moonslav59

The race for a top 10 draft pick has officially begun: 41-83 WSH 45-79 OAK 47-77 DET 47-76 PIT 48-73 CIN 50-75 KCR (beyond our reach) 52-17 LAA +8.0 53-70 CHC +7.0 54-70 COL +6.5 54-69 MIA +6.0 56-67 TEX +4.0 56-66 AZ +3.5 60-63 BOS

Pop Quiz, tomorrow.

Yes, he should have gone inn there and told them to pack it in, so we could get a better draft pick.

You know your pitching is bad when McGuire looks better than anyone else, last night.

The problem is, anyone would look foolish going after Henry, so Bloom is made out to be the guy who chose to slash the budget and make building the farm the top priority.

I'm guilty for being optimistic about some Sox players and prospects. What a lousy fan I am.

For sure. It looks like it's down to the low minor prospects we got. Strike 1: Cordero Strike 2: Wink ...

Gibson was phenomenal, but it's hard to compare eras. Pedro put his numbers up in the era of big offense and juiced up batters. Gibson's best seasons were when they mound was at a different height and Yaz won the BA title hitting .301. No disrespect to Bob. Looking at the ERA+ numbers, which compares pitchers vs other from that year (era) here's what we see in their peak years: BOLD = leg league Gibson: 136 151 1962 105 127 126 148 110 1967 258 1968 164 133 119 139 133 Pedro 146 1993 124 123 117 219 1997 163 243 1999 291 2000 188 202 2002 211 2003 124 146 Pedro 166 in his best consecutive 13 seasons ('93 to '05) Gibson 137 in his best 13 ('61 to '73) [/b]

His rookie year was pretty awesome, when you count the first two rounds of the playoffs. 2.78 ERA/ 1.098 WHIP 0.43 ERA/0.572 WHIP in 21 NL Playoff IP 2.26 ERA overall: regular season + NL Playoffs (84 IP combined)

He's a FA after this year. Our best bet to bring him back might be to offer him a QO. (He'd probably take it.) I would not offer Nate a QO, because he might take it.

The $3M they saved on the Beni trade, again the limited budget, was used to sign Renfroe. After 2019, we cut $60M and needed to fill these slots: 1B 2B RF (Betts traded) C2 OF4 IF bench Utility That's 7 slots before we even look at pitching or 40 man roster depth. The pitching (listed by most IP in 2019): 1. ERod out with COVID all 2020 2. Porcello (pitched 12 starts w the Mets and was out of baseball) 3. Sale (did not pitch in 2020 and barely any in 2021 or 2022 at mega bucks) 4. Price (traded with Betts as salary dump) 5. Walden (good riddance) That's all of our top 6 pitchers in 2019 out or traded by 2020. Then... 7. Nate (missed some time over the last 3 yrs of his $17M/yr contract years) 8. Barnes 9 Velazquez (gone) 10. Brasier 11. Brewer (gone) 12. Cashner (gone) 13. Taylor (missed all of '22) 14. Weber (gone) That's at least 8 or 9 pitchers gone from the top 13 of 2019, not to mention the 40 man roster pitching depth that needed upgrading. Look at that 2019 roster, and all the holes left going into 2020, and you tell me about the great 2018 team residual affects?

Double NOPE!

At least we're finding out who not to bring back, next year.

Murphy got shelled at AAA. (3Ip 7 ER) Casas is a homer short of a cycle and may get up in the 9th. Koss is 3 for 4 in AA. Hickey's 4th HR at A+ was a 3-run job. In A ball, Simas went 3-4, Miller & Meredith 2-4. Paulino 2-5 w a 2B.

Sorry. My bad.

The player budget is public knowledge. The 2019 team was barely over .500 and Bloom was forced to cut $60M from that budget and then face raising arb costs and high priced DD guys going on the IL or falling off a cliff, but no, all that matters is the budget of 2019 is close to 2022's. Got it.

It's really that simple? I'll keep it short. The 2019 team had 16 more losses than this team, and they spent more. (This makes as much sense as your point.)

The Wink Man needs to start showing he belongs in the bigs. He started out okay, but he needs to make some adjustments to the adjustments hitters made on him. Does he have what it takes? I hope so.

Maybe I'm confusing posters, but I thought there was a time I tried to talk notin out of wanting Arroyo DFA'd. Maybe it was someone else.

Yes, and that noncompetitive team that DD handed Bloom after 2019 was then forced to cut $60M from the 2019 budget. Somehow, Bloom was expected to create a winner out of that. True, the team added about $23M to the 2021 team, but much of that was arb raises to inherited players nearing the end of their arb years. It wasn't new spending handed to Bloom. Bloom did have about $40M to spend for the 2021 team, but take a look at the 26 and 40 man roster he had to improve upon. I counted close to 10 key 26 man roster slots to fill while also trying to slowly improve the depth of the 40 man, in case of injuries and as a way to improve the longer term outlook.

I'm pretty sure we all agree Bloom was given a high priority task of rebuilding the farm system as quickly as possible, and without seriously damaging the chances of the current team staying competitive or at least have the perception of being competitive or entertaining. Of course, the results of the farm building won't be known for quite some time, and those who seem to be defending Bloom more than bashing him, know that. Nobody has proclaimed Bloom has fixed the farm as far as it needs to be fixed. Nobody is sure the players he has acquired will amount to more than squat, but all we can expect and hope for as fans, concerning the farm is that we seem to have more quality and quantity of promising players than we had before. I like the road Bloom is taking, but I'm not going to say he has been a success, just yet. The Whitlock addition, which was technically a farm addition was a great start, but none of the prospects acquired via trades have done anything in the bigs, yet. Only a few (Downs, Wong, Wink, Seabold) have even seen limited time in the bigs, so far. It's way to early to make any final judgement on the farm-building aspect of Bloom's tenure as the Sox GM. The budget priority is a bit easier to judge, and there seems to be much disagreement about even some of the most basic facts, like was there a limited budget in 2020 and 2021, or even 2022. Much of the longer term contracts- for good or bad are ending, this winter, and the only longer term deal added was Story. I happen to think our finances are better looking in 2023 than they were after 2019. I've yet to hear a Bloom basher say anything convincing about that looking worse. The last, but likely not the least important priority was to put a competitive team on the field during the rebuild. You can count 2020, if you want, and say Bloom is 1-2, but I see him as being 1-1 or 1-1-1. So, IMO, he looks good on farm building, but the jury is still out. He looks good on prepping the budget for 2023 and beyond, but I guess that can be viewed as the jury still being out, until we see what he spends, this winter. I am fine with saying the jury is out, here, too. He looks to be about even in season competitiveness record, but I can see how those who view recency above all else, saying he's a failure, here, or those who choose to count 2020 in the standings thinking the same way. Call me an apologist or whatever, but I think Bloom was given some top priorities that maybe don't jive with some fans, and IMO his budgets have been severely limited until March of 2022. That also doesn't jive with those who think and say, Henry can spend as much as he wants, but that is not part of Bloom's reality. JH did not give him an open wallet. That's not an excuse: it's reality. IMO, Bloom is going to be given a chance to show what he's got, this winter. It will almost certainly seal his legacy as a Sox GM. Depending on how well the 2023 team does and how we look going forward, maybe Bloom's days are numbered. If he makes a few more (too many more) JBJ-type trades and Diekman signings, I'll be calling for a change, too, but I've seen a lot of moves I like (Whitlock, Pivetta, Wacha, Schreiber, Refsnyder, Strahm, Kike, German) and some we all may end up liking, if some of his prospects acquired pan out to think he deserves another winter at the helm.

+ Nate's contract in 2019. The other thing is the point about Bloom inheriting Betts, Bogey, Devers, Beni and others is that when DD had them they were pre-arb and early arb-cost players. By the time Bloom took over, their costs were much higher, while at the same time, the budget was slashed deeply from 2019 to 2020 and winter spending was severely limited before 2021, too. Again, some context is needed.

On farm building, yes. On ridding the budget of much of the dead money, yes. On improving the MLB roster from 2020 to 2022, yes. On the 2022 team results, nobody is saying that, except your strawman.

2022 MLB team > 2020 MLB team 2022 Farm >>> 2020 Farm 2022/2023 less dead money on the books> 2020 dead money totals Let's gloss over the facts a little, right? 2020 saw the worst winning% since 1964 (.400). 2020's .492 winning % is about the Sox 40th worst record of all time and 10th worst since 1965. .400 in 2020 .426 in 2012 .438 in 2014 .481 in 2015 It's nothing to brag about, for sure, but playing in the toughest division in MLB with all the injuries and declines by virtually every returning vet, most of whom are DD guys, .492 is not all that horrific.

When you look at how many of the top IP pitchers from 2021 dropped in ERA-, it's a wonder we are almost at .500: Listed by most IP in 2021 82>102 Nate 104>56 ERod>Wacha 99>104 Pivetta 107>115 Richards>Hill 104 Perez> 127 Wink & 126 Crawford 43>74 Whitlock 77>77 Houck 92>83 Ottavino>Schreiber 83>154 Barnes 67>77 Sawamura 75>83 Taylor>Strahm 69>78 Sale 74>529 DHern 128>108 PValdez 132 Andriese> 103Diekman 79>143Robles 107>128 Davis 33>146 Brasier Phillips Valdez was the only returning pitcher to improve on his ERA- EVERY OTHER RETURNING PITCHER GOT WORSE (HOUCK THE SAME)!!!! (Some, by a whole lot.) The other improvements were all Bloom additions improving on last year's pitchers. Hmmm....