moonslav59

One other part to building up a farm- not trading away any top farm assets. He also added Whitlock, Kelly and German, and not by having teams that finished low in the standings.

I actually wanted Maeda, but I'll take pitching over everyday, if close to even in value.

Or, Moncada at 2B

Basically, my point, this past summer. The brass was too afraid of pissing off the fans by working to reset, and ended up making them very happy, this winter. I blamed it on "crybaby fans," and took a lot of grief on the semantics, but the theory seems as right now as it did, then. Where did it get us? Just stick to the long term plan and do what's best for the team. Fans get over unpopular moves, as long as you win. Now, we got neither. Not only would staying under the tax line, this season given us more budget flexibility, we'd have gotten two comp picks after the 2nd round not the 4th round, next draft. They screw up when the start changing the plan mid-stride. I'm with you. Stick to the plan, but it sure does suck, they blew a chance to be much better in 2023 on the way to even better things afterwards. Now, I'm hearing people talking tanking.

Maybe the reason we haven't spent more, so far, is they plan on extending Devers, starting in 2023, so the AAV is lower, later on, when we plan to reset.

Sell high on Nestor. 2023 was just a mirage. How about Downs, Dalbec and Duran for ole Nesty?

One line that always brings a laugh to me, is when a poster says, "___(insert manager's name)___ needs to sit ___(so and so)____ down and tell him he needs to get on base, more often," like it is really as simple as that: a manager needing to just tell a player what he needs to do and presto magnifico! You know what I feel like, now? I feel like someone needs to sit Henry down and tell him he needs to open his wallet and demand his GM acquire some actual good players. Tom Petty sang how "The Waiting is the Hardest Part," well, right now, the futility of it all is the hardest part, to me.

Good one!

I heard Bloom is working on a Downs for Graterol deal.

I'm not. I like ... 1B Casas LF/DH Yoshida/Dugo CF Kike Story at 2B- not so much at SS Devers at 3B, assuming he's not traded I actually like McGuire and Wong but am not ready to say I'm not worried about catcher. I like our pen- that's a first. I like Whitlock & Bello as maybe our 3-4 starters with Pivetta as the 5, but right now, they may be our 1-2-3. I'm very hopeful we some good things from some or most of these guys: Mata, Kelly, German and maybe some important minor roles filled by some or most of these guys: Wong, Crawford, Wink, Seabold, Walter, Murphy, EValdez or even- gasp- Sale or Paxton. (I know enough not to even dream both can do anything good.) I know these are some gaping holes, but to me, there are only 3 (like that's not a lot): SS, RF, SP. The problem is, we need major pluses from those three, and then the other 23 would look okay, but what are the chances we get even one major plus?

It does look like 2024 is more of a priority than 2023, but there were a few deals that might have been made that would have helped both, and beyond. I really can't bring myself to believe that Henry is in a cocoon or just doesn't care what is going on around Sox Nation to not snap out of it, and do something spectacular by opening day. The options are coming down to just a trade or trades, and with the future being the untouchable goal, I'm not sure how they can pull it off, or if it would even make sense, at this point. The plan seems to have been to replace Bogey with Mayer, so how do we now trade Mayer? Our rotation is already heavily depending on Bello and maybe even Mata, so how do we trade one of them? We need a RF'er and Kike has one year of control left. Yoshida can only play LF or DH, so how do we trade Rafaela? We don't get a high impact player for Yorke, Walter and Romero, and I doubt they'd even consider trading them or Bleis, for that matter. Is the plan really to reset and splurge, next winter? Can Sox nation stomach another off year and promises of "next year we will be better?" We are fast running out of options to get us just past respectability and having a sliver of grander hoped for more than a WC game.

Between the Mets, Rangers and Padres, who has any chance at finding a decent deal for a great player?

He'd have had to spend like a maniac to get top quality, this winter. We weren't just Bogey away from improving by enough to compete at a high level.

I expected losing Bogey. I was briefly excited when we signed Yoshida- thinking, alright we will outbid some teams for decent players, but that's been it. To me, Nate is off our radar, so it's Kluber, Andrus and one from Gallo or Conforto as like hitting the trifecta at the races. It's ain't happening, perhaps even if we were the only team bidding for those 3. I expected more for $80M, but we only spent $40M in a market where that is really like $25-30M.

I'm not agreeing with the move, even if it is temporary. If we can get Andrus for 1 year, I'd overpay him just to keep Story at 2B and Kike in CF and Arroyo on the bench/IL.

It was hard to understand what he was saying, but I think he meant Story's weak arm will be outweighed by his exceptional range, and with no shift, anymore, having exceptional range may make SS range more important than it has been for a while. He is quite an athlete. The reports on his arm may be overblown. BTW, fangraphs had Swanson as the highest ranked SS on defense, despite his reported "weak arm." I'm more worried about Arroyo and E Valdez at 2B, of them deciding to put Kike at 2B and Refsnyder or Dugo in CF and Ref in RF.

Knowing Bloom & Co., he'll probably sign someone like Drury to fill the IF and OF slots with one contract. Kluber and Drury and go into the season $20M under the tax line. YUCK!

Omar Narvaez is off the boards: $15M/2.

Wow, thanks for pointing that out! Silly me!

They have been relatively cheap for a few years now, as compared to the "George years." They used to be number 1 or 2 for years and years. They reset in 2018 and 2021, so they have not gone over for 3 straight years since up 2017 and before. It remains to be seen, if they reset in 2024, and if the do, things will get tight.

Impossible. We are not going over the tax line.

Maybe for the Mets or Padres.

So, the wallet is going to open wider?

Why not add Judge?

MLB.com has this for our depth chart SP: Sale, Pivetta, Whitlock, Houck, Bello RP: Jansen, Martin, Schreiber, Barnes, Rodrigiez, Brasier, Taylor, Kelly/German/DHern C: McGuire, Wong 1B: Casas, Hosmer, Arroyo, Dalbec 2B: Arroyo, Story, Kike SS: Story, Arroyo, Kike 3B: Devers, Arroyo, Casas, Dalbec LF: Yoshida, Verdugo, Refsnyder CF: Kike, Refsnyder RF: Verdugo, Arroyo, Yoshida, Refsnyder