moonslav59

I'm still not sure why yo keep choosing to believe what these guys say. I also think Sam & Co. firmly believe moving towards having the best system is the best way to increase the odds of winning a WS, so it seems like doublespeak, to me. Again, I could be wrong and have been often enough.

I don't disagree, but better than 2022 is a low bar. I'm thinking as good as 2021 or he's probably gone. The issue, to me, is unless we are prepared to change our strategy or philosophy, it wont do any good bringing in another DD. I'm thinking they may want to give the farm building and long term plan longer than they gave Ben. If they replace Bloom and misdirect all the blame on him, which they seem to love doing, IMO, they will not go back to the DD days. They will hire someone like Click and continue seeking a balanced approach, but maybe with someone who does trades better than Bloom has done.

He is the lightening rod, because he was made into one. The soxprospect podcast stated he had to have known he'd be made the "punching bag," when he was hired, and I agree, but that does not mean he is or has been the major reason for what has happened over the last 3 years. The team strategy and philosophy changed, and it wasn't the first time. The Ben hiring was very similar to the Bloom one. The no signing pitchers over 30 strategy was suddenly lifted under DD, as budget limitations changed drastically at the same time. Is the strategy to be cyclical? Who knows? I realize the blame game is the way of the world and has been- moving more and more in that direction more and more over the last few decades. Identifying a punching bag and relentlessly punching away until they guy is totally toast does not get to the core of the situation. Only when the strategy changes will we begin to see a change, or if the long term plan is given a chance to succeed, which requires a level of patience seemingly impossible to realize in Sox nation to occur. I can rail and rail about the "context" in which Bloom has been placed, but it would just be repeating the same points over and over. I'm trying to be positive about the long game being the right strategy. I share in the frustration of the past 3 years (or 2 out of 3, or even 4, if we count 2019,) but I fully believe the strategy chosen was not Bloom's idea. They hired Bloom to fit the strategy they chose during the 2019 season. He's trying to follow the plan they gave him. He seems to have done a pretty good job with a couple top priorities (farm improvement and strengthening the foundation of the 40 man roster,) but he has largely failed with the "remaining competitive" along the way part of his charter. Should he be fired for that? Hard to determine, but my general opinion is what did we expect under the circumstances handed to him? I expected the dreaded "C word," so maybe that's why I have been more lenient with Bloom, but that does not make me any less frustrated with the choices we've made in the last 4 years.

You don't see the farm is better? You don't see the depth of the 40 man roster as vastly better than 2020? Fine, if that's not enough for you and the vast majority of Sox Nation, but don't say you "don't see anything better." If you truly don't see those two thing, I'd have to say you just choose not to see them.

Most of "the talk" is not flattering. The bottom teams don't care how they look or if they look worse. Forcing other owners to spend more does what for the game? Do I care what the name of the next evil empire is, or that 3-4 teams are all vying for that title or that the Sox should or should not going that group?

I get that this may be the new reality of MLB, at least until the next CBA, but I find it hard to not see some hypocrisy here. For years, Sox fans railed against King George and the Yankees for "buying championships after championships," and no matter how hard we tried to spend more and more, it was never enough, until 2004. Now, it looks like the only way to win is become the next King George among a sea of kings that is growing in numbers and magnitude. I guess, in some ways, being the king of kings and winning rings would be "fun" for a while, as you pointed out, but do we really wish we become the old Yankees? Again, I'm not here to defend JH's reluctance to spend when he can and probably should spend more, but where does it stop? Why should the Sox be the one to spend the most or 5th most or 8th most and not every team? Is it some sense of today's "entitlement culture" or a philosophy of Sox exceptionalism that drives these beliefs?

Ever watch War Games? Remember the theme? "The only winning move is NOT to play."

My bad. I thought he was a 40 man roster addition.

The other trade that might work was the one Bloom traded nothing away for: Ottavino & German for basically nothing. The Diekman for McGuire deal looks good, even as just a salary dump, but the dumpee was Bloom's own signee. I'd like to say I have some hopes for Breau & E Valdez (for 2 months of Vaz,) but they seem like Hamilton/Binelas types. Certainly, the failure of Downs not progressing makes that Betts and salary dump of Price trade underwhelming, and the Beni trade seems to be coming down to Wink & de la Rosa. The Renfroe trade was the worst, but all the others were fringe players, and getting Pivetta & Seabold hardly makes up much ground on the losses from the other trades. The Price aspect of the Betts trade makes that one harder to accurately evaluate, but certainly more was expected from the return. 5 years of Dugo has real value, and I suppose Wong may still surprise, but no. It can't be viewed as even a break even deal, IMO, despite dumping half-Price. I worry about the return we'd get for Devers, too. The worry is well-founded.

Of course the prospects are the ones who have not stepped up, so far, but it was Bloom & Co. who decided these prospects were better than others that were offered or may have been available. Take the JBJ trade.. It sucked from day one, but many felt the only redeeming value would come down to the two prospects doing better than their rankings suggested they might do. The jury is still out, but I've all but lost hope on both of them to do anything meaningful.

And why is this something we should rejoice about and wish our owner climbs over all others? Is the desire to win by outspending everyone else any better than the desire and greed to make as much money as possible? Both are all about these rich guys' vanity or placement in the Forbes top 500.

Again, we could say the same about 25 teams, right now, and if the all spent like Cohen or even way more than they do now, the free-for-all would not make much of a difference for the Sox. It would for the players. In isolation, only the Sox increasing their spending massively would make us Sox fans happier, but shouldn't every owner follow suit. Many team's rosters look more "illegal" than ours.

Again, I think JH can and should spend more, but it's a futile argument. I'm not defending his budget limitations by merely pointing out he has b een spending more than all but maybe 6-8 owners from 2020 to 2022. Obviously, they have chosen not to overpay for the highest ticket items, and I'm not so sure that's a bad strategy, if you look at the results of past high ticket signings, especially by the Sox. To me, the problem is he's losing out on the best second tier signings, too. I like the strategy of building up the farm as the top priority. I bought into their stated goal that we would "stay competitive" along the way, and so far, we are 1 for 3 on that front, but they have not wavered on farm building or succumbed to the temptation to trade away top prospects for the here and now. I may be in the vast minority on liking that strategy, but I'm scratching my head on even their moderate here and now moves. My biggest beef, this winter, is not the actual guys they added, I like all of the top 4 they added (Yoshida, Jansen, Turner & Martin,) but to me only 2 filled our most pressing needs (the two pen arms.) Yes, we needed offense, in in one sense Yoshida and Turner maye do better than Bogey & JD combined in 2023, but we need a SS, a RF'er not named Verdugo and a SP. We could have filled the offense need and a positional need, at the same time with one guy, but we chose DH/LF and DH/3B/1B to sign, To me, those were near last on my list of high need areas.

Cots shows the CB Tax 40-man as such: $184.9M in 2020 (adjusted) $207.6M in 2021 $241.8M in 2022 I'm not going to do the research, but how many other teams saw this number increase by 31% in the last 2 years, not counting this winter? (185>242) Several teams have, but my guess is we were top 6-8. We've only spent about $50M of the $90M we had to spend, this winter, so it remains to be seen where we end up, but we won't be increasing the player payroll from 2022. I'm pretty certain of that. My point is all the noise ab out JH being cheap. I'm not defending a rich guy like him for choosing not to spend more. I wish he would and think he should, but let's not pretend he's gone cheap in comparison to 2/3rd or more of MLB owners. He's still spending- just not in big bunches and not one the players we have come to love and want back.

We have that, now with nobody to spend it on. Even signing both Kluber and Andrus would leave over $15M on the table. Maybe we trade for a salary dump and someone more promising attached.

Maybe, he's just the next Park and will be DFA'd before he even tries on a uniform. Some of these fringe roster moves are real head scratchers. We let TWard go to Rule 5, so we can make a spot for Park, knowing he's the first to be DFA'd upon a signing. Okay, we traded Park, but we could have traded TWard, too, and without him having the need to stay on a 26 man roster, all year, one would think his trade value was worth more than his Rule 5 value.

It's like some are rejoicing in the gloom.

He might have as good a chance as any to win the 8th RP'er slot, but having an option probably means he begins the season in AAA, and so would be slotted 9th or lower, officially.

Agreed, and maybe that is a major reason why they have set some sort of formula that places value on everyone, but rarely matched market value, unless it's a unique circumstance (Yoshida's unknown market value and Story's late winter price fall.) It does not seem like they want to adjust "or fix" that formula upwards. Maybe they were willing to or actually did, but the market value gap was still to wide for signing tier one FAs. To be honest, the salaries given out, recently have been nothing short of absurd. I don't blame anyone for shifting focus to second tier FAs or even the best of tier 3, but we missed the boat on all but Jansen, Martin, Turner and maybe Joely. I'm not sure who sets up the value formula. My guess is it was not one guy. It's something the Sox have done for years, and they have let many stars leave- most were aged or had injury issues, but some real good ones were shown the door for various reasons, like tag-ons for salary dumps (AGon & Beckett with CC/ Betts with Price- to a lesser extent) and others for unique situations like Manny & Lackey. It's not just with homegrown players like Lester, Ellsbury, Betts, Beni, JBJ and now Bogey, it was also with Pedro, Damon, Beltre, AGon, Price and now Nate & JD. We've set a value and don't budge to 2 decades and maybe longer (before JH.) The idea or "system," in itself, is not necessarily a losing strategy. We have 4 rings under this plan, and a team like the Astros seems to have perfected the idea. The Astros seem to have a formula that pays more than we do, but mostly shorter term deals- like Verlander. They also had and still have a solid farm that provided seamless high level young players to slide into the roles vacated by departing mega stars like Springer and Correa, but also many key role players. This winter, they just lost the Cy Young winner, and not a single tear has been shed by the fanbase. They are just as excited about their team's chances now as last winter and 4-5 before that. It all starts with the farm, and I am happy this new management group has focused on building that up. I'm disappointed in the failure of most of the prospects we traded for not stepping up. I realize many were never expected to do great, but with the sheer volume of prospects acquired via trade, you'd expect more to at least have a role on the big club by now. Granted, the desire to "win now" as we built the farm hampered the returns, as many trades for prospects also involved taking on a vet, like Cordero w Wink & Co, Pivetta w Seabold, JBJ w Binelas & Hamilton, Ottavino w German, Verdugo w Downs & Wong. It was never really a tear-down & rebuild plan, and that slowed the growth of the farm. The best thing that happened to the farm was the covid year of 2020 and seeing Mayer fall into our lap, and the rule 5 Whitlock pick. I'm not sure our farm is near what the Astros was, and remember, they tanked a few years to get it there, but the pending influx or prospects is at a level not seen since DD had so many to trade away due to Ben's near total devotion to building up the farm and trading away very few prospects. Maybe I was overly optimistic thinking we had reached the point where more of a balance could be reached between use of the farm and the hear and now, but obviously I was wrong, unless some blockbuster trade happens in the next 2-3 months. Part of me is excited about the longer term future, but a big part of me is very disappointed in where the big club is, now. There is still time to repair some gaping holes- like SP & SS, but the FA options are all but gone, and the reluctance to trade top prospects seems still in place, and I'm not sure I disagree with that later strategy, considering our low hopes for 2023.

I think we add a SP and SS, but here is how it looks to me, with no more moves made: 1. L Yoshida LF 2. R Story SS 3. L Devers 3B 4. R Turner DH 5. L Casas 1B (R Dalbec) 6. R Kike CF 7. L Dugo/ R Refsnyder RF (platoon?) 8. R Arroyo/ L EValdez 2B (platoon?) 9. L MacGuire/ R Wong C SP1. Sale SP2. Whitlock SP3. Paxton (Houck) SP4. Bello SP5. Pivetta RP1. Jansen RP2. Martin RP3. Houck RP4. Schreiber RP5. Barnes RP6. Joely RP7. Mills RP8. Brasier/Taylor/Kelly/German/Ort/DHern/Fernandez SP/RP: Crawford/Mata/Winckowski/Walter/Seabold/Santos/Crohan Minors (ML ready/near ready): C: RHern (Cottam/C Hamilton/ S Scott) 1B: Crook/T Reed (Kavadas) 2B: Hamilton (Yorke) SS: Fitzgerald Ferguson) 3B: Koss (Lugo) LF: Duran (Abreu) CF: Rafaela (McDonogh) RF: Granberg (Jimenez) DH: (Binelas)

If we don't add a middle IF'er, what's the plan? We don't really have enough OF'ers to play Kike at 2B (Yoshida LF/ Refsnyder CF/ Verdugo RF), so it pretty much looks to me like it will be Story at SS and Arroyo at 2B. We no longer even have Downs & Park as deep depth. Our depth is David Hamilton and Enmanuel Valdez. I can't imagine is starting the season with that line-up and depth. I'd like to see us get Andrus, but we never get who I think is best. Trading for a defensive SS might be in the works, and Story goes back to 2B, and the depth looks fine.

When we add Justin Turner to the 40, who goes? If we add more players, who is next? My DFA list: 1. Ort 2. Brasier 3. DHern 4. Seabold 5. Taylor (depending on his health)

They could all afford one meg deal, at least, and still "make money." We could spend $50M more a year, but what if every team spent $30-60M more, at the same time?

When we signed Story, my 50-50 odds on Bogey staying dropped to 20-80. It fell further as the season ended, and one we started seeing the mega deals being signed, I thought maybe 10% was too high.

I've said all along, I don't think they ever valued Bogey at the "market rate" at any point on the timeline of contract talks. They certainly never valued him at what BorA$$ was asking, of he'd be here. I'd guess it might have something to do with his defense and reluctance to move off position, but it might have just been something very simple. They just did not ever place the value needed to get the job done. They might turn out to be right. It's easy to look and say, had they only offered Bogey what they maybe offered him near the end, 2-9 months earlier, he might still be here, but the market going up is what might have changed their off- not what they thought he was valued at comparatively. For argument's sake, say we could have gotten Bogey for $200M/8 back in March. The Sox must not have wanted him for that, or they thought nobody would offer than ,and he'd come back and settle for $190M/8 or lower. My guess is they didn't want him at even $190M/8. Then, when the price went up, their offer never kept pace or maybe even barely budged. I cannot say for sure, but I'm thinking the Sox would not sign him, right now, for $210M/8. That's why he's gone. They might have grossly underestimated what other GMs would spend and truthfully felt they could sign him and were not lying when they said, he was their top priority. We may never know. I could be way off.