moonslav59

Pivetta needs to stop the run-gushing rotation wound.

20-20 hindsight, what pitchers could we have signed instead of Story, last winter? Instead of Yoshida, this past winter?

It's easy to get an idea. The numbers are readily available. Some of the option buy outs and bonuses get tricky, I can see how anyone can say we are within $2-3M of the tax line, if the bonuses count and the Turner option is counted differently. 25.6 Sale (cots and spotrac agree) 23.3 Story (agree) 18.0 Yoshida (agree) 17.5 Devers (rock solid number) 16.0 Jansen (rock) 10.0 Kike (rock) 10.0 Kluber (agree) 10.9 Turner (agree) 7.5 Martin (Spotrac has $6.8M) 7.0 Duvall (rock) 6.3 Dugo (rock) 5.4 Pivetta (rock) 4.7 Whitlock (rock) 4.0 Paxton (agree) 3.0 Bleier (agree) 3.0 Mondesi (agree) 2.0 Arroyo (rock) 2.0 Brasier (rock) 2.0 JRod (rock) 1.2 McGuire (rock) 1.2 Ref (rock) +5.6 Barnes payment (Spotrac has $4.89M & Hosmer $1.8M) +1.7 0-3 bonus pool (agree) +2.3 Forty Man (Spotrac agrees) +16.5 Player Benefits (agree) Total $215.1 cots/$213.7 spotrac There is $2M for Alfaro on a minor league deal. Bonuses listed on cots: $500K Kluber for 20 GS, $750 for 25 and nother for 30 GS. $200K Turner for each PA milestone: 480, 500, 520, 540, 560 and a $6.7M buyout on an $8.3M 2023 contract, which looks like $15M guaranteed, so this could add $3-4M, if counted differently. $500K Duval for each PA milestone: 350, 400, 450, 500 and $1M for 550. $200M Paxton for starting 20, 22, 24 or 26 games. Maybe some add up all the bonuses and count them, but that looks like just $6-7M tops. Add$2M for Alfaro and $4M more for Turner and we still look to be within $2-3M. The bonuses and Turner contract might be the biggest factor.

My guess is 2B, but one poster seems sure it will be SS.

I'm sure some are ready to pounce.

Astros pitchers did a little better with Maldando and Castro than Vaz, but it takes time to get adjusted.

Add to this, the IFA signing bonuses: $M 2023: 1.4 Cespedes SS .525 Arias SS .500 Ruiz SS .175 Salazar C .130 Garcia P .125 Garcia SS 2022: 1.2 De Leon SS 1.1 Encarnacion SS .850 Garcia C .600 Santana SS .400 Yuten CF .265 Paniagua SS .125 Colmenares P 2021: 1.5 Bleis CF .850 Lira C .545 Ravelo SS .450 Liendo 2B .450 Paez P .300 Mejias P .195 Reyes P .150 Sierra OF, Castillo SS, A Lopez P .140 Castro OF .125 Burnet P

I will say, I do think Henry's pattern, if we want to attribute it to him and not his GMs, is to wait until we look close to being highly competitive for a ring, and then spend big on an ace type pitcher via free agency or by trade. Pedro came before Henry, but the Schilling trade put us over the top and made us a top 2-3 contender. When things dipped a little, we traded HRam and A Sanchez for Beckett (and salary dump Mike Lowell.) When things dipped again, we signed Lackey to pair with Lester. A couple last place finishes led to the Price signing and to some extent the Porcello trade (Cespedes via Lester trade.) When this did not seem like enough, we traded for Sale before the 2017 season. I'm not sure Henry has felt like we have been "close enough" to splurge on a top pitcher since 2018, and in all honesty, I do not think we have been an ace away from being a top contender since '18. Is the idea to build up a supporting cast, and then pounce? Who knows?

I think the Wacha and Hill signings were good, especially for the money spent on them. It clearly was not enough to improve the rotation to plus status. I'm not sure what more I need to say. I'm not disagreeing on Bloom not building a strong rotation. It seems like he has focused on building up everything else, first, with the pen being his most recent area of major inputs. bWAR has Wacha way higher ranked than fWAR does, but they have Hill lower ranked. You pointed out Wacha and Hill exceeded their fWAR/Value numbers, and my point was only about winter rotation moves. To me, Bloom's 2022 winter rotation moves were the bext of his 4 winters, here, including this year's solo move with the Kluber addition. Again, doing better than s***** can still be pretty bad or "not enough."

Whitlock will start one more game in AAA, Thursday and then be ready for MLB, if all goes well. That means an April 11 or 12th return.

Nick Deeds provides an update on Story: Red Sox manager Alex Cora told reporters, including Jen McCaffrey of The Athletic, today that Trevor Story is doing well in his rehab, and providing an update about his progress. Story has begun regularly fielding groundballs in the infield dating back to camp this spring, and will begin throwing in two weeks. He’ll advance to hitting next month, sixteen weeks after his elbow surgery. That’s great news for Boston fans, as it means Story is still on track to make his season debut sometime around the middle of the season.

I can't see how anyone can say we are $2-3M within the limit.

It certainly looks like he may have been able to spend a little less on the O and direct it towards pitching and or defense, but it is early yet. I'd add Kelly to ther list of early pen busts. If our rotation can just stay healthy and strong enough to keep Wink as a long man and bring Houck back, our pen can become a real strength, and maybe we can yank some starters a bit earlier: Jansen Martin Screiber Bleier Rodriguez Houck Winckowski Maybe Crawford or Mata

Bring back DD, and Schwarber (.118 OPS) back too, NOW!

cots has us almost $18M under, but they have been off, recently.

The Devers extension was huge, but it kicks in, next year. I expected Bloom to spend $10-15M more, and had hoped the money would go further than the inflated salaries allowed, but Bloom had enough to make a difference. He chose to spend most on the O and the pen. He neglected the rotation and defense. $10M on Kluber to replace Nate, Wacha and Hill $50M on Jansen & Martin About $120M on Yoshida, Turner, Duvall and Kike (signed during the 2022 season) (plus $140M spent on Story, last March and $313M on Devers going forward.) We can see where the financial priorities are, recently have been and look to be going forward, as of this moment in time.

It's 4.1 total vs 3.3 for fWAR. Like a said ... "a bit more kindly, but...still not an [overall] plus." His winter rotation choices in 2022 were better than 2020 and 2021. That doesn't mean they were great or enough.

I'm not saying I like the idea or history of trading for aces over developing them. When we won each ring, except for 2018, we had some homegrown talent in the rotation, but even those wins needed a boost. It takes a while to build up a system that churns our skilled pitchers, but I see little sign of ours getting there. Our system did not produce Whitlock. We have Houck and Bello to show for our system since Lester, Buch and Masterson. (One can argue for Kopech, but still...)

The 2021 rotation was not a strength. As for 2022, bWAR treats his additions a bit more kindly than fWAR, but the rotation was not a plus. I agree. 3.3 Wacha 2.7 Schreiber (pen) 2.6 Pivetta (a 2020 addition) 1.8 Whitlock (a 2021 addition) 1.6 Houck (DD carry-over) 1.5 Nate (DD carry-over) 0.8 Hill

My point does not negate this point. I agree: he did not do enough to build up the rotation. He did worse on the pen, despite the Strahm addition and Schreiber's emergence as a force. His 2 signings did well. That's not the same as saying he built a strong rotation. He was handed Sale and Nate. He was responsible for the rest.

Bloom certainly could have signed better pitchers and or not spent so much on Story. I'm just saying the Wacha and Hill signings were good, and when you look at WAR/$$$, they were better than good, despite missing key moments to the season. He did NOT build a good rotation for 2022. I agree. Overall, Bloom has done a very poor job building up the rotation, and he's had enough time and money (especially recently) to do so.

We expected 2-4 to be out at any given moment.

He chose Wacha and Hill. He was given Sale, Nate, Crawford, Houck. His choices of Pivetta and Whitlock came before 2022, but they did okay, too.

It's going to take a lot of gems to get out of the bottom 5.

2020- the budget sucked. 2021- his rotation choices sucked 2022- his rotation choices did fine 2023- only signing Kluber and putting all the rest of the beans into the pen and offense is highly suspect.