moonslav59

Imagine Story has a huge year for the next GM. It would make the next GM a genius, in some eys. Kinda like HRam sucking for Ben, then having a decent season for DD. I said it then, Had Porcello (9-15 to 22-4)and HRam (.717 to .866) had their first season with DD during their last season with Ben, maybe we never see a GM change made.

This last winter choices and budget is a complete mystery to me. The 2020 one seems more concrete and easier to understand. Also, regardless of why the budget ended up where it was, Bloom still had enough to do better than he did. BTW, let's wait and see what the final tax budget was, before saying we underspent bya whole lot.

So, why do you continually try to paint Bloom as the main guy on the Betts trade decision?

I'm not sure people fully realize how much the budget was slashed from 2019 to 2020. The Nate, Bogey and Sale extensions made before Bloom, made the drop off look smaller, but we were bringing back the same (or lesser) players at higher salaries. Gone from 2019: $31M Price (although we paid $16M for nothing) $21M Porcello (not replaced, at all.) $20M Betts (with a big arb raise pending) ($13.8M Pedey was deadwood) $6.2M Pearce $5M Nunez This was after we did not replace Kimbrell & Kelly from 2018's team, and then Sale was hurt and ERod missed 2020.) Sale's AAV went to $25.6M Bogey's to $20M Nate's to $17M Pedey's stayed at $13.8M How did we replace that $80M+ lost? Some arb raises $6.5M/1 Perez $4.3M/1 Pillar $3.0M/1 Moreland (brought back) $2.9M Peraza $1.5M Lucroy A bunch of scrubs at or near the ML minimum. This totals $18M, which isn't even clse to what betts got for an AAV.

I don't doubt that, and you tell us that over and over. You usually only quote the ones you agree with. Do you really believe, in your heart of hearts, that Bloom acted mostly on his own to not only make the trade, but to convince upper brass to ooaky it, because you have to believe they needed to okay the deal, right?

Think about it: they smeared Tito. Why is it so hard for anyone to not see what is happening, again.

If Bloom came to Henry and said I want to up our offer to Betts, and JH said no, what other options did Bloom have? Do people wish he'd have gotten a comp pick for him, instead of Dugo & Wong? This seems like the most plausible scenario, to me. You stated it, perfectly.

I fully agree. His inability to think xyz is worth $100M, but I really want him, so will have to offer $103M, because team B offered $102 was just beyond his reasoning skills. He could not adjust. IMO, he was caught off guard by the shocking inflationary prices of last winter's FAs. He failed to go with the flow and just pull the trigger on someone he really wanted, except for, of course, Yoshida, who apparently was the scouts' wet dream for years.

...and Strahm and Hill, who had more IP than Nate. Still, Bloom was on the clock and he blundered the winter by neglecting the rotation. (I don't blame him for SS, except for maybe not getting Reyes, earlier and forcing Cora to play him, earlier, We had Kike, Yang, DHam to hold us over to Mondesi to hold us over to Story. It's hard to pan on 5 failures at one slot.)

If this was the first time the FO did this, I might have doubts, but it has been their MO whenever any major employee departs on shaky ground. (Players, coaches and GMs.)

Yes, I know about those reports. You seem to really grab onto any report or quote that fits your narrative. No matter what happened, I can't see how anyone can think trading betts was not an organizational choice made. I tend to believe it was something they knew was going to happen before Bloom was even hired, or pretty soon afterwards. Maybe Kennedy was a naysayer on the trade idea, but for him to call out Bloom for trading him, seemed like passing the buck, to me. (I could be wrong.) I seriously doubt Bloom talked upper management into massive budget cuts from the 2019 ledger. If it is true that Bloom was given free reign to cut the budget anyway he saw fit, and not just for 2020 but beyond, I'm not sure how he could have done it without trading Betts. Nobody wanted Price or half-Price without Betts. (I think only 1 or 2 teams wanted the combo, as it was, or at least enough to make a serious offer.) Nobody wanted Sale and his contract that I know of. Has Bloom traded Bogey and JD, instead of Betts, would the mood of Sox nation been much different? Had he been lucky and found takers for Price and Sale, while keeping Betts, what would the rest of the roster have looked like in 2020 & 2021, when bett's contract was basically the full winter spending budget? I will say, maybe Bloom was the bandwagon driver on trading Betts. I doubt it, but we don't know, but I am 100% certain, it was not his final call.

Why is it so hard to just have and keep a balanced approach, all along? The pendulum swinging makes everyone's job more difficult. It's all been reactionary and not proactionary.

Yes, IMO, the amount of games lost by our defense and baserunning was a lot more than some think it was. I'm not sure that should be "on Cora." These guys are grown men who have been taught the fundamentals, for years. If they haven't learned them, by now, I'm not sure what ML manager knows the secret to teaching them and getting instant results in one season. It's not like Cora had 4 years to work with most of our major blunderers.

I did think it was strange that Bloom did not appear to bring many of the guys from the Rays organization, especially the farm-related people. I do think our farm has improved, but did it do so with pretty much the same guys that were here under DD?

That would be interesting. If you had to make the call, on the spot, right now: who is our next CBO/GM?

I doubt he'd answer that question directly. (Some, here, seem to think it was Bloom's choice to not spend big.)

Pretty much all of it in a nutshell.

Nope. According to this site. The GM makes all the calls and is 100% responsible for the .500 record. (LOL)

Good point. His D did improve, and "production" can come in many forms. His run generating value surely did decline and that continued into 2023. It was a different Bogey, but necessarily a worse one. bWAR has him almost identical from 2018-2019 (12.2) as 2021-2022 (10.9). He's on pace for about a 3.8 bWAR, this year in what should be more games played than 2021 or 2022. He's on pace for a 3.7 fWAR, this year.

Good points. I do think the comments about Bloom trading Betts was a major throwing him under the bus move. It had to be an organizational choice made.

All true. The new regime (or interim one) is 1-1 or .500.

15 games to go, and we are tied with the Yanks and just one game away from .500. It wasn't really injuries that caused all this. We had about the amount one should have expected, and several were known going into the season. We saw some major help from the farm, but even that was not enough. The recent play from Rafaela & Abreu is encouraging, but the sample size is way too small to count on either to be solid FT contributors, next year. We had some exciting moments during the season, and a couple times it seemed enough to tease some of us into thinking, "Could this be real?" When you think about all that went right this year, it only helps magnify the shortcomings. Bello & Casas were more than anyone could realistically hope for, so early in their careers. Wong & McGuire came pretty damn close to what Vaz and Plawecki had been giving us- again, sooner in Wong's career than I expected. Our OF went from one of the worst to one of the best, overnight. JT replaced JD seamlessly. Crawford & Wink were both very pleasant surprises. Bernardino, too, after he was added to the 26. Jansen and Martin fixed a major issue from 2022, but those two were not enough to carry the pen through what it was asked to do, way too often, namely to go 5+ innings a game. Reyes brought some needed stability to the MI, but it was way too little and way too late. The Mehs: At the start of the year, I thought we'd be lucky to get 32-33 starts out of Paxton + Sale combined. They are at 36, but the combined 4.60 some odd ERA was not very helpful. Devers did not give what I expected, but he came close. His defense did not improve and hurt us often. Pivetta got himself demoted, then just about redeemed himself. Duvall did pretty good, when healthy. Dugo was about what he has been for years. Refsnyder struggles as the season went on, but he still did okay vs LHPs. Yoshida could be placed in the ugly category, so I put him right before it. The Ugly The Middle Infield killed us about as much as the rotation. Kike was a complete disaster and Yang just fixed the D for a short while, but his O was god-awful. The rotation was a lop-sided merry-go-round. Kluber sucked. Houck and Whitlock were hurt, jerked around and ineffective when they did pitch. A Major disappointment. I know I am in a tiny minority, but for the most part, I enjoyed watching this team. (More so than 2022, anyway.) I expected better results, and watching losses is not fun for any of us, but we were in most of those losses to the end, and the games were interesting, to say the least. Being a big fan of defense made it very difficult to enjoy far too many times. Watching us leave the bases loaded multiple times in some of those 1 or 2 run losses, hurt like hell, but the games had suspense and excitement, for the most part This end to the season hurts. I wanted to believe the team that was doing well or very well, at various points in the season was who this team really was, but it looks like that was all a big tease. I still like the foundation we have, going forward. I'm hopeful our farm can and will continue to add players, each year. Guys like Teel, Anthony, Mayer and Wikelman maybe be less than a year or year and a half away. Bello, Casas, Wong, Rafaela, Abreu and others could continue to grow. I don't see why they shouldn't. I'm hopeful the next GM makes better choices and places the focus on pitching and quality over quantity, but that has to come from the top for it to work with any GM, IMO. I wish the season was ending on a better note, but it is what it is. Beating out the Yankees in the standings does give us something to cheer for, but it is hard for anyone to be optimistic about that, right now.

Well put. If the parameters don't change, I'm not sure any GM can work miracles.

No doubt, but that doesn't change the fact that he has not been the 2018 Bogey for 3 years, and he's not getting any younger. I find it kind of ironic that posters who have thought the Sox have sucked for 4 years wanted Bloom to keep all the players that were part of those teams. Vaz and Beni are shells of themselves- no disrespect intended. JT was a great guy for replacing JD. Losing Bogey hurt like hell, as did losing Nate, but they took mega deals, elsewhere. Time to move on.

That kinda knocks the wind out of the sails.