moonslav59

Lmao

Well said. It’s largely about context, but results do carry some weight, even if it comes after the GM leaves.

Swanson might be less, but we may just decide to spend elsewhere and wait for Mayer. Maybe find a 1-2 year bridge SS.

Indeed. I should have mentioned him but was thinking only of ML ready prospects.

He did have similar circumstances in terms of no large and long contracts given, but he was handed a solid 40 man roster and farm. He improved the team in his 2-3 years, there. It's interesting to try and figure out which GM improved their whole team (40 man and farm + budget) by more: Bloom or Click. The starting points were vastly different.

It's really Correa & Taillon plus 2 comp picks vs Bogey & Nate.

Good points, as always.

You keep saying 5 out of 7. For one thing, it's misleading and wrong to cut our 2015-2019, and for another, our outlook to start each year was not "last place" for any of those 5 years, except 2020. Fans had enough to look forward to those other 4 years to have hopes of making the playoffs. Sure, the discouragement of those seasons led to lost future ticket sales and NESN subscriptions, and that is likely why we ended up going over the tax line, this year, but personally, I see a lot to be optimistic about looking at 2023. I'm pumped up to watch Bello, Casas, Kelly and to some extent German, Crawford, Mata, EValdez and maybe Walter, Murphy, Crawford, Wink and our catching tandem of Wong & McGuire. I'm certain some will be disappointing, but I'm excited to see some I know will end up being plusses. I'm also near certain Bloom is going to spend more, this winter than ever before, and likely more than 2020 and 2021 combined. That's reason for excitement and optimism. It seems weird that some who chastised us for being all doom & gloom back in 2019, while b eing all rosy and cheerful about our future are now the ones seemingly all doom and gloomish.

Rafaela and Abreu are about it for the OF, unless Duran makes a comeback (lol). With Kike's time up after 2023, that is certainly an area we could add a longterm solution to.

Indeed, and to think DD would have done better within the same constraints is pure speculation and wishful thinking. Maybe he'd do better than Richards, Perez, Ottavino, Marwin, Andriese and Paxton, but there would have been no large and long deals and maybe no Whitlock, Schreiber, Refsnyder, Kike '21, Kelly, German, Wacha, Strahm, Hill, McGuire and this heep of new prospects added via trades. This is Bloom's legacy moment. The whole 3 years was designed to make 2023 the beginning or the next "window." On paper, things look optimistic, but we need to start seeing results.

He's not poor or pitiful, and yes, he knew what he was hired to do, and at least on paper, he has fulfilled his number one priority: build up the farm and 40 man roster foundation to the point where we needed fewer slots to fill while setting up the budget to now have the funds to do it. I'm sure he's not happy about 2 last place finishes and felt the 2022 team was strong enough to make the playoffs and not finish last, but the team failed, this year. Blame injuries. Blame non moves. Blame the budget. Blame Bloom, but when I look at the totality of moves he made since the end of 2021, it looks like a net plus, but the wins did not indicate those improvements.

He was handed a vastly different circumstances. Does that not matter, at all?

Do you really think, if DD was handed the budget and demands of trading Betts & price, we'd have a better team and results, right now? I'll answer, I'm not sure, but I do think Bloom is more of the type of GM needed to rebuild and find gems in the rough than DD, but that's just my opinion. I have no way of knowing.

Well, there was the Betts contract we had to tarde away. There was the Price contract we ended up paying half of. There was the Porcello contract we were not allowed to replace. There was a near empty ML ready farm that produced just Houck dince mid 2017. We brought all this up, so it's not like mentioning Sale means that is all we are focused on. The whole picture was bleak after 2019. Personally, I don't even think that is up for debate, but I don't want to sound authoritative.

Um, the 2020 team did not "just go the World Series." The 2019 team was 84-78 and finished the season going 25-31. Then, the new GM was forced to trade the cornerstone of the team and Price while also losing Porcello. For someone who values the pen, this was the 2019 pen listed by most IP from the pen: Walden Workman Barnes Brasier Brewer Taylor Hembree Velazquez Weber DHern Josh Smith Cashner Shawaryn You can talk 3 years all you want, and it's a valid point, but context matters, and the team Bloom was handed was not close to the 2018 team. (Kimbrel & Kelly and others were gone before 2019, too.)

To me, it's all about the winter spending budget vs how much came off the books each winter. It's not so much about the $230M budget, which by the way, included player pension money and dead money. Bloom has increased his percent of the total budget with his signings, but has anyone noticed how much of Bloom's money goes beyond 2022 or 2023? 2023: Story, Barnes, Whitlock & Kike 2024: Story & Whitlock When is the last time we saw that? To just point at the $230 number and imply Bloom is spending as much as past GMs is misleading.

And, although many of the highly ranked prospects he traded away did not amount to much, he had the ability to trade many of them, keeping Devers, and acquire guys like Sale, Kimbrell, PomPom, Nate, Pearce and Nunez, among others. I counted 20 prospects that were at one time or another a top 20 prospect on soxprospects,com he traded away. Granted, some were no longer top 20, but he also traded away Shaw and a few others. (I'm not complaining, but just pointing out the stack he was handed that enabled him to acquire a guy like Sale and to a lesser extend Kimbrell. Bloom did not have that choice, even if they let him trade top prospects away.

Yes, of course. It's not just the DD carry-over that is significant. Every GM is handed a set of cards to deal with, which includes the 40 man roster foundation, the budget and the farm. Our whole point about Bloom is that he was handed a set of cards that was among the worst, budget wise and farm wise, and when you factor in the mandate to trade Betts, price and probably Beni, the foundation was crumbling. Theo was handed a strong foundation but not great farm. He was allowed to spend, but not much at first. (He already had Manny & Pedro.) Ben was handed a decent foundation and okay farm, but it seemed like he was handed a top priority of rebuilding the farm. He ended up trading away most of the foundation and built up a near top farm for the next guy... DD was handed enough top farm hands to trade away and build an amazing 40 man roster foundation. He was also allowed to spend hugely (Price and Sale extension.) The foundation he was handed was not great, but he did have a solid core of Betts, Bogey, Beni and was smart enough to not trade away Devers. Bloom was handed the worst farm of the 4. None of the 4 were forced to cut the budget so radically in year one, and barely stay even for the next 2 seasons. That's two of the 3 major tenants of being a GM that were severely lacking. The foundation quality is debatable, because it included Betts, Beni, and at the time a somewhat decent Price and freakin Chris Sale not Chris freakin Sale, but when you take Betts, Price and Beni away and look at the expected decline of aging guys like JD, who actually did okay for his age, one can argue the foundation was not as good as the hopes of the remnants of 2018 promised .

That's how I have always seen it, but to me, $170/6 or $190/7 is too much. His bat should be very good for most of a long deal, but that's a lot to pay for a LF'er or 3B/2B. Probably 3B would be best, and maybe by then Devers will be "ready" to move to 1B as Mayer becomes our long term SS. This squeezes Casas, but it's not a bad problem to have. Personally, I'd offer Bogey $160/6 and go to $170/6 or $190/7 only if Correa is getting Seager money and what Swanson gets plus the loss of a draft pick is deemed too much as well. I hope we get one of these 3, but I get a bad feeling we won't. We may view Mayer as too close to the bigs to go large and long at SS. I guess, if Bogey agrees to move off SS in a couple years, he might be the best choice of the 3, but if we don't go large and long at SS, where and ow do we spend the $90M? It won't be Judge. Nimmon has the lost draft pick attached and will have so many teams bidding for him, he will likely be grossly overpaid. deGrom? I doubt it. We don't have 9 roster slots open to sign nine $10M decent but not great players. We barely have 6 slots for six $15M players, but can anyone name exactly six $15M players we could sign to make this team a strong contender? Or three $20M guys plus three $10M guys? I'm wondering, if we end up going for a guy like Verlander, so we don't hamper longer term budget issues. Maybe trade for Sean Murphy, sign Conforto/Gallo/Bellinger/Beni to play corner OF, add a couple solid pen arms and go cheap at SS. This winter's FA crop, other than SS, doesn't fit our needs too well.

Great post. If we look at last year's Seager, Semien, Baez and Story signings, as unfulfilling as Story looked in 2022, I'd rather have him at $140/6 than any of the others, and I believe he was the last to sign. I can see the point being made about thinking we have to know how much we will spend at SS and 3B before knowing how much we have to spend elsewhere, but I'm sure management has worked out dozen of permutations and scenarios beyond plan Z. Also, say for example we are thinking we want Bogey, but if we don't get him and will go cheap at SS, and instead go hard after Nimmo, wouldn't we tell Nimmo's agent to wait until our SS situation is settled before letting him sign elsewhere for less? I do think these types of conversations are made between GMs and agents. It is likely we have a plan like this: We will sign Correa or Bogey, unless the price is way too high, and we settle on Swanson. What's the difference in AAV? Maybe $3-9M? Is that amount enough to determine we can't sign other players we want before deciding on SS? I think not.

True, and also the worst season (2020) by winning % since 1965 was DD's (plus JH's wallet shrinking) creation.

Two major differences between now and past Rule 5 Drafts: 1. There was not one, last year, so this year has more good ones on the list. 2. This is the first Rule 5 Draft since rosters were expanded to 26. If we really think Ward was worth protecting, we must think 5-6 guys should be DFA'd to keep him. Same with said player.

Unless said player is better than Ward and the guy the will DFA. (He really needs to be better than 5-6 on our 40, as we will be adding 4-6 min, IMO.

MLBTR lists some of the best Rule 5 players available. Will the Sox nab one? Erik Miller RHP PHI Malcom Nunez 1B PIT Tahnaj Thomas RP PIT Jose Ramos OF LAD (A+ ball) Carlos Duran SP LAD (A+) Korry Howell UT SDP Corey Julks LF HOU Ryan Ward LF/RF LAD Dominic Canzone OF AZ EDgar Barclay RP NYY Another site (justbaseball) has these players: Daysbel Hernandez RHP ATL Matt Tabor RHP AZ Omar Cruz LHP PIT Seth Corry LHP SFG Kade McClure RHP CWS Robinson Pina RHP LAD Brady Feigl RHP OAK Tim Cate LHP WSH Blake Hunt C TBR Josh Breaux C NYY Samad Taylor 2B/OF TOR Vinny Capra 3B TOR Luken Baker 1B STL Michael Stefanic 2B LAA Miles Mastrobuoni SS/OF TBR Buddy Kennedy 3B AZ David Villar 3B SFG Carlos Rincon LF/RF NYM Griffin Conine RF MIA Nick Plummer LF STL Ryan Noda 1B/LF LAD Oscar Gonzalez RF CLE The only Sox player listed was Gilberto Jimenez, so I'm not sure about this site.

Santana signs with Pirates for $6.75M. Bloom asleep at the wheel, again! Geeesh!