moonslav59

Contractually and apparently attitudally, as well. Bring back Duvall, so we have someone to play RF, if Abreu stumbles, and we'll have a more balanced L-R OF and a younger OF with Rafaela and Abreu both on the 26.

No need to apologize. BTW, I am not a Bloom fan. I'm kinda ho-hum about him. Many of the worst things attributed to him, IMO, were not his doing or might have only been partially his doing. So far, he's been pretty bad on any contract over $10M, and it looks like this coming winter should see 2-3 of those deals made. That worries me. IMO, he has done what he has been told to do. The priorities were ordered for him and actually were set during DD's last few months in charge. He has built up the farm and not traded away DD's farm, most notably Bello, Casas, Duran, Crawford, Rafaela, Perales and Wikelman. The foundation of core and role players has greatly improved since the 2019-2021 purge. The budget is nearly free of all deadwood, as Sale's deal expires after 2024. (One can argue the Story, Yoshida and Devers deals don't look all the great out of the gate, but they do not look like near total busts like Sale and Price did. Bloom's lack of attention to the rotation was awful, and I'm not making an excuse, here. I think it sucked, bigtime, but if the master plan was all about 2024 and beyond, waiting to splurge on pitching, until exactly the moment you think the window is open, makes a lot of sense.

Have fun. I love Boothbay Harbor. Magical place.

...and better D. ...and better O.

If we miss out on signing two from the two top tiers and only sign one, we should bite the bullet and trade for one.

Thanks for this. I await Bells retort.

Great pitching also makes the defense less impactful, especially if the staff is high on K's.

Maybe a second tier one, and even if the go for a top tier, there are about 5 top tiers and LAD, SFG, PHI and maybe NYY or ____. THere should be one left over without a major team bidding against us, unless one of these teams sign 2. The Mets appear to be retooling. Maybe the Padres spend again.

I called Kike to CF before opening day. I agree, the impact of signing Chapman and moving Devers to 1B and Casas would have greater impact than Yoshida to DH, but on a fixed budget, the impact would be countered by that much less spent oin pitching- a position we actually need to fix.

They just called Teel and Anthony up to AA to join Mayer and the ones you mentioned- also Hickey.

They may be able to develop Perales or E R-C into the next Garrett, anyway.

Nobody is saying let's trade Dugo for JBJ.

Max, give it up. Everyone agrees hitting and pitching matter way more than fielding. There are 162 games, and most of us agree our D cost us 5-10 games. The rest are on the O and Pitching. Another thing, BR's dWAR is not the measurement most stat guys use. DRS and OAA are where it's at. OAA has our 1B, 2B, SS and 3B positions dead last or very near it. Ou D sucks and it costs us enough games to make a difference.' 'The years and players you keep listing from the past did not.

Some are already in the bigs: Whitlock Wong Winckowski Abreu Kelly EValdez DHam That's more than should be expected after less than 4 years and a lost season of development in 2020. Yes, some of the HS picks are not above AA, but they have some doozies, by almost all accounts from A- to AA. Our #1 is at AA (Mayer) and should be AAA in 2024. #2 Anthony is at AA, now. #3 Bleis got hurt and is at A- #5 Teel is in AA after just being drafted. #9 Zanetello is in A- (just drafted) #10 Romero A- #11 Drohan AAA 3 of his top 4 prospects are at AA and 4 of 7 are at AA and AAA. Others: 16. Meidroth AA 18. Hickey AA 19. Jordan AA There is sooooo much to be critical of Bloom over. I just don't get why people feel the need to Swift Boat him.

Mostly on bats, though.

.914 since April 20th. .937 since May 3rd. 1.002 since June 3rd.

What scares me, some is that we heard Dalbec should be a good defensive 1Bman, too, and he seemed to get worse, over time. There is no reason to assume Casas can't get better, and I think he can and will, but he was pretty bad, this year. I think moving Yoshida to DH makes more sense and costs less than signing Chapman. If Casas and Devers continue sucking at the corners, we can think of moving them the next season.

Garrett & Scott for Duran, Perales, Romero, E R-C

I totally agree. I've never seen a team where you could say having an average D would give you 4-5 more wins, minimum, so this is unchartered territory for us Sox fans. Usually, it's almost always about pitching, then offense, but part of the reason our pitching looks so bad, is that they've needed to get 4 or 5 outs in way too many innings. Forget errors, It's all the non error blunders that cost us many runs and 5+ games. BTW, we are 4.5 behind TEX. Sure, better pitching or hitting could have made up those 5 games, but with the D, we are just making the point that average D wins us 5 more, Therein lies the rub for most fans.

Who is the best lefty RP'er?

I'm going to start calling this "Red's Standings Update." Here we go... TOR pulled one out in 10, today, but TEX lost. 83-55 TBR 77-60 SEA (T-ALW leader) 78-61 HOU (t-ALW leader) 76-61 TEX (WC3) 76-62 TOR -0.5 72-66 BOS -4.5 from TEX & HOU (-4.0 from TOR) 68-69 NYY -8.0 Take care of business vs the Rays, and HOU or TEX will lose vs each other. Then, we need to sweep TOR and probably TEX. It's a longshot, I know, but this team has been full of up and down surprises, all year long. No need for that to stop, suddenly, now. Someone is watching the Yankee lead more than the WC race.

Has a good defense ever saved a mediocre staff in the history of MLB? (See the Royals last championship.) Has a good D ever put a good staff over the top to win a ring? How much did Beni's catch have to do with that win? Max, nobody is saying defense is more important than O or pitching- nobody. There only seems to be one guy saying one aspect of the game does not matter, at all.

We do need a lefty. Too bad all the guys I want to be in the pen to start the year, Whitlock, Crawford, Pivetta and Houck are all righties. I doubt they feel all set with lefties Joely and Bernardino (Murphy & Walter.)

Their stock will never be higher!