moonslav59

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.

Hitting in 2023 was a little too late to save Bloom's ass. I know I sound like a broken record, and Bloom did blunder enough to deserve to be fired, but massive budget cuts and only Houck from the farm the 5 years that started 2 years before Bloom's arrival has to be part of the DD conversation. Again, I have no issues with what DD did. 2016 to 2018 would have been worth it all, even if he had traded Houck, Casas and Bello on top of the ones he did trade.

No doubt.

What a way and time to all heat up, at once!

...and the same guy who had a big hand in establishing a system that produced 4 rings in 2 decades. This is not the first time JH has pulled in the purse strings while seemingly dictating a couple GMs to hoard prospects and trade stars away. It's been sort of cyclical. I have no idea if the past history of cycling back up to spending large and allowing some top prospects to be traded away will happen anytime soon, or even ever happen again. I won't be surprised if the switch is flicked this winter or next, but who knows? We do know this has been one long down cycle, despite 2021. Once could argue there was a pretty long one a decade ago, despite the 2013 season.

Let's see, if we can get some straight forward answers.

You could trade them for a pitcher with 4-5 years of team control, already.

DD did have a hand in a couple of things that adversely affected the teams from 2019 to today, but the amount of good he did, some still having lasting effects (like keeping Devers, Bello, Casas, Houck, Crawford, Rafaela and others) far outweigh those two things: 1. Tough budget for the next GM to deal with. 2. Virtually no significant farm help from Devers i '17 to Casas/Bello '23, unless you count Houck. To me, it was worth it all, and if we were to start spending again, I'd welcome DD back with open arms. (I'm not so sure I would, if the current philosophy continues.)

That was a sad choice made. He traded so few young players and prospects, but that one hurt.

Would Bloom bashers be okay with Bloom 2.0?

Getting Click would be very interesting. He does have some experience winning, so...

That was horrific on so many fronts. The kicker was Sale and ERod both missing the full 60 game season, JD hitting .680 and Devers hitting .7932. But hey, nobody likes whiners and cryers, so we should all rejoice in the mud- not wallow in it.

When people say, player A K's too much, and I say, "I don't care of the guy K's 350 times, if he has an OPS of .800+," I'm thinking of Kyle Schwarber. Man-O-Man this guy can really crush it!

It's amazing how much the team has changed, and not just since 2019. Bobby Dee has the 3rd highest 40 man roster seniority! Pivetta is 5th. Duran is 10th and was added in July of '21 Story is 14th and was added in March '22 Martin, Jansen and Yoshida are above 30th!

They were all just suspects, until they were no longer prospects.

Who thinks that?

Well, I would think it should be obvious. I used to joke about how some posters seemed to think Bloom talked JH & Co. into spending less and not trading any top prospects. I'm not so sure it's a joke anymore. The kicker, to me, was the report that DD nearly traded Betts and Price to LAD in the summer of 2019. Man, how that would have changed the whole narrative!!!

Just a minor omission.

They must not be hearing the chatter scaring everyone else away!

No one is doubting many of the Sox great teams were loaded with homegrown talent. How bringing that up has anything to do with the point only you know. You saying you've "always been big on the farm" has to be one of the funniest things ever said on this site. Hands down. Of course, you will come back that I'm overanalyzing what "always been big" means, but it was a very good joke.

The bout is Bell v notin. Do try to keep up.

Forget Devers?

Rock-em-sock-em.

The point was about you not Vince or Bloom. Yes, WOW!

I'm well aware of that fact. It was actually near .500 when Bloom was fired, but certainly the record after he left should count. For four years, all we heard was it's all about the W-L record, but now, we should believe we were really worse than our losing record indicated. Go figure.