moonslav59

The interesting thing about the long stretches of not trading top prospects involved 2 GMs who never traded one (Ben and Bloom.) Will it take a GM change to get Bloom to pull the trigger, or is it just a cycle thing, and Ben never made it to the point where he was going to make a big deal? At the time of Ben's departure, I was sure he was going to make some trades- not like DD, but something big. I'm not so sure about Bloom. He may need to be nudged into making one. To date, his highest ranked prospects traded have been Aldo Ramirez for Schwarber and maybe Groome for Hosmer, Ferguson & Rosier. In 3 plus years, that is pretty telling.

I think it was more the idea that the D needed improvement, which seemed to evaporate, this past winter. You mentioned Renfroe in LF, and when we got him, I thought we'd have Dugo in RF and renfroe in LF. I wonder why that did not happen. The whole avoidance of Dugo in RF seems like a blunder.

Some seemed to question the offense, especially coming off a 9th place finish in 2022 in runs and OPS. We all questioned the D and thought the pen should be better. We knew the rotation was questionable, but 5.84? WOW!

Ask those who saw us winning 70-76 games. I'm surprised, no shocked, the rotation has been this bad. Every starter with more than 1 GS'd has an ERA over 5.00. I can see thinking Pivetta and maybe Kluber might, but they are over both over 6.30might. ERA as SP 8.00 Crawford 2GS 6.41 Kluber 8 6.30 Pivetta 8 6.19 Whitlock 3 (maybe understandable after injury) 5.48 Houck 8 (maybe understandable after injury) 5.40 Sale 8 (maybe understandable after long layoff) 5.01 Bello (still just a kid.) In isolation, nothing is that shocking, but everyone? Yes. Team Starter ERA: 5.84 with a 119 OPS+ Against.

5 teams in 5 years must be putrid.

Let's see in September. Turner rocks in the second half. I'm not sure JD will dip like he did, last year, but I'm betting Turner ends up better than the 2022 JD and probably the 2023 JD, and at less money.

I guess my point was that it should have been expected.

One scary thing about big FA pitcher signings is that too many times, these guys don't even deliver year 1 and 2. I get the trade-off on less in later years, but when you factor in the risk of immediate failure, I tend to shy away from liking these signings. Note: I did see Price (and Scherzer the year before) as the type of ace worth the risk. They were not too old, and they both had long histories of success and durability.

I don't blame him. Look at most of the big pitcher signings, last winter. I keep saying a trade is the way to go, despite my desire to let the farm bring us to a winning trend. Some posters nearly took my head off for just suggesting we trade Casas for a young SP'er. With the hole we have at SS, I'd hate to trade Mayer, but how else do we get the next Luis Castillo? Rafaela, Mata, Romero & Walter will not do.

Fair enough, but I was looking at the changes made from only 2022 to 2023. BTW, why does Renfroe keep changing teams, so quickly?

JD was also at .693 his last 100 games of 2022. A change was the right idea. The Bogey idea was a big gamble, but Yoshida and others do seem to have picked up the slack, and then some, and we haven't even seen Casas, Kike and a few others hit like we thought they might.

Replacing a .790 DH should not have been viewed as catastrophic. Needing to replace Bogey's offense was a major issue. It was obvious, Bloom did not look to equal his numbers at SS, but rather to project upgrades at other positions (LF, CF, 1B and even DH) to make up for his loss. It seemed like many the losses on offense of JD and Bogey were based on memories of 2018, 2019 and 2021 for JD, which is fine, but I was looking at improving on the 2022 offense, which was not bad (9th in runs and OPS). Yoshida, Turner, Duvall and projected improvements at 1B and possibly 2B (healthy Story/Arroyo/Kike) seemed to more than make up for the loss.

If Houck moves to the pen (and or Whitlock), we might have one of MLB's strongest mid-level (long men) pen in MLB: Houck and or Whitlock Winckowski Crawford (Even Schreiber can go 1+ or at times 2 IP)

So many posters seemed to blame most of the 2022 woes on the pen, and Bloom finally took it seriously. Adding Jansen, Martin, Joely and long shot Mills to replace Strahm, Diekman, Robles, Sawamura and Davis should have been viewed as a major improvement. Now, the rotation was a different matter. We lost or 3 best SP'ers: Wacha, nate and HIll, but again, look more closely. The 3 combined for 69 GS'd which is really just 2 full season starters + a couple starts. Expecting Kluber to fill one of those two slots was a stretch, but the $10M spent was more than he spent on Wacha ($7M) or Hill (($5M.) It was almost as much as those two combined, and not many had high hopes for Wacha/Hill, last winter. The other slot was left ro Sale & Paxton- two guys none of us wanted to count on. No doubt, the top of the rotation was a major dice roll that does not look all that good, right now, except for maybe Sale and Paxton going forward. It was okay, to me, to expect the same from Pivetta- not great/ not bad. Here is where I think some major improvement should have been expected: 14 Wink 5.89 12 Craw 5.47 11 Bello 4.71> expected more GS and a better ERA in '23 based on how he ended '22 9 Whitlock 3.45> expected more GS and a major improvement over Crawink's '22 ERAs. 4 Houck 3.15> expected more starts or a major pen help 5 Seabold 11.29/ 3 Davis 5.47> Filled by Whitlock/Houck/Crawink 2022 GS (ERA)

I found it weird that so many felt like losing Bogey and JD was going to be a big hit to the offense, when both did not produce all that much in 2022. When you consider Story and Duvall being out for almost the whole first quarter of 2023 and Kike, Casas and Arroyo starting off so slowly, it does seem a little surprising our offense has been this good, but the guys we have, now are not chumps. I do not disagree with your term "no-names," but guys like Turner, Yoshida, Verdugo and Devers have some history of very good offense, including very recently. EValdez and Duran might have surprised many, but they both have hit very well in the minors, and although many who do well in the minors fall flat on their faces, some do turn out okay. We've had some good extended depth show up, this year, and that is part of what I have pointed out about Bloom building up the 40 man roster depth and beyond from, perhaps a decades low point in 2020. Chang, Tapia, Valdez, Wong, McGuire, Refsnyder and even late additions like Reyes have all done some helpful things, this year. What might happen when Story & Duvall return? Even Mondesi could give us a big boost. What if Casas explodes? I'm still thinking, as Devers enters prime, he could have an out of this world season, too. We are seeing Dugo looking like he's on pace for a career year, maybe others will, too.

If he only goes 2 innings, sure, but if he goes 3-4, maybe not.

Yes. It might take time to learn the wall and all the quirks, but the ultimate saving grace of LF in Fenway, is that a misplayed ball is not going to get too far away from you, unless it takes some weird bounce off a corner. My ex brother-in-law called it the "pick the ball up when it stops rolling defense."

Indeed, and Schwarber might be worse on D and would not have made a big enough difference in 2022 to change the outcome. Would anyone trade Turner for JD? Wong/McGuire for Vaz/Plawecki? Duvall/Duran for JBJ? Kike/Chang/Reyes for Bogey? (Okay, okay) Jansen/Martin/Joely for Diekman/Strahm/Robles/Davis? Wacha/Nate/Hill for Kluber? (Okay, okay....)

Beni did have some good ratings in other years (+11 and +12 in '17 and '18). All-in-all: +23 in about 3600 innings w BOS +9 in about 2500 innings w KCR/CWS Small sample alert: 2022 Tommy Pham: -3 DRS w BOS (-9.9 UZR/150) +3 DRS 2 CIN (-4.1)

Certainly a questionable distribution of budget allotments, especially when you consider we have a lot of young and cheap everyday players on the roster and coming up, sooner than pitchers.

How about Hickey's start in AA? A great sign, or what? Yes, small sample size, but still... 22 ABs .318 2 7 (2 BBs and 3 Ks) .375 OBP .636 SLG 1.011 OPS Kavadas is waking up, after a slow start and a down ending to last year in AA. 91 ABs .231 5 17 (30 BB and 42 Ks) .427 OBP .418 SLG (surprisingly low but on the rise) .845 OPS Yorke is at .850, while Rafaela is at .657, so far. At WOO, the two eye-openers have been... Abreu (Vaz trade): 294 5 18 in 102 ABs (.393/.480/.874) 9 XBHs Hamilton (Renfroe trade): .269 8 20 in 134 ABs (.361/.507/.869) 15 XBHs and 21 SBs in 25 attempts I wonder what we end up doing with Alfaro (.864 OPS.) Does he have another opt-out date? Fitzy is off to another hot start (.972 w 7 HRs,) but one has to wonder, if he will fizzle, like last year. Greg Allen is at .814 with 21/21 in SB/Att.

He did cost a lot more, but yes.

He certainly has not looked plus. It's nice he has thrown out sa couple runners- I believe both in very key situations. BTW, on UZR/150 and the 29 LF'ers with 140+ innings in LF, he ranks 21st at -9.6. (Shows how bad many MLB LF'ers are on D.) His -3 DRS places him 25th, but he has less innings than Profar, also at -3, so he is really 26th. Perhaps Pillar is the same or worse at -2 in 146 innings as Yoshida is -3 in 210. Anyway you look at it, he has not been good. Maybe Duran can give him some pointers on how to improve his D in just months.

Yes, and I know the Sox were caught, at least twice and got very little punishment compared to the Astros.

Yes, but these are piddly-ass "catches," while the big suspected wrong-doings seem to slip by, mysteriously. (Of course, I could be wrong, and maybe every team is guilty to some extent, too.)