moonslav59

All this over 1.7, and no hopes for Binelas or Hamilton.

I think the “defense” was based on “at the time” reasoning not in hindsight, I believe. I thought the deal looked like they paid him for 4 years over 5, figuring he’d miss a season. The guy was a top 3 pitcher in MLB for quite some time and was not all that old. What a killer that deal has become.

Agreed. I genuinely believe he wants to stay, and maybe this gesture emphasises it and sends that message to Henry and Bloom. It’s hard to know if he’d choose option 1 for a certain team(s). Since the Sox have announced he won’t be traded, it would take a lot for it to happen, now. Apparently, this years losing team has not caused Bogey to think about getting another ring, this year, elsewhere. Yes, a rare case.

And Bloom got stuck with the last years- the down years or injury years, yet he gets the blame because they were “good deals?”

Without humor, at a time like this, life would be pretty bleak.

To think this team was just Renfroe or Suzuki and Jansen away from a ring is a joke.

Yes! Players with no trade clauses agree to be traded very often. Players often use it to get more money or to have a say in where they go, not necessarily because they know they will want to stay in one place. It’s common knowledge to most fans.

Well said, and when you cobble a team together to try to be barely competitive as you build farm depth you have to pick and choose what areas to address first , and the team will be highly susceptible to ups and downs and the inability to deal with key injuries. Bloom did not have much to spend on filling all our needs, and certainly not enough to address the 7th, 8th and 9th SPee slots, in case 3-4 starters got hurt at the same time. Blaming him for neglecting certain areas is missing the big picture. Yes, this was the first winter he had the ability to sign a large and long contract player. It seems he whiffed on year one of the deal, but when you can only spend $5 and $7M on SPers you get what you pay for.

No doubt. I’m talking about seeing reductions in winter spending as well as overall budget declines that have occurred often under Henry. Sometimes just one, sometimes both and sometimes for 2-3 year stretches.

It is often hard for contending teams to have the patience to give a kid a fair and long enough look. Look at the 2021 Dalbec example. Now, in 2022, the patience that seemed like a virtue, last year, seems like it ended up giving us a false sense of security going into this year. Although the circumstances for getting a chance to see Wink, Crawford, Bello and Seabold are not ideal, it may end up being helpful to evaluate the chances any of these kids can be counted in for 2023 and beyond. Everyday prospects include Casas, Wong/RHern, and yes, maybe more time for Duran to grow and show. With a restricted budget likely, this winter, we’ll have to count on some of these kids to fill some important slots- like it or not.

Since Henry has gone through 1-3 year lulls in new spending several times, I think it's impossible to know that this is not just one of those times or something deeper. IMO, Henry will spend large, again, and it seems obvious to me, why this is not the time to do so.

And Sale & Price.

Bloom had a choice on the contracts he inherited? He was able to dump Price's, just in time, but had to throw in Betts to do it. (LOL) I keep hearing "$200M" like Bloom chose all those contracts. This was the first winter he was allowed to spend a significant amount. He basically had $40M last winter, to fill 8+ slots. His first season he was forced to cut salary. Would another GM have made Sale, Nate & others healthy? Bogey, JD and others play to their narms? $26M Sale 0.1 WAR $22M JD 0.9 WAR $20M Bogey 3.8 $17M Nate 0.6 WAR. That's just DD's top 5 salaries and it's 5.4 WAR for $121M. These 5 guys, alone represent about 60% of Bloom's entire budget. Sure, blame Bloom for Wacha, Hill, Story, Diekman and Barnes, but when you are forced to restrict your spending and need to fill about 20 slots, year 1, 10 in year 2 and 8 in year 3, I'm not sure how anyone could expect much better.

All but Downs have been DD guys. It will take time to see more Bloom prospects called up. (I don't see Cordero as a prospect.) I'm not saying they are a lock at being better, but the failures of the young pitchers, other than Wink, and not Bloom's. (Whitlock was a Bloom prospect, last season.)

Agreed. Some or much of the criticism does have merit, but much is unwarranted and or misdirected. Part of this rebuild plan was clearly to build up the farm. That can rarely be done in 2-3 years, even if you get top draft picks every year. One can argue the Germans, Hamiltons, Seabolds, RHerns, Bineleases and others are just fluff, and that may turn out to be true, but building a farm takes time, and then waiting for the fruits of your labor takes even more time. Expecting Bloom to unload the farm for instant gratification, can be viewed as absurd or as just missing the point of the plan. As bad as things look, do people really think we are one to two major prospects for stud deals away from winning it all? Totally empty the farm for Soto and Ohtani and then extend Devers and Bogey and have literally no budget room for anyone else and no farm to rely on for low cost role players? I've been overkilling the word "context," but I think it is a good word to describe what is missing in several posters' reasoning

Woo Seabold 4IP 4H 2ER 0BB 4K Casas 2-5 POR Koss & Potts 3-5 Rafaela 1-4 w BB SAL Jordan 2-5 GRE (in 7th inning) Yorke 2-3 (2B)

Here are the updated BTV for Sox players who will be orcan be FAs after, this year: 16.6 Bogey (player opt out & no trade clause) 0.7 Nate 0.6 Kike 0.4 Vaz 0.4 JD 0.4 Strahm 0.0 Feliz -0.1 Plawecki -0.6 Hill -0.6 Sawamura (option) -0.7 Wacha -10.8 JBJ (option) Selected others with longer team control: 16.2 Verdugo 13.5 Duran 5.7 Dalbec 3.5 Downs 2.9 Seabold 0.0 Brasier -0.4 Cordero -5.3 Diekman

Welcome aboard.

Cora and Bloom should have foreseen the Barnes implosion and had the next Uehara on the closer depth chart, instead of Ottavino. It's all on them. Fire Cora. Fire Bloom. Fire Henry. Let's make the Sox great, again. Back to the 70's, 80's and 90's!

Story got $24.3M x 6, so $25M x 6 sounds about right, to me. Story is a better defender, but his offense was in question due to his home & away splits (.955 to .740.) A look at Bogeys home & away splits kind of nixes that argument, to some extent: .873 Home .757 Away (only .017 better than Story's away split) The Seager and Correa deals seem like outliers. It's always hard to know what one GM might offer, but if we give Bogey $25M x 5 or 6 years and he bolts, I know some will complain and bitch, but I won't blame Henry or Bloom for it. I will wonder why we didn't get more than a comp pick for him, and who made that call.

Might be hard building chemistry when you have a revolving door of about 45 players. Not making excuses. The ball was dropped by many, including at the top.

No. We need to bring back the face, the heart and soul, the leader on a mega deal, because he’s done such a great job turning this team into what it is, today! (Sarcasm alert)

The truth hurts some. Silences others. Inspires trolls to deflect and distract.

Never say nobody. Too many contrarians around. Depends on how much the extensions were for, as well.

It’s a snakebite season. Call it a day and sell the nine.