moonslav59

I'm very close to giving up on 2026. There is no sign of hope, right now. A return and plus play from Crochet & Anthony could be a spark, but they are so far away, It seems like even assuming the best likely leaves us way short.

Franklin AriasAnthony EyansonJustin GonzalesEnddy AzocarJuan ValeraHenry GodboutSadbiel DelzineKyson WitherspoonDorian SotoFranklin PrimeraYoeilin CespedesYophery RodriguezJake BennettJohanfran GarciaMarcus PhillipsHarold RivasJohn HolobetzAngel BastardoJedixson PaezGerardo Rodriguez

Good points. There is also this other way to look at major positional changes... 2025 3B OPS: .777 (Bregman, Toro & Co.) <.596 in ;26 (Durbin & Co.) 2025 1B OPS: ,691 (Toro, Romy, & Co.)> .925 in '26 (Willson & Co) 2025 DH OPS: .823 (Devers, Masa & Co)>,635 in '26 (Masa & Co.)

That has been a point I keep bringing up. We started with a pretty good roster, if 2025 was for real. (Big if, I guess.) We lost Bregman, who missed much of 2025 and Giolito, who did well in 2025. We added 3 very good performing players, perhaps better than any other team's best 3 additions, but we ended up sucking. One can claim we were not as good as the 2025 record, and maybe we are not as bad as the 2026 record. The Pythagorean number shows we are 5 games better, for what that is worth. We've been near the .500 mark or worse for way too many years. We can try to be optimistic about the youth factor & farm of this team, but the continued waiting is a real drag. How Soon Is Now?

Of course, that is the major indicator. I'm not saying he's done a good or great job. While Bloom set the bar low, I do think Brez has done a better job with the roster, despite the near 2020 W-L%.

What about the start of June? (Hint: below .540) Why is May 1st so important?

Why do the Sox always seem to have a bad medical team and make repeated bad choices concerning the timing of surgery and decisions to not have surgery? Am I missing other teams being this bad, too?

Good points, but I find it hard to imagine Devers doing much better within the toxic environment in Boston, both at the time he was traded and this 2026 situation.

Great point.

Yes, and the Padres are 37-35 with a Pythagorean of 34-38. Most commonly, this is blamed on bad luck or a bad manager- not the GM and owner. With Cora gone, the blame ship is rudderless.

It's not the only way I measure a GM, but one thing I look at is that I felt Brez was doing a good to great job building up the 26 and 40 man roster with better players while also building up the farm. The focus on improving the pitching pipeline has been needed for decades. Then, I look at the winter moves and see he made a major mistake in not adding another big bat, but most of the best choices have been underwhelming. I find it hard to hyper-blame a GM for not signing Murakami and trading for BLowe, as that is clear hindsighting. Ultimately, GM are judged in hindsight- fairly or unfairly. I get that. I do it, too, but I also try to look hard at the context. I respect your criticism and points made. I have never taken anything you have said as a personal affront. I enjoy your input and comments. I think many of us overestimated the skillsets of our returning players. Many of us complained about the fangraph's projections being conservative, but even they had us as serious playoff contenders. I see how blaming the GM for believing this too is logical. I suppose he should have known many of our players would not meet expectations or fall way below them. I like rotation and SP'er depth he assembled. I love our pitching depth on the farm, but the pen was neglected and the big bat issue is a big reason we suck. Being 5 games below our Pythagorean win total is puzzling and is not out of the realm of blaming the GM for as well.

It's not "safe to assume" Contreras, Abreu & Rafaela all do this well in 2027: I agree, but I think it's safe to assume someone else might take up the slack (Anthony, Mayer, Durbin, Narvaez or eeek....Duran) if they do. That still leaves a need for 2 big bats, IMO. Contreras is getting older, so 1B/DH seems like one spot to try and add a big bat, but I'd like to keep Willson, if we are looking to win in 2027. (If the pan is for 2027, 2028 and beyond, trading him this summer makes sense.) 2B or 3B remains the other clear slot to add a big bat. Durbin, Mayer and others can fight for the other, unless we add the two here. In theory, adding three: 1B/DH, SS and 2B/3B makes the most sense, but we'll be lucky if we add two. No way we will spend on adding a big bat to the OF, even if we trade Duran.

You didnt answer my question: do you add 3 new big bats and trade Willson? I'm not against the idea- just asking.

The plan turned out weak, but we wanted weaker. We wanted an OF'er traded, so Anthony could play FT. We thought $6M was too much to spend on a back-up for Mayer. (It was a lot for his projected offense, but the fact was, we tried to have a stronger back-up plan than we had in 2025 at 2B/3B/1B....) Obviously, the Sox counted on Anthony and Mayer to do better than this. I'm not sure how great they thought they'd be due to their costly back-up plans for a limited budget. They failed with the back-up plans, but they had some. I don't think anyone expected Duran to suck this badly. Many had serious doubts about Durbin, IKF and the IF depth, but they have done worse than most expectations, too. Narvaez has done worse, too. No doubt, we needed another bat- maybe two. Brez dropped the ball.

Bloom and Brez were not part of the choice of keeping Betts over Sale & Bogey. It would have been hard for any GM- not impossible- to have the same budget B & B had and the roster handed to Bloom to create a winner. I don't see how that's an apology. I have talked about Bloom's mistakes endlessly, especially his two largest signings, which amounted to peanuts when compared to all the contracts we dumped or let go without replacing in kind. BTW, the "not replacing in kind" actually began under DD in 2019, when we did not replace Kimbrell & Kelly in kind, and the losing began under DD. DD also came close to being forced to trade Betts and was the GM who chose Sale & Bogey over Betts. (Not a knock on DD: I loved him as our GM.) Do you doubt the difficulty of the task handed to Bloom? If no, are you now an apologist? Bloom failed to do what the Rays did and are still doing. He deserved to be fired. He failed. My point was that other GM might have done better, but it would be very difficult for any GM to get us another ring or even close to one. We got pretty close in 2021 with the remnants of the DD era, but how much new spending happened after 2021? I actually thought the 2021-2022 additions did pretty well for the money. (Wacha, Hill, Strahm) Story did not (.737 in a half season) I often offer counterviews to claims made. If anyone said Bloom and Brez did great, I''d offer evidence to the contrary, too. I don't think Bloom did good, despite the context. I think the jury is still out on Brez, but the recent results (2026 W-L) look horrific. I don't think I'm apologizing by saying my winter picks and most other poster's picks appear to be doing worse than Brez's additions, last winter. I find it hard to be hyper critical when someone seems to have done better than what most of us wanted him to do. It seems kinda hypocritical, to me, so I refrain from Brez-bashing. I'm not saying it's wrong to bash him: we suck, now, but I'm going to continue to offer contrary viewpoints, especially when poster make absolute claims like "everyone" thought the farm would do "awesome" out of the gate.

And Pedey started his career with... .561 in 2006 (98 PAs) .535 first 72 PAs of 2007 That's 170 PAs of yuckiness. KC is at .664 after 263 PAs. The big stink is over his 130 PAs in 2026 at .675. He has sucked on theh farm after his demotion- the exact opposite of Pedey's turn-around, though. Mayer is at .827 aft6er 340. Anthony is at .804 after 433. Pedey was still at .625 after his first 221 PAs. He jumped to .739 after 240! That's how fast small sample sizes can jump.

While many of us hoped the big 3 would hit the ground running, nobody said they would with certainty. The club had a back-up plan for all 3. Anthony: we kept 5 OF/DHs through the winter- perhaps the second most questionable call made (to not adding another big bat or two.) Mayer: We signed IKF and traded DHam while adding Durbin, Monasterio & Siegler to go with Romy. KC: was not counted on for 2026 by a single poster. The other thing to mention is two rookies are doing good to great: Early & Tolle. No mention of them, when we speak of unmet expectations by our rookies/sec ond year men. (Narvaez is anso a sophomore in a slump.)

,,,and it wasn't close to "everyone"- maybe closer to half. ...and I'm not sure one person said the rookies would be "awesome" day one. Some things never change here at Talksox.

Maybe, and we'd have Bennett & Bello in the rotation. BTW, the Cubs have 3 guys with a 128+ OPS+ and Conforto at 122 & Suzuki at 119 to protect Breggie. BAL protects Alonso with Ruts at 130, Henderson at 126, Basallo at 120 and Ward at 117 Alexander is at 119. Granted, the Mets have just Soto to protect Bichette. The Sox have 171 Contreras, but not much else: 123 Rafaela (who thought of him as protection in March 2026?) and Abreu at 117. Nobody else is even near 100. (Yoshida is 4th at 91.) I'm not thinking these guys would do better with BOS, except for park factors. Of course they could and might have. We just don't know. We coulda had Devers and Ref, too.... LOL

This season reminds me of 2022. In '21 we added Richards, Ottavino, Renfroe, Marwin & Sawamura. In '22 we added Wacha, Hill, Story, Strahm & Diekman. I have to say the winter before '22 looked better, at the times. _________________________________________ In '25 we added Bregman, Crochet, Buehler, Chapman, Sandoval, Wilson & Toro In '26 we added Contreras, Suarez, Gray, Durbin, Coulombe, Oviedo & IKF I have to say, at the time these seasons started, they looked pretty similar to me.

Perhaps the best part of an Alonso signing would have been the push to trade Duran while his stock was better than now. Bregman or Bichette would have been disasters, so far.

True, and they could be worse, especially on a team in the gutter and with little line-ip protection and rbi opportunities.

Devin Futrell might be the sleeper pick on the farm. soxprospects.com has him at #58. While Gage Ziehl dropped from 28 to 39, I think he might rebound. The rebound trio could be Cespedes (34>14) Jo Garcia (51>34) and YRod (55>35.) Dylan Brown made sp.com's largest leap from 60 to 31, and Primera jumped from 36 to 13, but they are not "rebounding."

How about Pythagorean? (They have us at 34-36.)

This seems true for more than just Mayer. I wonder where we are ranked in swings at balls outside the K zone.