moonslav59

I said "if" the real plan is... it makes more sense. (It still makes some sense for 2024, too, but only if they can indeed replace them "in kind" for close to the same money.) It might be the higher priority, and quite frankly, building a sustainable winning team, it should be a higher priority more often than not- just not all the time.

Not a single Sox fan comes even close to this strawman POV.

No, and I never said or implied anything like that. I think JH and Bloom honestly believed we'd be "good enough" to compete for a playoff slot- not a ring- in 2022 and 2023. (I'm not so sure about 2021.) Neither was sure of it, however. I agree that JH cares about winning and hates seeing last place finishes. That's why he gave up on Ben before his "rebuild" was completed. I do not think JH or Bloom have felt any team since 2019 was near championship level. They tried to give the impression we might be, and for those who feel the playoffs are a crapshoot, maybe it wasn't all "impression." (I had hopes when we went up on the Astros in the playoffs of '21, and that wasn't even a year I feel they thought we had higher hopes.) To me, the real bonehead moment in the last 4 years was not staying under, last year and not selling off expiring contracts. I have said this before, but I think JH was afraid of losing too many fans by "giving up," but now he may end up losing more by forcing a reset and not getting anything for departing top talent. Had we just reset, last year, we might have been able to spend $20-25M more. Instead of spending $10M on Kluber, we spend $20M on a better SP'er, and that's just $10M out of the $25M "extra." I'm getting tired of expecting next winter to be the splurge winter, so I can't say it will happen, but if JH cares like we both think he does, I kinda think it has to be this coming winter.

How is trading Jansen, Martin and Turner for something very useful, and then replacing them, this winter "in kind." punting?

Tanner Houck from 2017 to 2023. You really expected Bloom to be adding the next Betts, Bogey and Devers to the MLB roster in 3-4 years? Yes, very freakin' demanding. Every successful GM we have had was greatly aided by the players and prospects left to him by the previous GM. Other than Theo, who was here the longest, no other GM was even around to see the rewards of his own prospects added. Expecting farm help from Bloom before 4 years are up is a stretch, especially since he drafts almost only HS players I do not think 3-4 years to a ring was realistic. Do you? No farm help. Slashed budget. Declining production fro carry-over vets. Top carry-over players on the IL. From this, you demand excellence from the GM?

We could have a lot of talent coming off the IL, too. (or not) I'm not predicting the Sox will do what the teams you mentioned did, but I'm sure many of their fans viewed their chances very close to how we view ours, right now, before they turned it around. It's not like we need to expect players to have career years to go on a long run into the playoffs. Sale could come back. Story could show some past glory. Duvall ,could repeat what he did just 2 years ago. Turner could repeat what he did the second half of 2022- Soooo long ago! Paxton's knee could be okay. Jansen and Martin could just keep being Jansen & Martin. Devers isn't even at peak prime. Is it possible he has his best 3 months ever, starting now? Could Kike, Dugo and others do better? Could Whitlock and Houck just return to their previous ERAs? Could some kids, like Casas, Wong and others take another step up? We don't even need 2 out of every 3 of these things to happen to make a run. Maybe half and we are back in the conversation.

Oh, I'm not saying this is something Bloom will or wants to do, but it is an idea. Also, if the "real plan" is more about 2025 and beyond, then it makes even more sense.

Yes, but in theory, we should be able to just replace "in kind," and if next year is the year we go over the tax line, maybe we can afford younger and more expensive. The biggest replacement for next year (for the money) will be Paxton, but in theory, we can use Paxton, Kluber, Kike and Duvall money plus maybe more JH money to add 2-3 SP'ers, and then moves the "experiments" (Houck, Whitlock and Crawford) back to the pen to complement or replace Jansen & Martin.

They are still making money hand over fist, while watching the value of their asset grow exponentially. Who are the "stupid" ones?

The problem with trading Jansen, Martin & Turner for something decent, and then counting on replacing them, in kind, with equal money, next winter is that you don't trust Bloom to find equal value. The theory makes some sense. The execution of the plan is scary, but then again, all those 3 could suck, next year, too. Their ages are warning signs.

In theory, you do the best you can to improve the 2024 roster by trading players not expected to be back, next year (Paxton, Duvall, Kike & Kluber.) It's a little more complex when talking about trading players under team control, next year (Jansen, Martin, Turner w his dual option) or beyond (like Dalbec.) For them, you might get more return, especially, if you pay all of their 2023 salaries, and then in theory, you replace them with like signings, next winter- perhaps for younger and better players. Jansen+Martin+Turner is a lot of budget space opened up. You end up with a deeper foundation and farm and then use the budget space to backfill key slots. You build off Bello and maybe some others that show more hope over the second half of 2023. There is no guarantee it works or even helps, but it makes more sense than what we did in '22. ]

My guess is, boards like this one in Philly, last year and the other teams, cities and years you mentioned, were saying similar things as this.

As we have seen, the glow can wear off very quickly. (To many, there has not been a glow since the start of 2019.)

Part of the "giving the impression" is to say glowing things to the fans and to throw a bone, like the Story signing, every now and again.

Most of us knew it was not going to be easy getting back on track after 2019-2020. We lost a ton of talent and many others declined and or were hurt from 2020-2022. We watched as our farm produced just Houck from the Devers call up in 2017 to the maturing of Bello in 2023. This aspect alone should knock up aside the heads of all the fans scratching their heads and wondering "Why?" We saw a truly massive budget cut before 2020, that still had deadweight like Sale, Pedey and half-Price as our highest paid players. It took 2-3 years to return to any semblance of prior budgets, and we were still ranked as low on spending as any JH years on record. New MLB rules make it much more difficult for high spending teams to throw money at the draft and IFA market. It just can't be done, anymore. To me, where most of us stand, now, is based on what we expected 1, 2 and 3-4 years ago, and our understanding of just what we were facing. There was a sizable crowd, back then, that basically said, "We'll rebuild the farm and will fill the holes with free agents, as needed and won't miss a beat." They blamed 2019 on "Restgate" and felt it was not a sign of decline, since we had so many of the same players as 2018.

Well said. This is the same team that went on a couple nice stretches. They could/can do it again. I, for one, like watching Paxton starts, too. I go into Houck, Whitlock and Crawford starts with interest, too- just not a lot of confidence. I keep waiting for that to develop. I think the bats will warm up, again- I just hope for a longer stretch, this time.

Isn't that what it has been? It worked in 1 of 3 years.

That was the question. We know your answer. I doubt we win at least 6 of the next9 to get us over .500 at the break, but if we do, the next15 games before the deadline could change things. I still have very thin hopes.

I think he was given 4 major objectives: (In order of importance over first 4 years) 1. Build farm to a sustainable and respectable system. 2. Get the budget under control (lessen dead weight/long term deals) 3. Build a foundation of supporting cast players. 4. Try to give the impression we can or might compete every season (starting after 2020.) Going forward, the order may shift to 3, 4 and 1-2 tied for 3rd with #4 becoming actual competition and not just the perception of doing so.

What will it take for us to think we might want to be buyers- not sellers- at the deadline? 2 of 3 @ TOR 4 of 6 v TEX & OAK before the all star break and... 4 of 6 on road trip v CHC & OAK 3 of 5 v NYM (3) & NYM (2) 2 of 3 @ SFG

Rafaela hit his first AAA homer: Dalbec his 19th, as Woo swept 2. POR shut out NH. I Coffey went 6 IP, 3H, 0ER, 2BB, 4K Hickey homered. Kavadas went 1-3 w BB. GRE won 6-1 Blalock 6IP, 5H, 1ER, 0BB, 4K 2-5 Paulino w HR 2-5 Anthony 1-2 Lopez w 3BB

I really thought this would be Bloom's "legacy" or "make or break season," because I felt he'd have enough to spend and to put his stamp on the team. Only Sale is dragging the budget down as a non Bloom guy. I'm not sure JH is viewing this as make or break, especially if the idea is to go over the line, next year. If JH brought Bloom on board to build up the farm and foundation, then he must be fine with waiting longer for the results. (He did pull the plug on Ben's rebuild plan, so I still have some doubts.) I admire what Bloom did building up the pen. It looks like he's done a good job building up the farm, foundation, while bettering the long term budget outlook. I had hoped the rotation would be better, and the amount of resources spent on it went down from 2022. The win-loss records seem to be the big sticking point with many fans, and it's not rocket science to know why. I hate watching us lose over and over, too, and my opinion will change, if we suck, again, this year, but I'm not so sure JH will can him, if we suck by game 162.

"I got that backwards." Dipre, for sure.

The 3 wild cards do keep more teams in it, but even with one, just 3 AL teams would be over 6 games behind, right now. I think it’s 7 or 8 NL teams.

Every Sox fan I knew was aware that ownership would not go that extra mile to get it done. We all knew it was about pitching, and the Sox never went out and got one. The “near misses” were not the result of the owner going all in. Lonborg was no ownership brilliance. Tiant was not either. Clemens took no special ownership intrusions. The Pedro trade marked the seed change, and that was before JH, but it took the change of vision to bring Schilling, Beckett, Lackey, Sale and Price aboard. That just never happened, before.