moonslav59

Everything I said about Vaz, I said before and some for years. We traded 2 months of a soon-to-be 32 year old catcher, during a season, where you and others seem to believe almost everyone on the team not acquired by DD sucks. IMO, we should have traded more expiring contracts, but the funny thing to me is that it seems Bloom did not, in order to keep fans like you happy. Boy, did he miss the mark!

It seems funny to me, that some of the guys bashing almost everything about Cora, Bloom and the roster construction, were the same ones that seems to think we were just a couple trades away from a ring. Did they expect Bloom would make some great trades after he has sucked in every trade up to now, according to them? Did they think Bloom had constructed a roster just 2-3 key pieces away from maybe winning a ring? It seems like Jekyll and Hide, to me. The vibe I got from this team convinced me we were toast. The slim hope has never been extinguished, and I can understand the position that we "owe this team." especially guys like Bogey, JD and Nate some significant additions to get us closer to a chance at glory, but to me the odds were too low to justify sacrificing future odds for the here and now. I guess today's society is high on instant gratification, and the thought of sacrifice is not viewed as a virtue, anymore, but baseball is a business, and keeping the fans' perception's high is part of what brings the cash in. I think Bloom tried to walk the tightrope by not hurting the future by anything more than losing Groome, but he added 2 more years of control at catcher, an option on a RH'd hitting OF'er and a few prospects that seem to be on the rise, this season. Kinda "meh," to me, but I'm clearly in the minority of most Sox fans.

He did have a nearly identical career OPS away as Bogey, so if away OPS is the true measure of what a hitter can do, I'm thinking Story's total OPS decline was expected on the "home" front, but should not have been on the away front. .752 Away pre 2022 .625 Away 2022 I'm hopeful he can bring that back up to near .750, when healthy, and if he can hit over .800 at Fenway, he'll have a total OPS very similar to Bogey's career OPS.(BTW, he's hitting .800 at Fenway, this year.) All speculation, of course, but it's not just about his Coors numbers. That was only half the equation. He still plays half his games on the road- same as everyone.

The top 6 salary guys DD inherited had about an 18 bWAR in DD's first year, and that's not counting Uehara. While Pablo was "deadwood," it's not really comparable to Bloom's "deadwood." Bloom's top 6 contracts gave him 5.1 bWAR, led by 2 from JBJ. Pro-rate that to a 162 game season and it's maybe a 13 bWAR, but it's hard to imagine JBJ ending up with a 5+ BWAR in 2020. On top of that, DD was not forced to trade his best players to help shed Price's contract the DD made, BTW. How would 2016 have gone had DD not been able to sign Price, and was forced to trade Porcello to get rid of half of Pablo's contract?

Bloom probably viewed the return of pitchers from the IL as the pen calvary. It certainly was a strange deadline for the Sox. I'm not sure any fans are totally happy about what went down. Maybe that's impossible, anyway.

You think Bloom wants him, next year, at $6M?

I don't get why they did either. The paying of the full contract was insane. Maybe they think Tatis will play DH for a while, when he returns. Maybe they like Groome.

You are playing strawman. I never said you wanted to trade them. You missed the point, completely, again.

Look at the facts that show most pitchers do much better with any catcher not names Vazquez. The fact that Vaz has hit under .660 in half his seasons- under .585 in 1/4. The fact that Vaz turns 32 very soon and is a FA, after this season. The fact that McGuire is 27 and has 2 more low cost, arb years, in seasons where money will likely be tight with many slots to fill. The fact that every trade is not valued on what each player has done on offense, this year only. It's about cost, years of control and defense, too. Your fatc are accurate, but selected to support your opinion. That's fine, but they are not all the facts.

I thought Hosmer was really good on defense. I think we trade Casas and maybe Dalbec. Just a hunch.

We heard a lot of crying about Pablo, HRam and Porcello (until his Cy Young season), not to mention Pedey & Rusney. DD's first season: Inherited: (bWAR in 2016) 23 HRam 2.6 21 Porcello 4.8 (Cy Young) 19 Pablito -0.2 16 Papi 5.2 13 Pedey 5.4 13 Buch 0.1) 11 Rusney (not on tax line) 9 Uehara (0.7) Core (bWAR 2016): Betts 9.5 JBJ 5.8 Bogey 3.8 Leon 2.9 Wright 1.9 Shaw 1.7 Holt 1.6 Beni 0.8 Ross 0.8 Erod 0.4 Hembree 0.4 Barnes 0.3 Tazawa 0.3 Spent winter '15-'16 $210M/7 Price $13M/2 Young (Traded for $13M Kimbrel) Bloom: Inherited: (2020 bWAR in short season) 32 Price- traded ?? Betts- traded 25 Sale 0.0 (INJ) 22 JD -0.7 20 Bogey 1.6 17 Nate 1.2 13 Pedey 0.0 11 JBJ 2.0 8 ERod 0.0 (COVID) 5 Vaz 0.9 4 Beni -0.1 3 Barnes 0.3 Core: (2.1 Dugo in Betts trade) 1.3 Houck 0.7 Devers 0.6 Dalbec 0.6 Plawecki Spent: 6 M Perez 1.1 4 Pillar 0.7 3 Peraza 0.0 3 Moreland 1.2 min Weber 1.2 Min Munoz 0.6 Min Mazza 0.5 Min Arroyo 0.2 Min Puello 0.2 added Pivetta 0.6

My point was to highlight... .756 Away Bogey .752 Away Story (Pre-2022)

To revisit the 2023 budget framework: Luxury Tax Dollars ($Millions) 31 Players on 40 Man, now SP 25.6 Sale 8.5 Pivetta (Arb 2 of 3) .72 Winckowski (pre Arb) .72 Crawford (pre Arb) .72 Mata (pre Arb) .72 Bello (pre Arb) minor Seabold (pre Arb) minor Groome (pre Arb) RP 9.4 Barnes 4.7 Whitlock 1.5 Brasier (Arb 3 of 3, if he's not traded or DFA'd by '23) 1.1 Taylor (Arb 2 of 4) 1.1 Davis (Arb 1 of 3- no options remaining) .80 DHern (Arb 1 of 3) .73 Houck (pre Arb) .73 Schreiber (pre Arb) .72 Danish (pre Arb) minor P Valdez (pre Arb) minor K Ort (pre Arb) C ~1 McGuire (Arb 1 or 3) .72 Wong (pre Arb) .72 R Hernandez (pre Arb) 1B .73 Hosmer (Padres paying all but min salary) ~1.0 Cordero (Arb 2 of 3) .73 Dalbec (pre Arb) 2B 23.3 Story 1.3 Arroyo (Arb 2 of 3, if he's not traded or DFA'd by '23) 3B ~25 Devers (Arb 3 of 3) SS .72 Downs (pre Arb) LF ~6.0M Verdugo (Arb 2 of 3) CF .72 Duran (pre Arb) RF ~1.5 Refsnyder (Arb 2 of 3) That's about $119M for 31 players. Add a few $Million for the other 9M combined and $16M for player benefits, and we'll be around $137M before spending a dime on additions or options (Pham $6M/ Sawamura $3M). To get to the threshold, we could spend $95M. For those who want us to extend or re-sign Bogey and Devers, here's how that might look, minimum: $26 x 5 Bogey $29 x 7 Devers (add $4M to projected arb cost) That's $55M, but I had Devers at $25M arb, so add $30M. If it's true we are re-setting after this season, then that leaves about $65M to fill all the rest of the slots not filled by in system players. Let's play best case scenario and figure Casas can play 1B, next year, and one young starter can take Hill's 5 starter slot. We need to fill the 1/2 slot (Nate) and the 2/3 slot (Wacha), unless you think our 5 man rotation will be Sale, Paxton, Pivetta, Winckowski and Crawford/Bello/Mata (or Whitlock). We also need a catcher and CF and RF, unless you want to go all year with Wong/RHern at catcher, or Refsnyder/Duran in RF and CF FT. And, who DH'es? Dalbec/Cordero? LOL!!! $60M to fill... SP SP CF RF DH RP (I hope I got my math right, this time.)

We won a series vs a winning team! It looks like Bloom was right not selling. You can really tell how happy he made all the typical Sox fans keeping all the big boys.

Do you know what "salary dump" means?

There seems to be many bottom lines around here, lately.

It's not name-calling, and it's 100% truth. The guy was told over an over we are paying Hosmer the min salary, yet he persists. If it's not comprehension issues, what is it? PS: This isn't the first time. Hate the deal all you want, but it's not a "waste of money."

And every single GM could have spent their winter budget better, in hindsight. Also, this was the first winter Bloom was allowed to go large and long on anyone, and Story's deal is about 1/8th completed. Did Bloom get his money's worth from Whitlock, Schreiber, Refsynder, Strahm, Pivetta, Wacha and others? Could that money have been spent worse?

Crickets...

Who would you sign to $140M/6, if you had to choose one? Player A: .873 Home .756 Away Player B: .972 Home .752 Away Or, is it pretty close?

Many of the anti-Bloom people have serious comprehension issues. If he's taking the place of the lowest paid player on the 26, we break even on the money. If he takes the place of anyone else, we save money. If Groome turns into something useful, we might regret it, but according to these guys, prospects are useless.

You do realize Devers, Bogey, Betts and yes, Vaz, were once prospects guys like you wanted traded away years ago.

I’ve never been a big Hosmer fan. His offense has been up and down, but it was mostly about the money. He’s a huge upgrade, this year and may allow us to deal Casas, this winter. I think, overall, we got better for 2022 without sacrificing anything from the future except Groome- someone I had little faith in anyway.

His offense has been up and down over the years. His defense and staff-handling has been hotly debated.

I hope so, but trusting our medical staff is tightening.