moonslav59

That just arose?

You are being too kind with the sandbag part. Insert "rocks."

LOL. It is getting absurd, right?

Bloom may be the one laughing at Cora! "Good luck, skipper!" "Have fun, right hand man!" "Enjoy the dysfunction, man with Henry's ear!"

I thought you were saying the whole ship is still dysfunctional. Plus, you never wanted Cora back, anyway. Now, he seems to be your hero.

That was the real mistake made.

I do think the "mandate" was to cut significantly below the tax line in 2020. Despite the sunken cost of Sale, Pedey and half-Price in 2021, we still stayed under by about $4-5M. That was an increase from 2020, but still not really near 2018 or 2019 levels. It wasn't until the Story signing we got back near the 2018 level, and by then several teams had passed us and stayed ahead.

You still don't even grasp nobody wanted Bloom kept around.

I'm fine with your opinion and the facts. It's just a never ending stream of vitriol. How is this for something to chew on... Bloom stabbed Cora in the back for years by giving him crappy players, including no SS for '23. Cora got him back. Bloom got off the dysfunctional ship, while Cora is going down with the ship. (Not my opinion, but as valid as yours.)

That's not an answer, and they did make some deadline deals in 2020: all selling.

Give up this tired metaphor. Please!

That's the difference. One admits- one denies and deflects.

Was the 2020 mandate to just "get under?" Was Bloom just showing off by going way under?

Pretty small list, isn't it?

It was a time-delayed detonation.

Every posts he makes includes a tired and repeated jab at Bloom, we've heard hundreds of times. Over his head... Gloom Bloom... Cora the right hand man who has JH's ear... Like I said before...

(Note: there was never a Bloom Brigade, unless you count one guy, Max, as a brigade.

It's never the players: blame the manager and GM!!!!

I always do. It was worth every penny and sacrifice.

Maybe, mostly, but if we praise DD for the results, he deserves to be discussed on the aftermath.

2019 to 202 was not "massive?" No Betts, half Price, Porcello and others. Then, the trickle of funds slowly increased.

We are talking about Click maybe being Bloom 2.0. Why continually repeat the Cora thing over and over like facts, and what does it have to do with Click?

You are probably right, but something about that 2011 team screamed to blown up. Maybe the media hype brought on the feeling in me and others.

The one thing that made life easier for Theo was that comp pick rule. The rule was intended to help poor teams get compensation for losing players to free agency, but Theo mastered the rule to his advantage. So much of our talent and depth came from comp picks, and we simply replaced our lost FAs with new ones- mostly ones that did not require the loss of a draft pick. Some of us mentioned this as a reason we saw trouble coming down the road, since rebuilding the farm became much more difficult for winning and high spending teams after those rules were changed. The Sox were often winning and spending, and our ability to just overpay draft picks with our lower picks hurt, badly. Signing bonus limits and the penalty for cheating all added to tougher times for the post Theo GMs.

It does look that way, and I don't disagree. It could certainly be more about changing philosophies due to indecision, knee-jerk reactions to certain trends and or near total dysfunction, despite some brilliant people in the organization bringing about scattered success. At times, I feel like JH prefers a steady balanced approach like we saw for most of Theo's time, here. Keep the farm strong, spend where and when needed and never let the budget get unmanageable. Under Ben, we saw a slide towards hoarding prospects, perhaps to try and balance what happened in Theo's last years, but he still was allowed to spend. The 3 last place finishes in 4 years seemed to make JH & Co. give up on "the balanced approach" and go all in. The no signing pitchers over 30 moratorium ended with the biggest Sox FA signing in history- David Price. Prospects were traded like candy. To me, that period was a bigger outlier than than the Bloom era of a near compete reversal of philosophy. I wanted to believe it was a move towards a more balanced approach, and I felt with Ben, but the big trades never happened. It's been 7 years since the Sale trade and over 5 years since the Nate deal. The Story and Yoshida signings are pretty significant, but counting inflation, they don't combine to equal the cost of Price- nor did Pablo & HRam combined. The Devers extension might be the best sign the switch is being flipped, but I am not getting my hopes up on that front, anymore.