moonslav59

Maybe the most interesting choice was signing Story to begin with, if the idea was not to play him where he is best suited. Now, I don't know about his arm injury and the role that might have had in the idea of signing him to play 2B, at least for 2022.

I think it's interesting to sign a plus defender at SS, the most important defensive position in baseball, then not play him there. I get why, but it still interests me, especially since I think Bogey is, at best, and average MLB SS, defensively. Whether you like the choice or not, I think it is a very interesting string of decisions. When we almost traded for ARod, and rumor was Nomar did not want to change positions, but ARod was fine moving to 3B for the vastly inferior defensive SS in Jeter, I found that vert interesting, too. I get how Jeter and Bogey were and are icons, but not for their D.

I didn't mean to imply you thought Kike was not a plus defender, and I have no issues with anyone liking JBJ better on defense. Cora has made some interesting choices: Bogey at SS vs Story Kike in CF v JBJ. It might be more about Bogey at 2B v Story or Kike in RF vs JBJ, than the first part of the choice I listed.

It's close. JBJ's full career resume tops Kike's in CF. You gotta admit, they both are major plusses on D, and in Fenway, those two positions have heightened value.

There's a good chance maybe only 1-2 prospects gained in those 3 trades I mentioned amount to significant net pluses. Maybe none do, but increasing the quantity and quality of the farm improves your odds. I won't count the Betts trade that brought us Verdugo, Downs & Wong, and the deadline sell off of 2020, by definition is about the future (Pivetta, Seabold and some long shots), but let's look at the other 3 trades: Beni, Ottavino and JBJ: Beni> Cordero: Looking much better, this year and has 2 arb years left Winckowski: .595 OPS Against in AAA- about as good as we could have expected. Gambrell, de la Rosa & F Valdez: all long and far-away shots that have not wow'd anyone, yet. Nothing> Ottavino: gone German: May be the best prospects of this whole group. .485 OPSA in AAA (5 IP)/.495 in AA (11.1 IP) Renfroe (arguably obtained from the money saved by trading Beni)> JBJ: High cost defensive whiz who seems to be improving his offense from 2021 Binelas: .813 OPS in A+ with 11 HRs in 160 ABs Hamilton: .728 OPS in AA but dropping quickly I like the odds we get something nice from 2, maybe 3, of these guys. What JBJ, Cordero and Ottavino do or did might not matter, so much.

I could be wrong, but I think Kike gets excellent jumps, takes straight and true routes and has speed and athleticism to make almost all makeable plays. JBJ might be slightly better on positioning, anticipation and getting great quick out of the gate breaks, but he may not match Kike's speed. (Athleticism being about equal?)

I'm thinking a lot depends on how Houck is doing, and if he becomes the closer. I'm leaning towards Hill going to the pen, but each will have a few more starts before Sale returns. So much of evaluating a starter is based on his last start or two. I know Whitlock has proven he can be great as the long man, even if that brings him to the 9th, so I'd be fine with keeping Hill in the rotation, but I think Whitlock is the better starter, despite their most recent start.

Hard to know. It's hard to gauge the route taken and the initial jump on the ball. I think Kike is faster, so JBJ would have had to have done better on one or both of the other areas to make those plays. Maybe he does. Same as the Kike play at SS v Bogey.

He had to reconstruct much of the team, not just the OF. Should he not have signed Wacha, so he could address the OF in a more meaningful way? If he had, we'd be bitching about neglecting the rotation. I agree on the trade, and from day 1, I stated I was most concerned about the money part of the deal, especially the $8M buyout on next year's $12M option. When the winter spending budget has seemed to be so tight, the moves made for JBJ and last year's Ottavino seem like head-scratchers, but the prospect part is still to be determined, and on a team that looks to have a better chance in 1-3 years, than 2021 and 2022, maybe that's what those deals were mostly about. (Same with Beni.)

He didn't have to spend much more than he is on Arroyo to get an okay one, either. It was clearly a mistake. Maybe he thought between Kike, Verdugo, JBJ, Cordero and Duran, he could get by not using Arroyo much in the OF. He chose to spend elsewhere. So far, only the Diekman signing looks like a bad FA signing, so in an overall sense, it's hard for me to think this mistake negates all the good.

I never liked the trade, but JBJ has not been "garbage," since the deal. Are you just being hyperbolic, or do you really think he's been garbage? Either way, until the prospects have run their course, the jury is out.

2022 1.3 fWAR Beni (1.4 bWAR and 3.1 '21-'22) 0.4 fWAR Cordero (0.2 bWAR and -0.6 '21-'22)+ Winckowski and otehrs Team control years total 2.9 fWAR Betts (2020 only) 3.8 Verdugo (2020-2022) + Downs and Wong

With Renfroe on the IL, JBJ has closed the gap: bWAR 0.9 Renfroe 0.6 JBJ (Binelas doing well/Hamilton slumping badly) fWAR 0.7 Renfroe 0.2 JBJ

Agreed. Eovaldi should be up to the task. Although he went 9 on May 28th (108 pitches) and ties his previous high or 101 pitches in the start before that, ghe only went 6 inning his last start (93 pitches) on June 3rd. Go Nate!

So true, and it's not always about how well or poorly the team was doing immediately before our series.

Does Bogey make that play Kike made?

On less than $20M to spend on 20 holes in the 40? Wow! Would going 30-30 been something you'd praise Bloom for? (Yes, not going 30-30 got us Mayer, as you pointed out in another post. It also got us a high rule 5 pick: Whitlock)

No doubt, Bloom swung and missed on many of his addition prior to the 2020 season. I don't think anyone is patting him on the back for those winter moves, but- what was really expected? Would a few gems found in teh rough had really made a difference? He was forced to trade Betts (added Verdugo). The return is up for debate, but highly speculative on what else was out there. The core of Bogey, Devers, Nate, JD, Sale, Erod, JBJ, Beni, Vaz, Barnes and deadwood Pedey, Rusney and half of Prices contract were still on the book. I'm not joking about there being 18-22 weak spots on the 40 and precious few prospects with enough value to trade for meaningful pieces, if that was what we should have been thinking going into 2020 or at the 2020 deadline- not! Here is what Bloom ended up doing, and again, this is not signing praises: $6.5M Perez $4.25M Pillar $3M Moreland $2.85M Peraza $1.5M Lucroy Near min, min wage or minor league additions: Osicj, Covey, McHugh, Weber, Springs, Brice, Valdez, Hall, Arauz, Hart, Mazza, Grullon, Puello, Leyer, Kickham, Godley, Stock, Tapia (Maybe some of these were acquired during 2020, like Arroyo.) That's less than $20M spent on trying to fill about 20 slots, and Bloom is being bashed for "striking out" on just about all of these guys. Hmmm..., The deadline brought us Pivetta and Seabold. The next winter brought us Whitlock, German, Cordero, Winckowski ( Beni) and these additions (alos, many swings and misses): $10M Richards $8.9M Ottavino via trade $7M x 2 Kike $5M Perez $3.1M Renfroe $3M Marwin $2.1M Andriese $1.5M x 2 Sawamura That's about $40M spent on these 8 guys, and other min wage guys like Whitlock and the deadline 2020 trade hauls. During the season, he extended Barnes and traded for Schwarber, Iggy, Robles, Shaw and Davis- giving up very little. Yes, we came one game from missing the playoffs while coming 2 games from going to the WS. We carried over Bloom additions to 2020: Whitlock Pivetta Verdugo Arroyo, Sawamura, Valdez, Arauz German, Seabold, Winckowski, Downs, RHern, Wong He added: $23.3M x 6 Story $10M Paxton (more about 2023>) $9M JBJ via trade $7M Wacha $5M Hill $4M x 2 Diekman $3M Strahm $2.25 Robles re-signed Min Schreiber (waivers), Danish, Binelas, Hamilton and others Gave Vaz his $7M option. The progression is significant, steady but still not complete.

And you expected much more? Only Pivetta made it all an "embarrassment?"

Okay, maybe not "easy," but you expected mush better with that budget and tradeable resources?

Huh? We traded scraps that amounted to crap in 2020 and beyond for... Pivetta Seabold Wallace Rosario Potts Z Bryant Did you expect more for Moreland, Pillar, Workman and Hembree?

Dark, smelly brown.

People who blame Bloom for 2020 really don't understand the concept of context. They see Bogey, Devers, Nate, and Sale and think, it's easy building up the rest of the roster on peanuts and with no high value prospects to trade, even if it was the right time to do so. (It wasn't.)

I did expect he'd do better finding "Gems in the rough," as that was supposed to be his strength, but the guy had a tiny spending budget and 20 holes to fill, and his biggest emphasis was building the farm and by the end of 2020 and the start of 2021 he DID greatly improve the bottom of the roster. Expecting a miracle in just a half season, within the context of what he took over and the budget he had was unrealistic. He was staring at a cliff. I know you hated that word from day one, but call it whatever you wish. He had a nice foundation of 6-8 players and very little else. With no budget to spend, did you really expect much better in 2020?