moonslav59

He's in over his head. One line

I know Red's is a short one.

Must be a short one.

There's a list?

Because Bloom should be fired, if someone selects Ward? LOL!

He must be the luckiest dude in MLB. 2018-2022 Sox pitchers (21 with 100+ IP) LD% 9. ERod 20.4 10. Wacha 20.5 11. Brasier 20.5 12. Nate 20.7 13. Sale 20.8 K-BB% 8. ERod 18.1 9. Hembree 17.8 10. Brasier 17.4 11. Porcello 15.2 12. Pivetta 14.9 xFIP- 9. Workman 91 10. Walden 93 11. Brasier 95 12. Wacha 101 13. Porcello 101 WHIP 5. Price 1.21 6. Brasier 1.22 7. Workman 1.25 8. Nate 1.27 Sure, his hard hit% and ERA- were bottom 25 or 30% on the team, but he's been pretty middle of the road overall. In 2022, he was 4th out of 17 in xFIP- at 88. Only Schreiber, Whitlock and Nate were better. He was horrible in other categories. I'm fine with cutting him loose, but I think he got by on more than luck.

Trevor Rogers may be an easier trade target than Pablo Lopez- so says this report: https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2022/11/marlins-trade-rumors-trevor-rogers-pablo-lopez.html

notin, your man crush dude, Elieser Hernandez, was just dealt to the Mets.

Yes, I thought I made it clear I knew he'd have to stay on the ML roster if the chose him in Rule 5. I see the advantage of trading vs Rule 5, and the Guardians are not some slouch team that is in total rebuild mode. I doubt the take him Rule 5.

It's hard to know what the Sox will do. I could see them keeping all 5, until we start making FA signings or trades. If we don't think Rafaela & Abreu are ML ready on opening day, maybe we keep Cordero as OF depth. Chang might be the cheapest cost of the 5, but also the easiest to replace. Brasier is probably the least liked by fans, but he has had some nice stretches of effectiveness. DHern has nastier stuff, but IMO, I'd rather cut DHern than Brasier. Taylor is a keeper, unless his prognosis is bleak.

Interesting read. Thanks. Just wondering why this was placed in the "Fire Bloom" thread.

I'd do that deal in a heartbeat. I'm think CLE could just pick Wikelman in Rule 5, if they didn't mind stunting his growth some. Who knows: maybe they would pitch him in low leverage situations.

It's my belief that if we were able to extend Betts at more than our first offer, we'd have traded other salary, instead. Who knows what our roster would have looked like had we gone down that path. IMO, cuts to the budget were coming- somehow- someway- somewhere.

I totally agree. I think they have attempted to fix the prospect pipeline, and have seemingly been stepping up their international acquisition game to where it was years ago. It's all speculative on how well they have done, but on paper, we are now at the point where was can expect several prospects to get significant playing time not just in 2023 but also each year afterwards. That has not been true for about 5 years. Player development improvement will take time to judge if we have improved. Identifying and acquiring prospects or younger players that become studs like the Astros did with Yordan and we did with Papi years ago is another area we can only wait and see. Bloom did find Whitlock and maybe Schreiber and Refsnyder will extend their plus play and join Whitlock as savvy acquisitions. I'm optimistic about our direction back to meaningfulness. I may be in the minority. I expected it to take some time, and I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of DD prospects that upped their expectations and will be helping the team in the next few years- hopefully.

Yes, he was.

It's a term that has different connotations to different people. I started saying downturn, but that didn't seem to change the narrative. I will refrain from using that term, but if someone brings it up, I may still respond.

Their pen was their weakest or one of the weakest area a few years back, so it's not like that is what has gotten them to the ALCS "every year."

They do, now.

Most should, but maybe something happens sooner.

The first few signings have begun. I'm curious when our first signing will be announced. Will it be a multiyear deal for Nate? A Bogey deal? A trade and not a signing?

The thing I look at is winter spending in light of what salary was shed those winters. From 2019 to 2020, we saw a massive budget cut led by shedding the Price and Betts contracts, but also some other players no re-signed. We basically filled many slots with about $40M in winter spending- mostly 1 year deals. There were less holes to fill between 2020 and 2021, thanks in part to some crafty deadline trades, but we still only spent about $40M that winter, too, in new spending. This past winter, it looked like we were heading to the same end result, until the Story signing jumped our new spending by quite a bit. The first major signing since the Bogey and Sale extensions. Even if we had a normal infusion of quality prospects from 2018 to mid 2022, the budget restraints, alone, would have made it very tough to put together a top contending team. I get the crapshoot argument. I get the results from 2021 being a strong counterpoint to the whole idea of there being an extended downturn or "cliff." It's a great point. I'm not denying it, but I'm also not going to sugarcoat the long term affects the "all in" nature of the 2016-2019 window had on the 2019-2022 team outlook and results. It was a significant factor in our struggles these past 3-4 years. I'll say it again. The term cliff and the implied longer term nature of that word was not a good choice of words, in hindsight. I was wrong to think we'd be bad for 2-3 years straight. I can write it a hundred times, if that would help some of you understand I mean it. I was wrong. I was not wrong about the team having struggles for multiple years due to everything that was done before Bloom took over. The degree and nonconsecutiveness of the struggles shows it was not as bad as many of us felt it would be. I'd like to point out that it has not been as rosy as those denying a downturn was unavoidable made it out to be, either.

So, Montero signed for about $35M/3. Would anyone here have offered him $12M x 3? I might have. Diaz got $102M/5. Big NOPE from me on outbidding that.

I do think one could look at the totality of 2020-2022 and maybe not call it a "cliff." I'm fine with saying that term was wrong, because it implies more than just one year, but these last 3 years were far from the level of 2018. Say I'm moving the goalpost. I am. Say a cliff can't be just one year. Fine. The fact is going all in for the window from 2026-2019 had severe consequences and some are being felt, right now, too. At the risk of sounding like a broken record: 1. From Devers in mid 2017 to Bello & Casas in 2022, we went 5 years with only Houck, Dalbec and Duran being noteworthy call-ups, and two of them are nothing to be excited about anymore. 2. The budget crunch caused by the signings and extensions made before 2019 caused some very impactful decisions to be made by top brass and Bloom, including dumping Price's contract and letting Betts go a year before his time was up. It may have also contributed to why Bogey and or Devers might be leaving, as well. 3. The decline of many of the biggest and brightest stars of 2018 was inevitable and predictable. It was not some extreme position to think a downturn was coming. We can argue about what word to call it or how long it occured, but let's not say there were no effects from that window. While nobody is actually saying "no effects," I do get the sense some are b ending over backwards to minimize it while accusing us for bending over backwards to show the downturn happened as predicted. I'm not denying I thought it would be longer than 1 year. I did not think 2019 would be the start of the decline. I even argued, with luck and investment, we could extend the window to 2020. The s*** hit the fan. No moves were made at the 2019 deadline, and rightfully so, and a big part of the team was blown up heading into 2020, despite the Sale injury and ERod COVID issue. The 2020 team, even if relatively healthy, was not even close to the 2018 team, and there was no hope for anything from the farm arriving to bail us out. To me, that is reality. We can say there never was a cliff. Those who denied it can point fingers and gloat all you want, and in many respects, you were right. There is also much they got wrong, but nis anyone of them admitting it? Did we rebuild the farm in 1-2 short years? Did JH "just spend more" to keep us on top? That is what the cliff-deniers were saying? Were they right? Were they more right than the "cliff dwellers?" I don't think you can answer that with a clear yes. IMO, the answer is No, but that is just my opinion which could easily be biased. (lol)

Really? I did not know that. You know what the point was. Of course, an OF'er will never get credited with a save, unless he's pitching.

I'm responding to you and others. Why do the deniers keep bringing it up?