moonslav59

Had we been 2-3 games up in the WC, maybe we'd have traded for Mancini & Lopez.

The whole "100 games" is hype. Were they supposed to replace Bobby Dee after 1 game? (Now, it's 99.) Shaw deserved at least a short look, too. Casas was supposed to be ML ready in April or May. To bash Bloom for not having the foresight to add a 4th ML quality 1Bman to the roster, when your winter spending budget was restricted is not something I can ever agree with. Waiting 40 or 45 games might be an arguable point, but even up until then, Casas was still healthy. To me, the earliest day Bloom could have/should have looked outside the organization was the day we knew Casas would be out for a while (May 25th?), and for all we know, maybe he did hit the phones, but nobody was selling. If my math is right, we went 60 games from the Casas injury to the Hosmer deal. We dumped Shaw, early. We gave Dalbec as long a look as he got, last year, when he started doing okay in early June, then exploded in early August. The Cordero at 1B experiment was a disaster, but many expected the Schwarber experiment at 1B to be one, too. I don't give Bloom a complete pass on 1B, but I don't view it as a major blunder, despite the results. He had bigger needs than 1B, last winter and into May.

True, but had they not traded Renfroe for JBJ, they could have traded him for a min salary or prospects, but they'd then need to fill the slot JBJ filled, and at the time, Refsnyder was not considered a viable option, even as a platoon option. The weird thing is, we could have started the year with Duran in LF, Kike in CF and Dugo in RF, but in April, Dugo was not good enough to play RF. Suddenly, it's okay.

That was the leading cause of my itchy scalp at trade time. I get wanting to improve RF defense in Fenway. I get hoping JBJ's offense maybe bouncing back. (It has over his whole career.) I get thinking the two prospects could even out any disparity between Renfroe and JBJ. But, the money disparity, on a restricted winter budget, made no sense. I know the $8M buyout for 2023 does not count on the tax line, but it's still $8M of Henry's money!

We have a lot of deadwood coming off the books, too. We don't have to fill every slot by free agency, but there are enough equal or better FAs out there to fill the slots we need filled. We can trade for a high salary, which would lessen the return needed for the upgrade. I think we fill 1B w Hosmer (free), Casas and Dalbec. We may not add a catcher and just go with McGuire and Wong/RHern as the back up. I'd be fine with this, if we can fill these next slots with equal or better talent than 2022: (not in order of high to loe priority) 2B/SS (wherever Story is not playing) CF RF DH (can be RF/DH or 1B/DH) SP (1/2 type) SP (3/4 type) RP (Maybe get a catcher, utility IF/OF, SP depth and pen depth) $90M+ for 6 slots should be fine. We can get better. Replace or re-sign Bogey JBJ Refsnyder JD Wacha Hill Diekman

This year reminds me of 2019. It looked good on paper in the prior winter, and then things headed south. Snakebite losses, and then morale was not there to overcome the obstacles. Blame the GM. Blame the manager. Blame the "team leaders." Blame, if you must. Bad seasons happen. Some expected- some not. I'm more optimistic about the future than I was after 2019. I'm clinging to that to help me get through the pain of '22.

Well, many of the Woo players are on the Sox, now. (Duran, Refsnyder, Wink, Crawford, Bello) It does seem like our best prospects are the far away ones, but Mata and Ward are looking promising with their returns from the IL. Casas still has some hope. I see less at Salem and Portland than Woo and GRE. Wong and RHern might yield a solid back-up catcher or more.

The no trade clause apparently gave him the courage to talk. I don't think it helped his chances at getting a higher bid from the team he supposedly wants to keep playing for. I'm going to say it again, I'm not seeing any positive influences, this year, from team "leaders" and vets like JD, Bogey, Nate and others. I'm not saying they haven't tried, but I'm not getting why they keep getting praised by some. It seems like those who blame Cora for being in last place are not only failing to blame the "team leaders," they seem to want to continue praising them.

The guy has one of MLB's best K/9 rates ever, after a small sample size start to his career, but what good is it? MLB History (80+ IP career) K/9 15.4 Josh Hader 14.8 Edwin Diaz 14.8 A Chapman 14.7 Devin Williams 14.6 C Kimbrel 14.5 D Betances 14.4 Karinchak 14.2 DHern

Good question. I hope we are, but who keeps track. The TB model has been brought to LA, HOU and BOS. HOU has not kept several stars, yet they remain on or near the top. Maybe, someday...

He had a 101 OPS+ over 6 seasons (2015-2020). That's more than half his career. Thats average hitting with stellar D. .247 BA .331 OBP .769 OPS Decent base-runner, too. They obviously were fooled by his short season success in 2020.

I really like Rafaela and some others like Kavadas may surprise. It does not look like we have any likely #1's or #2's in our current system, but we do have a lot of pitchers to hope 1 can rise to that level. Wink (.562 OPS Against in minors), Crawford & Seabold (.538) and others may have #3 or #4 as their ceiling, but I have hopes that one of the following guys can improve to a good possibility of becoming a #2: Bello (118 K-34 BB in 88 IP/ .561 OPS Against) Mata (47K-21 BB in 36 IP/ .589) Walter (75 K-7 BB in 58 IP/ .585) Murphy (110 K- 45 BB in 104 IP/.595) Gonzalez (89 K- 46 BB in 70 IP/ .677) Ward (25K- 5BB in 18 IP/ .470) Drohan (123 K-37 BB in 96 IP/ .711)

DHern just isn't getting any better. How much longer do we give this guy?

The team ended up with a no-hitter! 4.2 Wacha (1BB/8K) 2.1 Politi (3BB/2K) 2.0 Shugart (1BB/0K) Cordero went 3-5, solidifying his AAAA designation. Almonte went 4-5 w 2 HRs Castellanos raised his OPS zto .824 going 3-5 w an HR. Casas, RHern and Downs all had 1 hit and 1 BB Ward went 3.2 for POR and allowed just 1 H and 0 ERs. He did walk 5 and only K'd 2, so I'm not sure this is a good sign, but he's been out a while. Angel Bastardo went 5 IP for SAL, allowing 4 Hits and 0 ER (2BB/5K). The team walked 12 times in the 6-0 win. Twice the hits! Nothing all that exciting happened for GRE, exc ept the BB to Kavadas. (LOL)

2018-2021 Top TOR pitchers by IP ERA with catchers: Jansen, McGuire, Maile, Martin, Kirk, Adams Ryu 1.52 Martin (131) 3.62 Jansen (186 IP) 4.90 McGuire (61) Stroman 2.89 Jansen (118) 3.84 Maile (87) 4.03 Martin (393) n/a McGuire Gaviglio 3.45 Martin (44) 4.41 Jansen (74) 6.12 Maile (78) 7.27 McGuire (26) A Sanchez 3.30 Martin (341) 5.24 Jansen (79) 5.59 McGuire (10) 6.45 Maile (84) It appears McGuire was not all that good to start his career in the CERA area.

Here is a look at CWS pitchers' numbers with McGuire vs other CWS catchers: OPS Against Kopech .627 McGuire (342 PAs) .759 Zavala (27) .741 Grandal (23) Cease .517 Zavala (164) .524 McGuire (144) .739 Grandal (175) Lynn .718 McGuire (142) .870 Zavala (92) n/a Grandal (0) Cueto .670 Grandal (153) .710 Zavala (180) Giolito 1.070 McGuire (114) .779 Grandal (181) .709 Zavala (146) Lopez .515 McGuire (71) .784 Grandal (62) .530 Zavala (36) Hendricks .444 McGuire (66) .851 Grandal (56) .721 Zavala (28) Banks .455 McGuire (66) .796 Grandal (67) .610 Zavala (35) Ruiz .725 McGuire (65) 1.012 Grandal (57) .540 Zavala (56) Lambert .597 McGuire (63) .587 Zavala (31) .598 Grandal (16) Graveman .736 Zavala (65) .596 McGuire (62) .749 Grandal (72) Unbalanced: Velazquez .814 McGuire (160) .569 Grandal (26) .778 Zavala (18) Keuchel .971 Grandal n/a McGuire & Zavala

That's the whole point. Bloom is not choosing to go stingy. Henry is, and before you wish he'd be replaced, think again.

Who is running the Astros?

No disagreement. Now that Bloom is being allowed to spend, and the farm building is about 3 years in the making, we should start seeing results. I think we saw higher than expected results, last year, and less than expected, this year, so far. Let's see what the roster looks like in 2023. To me, that's when we will truly know just who Bloom is and what his philosophy is, assuming he can spend near the tax line.

Extra year and a third, which includes 3 playoff cycles to 1. Had we kept Betts, how could we cut the budget in an equal way? Who takes Price, alone? Who do we trade to make up for the Betts last arb year cost? How good would the team be had we chose trading other top players or including young players with Price, so we could dump his salary?

When a GM has several conflicting priorities that have changed from 2020 to 2021 and again to 2022, as well as winter spending budgets that ranged from negative going into 2020, to peanuts going into 2021 and then a sudden pivot going into 2022, possible a late winter pivot, at that, it's hard to blame the GM for seeming to not have a clear plan. I do think there have been some clear top priorities that have been consistent: 1. Build the farm- in both quantity and quality 2. Build up the 40 man roster depth to minimize the amount of gaping holes each season 3. Make very few long term commitments (one to date, and even Story's deal is not close to what we gave Price) 4. Keep the budget under the tax line for the first 2 years and maybe limit how much we go over in year 3 (2022) 5. Try to stay competitive, or at least create the perception we will be competitive, so fans buy season tickets and sign up for the cable packages. (I'm probably missing some.) Sometimes, but not always, #5 might conflict with the others.

Okay, I thought someone from the FO and "top brass" were pretty interchangeable, but you are right. There is a clear distinction. I did not intend to change the meaning of your post. I'm sorry. To be totally honest, I was never aware teams always send a member of the FO to every road game. I did not know DD attended every game or sent someone in his place. It does make some sense, I guess, but I don't see it as a significant mistake or something to bring up. I'm not saying I know better than you or others, especially on issues like this, but it's not something I really pay attention to or think it matters all that much. If someone enlightens me on to why it is an essential thing to do, I can be persuaded to think it was a mistake. I will say, I doubt I'll e ver be convinced it was a big enough mistake to bring up. I'd like to see the question posed to Bloom to hear his answer.

2020 was the low point. Not even close. Okay, if not having Cora in 2020 means it wasn't this FO, then it was the killing by the Yanks that was the low point- not a few minor trades made at the deadline. (IMO)

One of the major reasons we turned the franchise around and won in 2004 and 2007 was, at least in part, to the change in philosophy towards looking at OBP, forcing SP'ers to go deep into counts and other "spread sheet" aspects not greatly considered before the first ring.

What words did I put in your mouth? Honestly, I did not know it was standard procedure to always have a member of the top brass at every road game. Plus, even if it is, and I'm not sure it is, I don't think it's a big deal not to do it, especially at the trade deadline, when quick decisions need to be made, and having everyone in close proximity is not an illogical thing to do. I'm just not getting why it's such a big deal. I'm not playing naive. (I don't claim to be an expert on every area of MLb operations. I often defer to others in some areas- like MVP on prospects and players from other teams.) If it's not rocket science, explain to me why it is essential, and maybe show me where it is such a no-no for a MLB team to do this.