moonslav59

I ahve gone to many games at Fenway. Not this year, but almost every year. I also pay for Sox TV, which some goes into JH's wallet. I get the $200M payroll should compete point, and they should compete, even if there is a significant amount of inherited deadwood. I agree, but when it looks like an off year, I don't think clinging to a sliver of hope is helpful to the sustainability of winning every year. I think we tried to put together a winning and exciting team in 2022, and that's all I expect. There are many other teams doing the same thing, and we can't win every year, unless we spend like the Dodgers (not happening) or build a system like the Rays (which many here seem to abhor, because they think you have to act like a small market team every year.) Of course, a fire sale guarantees nothing, but it's the Gms job to further improve your chances, when he can and not waste resources on a false hope season like thsi was in July. Again, that's my minority opinion. I don't blame fans for wanting to see a team trying to win, when they fork over hundreds of dollars to go to a game, but if we keep holding onto resources and let them expire without anything to show for them, it's bad for establishing a winning system, IMO, of course.

That's how it should be, yes. Batter v Pitcher and Pitcher v Batter and NOT Pitcher v Ump and Batter v UMP. How can a computer whispering in the earpiece of the home plate ump, "Ball" or "Strike" change the sacred pitcher-batter relationship, except maybe for the good, as they no longer have to rely on the totally random chance that an ump may make a bad call. The switch to robo umps can be seamless and unnoticeable, except that no bad call will ever be made. No more arguing with the ump. No more batter stepping out of the box to regroup after a b ad call. No more pitcher wandering around the mound in anger, trying to keep himself from being thrown out of teh game for bitching at the ump. No more deference being paid to players known for having a "good eye," and rookies needing to feel like they have to swing at anything close to the K zone, until they "earn the respect" of the umps. Pitchers and batters can actually concentrate on hitting and pitching to a known K zone. They no longer have to make adjustments to certain umps known for calling low Ks or outside Ks, or whatever. Consistent and correct calls should be the goal of any sport, and replays have shown that they and the fans want just that. Yes, the game is between humans, who make mistakes, but an umps mistake should not be planned and accepted, unless it has to be.

Okay, I took "painful watching him play" as griping. My bad. I, for one and as a paying customer, still look forward to his next AB.

So? Part of the reason they were not playing well, then, was because a sucky team like the Sox were beating them. We've also beat teams that were playing well and lost to some that were playing well or crappy. That's the way a season goes. Some teams seem to lose to s***** teams more than their share. Others the opposite or an expected mix. The season is 162 games long, and most of the time, these things shake out. We beat bad teams back then, and then we lost to bad teams, bad pitchers and bad everything. And, we lost to good teams- lots of them, thanks to our schedule. Maybe we beat the M's because key players were hurt, and maybe teams beat us, because our key players were hurt.

No, I specifically said I am in the vast minority. I have also said I am a paying customer, but you choose to not believe me- again, your choice. Not all people at the game think the same way, and I know most just want to see a good game and hopefully a win. They don't want to see Ort. I'd rather see Schreiber, too. I'm not disagreeing with the facts. However, I also can think about more than one thing: my instant gratification of my senses. I can think about sometimes having to sacrifice the here and now for a better future, and when sometimes, experiencing the here and now can or should take the front seat. It's a constant trade off and weighing of the benefits of doing one thing over another. It seems like our society has moved more and more towards instant gratification and getting what's mine and NOW. Companies rarely look beyond 3 years. It's all about maximizing profits for the stock holders, now. I plan on being alive for a few more decades, and I would prefer a ring or a strong run at one in 2-3 years than 84 wins this season, instead of 72. I don't expect others to think like I do. I don't really even want everyone to think like me. I don't pretend to think my way is the right or better way to think. IMO, I do think JH and Bloom are looking more to the future than most fans do, but less than the way I do, but that's just my opinion. It seems like many are unhappy with the choices made, but some for the opposite reasons. Isn't life wonderfully complex?

We have started 12 different pitchers and will likely end the season with just 1 starter having more than 23 starts and 2 over 22 (Pivetta and Hill.) We've gotten almost 40 starts from Wink (14), Craw (12), Bello (7), Davis (3) and Seabold (3), as well as 13 forced pen starts by Whitlock (9) and Houck (4). That's 53 starts or 1/3 of the season, and we're not even done yet. The pen injuries were plentiful, too. The Kike & Arroyo injuries only added to the affect.

It does, b ut when he comes up, I still enjoy wondering what he will do. Will he start snapping out of it with this AB? I don't take the midset, "He sucks right now, so I hate this experience." Your mindset is your choice. Fans can choose to look for the bad, and gripe and complain and throw blame, or they can look for the few good things and recognize hope in some players, despite what their current ERA or BA is. For example, I am enjoying watching Bello pitch, despite his ERA over 5.

No, I'm talking about how it's a good thing Sox baseball decisions aren't decided by what the majority of Sox Nation wants, sometimes in the heat of the moment- sometimes not.

Kavadas has done amazing things. I'm not sure when the Sox system had so a player with 100+ BBs. What else is amazing is how we have 3 of the top 6 minor league players leaders in BBs, this season: 107 Wilyer Abreu 105 Jon Singleton 105 Justin Farmer 103 Ausyin Gauthier 99 Niko Kavadas 96 Max Ferguson (Before today)

It should not be rocket science. When a season is lost, you play bubble players to get a better feel on who you decide to keep or let go. You play ML ready prospects to get a better feel on what you might count ont hem for, next year: starter, back-up or minor league depth (or trade.) Getting an answer, now, is better than trying them out during next year's playoff run. One of the major problems with winning teams and bringing up borderline prospec ts is, you can't afford to give them a long enough look to determine anything. Had Kike been healthy and we were winning, we might still have hopes that Duran could be a future FT'er, because he would have never shown us that he is not (or looks like he needs more work.)

Good thing baseball is not a democracy, where the majority wins.

It's your choice to feel like that.

I am a paying customer. I go to games, every year. I pay to watch the Sox on TV. I enjoy watching the future unfold. Others don't. Okay with me. I've lived through decades of futility, and it was pure futility because we knew it would never get better. It's not that way, now. A few losing seasons sucks, bigtime, but it's not futility.

I think a RF/DH type makes more sense, but that usually means they aren't good on D. We'd end up trading him for the next JBJ. LOL. If we didn't already have 3 LF'ers, a LF/DH type makes the most sense for a Boston DH. The problem is, none of our 3 are good enough hitters to DH, except maybe Dugo or Pham on a platoon. Platooning the DH also presents problems, if all of them are below average fielders. Candidates for a seemingly weak 2023 DH platoon might be: R Pham (LF) Arroyo (IF) Refsnyder (OF) Wong © Dalbec (1B/3B) L Dugo (LF/RF) Casas (1B) Enmanuel Valdez (2B) Hosmer (1B) Cordero (LF) Not too exciting, and choosing 2-3 from this list clogs up the bench with poor fielders, except maybe Arroyo- who can't stay healthy. It looks too problematic. Signing a RF'er rather than RF/DH, 1B/DH or LF/DH seems like a better idea.

It's not microscopic. Umps miss calls by inches. Umps have different strike zones that teams and players have to study and prepare for. It's a joke. Asking a human to call balls and strikes, especially when his vision is blocked by the catcher for parts of the K-zone is a total joke. I just don't get the resistance to getting 100% consistently right calls. Pitchers, batters, coaches and the fans all benefit. You don't even have to notice, if done right.

Trying to get the best product on the field might entail taking one step back to take two steps forward, next season on beyond. Trying to win every game of every season takes either a strong and deep farm with a commitment to keep it that way or continued mega spending- maybe a tight balance between the two.

Maybe, but as a Sox fan, I'm willing to sacrifice a season or two to get to the promiseland more often. Also, I actually think it would have been more entertaining to watch a bunch of call-up prospects without the expectation that we have to win every game, because we have a .001 chance of making the playoffs. This has not been all that much fun, since the deadline, despite not having a firesale of tank plan. So, it doesn't always work when not doing that. To me, the best part about the post trade deadline Sox has been watching Bello, McGuire, Pham and the return of Story & Kike.

Cora had nobody better to play. Bloom was not given a wide open budget, and IMO, the Story signing was a reactive, last minute panic and temporary opening of the budget. The injuries and near total vet declines were something no manager or GM could overcome with a restricted budget. 25 players decline or get hurt and that has to be Bloom and Cora's fault?

When just about ever single player from the 2021 team declined, some by a ton, I'm thinking the players are mostly to blame. I realize you can't fire the whole team, so the age old tradition is to blame the manager for not motivating or preparing the team and the GM for not being a fortuneteller. Sure, on the game threads, we hear this guy sucks and that guy sucks, and "no way should this guy still be on the team," but just about evert single carry-over player has let the team down, including Bogey, JD, Devers, Nate and all the "team leaders." Of course, Cora and Bloom share in the blame, but Bloom has other priorities besides "win now." To some extent, managers need to look at the whole 162 games not just go all out to win every game, but not to the extreme Cora seems to take it. On the specifics you mentioned: Duran was not this bad on D in AAA. I think most GMs give call-ups time to adjust to the pressure and new level. Did he give Duran too long a look? In hindsight, the answer is easy. On Dalbec, many felt he should have been demoted, last season, but look what happened. Then, this year's flip flop. Many wanted him demoted again, and Cora tried Cordero at a new position to fill the Dalbec benching with what he felt was the best chance to improve our 1B production. Cordero was showing signing of hitting better than almost anyone but our big 3. I'm sure he expected a learning curve on defense, and he got one much worse than any of us wished. Did he stick with him, too long? It looks like it. I'm not one to say he should have made a late May trade, unless I know for sure, what 1Bman any team was offering, but Bloom did not make a trade, so it's his fault not Dalbec's, not Cordero's, not Arroyo's? I just can't bring myself to see it that way, and it doesn't concern me that I may be in the vast minority among fellow Sox fans. Show me a trade that was offered in late May through June, and I'll throw blame or laugh at it. On Bloom, I would have moved JD down to 6th and then maybe 7th in the line-up, but some would view that as a slap in the face of a vet. Plus, with so many injuries, it's not like we had much better options. With Bogey's power sapped, and his BA and OBP still high, I might have tried leading him off, but oh, don't go there! Many posters swear players are creatures of habit and hate being jerked around in the line-up, and we don't want to upset an established vet and team leader. In many way, a manager is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't. Brining in Ort looked, to me, like a horrible call, and hindsight proves it was. I'm sure he had his reasons, but the end result matters more than anything to most. I never let a call a disagree with here and there bring me to the point of calling for a manager's firing. I try to look at the whole picture (not that you and others are not,) but to me, the whole picture is not just looking at the team record, ranking and total budget. We all see the same things differently, and I'm not saying my view is superior, but I do think JH looks beyond just the fact that we are spending a ton and sucking on the field, currently and choosing to blame Bloom & Cora for most of that.

Having a fire sale of FAs-to-be would have pissed off a lot of fans, but sometimes the time is right to just bite the bullet. Are the fans happy, now? Would they have been much happier, even if we had 6- more wins? Playing it halfway gets you nowhere. Fans may not realize that, but management should. Bloom & Co. appeared to try and improve the long term outlook more than the 2022 outlook at the deadline, but they had the choice to do much more, and I do think the projected fan reaction was part of the reason they chose not to do that. (I said it at the time, in much harsher words, but it's what I feel is the reality of being a Sox GM. It's walking on egg shells trying to deal with fans, Henry's fickle wallet and what you were left with on the roster and farm. To me, the task handed to Bloom was immense. I was one who firmly believed a "cliff" was upon us. I know that word seems to be a trigger for some, but it was the word used at the time, so I'm re-using it. In terms of what I thought the Sox faced after 2019, I happen to think we've done better than I expected and built the farm and system up much more quickly than I thought could happen within the new structure of MLB's draft, IFA system and the lux tax. That's probably the main reason I am not so critical of Bloom. I expected a long road. I expected a difficult time rebuilding the farm without high draft picks and the inability to overpay lower draft picks and IFAs. I realize the farm looks much better on paper, but we don't really know, for sure, how good it is. We thought the farm DD inherited was better than it turned out to be. That could be true, now. We have yet to see a Bloom acquired prospect even get called up and do well, unless you count the Rule 5 Whitlock as coming from Bloom's farm. Is Wink the only one even called up, yet? I think Ben's situation was somewhat similar to Bloom's. He was asked to rebuild the farm, and made way less blackbuster prospects deals than Theo and DD. JH gave him a pretty long leash (3 last place finishes,) and I think he gives Bloom, at least one more season- probably two, as long as we show progress. BTW, our farm did progress further, this season. Sure, one reason was getting such a high draft pick, because we sucked in 2020, but the fact is, Bloom seems to be doing well in one of his given high priorities. Next year's budget will show where JH's mindset is after 2022. If he opens the wallet, the pressure will rise on Bloom. If he forces a reset, I'll be thinking he's still in rebuild mode and Bloom will likely be given more than one season to continue what he's been doing with the farm and end of the 40 man roster.

They held onto Ben through 3 last place finishes. Had HRam and Porcello had their 2016 seasons in 2015, he might have last several more seasons.

I liked the Rosario outlook, when we got him.

His power was talked up a lot, but he hasn't really shown immense power, yet. He's only 22, so there is time for that. Minors: 46 HRs in 1210 PAs 119 XBHs shows more power than the HR number. It's way too early to know enough. We;ve been fooled by 1B-hyped prospects too many times to get all gah-gah. Casas does seem different from the others. Every player is unique, but here are some minor league numbers: .269 46 181 (1210 PA) 119 XBH .374/.485/.858 Casas 261Ks .263 80 259 (1625 PA) 170 XBH .363/.506/.869 Dalbec 482 Ks .265 106 573 (4591PA) 381 XBH .365/.420/.785 Lars Abnd 955 Ks

It's never the players fault, anymore.

Let's see if you can sweep us... NOT!