moonslav59

As easy as 1-3-6.

He's supposed to start tomorrow for Woo, so that makes sense. Does Crawford get demoted to AAA or the pen?

If the rotation is added to with Whitlock and Bello or Paxton, there's a chance the pen can get even better by minimizing the innings Ort, Kelly and Brasier are given- or at least medium to high leverage innings.

Except, we didn't spend big until the late Story signing, which reeked of desperation and angry fanbase placation.

Bloom has been given enough money, starting with the Story signing to bring the current team to respectability. While the long term future may still be priority #1, there should be no free pass for 2023.

Wong was a throw-in. Downs was supposed to be good. Verdugo was the main prize. The Betts trade was not a straight prospect trade, and the salary dump of Price was part of the return value. I doubt we'd have added JD to a Bogey package.

If Whitlock, Bello and Casas do well, and most of our top prospects are looking good or better, it may be enough to over-ride a bad season. I think expensive players like Yoshida and Story will have to look promising, too. The thing is, if all these guys look good, we should not have a bad season, unless everyone else craps themselves. I guess if Kluber, Turner, Duvall, Kike, jansen and Martin mostly suck, that's on Bloom, too, so maybe that would be enough to convince Henry he isn't good at evaluating FAs, and we need a change. If Sale sucks, it would be hard to blame Bloom for that, but he alone will not decide what happens. Bloom is out of excuses. This is his team, now. He's had a decent budget for 2 years, and enough of his farm additions should be advanced enough to be either contributing or looking like can't miss by the end of 2023. It's make or break time for Bloom.

How can this team be viewed as less talented than the 2020 team, even if Sale and ERod are not on the IL, all year?

A lot has to do with how the future will be shaping up by the end of the season. If Mayer, rafaela, Yorke, Mata and others don't step up, and our longer term MLB players are not looking promising for 2024, we might win 85+ games and Bloom could be gone.

I'm not feeling good about the start to '23, but we've only gone through the rotation once and may have 3 other SP'ers give it a try before the end of April or early May (Whitlock, Bello & Paxton.) The pen has done fine, and once we add those SP'ers to the staff, the worst pen arms will be demoted or see less action. The O looks fine. When and if Story and Mondesi return, the D should improve, too.

7 teams off to better starts than us, in the AL. 7 with the same or worse records out of the gate, including... 2-3 HOU 1-3 TOR 1-4 SEA All 3 expected to better us in '23. We are 1/2 game behind BAL and the last WC berth. The sky is falling!

There are so many similarities to Ben, it's hard to list them all.

I think they felt the grass was greener for signing a FA pitcher the following season, which they did with Price, but those two big swings and misses likely caused Ben's departure. I sometimes wonder, if Porcello and HRam had their 2016 season in 2015, if things would have been different for Ben.

Yup.

One notable aspect of Bloom's trades for prospects is that many involved getting a vet with them. In some cases, the salary aspect of the trade sweetened the prospect value (like German with Ottavino and Hamilton/Binelas with JBJ,) but I think many broght down the value. Wong and Downs with Verdugo Winckowski & Co. with Cordero Seabold with Pivetta Ferguson & Rosier with Hosmer Had Bloom just gone for a straight prospect package, maybe he does better- or NOT!

I think we could have gotten more than "average" for Bogey. The haul we got for Diekman and Vaz may look "suspect," but I think we could have done better with Wacha, Hill and Strahm. Had we paid a chunk of Nate and JD's contracts, maybe better than suspects for them, too. Having more and better prospects would also better position us for some sort of trade like the Seattle for Castillo one, but one wonders if Bloom has a trade like that in him.

One has to think better than lowered comp picks.

Hard to know. To me, it looked like the organization was starting to slowly more towards more stability with the Devers extension and the Yoshida/Story signings all coming within a 10 month period. Add to that more 2 year deals and 2nd year team options and the Whitlock extensión, and it seemed like the tide was turning. I have always felt a strong Sox pattern has been to wait to add an ace, especially if expensive, until they felt like they were one or two big players away from ring contention, and it hasn't felt like we have reached that point since 2018 (when we added Nate.) I'm not sure next winter will be "that time," either. I had hopes this past winter might be "splurge time." Losing Nate, Wacha and Hill and adding just Kluber was a huge gamble on Sale, Whitlock, Bello and Paxton. Certainly, this is not a ring contending rotation, and it is looking like the team is more than just one ace away from top contention. The season is young. I still have hopes in Whitlock & Bello, and maybe Sale can find some lost magic. It could also be a really bad season, but I'm going to try and stay optimistic as long as I can. (I don't expect others to.)

soxprospects.com has released their Spring '23 rankings: https://www.soxprospects.com/history.htm Notable changes: Drohan from 26 to 13. I'm not sure what he did to gain so much love. E R-C from 19 to 16. Yorke to 5 from 6, and Mata from 5 to 6. Perales from 10 to 8 (Walter down 1 and Anthony down 2) Paulino 11 to 10 and Lugo 14 to 12 Wikelman down 2 to 14th and EValdez up 2 to 15. Murphy with one of the biggest top 20 drops from 13 to 17, while Bonaci dropped from 16 to 22 Jordan drops from 15 to 18 With Seabold 22, Ward 23, Downs 24 and German 25 all now gone, big rises after their slots are more from attrition, but Alcantara jumped from below 30 to 21st. Guerrero is now 25th, Meidroth 29th and McDonough 30th.

They tried to restock the farm, quickly, but almost every trade for prospects has yielded nothing or next to nothing. Some returns are still pending, but nothing jumps out at you as something special. (Hamilton, EValdez, Abreu, Wink...) The real swing and miss was not making more deals, last deadline. We've beaten that horse to death, but in hindsight, we missed a golden opportunity to get real value for the future. Doing well in 2021 lowered our draft picks and bonus pool money, but it does seem like the farm should be looking better, by now. It's also a bit telling to see how many of our current top prospects are not Bloom additions: (Bello just graduated and was a DD guy.) 2. Casas 4. Rafaela 5. Mata 8. Perales 9. Walter 10. Paulino 13. Lugo 14. Wikelman I realize many teams' top prospects were acquired 4 or more years ago, so maybe this is not such a big deal.

I was thinking it was a 5 year plan, but as with Ben, I don't think Henry's patience lasts that long. (And he got a ring!)

Hard to win with poor starting pitching AND defense up the middle. The pen can only go so far. It's hard to imagine the rotation not improving. The bar they have now set is about as low as can go. We need a major uptick, and maybe Whitlock, Bello and or Paxton can provide a spark.

Tiny sample sizes: SS: Kike -2 DRS (-7.0 UZR/150) I guess that Willie Mays catch didn't help enough. career: +7 (+9.1) 2B: Arroyo -1 DRS (+0.1 UZR/150) career +9 (+5.8) CF: Duvall -1 DRS (-37.5) career +3 (+2.8) C: McGuire -1 DRS/ career +5

We did it twice, last year and both were in a 3 game stretch.

It might depend on how our young players are looking, and if 2024 looks hopeful, but that's a fine line to draw. If our young players are doing well, we should not be worse. At least, in the past, when we sucked, we had so many 1 year deals, it was easier to move on. This time, we have more 2 year deals, options and even the Story, Yoshida, Whitlock and Devers long deals set in stone.