moonslav59

I'm not for getting Strasburg, unless the Nats paid a big chunk or his deal and or included some young players in the package. I'm not for adding more injury prone pitchers. I just raised his name as an example on how to acquire young talent that is not on the FA market.

One problem with spending elsewhere is that many of the best FAs are SSs. There are precious few solid pitchers without health or long term production issues. Only Judge and Nimmo look like serious upgrades for our OF, and Judge is a pipedream for Sox fans. Maybe we can trade for a salary dump that allows us to add a solid SP'er- like with the Marlins by taking on Garcia's OF salary, or take a huge rsik b y taking on Strasburg's enormous contract in hopes he can stay healthy, while getting them to give us some young talent for the effort. It's a tough call.

I really like the healthy Arroyo. We'd need a solid plan B, if we go that route, or win the lottery on Judge by going light on replacing Bogey.

I am not so sure Story can't play SS, like some here, and if he can and does play SS, next year, one could add Kolten Wong to the one- not two- step down addition that would "save money" over bringing Bogey back, but the step down would have to be made up by someone like Wong, Swanso or Anderson doing well, and by upgrading at least one other position by more than the loss of Bogey. I think Story's D at 2B has been so impressive, many don't want to mess that up. To me, if his arm is okay for SS, I'm all for having superior D at SS over 2B.

Not a complete list and some would be very hard to pry from their current team. BTV Values (Yrs of control) 6+ 40.7 Ashby 29.9 Hall (BAL) 28.8 Abel 22.6 Ashcraft 5 38.8 Lodolo 34.5 Duran (MIN) 28.8 Ryan (MIN) 27.8 Detmers 27.6 Gore 27.6 Greene (CIN) 23.1 Contreras (PIT) 15.9 Garrett 15.7 Lynch )KCR) 15.3 Ober 10.5 Gray (WSH) 9.1 Cabrera 8.8 Sanchez 7.8 Kremer 4 68.7 Peralta 40.2 Rogers 39.4 Shubal 31.6 Sandoval (LAA) 29.6 McKenzie (CLE) 28.6 Wright (ATL) 11.8 Lambert 11.7 Irvin 11.1 Alzolay 3 64.7 Cease 47.0 Gallen 31.2 Suarez (PHI) 29.3 Singer 27.5 Williams (MIL) 22.1 Luzardo 21.7 Manning 20.1 Javier 19.7 Keller 17.8 Kopech 12.9 Kelly (AZ) 11.8 Antone 10.3 Quantrill 10.0 Civale 9.8 Urquidy 2 94.1 Burnes 57.8 Bieber 35.2 Lopez 33.2 Woodruff 23.1 Turnbull 19.8 Gallegos 5.8 Means 1 72.2 Ohtani 35.3 Nola 13.0 Mahle 12.6 Giolito 2.2 Snell

I'm not sure they really think all that much about "blocking" Mayer- maybe some for Rafaela, but since he can play numerous positions, very well, I'm not sure they worry about filling one or two of his positions, either. Maybe Swanson or Anderson would agree to a 1-3 year deal, too. If we are thinking about "blocked prospects," then Yorke, Romero and Paulino might be high on our prospects-to-trade list, but Yorke's stock is a bit lower, now. I could see us thinking Romero & Mayer are duplicate values and choose one to deal, especially if we sign a SS to more than 3 years, but we could always trade someone 2-4 years from now, too, if a logjam develops.

A very colorful guy who was raised in Woo. One hell of a softball player, too.

Bello was graduated by soxprospects.com. I don't think thise is their year ending rankings, but it may be a hint at what if will be: (End of 2021 rankings) 1. Mayer (2) 2. Casas (1) 3. Bleis (15) 4. Rafaela (NR) 5. Yorke (3) 6. Mata (10) 7. Romero (N/A) 8. Walter (17) 9. Paulino (NR) 10. Anthony (N/A) 11. Wong (16) 12. Murphy (14) 13. Wikelman (12) 14. Valdez (N/A) 15. Perales (NR) 16. Jordan (7) 17. Lugo (NR) 18. TWard (19) 19. Bonaci (NR) 20. Hickey (N/A) 21. Coffey (N/A) 22. Kavadas (N/A) 23. Seabold (11) 24. Downs (5) 25. Rodriguez-Cruz (N/A) 26. Abreu (N/A) 27. German (NR) 28. Drohan (NR) 29. Kelly (N/A) 30. B Brannon (N/A) N/A= not in top 20

Another look at the ETAs for our top prospects: Graduated: 2020: none 2021: Dalbec, Houck & Whitlock 2022: Duran, Crawford, Winckowski, Bello (Oct 2022) 2023 2. Casas 4. Rafaela (late) 6. Mata (mid) 8. Walter (late) 11. Wong 12. Murphy (mid) 14. Valdez (mid) 23. Seabold 24. Downs 27. German 29. Kelly 2024 1. Mayer 17. Lugo 18. TWard 22. Kavadas 26. Abreu 28. Drohan 2025 3. Bleis 9. Paulino 13. Wikelman 16. Jordan 19. Bonaci 20. Hickey 2026> 7. Romero 10. Anthony 21. Coffey 25. Rodriguez-Cruz 30. B Brannon

What are the chances we take a step down at SS, but not two steps by signing Swanson or T Anderson? With the money "saved," we upgrade more at RF and pitching.

Not a platoon. He plays FT, but in LF when Ref plays RF or RF when Pham plays LF, which doesn't quite work out all that well, since both bat RH'd. Career splits: v RHPs .771 Pham (.668 in '22) .637 Ref (.812 in '22) v LHPs .845 Pham (.800 in '22) .728 Ref (1.005 in '22) Like I said, I'm really hoping we add a solid FT RF'er, but if we don't I still see a slight improvement over 2022 in RF and LF. Not a sure bet.

That's about as recent as it gets! LOL. This the same friend who called Mike Greenwell's defense the "pick the ball up, when it stops rolling defense."

The 4.98 ERA at Fenway does not help. He's 4.44 overall with the Sox, so he's much better on the road.

Maybe some ALC or ALW team should make an offer: 0.41 v OAK (3 GS) 1.84 v TEX (3) 3.00 v SEA (1) 3.43 v HOU (3) 4.91 v LAA (2) 2.13 v CLE (2) 2.25 v CHW (4) 3.12 v DET (1) 6.98 v KCR (4) 9.00 v MN (3) The Angels, Twins or Royals to maximize the effect.

Most notably, a Marlin starter.

Has he looked questionable over his last 15 starts, or not? yes, he's looked questionable a few other times since joining the Sox and always bounced back. I'm not saying he won't again, in fact, I expect him to bounce back. All I'm saying is he has "slipped back to looking questionable," as most 5ht starters do from time to time.

The winter is long enough to debate both 2022 and 2023, IMO. Of course, talking about 2023 will be more interesting and less of a bummer, I hope. On 2022, yes all teams have injuries, but ours seemed to all happen at the same time, and it's hard for any GM to have 4 capable back-up SP'ers on the 40. That's what we needed for a stretch, while needed 2-3 for much of the remainder of the season. The loss of our RH'd hitting and defensive whiz of a CF'er hurt, too. Injuries are certainly not the whole story. Many of our returning vets declined or greatly declined. As for 2023, we need to improve or upgrade at so many positions, it's hard to keep one's head from spinning. It's likely we will have to settle on slight improvements at some positions while trying to greatly upgrade others. I doubt the budget will be big enough to upgrade 7+ positions by adding players. I doubt the plan is to trade several prospects, like we did from 2016-2018. either, so with a limited budget and a long term priority being firmly in place, it won't be easy to get to a highly competitive spot in 2023. Not impossible- but very difficult. Here is one reason I am optimistic, today, anyway: I do think we have slightly improved our outlook at several positions, already. Maybe not bu enough to say, "WOW!" but a good chance to see improvement over 2022. Catcher: I like McGuire/Wong better than Vaz/Plawecki. I know many disagree, and that is fine, but we are also cutting salary here by over $5M. (That can be used elsewhere.) 1B: I like Casas/Hosmer/Dalbec better than Dalbec/Cordero. This is not close. This is also a min salary position, when other teams spend $20+M at 1B. (More $ for elsewhere- see a theme here?) 2B: I expect Story to play more and hit better. I don't think that is unreasonable. (This is a costly position that we are b asically locked into.) 3B: I expect Devers to do better in 2023 and continue his improved defense. LF: If we bring Pham back, I like Dugo/Pham better than Dugo/Duran. Even with no Pham we could be better by just seeing less of Duran. CF: I see a major improvement here, if Kike can stay healthy. RF: We can't get much worse. If we keep Pham, it allows us to use Dugo in RF when refsnyder does not play. I know many doubt Refsnyder's skills, but Dugo/Ref> JBJ. The two positions in serious doubt- are SS and DH, but as I mentioned, we are not spending big anywhere else, except 2B. Our DH OPs is about .750, this year, and even if we spend nothing on DH, we may be able to cobble together a .750+ OPS by rotating and platooning Hosmer, Pham, Dalbec, Ref, Cordero or even E Valdez at DH. Not all can be on the 26, b ut between all of them, I don 't think .750 is all that bad. If we bring Bogey back or replace him without losing too much ground and add a RF'er or RF/DH type, we should be able to gain enough at RF/DH to compensate for a minor loss (hopefully just minor at worst) at SS. So, hopefully a gain on offense and defense. The pitching is the area that is so in doubt, I have to think we need major upgrades here, and other than SS and RF, all or our remaining resources need to be focused here. I think we need an ace, a closer and a solid SP/RP (depending on where Houck and Whit are slotted) or two solid SPers and 2 solid RP'ers- MINIMUM. It will likely take one significant trade, that I'm not sure we do plus major spending on the staff. I like Bello and Pivetta. I like Whitlock, Houck, Schreiber and even Barnes, but that is just 5 arms. Adding just 4-5 solid arms may still not be enough, but with my expected budget and belief that we might not want to trade top prospects, I'm not sure it's doable. (There goes my optimism!)

He's actually looked like a #2 (#1 on some teams) for pretty long stretches, a #3-4 for even longer stretches, but a questionable #5 for others, like lately. 5.67 in his last 7 starts looks "questionable," but I'm not calling him a questionable 5th starter for 2023. He just looks like one, now. His ups and downs, since joining the Sox make me believe we will see enough ups to keep him looking like a solid #5, a decnet #4 and possibly a decent #3, but hopefully we'll have 3 better than him in 2023. Here is a breakdown of his ups and downs with the Sox: GS ERA FIP 2 1.80 3.39 (2020) 11 3.77 3.27 (start or 2021) 10 5.47 5.49 (middle 2021) 10 4.43 4.20 (end of 2021) 5 7.84 5.48 (start to 2022) 12 2.60 3.18 (middle of 2022) 15 5.62 5.36 (last 15 starts) and 5.67/6.08 last 7 GS Overall, he has been an excellent 5th starter, often needed as our 2/3. He's done fine as a 2-4 for much of his time, here. I'm glad to have him back as our 4/5, next season, but right now, he is not pitching very well, and a 15 game sample size is not tiny. One knowledgeable baseball fan I know, often says, and there is a grain of truth to this, "A starter is only as good as his last start." While I don't think this is true, it often feels like it is.

There is still a few games left to move the needle on some of these numbers, but here is a look at our current OPS Against and OPS numbers: OPS Against (200+ PAs Against) Only players still on the team are listed, here: .570 Schreiber (more PAs Against than Houck) .608 Houck .639 Whitlock .670 Wacha .750 Pivetta .753 Hill .768 Nate .776 Bello .793 Brasier .794 Crawford .844 Winckowski 100-199 PAs Against .668 Strahm .680 Barnes .763 Danish .855 Ort Under 100 .494 Kelly .589 PValdez .719 Bazardo 1.194 Seabold 1.367 German 1.376 DHern OPS (100+ PAs) PAs listed, if 100- 200 .894 Refsnyder (173) .889 McGuire (101 w Sox only) .874 Devers .832 Bogey .778 JD .742 Dugo .737 Story .727 Arroyo .714 Pham (Sox only) .697 Cordero .645 Duran .635 Dalbec .634 Kike Under 100 PAs .860 Almonte (25) .843 Casas (81) .782 Ja Davis (12) .645 Chang (21) Sox only .611 Hosmer (45) Sox only .608 Wong (47) .427 Downs (41) .322 Sanchez (44)

Of course, I disagree with the last sentence, but the rest was a fine summary of where we are at. I think it is hard to know how well or poorly Bloom will do this winter, especially if upper management changes the priorities to some extent. Bloom's first year was a massive budget-cutting winter. That will not happen, this coming winter. Bloom's second winter saw an uptick in spending, but with 15-20+ slots on the 40 needing serious upgrading and a spending budget of about $40M, Bloom missed on a few of his few key signings. Richards: miss M Perez: miss (but the guy is now showing he can pitch) Kike: was well worth the $7M x 2 Marwin and other $2-4M paid players were mostly busts, except for Renfroe. The Beni & Ottavino trades were made for the future with hopes for some present help. This past winter looked like a repeat of the 2021 winter, until suddenly we signed Story in late March. However, the major additions made, this year, with the exception of JBJ & Paxton did better than those of 2021, although the W-L record did not reflect this. Wacha and Hill did way better than Richards and Perez and cost less. Paxton was more about the future, but he gave us nothing, this year, and now the option looks in doubt. The big splash Story signing was marred by injury and left the grade incomplete. Some minor additions have turned out to be the big success stories for 2022: Schreiber & Refsnyder, although the latter's sample size is rather small. Strahm, Diekman and Robles, combined, did not help the pen-which turned out to be one of our major weak areas. In season moves have been Bloom's best area, IMO. The minor sell-off in 2020 brought us Pivetta and some prospects with decent or dimming outlooks. The 2021 moves brought us Schwarber, Robles, Davis, Iggy and Shaw, who helped get us over the hump and into the playoffs. While this year's moves were widely criticized as not going far enough for the here and now, or not dumping enough to get under the tax line, the moves not only improved the 2022 team that was going nowhere, quickly, they helped our future even more. Not many GM can pull that off. McGuire for Diekman & his remaining $4M for 2023 was a great move. We will actually be paid to improve our catching position in 2023 and beyond. Pham and Hosmer were very low cost additions for Groome & Northcut. (We also added 2 prospects: Max Ferguson who is top 10 in BBs and SBs & Cory Rosier) Both slightly improve our depth in 2 key areas. I might be wearing rose-colored glasses, but it's hard not to be impressed with the minor league numbers of Enmanuel Valdez and Wilyer Abreu, the two prospects received for Vazquez. Valdez (500 PAs) .296 28 107 with 65 XBHs and a .918 OPS (54 Hrs in last 865 PAs) Abreu (457 PAs) .247 19 73 but led the minors in BBs with 114 (.399 OBP) plus 31 SBs with just 3 CS (.834 OPS) Of course, all the prospects Bloom had hoarded will not produce at the ML level, but he has greatly improved our chances at some meaningful farm help in the near and extended future. That was one area he was told to improve, and he has at least made a valiant effort. It looks like some positive farm infusions are beginning, most notably with Bello & Casas, but I do think some that stumbled out of the gate, will improve, next year (Wong, Crawford, German.) Guys like Duran, Winckowski, Seabold and Downs look highly doubtful, but maybe one turns it around in the minors and repositions himself as a hopeful. Post prospects like Whitlock, Houck, Dalbec and others offer a mixed bag of hopefuls had hopes dashed or nearly dashed. Lets see what Bloom can do, this winter. When I look at the totality of his moves, I'm not sure why so many are so pessimistic, but certainly I may be too optimistic, as well. His smaller moves, like Arroyo, Pivetta, Whitlock, Schreiber, McGuire and Refsnyder seem to his strong area, but with recent signings like Wacha, Hill and Story looking better than those in 2021, I'm hopeful he will connect, this winter. He needs to hit on 75% or more of his significant additions and cannot repeat a trade like JBJ. Will he trade some prospects? Will he be forced to reset the tax? Will he spend the $60+M on 3-4 players or dilute the money over 5-7 players. (I'm not sure the roster crunch will allow 7 without a 3 for 1 type trade being involved.) It's the "flashpoint winter" for Bloom.

Nick has slipped back to looking like a questionable 5th starter after flirting with 3/4 status more often than not, since joining the Sox. ERAs by our starters (some inning in relief for some pitchers) 3.06 Wacha (22 GS) 3.18 Sale (2 GS) 4.05 Nate (19) 4.41 Hill (25) 4.48 Nick (31) 3.15 Houck (4) 3.45 Whitlock (9) 4.39 Bello (9) 5.47 Crawford (12) 5.75 Winckowski (14) 11.29 Seabold (5) .

Nimmo wont go one. Yes, please no Gallo!

We may even sign a RF'er for 1 year.

If Google is an inside connection, then maybe. They have mentioned resetting and also words that clearly mean it is a priority, at times. They have not said "cliff," but I did not Google that. They have said things like the team needs to focus on rebuilding the farm, which we can all interpret differently, but I'm not sure they said that, too often, between 2016 and 2018. Sometimes, what is not said, can be telling, but of course that's just speculation.

I never said you said that. I just added more details to my opinion on the matter.