moonslav59

Having more quality players allows for a few to have off years, and there is still enough "others" to keep the team competitive. It also helps that they both have a had a pretty steady flow of homegrown players joining the team that could fill in of the "down" players. I know I am beating a dead horse, but that stretch between Devers in 2017 to Bello/Casas with only Houck as being significant is a roster killer- a GM killer, too.

True, and I guess it highlights how much a GM gets praised or bashed based upon that "randomness."

Agreed, and I still don't know how Cora "managed" Bloom.

I am always thinking in terms of money spent on player A means less is spent on player B and C and .... I never assume the budget is limitless. Sure, I'd love Ohtani on the roster, but I'd rather have Yamamoto + Montgomery.

End of Year Review: http://news.soxprospects.com/2023/10/podcast-ep-297-2023-season-in-review.html

Rafaela wins Player of the Year Award for the second straight season.

Yes, and I agree, it's not much different from what you said. Bloom had a big enough budget to win more than 78 games, the last 2 years, despite all the context and deadwood. We should have done better. The weird thing is, he did better in 2021 with less money and more unproductive FA signings than '22 and '23.

Agreed, and within the context of other inactions and "near misses," it spelled his doom.

That's a long list.

I didn't say it was news. I didn't even try to hint is was something we don't already know. It's been going on for a long time. I just said TB has a large transplant population that skews the numbers, since many will never become Rays fans or ardent ones. You said they have a low senior population. I presented numbers that indicate another opinion on that point. Now, you change the debate. I'm not disputing the TV ratings. I guess Tampa has a bunch of old and young people and not many middle agers. The point I'm making is the fanbase is smaller than normal due to so many never having a chance at becoming a Rays fan, because they already love the Yanks, Red Sox and ___.

He's the "baseball guy," who says he's not quite ready to be "the baseball guy."

Indeed. The budgets add context, but don't change those facts.

You asked if I see the way you do, then say you don't care how I see it. He did not spend $230M, except in 1 year. Am I right or wrong?

Wrong. 1. I wouldn't take the average and make it sound like he specialized in spending $230 for more than 1 year. 2. Bloom did not "put together" the half Price payments, nor the Sale contract. 3. His winter spending budgets were mostly meager, when you factor in how many slots he needed to fill each year.

I'm sort of okay thinking we can start the year with a Duran-Refsnyder platoon in LF. His bat should be fine as a platoon. If it doesn't work, Yoshida can play more LF. I'm sort of okay thinking we can start the year with a Rafaela-Abreu platoon in CF, but I'd like to add someone like Duvall as insurance and as our new FT RF'er. (Trade Dugo.) It's a risk, but we have to choose some areas where we just "have faith" in what we got, and use as many resources as possible to fix the rotation.

They should have.

Okay. I just don't get what is gained by repeating that over and over. Virtually every team can say that about their owner. It's pointless, to me. We can hope it happens, but hope hasn't worked for over 4 years. (The high spending stopped right after the Sale, Nate & Bogey extensions, which when taken in the context of also losing Betts, half Price and Porcello was hardly a spending spree. One could argue, the big spending stopped after the 2018 trade deadline.

A firm no, is okay with me, but I certainly feel better about him than I did, last winter. His D is still subpar, but he went from horrific to near average in LF and just plain bad in CF. That encouraged me more than two hot months on O.

I would not pay $30-35M for a DH. Maybe, if we didn't already have 3 starters better suited for DH than in the field, but not now.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/business/tampa-bay-may-be-the-no-1-major-metro-for-seniors-but-lots-of-cities-are/2266356/#:~:text=Tampa%20Bay's%20population%20over%2065,metros%20in%20the%20United%20States. They were 9th, last year, in most people moving to the city: https://www.pods.com/blog/moving-trends

Not "proof" to me.

His drop off, at the end of 2023 confirms your position. IMO, he remains extremely promising, and is deserving of being handed a slot in the 2024 rotation, but he has more to prove. Bello started 28 games and gave only 157 IP. His last 13 starts: 5.58 ERA 5.31 FIP .880 OPS Against Last 14 starts: 5.49/5.35/.887 Last 20 starts: 4.36/4.48/.767 Casas has a great approach, and other than his defense, he seems to have "proven" he can hit in the bigs. (Again, IMO.)

You know this for a fact? Bloom chose to be at #12? Spotrac has us $17M under the #10 team. We'd have gone over the tax line to get to #10.

Well, why not say "Bloom specialized in $220M last place finishes," which he did in 2 of the 4 seasons, here. Either way, to me, it's only about what you have to spend, each year, how many slots you have to fill and how many of those slots are major weakness areas. IMO, he had about 18-21 slots to fill on the 2020 roster with, effectively, less than zero to spend, if you count all the salary lost vs what he had to spend, but okay count the toal at less than $20M. He did not have all that much to spend on 2021, but he had lessened the "open slots" to about 12-14, despite hardly spending anything going into the winter before 2021. (He added Pivetta, Whitlock, Arroyo and others for just about nothing.) It was only before 2022, when his spending budget increased significantly, but with still so many slots to fill, he had to choose where to skimp (Pen in 2022 and SP in 2023.) To me, we have about 3-4 major slots to fill, this winter. We could probably use 4-6, but only 3-4 are crucial. That is a major shift from past winters, IMO. With close to $50M to spend up to tax line 1, we are in better shape than at an time since pre 2019. If we can spend up to the second line and/or decide we can trade a top prospect, we should be able to fill 4-6 slots.

I fully agree. I'd actually be bummed, if we spend over $30-35M/yr on him.