moonslav59

The Devers extension has not even started. Yoshida is slumping for 3 weeks. Story has missed most of his first 2 years of his deal. It does look like the big signings are not Bloom's strong suit, but the jury is still out on all of these deals. I will say, Story is a real athlete and a great defender at a position of great importance, so if he can stay healthy, just his glove alone will be helpful. (His bat needs to earn the money, however.) The Yoshida deal has a long way to go, and he's not getting younger. He will need to earn that money at DH. Wherever Devers ends up playing, he needs to rake.

Yes, I corrected that, but not quickly enough for ole eagle eye.

It does seem odd he never refuted the $300M "offer" until now. I'm not sure why that is viewed as dirty laundry.

There is a chance the Sox never made a formal $300M offer, but it was floated in negotiations as a starting point (or might have been the end point.) The response or nonresponse by the Betts negotiators might have given the Sox a clear impression, their offer was not even close, and they decided to move on right then and there, but like I said, who knows. Your final statement seems very plausible, but I will add, trading Mookie might not have really been what the Sox wanted. They likely wanted him to stay for $300M/10, but once they knew that was a no go, they "wanted" to get what they could for him, and dump Price, at the same time.

That makes some sense, but why not start Abreu in the Lance Lynn game?

...and some posters seem to dislike all 3.

They thought they could win in 2019.

Verdugo did not start. (Cora started Refsnyder vs a LHP, but we could have sat Kike.) Alfaro started, too.

The Beckett trade also involved taking a salary dump player in Mike Lowell. The rest is history.

The exact alignment by record in 2023, too! See what building a great farm can do?

What a difference 2 year deals can make, right? All those one year deals made some sense, but starting from scratch every winter sucked.

His fWAR screamed of consistency. His IP screamed of durability. You can't get much better of a track record prior to a major signing than Price had. 2015: 6.7 FWAR/ 220 IP 2014: 5.6 fWAR/ 248 IP (unheard of, now) 2013: 4.0 fWAR/ 187 2012: 4.3 fWAR/ 211 2011: 4.8 fWAR/ 224 2010: 4.3 fWAR/ 209 We all know the year was too long, but that's what you have to do to get "the best." As it turned out, we got less good years than we thought, and the 75 IP in year 2 hurt badly. 2.5/176 & 2.3/107 in years 3 & 4 fell way short of hopes, too. The choice to dump him as part of the Betts deal was not the ending we had hoped for either. That deal really hurt us, badly. (I was for it, at the time.)

No pitcher had a better resume than Price, at the time of his signing. Scherzer, the year before was about the same. It was "too late to do anything but trade Betts" 100%, because JH made up his mind. He was already cutting back after 2018. We can all say, "He's a rich Mother ef'er and can do anything," but that does not mean he was going to do it. Bloom was given no opportunity to extend Betts. I believe that 100%. It can't be proven beyond a doubt, but I'm 100% certain.

The time to have locked up Bogie was when we got him to sign the deal with the opt-out after 3 years. We should have just paid more, then, and had him until he turns 33 or 34. Same with Betts. Same with Lester. Waiting for one more year is asking for trouble. The funny thing about this is that many here argue we should have waited one more year to extend Sale- the best pitcher we've had since Pedro. You know, the position we can't seem to fill, adequately. (Yes, he had injury issues. I get it, but when you wait, you risk the guy does great and will ask for and get the moon- with someone else.)

This gets to the drux of the whole debate: we don't know enough of the particulars to really know with any certainty how we could have kep Betts in Boston, and at what cost. Betts is never going to say, I would have taken $____ over ___ years back in 2017 or 2018 or after 2019. Players like to keep fans thinking they are loyal to them, the city and the team, so I'm not sure everything Betts says is totally upfront. When he says, I really wanted to stay in Boston, he would never add, "if they just pais me $400M/12." But, maybe that's what he was thinking, at the time. Maybe not.

I thought you agreed, yesterday, it was not the 1B coach's fault. BTW, they did not ask the 1B coach or ask Cora or Wong about the 1B coach, because they know it had nothing to do with him. No way any 1B coach in MLB says that whole script you said needed to be told to Wong. No way. it's something that is understood, or in Wong's case, should have been. It goes without saying: you don't run into the 3rd out with bases loaded in a come from behind attempt. I know you love Wong. I do, too, but he Eff'd up, badly, Period.

How much practice time during ST'ing and the season do most teams spend on teaching or reinforcing the basic fundamentals of this great game of baseball? My guess is, there is not a wide differential between team to team. Maybe some teams present it in better ways, so their players learn it better or it stays in their mind enough to improve the outcomes during the season? In little league and high school, yes, maybe it makes a significant difference how much effort you put into this. Also, remember, there is only a finite amount of time you have with these guys, so when they are working on fundamentals, they are not working on conditioning, batting, pitching and improving other skills. I agree, These guys have played a lot of baseball over their lifetimes. If they don't know what to do rounding 2nd base with 2 outs in a very crucial game, where one out ends our hopes for a win, there is nobody to blame but the player.

A lot of people were turned off by Wacha's underlying numbers. Only his ERA showed he was doing great. I thought Kluber was a better gamble than Richards was, and I wasn't high on the Wacha/Hill signings before 2022, either, but they worked out well. When you spend $5M-10M on one year deals for SP'ers, you get what you pay for: a long shot gamble. You et what you pay for. In hindsight: we should have non-tendered Brasier, not taken on Mondesi's contract and not extended Kike, last summer. That money, plus the money we left on the table (under the tax line) could have allowed us to go bigger at SP'er. I will point out that many of the higher-priced SP'ers signed, last winter, bombed out or went on the IL, after decent starts to the season. Had we signed Eflin and Wacha, we'd be sitting pretty, but that's expecting a GM to be close to 100% on his additions, many of which were relatively low budget, like Turner, Duvall, Martin, Reyes, Bernardino and Urias. I think the team got better. The farm got better. The budget is set up for JH to take the plunge, next winter. We can bitch about Kluber, and it's all fair game, but to me, I like our direction, even if we come up just short, this fall.

Yes. Maybe we will see Abreu PH early and stay in the game. Duvall and Turner should start and stay in every game until the last one.

Glad to see you finally agreed that Rodon was injury prone. You have a lot of deadwood contracts still in play, but it's almost impossible to dump them. You'd have to pay down big chunks and or add prospects to entice a team to take one. Stanton and LeMahieu jump out at me, but even guys like Torres just don't seem like winners, to me. Other than Judge and Cole, who is really a rock solid young talent you know for sure, you can build around? Maybe Volpe steps up, but he is no sure bet, now. Michael King? Many of the promising young pitchers you had, last year, took steps backwards: 4.97 Cortes 4.52 Schmidt 4.58 Abreu 4.56 German Even 3.00 Holmes Looking at the roster, objectively, your team needs a total make-over. Like the Sox, that is almost impossible to imagine. Now, in all honesty, which team, the Sox or the Yanks have a brighter outlook, going forward, assuming neither GM becomes the next Cohen.

I think we have to hope one team, like SEA kills TEX and HOU. If they split, it makes it harder, IMO. We go 6-4, they go 6-4 ot 5-5. We need to pass 2 not 3 or 4.

The Kluber signing was a killer. The plan to keep spending just $10M/1 (or less) on SP'ers is doomed to fail. I agree. However, to me, it's on the players. We've had a lot go right, but many key players really s*** the bed, this season: Kike, Houck, Whitlock, to name a few. Bloom made some very nice additions, last winter (Turner, Duvall, Martin and Jansen) and during the year (Reyes, Urias, Bernardino and sticking with Duran.) It's hard for me to place blame on one person, and the overall improvement of this team from last year, despite losing Bogey, JD, Nate, Wacha, Hill and Strahm can also be attributed mainly to Bloom, so if I had to name one guy, it would not be Bloom.

They've dug a lot of holes over the season, so far, and they might have another one of two to go, but they keep filling those holes back in, just when we are near ready to totally pack it in. (It seems some, like Fred Lynn have already packed it in. Others seem to have.)

If the 6 games won are all vs HOU and TOR, then going 6-4 in those 10 games might be enough, but your point is well-taken. Another chance we have is when our closest opps play each other, If we go 6-4 and one beats up on the other, so one goes 3-7, we can gain a lot of ground.

We also have Refsnyder in the OF mix, so I agree. My concern is that if Abreu and Rafaela struggle, we'll have lost our two best defensive OF'ers from 2023: Duvall & Dugo, at a time when we sorely need to improve our D.