moonslav59

I'm just paraphrasing what he said, himself.

That was just one year of penalties, right?

The Dodgers, too. It's not impossible to build and keep farms strong under this system, but it's not as easy as it was years ago, either. On paper, it looks like we are close to being "there." We have 12-15 prospects or recent grads that should get a significant chance at earning a key role on the 2023 team. We have Mayer, Yorke, Lugo, Ward, Binelas, Hamilton & Koss in 2024. We have Paulino, Wikelman, Jordan, Hickey, Kavadas, Abreu, Drohan & Uberstine in 2025. We have Bleis, Romero, Anthony, Perales, Coffey, Rodriguez-Cruz & Brannon by 2026 or later. Again, I know many of these guys will not work out well, but with so many, I'm hopeful enough stick and enough do well.

That 2011 draft did have some massive carry-over affect, but this is a great point. It really goes beyond the 2017 Devers call-up. Theo once spoke about how the team got away from it's core principles and relied too much on free agent signings and mortgaging the future for the present, but what does he know. Sox radio talk show callers know better.

I'd much rather have seen us sign Suzuki than trade for JBJ, especially knowing we were going over the tax line, anyway. That being said, I like the Story signing more.

While Bloom had many misses in his budget-minded pen building moves, Andriese and Diekman to name two of the higher paid ones, he did pretty well with Schreiber, Strahm, Valdez and hopefully Kelly & German, next year.

Maybe that was why JH made losing a higher priority!'

$8M seems about right for him. He'd be a good 4th SP'er or an okay 3rd starter, but we have enough of those.

You don't think several names are being bandied about on the second and later rounds? Someone makes the final call. I'm sure, many times, there is a general consensus, but maybe the GM plays a bigger role than we know. Ultimately, they are basing their opinions on what the scouts and talent evaluators are saying, so I'm not saying you are wrong.

I've actually been giving DD props for obtaining better prospects than I gave him credit for a few years back, but I can't stop thinking about that 5 year period from the Devers call up (not DD's prospect) and the Bello/Casas call ups where the most notable call-ups were Dalbec, Duran and Houck. That, alone, is enough context to add to Bloom's tenure as the Sox GM to give him 3 get out of jail free cards. What GM can build a championship team around 5 years and just one prospect like Houck? We can poo poo how badly many of the prospects DD traded away have done, but he was the man in charge, and it's all about "results," right? 5 years: Houck. That's the results DD left Bloom, until late 2022. Don't get me wrong, I'm excited about many of his prospects, including Bello & Casas who will be playing for us, next year, but geeesh! 5 YEARS and HOUCK! OMG!

Ramon Vazquez to become Sox new bench coach.

Ottavino has been a good to very good RP'er for almost his whole career. He had like one bad year with the Rockies and an 18 IP 2020 season that apparently made him no good anymore. He didn't do great for us, but a .728 OPS Against was not too bad, and it was .621 in high leverage was good. He was no Kimbrel, but he was good before we got him.

He wasn't good before we got him. I tried to tell you guys!

I just don’t see $2.3M in him. I barely think he’s even worth consideration at the minimum.

But if you DFA after the arb, you are on the hook for the salary minus min wage, right? My thought was about DFAing Brasier before arb, and if that is the plan why didn’t we just non tender him? I’m thinking he’ll be back which basically leaves room for just more RP addition, even with Kelly and German starting in AAA.

We are going to spend, and IMO, more than 2020 & 2021 combined.

I listed the 2024 schedule by mistake. Oooops! I see Tennessee State not Tennessee, though... Yes, 2023's is very tough: Navy (In Dublin) Tenn St Cent Mich Ohio St USC (The Irish's 4th home game in a row) Wake Forest (5th) @ Clemson @ Stanford @ Duke @ Louisville @ NC St (5th road game in a row) Pitt (last game is at home)

I get the difference between non tendering a player and DFA'ing him, but if we DFA'd someone like Brasier before offering arb, is there a difference? Speaking of DFA, if we add 4-7 players to the roster via free agency or trades that a re not 2 or 3 for 1's, here is my DFA list (some could be traded for a prospect not needing 40 man status.) 1. Ryan Brasier (projected to make $2.3M through arb) 2. Kaleb Ort (Guys like him are all over the place.) 3. DHern (Has some nasty stuff, but it's been a long wait- too long, for me.) 4. Josh Taylor (only if his health concerns have not improved) Tradable? 5. Ronaldo Hernandez (especially if we add a catcher) Could be traded. 6. Eric Hosmer (His free contract appeals to me- platoon DH?) Tradable? (I'd try to trade at least 1 or 2 from Dalbec, Downs and Duran, despite their low stock numbers, so maybe we don't have to DFA the bottom guys on this list. Trading Chris Murphy might be an idea, too.) My point is, nobody should feel crushed if we DFA or trade any of the guys I listed, but I'm not fully convinced Park and maybe even Joely Rodriguez is better than the last names listed.

I'm always for building the rotation from the top. I think trading a couple of our top 10-12 prospects to get one makes more sense than signing a FA ace. Part of the reason we were where we were from 2019-2022 was the Price signing and in the later years, the Sale extension. I'm fine with signing an ace, as I was with Price and the Sale extension, but it is risky as hell putting such a large percentage of the player budget on 1-2 players.

The team did play better as the season progressed. and many of the best players return, so I'm holding out hope for better results- not great results, though. Starting the season at Texas A & M will not be easy. (I may try and go to that game.) Then NIU, at Purdue and Mia (OH) could leave us at 3-1 going into... Stanford at home @ GA Tech Navy (in NJ) FLA St Virginia ending the season... @USC MIA (FL) I could see 9-2, but 8-3 is more likely. Am I missing a 12th game?

USC with the big win. My projected top teams: 1. Georgia 12-0 2. Michigan 12-0 3. TCU 12-0 4. USC 11-1 (may be #5) 5. Ohio St 11-1 (close call with USC) 6. Alabama 10-2 Next week's games: #1 Georgia v LSU #2 Michigan v Purdue #3 TCU v KA St #4 or #5 USC v Oregon or Wash Ohio St has no games left but may sneak in, if another team loses. If USC loses, they'd be in, for sure.

MLBTR reports... The Red Sox pursued left-hander Brooks Raley in free agency last year, and offered Raley a two-year deal worth roughly $8MM, according to The Boston Globe’s Alex Speier. Raley ended up signing a two-year, $10MM contract with the Rays, and then had a strong season for Boston’s division rival (Raley’s year included a 0.00 ERA over six innings against the Sox). Between missing out on Raley and the general lack of quality in Boston’s 2022 bullpen, Speier writes that the Red Sox “came to regret not pursuing relief help more aggressively,” and opines whether or not the team might put more emphasis on relievers this winter. Chaim Bloom hasn’t spent much on relief pitching in his first three offseasons as the Red Sox chief baseball officer, and thus far this winter, Speier notes that the Sox haven’t yet paid much attention to the relief market, with a larger (and understandable) focus on starting pitching and re-signing Xander Bogaerts

Great to see Michigan throttle Ohio St. I hope that knocks them out of the playoffs. I just don't think TCU is as good as their record shows, but they are in, if they win out. Clemson lost to giant killer South Carolina, so now they, AL and TN all have 2 losses. I heard no 2 loss team has ever made it to the 4 team playoffs. That leaves Ohio St and USC (beating ND at half) with one loss and hoping a top 4 team loses their conference playoff game.

Somehow, Bloom's prospects are already supposed to be proving themselves, while all we've seen from DD's farm is Dalbec, Duran and Houck, and by the way... Houck was drafted in 2018 Dalbec was drafted in 2017 Duran was drafted in 2017 Bellos was signed (IFA) in July 2017 Casas was drafted in 2018 Crawford 2017 It's 3-4 years after those DD additions and it will be 8 years in April, since he became the GM and we've barely seen any results, except Houck. Bloom has been here 3 years, and we are hearing complaints that Mayer is all he's gotten us. Before you go saying I'm all upset, I'm actually laughing my ass off. DD 8 years: Houck, Dalbec, Duran, Crawford and a few very promising prospects just breaking through. Bloom 3 years: Whitlock, Wink, Wong, Seabold, Downs and our #1 (Mayer), #3 Bleis, #5 Yorke, #7 Romero, #10 Anthony and other top 22's Valdez, Jordan, Hickey, Kavadas, Coffey and recent 40 man add-ons Kelly, German, Abreu and Hamilton, too. Let's wait 8 years on Bloom's farm to compare him to DD's farm, right?

What happened to it being all about results? Fact: from the Devers call up (not a DD prospect) to the Bello/Casas call up at the end of 2022, the only significant call-up in 5 years was Houck. Is that what you call winning? Is DD to be "held accountable good or bad," as you called for GMs to be? I suppose you could argue Bloom could have traded away Bello, Casas, Rafaela and Mayer for a win now push, but I don't think upper management would have allowed it, even if he wanted to. Of course, DD would have wanted to, and perhaps that is why they parted ways.