moonslav59

I think Downs is hard to project. All prospects are speculation to varying degrees, but for some reason I have no clue on Downs. I don't feel super high on him, but maybe it's because he hasn't started out too well. soxprospects have him ranked 2nd. That's higher than Duran and Jimenez. For what it's worth, BTV ranks our prospects as such: 24.7 Downs 24.2 Casas 19.5 Duran 13.8 R Hernandez 10.8 Jimenez

Before the year started, a better comp would be Renfroe or Marwin as the money was similar to what we saved on Beni. You chose someone getting paid twice what the Beni deal saved us, because Kike has under produced, and it makes Bloom look worse. Call it whatever you want, but if Kike was hitting well, you would have brought him up as a comp. Period.

We could have signed Cesar Hernandez at $5M/1 and gotten about the same production without the OF option.

Yes, I know what hindsight means, and I know you hated the Kike signing and Bloom hiring from day one. It's not hindsight in the general sense it is used, but you know damn well, you would not be mentioning the money saved by trading Beni to offset Kike and Kike vs Holt had Kike been hitting .850. Just because you knew he wouldn't hit .850 beforehand does not mean you didn't cherry pick the comp in hindsight. Plus, the money Kike cost does not match up with the money saved on the Beni deal, even if you subtract Holt's contract from his. A closer comp is Renfroe, since he has 2 years of control and cost about what the difference was on the Beni deal. Another similar money comp would be Sawamura, but the positions are way different. Perhaps using Marwin would make your case stronger. Beni for Marwin and the 5 players.

Many 2020 marginal players bombed, but this year, one could argue these players were bad or not very good (so far and for some, really small sample sizes): Cordero Andriese Marwin Santana Brice (from last year) We haven't had to dip into our SP'er depth, like last year, so we have not had a chance to cringe at the Mazzas and God knows all the others. Certainly, this off season was better than the last one, but he hardly spent anything, last year and some of that money went to Peraza and a much less effective Martin Perez.

So, if Kike was batting .850, you'd have still used him as an example?

Rangers up 1-0 on the Rays in the 3rd. Toronto winning big.

The Bello Movement sounds like the name of a band or some kind of gastro issue.

All this talk of big dicks and nuts are getting out of hand.

I meant that that is the player you choose to count as the budget offset for the money saved in the Beni deal. I'd have traded Beni for Renfroe and the 5 players we got again, in a heartbeat, but that's me "cherry-picking" Renfroe. Get it? Neither Renfroe of Kike have anything to do with the Beni trade, but the money saved by the Beni trade is separate from the money lost on Kike vs Holt, too.

I'm one of Bloom's biggest supporters, but there have certainly been several moves that are questionable, at best and just plain bad, at worst. No GM gets every move right. I do think some context is needed when looking at Bloom's record. His farm was near empty, when he arrived, his budget was restricted much more than DD's and other GMs, and his 40 man roster depth was eye-poppingly bad. His plan had to be more about building up for 2022 and beyond- maybe with the hope that we could compete for a WC slot in 2021. Almost all of is moves have been to build up the farm or to acquire place-setters for incoming prospect talent or future higher-cost free agent signings. Only Kike and Sawamura were signed for more than 1 year, and they both got only got two. It seems clear to me, they decided not to fill any holes, long-term until they found out more about what they had in the system. In some ways, I think that was what 2021 was supposed to be and maybe 2020, too, had COVID not shortened the season. Bloom swung and missed badly on a lot of players, but most were long shot, low-cost additions with low expectations anyway. Here are some of his better moves that involve 2022 and some beyond: Richards and Perez both have 2022 team options at reasonable prices. Pivetta was acquired for Workman & Hembree. We got Workman back for nothing and also have Seabold as a promising, near ML ready, prospect. Kike is signed through 2022 and is struggling, now, but the jury is still out. Some of the other 2B options are doing even worse, and most of them could not play OF. As of now, it looks like an overpay, at best. We have Renfroe for one arb year. That one looks good. We have Verdugo for 3 more arb years, plus Downs & Wong as promising prospects. Valdez was a nice score and has 4 more years of control. Arroyo was also a waiver addition and shows some promise. The Ronaldo Hernandez deal looks very promising, too. Arauz, Whitlcok, Reed and Ort were recent Rule 5 additions. How many times have you see that many seemingly good Rule 5 picks in just 2 years? I'm liking Winckowski, too and maybe we get something from one of the other 4 Beni players of German, the guy we got with Ottavino. Can we also give Bloom and his team credit for getting the most out of Pivetta, Perez, Whitlock and some other pitchers looking real good on the farm? For years, we kept hearing how the Sox were terrible at developing good pitchers. Maybe that has already changed for the good, but we are too close to the action to realize it.

That would mean they would have had to have foreseen his stock-declining 2020 season ahead of time. Holding onto him for the 2021 season was not likely going to increase his value, as well. I'm not sure getting 5 players and over $3M in budget space can be called a bad deal so early on, but you have already written off all 5 players and cherry-picked, in hindsight, signing Holt and not Kike, but that call is not decided yet, either.

If it were up to me, I'd sign an ace 2 times every 3 years.

Show some lovin' for George: Baseball America rated him as the 17th-best prospect in the California League, right behind Nate Schierholtz and the #2 prospect in the San Diego chain. Kottaras continued his climb in 2006, with a .276/.394/.451 campaign in 78 games for Mobile and a .210/.286/.361 line in 33 games for the Portland Beavers. He hit just .111 against left-handers while with Portland. Baseball America rated him the #14 prospect in the Southern League, between Tyler Lumsden and Alberto Gonzalez. Kottaras also dazzled in the 2006 Futures Game. He started at catcher for the World team, hitting 7th. In the second inning, he doubled against Homer Bailey and scored on a Chin-Lung Hu double for a 1-0 World team lead. By the time he batted again in the 4th, the World trailed 7-2. He did his part, with a 2-run homer off of Philip Hughes to score Wladimir Balentien. Kottaras was replaced by Salomon Manriquez at catcher before he batted again. He finished the day as the World's top player in total bases and runs and tied Balentien for the RBI lead. The World team lost, 8-5...

You guys are 1.5 games behind the last WC slot.

Maybe Ronaldo Hernandez or Wong can do well enough to give us a plus at catcher after Vaz's 2022 season ends his control years with the Sox. Our biggest need areas all have a top prospect or recently graduated prospect in the system, already. That was no accident. CF: 3 Duran, 4 Jimenez, 20 Rosario 2B: 2 Downs, 21 Arauz, 10 Yorke (Arroyo) 1B: Dalbec, 1 Casas C: 13 R Hernandez, 17 Wong

Maybe competitive for a WC slot. Does anyone think having Beni and no Sawamura or Renfroe would have us in first place, right now? Sure, we can hindsight it all and say keep Beni and sign Holt not Kike, like 700 suggested, and have Beni, Sawamura & Renfroe, but even that would not have made a big difference. You are right.

Wow, 20 of our 58 games player have been come from behind wins. 20 of our 35 wins! Yet, so many fans give up on the team in the game threads.

Sounds good. It seems strange that the track record is better with high catcher draft picks than high-ranking catcher prospects with professional baseball experience already under their belt.

soxprospects.com updated their rankings, but they still have not placed Valdez and the other PTBNLs recently acquired. The dropped Whitlock from the prospect list and made him a former prospect. They jumped Brayan Bello from #24 to #9, but hardly anyone else moved much, except by attrition due to Whitlock's removal and Bello's leap. Here are some other minor leaps or falls: Jimenez jumped over Houck from 6 to 4. Ronaldo Hernandez jumped over Groome (13/14). Wong jumped over Blaze (17/18). Rosario (my sleeper pick) jumped over Bazardo (19/20). Arauz jumped Potts (21/22). Winckowski jumped Decker and German from 27 to 24. I expected a higher ranking for Josh. Bradley Blalock jumped from 33 to 26. Drohan from 32 to 27. Howlett from 40 to 33. Wilson from 39 to 34 and Cannon from 42 to 35. German fell from 26 to 29, Wallace from 28 to 30. Zeferjahn from 31 to 42

I guess what I'm thinking about are highly touted catching prospects in the minors that never panned out. Kottaras, Salty, Lava and Swihart all ring a bell?

I've been high on Dalbec for a long time, maybe too high. I've never been overly bothered by high K rates, as long as the hits and walks come often enough. Dalbec's high OBP at nearly every level is what got me excited. His power was never in doubt. He's not really a "kid" anymore. He's older than Devers, but he only has 253 career MLB PAs, and those are spread over 2 seasons. 14 career HRs projects to over 35 in 650 PAs. That's a great start to anyone's career. What is lacking is the BBs and a handful more singles. His career minor league numbers were .263 BA and .362 OBP. If you project those numbers over his 252 PA sample size in the bigs, he's... 8 BBs short 15 hits short That's a very significant drop off, but the sample size is still rather small, and many good to great MLB players struggled out of the gate. That's not to say Dalbec will ever get near .260/.360, but if he can get to.240/.330 and hit 35+ HRs a year, he'll be a keeper. Big "ifs," I know. For a team in the thick of a playoff race, how long can you stick with a struggling player? That and who do we have to replace him?

I'm pretty sure highly-valued catching prospects have to have the worst success rate, so I think that's reason enough to be skeptical.

Not living near Boston leaves me out of the loop, and I'm very slow to the Google everything mentality. My wife often laughs at how often I forget so much information is just a few key strokes away.

Fair point. BTW, I just asked a question. True the tone was harsh, but I didn't know why he was on the bench after having several days off the last 2 weeks. I may not notice how some of my critical posts come off, but I do think I try not to make it so biting or personal. Everyone knows I am a huge Cora and Bloom fan, so when I ask about JD's 2 days off a week plan, I think some context is needed. I have also been known to start a statement with, "I've never been a big fans of ____," so being overly critical of posters seemingly hating on one of our players can be seen as hypocritical. I get how, in the heat of the moment, some fans like to severely berate a Sox player for coming up short of making a key blunder, but the level and frequency it happens on game threads often becomes too much for me to handle. Maybe, I'm being hyper sensitive of have a warped sense of what a true fan should act like. I get mad, too- sometimes boiling mad when, for example, we load the bases with no outs and come up empty, but the level of vitriol has been overwhelming, of late. Even after we pull out win after win, and we hear some mea culpas and kind words after the game, the next game it's right back to square one. It does get slightly better after 3 wins in a row, but it doesn't take much to go extreme bashing again. This team is wildly exceeding expectations, but you'd never know it reading a lot of the posts in the game threads. Cora and Bloom are both bumbling idiots, yet we are 35-23 instead of 28-30. Just about every player has been singled out to be benched, demoted, traded or outright cut loose. For some posters, we'd have nobody left on our roster. How can a real Sox fan want nearly every player gone?