moonslav59

Huh? I have always been firmly in the cliff-dwelling camp. I saw it coming. I had hoped we could get to 2020 with the residuals of the 2018 team carrying us to further competitiveness, but the writing was clearly on the wall. 2021 may have actually caused more harm to the rebuild than we know. I do not view 2023 as part of the cliff, and the big club should be looking better, on paper, than it does, now. Obvious mistakes were made, as with every team (see the Montas trade,) but to me, the direction of this team is on a significant rise, and I like our chances, this year, enough to think we are not in the midst of a cliff. I think the statement by Bloom, which mentions the likelihood of some further blips on the way towards sustained success, could imply or suggest 2023 might no go as well as hoped or expected, and I do not disagree with that, but I think we are easily not still in the "cliff" era. I think Bloom has done a pretty good job building up the farm and improving the budget by minimizing long term albatrosses. It's all on paper, though. I do not share your Sox doom and gloom outlook, but I certainly know 2023 may go horribly wrong.

Clowns are at least likeable buffoons who at least try to be entertaining and are usually not viewed with despair. Garbage is what it is. I think the connotations for each word are miles apart, but that's just my opinion. (BTW, I don't view Kluber as garbage or clownish. The book on Kelly is largely unwritten.)

Just pointing out that responding to what a poster implies is what you call overanalyzing, and we all do it. BTW, some "The some have bought into what Bloom is cooking..." statement and other posts that hint or flat out claim there are posters that defend Bloom on everything or even most things, to me, misses the mark. Many of us felt and still feel this: 1. Even before 2018 and certainly by the end of 2019, the state of the farm and budget led many of us to think some sort of reckoning was coming. Many did not think it would be so sudden and deep, but the writing was on the wall. 2. Many of us feel the way to build and maintain a winning system is by having a strong farm- a farm that continually provides "new blood" at a low cost for several years at a time. A piece may be used for trading, when needed, but never to an extreme. (It looked like Henry did not think DD was the guy for this philosophy.) 3. It looked like Bloom was hired to begin this process, and his restricted budgets, early on looked designed to get the longer term budget situation under more control. The massive budget cuts before 2020 (Betts, Price, Porcello and others were not replaced with anything even close to resembling their salaries until maybe March of 2022 with Story and 2023, which also saw the departure of a lot of salary before this past winter.) 4. Hardly any top prospects were traded for vets or rentals. I think the most highly ranked one was Aldo Ramirez for Schwarber. The hoarding of prospects was an obvious priority. Many trades for vets or ML ready players also involved us getting a prospect: German with Ottavino, Hamilton & Binelas with JBJ, Seabold w Pivetta, Ferguson & Rosier w Hosmer plus straight out vets for prospect trades like Vaz for Valdez & Abreu. Nobody is claiming these trades were spectacular success, and in fact many of those labeled as Bloom apologists were highly critical of a few of these moves from day one. In short, there was an obvious organizational shift in methodology and strategy. Yes, many of us were and many still are on board with the change in direction, but it does not mean we are sure it has been a success. We don't and can't know. This massive philosophical change takes time to establish and then more time to see results. To me, that is what Bloom was speaking to with his "Awesome" statement. He thinks the guys he has acquired are good enough to become top contenders, at some point. I'm not sure he feels his timetable means we'll win a lot in 2023, but I do know the fans expect it, and who can blame them? Those of us who believe in the new plan, which by the way is very similar to the "plan" used by the Astros, Rays and other winning teams, tend to frown on the idea that spending big on high profile FAs as a viable, continuing solution, although there may be times it is essential. (One might view the Devers extension in this light, although he was not a FA.) When we express agreement or pleasure towards the plan put in action, it is not with the belief that we are sure the moves made will work, of the one making them, Bloom, is a genius or even a very capable GM at making it all work. We applaud the effort and direction, and like any moves or decisions made, wait in hopes that they work. Many of us feel acquiring better-ranked prospects should eventually lead to more prospects making an impact. Yes, to a large extent all are just "suspects" until they prove something at the big level, but to me, increasing the numbers of good prospects and the perceived quality, as well, should lead to better results. The fact is, the results are still a year or more away for many of these prospects, and many of the prospects Bloom acquired via trades have not shown brightly, at all. The vast majority have fizzles or stayed stagnant on the farm. Several are not even around, anymore, like German, Seabold, Potts and others. The best ones appear to be Wink, Valdez & Abreu. Whoop-dee-freakin-doo! Some may argue the players traded away were not all that great or had limited team control remaining on a team looking at a longer term rebuild, but that doesn't make those bad trades any better. Saying "it was the thought that counts" rings hollow to many, including me. The results on the ML field, so far, look mostly bad, except for the glimmer of hope in 2021. There is no denying this. One can speak to expectations and where they should have been after 2019 and the Betts purge and budget cuts, but no doubt, a rebuild on a team spending like ours does should be showing results by this year. Injuries, rising FA costs, and other teams more firmly holding onto their young talent can be used as excuses, here and there, but all teams face much of these things, like we do. To me, the trend looks to be upward, despite the win loss records not showing it. The infusion of young and QUALITY talent added to the 26 and 40 man rosters each year has greatly ticked up. I know I sound like a broken record, but this point is a major reason why we have sucked after 2018: after Devers, only Houck has given us any significant value from the farm. That was a five year period (2017-2021.) That is an eternity in baseball, when your roster is 40 men deep. Now, many of the recent additions to the 40 and 26 are still suspect or even highly suspect, I find it hard for any fan to not been encouraged by the improved young talent outlook, when compared to 2017-2020. Beyond some young (at the time) ML talent Bloom acquired, like Pivetta, Verdugo, Arroyo, Schreiber, Refsnyder, McGuire and others who have contributed in some ways, part of his philosophy of not trading away prospects and trying to acquire some- beyond drafting and IFA signings- has allowed these players to already have some ML experience under their belt: DD's guys not traded... Houck Casas Bello Crawford (Dalbec) Blooms guys... Whitlock Winckowski Wong Kelly Soon to come... Mata Rafaela Walter Valdez Murphy Hamilton Abreu Mills To me, this looks, on paper, like a massive improvement to the team's longer term outlook. Call me a "homer" or a "Bloom lover" all you want, but I don't see it like that. I feel like the optimism is justified, and I haven't even mentioned father away guys like Mayer, Bleis and maybe Yorke, Perales, Anthony, Wikleman, Paulino and others. I think a major philosophical change was needed, and I think we chose the right direction. Did we choose the right GM to do it? I'm not sure. I have said, and still believe, this last winter was Bloom's "legacy winter" or "make or break" time. Unlike others, here, I like our chances in 2023, but see the longer plan as being more important. Fans are beyond restless, and justifiably so. It could very well be Bloom's sink or swim season. If we suck, again, it will be hard to justify keeping him on board, unless, somehow, the 2024 and beyond future looks remarkably better and extremely promising. We'll see what unfolds.

It's you overanalyzing, and you jump right into talking about this year, anyway. I never said you were talking about this year. I just pointed out Bloom was not. Yes, I heard the boos. Yes, I have said this was Bloom's make or break winter. I agree, there is little or no "leaway." Calling some of our players garbage after one game is classic.

He was talking about at some point, not specifically, this year. Once again, context, context, context... You know who we have and you know there’s more coming. You know it’s not always linear. It’s not always easy. We’ve taken a couple of haymakers. You know what? We’re probably gonna take a couple more. This is baseball. It’s not supposed to be easy. But I want to be clear. We’re going to do this. It’s going to be awesome. We are going to get there and I just wanted to thank all of you for your support and hope it’s a little clearer today.”

I have to say trying Mata, Walter and maybe even Murphy over Brasier and Ort is not something some of us have just thought of.t Getting Whitlock back should knock one clown off the 26. Bello and Paxton might knock off two more.

I think we all agree Brasier and Ort are the worst of the 13 pitchers. One could think about using the 5th starter, Pivetta, since with the day off, he's still get normal rest before his game 5 start. We had 8 RP'ers to play, Thursday and Friday an off day, if you throw out my Pivetta idea. Let's say we save Jansen and Martin for the 8th and 9th. That leaves: Wink- good for 1-4 IP Schreiber- good for 1-2 IP Bleier- good for 1 IP, but did pitch 2 in ST'ing I'm not sure Kelly is a better option, but I did find 3, not counting Pivetta. I can see thinking the use of Winck as a long man might take him out of Saturday's Sale start, but that start was 2 days away.

I think he felt Song would spend more time on the military list and that maybe the timing might work out better, had he been released from duty, later.

Just as you ask "who has given up," I ask, "who said things would be AWESOME?"

Certainly, one game can't change much, but I can see wht there is much concern. BTW, some one game numbers look decent to good for Bloom: 2-4 Yoshida w HBP & RBI 2-4 Turner w BB & RBI 1-4 Duvall w 2B, HBP & RBI That's 5-12 and OB 8 for 15 for his 3 big offensive additions. Let's see what time tells us.

While I'm onboard with criticizing Bloom for having Brasier and Ort on the 26 and even the 40, it's on Cora to be pitching them on day one, when we have the following day off.

Walks that turn into doubles due to SBs are extra costly!

DFA'ing would work, too. Protect Ward and sign another RP'er or add Sheriff.

Excellent points. While Varitek did have his first season over .800 at age 27, it took him until ages 31-33 to do it 3 years in a row. I don't believe, his defense was not all that highly regarded, at first, but maybe catching Wake early in his career hurt his numbers. He had 57 PBs from 1998-2000, including 2 seasons leading the league, there. He also allowed 58 WPs in those 3 years for a whopping 115 PB+WP. His CS% was never great (23%,) but to me the most telling improvement came in the CERA area. I normally frown upon just using overall CERA by catching tandems, since most of the time, they tend to catch different SP'ers almost exclusively, but I will list the year by year CERA numbers to show VTek's improvement occured mostly in his early 30's: 1998: 4.10 Hatteberg/ 4.29 VTek (age 26) 1999: 3.13 Hatteberg/ 3.98 VTek (age 27) 2000: 3.96 VTek (age 28)/ 5.02 Hatteberg 2001: 3.00 VTek (age 29)/ 4.60 Hatteberg/ 4.75 Mirabelli (generally regarded as + on D) 2002: 3.74 VTek/ 3.83 Mirabelli- essentially tied 2003: 4.46 Mirabelli/ 4.49 VTek- essentially tied 2004: 4.18 VTek/4.26 Mirabelli- same 2005: Ooops! 3.73 Mirabelli/ 5.02 VTek (Mirabelli, basically caught only Wake) 2006: 4.54 Mirabelli/ 4.84 VTek/ 5.58 JLopez/ 5.26 J Bard 2007: 3.80 VTek (age 35)/ 4.09 Mirabelli/ 3.95 K Cash 2008: 3.66 VTek (age 36)/ 4.81 KCash 2009: 3.87 VTek (age 37)/ 5.22 VMart/ 5.36 Kottaras 2010: 4.05 VTek/ 4.28 VMart (VTek was no longer the starting catcher at age 38)

There are so few catchers, these days, who get over 400 PAs as a catcher only. Last year, Vaz got... 390 as a catcher 21 at 1B 11 as a PH'er 4 as a DH He is widely viewed as a FT catcher for several years.

We might get more help from AA, but maybe Valdez or Bobby Dee give us something. D Hamilton might bring only speed to the big club, this year. The WOO rotation looks to be more promising: Whitlock (opening day SP on rehab), Mata (6), Walter (8), Murphy (13) and Gudino.

Since all our catchers have virtually no experience with our staff, nobody should have an advantage when compared to each other. One would expect McGuire to do better with the same pitchers Alfaro would catch, and since Wong's defensive and CERA-related skills are largely unknown, it's hard to no what to expect on that comp. I'm not sure will have a firm idea on how good McGuire or Wong are in this area, even by season's end.

I've heard he is supposed to be very good on D, but it is something very hard to quantify. His MLB sample sizes are not all that large. He has never started more than 70 games as a catcher in a MLB setting. One major area of concern, to me, is how he relates with the staff, and what his abilities are at bringing out the best from pitchers on the staff, especially those he catches the most. Since Wong and Alfaro are also new to the staff, it may be hard to evaluate this area, until an adjustment period is reached and sample sizes are large enough to meaningfully evaluate.

Good observation and something that needs to be tweaked. It also makes me think a runner has an advantage when there is 0.5 to 1 second left, I suppose, although the pitcher can still throw to 1B at that last millisecond, too.

Whitlock not on IL, but starts today for WOO. Is Bello ready to pitch live games?

I see 4.32 over his last 23 GS'd in 2022. It was 4.18 over his last 9. The last 16 of his 31 starts? 4.70 with a 3.54 FIP. (Not far from Nestor's 3.34 FIP over his last 16 GS'd.)

Now our true ace and #2, #3... will be facing other team's lesser pitchers.

I'd rather we be 1-0.

How can this team ever lose again? We have 6 guys with an OPS at 1.000 or better!!! 1.200 Verdugo 1.100 Turner & Yoshida 1.000 Devers, McGuire & Tapia (3 guys not on this list had 5 of the team's 8 RBIs, today.)

We proved we can come close!