moonslav59

Sure, Skippy.

Typical

Nice one- "Skippy." I was responding to your statement, "Every thing that Epstein did in those early years was approved by Lucchino..." Now, you move the goalpost and soften your point, once confronted with the facts, AS USUAL. I expect, now, you will ask me to go take issue with the author of the article you got your wrong information from. You made a point that is not factual, or at least is in doubt, and then acted like it was gospel. Then, once exposed, you change your tune to a more general statement. Just own up, Skippy. Admitting a mistake is a sign of strength not weakness.

Top Sox OPS+ (Rank in PAs in 2022) 153 McGuire (17) 150 Devers (3) 144 Refsnyder (14) 127 Bogey (1) 122 Ja Davis (20) 115 JD Martinez (4) 111 Arroyo (11) 110 Vazquez (7) 109 Pham (15) 100 Verdugo (2) 97 Story (5) 92 Cordero (10) 83 Duran (12) 77 Dalbec (6) 73 Hosmer (16) 69 Kike (9) 61 JBJ (8) 47 Plawecki (13) 32 Wong (23) 18 Downs (19) -6 Sanchez (18) OPS Against .535 Familia .547 Scheiber .578 Wacha .584 Sale .589 Valdez .594 Feliz .595 Whitlock .608 Houck .634 Sawamura ,665 Danish .670 Strahm .697 Barnes .710 Pivetta .742 Davis .744 Diekmna .774 Eovaldi .783 Crawford .786 Hill .810 Brasier .832 Robles .859 Winckowski .930 Ort .955 Bello 1.296 Seabold 1.376 DHern

More goalpost moving.

You do i know, it takes two to trade, right? It is extremely difficult to make significant trades before July, and the 3rd WC slot might have made it even harder. I'm not saying it was impossible, and usually decent 1Bmen are plentiful, but for all we know, Bloom tried hard but could not pry any from anyone. If he could have and didn't, then I'll agree: big mistake.

I understand why, but wondered what you felt was the bigger mistake- even in hindsight.

True, but my point was about which was worse? Renfroe or not getting under the tax line at the deadline.

We started the season with a young 1Bman who had an OPS over .800 in his first 600 PAs. We had our best prospect, who happened to be ML ready as the 3rd string 1Bman behind Dalbec & Shaw. The position went into the gutter, immediately, but it takes a while to make the decision to make a change, and it seemed like just when Casas was going to get the call, he got hurt in late May. The Cordero experiment was an utter failure. I think it's fair to criticize Bloom for not scouring the trade lines to find some 1Bman, despite the norm being against May and June trades. I'm not sure, if they held out hope that Dalbec would heat up, like he did, last year or that Casas's injury took longer to heal than the expected, but whatever the reason, the 1B position was horrific. (BTW, Hosmer has not been great, either.) I don't see 1B as a major failure on Bloom. I think the plan was sound: it just failed. I guess all player failures are the GM's fault to some posters, but on this one, I only give Bloom partial blame.

No doubt. Part of me wonders if the Story signing was an after thought or reactionary move, but no matter what, not getting under the limit at the deadline has to be viewed as a major mistake. Worse than the Renfroe trade? Maybe. It seems to me, that many of those most critical of Bloom, see the deadline mistake as the opposite of this. They wanted him to make moves to increase or chances at making the "crapshoot" playoffs. Notably, this would mean trading some of the farm, which seemingly goes against one of Henry's directives. To me, that would have been an even bigger mistake, and yet, to me, the criticism seems wrongly placed.

It's not total or unqualified support, either. Take the building of the farm high priority given to Bloom. On paper, it looks like he's done a fine job fulfilling that or at least has us on the right path. Some of us are happy with the gained potential value and have spoken well of Bloom's work in this area, but we won't see the results for years to come. One thing does seem certain, he's not trading away many prospects for sa reason, and that reason is likely that building the farm is a very high priority of the organization's very top leader(s). Another area some of us have "taken Bloom's side" is in the area of the budget. There are those who think Bloom has chose to cut or limit spending each of his 3 years, or that the Betts/Price trade was not largely a budgetary choice, in nature. To some of us, the dead money and declining production of some of our highest paid and/or longest tenured players has been something in need of fixing, and this winter will see a lot of money coming off the books (not all dead money but much of it is.) Do these two areas have anything to do with building the current team and the results of the current team? I'd say yes. Others would call it excuse making, and in many ways, it is, but context is needed when judging any GM. Yes, 3 years is a long time, despite 2020 hardly being a real year. The hopes 2021 brought us was largely of Bloom's making along with decent years by many of DD's guys. Now, things have gone sour, and of course the man in charge holds a lot of the responsibility. Nobody has said he did everything right. Nobody has even said he's done 70 or 80% right. (Not many GMs do.) I seriously doubt they fire Bloom for doing a pretty good job on 2 of the highest priorities and being one for two on the third one.

Some view the ace as the best starter on each staff, so there could be 30 aces in MLB, but IMO, some have 2+ "aces."

No matter what? If we surprisingly win it all, he'll be gone?

Yes, nobody on a farm has fewer questions.

I would, too, especially at or near $7M x 2. Despite the injury and poor 2022 numbers, when he did play, I still view his signing as worth it- barely.

I'd be thrilled to get either or both of these guys, and getting a solid #2, 3 or even 4 is always a good thing. Luzardo is a question mark, to some degree, but no more so than many we have, right now in our system.

Cora for Mayor!

Bloom was supposed to know what Red knew, and traded him before the real Kike was exposed.

He does hit a lot of fly balls, but yes, Kike not batting was a head-scratcher. He did do great when he got to hit the next inning. He put the ball in play!

Bloom was very aggressive on the Renfroe trade! (LOL)

Hard to read this mashing, but yes, Bloom is certainly responsible for a lot of what went wrong. Isn't blaming Bloom also just an excuse to let the players off the hook? Excuses are for losers, right? The whole team failed, and stop with the Bloom constructed the whole team, because he didn't- just like every GM in charge for less than 5-7 years or so.

Richards hole: Wacha - good or bad? Perez hole: Hill- good or bad? Andriese/Ottavino holes: Strahm/Schreiber/Diekman- good or bad? Marwin/Arroyo/Chavis/Arauz hole: Story- good or bad? Santana hole: Refsnyder- good or bad? We all know the Renfroe for JBJ deal was horrible, but wer eall these others? All we hear is about this one, as if it was all he did or tried to do. By "more aggressive" you mean pay more, right? Where does he pay less to pay more? He didn't have an unlimited budget. Non of these factors concern you, but they are part of being a real GM's factors.

It was barely a winning team in 2019 and then was forced to cut mega salary. You can choose to ignore fa cts and context, but it doesn't make it go away. Yes, the Renfroe deal sucked, but it was one of many. Had we signed Schwarber and not Wacha, Hill, Strahm and others or Schwarber for Story, we'd be no better off.

I don't think many would disagree with this. (Maybe Kimmi?) I guess the next question might be, just how good do we have to be in 2023 to satisfy different posters? Can we come close to getting to the WS (again), and look very promising for 2024, or do we need a ring or WS appearance?

Bloom signed Nate, Sale, Bogey, Dalbec, Vaz, Plawecki, JD, Brasier, and many others? Are you saying he should have almost totally white-washed the team over the past 2-3 years, and known exactly which ones were about to decline and dump them for the best he could get. Then, on a limited budget for nearly the full 3 years, he was supposed to fill all the gaps by being close to 100% correct on all signings and trades. That was your idea of a good plan? (I don't want to put words in your mouth, so please explain, and please, no "he should have convinced JH to spend more" as part of your suggested plan.)