moonslav59

At least he's a college player. Some mock drafts have him going 13th or lower.

I hope they extend Devers, despite his defensive woes. I still think he's going to have a few monster years. He's just not reaching prime years.

The Rays sucked for a while, and they got some top picks that helped, like Price, but they really have not been all that great at drafting pitchers over the last 2 decades. They've drafted a ton and were better at acquiring comp picks than even Theo was. Most ended up as wasted picks, and one reason was they hardly ever drafted anyone who might want a big signing bonus. They have been experts at trading players in their prime, and guessing almost precisely when they are about to sharply decline. They are also masters at getting journeymen and fringe players to come to their team and immediately have a career year or two before moving on and sucking again. Here's a quick breakdown of TBR drafts: 2001: first 5 picks were pitchers (none notable) 2002: BJ Upton #2 (no pitchers until 5th rd.) 2003: Delmon Young #1 (no P till 5th rd.) 2004: Jeff Niemann #4 (good pitcher) and Wade Davis 3rd rd, Jake McGee 5th (no other P in top 9 rds.) 2005: Wade Townsend P #8 and 3 Ps next 3 rds (Hellickson in 4th rd.) 2006: Longoria #3, then 3 Ps (Alex Cobb 4th rd.) 2007: Price #1, then 3 pitchers in a row 2008: Tim Beckham #1 SS then Kyle Lobstein #47 Then the lower draft picks began as they were winning... 2009: LeVon Washington 2B (no Ps in 5 rds.) 2010: Joshua Sale #17 RF (No Ps until 4th pick) 2011 was the mother of all mother comp pick drafts. The Rays had 9 comp picks! 11 picks in the top 75 and 12 in the top 89 picks (4 of the 12 were pitchers, including Taylor Guerrieri with their first pick at #24.) Blake Snell was their 7th pick at #52. 2012: Richie Shaffer 3B #25 (P taken in 4th rd.) 2013: Nick Ciuffo C #21 (Ryne Stanek #29 comp pick)- next 4 picks non Ps 2014: Casey Gillaspie 1B #20 then 4 Ps in a row (none of note) 2015: #13 Garrett Whitley OF- no P until 4th rd 2016: #13 Josh Lowe 3B - no P until 4th 2017: #4 Brendan McKay 1B, #31 Drew Rasmussen RHP/Michael Mercado RHP #40 2018: #16 Mathew Libertore LHP, #31 S Mclanahan LHP, #32 CF'er (comp picks) 2019: #22 Greg Jones SS, #36 JJ Gross RHP, #40 Seth Johnson RHP (CBA picks) 2020: #24 Nick Bitsko RHP, 2nd rd I Seymour LHP #57, H Barnhart #96 P

Our budget will never be like the Rays, and we will start shedding salaries very soon,some of which is dead wood- like Pedey & Price. If we could draft and develop pitchers-let's not forget the development part as well as maximizing a pitcher's abilities once they reach the majors, we'd be on our way to being able to sustain a good farm and ML level team, at the same time. Imagine the Rays with even a $150M budget.

That's how I see it, too. It still seems a bit surreal not seeing many fans in the seats, and onto another point, I think more fans can be allowed and still be safe and 5 feet apart. Of course, it will be more fun watching us win more than 80 to 86 wins, but just watching real baseball again is tops.

We also have ERod coming back.

Wouldn't it be great to get a full and good season out of Nathan? Yes, Dalbec looked very good, today-all around. Let's hope the joy and excitement doesn't wear off, and the good hitting and pitching mojo spreads to everyone.

I'm expecting 80-86 wins, but I've been trying to be optimistic. I was the first to jump shift, in 2019, and I kinda feel bad about that. I'm usually one of the last hangers on. I don't blame anyone for being pessimistic about this team, but I couldn't help but point out the irony.

Yes, because you and others felt the farm could be magically rebuilt even with the 26th through 30th picks, assuming we kept winning, and that the budget could fival the Dodgers, because Henry is filthy rich and should just suck it up and keep throwing bad money after bad money. BTW, it's not your feelings I'm talking about.It's your positions. Those of us who saw a downturn coming and expected it are not surprised or all that upset, except maybe posters like Kimmi who was against the all out, no holds barred approach pretty much from the beginning, but even she seems to hold the position that we are rebuilding the farm and have a winning strategy in place- be it more long term than you thought it needed to be. I thought DD overkilled it, but I was fine, because he made sure we won a ring, and we did, and he brought us 3 years in a row of very enjoyable viewing and the best record team the Sox have ever had, but the writing on the wall was clear and obvious to many of us. You can blame it on the Eovaldi and Sale extensions and poor management, and there's truth to a lot of that, but we became unbalanced long before the slide started. There is no denying that. It would have taken genius management to prevent even a .500 team in 2000. DD's moves are the main reason we are where we are. The downturn happened, as predicted, and your position was dead wrong. You can twist and turn and move the goalposts or go way back to "coffee boy Ben," but facts are facts. We nearly decimated the farm in an era where baseball rules were changed to make it very difficult to rebuild a farm with money and low picks. As it is, we had to trade Betts, Workman, Moreland, Pillar, Hembree and others just to go from about 29th to 20th, and now we need this high pick draft cycle to jump us into the middle tier. Where would are farm be without those trades and the 27th pick in this year's draft. The cliff was always coming. The only question was when. I was dead wrong about when. I thought it would be after 2019 or 2020, and maybe even after 2021. (See how easy it is to admit one is wrong?)

Yes, of course. There's also just the fact that it sucks for all of us to watch crappy baseball. It no better or worse for Cliff deniers. (You used that word, first.)

Tomorrow, a hang nail.

Really? Do you really need me to say 700's name?

A pitcher with 3 years of team control will not bring back as much as one with 4 years. The Rays knew this and played that game, too.

One more season of a promising pitcher is worth it, no matter what the age, as long as it doesn't mess up another year, too badly. Since he's going to be limited in innings, anyway, what's the harm in gaining another cheap year? If he turns out great, we could save a bundle that last and extra year.

April 4th- a day that will live in talksox infamy, as the Sox go on to win 15 in a row under the "4/4 vs Rays" thread title.

What's funny to me, is that the biggest Debbie downers are those who denied we'd have a big down turn. Maybe they are just frustrated they were so dead wrong.

They did seem to neglect drafting pitchers to some extent, but they were also God-awful bad at it, so maybe it wasn't such a bad idea in that light. Here's a summary, since 2001, of our top draft picks, in terms of pitching: 2001: our 1st pick was Lester, we then picked a pitcher in 3 of the next 5 picks (none of note) 2002: 1st pick Shoppach (only 1 of top 5 picks was a pitcher). 2003: David Murphy #1. 3 of top 6 were pitchers. 2004: Pedey. Next 4 were pitchers. 2005: Ellsbury. Next 3 of 4 were pitchers (Craih hansen, Buch & Bowden) 2006: Jason Place. Next 4 were pitchers (Masterson) 2007: LHP Nick Hagadone (traded). 2 of next 4 were pitchers. 2008: Casey Kelly (traded for AGon). 3 of next 4 pitchers (S Fife). 2009: R Fuentes (1 of top 5 was P) 2010: VTek (2 of 6 were P) 2011: Barnes (Owens 3rd) 3 of 6. 2012: Marrero. Next 8 were pitchers !!! (B Johnson, PLight, Buttrey) 2013: TBall (7th pick overall), then Stankiewicz with #45. 2 of next 3. 2014: Chavis. 3 of next 4 (Kopech-traded for Sale) 2015: Beni. 1 of top 5 (Lakins) 2016: Groome (#12). 3 of next 5 were P (S Anderson & Nogosek-traded) 2017: Houck (#24). 3 of next 5 were P. 2018: Casas. Only 2 of next 7 were p. (Ward & Feltman) 2019: Cannon. 2 of next 3 were P (Song & Zeferjahn) 2020: Yorke, then Jordan, then 5 pitchers in a row. We picked 'em; they mostly sucked.

Vaz has basically been an .800 hitter the last 2 seasons combined. This is a great start.

If Leiter is there at 4, it has to be a no-brainer. I hope we take a college player, but I trust Bloom & Co.

They've gutted their rotation several times and don't seem to miss a beat.

What a change in the attitudes of posters from 3 days ago.

Big assumption here, but assume every Sox pitcher is 100% healthy and pitching to their norm, which is tough for Richards, because his "norm" was like 6 years ago- knda the same with Eovaldi and his last full season of good pitching.) Rank our starters by how good you think they are and where they fall in our 2021 rotation. Here's my take: 1. Sale (no brainer) 2. ERod (several good seasons in a row) 3. Richards (2014-2015 version) 4. Eovaldi (2013 & 2018 versions) Could swap w Eovaldi 5. Houck (small sample size choice, here) 6T. Pivetta & Perez

I'm currently watching a training video at work with the game on a split screen with the sound turned down. I'll be back watching the game once the video is done.

You really shouldn't draft for positions of higher need, especially a HS player that is so far away, you don't know what you'll need in 4-5 years. If all things are even, I'd go pitching.

They also state and restate the painfully obvious things.