moonslav59

I’ve never agreed with you more, at least in recent memory

That is annoying. The girding of recruits is a messed up system.

Seems like nobody else cares about NCAA Football, but me. Here's my final rankings for the season: 1. Alabama 12-1 (Beat #1 GA 45-21, today) 2. Michigan 12-1 (Beat #13 Iowa 42-3, today) 3. Georgia 12-1 (Lost to #3 A: 45-21) 4. Cincinatti 13-0 (Beat #21 Houston 35-20 to go undefeated.) 5. Notre Dame 11-1 (Needed 2 teams ahead of them to lose, but only #5 OKL St lost) 6. Ohio State 10-2 (Idle) 7. Ole Miss 10-2 8. Baylor 11-2 (Beat #5 OK St.) 9. Ok St. 11-2 (Lost to #9Baylor) 10. Mich St 10-2 11. BYU 10-2 12. OK 10-2 13. Utah 10-3 14. Pitt 10-2 15. Wake Forset 10-2 16. Oregon 10-3 17. Iowa 10-3 18. NC St 9-3 19. SD St 11-1 20. Clemson 9-3 The FBS might go... 1. Alabama 2. Georgia 3. Michigan 4. Cincinatti 5. Notre Dame

From Seinfeld, right?

… not that it matters…

Here's more: July 7, 2021 "I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that we can pinpoint exactly when somebody is ready. I think there's a little bit of art, little bit of feel to this and also a lot of things that we can track," Bloom said Tuesday on NBC Sports Boston's Talkin' Baseball. "The one thing that's pretty clear is (Duran is) a heck of a lot closer than he was when the season started. I think it's been a steady, upward trajectory for him in Worcester in terms of his comfort in the outfield, his jumps, his ability to read the ball off the bat, and all that adds up to making plays. "We know he has the speed and the athleticism to make pretty much any play out there. You guys have seen it, it's a high bar to be in our outfield right now, so we want to make sure that if he's ready to come, then he's ready to contribute there." May 5, 2021 “I think he’s going to tell us by how he’s doing,” Bloom said. “It’s funny, because we’re used to the minor leagues starting around the same time as the major-league season does. And that’s obviously not the case this year. A lot of major league baseball is behind us but nothing has really changed with him and the value of what he’s about to go out and do... both to be able to take his new swing and his new approach that we haven’t seen tested in affiliated ball and take that out against Triple-A competition, and then also for him to continue his progression in the outfield. “I think we’re going to learn a lot,” Bloom continued. “We want to make sure we don’t try to learn too much from a really small sample. But just having him go through the ups and downs of a season and playing every day and doing it with the various ways we have to track his performance, we’re going to learn a lot pretty quickly. At the end of the day, it’s up to the player. (We have) every confidence Jarren is going to go out there and knock that door down. But he’ll tell us when he’s ready.” July 15 “I could see the basis of all different opinions on when the right time is for him to help us,” Bloom said. “As strongly as we felt about his upside, We also felt it was important for him to go out, test himself against the highest level of minor league competition and see how he did as that competition got a chance to adjust to him and vice versa. We saw early in the year he was striking out more than he was recently. And seeing steady progress on that front and also steady progress defensively really helped make this decision for us.” Asked why now was the right time, Bloom said, “There’s not one thing you can point to. I can’t sit here and tell you we can reduce this to a perfect science. I think it’s a combination of a number of things. Some of it is the subjective opinions of the people who are around him every day. Some of it are the things we can track, both offensively and defensively. Some of it is seeing him display his ability against competition that has had a chance to adjust to him. “I’ve seen him play some of the same Triple-A clubs multiple times where they’ve had a chance to adjust to him and he’s had a chance to adjust to them. It strengthened our conviction that he could have an impact at the next level.” June 7 We know that he’s a good player. We know that he still has things that he needs to get better,” Cora said. “But we keep talking about him, and we’re very happy with where he’s at right now. Now he has to go back and play and keep getting better. But obviously like Chaim [bloom] said in spring training, I think it’s something that we’re going to keep paying attention to him, and we’ll see what happens in the future.”

I'm not so sure Bloom is 100% against trading prospects. He traded a promising one for Schwarber. He may look at duplicate values and choose one to ride and one to trade. For a while I was thinking about trading Downs or Duran. Now, I'm not si sure. Yorke may be our 2Bman and Downs our SS of the future. (Mayer is likely too far away to factor in trade choices between Yorke/Downs. Plus, the Downs is at a low stock point has merit, too. With Renfroe gone, Duran has moved up into a position to play more, assuming he earns the slot. Maybe some far away team values Mata and or Ward and can wait, but what can they fetch, unless as add on to someone better. I'm thinking a Casas or Dalbec choice could be made, but I doubt we are ready to put all our eggs in the Casas basket for opening day. Maybe not trading prospects is more about needing to wait it out, at least to the deadline, than any great feeling of hording prospects. He's added enough prospects where he can trade 1 or 2 and still be on a sharp upward slope on farm-building. Let's see.

How 'bout some Cypress Hill... Livin' on phat pockets on flat wit tha gat Rollin' around nine deuce Cadillac Still got my homies to watch my back And they'll smoke ya ass if ya wanna come chat That's why some pigs an tha kids come sweatin' they follow A hollow point shell's hard ta swallow Why wallow when ya come ta roll on I put tha clip an dust Bring ya ass on, kickin' dust on ya head as tha gat busts My grip surrounded I'm about ta get rushed I brushed wit death How many shells stuffed in my closet? When tha s*** goes down ya better be ready (when tha s*** goes down) When tha s*** goes down ya better be ready (when tha s*** goes down) When tha s*** goes down ya better be ready (when tha s*** goes down) When tha s*** goes down ya better be ready (ya better be ready) I told tha boyz get tha sawed off glock and tha rest of tha gats As I strapped on tha bullet-proof vest Boom! I think I got one to tha chest Hot damn I didn't want to kill a man s*** I still stand tall with tha hill clan y'all better stand back Niggas bout ta fall I'm comin' out blastin' like Yosemite Sam get tha cheese an tha bread for tha ham When tha s*** goes down ya better be ready (when tha s*** goes down) When tha s*** goes down ya better be ready (when tha s*** goes down) When tha s*** goes down ya better be ready (when tha s*** goes down) When tha s*** goes down ya better be ready (ya better be ready)

Oh, heavens to Mergatroid! More name calling by the men posse!

The Dodgers have been doing these types of deal for a longer time.

Yes, not just giving up Beni, but paying $2.8M of his salary, too!

Just Frank German, right? He was a bit of a let down, but he's still in the system and may surprise. I thought Ottavino was worth the $8+M when we tradeed for him, but he did not do as well as I hoped he would. He wasn't a complete bust, and probably did better than Richards, Perez and Andriese, who cost about $20M combined.

Even the worst and lowest budget teams have seen their value multiple exponentially over a very short time. Even if we convince ourselves some teams are losing money, they amount these owners make when they sell their team is so astronomical, this whole talk of "risk" is comical.

Very telling, indeed. Your whole idea that there is a mean posse is delusional. Sure, people get emotional and personal, at times, but that comes from both sides and all sides. IMO, most people are pretty respectful of each other's opinions, and if they think one is absurd, they may say things that offend. I don't think most is intentional on anyone's part, except a couple posters- none of which are part of this so-called posse.

That's a mean thing to say.

Or Andriese and Marwin. Many were not too thrilled with Kike. I loved Kike, but thought we overpaid. (I thought Cesar H was better for 2B.)

It's unique in many ways. At the risk of blowing up the posse, I disagree.

The inflation and comparative spending points are valid. I've never been one to demand more and more spending, but it is nice, when it works.

I wasn't thrilled with Richards or Perez, either, I liked the Beni trade, a lot. I loved the Kike signing.

It might be a long time before we get anything new to talk about. This work stoppage sucks. I've been losing my love for MLB- not the Red Sox- but almost everything else having to do with MLB. I barely watched more than 2 innings of this year's WS. A long work stoppage won't effect my love of the Sox, but I might totally write off the rest of MLB.

I think some moves are about the long term and some (mostly all the one year deals) are for the short term. He seems to really strive for balance, and the short term part worked pretty well, this year, so it is hard to be overly critical of each move one-by-one. That being said, I'm scratching my head on the totality of Bloom's moves, so far- not just each one-by-one. I'm trying to stay optimistic that Part 2 of this winter (or maybe Spring or summer) hot stove will be more promising in my eyes (not that my eyes matter to Bloom or that my opinions are more important or valid than Bloom's.)

There are huge differences. The biggest being players can't choose what boss to work for until the time after most players are out of baseball. There are other things, too. Yes, the owners make the lion share of the profits- that is not much different.

Good points. It’s a unique business, and the secret financial situation of most teams makes bargaining difficult.

Even counting inflation? They aren’t outspending everyone else anymore.

Keeping Whitlock out of the rotation might keep his future arb costs down, but that should not be a factor. To me, I'd rather sign starters at a higher cost than 3 RP'ers at lower costs. Staers seem a bit more predictable, but I have no data to support this feeling.