moonslav59

I do think we might add pieces, but I doubt we go over the tax line, and other teams will add players, too.

Well said, and I do think Bloom put together a "bridge team" he thought might win or at least be exciting to watch.

Plus, just because we don't state the other team won, too, doesn't mean it's not so, or that we disagree with that perspective.

While I agree, not many of Blooms winter additions have had an immediate positive affect on the team, other than Arroyo and Whitlock, he had so many holes to fill and so little money, I didn't expect All stars created from journeymen. The biggest gains are yet to be realized, IMO. They are on the farm or have not yet shown what they can do. Also, most of the holes on the team from 2020 were on the pitching staff, so I have not yet shown that area. The biggest holes we had for everyday positions were 2B, CF, 1B, LF and utility. 2B: Arroyo was not acquired this past winter, but he is a Bloom guy and doing very well. He also acquired Downs, Arauz, Munoz to go with Kike & Marwin. CF/LF: from Beni/JBJ to Kike, Renfroe/Cordero/Marwin- not great, but the guys he replaced have not done well, either. 1B: He did not add anyone, but instead put a lot of faith (and pressure) on Dalbec (Chavis/Marwin- Cassas/Ockimey?) Utility: Kike, Marwin, Munoz, Santana and others. These guys were gotten to bridge to 2022, and not to do great things, but I can see how these guys listed above can be viewed, combined, as not being a plus. I'll do the pitching, soon.

That guy might have been a great defensive replacement that got few PAs, or he might have been that flex guy that allowed the manager to PH or sub someone else, late in a game, knowing he had the flex guy on the bench- just in case. That 25th and now 26th man can have a lot of value, even if they don't get to bat often.

To me Cora is still the best manager we've ever had. Better than Tito, yes, but I'm not arguing that one again. That doesn't mean I don't have differing opinions, and I don't see voicing my differing opinions as saying Cora sucks or is even wrong on this issue. There are advantages to having 14 pitchers. He has a wider choice on who to bring in for various situations. That's something hard to measure. I trust he knows what he's doing, and I think Bloom & Cora are just what this team needed after 2019. If I were the manager, I'd be doing somethings differently. That doesn't mean it would work or that I'm better than Cora or Bloom. I know I'm not. Not even close. I've been wrong so many times, I lost count. I might flout my opinions like wanting Marisnick, but I know that overall, I'm not match for these two pros. I think I know what Cora's reasoning is, and they have merit. That's why I don't view my criticism as bashing or trying to downplay how good Cora (or Bloom) is. Looking at the amount of holes this team had after 2019 and 2020, and the limited winter spending budget handed to Bloom, it's amazing how quickly our 40 man roster depth was improved, how are farm went from 29th or 30th to maybe 19th or 20th, and we have a winning and exciting ball club on the field, right now. A huge credit needs to go out to Bloom and Cora. That does not mean every move they made or make is perfect. Even they would admit mistakes have and will be made, but these two are held in the highest esteem by this poster, right here.

The other thing about looking at trades like the Kimbrel one, years later is the fact that it might not really be about comparing how the players did after a trade, but the fact that we might very well likely had traded Margot, Guerra, Asuaje and Allen for someone else or for 2 other guys. It's not that Kimbrel did poorly for us, but at the time of the trade, he was making near FA money. That's the part that rubbed me the wrong way. Why not just sign a closer? (Now, the closer pay went up sharply, immediately after the trade, so that part was not as bad as it first looked.) Margot took a long time to develop into a well-rounded player, but he'd be starting on this team, right now.

Well said, and that HR or bust mentality is prevalent in MLB, today- on all teams, to some extent. I do think these trends can turn on a dime. The Yanks can win 9 straight at any given moment, and we have yet to see how the Sox might react after losing 8 or 10 games, at some point. Our team still has some glaring weaknesses that were exposed in that first series against the O's. Those weaknesses will lose us games, again. The team just has to try and limit those times, and it really helps having a couple stoppers like ERod and Eovaldi, this year. Pivetta has held his own, but we really need 1-2 guys out of Richards, Pivetta, Perez and Houck (maybe Whitlock, at some point) to hold the fort down, until Sale returns.

Under the radar in the sense that nobody expected them to lead us to a ring. They were just expected to be role players that maybe helped us fill some holes and get us over the top. Neither had eye-popping numbers coming to Boston, but boy, they put some up, once here.

I can see carrying 14 pitchers, if the plan was to never use Whitlock, except maybe a few innings here and there in blow-outs, but once we found out that ain't happening, the need for 14 vanished.

That is a good point, but the thing is, they haven't done that. Most of our best RP'ers have gone about 10-11 innings and we are 1/7th through the season translates to 70+ IP- not the usual 60-65 IP. We've had a few days off and now have 2 in 8 days and 3 in something like 18 days. I could see if our starters were lasting 2-3 innings, then I'd call up the 14th guy quickly, but we've haven't come close to needing 14. To me, we have had several times where a PH'er or defensive replacement would have been very helpful.

You used to add Valdez to that list. With so many April days off, the 27th man rule for DHRs, and the ability to call a pitcher up in a matter of hours, made the 14th pitcher unneccesary.

Bottom line: long relievers save others from having to pitch- sometimes 3-4 others. He's second in relief IP. It's the same a saying SP'ers who go long into games save the pen, despite only pitching every 5 days. When has the 14th pitcher ever come into play? When have we had a time where we were even down to only 2-3 guys to choose from, and if we were, we knew ahead of time, so we could have brought a pitcher up, like we did on the DBL header games- where we get a 27th man, anyway. The only advantage I see with 14 pitchers is that it allows Cora a wider range of pitchers to choose one who is most likely to be successful. That is significant, but so is having a PH'er for a .490 batter or a late inning defensive replacement for anyone of about 3 or 4 bad to awful defenders.

That 2018 team was so great, we probably could have won without any 1-2 players, but yes, those were great under-the-radar trades. Extending both might have been mistakes. The Schilling trade was also a good one. I loved the Nomar deal. We ended up getting Ellsbury and Lowrie as comp picks for OCab. Later, we got Melancon for Lowrie and Holt for Melancon. We also got Kopech as comp for Ellsbury, and he helped bring us Sale.

I'm loving this team and have always been Cora's biggest supporter. I'm loving what Bloom has done. He's building a team for the future while constructing a very exciting team to watch that was supposed to be a "bridge" to 2022 and beyond. This team can win- no doubt, but we still have some mega weak areas. The good thing is, so does everyone else in the AL.

We are about 1/7th of the way through the season, and let's see how many players are clearly over-achieving and may realistically be expected to regress to the norm: 1.199 JD- The guy did hit 1.066 in '17 and 1.031 in '18, so although this is 130-160 points higher than those seasons, it's not really a gross over-achievement, thus far. .975 Bogey- He's in peak prime and hit .939 in '19. No surprise, here. He could even end up higher. .908 Verdugo- He's still nearing peak prime and has been on the rise every season from his rookie year. Some may find a jump from .844 in '20 to .908 extreme, but not me. .907 Devers- Call me biased, but I have been projecting a monster year by Devers at some point between ages 25-29, maybe more than just one season. He hit .917 in '19, so it should not shock anyone, if he ends up over 1.000. .771 Arroyo- Maybe the best candidate beyond JD for "regression," but the guy did hit .736, last year, so this isn't really surprising. .727 Kike- Pretty much what should have been expected. (I expected better CF defense, but that's me.) He hit .744 from '17-'20,so maybe we can expect better? .692 Vaz- Vaz had a .798 OPS from '19-'20. This is a disappointment. I expect an improvement, here. He did hit .540 in '18,so who knows? .677 Marwin- The "trash can season" has made it difficult to judge his highest upside, but he did hit over .733 in both '18 & '19. Once could expect an improvement, even in a season where hitting is down. .646 Dalbec- Hard to know what this kid can and will do. I love his ability to get on base- not just his power, but he has struggled out of the gate. I'd like to think he's better than a coin flip, but we do have Marwin, Chavis and maybe even Ockimey/Casas in the wings. .510 Cordero- No way anyone can project his future. He's certainly shown better than this, but his sample sizes are so scattered, it's impossible to much of anything. .496 Renfroe- This guy has killed lefties for years. He really shouldn't play much once a righty comes in, but with a limited bench, he has been forced to play beyond his means. He's actually over .740 vs lefties, this year, so maybe, if we start using Marwin and Kike in the OF more often, we can get him into a platoon routine. .471 Plawecki- The guy hit .708 from '17-'20, a very respectable number for a back-up catcher, these days. So, these guys have sucked on D and not been good at base running. Can anyone honestly look at the totality of this group and say they have been overachieving, so far? Now, the pitching is another story. I'll do a data dive on them, first thing in the morning, but again, you might be surprised how unsurprising some of our pitching overachievers really are.

Oh, I'm loving this! I did not project a 90 loss team, like someone did, here. I thought we could compete for a WC, if nearly everything went right. I also pointed out the rest of the AL had massive holes and question marks, too. What is surprising is that only JD is way above some of the numbers he put up recently. ERod, Bogey, Devers and Verdugo are not really doing anything shocking. Maybe, Eovaldi is, but we paid the guy $17M x 4 in hopes he could put together a good full season or two. Okay, Barnes is surprising many of us, but the guy had better numbers than many want to admit, before this year. Whitlock is a gem in the rough. Arroyo is playing better than expected, but this is no way like 2013's over-achieving team. Look at how many batters are hitting way below their career norms or expectations: Renfroe, Cordero, Plawecki and to some extent Kike, Marwin & Dalbec. Richards, Perez, Taylor and Brice have not done well.

We certainly could surprise, some more. We have 4-5 guys hitting horrifically, right now, and how good could we be, if they just hit their career norms? Then, there's Sale's return and maybe something from Houck, when we bring him up for his buck-twenty innings. Chances are we won't keep up this pace, but I'm not giving up my optimism. That doesn't hide the fact that our defense sucks. Our base running sucks. 2 or 3 of our starters have bad numbers or indicators their ERA is much better than it should be. Our pen has done very well and was expected to suck. Let's see what happens.

Your offense should improve, but there are serious questions about it being top 4 or 5, as many projected. Major injuries haven't really started,except at 1B. Your D and base running was known to suck in March, but maybe it was glossed over by all the hype directed at the offense and pen and the phantom depth.

Sounds like the Sox, too.

Their pumped up tremendous depth was all a mirage. (They had to go out and get Odor, and he was in the clean up slot, yesterday.)

Weird how no Yankee fan thought these weaknesses were all that dominating back in March.

The worst part is, our worst 3 hitters in the line-up are also defensively challenged. Maybe the late inning defensive replacement is the better route, and who knows, maybe they outhit the ones they replace. (Like Marisnick- the guy I wanted all winter long.)

Now, that's how you beat....errr....I mean....lose to the O's!

We won the Betts trade, too. The Shaw trade only looked good for the Brewers for 1.5 years. The Sale trade was great, but behind these... To me, the best 3 Sox trades are: Pedro for Carl Pavano & Tony Armas Jr. The Dodger dump (not the Price one) Derek Lowe & Jason Varitek for Heathcliff Slcobumb,