moonslav59

They are all over the map on finding things to throw blame on Bloom and not themselves. There is a sizeable brigade on this board that feels strongly that Bloom hoarded prospects and made building for the future his top priority, at the expense of the here and now current ML team. I seem to recall, at most trade deadlines, most here wanted us to be buyers not sellers. He usually played it halfway or chose neither. Doing that, opened him up for being ripped from both sides: The here and now bunch and the long term outlook bunch. I will add, playing it halfway is the worst choice, IMO..

Wonder why that is an excuse for a manager but not a GM. Was Bloom supposed to know a big chunk of the vest were going to get hurt, decline or both, and do what? Trade them right before their decline, even if they were fan faves? (THat is what the Rays are famous for.)

I'd say his big mistake this year was sticking with Kike at SS, even after we got Reyes. (I'd have even played DHam there, longer or tried Arroyo at SS. Hell, bring up Rafaela a few months earlier, but maybe that was Bloom's call on Raff.)

As most people know, I'm a big Cora fan, despite the mistakes he has made over his career. I seriously doubt he goes anywhere, but the new guy in charge might have a different idea.

The guy could throw a perfect game, and I still would not count on him for even 1 IP, next year.

He looks thinner than he has at other times.

Back then, that was good but not great. Now, it nearly leads the team. Not sure why we ever moved away from that philosophy.

Turner has met all his PA targets and will earn the full $1M bonus.

He's still young. Let's see how he does at higher levels.

Here is how Soxprospects.com projects next year's roster: C: Wong & McGuire 1B: Casas 2B: Reyes & Urias SS: Story 3B: Devers LF: Duran & Refsnyder CF: Duvall signed & Rafaela RF: Verdugo DH: Yoshida SP: Bello, Sale, Crawford, Paxton signed, Acquisition, Acquisition RP: Jansen, Martin, Wink, Houck, Whitlock, Pivetta, Schreiber, Murphy, Bernardino (Trade candidates: Mata & Joely) AAA C: Scott 1B: Kavadas 2B: Yorke SS: DHam 3B: Meidroth LF: Rosier CF: Abreu RF: Dalbec DH: EValdez SP: Walter, Drohan, Gambrell, Van Belle, Hagenman RP: Kelly, Jacques, Robertson, Guerrero, Polito, RFern, Zeferjahn

Abreu is sure impressing, early.

Let's hope Bello can keep the Jays out of the playoffs.

So my call on Turner passing JD in OPS by season's end looks like yet another wrong call, by me. While Turner did bring his OPS up by a lot, he kinds leveled off since September 1st. I had expected JD to drop off more as the season went on, but he missed a lot of time, so that never really happened. As it stands, now... .865 JD (370 PAs) .831 Turner (510 PAs) JD was at .931 May 31 .881 June 30 (hit .793 in June) .872 July 30 (hit .839) .856 Aug 31 (played in 7 games at .604) .865 Sep 15 (5 games at 1.014) JT was at... .755 May 31 (.792 in May) .792 June 30 (.865 in June) .837 July 31 (.986 in July) .845 Aug 31 (.890 in Aug) .827 Sep 15 (.647 in 12 games) I still really liked watching JT play for us, and miss the great games JD gave us for so many years.

LOL. Gammons. LMAO!

For those who cling to traditional stats, these are frightening: Per 162 games: 2018-2019: .300 31 123 (.914 OPS) Even 2018-2020: .300 31 116 (.907 OPS) But, YIKES!!!! 2021-2023: .291 21 75 (.820 OPS) Now, he enters the post 30 years. I'm big on defense at SS, so I should mention that his improved defense is significant and does add value. DRS -29 from 2017-2019 (+0.4 UZR/150) -12 from 2021-2023 (+1.8) It is a bit worrisome, when the SS ranked 27th out of 27 SSs in DRS since 2017 is seeing his offense drop so steeply from ages 28-30. (He is ranked 15th out of 27 in UZR/150 at +0.6 from 2014 to today.)

I'm not convinced Bogey would have taken $160M/6, like some here suggested he might have done. I'm not sure he'd have taken $200M/6 or 7. If he would have, then a debate would be warranted, but I doubt we'll ever know, because no offer like that was made, to my knowledge. The fact is we never offered what he'd take at any point on the timeline. I'm pretty sure both sides had an idea what the other side wanted, and it seems pretty obvious, to me, they never got close enough to even make serious offers, I guess until the very end, when Bloom & Co. were blown away by the Padres' offer. There may come a day, where we look back and wish we'd found a way to keep him at $200M/8 or less, but we may also look back and say even $160M/6 would have been an overpay. (I doubt anyone will ever say $160M/6 would have been a bust.) The comment on Bogey's fWAR being as high as it was around 2018 is valid, but my point was that his production has dropped for 3 years, now, but his D has improved by enough to bring up his overall value, according to fWAR to about the same. That's still not near his current contract value, but close enough to $160M to $200M to still wish we'd have gotten him for that.

If Bloom was tasked to build a team with Betts and the same budgets he had without him, we'd have seen 8 Brasiers and Orts in the pen. Chavis at 1B, Bogey traded, and nobody but Nate in the rotation. If he could not dump Price, we'd likely have traded JD. It's easy to just say, "had we kept Betts and spent more...," but why would keeping Betts have made JH want to spend more than he ended up spending? I suppose he might have.

He did make quite a few trades, and many look good or are still incomplete, but when it comes to major trades, after Mookie, the next biggest one was probably Aldo Ramirez for Schwarber, Beni for Wink & Gambrell (and more) or Workman & Hembree for Pivetta. Not really a king's ransom, there. I'm not sure that upper management might have directed him to hold most prospects until 3, 4 or 5 years down the road, but they will never admit that, if true. Bloom certainly failed on the W-L level for the big club, and that's what the vast majority of fans care about. IMO, he built up the 40 man foundation, pretty well for the next guy. The farm looks much better, but that is all speculation and projection. He whiffed on PR and assembling a ML roster that could compete in 2 of the 3 years that counted, to me. Foundation: B or B+ Farm: B+ or B ML Roster: D or C- (only 2021 saves him from a D- or F) Budget: Incomplete, but Story and Yoshi might force a current grade or C- Overall: C-, but I seem to count the foundation & Farm projections more than most.

You never know what we would have gotten with that comp pick, right?

I do think the farm was Bloom's top priority from above. It's hard to know how good it really is. Remember, the farm DD inherited was ranked highly, but did not amount to much, except for what we got back from trading most of them. I'm really excited about our prospects, and we've already seen more prospects make an impact, this year than I can remember for many years. Thye influx has already started, and guys like Rafaela and Abreu promise more for 2024, and Teel, Anthony, Mayer and Wikleman for 2025. More beyond them!

Soxprospects.com Player of the Day: Unranked to start the season coming off an inconsistent year in the Florida Complex League, Yordanny Monegro has made the leap into the system's top 25 prospects. If Thursday's division series victory was his final start of 2023, it was the perfect cap on his breakthrough year. Monegro led all pitchers in the system (minimum 60 innings) with a 2.06 ERA across his three levels, striking out 12.75 batters per nine innings, and going until his final start of the season before allowing his first home run. ...Despite an uneven second half and the losses of several top prospects to promotions, Greenville swept Hickory two games to none to claim the South Atlantic League South Division title.

Am I on the right thread or blog, even?

The race for the Sox OPS leader has been all over the map, over the last few weeks. It is still not decided, but Devers has taken over the lead, among players with 300+ PAs: .865 Devrs .859 Duvall (310 PAsin DNQ for MLB) .856 Casas .828 Duran (362 PAs) .827 Turner .793 Yoshida .774 Verdugo .715 Wong Under 300 PAs 1.032 Rafaela (40 PAs) .947 Abreu (55) .740 Reyes (163) .709 EValdez (127) .708 Urias (90) .704 McGuire (166) .675 Refsnyder (228) .535 Story (117) OPS Against (175+ PAs Against) .571 Martin .693 Jansen .696 Crawford .07 Schreiber .729 Pivetta .734 Houck .735 Winckowski .737 Bernardino .744 Sale .765 Paxton .773 Murphy .835 Whitlock

I'll under analyze, here. They felt the team should have done better, despite all the obstacles. They want to go in a different direction.

It's his theme for the day, I guess.