moonslav59

BTV accepted this multi-team deal: To BOS RHP Bednar SP J Quintana C Rodrigues (prospect) 1B Josh Bell To PIT Duran Dalbec Downs Gonzalez Jimenez Milas (C prospect from WSH) To WSH Jordan We get a decent rental SP'er in Quintana, a solid RHP in Bednar with several years of team control remaining, a solid 1B rental in Bell and a possible catcher for the future in Rodriquez. We give up more than Bloom would likely do, but this deal might make us top contenders, if other players are stepping up their game and one of Sale or Paxton are contributing. It allows Whitlock to return to the pen along with using Bednar is a pen role. Bell gives us a reliable 1Bman for 2+ months.

I guess "in over your head" might have varying comotations and degrees of suckiness among different posters.

Yes, and the one time he didn't, it was Wong not Plawecki. 2.93 v Vaz (70.2 IP) / 4.21 Career (182) 11.25 w Wong (4.0) N/A w Plawecki / 2.87 Career (53) Big Nate 3.10 w Plawecki (52.1) / 2.99 Career (162) 3.97 w Vaz (11.1) /4.55 Career (166) 1.93 w Wong (4.2) Wacha 0.40 w Plawecki (22.1) 3.69 w Vaz (31.2) Hill 2.89 w Plawecki (9.1) 4.72 w Vaz (40.0) Whitlock 0.00 w Plawecki (4) / 3.29 Career (13.2) 3.92 w Vaz (43.2) / 2.52 Career (107) 0.00 w Wong (1.0) Houck 1.41 w Vaz (32.0) / 1.55 Career (87) 9.28 w Plawecki (10.2)/ 6.31 Career (41) Davis 0.00 w Plawecki (8.0) / 4.38 Career (12.1) 2.16 w Vaz (16.2) / 2.17 Career (29) Note: some very small sample sizes and some very unbalanced IP totals in most cases- like Plawecki has not caught a single inning with Pivetta, this season.

Are they the only 2 catchers in MLB? But what about CERA...?

I doubt that is ever a reason for a promotion, since it's unknown the player will do better at the higher level. If the value increases with the promotion, it would be just as helpful to keep the player than to trade him, IMO. I think this kid is the real deal, and I think Bloom is looking at getting serious input from the farm over the next few years. That's part of the strategy of improving the long term outlook while building up the 40 man roster, at the same time. It's a delicate balance, but so far, Bloom has traded away very few prospects, and none that had super high value. The highest ranked prospect traded was Aldo Ramirez (correct me, if I'm wrong), and he was ranked 9th by soxprospects.com, last spring. He's added prospects Whitlock, German, Winckowski, Seabold, Binelas, Hamilton, Koss, Downs, Wong, R Hernandez and others via trades. Clearly, this has been a high priority. The results on many of these guys are yet to be seen. Surely, some will fail, but there is some good talent in this group, and some will likely do well. Whitlock has already shown a plus. Bloom has also benefited from some DD prospects that eventually rose up to ML readiness and have contributed, namely Houck and Dalbec, but there are more that are nearing ML readiness, soon- like Duran, Casas, Bello, Mata, Murphy and Rafaela, among others. I'm liking what I see on the farm, but we are still not a top 7-10 system. At best, we might be viewed as top 10-14.

Same with my state, but they don't need to pass the test to advance to the next grade. (IN high school, they do need to pass them to get credit, though.)

The other thing is that Arroyo hit pretty well, last year, and a platoon vs LH'd starters, which has been rare, this year, is such a small sample size, that one could argue, Arroyo was given a reasonable amount of time to find his 2021 offensive groove, but he failed. Blame Cora for his failure, but it's not like he was expected to hit .550. It's not like Refsnyder was a known plus, either. I'm not defending Arroyo in RF, but his poor offense could not have been expected. We've faced 16 LH'd starters this year to 46 RH'd starters, so we're talking about 25% of the games played and a 9th hole batter.

You don't think talking about predictions on win totals has to do with the moves Bloom made or didn't make? The title of the thread is Grading Bloom & Cora. It's fine to discuss them separately, but when you bring up expectations of wins, I don't think I'm going off on a wild tangent to bring up Bloom's influence in those expectations. I also find it interesting that expectations seem to factor into a manager's grades but not necessarily a GM's grade.

Do, Bloom gets and F on 2020, despite being handed a live gernade. He gets a B+ for 2021. He gets a B+ for 2022. That totals a C-. Gotcha. All GMs with a budget under $60M who have losing records are graded F. BTW, in most schools, new to the country students who know no English are not given an "F" in English.

I forgot Chavis at 2B and counting Verdugo as Betts & Price's replacment.

We did NOT make the playoffs on the back of those few players you listed, and you made the comment a bout Bloom not turning a bunch of "nobodies into a playoff team." I responded to that specific point. No, JD, Devers, Bogey. ERod and Barnes were not nobodies, but we did have a ton of nobodies from the #9 to 40 slot on the 40 man when Bloom took over. I'm not sure that is something that can even be debated. Maybe the #9 can be pushed to #12-40, but that means over 25 players were nobodies or close to nobodies, and YES, Bloom turned those nobodies into a supporting cast that allowed us to do better than 82-84 wins. Cora helped, too. He did not get nobodies to play better: he replaced them. Here is the end of year roster for 2019. Note: Betts and Price were forced out, Porcello, Moreland and Holt were a FAs to be. (Moreland was brought back) https://www.soxprospects.com/2019SE.htm Basically this: Rotation: Sale (IL) Erod Johnson Shawaryn KHart Pen: Workman Barnes Taylor Hembree Walden DHern Brasier Lakins Weber/ Brewer/Poyner (Houck) C: Vaz & Leon (Centeno) 1B: Sam Travis (Dalbec/Ockimey) 2B: Marco Hernandez (Chatham) 3B: Devers SS: Bogey (Owings) LF: Beni CF: JBJ RF: Gorkys Hernandez DH: JD

So, this kind of begs the question. If 2020 should not count and the expectation for 2021 was 82-84 wins, why does Bloom get a below C grade? Is it the 2022 season, so far? Does not getting a cheap RH'd bat for the OF and a bonafide closer really outweigh the additions of Story, Wacha, Hill, Strahm, Schreiber and Refsnyder- not to mention players like Whitlock, Pivetta and others added since the deadline of 2020? Does rebuilding the farm to respectability also factor into the grade in a positive way? Does the added long range budget concerns, which is only Story, a good or a bad thing?

Well, the GM did actually specifically say we needed a RH'd bat for the OF, so there is that. IMO, the late Story signing scuttled any plans to get a RH'd bat for the OF, and gave them a false sense of security with the idea that Arroyo could play OF. The Story signing also set Kike as the FT CF'er who bats RH'd, so that changed things a little, too. I'm not hung up on the RH'd bat in the OF as much as many, here. I think it was a minor choice that was or will be over-shadowed by Story at 2B and Kike in CF FT. I also think Bloom did very well spending in other areas- like Wacha, Hill and Starhm. Much better than his 2021 signings.

To add to this excellent point, if anyone expected better than 84 wins or a team that got 2 wins away from the WS, then wouldn't that imply they felt Bloom did an excellent job over the winter, right?

No, he turned a bunch of nobodies into different players that were better. The 2021 roster was vastly different from the end of season 2019 roster. Bloom acquired Whitlock, Pivetta, Kike, Renfroe, Arroyo, Dugo, Schwarber, Iggy, Shaw, Davis and Robles. Yes, he missed or broke close to even on others, but he created much of the roster.

Yes, you are right. Bloom was hired to better handle the situation than someone like DD, but I doubt he was hired with the expectation of the team becoming a top contender in 1-2 years- maybe even 3 years. I do agree, he largely missed on just about every "gem in the rough" attempt in 2020. We must have tried 25-30 of these types and just about nobody stuck. That was what he was hired to do, and he largely failed in 2020, but IMO, he failed to make the team a near .500 team not a winner as early as 2020, especially after seeing Sale on the IL, ERod miss the year with Covid, B eni miss 3/4 of the short season and Nate miss 1/4 of his starts. He traded a soon-to-be washed out Workman and Hembree for Pivetta & Seabold, and the following winter he made some lasting additions while improving the farm and lower part of the 40 man roster in a much quicker manner than I ever could have expected. The results are still to be seen. The "great farm" DD inherited was largely a bust, but he used their trade value masterfully. Bloom did not have that luxury. The farm was better than we thought, but there was very little trade value or ML ready prospects ready to step in and produce. To me, that has to be part of the grading rubric. Shouldn't your final grade be based on what could reasonably be expected? I know many disagreed with the strength of the roster after 2019. The "C" word was thrown around and hotly debated. It appears that those who thought the talk of a "C" expected more from Bloom than he has given us. Those who thought the 9-40 slots in the 40 and farm were a mess, post 2019, had lower expectations and a longer timetable to get back to competitiveness.

Hard to know that on the fly. Easy to know in hindsight. Many did not want to see Barnes get a chance to close, last year, but that iney-meany-miney-mo worked for a long time, anyway. Rp'ers are often up and down, and that's why you often see them recycled- hoping you hit them on an upswing, now and then. I agree, some things were given too long- somethings needed to be tried earlier, but I have the benefit of hindsight.

I understand the reasoning, and Cordero does not address the RH'd bat in the OF issue, but Refsnyder does.

I didn't like that call, either, but babying Hill might end up paying off in the long run.

soxprospects calls him a solid defender at SS, so I'm not sure how much better YS is on D.

He has to be viewed as hit or miss, but he's been due for a look-see for a while, now. Seabold & German, too.

I get your point, but who chose to play Arroyo in RF over JBJ v LHPs? Who chose to keep Refsnyder in AAA? (Maybe both Bloom & Cora had a say in that choice.) We are also seeing Cordero in the OF, more often than before- partially because Dalbec is starting to show signs of life in his bat, but still, he was an OF option all along, too. I'm not happy with the OF options Cora was given, either, but I try to view the overall roster and the limited resources Bloom was given to fill several high need areas. I'm not sure how much the either/or choices played a role in some decisions, but I think it wa sand still is a factor that needs to considered. Clearly, in hindsight, the Story and Diekman signings are at question, and the money used on them could have been used to sign a closer like Iglesias, a 2Bman like Iggy and an FT CF/RF'er that is better than the JBJ/Arroyo/Cordero/Refsnyder combo, but the season is till young. Trades can be made. Good signings have been made. Let's see how things play out.

I like Fitzy better. Management might go with Downs above YS and Fitzy. (I know he's in your dog house.)

Beni trade update: Beni: .752 w KCR (.762 since trade) Khalil Lee (to Mets): .400 in just 20 PAs/ .729 in AA '22 & .951 in '21 Cordero: .678 but 18 rbi in 122 PAs(.582 since trade) Winckowski: .562 OPS Against in '22/ 3.38 ERA/ 43K:8 BB in 43 IP F Valdez: 2-5 w FCL G Gambrell: 33 IP w GRE, last year 7.16 ERA/ Has not played in '22 L. de la Rosa: 2 IP w FCL

https://www.soxprospects.com/players/winckowski-josh.htm