moonslav59

He is certainly not a plus, right now. He will likely start out below average. He was blocked in ATL. He's largely an unknown at 2B. I'm guessing he's better than Urias, EValdez and Yorke on D and maybe can be about like Reyes or better, in a short time. If he gets almost all the reps at 2B, I'll be surprised, if our defensive metrics are worse in 2024 than 2023. 2023 D at 2B: 30th in OAA at -50 (13 worse than the Reds and 42 worse than the 20th team!) 30 in DRS at -12 18th UZR/150 at -0.7 I don't think I'm going out on a limb to project improved D at 2B and vastly improved O at 2B for 2024.

We also got the great DHam and Binelas!

Well, I think the guy I'm talking about was in charge from 2018-2021 or 2022. How many SP'ers have we produced, since then that are ebtter than any of these 7, except maybe Bello> ECab, and maybe Houck>ECab. I see 7 SP'ers that would all be in our rotation. That's my point. We need a guy who knows how to find and develop SP'ers. If he was not a big part of that with MIA, then disregard the point I made.

He played nearly all his time at SS from 2022-2023, in the minors. I'm not sure how much we can gather from his recent small sample size on D at 2B.

I did not copy and paste. I went and did it again. FYI, he did very good in 2021. My response was to the point about how we should somehow cont 2/3's of the 2023 season more than the 1/3rd he did poorly. I merely asked why stop there with the cherry-picking of time slots.

He must also have known getting nothing for Bogey, JD and others was going to elicit criticism, when it still amounted to losing.

They have churned out 7 SP'ers before this guy left, last year I think, including Pablo Lopez, that would make the Sox rotation.

Totally agree. On longer term deals, we really have not changed much, and one could argue we have done more... (there was the obvious lull between Sale, Nate and Bogey and Story) 2024: 10 yrs Devers 2023: 5 yrs Yoshi 2022: 6 yrs Story 2019: 5 Sale, 4 Nate 2018: 5 JD 2017: none 2016: 7 Price, 4 Porcello 2015: 5 Pablito, 4 HRam

It appears only trades can change that, but then that goes against what looks like a focus on improving the longer term as a higher priority, unless... We trade for a pitcher with 5 years of team control. On the salary, we could trade for salary, but that seems unlikely, as hell.

They extended Sale to what amounted to about $10M for 2025. That's what they are paying him for 2024, too. They must think Sale is worth $10M x 2 minus the value of Grissom, who was redundant in their system. I'm noit sure that shows a lot of love for Sale. He basically got a kluber deal for 2025, not counting inflation.

I did that a week or so, ago.

I get that, but he was a top 100 prospect and 3rd on ATL's list. I think any team with money, would have paid $17M cash for him. His defense may turn out okay or even better, as he moves from SS to 2B and gets adjusted. It's his D that tipped him to a low bWAR. I'm not sure you can call a guy who pro-rates to about a 1.4 bWAR over 650 PAs. A .746 OPS (105 OPS+ is encouraging for a prospect's firsat 236 PAs in MLB.) +1.2 oWAR in just 64 games -0.7 dWAR 0.5 bWAR His 0.1 fWAR projects to near or under replacement level +2.2 O -9.9 D (but -7 DRS in 168 innings at SS vs -3 DRS in 368 innings at 2B. This shows he was nearly 5 times worse at SS than 2B.) His UZR/150 is about 7 times worse at SS than 2B. Both projections listed on fangraphs has him around A 2.2 fWAR in about 500 PAs for 2024.

I don't think any of us expected the Sox to not even come close to replacing the Betts- Price money, or the Porcello money, either. The Covid season was kind of a blurr. It wasn't until 2021, that we realized just how entrenched the new budget had become. (We ended up over $20M below the tax line.) I think Bloom was hired to be a bargain basement GM and to try and replicate the "Tampa Bay Way." The success of the 2021 team only emboldened the Sox to continue trying to be like the Rays for a longer period, and Bloom looked like "the guy" to maybe pull it off. That seemed to continue until or maybe beyond the late winter signing of Story for the 2022 season. Surprisingly, they inched over the tax line in '22, due to Bloom's failure to make a sell trade or two at the deadline. The penny-pinching rotation building was the obvious downfall of the idea and of Bloom. IMO, as simply put as I can do: Bloom was hired to pinch pennies and still try to make the team competitive. Throw out 2020, does Bloom still have a job, if we finished.... 2nd (to ALCS), 4th and 3rd? 2nd (to ALCS), 4th and 4th? 2nd (early exit), 3rd and 3rd?

One could say paying $17M for 6 years of Grissom is a steal.

DD was ready to trade Betts in 2019, but as they approached the deadline, they won 5 out of 6 * out of 11,) and apparently they decided not to sell. (They then lost 8 in a row from JUL 28 to AUG 4, followed by a 4-4 stretch, and the rest was history.) What would DD's legacy have been had he been pinned with the Betts trade? (My guess is, still pretty good.) How would that have affected the Bloom legacy and expectations upon his singing?

BTV Accepts: Duran, Houck & Mata for Braxton Garrett (5 years of control) Yoshida (+$16M) & Paulino for Keaton Winn (6 years of control) & Carson Whisenhunt (higher rated SP'er than Wikelman & Perales) Sign: Soler (DH and LF) SP1 Garrett SP2 Bello SP3 Giolito SP4 Winn SP5 Pivetta RP1 Jansen RP2 Martin RP3 Winckowski RP4 Crawford RP5 Whitlock RP6 Schreiber RP7 Slaten (Rule 5) 1. R Grissom 2B 2. L Devers 3B 3. R O'Neill RF 4. L Casas 1B 5. R Soler LF/DH 6. L Yoshida DH/LF 7. R Story SS 8. L Abreu CF/ R Rafaela CF 9. R Wong/ L McGuire C Bench: Rafaela or Abreu Mcguire or Wong Reyes Refsnyder Rest of the 40: (possible additions to 40 during 2024) SP: Max Castillo, Murphy, Walter, Wikelman, Perales (Gambrell, Fitts) RP: Bernardino, Campbell, Criswell, Weissert, Kelly (Guerrero, Hagenman, Benitez, Olivares) C: (Scott, R Perez, Teel) 1B: Dalbec (Kavadas, Jordan) 2B: EValdez (Yorke) SS: DHam (Mayer) 3B: (Meidroth, Lugo) OF: (Rosier, Anthony) DH: EValdez, (Hickey)

At 32, don't be so sure. He turns 33 in May. He has been pretty consistent and has started 25+ games, the last 3 seasons. 3.45 ERA 122 ERA+ 3.60 FIP That's just too good for the Sox.

Well, the part not mentioned goes hand-in-hand with the betts trade: they, arguably, did not replace the Betts and half-Price money until March 2022's Story signing. Bloom's window to proves something was 2022-2023. I think, if he knew that, he might have drafted more college players in 2020 and 2021.

Agreed. I am hoping the FA avoidance is just temporary, and that they are just waiting for "the right time" and "the right guy" to pounce.

Well said, and one can view the trade as saving $10M and spending $17M for Grissom, if we think 2024 is lost.

Yanks talking to Stroman. Maybe Monty to TEX and Stroman to NYY, leaving Clevinger or Paxton for the Sox to overpay.

Nobody knows fo4r sure, how the Sale-Grissom deal will work out. There are some wild variables involved. Basically, it's... $17M for Sale to pitch, not pitch or pitch a little with ATL vs $27M for the same with us. $10M more to spend or for JH to pocket. 6 years of a recently graduated top prospects with a nice upside bat and unknown abilities on D at 2B. Maybe he ends up near average on D and can improves over the following 5 years- maybe not. This looks like a pretty even deal that could go one way or another in a big way, but for the Sox, it could be for 6 good to great years. If he sucks, we cut him after 1-2 years. I think that shifts the balance to BOS. If we use the $10M wisely, even better.

I think the GM can make minor moves, pretty much on his own, and Bloom & Brez have done that, quite a bit. Trading Sale, and to a lesser degree Dugo, probably involved approval. Supposedly, Bloom had approval to trade Sale, before and stopped short. It appears Brez is more decisive. Let's hope that's a good thing.

Presumably, the "market rate" is the top bid. Maybe JH does not realize that is what that means.

Why stop there? Go back another year: ERA/FIP 1st 10 '22: 3.88/4.41 (add 1 game: 4.78/4.84 2nd 10 '22: 5.94/4.13 Take away that one game: 5.06/3.57) 3rd 10 '22: 4.88/3.65 1st 11 '23: 3.98/4.17 2nd 11 '23: 3.71/4.89 3rd 11 '23: 7.14/6.88 5/12 bad 4/12 ok-good 3/12 good-very good