moonslav59

It would be shocking, just as the moves I listed were, at the times made. No, I don't see us trading a top 3 prospect for the next Sale or Beckett. I doubt we'd even trade Perales, Cespedes and Bleis for an ace, assuming we could get one for those 3. It would be a shock, and I don't expect it to happen. I think JH is going to stick to the "go all in on the farm" philosophy. The best chance we have is for all or almost all of our farm infusions to work from day one, or, although not likely, is that we spend heavy on a FA ace or solid #2. I would be shocked, if we do. Hell, I'd be shocked, if we sign 2 solid #3's, this winter, but you don't predict a shock, otherwise, it's not a shock. I don't see us trading young 26 man roster player, unless Cora or Brez dislike the guy for some reason, we don't know about. I don't see us trading top farm prospects, and you don't get aces without doing so. They only hope is we hit bigly on all or most of our top prospects and or we sign an ace or two solid #2/3's. Like I said, it's a hope but I'm not full of hope it actually happens. I do not expect it to happen, but I did not expect the Manny signing, the Beckett trade, the Dice_k signings and fee paid, the Price signing and the Chris Freakin; Sale trade, either. To me, the Price and Sale deals blew me away, at the time. Both we totally shocking, so maybe another shock is in the making. I'm not holding my breath.

We cry about how tough the ALE has been since 2022, but don't look at how weak it was from '16-'18. From '19-'21 it was pretty tough but not great.

No way they had both Sale and Gio on the 2024 roster, IMO. Maybe they'd have lucked out and kept Sale while adding Lorenzen at $5M/1. As it turned out, the 2B issue was not solved by teh Sale trade, anyway, so not loss there. Maybe we keep Sale and no Gio or O'Neill and sign Flaherty to $15M/1 or Lugo $15M x 3. This is pure hindsight, of course.

Indeed, and the last "big splash" was in before the 2017 season. Seven years ago! The longest stretches between big splashes, before were 4 and 5 years apart.

Sadly, still an improvement. LOL

Just keeping Betts and Price would have meant a huge increase in the budgets from 2020 onwards. As it turned out, if it meant not signing these guys, it would not have made much of a difference, but we'd have had to cut other salaries or not signed some FAs that did work out to meet the actual budgets we had from '20-'24. 2020 11 JBJ arb (he did okay in '20) 8.3 ERod arb 5.0 Perez 4.3 Pillar 2.9 Peraza 2.5 Moreland 1.5 Lucroy (How do we cut the 2020 budget to pay for Betts, let alone Betts & Price? No Bogey? No JD? Trade Sale?) 2021 10 Richards 9 Ottavino (trade) 7 Kike (x 2) 5 Perez 3 Renfroe 3 Marwin (Richards, Ottavino, Perez & Marwin almost pays for Betts, but what about Price?) 2022: it gets easier due to Story and it being Price's last year 23 Story 12 JBJ trade 11 Devers arb 10 Paxton (2 yrs) 8 Barnes 7 Kike (signed in '21) 7 Wacha 5 Hill 4 Diekman (2 yrs) 3 Strahm 2.3 Robles 1.6 Sawamura (You can save about $60M by not adding all from this list, except Wacha, Hill and Strahm, Devers and Kike, so it works for 2022, but you still need to fill the roster slots of those not added.) 2023: No Price contract makes having Betts doable. 23 Story 18 Yoshida (The top 2 alone, pays for Betts with 11M left over) 10 Kluber 4 Paxton (Had we not signed Story, Yoshida, Kluber and Paxton and spent $30M on Betts $25M on a pitcher who actually did well and stayed healthy, we'd have done okay in '23.) Yes, the choices to cut the budgets were made by the guys still in charge, but one point the cliff dwellers held, back then, was the idea that the continued increases in the budget, as our young stars reached arbs then free agency was going to come to a breaking point, and it did. Unfortunately or stupidly, we chose Betts as that point. The choice to cut or not add to the budget was a major factor, no doubt, and the cuts actually began before 2019, by letting Kimbrel and Kelly walk to pay for arb raises, so the process actually began in 2019, before Bloom's arrival.

Agreed. I never really liked the signing, but did think it was a step up from Kluber, Richards and Perez. Last 14 starts (almost half a season) 7.13 ERA/6.96 Last 12 6.96/6.87 7.14/6.88 last 11 (third of a season) The last 5 did show improvement, so maybe that was part of the equation: 4.88/5.82 in 28 IP

I mentioned '21 in another recent post, but the 2021-2023 teams were clearly a step down from 2018, and even the roster, on paper, of 2019. Even the 2020 team would not have been all that bad had Sale and ERod pitched. It was not really "the cliff" many of us expected, in some ways, but the continued last place finishes does make it feel like the cliff cam into existent.

The trade is not made without the $10M "savings," IMO. it was an essential part of the trade. I also think it was a valiant attempt to solve the 2B problem we have had since Pedey got hurt. It's not like 2B was not an issue. Had Grissom filled that void, the trade would make more sense, right now, Since 2017, we have had 20 second basemen with over 44 PAs and 16 over 82. 2017>today 2B PAs only (OPS) 544 Arroyo .739 (not even a full 650 PAs by one player!) 492 Nunez .691 (mostly from half season in '18) 487 Holt .739 (probably our best 2Bman) 457 Pedey .755 (was a drain on the budget) 396 Story .737 304 Kiki .901 263 Valdez .646 254 Chavis .711 148 Marco H .589 141 Kinsler .598 119 Marwin .511 100 Reyes .627 91 Arauz .468 89 Peraza .553 88 Urias .743 83 Grissom .386 51 Iggy .914 50 Lin .401 46 Rutledge .473 44 Yolmer S .322 2017-2024 2B Team Rankingss T 30th in fWAR at 4.9 over 7.4 years. 24th in OPS .687 27th in OAA (-102) No doubt, the rotation was a major concern, last winter, and we can now see why, but 2B was, too. The swap out from frail Sale to Gio did make some sense, at the time, when you also factor in the idea that they felt they were solving the 2B problem.

I totally agree. (BTW, were also paying Porcello in 2019, but he was at the end of his extension.) Many of us saw the writing on the wall, back then. The farm looked emptier than it turned out to be, but we still went 5 years with hardly any farm input. Not many teams, if any, have won a ring after a 5 year lull like that. The choices to spend on Price, Sale, Porcello and Nate, instead of Betts and 2 or 3 of those pitchers was the biggest mistake, but the runaway spending and declining farm pointed to the unsustainability of the winning culture created under DD. It was a nice 3 year run. The idea that JH could or would just continue throwing money at the holes in the roster would have cost a lot more than the Dodgers have been spending. The Dodgers never stopped getting farm input over the past 4-6 years. We stopped, after Devers, and although Houck, Casas, Bello and Duran were added to the roster about 5 years later, many did not hit the ground running, day one, or have had dips along the way. Honestly, I don't expect JH to spend like the Dodger or the Yankees of old. I do think he coulda and shoulda spent more, but it would have taken a lot to bring another ring post 2018. Perhaps one strategic addition might have got us over the hump in '21, but who knows. Keeping Betts would have helped, a lot, but without added spending beyond his contract, I doubt we'd have a ring after '18. Less last place finishes would be an improvement, for sure, but the whole Billy Bean saga shows that JH has always wanted to create a "Tampa North" type organization, as you and others aptly call it. We should not be shocked. The real shock was more likely, the spending under DD.

The fanbase could really use a shocking addition. Extensions don't do the trick, although the non-extension of Betts will never be forgotten or forgiven, I'm thinking, these were the five to six biggest splash deals in this century: 2001 Manny 2006 Beckett trade 2007 Dice-K 2011 AGon trade 2016 Price 2017 Sale trade

The Dugo and Urias trades were before the Gio signing, too, but one could argue their money paid for O'Neill's contract, I guess. Not sure the timing of the deals matters that much.

We are losing 3, too, so who knows: Pivetta Jansen Martin I think we may skimp on the pen (Hendricks>Jansen and Whitlock/Fulmer> Martin,) but we should add a SP'er. I'd add 2 solid or even 3.

I included the Bogey's extension, which with the opt-opt was really a 2 year add on control, but since I also counted Gio's, it seemed legit. Both were not major signings like Sale, Nate, Yoshi & Story, and the success rate on those is no where near the league average. Had we just hit on Sale (4-5 seasons like he's doing now, we'd have been a much better team with a possible ring in '21. IMO, we are oh for 4 on our top 4, but Nate was not bad. From JH's point of view, perhaps this is why he wants to avoid more like them.

It is very rare for free swingers to do well for a long career. He does have some power at about 20 HRs and 30 2B+3B per 650, but his .244 OBP (.254 career) is what hurts even more than all the Ks. 8 walks in 64 games is really, really bad. His defense is spectacular, but he seems to lose focus and bumble plays, too often. I think that will improve, over time. I'm not sure the OBP can or will.

Ref has been hitting out of his mind, but we can't count on him for too much longer as our DH. The return of Casas will help, but the middle infield (D & O) has hurt us, once again. The rotation is regressing to the norm, but as of yet, nobody deserves a demotion. ERA last 24 days: 1.38 Houck (actually getting better) .449 OPS Against 3.29 Pivetta (looking in form, again) .561 6.25 Bello .831 6.43 Crawford .787 6.45 Criswell .818 This looks like 3 holes in the making. The pen has done its job, well.

I'm more than fine with extensions like these. In hindsight, I wish we had extended Houck, but yes, we need to start hitting on some of our FA signings. 13/10 Devers (results pending but off to a good start) 145/5 Sale (bust) 140/6 Story (bust with a chance to change to just a bad signing) 90/5 Yoshida (see Story) 68/4 Nate (meh) 60/3 Bogey (good but opted out) 39/2 Giolito (bust) Had we hit on 3 or 4 of these 7, we likely would not have had so many last place finishes. (3 of the top 4 have been failures)

Yes, that was the obvious save money option. Even the Gio signing was financed, mostly on money saved by dumping Sale, Urias and Dugo.

In all fairness, though, we would not have all these last place finishes, if we hadn't swung and missed at such a high rate on our largest signings and extensions since Sale/Nate. I know you think our miss rate is close to the league average, but I disagree. I'm not defending JH by saying this. He can and should have at least spent to just below the tax line. He may be looking at the high failure rate on signings and think, "Why bother?"

Indeed. In the past, some/most did expect him to spend more after the dip in 2020, but now, we expect that he can spend more money but chooses not to. That is not unrealistic. We look at a pretty solid core of young players and expect that a caring owner might want to do something about filling some gaps by throwing money at them, but we know our owner is choosing stingy greed, instead. I still hope he spends more, this winter or next, not I'm not hopeful.

He's not known for his defense and does not have a GG like O'Neill. O'Neill also has an OPS+ of 137 in 189 PAs (6th on the Sox.) Teoscar has 90 more PAs (4th on his team,) which of course has enormous value. We knew we were rolling the dice on O'Neill's health. He's played in just over 2/3 of the team's games. If Ref wasn't doing so well, it would have hurt more than it has, but we do need O'Neill's RHB in the line-up, along with Refs. Had the savings of adding O'Neill over Teoscar been actually used on adding someone else- like Imanaga instead of Gio or Gio and Flaherty, then it would be more understandable, but sadly we stay way under the tax line.

YES! And statements like "full throttle" and others before that, were reasons why some fans had high or higher expectations than we should have.

We finally have RHB looking good, on the farm.

how about 2 of 4?

RBI + Runs- HR 61 Duran 59 Rafaela 54 Devers 42 Abreu 39 O'Neill 37 Wong