moonslav59

It sure looks like they felt this way. They should have "sold," if they felt that way. This whole trying to con the fans thing never works and makes the longer term outlook worse than it could have been.

DD is untouchable. You should know that by now.

Yes, them all sucking has nothing to do with the losing. Can we stop coddling the players for not doing what many little leaguers know what to do? That being said, it should piss fans off that so little was done at the deadline. It's one thing to put the long term future of the team as the number one priority, but we could have gotten someone like Flaherty without giving up any very promising prospects. I'm a big fan of planning for long term success, but for 4 years (deadline 2019 to deadline 2023) the best prospect we parted with was Aldo Ramirez (for Schwarber.) That pretty much tells it all. Forget the lies Sox brass tells us, this was always a 5 year plan (or more.)

While the big club cobbled together a pen game, today, Sale went 4.1 with Woo: 0 ER 3 H 0 BB 7 K While the big club was floundering at the plate vs TOR, Trevor Story, the guy Cora said would be called up v TOR, homered for Woo while going 2-3. He also doubled and walked twice. RHernandez homered, again (14th). His OPS is now up to .837. Dalbec hit his 27th (.996 OPS.) Rafaela 3-5 POR won 11-2 Coffey: 6IP, 4H, 2ER, 3BB, 7K Rosier is elbowing his way into the conversation (3-5 w HR) Hickey 2-3 w BB Jordan 2-5 w HR GRE is up 8-6 in the 8th by scoring 7 in the 7th. Paulino homered (2-4) SAL lost 8-5 Dean last two-thirds Jh Garcia 2-4 (the other J Garcia) w 2B Romero 1-5 w 2B Asigen 2-3 w BB & 2B

Don't tell me what I feel. Both represented losing hope, to me. It's not a comp of the team talent levels. You and the majority of Sox Nation probably feel otherwise. Enjoy your gloating and celebration of losing.

The woodwork is leaking.

Nothing was as bad as the sweep by the Yanks in SEP 1978, but I can't help but have similar feeling.

Players waive their no trade clauses, very often. Saying "no way" is not accurate.

Maybe the reason nobody offered what Bloom wanted for Dugo was because the other GMs are hip to his schtick.

Yes, "that" extension.

DD could not have offered what JH would not have agreed to offer.

We are in 100% agreement. Had we been forced to trade Bogey and JD with Price, we'd have been better off, and that's not just in hindsight.

Agreed. I also do not neglect the idea that others would have had to be traded to bring the budget down to what JH wanted. We don't know what that would have meant.

Who, here, disagrees? The issue goes beyond the decision in a bubble. Let's assume we extended Betts and had the same budget restrictions we had the next 4 years. How does our roster look, right now? I'm not sure we could have traded Price or even half Price , by himself to gain some budget relief. We didn't even replace the $45M we "saved" in 2020, that year, so in theory, we'd have had to trade/dump other higher paid players to meet the budget demands. It's almost impossible to know, where we'd be had we kept Betts. I do agree, 100%, we should have kept Betts, but I think it would have had to be coupled with increased budgets in 2020, 2021, 2022 and maybe 2023.

Nobody is using the word "wise." I was against trading him and think it was a mistake. That does not mean I can't judge the trade made on it's results. Try as some posters may, the trade and the signing are separate issues.

Agreed. If we don't go at least 7-3 in the next 10, it will be a let down, to me. 8-2 is what we may need to do. 6-4 will show we are in trouble. 4 v KCR 3 v DET 3 @ WSH Then, the fun begins with only 6 games vs weaker teams the rest of the way : 3@ NYY 4@ HOU 3 v LAD 3 v HOU 3 @ KCR 3 @ TBR 3 v BAL 4 v NYY 3@ TOR 3@ TEX 3 v CWS 2 v TBR 4@BAL

We've used 8 SP'ers, not counting openers. If you go with the idea that Sale, Paxton, Whitlock, Houck and Kluber would have been the starting 5 on opening day, if healthy, then we've gotten 40 starts from the back-ups (18 Bello, 13 Crawford and 9 Pivetta.) Technically, only Bello should be counted as help from the farm, and since Murphy and Walter have yet to start a game, one might think we've gotten little rotation help from the farm. Some might have counted Bello as one of the starting 5 to start the year, so he should not be counted as "help from the farm." (Plus, he graduated by like 2 IP, last year.) I see our farm as producing some mighty important pitchers on the 2023 staff, recently. I'm not getting hung up on terminology or "rookie" cut off IP. We went so many long years until Houck was called up as any sort of significant pitching help from the farm. Recently, we have seen this, so I am not complaining about pitching help from the farm, for a while: Graduation Dates according to SPs: Nothing for a long time then these two in 2021 6/21 Whitlock 9/21 Houck Since AUG '22 Crawford Winckowski Bello Ort & Kelly Bernardino Murphy Jacques I'm sure other teams have done better, but this is a big improvement. According to SP, here are the ETAs of current pitching prospects on the farm: \ 2023 (has some MLB experience, already) 13. Walter 38. Robertson 59. Politi 2024: 11. Drohan 21. Mata (would have been ready in '23 had he not got hurt) 27. Fernandez 31. Guerrero 39. Troye 48. I Coffey 51. Liu 2025: 8. Wikelman 32. Dobbins 40. Paez 43. Gambrell 2026: 7. Perales 25. E R-C 29. Monegro 34. Bastardo 35. Rogers I'll admit, the up and coming list is not eye-popping, but there are a lot of promising pitchers in the system, of which several should take steps forward the remainder of this year and in 2024. My guess is we will feel better about the list, this time in 2024.

Pretty sure Dugo will not be a Sox in 2024, but the league knows all about Dugo and may not give us much for him. Hopefully, Rafaela and maybe Abreu can do better. LF Duran, Yoshida & Refsnyder CF Rafaela and Duran RF Refsnyder and Abreu (Duran?) Could we possibly try Rafaela in RF as Duran is likely better in CF than RF and Yoshida/Ref in RF is too scary?

Perhaps the greatest Sox "what if" since trading the Babe to NYY>

The "Mookie who?" comment was clearly tongue and cheek, and you were told it was, at the time, yet you persist.

It really sucked we lost him. To think he's basically getting paid the same as Devers really slams the door on that choice made on not extending him. Since we don't really know what number he might have accepted, maybe the Devers comp is not fair, and inflation has influenced the comp, as well, but still. We lost a generational talent and the face of the franchise. I really wanted to keep him. I could be wrong, but I think I suggested the biggest offer on this board- something like $400M/14 or something longer with years than anyone else, so as to bring down the AAV. That being said, the comp should really be 1 year of Betts and Price vs Dugo, Wong, Downs and what we did with that extra money in 2020. If you want to count Betts and his extension into the equation, fine, but it is flawed in many ways. That being said, if you go by WAR and count all of Betts and Price and then compare to Dugo, Wong and Dwons, plus who they signed with the monetary differential, who do pick as the players that reach the desired amount? If you choose the best signings, my guess is the Sox side of the ledger would win. If you choose the worst for the money, the Dodger side would likely win. I'm thinking a neutral method would yield results that would make it close to even, but I could be wrong.

One could argue Wong has already become the "centerpiece," although not at the time. To me, once we decided Betts was being traded and forced half Price into the deal, we did pretty good getting 5 years each of Verdugo and Wong.

With the Sox staff, it's hard to clearly identify who were considered depth, sice so many pitchers started the year on the IL. Just naming the 5 SP'ers that would have been in the rotation had all been healthy would be the subject of debate. Hell, Bello did not even start the year in the rotation. Houck and Whitlock have been wished to the pen, so many times, it makes my head spin. I think a healthy Sale and Paxton were givens, and Kluber was signed to start. That's 3. Let's just say Whitlock and Houck were the 4th and 5th for argument's sake, although we all know Bello was going to get his chance. If we start with those 5, our SP'er depth has been: 3.79 Bello (1st in IP) 3.62 Crawford (3rd) 4.19 Pivetta (7th) If you start with the top 3 RP'ers before the season started, it looked pretty good and has been pretty good: 3.06 Jansen (11th inn IP) 1.53 Martin (12th) 3.57 Schreiber (16th) The next 5 were somewhat questionable, especially Brasier, Ort and Kelly, but these two have shined: 3.63 Crawford (3rd in IP and no starting) 2.82 Wink (6th) The depth that replaced Brasier, Ort, and Kelly have seen mixed results: The good: 2.72 Bernardino (10) The bad: 5.40 Bleier (14) 4.91 T Scott (3.2 IP) 4.91 Llovera (3.2 IP) the ugly: 5.85 Jacques (18) 7.36 Garza (19) 6.55 Joely (21) 9.00 Littell (3.0 IP) 22.50 Faria (2.0 IP)

We could have started Walter, who seems like a better option that 2 pen games every 5 days, but for some reason they put their trust in Jacquez and Llovera, before them it was Ort and Brasier, and ... The one bright spot of this season was the play from multiple recent prospect call-ups: Bello, Casas, Murphy, Wong and Duran (not so recent on Jarren, but his maturation was.) We also had some minor or brief help from the likes of Bernardino, EValdez and others. We've used 28 pitchers, this year, not counting Reyes. We've used 23 over 6 IP and 20 over 11 IP. We've seen so many hit the IL, some predictable, that I'd need a couple pages to list them all. It certainly a big reason we are struggling has been the amount of pitchers who have sucked or underperformed expectations, but we have seen 14 pitchers wtih 6+IP have an ERA under 4.60 (Sale at 4.58 was doing much better before going back on the IL.) 13 pitchers with 6+ IP have ERAs under 4.20, including 5 of our top 6 IP pitchers: 3.79 Bello (102 IP) 4.19 Pivetta (92) 3.62 Crawford (82) 5.05 Houck (68) 2.82 Wink (61) 9 of our top 13 pitchers by ERA were under 4.19. 8 of 13 below 3.80 7 of 13 below 3.63 The killers have been: 5.05 Houck (5th in IP) 4.58 Sale (7th, although he was coming around) 7.04 Kluber (8th) 5.23 Whitlock (9th) These guys were widely viewed as among our best 4-5 starters going into the year. It's rather remarkable we have gotten this far with those results, and I bring this up to point to the idea that pitching depth from the farm has actually been a strength, not the weakness you claim it is. Other stinkers down on the list of zIP: 5.40 Bleier (14th 6.26 Ort (15th) 7.29 Brasier (17th) 5.85 Jacques (18th) 7.36 Garza (19th) 6.55 Joely (21st) That's about 120 IP of horrific pitching. Although some were mop-up innings, and 120 IP is only 12% of all IP, I have to think these 6 lost more than just a few games for us. I'm not going to blame the need to use these guys on injuries, but one could. I do think we stuck with a few way longer than we should have. The major reason our staff has sucked is those top 4 underperforming pitchers, which may wrongly include Sale, due to his first 3 starts. Many who took up the slack of those struggling pitchers, carried this team. It was our pitching depth, including the rise of our middle/long relief pitchers, who have helped us stay above .500, this year. IP Rank Pitcher ERA 2. Pivetta 4.19 (has really improved since April) 3. Crawford 3.62 4. Paxton 3.60 6. Wink 2.82 10. Bernardino 2.72 11. Jansen 3.06 12. Martin 1.53 13. Murphy 1.59 16. Schreiber 3.57 20. Walter 3.07 6 of these 10 were considered "pitching depth" on opening day: Paxton, Crawford, Wink, Bernardino (added later), Murphy and Walter.. Although Murphy and Walter's sample sizes are rather small (43 IP combined), they have done a fine job when used and may help in the next 2 months.

Two of the exciting things to happen this season for the Sox. Also, Duran, Casas, Wong, Yoshida, Martin and to some extent Pivetta and Jansen. Too bad this might be Turner's last season with the Sox. It's probably Paxton's last season, too. I hope we can cobble together a comeback, this year, and I still think we can, but we need the injured guys back soon, and without a long adjustment period. The clock is ticking. Tomorrow's game would be a good time to go on a long win streak.