moonslav59

I think 2019 was higher than 2018, but I could be wrong. Didn’t the reset start in 2020?

I never said that. My point all along was that Cohen was not as sure a bet as many seemed to think he was. I mentioned the fact that the Sox could afford to bid $5M more than Cohen and was told Cohen would outbid others by $50M. Obviously that was not the case. Maybe had he offered $375M/10, LAD would have matched that, too. Not allowing the Mets to counter offer was weird. It may have forced the Dodgers to counter, again. Look, I was wrong about our odds in winning the auction, but I was not wrong about Cohen.

He was obviously upset. Maybe part of it was that upper brass was telling him we were going to try to improve. Maybe he's as fed up with the lies as we are, and may want to bolt. If he had the big hand some think he did (does) in selecting Breslow as the next CBO, then he may want to give a rebuild a chance.

Treading water only in that they kept those 4 guys from going to free agency. The loss of Kimbrell and Kelly without even allowing for a trade to replace them was the first sign the pendulum was swinging back the other way, IMO. I do think they rightfully believed we'd still be a factor in 2019. That does not take away from the fact that the swing had begun- on purpose.

Best notable ERA- from 2021-2023: (150+ IP) 3. Bauer 63 (less than 150 IP) 5. Woodruff 65 6. Springs 65 (less than 150) 9. Burnes 70 (weighted heavily by 2021) 12. Senga 72 (coulda-shoulda...) 15. Urias 75 (Jail time?) 17. Glasnow 76 19. F valdez 76 27. Gray 79 32. Bieber 80 (injured?) 37. Sandoval 82 (not on the trade block) 40. Castillo 83 43. Stroman 84 44. Monty 85 45, Nate 85 48. Sale 87 51. Garrett 87 52. Javier & Wacha 88 59. M Perez 91 63. Montas 93 67. ERod, Rogers & Eflin 94 78. Nola 96 80, Luzardo 97 84. Urquidy, Clevinger, Lorenzen 98 88, Bello, Ryu 99 95. Houck 100 Pivetta 105 Flaherty 106 Manaea 112 Severino 115 Crawford 116

He's going to move up in the Sox system. I doubt he gives that up. He also sees the near MLB ready top prospects in the wings. I'd be drooling over that idea.

What happened to the nobody will outbid Cohen idea? I realize he was not even given a chance to up his bid, but if he really wanted him, why didn't he outbid everyone ny "50M," as some suggested he would?

One leaked non move was the one about a sell-off (Sale) and not about "giving up." I thought doing what you were told to do, then being blamed for failing and fired is what a sacrificial lamb is all about.

A little more than the "Price signing?" Is that some sort of sick joke? It's not even a half-hearted attempt at placating the fanbase. That sort of leak just fans the flames of discontent and exposes the fact that these guys are 8 years behind the times.

Extended them. Extended Sale & Bogey. Added nobody new. Subtracted our two best RP'ers and did not even try to replace them- not even by trade. To me, this whole path we are on began right after those extensions, which were just treading water and not for improvement.

I'm at the point, now, where every move we make should be with 2025 or 2025 and beyond in mind. Think... O'Neill, Pivetta, Jansen and Martin trades now or at the deadline. Think... Pay off Sale's contract and trade him, now, for the best possible return- preferably a young pitcher. Don't sign any FA for more than 1 year, unless we think they will be just as good in 2025 and 2016 as they are now. Punt.

Cora is not going anywhere. We should see some major farm infusions in the next 2 seasons. That, alone, should improve the team. How much we spend and who we spend it on will be the deciding factor.

I think the reason he left Houston was obvious. Trash cans.

Had we traded him for better than Alan Craig and Kelly, maybe we'd have viewed the signing in a better light.

To me, an overpay is the expectation for any big FA signing, so Lackey fall in the middle. It was an okay to decent signing- not real good, but not bad at all.

He's another LF/DH type. I'm sorry, I don't see a fit, at all. Okay, if we trade Duran for a 2Bman or in a package for a decent SP and to keep Cora from playing him in CF, fine.

Eflin, Nate, Turner and Duvall were good ideas, last winter. Thinking paying Yamo a little more than Price ($217M/7) was some sort of realistic plan exposes one of two major problems, if not both: Sox management has no idea what the FA market is. Sox management thinks the fans will believe they honestly felt they might get Yamo. We could have offered Eflin another year and got him. We could have paid Nate, when he came back, hat in hand. We could have paid Gray or ERod + Lugo. We could have offered Yamo $340M/12, and if he said no, at least we'd feel like our owners tried to win.

What free agents were? Lackey did better than most FA signings at coming closer to expected value. I would not single him out as FA signing failure. There are so many others that fit that mold much better.

Having interest in him shows our heads are up our asses.

To trade ourselves to competitiveness would be to empty the entire farm of all top prospects. I'd rather we just flip to sell mode and punt 2024. If we can trade some everyday prospects for a pitcher with 3-5 years of team control, fine, but otherwise, just punt. Why can Bloom? To continue the sham. Brez did lighten the mood for a couple months.

Full throttle to a top 5 draft pick?

Yuck.

I'm very hesitant to call for replacing this ownership group. I know it was mentioned that the next group would have to look fully committed, but there is no guarantee on that, or on their ability to hire the right people to make the right baseball hires. Of course the unknown always seems scarier than the known, even if the known looks shaky as hell. While there are several teams in MLB who really seem to know what they are doing, and have multiple young studs and some even have more waiting in the wings, I think the long slow rebuild of our entire system began a few years back. The low point came after the inexcusable Betts trade, and this ownership group never wanted the fanbase to know the rebuild was always going to be the top priority. No major long term FA signings- I guess Story comes closest. No trades of top prospects for over 6 years (Beeks in '18 and ARamirez in '21 were the highest ranked prospects traded and hardly any others in the top 10 or 15.) Of course, not going into total, tear-down rebuild mode hurt and slowed the process. Just one summer fire sale would have greatly improved our outlook, but it is what it is. We've seen a half-ass approach or walking the thin line of reaching the boiling point with Sox Nation. Lame attempts at giving the perception we can or soon will be competitive again, only to b e disappointed over and over, again. Kudos to those who saw right through the sham earlier than the rest of us, but I still warn, "Be careful what you wish for." This ownership group has cycled to ring seasons, IMO. They have never tried to win it all every season. Certainly they had higher floors than recently, and even had a stretch of 3 last place finishes in 4 years, once before. The runs under Theo and more briefly under DD were amazing, but surprisingly, we had 2 rings in the first 10 years (2003-2012) and 2 rings in the next 10 years (2013-2022.) Winning a rin, soon, look like a pipedream, but we do finally have a farm system that looks as promising as anything we've had since the Theo days- maybe about years ago. We did just extend Devers to the largest contract in Sox history, by over 40%, and perhaps with a gun to their heads. Since March 2022, we have not only extended Devers, but also paid one FA $140M and another over $100M to acquire. That could be viewed as a move in the right direction. The last big financial expenditure like that was the Bogey and Sale extensions right before the 2019 season, the same winter we let Kimbrell & Kelly go, without even trying to replace their value. That 3 year lull in spending, which coincided with no meaningful farm infusion and the loss of Betts and others really knocked this team back a ton. We are still trying to recover, or should I say pretending to try. We have not seen anything from the Story and Yoshida signings (Yet?) That might have helped morale a bit. We have, however, seen a strikingly quick growth of a farm many felt was left totally barren by DD. While recent grads don't jump off the page like some teams seem to have, the lits is as long and meaningful as we have seen since Theo: 2021: Whitlock, Houck 2022: Duran, Crawford, Wink 2023: Bello, Casas, Wong and some lesser players like EValdez, Bernardino & Kelly 2024 and 2025 promises arrivals and or graduations by some very promising players: Anthony Mayer Teel Rafaela & Abreu (MLB experience already) Yorke Wikelman Fitts, Slaten, Mata, Murphy & Walter Longer shots like... (lower ceilings) Monegro, Meidroth, Jordan & DHam Dobbins, E R-C, Guerrero, Bastardo, Song & Hoppe Gambrell, Troye, I Coffey, Benitez & Olivares Many will fail, of course, but this is one promising area this management team has built up, despite the lack of any "wow" pitcher in the group. The winter is not over. We'll have to pick off an amazing percentage of the remaining cream of the crop to keep any hopes alive. This looks so much like yet another punt, that I no longer support trading top for one key piece, unless it's for a top pitcher with 3 or more years of team control. We aren't getting a new owner before the start of 2024, so I guess we can wait and see what these guys can cobble together out of the remaining rubble, but for the first time, I'm beginning to think a change is needed. I'm not fully sold on the idea, and I'm extremely leary of who the next group will be, but this really sucks.

Or DD, if the checkbook was locked away. What did DD do after 2018, when the winter budget was low, and it seemed trades of prospects was not allowed?

We should find all the quotes from before 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.