moonslav59

I guess he should draft inferior players, just because they ar pitchers.

I disagree. He drafts the players with the best chance at doing well, and they are everyday players. It does not mean he does not value pitching or have a strategy on finding pitchers. He found Whitlock, Winckowski, Schreiber, Bernadino, Kelly, Denlinger, Jacques and ... Drohan E R-C Rogers Monegro Troye Guerrero Liu Dobbins Blalock Bastardo Paez Hoppe Dean Gambrell I Coffey and more

Someone would likely take him, if we paid his whole contract. Don't expect anything much in return.

It helps hide Chang's low offense and improves SS defense, but I'm not sure about the loss in 2B defense offset. When Story comes back, Story at SS and Turner at 2B creates an awesome line-up: 1. Duran CF 2. Turner 2B 3. Devers 3B 4. Yoshida DH 5. Story SS 6. Verdugo RF 7. Duvall LF 8. Casas 1B 9. Wong C

What clue tells us Devers is "not much of a team guy?"

He's been know to give self-wedgies, from time-to-time. But he only does what he told to do by JH, as we all know.

I'm not sure we can say "less interest in developing pitching." He certainly does not like to draft them highly or give the biggest IFA bonuses out to pitchers, but my guess is, developing pitchers is a very high priority for Bloom. It's the only way he can get some from our system. i like his drafts and IFA signings. The vast majority are too far away to see results, but some of the ones he traded for or added via Rule 5, have contributed, already. Bello is DD's guy, but I think Bloom's crew helped him develop well. Give it time. Much of the value is still speculative, but I think our young pitching is improving from where we have been over the last decade, despite no top pitching picks or IFA signings.

With a name like that, he can might get us to forget Jeter Downs.

Much better does mean doing well or even adequately. He is doing better. He needs to improve on that better, going forward.

JH will always want to reset, soon after spending bigly, so keep that in mind when looking for long term sustainable plans.

I'd say no to Anthony for Ohtani, alone.

Yes. I understand what they do, and it is useful.

Sox Prospects has D Hamilton and Kavadas, as well as Lugo on the 2025 roster, but they are just listing who could be ready by then, in some ways. McGuire is still under control in '25, too

We still have a long way to go on building up pitching in our system, but it has been an issue since the Theo years. It's been a while since we've had a few promising pitchers in the system, at the same time. I'm sure someone can find a moment in the last decade or so, where we had a few, but I like our current group, and I'm not sure we've had more in over a decade. Kudos to DD for grabbing a few promising pitchers and not trading them before Bloom took over. Kudos to Bloom for not trading any great ones. He traded Aldo Ramirez (Schwarber) and Groome (Rosier and Ferguson) and some are very upset about us losing Ward & Song, but here is what we have, right now: MLB Experience: 24 Bello 25 Wink & Murphy 26 Walter 27 Whitlock, Crawford & Houck 28 Kelly 29 Schreiber & Mills No MLB Experience 19 E R-C 20 Perales 21 Wikelman 22 Guerrero & Rogers 24 Drohan & Mata 25 F Fernandez Below 30 rankings on SPs: Monegro, Troye, Dobbins, Blalock, Bastardo, Hoppe, Paez, Dean, Denlinger, Liu, Gambrell, I Coffey and more

You were close. He's done okay after 7 starts. Start # 8 4IP, 3H, 0ER, 3BB, 1K 9 4 IP, 7H, 3ER, 2BB, 5K 10 3IP, 4H, 1ER, 1BB, 5K Last 2 starts are better than his first 7. 11 IP, 15H, 4ER, 6BB, 11K Not great, but his ERA went from 5.60 to 5.05.

He may have "acquired" one, already... from DD. Brayan Freakin' Bello!

Stop pretending you don't get the point being made. We had no farm maturing from mid 2017 to mid 2022. That wasn't Bloom's making. Acting like Bloom could have done what the O's did is comparing apples to oranges, and you know exactly what I meant, and try to divert with goalpost moving comments.

Look at the Braves. They made some nice signings and also let some key players go. They made some key trades, too, involving prospects. Still, they saw way more than 1 guy come up from 2017 to 2022. '22 Elder, Harris II, Grissom '21 Strider '20 W Contreras, I Anderson '19 Riley '18 Acuna, K Wright, Soroka '17 Albies, Swanson, Milner & Fried That's 10 guys from '17-22 They also traded some good prospects for Sean Murphy and others. How many of the O's players were called up between mid '17 and mid '22? O's Ages 22 G Henderson 23 C Cowser 25 Rutschman 26 Mountcastle, Bradish 27 Kremer, Hays 28 Mullins, Santender, Mateo, T Wells, F Bautista 29 Urias, O'Hearn, Y Cano How many of these guys were added to the system within the last 3.5 years? How many came up between mid 2017 and mid 2022?

Of course they did, and it didn't take them "overnight" to build it up. It took longer than 3.5 years. They also added to the farm via trades.

You said “pitching” not starting pitching, but you never move goalposts, like we do.

Yes, you are right. The O’s totally rebuilt in one year. Sucking for a long time and being able to trade away all your best vets for prospects is something Bloom was allowed to do but chose not to. Thanks for pointing out my faults. It must be so nice being perfect, like you.

Some seem to, but 1 in 5 years has a staggering effect on the current and future rosters. Expecting 4-7 every 5 years might be the norm. Asking a GM to rebuild in the midldle of a drought like that adds some serious context, right? It does not excuse everything.

I see 2021 as an over performance and2022 as an underperformance, so it was basically a wash.

That is a valid point, but the effects of not having much of anything for 5 years carries over and over in a big way. Imagine this team had we called up 2 guys like Bello, Casa, Duran or Houck, every year since the Devers call up in 2017z the roster would have had 8-9 more solid low cost players that would have allowed for more targeted FA signings, instead of trying to fill 10 slots with $30-40M. This years influx shows what a difference it can make. Think of this X 5!

The pipeline should be improved in AAA, next year, whether there is room for them on the ML roster, or not. I can see Mayer pushing Story to 2B, but I can't see Yorke pushing him to LF. The other middle IF'ers are too far away to worry about moving Story to the OF. Plus, Story is an excellent defensive 2Bman. We don't have many everyday players going to free agency, this winter. 2024 Duvall: can be replaced by Refsnyder/Duran (OF: Yoshida, Dugo, Duran, Refsnyder and maybe Rafaela by mid 2024.) 2025 Dugo: Is an OF of Yoshida DH/LF, Refsnyder LF, Duran CF and Rafaela in RF good enough? (Abreu or Rosier in the mix?) Turner: Can Yorke be good enough to DH? Maybe EValdez? (Jordan/Kavadas/Meidroth/Dalbec?) That's not a lot of lost players for a 2 year period. It's the pitching that is so unknown, but we do seem to be seeing more promising young pitchers coming up and also waiting in the wings, than we have seen in 5-10 years. f