moonslav59

No ML OF'er on the Sox is worse than Duran.

Hey, the guy had a 1.000 Flg%. COME ON!

Finally, you get it.

Master strawman builder hard at work.

The media lies, perhaps fed by BorA$$ should not really make us any angrier at the Sox than we would have been had no immanent big Sox-Bogey signing crap came out. The mood was a bit peepy after the Yoshida signing, when most of us felt Bogey was likely a goner, anyway. It was the teaser stories than cut our legs out from under us, and left us pissed off.

I agree. Andrus over the idea of Segura with Story at SS. I also want to keep Kike in CF, not SS.

I think the 2013 ring was fortunate. The others were examples of us building up to a point of being a top 2-3 contender and then adding a strategic piece or two to get us over the top. The Yanks get to the top 2-3 status, more often, but fail to pull the trigger and increase their odds. The 2018 team was not fortunate. Not only were we tops, we went and got Nate & Pearce. The comeback vs the Yanks in 2004 could be viewed as fortunate, but the 2003 loss kinda balanced that out. 2007 was won by getting Beckett and a few other key pieces (some at the deadline) and not sitting on our hands, like Cashman does when real close.

Certainly not a bad thing. They do spend enough to be top 6 or7, but would you trade their last 2 decades for their records and achievements with ours? My choice is super easy.

Personally, I think that analogy is way off. He's a MLB hitter forced to swing one-handed.

Oh, I notice.

Arroyo- 156 games!

That sounds an awful lot like a former politician's way out for spouting absurdities, "A lot of people are saying, ______."

Of course, if he murders someone, I'll be for him leaving, but unless Henry starts sending $150-190M a year on the budget, he's got my lifetime pass.

Gravity favors the sun.

The Yanks will not go to the levels of LAD, SDP and NYM, so these gross overpays and grossly long deal will bite them, someday. Maybe not 2-3 years, but it will, just like Cole, Stanton, DJ and Hicks and even their "great" pen arms, of late.

Not yet, for sure, and maybe not in 2023, as I had high hopes. Do you agree with these assessments? (Odds better than 50-50?) C: McGuire/Wong = Vaz & Plawecki 1B: Casas (Dalbec/Hosmer)>> Dalbec/Cordero 2B: Healthy Story> 2022 Story SS: ______ 3B: Prime Devers> 2022 Devers LF: Yoshida >>> Dugo/Pham/Duran/Cordero CF: Healthy Kike> 2022 Kike RF: Dugo/Refsnyder> JBJ, Duran/Cordero DH: Hosmer/Dalbec/Refsnyder/Arroyo I count 1 big bad and 2 bads I count one pretty big good and 5 goods Pitching Pen: Jansen, Martin, Houck, Schreiber, Barnes, Joely, Crawford, Kelly/German/Mata >>> Schreiber, Whitlock, Houck, Brasier, Davis, Sawamura, Strahm, Danish, Barnes, Diekman Rotation: Sale/Paxton, ______, Whitlock, Bello, Pivetta/Crawford/Winckowski/Seabold/Mata Pivetta, Wacha, Hill, Nate, Wink, Crawford/Bello/Whitlock/Seabold Granted, until we add a solid SP, the staff looks worse, but it's not as bad as it might seem. We lost about 500 IP of bad pitching along with the loss of good pitching, if you figure less IP from Crawford, Wink, Seabold, Brasier and a few others: 77 Crawford 5.47 70 Wink 5.89 62 Brasier 5.78 54 Davis 5.47 51 Sawamura 3.73 40 Danish 5.13 38 Diekman 4.23 28 Ort 6.35 25 Robles 5.84 18 Seabold 11.29 55+ from 8 players

Maybe slow and steady does win the race. I just hope it's not 2033.

200% hogwash

I'm thrilled. Say good bye to your budget in a couple or three years.

To me, what got old was the three decades of total frustration before 2004. No offense to you, I like your posts, but the act I'm seeing reeks of spoiled fans who think we are entitled to a ring every 4-6 years. The team has reset it's priorities. They have watched a team like the Astros win without having to pay huge contracts by having a strong and deep farm. Yes, they lock up some key homegrown talent earlier and pretty often, but they've let the same amount of super studs go- actually, their 4 best players: Correa, Springer, Cole and Verlander. Maybe Altuve can be called top 4... maybe. Here are their biggest contracts, right now: $163M/7 Altuve ('18-'24) Current BTV Value +$4.6M $100M/5 Bregman ('20-'24) -$2.8M $85M/5 McCullers ('22-'26) -$28.8M $59M/3 Abreu ('23-'24) -$6.2M It doesn't have to be about spending bigly on 3-5 players to win, and IMO, maybe not doing that increases the chances of winning. We just need to get the farm & foundation in place, first. It doesn't help doing it backwards.

I get that, but think about it: when you get no help from the farm, it forces the GM to spend on 12 players, instead of 3-4. Had Bloom kept the same budget and kept Betts, price and Bogey, what would the rest of the team look like? The answer is easy: look at the 2020 roster and add Betts & Price. We would not be winning with that strategy, either. The problem has been our farm and supporting cast. Look at '22: Bloom added some FA pieces that actually worked out better than 2021, and it still wasn't even close to enough, and that was with Bogey, Nate & JD. Story 6th in PAs .737 (2nd in RBI/PA) Wacha 2nd in IP 3.32 ERA R Hill 3rd in IP 4.27 ERA Strahm 14th in IP 3.38 ERA (Diekman sucked, but he got McGuire for him.) The JBJ trade sucked, but the Refsnyder and previous Schreiber addition were very nice. Bloom did not have enough to add the supporting caste, Story and 1-2 more big signings.

Sox Among Top Payrolls (Stevetheump) 6th '22 (still over the tax line, but $13M from 5th place and $26M from 4th- $45M from 3rd) 3rd '21 3rd '20 1st '19 1st '18 3rd '17 3rd '16 3rd '15 4th '14 4th '13 3rd '12 3rd '11 2nd '10 4th '09 4th '08 2nd '07 2nd '06 2nd '05 2nd '04 6th '03 I can see looking at 2022 and thinking WTF have other teams been doing, while we stay even, but it's basically 3 teams (NYM, PHI & SDP) that have passed us, and all are in the AL. (The Rangers may pass us, soon.)

Are we still top 4-6, every year, except maybe 2020?

Springer> Tucker Correa> Pena Cole>Framber Morton> Urquidy/MCCullers Verlander> Javier/Garcia In that time period, we saw: Houck Dalbec Duran It's so obvious where are #1 problem is. Yes, it sucks letting our studs go, but we'd have no hope, anyway without something from the farm, even if just used for trades.

Cause it takes time to build up the farm, and then more time to see them mature. Again, from the Devers call-up in 2017 to the Bello/Casas call-ups, our farm produced Houck, Duran and Dalbec. You don't get sustained winning until that is fixed. The recent bello/Casas call-ups along with Whitlock's Rule 5 addition and Houck give us a 4 man core. That's not yet on par with what the Astros infusions are doing- both in quality and quantity. This season and next, we have a much longer list of hopefuls and expected good prospects about to get a chance, plus guys like Crawford, Winckowski, Seabold and Wong still holding some faint hopes. SP's rankings ETA Here, now or recent grads: Whitlock, Bello, Crawford, Wink, Wong, Dalbec, Duran, Downs...) 2. Casas 21. Seabold 26. Kelly 2023 4. Rafaela 8. Walter 13. Murphy 24. German 17. E Valdez 28. Abreu 2024 1. Mayer 5. Yorke 20. Kavadas Wallace, Hamilton, Koss, R Fernandez, Binelas, Scott This may be far from what the Astros have done, but it's big step in the right direction. You don't get there overnight.