moonslav59

I guess you won't answer. Fine. I do agree he wanted out, but I also think it's about the HRs, too. It is possible to have multiple reasons.

That wasnt my question. I think it was also about the 2 HRs and maybe a little about Willson's slight pause while admiring his blast.

They did play him at SS way more than anyone else, when Story sat in 2025. 1371 Story 69 DHam 5 Sogard 3 Mayer 2025: 647 Rafaela 433 DHam 228 Story 80 Romy 51 Sogard 14 Reyes

Are you assuming anybody thinks it was unintentional?

It might be mor common than we think, and I certainly think it was a reason he did it. Doing it to get yanked, possibly fined and suspended is a bit more speculative on the motive, but with him, it's possible or even probable.

Good points. Only about 100 players go over 2.5 in a given year, so that is a decent bar to set. That's top 3 players for each 30 teams. Fair enough. 78 players went over 7.5 from 2023-2025 combined. KMarte would have been age 32 to age 36

-3 in 1200 innings is not bad. -3 in 600-700 is pretty bad. DHam was -4 in 433 innings at SS for the Sox in 2024. That's a pace of -10 to -12 for a FT SS.

I didn't ask for further explanation, and my post wasn't a reply to you.

I fixed my post shortly after clicking "submit."

I'd say Theo was the best "thing" that happened to the Sox franchise since the 80's. I agree on the Tigers statement. The spending levels went way up right before and during DD's time. That helped.

You obviously cannot follow the conversation. Typical.

The discussion was about posters who say JH does not spend enough, so if it was "casual fans" who no little about the budget, then they shouldn't be saying things about spending, if they know little about it. If it's posters who do know about thew budget then they are not being genuine. Please try to keep up with the conversation. (Good luck with that!)

We do hit the good pitchers more often than expected. It also seems like the non-names and struggling pitchers get the best of us more often than expected.

You think had there not been homers hit, he'd still have plunked Story? To me, that's short-sighted, too. (The inning might have been over... LOL.)

Yup, and we were soon to lose Betts (almost traded in the summer of '19) JBJ & Beni. The pitching injuries and off years killed us. We also lost Kimbrel and Kelly and did not replace them in kind.

I disagree. The depth was horrible, and there was no Betts, JBJ, Beni, Price, Porcello, Kimbrel and more. Their contract values were never fully replaced, and some were not replaced, at all. ERod and Nate were the only real pitchers remaining (Sale, too, but always injured.) JD and Bogey were the only everyday stars remaining. Kike, Renfroe, Verdugo and Dalbec had decent years, but none were sustainable players. Pivetta and Barnes did okay, and the Schwarber addition was key. (Also, Iggy, Shaw, Robles and Davis were useful summer additions.) None cost a lot.

The same situation is unfolding in Philly.

I think notin knew it was on purpose, but he feels it was about the homers and not "wanting out."

I think JH genuinely thought we could keep winning despite spending less. If Bloom had the same success as the Rays but with a bigger budget, he'd have been right. The 2021 season's near-miss only strengthened JH's thinking on spending cuts not affecting success.

IMO, DD would not have wanted to stay after being forced to trade Betts and not replace any salaries of all the guys who left.

I'm pissed as all hell about the Betts boot and more. There was a long stretch where JH was being stingy, and it sucked. I get the fact that casual fans might not know or care about the budget, but I'm speaking to those who keep saying over and over that JH is not spending. If you don't know, don't say it, and if you do know, you are not being genuine. The budget cuts led to a deep decline in our roster value. Luckily, our farm improved and we started seeing some infusion, even from DD prospects. Bloom failed in many ways, but he did a slow rebuild of the roster depth and farm, while leaving out any major star additions (that worked.) Brez took over and was allowed to spend more. Maybe he was restricted from large and long deals, which limited his choices a bit. In an overall sense, I think when you look at the totality of Brez's moves, he's made more good than neutral or bad, and of course most are still TBD, but it just hasn't been enough to get us to a high level of competitiveness. He's made some major mistakes, but it's hard for me personally, to be critical, since I liked the Sale trade and did not want to sign Bregman at even the first offer amount or our final offer. Anyway, JH is spending more. I wish he'd spend more, and I wish our GMs would spend it more wisely, especially on these short deals like Buehler $21M/1, Sandoval $18M/2, Kluber & Richards $10M/1 and Paxton & Hendriks $10M/2.

-3 with a small number of innings is really bad.

I searched on fangraphs 33-36 year old players from 2023-2025 (100+ PAs) 15 times someone had 3.0+ fWAR 33 times 2.0+ 43 times 1.5+ There were 154 sample size of 100+ PAs per season. Context: 29-32 year olds: 75 over 3.0 119 over 2.0 146 over 1.5 Sample size 386. Go by percentage, as there are more players at 29-32 than 33-36: Over 3.0 9.7% ages 33-36 19.4% ages 29-32 Over 2.0 21.4% age 33-36 30.8% age 29-32 Over 1.5 27.9% ages 33-36 37.8% Certainly the disparity is significant, but I expected a bigger gap by percentage.

Going by AAV, the Sox are 6th. The gap between 5 and 6 is over $40M, so we closer to 10th than 5th. That adds some context, too. The general point posters make is that JH is stingy and not spending enough, and the AAV numbers disprove that. AAV spending and rankings: 2023: $226M (12th) 2024: $226M (12th) 2025: $249M (7th) 2026: $268M (6th) I'm fine with people saying we can and should spend more, but to say we are not spending a lot is just not true. We've jumped our AAV budget by over $40M in 2 years. Complain about how we spent it- fine. Just don't say we are not spending (more.)

I agree, but I'm not going to be upset, if someone wants to use actual 2026 salary, since future payments are not guaranteed. (The trade of Devers is a good example.)