moonslav59

Not only was Bloom supposed to predict the future and sign or trade for better players on the tight budget handed, him, he was supposed to magically produce a bench capable of handling a ton of injuries, because injuries are just an excuse.

I almost always do. many times my favorite teams have been underdogs, too.

True, but most of our injuries happened after the 20th game of the season.

I think for fans, yes, the true goal is to watch your team win it all. The secondary goal is to be competitive as much as possible, and when not, at least be a bit entertaining. To owners and some GMs, who know their first priority is owner profits not winning, the number one goal is probably to make money. The second goal might be to win rings, compete a lot or to give your customer (the fan) the perception that you are good enough to compete.

What's interesting to me, is that we are now 49-40 since the first 19 games of the season, despite all the injuries and 2 significant declines from Bogey and JD.

True enough! I'd rather be a Rays fan than half the teams in MLB that spend way more than them.

Yup, and Henry might have known when he hired Bloom, he would make a change once the farm was built back up. (Maybe not. Maybe, he wants to build a sustainable farm system and not hire a plunderer.)

If our big 3 hitters ever wake up from their funk, the supporting cast has been giving it their all: 14 day OPS 1.250 Dugo .957 Arroyo .833 Dalbec .786 Pham .784 McGuire These guys, not so much... .586 Duran .584 Hosmer .577 JD (.670 last 7 days) .564 Devers (.661 last 7 days) .523 Bogey (.554 last 7 days .375 Plawecki .236 Kike Our pitching staff has a .496 OPS Against in the last 7 days! May the DFA Brasier posters be aware: Last 9 PAs Opps are 0-9 with no BBs Whitlock 0-9 with 1 BB in 10 PAs. Sawamura 1-10 no BBs Pivetta 1-22 w 3 BBs Wacha 2-23 1 BB Barnes 2-11 0 BB (Nothing more than singles for all the above hits allowed.) Hill 3-18 0BB (1 HR) Crawford 2-19 4 BB (1 HR)

Gotta keep the peddle to the metal.

More than just "get under the cap." it was a massive payroll cut that put us significantly under the tax line (about $10M under.) The 2020 salaries were pro-rated, so it's hard to compare apples to apples, but we all know we cut a lot more salary than we added. In 2021, we added about $40M in new spending, but lost about that much in expiring or traded salaries. Only the Story signing in late March of this year, did the negative trend end.

Until the Story signing, the Sox GMs went a pretty long stretch where the new money spent did not equal departing money via trades, releases and free agency. If I'm not wrong, that time period lasted from the start of 2019 to March 20, 2022. That's almost 3 years. (Maybe even counting the Story contract still leaves a net negative dollar amount.) According to cot, we started the 2019 season at $236M and ended the season at $228M. We are at $141M now, counting $16M for Price, so the Story signing apparently put us a net $5M up, but for over 3 years, we were a net negative on new spending. He's done something like this, before, so I'm not alarmed, but some just look at the total budget and wonder why Bloom is not more successful. Max has done a good job showing how little many of our biggest contracts have contributed to the 2022 team. Your point is still correct, but some context may be needed..

They miss a lot, but hit enough to make an impact. (Mazza wasn't too bad in '21.) It was Beeks (Nate trade) that let up the granny, last night in NY.

5-4 keeps us in it, but makes it tougher. Remember, each win we get means a loss to a team we are competing with. We'll still have a month left to the season with many games vs TBR and TOR. Sure 6-3 or 7-2 would be better, but 5-4 will keep us alive. Beat PIT, today!

And, what are we hearing from many of us fans and posters? "We better lock up Bogey and Devers, or I'm going to be very mad!"

One aspect of being a GM must be maddening. You want to keep a star on your team and offer him a fair or slightly above market rate deal, but what is the market? The market is really what the wildest GM offers or MIGHT offer, but how do you know what that number is, or if teams like LAD and NYY will even pursue your player? So, if you want to keep Bogey, do you have to offer Seager or Correa type deals, and if you don't, some fans will blast you to kingdom come? The Sox top brass have made some serious mistakes, in the past, with lowball initial offers and slow secondary offers, if any. No doubt, but it's not an easy thing to do. I think they were fair with Betts. They were lucky Bogey took his last contract, but now at this age, I'm not sure they want to go much higher than Story's deal, and personally, I can't blame them. The Story deal is already looking a bit scary. Ideally, you lock young stars up early, like the Braves and Rays do, but we did sign Whitlock like that, and I think we tried to get Betts & Devers to do that a few years back, if I'm not mistaken. It's a rough business for guys just under the1 or 2 highest salary teams.

Just with Kavadas. He should not ignore: 79 BB - 78 K Bonaci (.400 OBP) 2nd on the farm in total walks 53 BB- 60 Ks Hickey (.412 OBP) Kavadas has 86 BBs and 112 Ks- not a bad ratio but not the best.

This is a big part of the "Rays way." So many player have their career years with them, and often they move on to be replaced by the next Springs. Sometimes, they can trade them for the next Springs.

The Yanks came back to beat the Rays! We are back to .500. We are now 4 down (5 in the loss column) to TBR & TOR. There are 3 teams between us and TBR/TOR. Lots of baseball left. This is not the same team as a few weeks ago.

What a comeback! The loss to the Rays helps the Sox hopes stay alive.

Chapman is toast.

We hear a lot of criticism of how badly our offense is doing. Imagine having these numbers from all your batters with 70+ PAs (17 of them): OPS, listed in order of players by most PAs 755 767 563 726 819 740 704 724 649 714 475 788 627 477 499 584 548 This is the Tampa Rays. (.681 team OPS) Now, how about the Yanks? (14 players with 70+ PAs) .761 team OPS 1.061 798 825 729 690 640 644 807 621 723 609 1.138 621 526 Now, the Sox (before tonight): 14 over 70 PAs (.719 team OPS) 818 714 933 779 713 759 649 578 660 603 651 738 469 885 (Pham is at .831 but only 59 PAs)

Where are all the DFA Arroyo posters?

If JD can keep walking 2-3 times a game, he can be productive. I'm not sure why pitchers are so afraid to pitch to him, though.

If the guy could just stay healthy...

The fact that he is the 41st best player on the Pirates shows just how bad the Sox were in 2020.