moonslav59

I think Bloom also thought Renfroe needed replacing- both for defense and possibly the belief his O was bound to regress. I hope he's not counting on Duran to take up the slack.

I keep thinking we will trade for a SP'er, but who knows?

McCullers was second in IP for the Astros, last year, so I'm not sure you can say just missing the WS means they made it without him. We lost Richards, Perez and ERod. Two might be considered additions by subtractions, and bot Perez and Richards lost their rotation slots, but it's hard to see Wacha, Hill and later, Paxton as vast improvements, especially thinking of who replaces ER0d. My hope was we added a SP'er capable of keeping Houck and Whitlock in the pen, but sadly, that was not to be. One or both will likely be needed in the rotation, at some point in 2022.

I think Wacha or Hill might move to the pen, but for now, I see our rotation as being... Sale Eovaldi Pivetta Hill Wacha (Paxton late in the season) Our pen from best to worst: R Houck R Whitlock R Barnes L Diekman L Taylor R Brasier R Sawamura/ L Strahm/L Davis (L DHern in AAA) That's 5 of 9 being RHPs and the 4 lefties all being in the bottom 5 or 6.

You do have to look at how well the lefties do vs RHBs, but you have a point. As of right now, our best 3 RP'ers are all RH'd: Houck Whitlock Barnes Brasier and Sawamura will be favorites to make the 26 man roster, so that's 5 RHPs in the pen that may be in the top 7. The lefties mostly look like bottom of the pen types. Taylor, Strahm and Diekman might be top 8 in the pen. Davis is only a favorite to make the 26 man roster, because he's out of options. DHern has never lived up to the hype and can't get his walk rate under control. Valdez and Bazardo, both RHPs might win a slot from a lefty at some point.

So, we had 1 roster slot and just signed two RP'ers: Matt Strahm LHP for $3M/1 Last 4 seasons: 1.17 WHIP 9.1 K/9 2.1 BB/9 1.4 HR/9 Jake Diekman LHP for "multi-years at ???$$$ Last 4 seasons: 1.36 WHIP 12.0 K/9 5.3 BB/9 (OUCH!) 0.8 HR/9 Who is on the DFA short list? My list (which is never right): 1. Hudson Potts 2. Jeisson Rosario 3. Jonathan Aruaz 4. Eduard Bazardo 5. A Davis or K Crawford 6. Wong or R Hernandez

No doubt, but there are varying degrees. It's been a long time since we last signed so many 1 year deals and had this much roster turnover.

Sonny Gray to Twins for Chase Petty & Francis Peguero Ottavino to sign with Mets for $4M

I'm not sure what this has to do with the fact that we almost totally rebuilt the 2019 roster and added 12 new faces to our current 40 man roster from opening day 2021 with at least another 7 or 8 of those carrying over from the opening day 40 man roster on the short list for possible DFAs, this year. We could possibly see 18-20 new members to the 40 man roster from opening day 2021. We are still rebuilding.

What are the chances both Sale and Eovaldi have seasons like Eovaldi's 2021 season? I like how both look, but I'm guessing we might be lucky to see one do as well as that.

The 2019 team was mostly dismantled by 2021, so yea, I still saw the 2021 team as a rebuild or "bridge" team. Did you see my post about 30 players on our 40 man roster were not even on the 40 man roster at the end of 2019? How is that nit viewed as a major rebuild? That was not some routine and ongoing replenishment of the roster all teams go through, virtually non-stop. It was major as major can get! We added 3 players to the 40 man during the 2020 season: Pivetta, Arroyo & Houck. We filled 21 slots AFTER 2020!!! TWENTY-ONE!!! We used about 40 players to find the 21 that stuck by the time we reached the present. Call me wrong for thinking that is a major rebuild, even after 2020, but it was. It's not an insane position- not that anyone called it that. Not one big name was added to the roster after 2019. Sure, some grew into a pretty big name, but we were not done rebuilding by opening day 2021, IMO. We had Pivetta, Perez and Richards as 3 of our starters, and nobody, even me, who was higher on Pivetta than just about anyone, felt he'd be a very good starter. Our pen was headed by your favorite RP'er, Barnes (sarcasm alert) and Ottavino. Yes, Houck looked promising, and a guy named Whitlock tore up ST'ing, but really? Andriese and company? Few expected Dalbec to do well, even as late as July. Many felt Kike was a gloried utility man not up to playing 155 games. Arroyo, Cordero and Marwin were expected to fill 2 key roles. Some felt JD was in serious decline. Our defense was a joke from day one. Maybe we all see the word "rebuild" differently, and no, I did not expect us to be anywhere near as bad as 2020, but I still felt we had a long way to go to get to top 5 or 6 in the league status, which is what I consider strong contention. The vast majority of outside additions to the 2021 roster were one year deals. That hints at seeing 2021 as a rebuild or bridge year. We added Duran, Schwarber, Robles, Davis, Shaw and Iggy during 2021, and only Duran & Davis remain on the 40 man. While having 10 open slots on the 40 man roster after 2021 is not a real large number, some of the 30 carrying over to 2022 are questionable to various degrees: Hudson Potts Jeisson Rosario Ronaldo Hernandez Eduard Bazardo Jonathan Arauz Phillips Valdez Connor Wong Jay Groome and even Bryan Mata, DHern, Brasier, Plawecki, Seabold and Duran. Don't get me wrong. I think Bloom has done a great job rebuilding the 40 man roster and the farm beyond the 40, but we still have a ways to go to approach the rosters of 2013, 2007, 2004 and the great 2018 roster.

I'm not sure who called it a cliff, first, but I'm not hiding I thought we'd have a cliff. I was thinking more like 2020-2022, or if we spent more maybe 2021-2023. I've admitted I was wrong about how quickly we could rebuild the farm and the bottom 18-24 slots on the 40 man roster, under the more difficult rules the league had established to punish spending and winning teams. At the time, we were both.

I've agreed 2021 was not a cliff year, but almost all of us felt we still had some rebuilding to do to get to strong competitiveness status. Yes, many teams go through this and are not considered in full blown "rebuild mode," but look at the roster beyond the big 6 (Bogey, Devers, Sale, ERod, Eovaldi and JD), plus big questions lingered around 2-4 of those 6. Sale was not expected back until July. ERod was a big Q mark. JD, was a bit of one, and Eovaldi ended up pitching his first full season in 6 or 7 years. Hardly anybody had faith in Pivetta, Richards, Perez and the whole pen- top to bottom. (Whitlock was a god send.) Many felt Kike could not play FT, Marwin was a joke, Dalbec was a huge Q mark as late as July, and the Cordero experiment went horribly wrong. Who thought Renfroe would do that well? BTW, many bad teams have a "core" of 6 players, and it's the other 20 that make them bad. The O's have Mullins, Means, Mancini, Mountcastle, Hays and Santander. They are clearly in worse than rebuild mode. On May 31st, Marwin was 7th on the team in PAs- just 4 away from Kike and 9 away from Vaz, who was under .650. Dalbec was 9th and under .650. Cordero was 10th in PAs. Richards was 2nd in IP, Pivetta 3rd, Perez 5th, Andries 6th and the staff as a whole was generally thought to be over performing.

I didn’t say we’d suck, and I also said it wasn’t a “cliff year,” but look who we added from the putrid 2020 team: they were rebuild type signings. Even Ottavino was just a 1 year bridge addition and had shown signs of decline. We traded Beni for 5 prospects. We signed… Richards Kike Perez Renfroe (non tendered by another team) Marwin Sawamura Andriese Nobody viewed these signings and moves as more than stop gap additions and only the return of Sale and ERod offered the hope we could win 80-85 games. We were not even close to being favourites to win it all and barely had hopes of making the wild card play in game before 2021. Read the posts after the sweep by the O’s early in the season and tell me how much hope and promise the fans had for the MLB roster at that point. Let’s not kid ourselves. Sure there were less than a handful of posters with rosy glasses, but we all knew we were still a year or two away from greatness. Also, while many poo-poi’s our deadline and later moves, can everyone agree we make the playoffs without Schwarber, Iggy, Shaw, Davis and miracle spirts by Richards and others?

Would you be happy if we sign Suzuki and McHugh?

I guess it’s a matter of perspective. Our biggest signings were a career bench guy in Kike and Garrett Richards and almost everyone on 1 year deals. Last winters deals screamed of rebuild at the ML level and most fans and media agreed. The fact that we did so well does not change the early perceptions. IMO

Biggest names left that could help the Sox the most: RP: K Jensen C McHugh R Tepera A Chafin, R Rodriguez, B Hand, E Marshal, T Rosnethal, A Ottavino, T Clippard A Bradley, J Nelson, C Martin, T Watson, T Hunter, R Dolis, G Holland SP: Z Greinke T Anderson M Pineda, D Duffy, J Cueto, B Anderson, M Harvey, M Boyd 2B: nobody OF: N Castellanos RHB S Suzuki RHB Schwarber LHB Tommy Pham RHB Jorge Soler RHB A McCutchen RHB Kevin Pillar RHB SS (Bogey to 2B?): Correa or Story DH (Trade JD?): Nelson Cruz

There are only 10 players on the 40 man roster who were on the 40 man roster during the 2019 season (listed in order of 40 man roster seniority): Vaz since 11/12 Bogey 8/13 Barnes 9/14 Sale 12/16 Devers 7/17 JD 2/18 Brasier 7/18 Eovaldi 7/18 Taylor 11/18 DHern 11/18 Only 6 were on the 40 man to begin the 2018 season. Dalbec & Arauz were added after 2019 Some pretty major overhaul, here. 27 players were added after January 1, 2020! 21 were added after Sept 14, 2020. 13 were added after 2/1/21. 8 have been added after the 2021 season and we still have 1 slot open. (Some were in the system but not on the 40 man roster until these dates.)

Familia to Phillies for$6M/1. Niko Goodman to Astros. Alex Colome to Rockies.

Tomato stains are hard to get out!

My wife thinks I need a check-up.

Wow, Joe Kelly gets $17M/2. No wonder the owners trued so hard to protect themselves from each other.

True. My mind has been mush.

Montas has 2 years to Bassitt and Manea's one. He's better, too.

I'm pretty certain we add a RH'd OF bat, even if it's not Suzuki. There is talk of JD Davis. I sure hope plan B is not Duran in LF, JBJ in CF and Verdugo in RF, but is it could be the emergency fallback plan.