moonslav59

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.)

When you have many holes to fill and limited finances and resources, you have to rely on some hope, unfortunately... like Dalbec/Shaw/Casas at 1B and like Sale/Paxton/Wink/Seabold at SP'er. Bloom did get a few things wrong on the choices he did make, but several worked- just not enough to counterbalance all that went wrong. Go ahead and blame Bloom for not foreseeing the declines from nearly every returning vet, but don't deny he'd have been blasted had he traded Bogey, JD, Nate, Dugo, Duran, Whitlock and others who declines from '21 to '22, last winter.

You can hope you get more, but when you are a minute from the deadline expiring, you take the best you can get. Yes, he'd have been bashed like he was for the Betts trade, where I think he got pretty close to the best he could do, despite it not being what we hoped for. He could have also handled the Bogey situation differently. Had he known all along he'd never come close to the number Bogey should get, he should have told him so, and asked if he'd waive his no trade clause and tell him where he prefers playing. Had he known he would offer more, he should have sat him down- told him he wants him to stay and here is my top offer. If you don't want to take it, would you be okay with a trade to a team you'd like to play for? If Bogey refused to waive the no-trade, so be it, but I don't think a comp pick is near what he is worth. It is a no win situation, but you have to pick the best losing situation. To me, those were Bloom's biggest mistakes, and not that he should have sold the arm on some wild goose chase idea that we might have wont, this year, with a few major deals. There was a reason I started the 2023 Realistic thread on July 22nd. We were really out of it before then, but to me, it was clear by then. (Just my opinion, and I caught some flack for expressing it then.)

But, why insist on more than the most you can get? The only way we should not have traded these two (plus Hill, Kike and Strahm) is if we planned to offer QO's and we felt the return offered was worse than a comp pick. I did not mention Wacha, because I think he should get a QO. At the deadline, I was not so sure about that. Even that being said, we probably could have gotten more for Wacha than a QO, too.

Agreed. Let's make "Devers Forevers" a reality!

It is complicated, and I'm not sure I'm right, but basically, option years don't count as years but the buyout counts on the previous years.