in '07 4th in '08($4M from 2nd) 4th in '09 ($13M from 2nd) 2nd in '10 3rd in '11 & '12 4th in '13 ($15M from 3rd) 4th in '14 3rd in '15, '16 & '17 1st in '18 1st in '19 3rd in '20 & 21 6th in '22 ($13M from 5th) 13th in '23 ($5M from 10th and $30M from 6th)

Except, Anthony, Teel and Mayer should be ML ready, and guys like Rafaela, Abreu, Grissom and others will be better known commodities.

Since 2021, he has more IP (367) than most of the guys we have starting and 3.76 xFIP. 38. Nate 3.63 39. Gray 3.65 44. Wood 3.76 45. Cease 3.76 49. Luzardo 3.81 57. Verlander 3.87 59. ERod 3.89 68. Giolito 3.97 69. Bello 3.97 151 pitchers with 200+ IP since 2021.

Alex Wood to sign with A's.

Maybe he wanted to do this, but were often the #1 or #2 spending team in MLB for over a decade under JH.

I few posters brought this up months and even years ago, and were widely laughed at.

When the Royals are wheeling and dealing more than we are, there is good reason for pessimism.

Yes, I forgot about the guy who looked real good finishing the 2021 season. The 1B plan was not flawed. I just don't get why some seem to blame a decent plan, just because it failed.

sfg, tex, tor?

I'm not impressed by that list.

There are certainly reasons to think Monty will decline as he ages. To me, it's probably more about budget constraints than any dislike of Monty.

Some posters felt the Yamo signing was going to b last these guys into huge and out-of-reach deals.

This will only make not signing him more frustrating. He might end up getting a AAV close to what Gio got, but for 2-3 more years. With Sale off the books, there is no excuse.

The pre-season plan at 1B was not a bad one, at all. It just did not work, and Bloom was too slow to do anything about it. In his defense, it is not always easy finding a trade in May or June. Going into 2022, the plan at 1B was this: 1. We had a starting 1Bman with an .819 OPS out of the gate in a rather large sample size of 545 career PAs. Dalbec had 33 HRs in 497 ABs with a Renroesque RBI total of 94. That was not a bad plan, especially when he looked to be trending upwards with his .867 OPS in his final 103 games of 2021 (345 PAs.) 2. His back up was a fine looking ML-ready, Tristan Casas, who just happened to get hurt at the exact time he was likely to be called up to replace the struggling Dalbec. There was plenty of things to criticize Bloom over, but with the budget he had, I don't see how anyone should have thought he needed to spend on a 3rd first baseman prior to 2022. Yes, he should have traded for one in June, but the 1B plan was solid going into 2022.

The one year he did something at the deadline (Aldo Ramirez for Schwarber,) look what happened.

Until the Story signing, almost every deal was for 1 year. (Kike and a couple other lessers were for only 2 years.) You don't get many stars that way. You get scrubs or players looking to reset their value for the next winter FA market. If they do well, they walk. If they suck, they walk. I give Bloom a pass for year one and two, because he had about 20 holes on the 40 man roster to fill and precious few prospects able to help the big club, those years. His budget was limited. If he spent $20M x 3 on a pitcher, he'd have had nothing left to sign the Renfroes, Wachas, Hills, Strahms and others. Once he spent on Story, Yoshida, Jansen, Martin, JT, Duvall and the Barnes extension, one could not longer explain why there was no serious spending on the rotation. Sure, the highly paid Sale ate up a lot of the budget, but we saw Porcello walk and not be replaced in salary. We saw Erod walk and the same thing. We saw Nate walk. The only guys we replaced were guys like Richards with Kluber, Perez with Wacha or Hill. Granted, guys like JT helped, a lot. Duvall did well. Kike did well, year one. Renfroe did well. Jansen did well. Martin did well. They all filled some high need areas, but why were they all non SP'ers? We lost tens of millions of dollars in SP'er contracts over Bloom's era. I listed most of them. We added: $6M Perez I $5M Perez II $10M Richards $7M Wacha $5M Hill $10M Kluber Our highest winter spending on the rotation in 4 years? $12M for Wacha + Hill in 2022. The range has been from about $6M to $12M for 4 straight winters. Now, we jump up to $19M, but again, it's for 1 year, unless Gio sucks. And, if you subtract the $10M "saved" in the Sale trade, we are once again back to $6M-12M spent on the rotation for 2024.

The "time ir right," now for the O's and they will not spend a dime. The Astros might be the model. They keep winning, despite letting stars walk. They spend, when needed and where needed.

Well, we could trade salary and add some, elsewhere.

No, thanks.

He might be the best we can hope for.

SP'ers still available: Monty & Snell Clevinger, Lorenzen & Ryu (Injured) Kershaw & Woodruff (Major Character Issues) Bauer, Urias & German Lauer, A Wood, Junis, B Keller Greinke, Cueto, RHill V Velasquez, Z Davies, Syndergaard & Teheran Odorizzi, D Duffy, Turnbull