moonslav59

Playing it halfway was the worst choice, although Abreu, EValdez, Rosier and McGuire may end up being more helpful than originally thought. 2023 was basically halfway (or no way,) as all we did was add Urias.

In terms or wins and losses, yes. Story's injury and the decline from many returning players, some still firmly in their prime years was just too much to overcome. I look at the 2020 roster during a 60 game season, where we used 20 batters and 30 pitchers, and the roster now and see a northward direction. I look at the 4-5 years of youth and prospects from no prospects of note, other than Houck, to come up to the big club and help from mis 2017 until Casas and Bello, and what we have seen recently from our youth as northward movement. I see the farm as looking vastly better, but I know you don't care, until you see results. Back before 2021, I thought and said we had about 12-14 roster slots that need improvement to become a contender. I think Bloom swung and missed with many of his 2021 additions, but somehow we did well. Maybe that was just adding to false hopes, but 12-14 was better than the 18-22 open slots going into 2020 (after the Betts & Price trades and word that ERod and Sale were missing the full season.) Before 2022, I thought we had 6-8 open slots to fill- a continued move in a northward direction, despite crappy W-L records. No, I see 3-5 major slots that need to be filled from outside the system: SP. SP, SP, RHB (OF/2B) and maybe LH RP. The rest of the foundation seems good, with maybe a few relying too much on younger kids to come through, but those slots have 2-3 options, in case one fails. I guess I'm near alone in seeing progression amongst all the disarray and smokescreens thrown at us by team spokesmen. 2020 Team: https://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/BOS/2020.shtml 2024 Foundation: https://www.soxprospects.com/2024.htm

I agree and by a wide margin. If it wasn't for the 2021 season, we'd be talking 4-5 years.

I remember arguing this point, back then. I wasn't so upset about trading so many top prospects away as I was about who we got. I loved the sale trade. I thought the Thornburg trade made sense. I thought Kimbrel was paid like a FA and was not worth trading so many prospects, when we should have just signed him a year earlier. As it turned out, closer costs sky-rocketed right after that trade, and that negated that critism. (Note: I WAS WRONG.) I had hoped we traded for Quintana not Pomeranz, although he would have cost more. All in all, I still have no issues with his trades. They helped create the best 3 year stretch in over 90 years. They helped create that magical 2018 season.

I never said it wasn't true, or that only a few believe it to be true. Personally, I think they know what they want and are doing, but are either horrible at communicating it to fans and the media, or they know the fans and media will not like what the hear, if the truth is fully told.

No doubt, but look at the balance sheet of successes. It's not even close. I'm not sure why you are so hesitant to admit that at worst, he got lucky and at best, he ended up doing okay with the farm, despite the 5 year gap that hurt us from 2019 to 2022.

It fits his narrative the Sox management is in disarray. He will latch onto any quote or story that supports his bias. Rinse and repeat.

I have admitted I was wrong, and will again now, if that makes you happy. Unlike you, I have no problem admitting I have been wrong many times, and more than these two you listed. I had no idea how good Bloom would be. It seemed like the direction we were going was to go cheap and try to build a roster with roughs in the gems, and Bloom seemed like that kind of hire. (I thought the same about the Dan D hire back in the 90's.) He did not succeed at what I hoped he would do. I did not make a prediction on whether he would be good or bad. You did and you were right. I'd pat you on the back, but it's all bruised and red from self-patting. I was a big Kike fan. You had big issues with that, for some reason. Yes, I thought the $10M deal for Kike as our 2023 CF was a good deal, at the time. I was dead wrong. No excuses. I was wrong. Very wrong. Is that enough, for you? I'll say it again, if you want. I was wrong on dozens of other opinions and suggestions. I make tons of suggestions and give my opinions freely and often. I get some right and some wrong. When I'm right, I don't pat myself on the back for months and years.

Some of the prospects traded by DD got hurt, and that is something very hard to predict. We will never know just how good Anderson Espinoza might have been. I thought, at the time, he was an overpay for Pomeranz, but maybe due to his injury, the trade looks fine, now. It does seem pretty amazing that DD traded about 20 players that were or once were top 20 prospects on the Sox rankings lits. The ones he kept have done way better. Call it mostly luck or happenstance, but it is true. In hindsight, those who said he "emptied the farm" turned out to be wrong, despite the sheer number of prospects dealt away.

This has become your new endless rant.

You need to work on you sentence structure.

I don't need to remind anyone about who the blind squirrel running up a broken clock is. You do that enough.

I didn't hear anyone say it was a 100% right hire. Who was it? Go look and get back to me... https://www.talksox.com/forum/threads/19592-Chaim-Bloom-in-as-DD-replacement/page4

Agreed. I no longer have any expectations the team will chneg course and add what is needed to build a true and serious contender. It may or may not ever happen, again. I hope we do, but hope has gone to the wayside 2 straight years.

I do think most fans down on the corner have no clue, and that is why they would just see this as no major change made. They jump to conclusions before a GM first day on the job. We've seen that here with one poster, in particular.

Lackey's deal was probably top 10 or 11, with inflation factored in. Not counting Devers, if you figure inflation, maybe 4 out of the top 10 have been traded (Sale nearly made it 5), and 2 were DFA'd (Pablo & HRam) before their time was up. With the Bogey opt out, he was not top 10.

I might have missed a couple pre-arb deals and extensions. Cots didn't list the Jenks deal, and I caught that, and maybe they and I missed more. Many of the guys not in red did not finish playing with the Sox, their final year of their deals, due to injury- like Clement. I should have put Peavy in Red, as we traded him in the big rotation purge..

I'd be fine with that, but it's not much of an image of "change" for the masses down on "the corner."

He also used it while admitting he wasn't watching the game of baseball for a while. His "eye test" is looking at box scores.

Good post. I would guess, most of the time, if a team sees a flaw in a highly ranked prospect and wants to trade him, as a result, the other teams know about the flaw, too. Maybe, one team doesn't see it, or thinks they can correct it, and makes the trade anyway. I do think some teams value some players more than other teams do, but probably not by much on the vast majority of prospects and players.

Here's my list. Maybe, I missed 1 or 2... Here are the biggest contracts given out by the Sox under JH: Free Agents and Extensions (No adjustments for inflation made) (Manny's $160M/8 deal in '01 was pre-JH) 314/10 Devers '24 217/7 Price '16 (later dumped) 154/7 AGon '12 (later traded with salary dump CC) 145/5 Sale '20 (made $15M in '19) Almost traded 142/7 Crawford '11 (later dumped) 140/6 Story '22 120/6 Bogey '20 w opt out after '22 110/5 JD '18 110/8 Pedey '14 95/5 Pablo '15 (later cut) 90/5 Yoshida (plus large positing fee) 88/4 HRam '15 (later cut) 83/4 Porcello '16 83/5 Lackey '10 (later traded) 73/7 Rusney Castillo (almost all in the minors) 70/5 JD Drew '07 68/4 Nate '19 52/6 Dice-K '07 (plus huge posting fee) 41/4 Youk '09 w option (traded) 41/6 Pedroia '09 40/4 Renteria '05 (later dumped) 40/4 VTek '05 39/3 Vic '13 38/3 Lowell '08 38/3 Lugo '07 32/2 Napoli '14 32/2 Jansen '23 31/4 Damon '02 30/3 Beckett '07 w option (traded) 30/4 Buchholz '12 w options 30/5 Lester '09 w option (29/2 Peavy '13 traded Iggy for him after signing) 27/2 Dempster (retired after 1 yr) 26/2 Ortiz '13 26/3 Clement '13 (hit in the face by a LD) 26/4 Foulke '04 (gave us one great year) 20/1 Betts '19 (traded) 19/2 Barnes w option (traded) 18/2 Uehara '15 18/2 Martin '23 18/1 Devers '23 16/2 Cameron '10 14/2 Kike '21 (traded under next $10M/1 deal) 14/3 Vaz '19 w option (traded) 13/2 Moreland '18 (traded) 13/2 C Young '16 13/2 Scutaro '10 (traded) 12/1 Bogey '19 12/2 Jenks '11 11/1 SDrew 11/1 JBJ '20 11/1 Devers '22

Love seeing the Astros down 2-0. The fans here were so obnoxious and overconfident before this series. After the Texans won on Sunday, the talk show hosts were saying it was going to be the greatest sports day in Houston history. LOL!

Did you see the list of the biggest contracts we ever gave out (FA and extension) and how many were traded, eventually?

I knew he would just deflect. Clockwork.

I'm 100% fine with what he left, because what he did worked for 3 wonderful years, including one golden one. No regrets, for me, but I'm one who thinks sacrifice is a virtue. Had we not won (and not just about the ring year), he might have been one of the worst GM we've had in a while.