moonslav59

I'd say $5-6.5M, but through the arb, he'll make about $8M. (IMO)

I doubt players hold significant and long-lasting grudges over arbitration rulings against them. Usually, the differences are not that stark, and $8.3M for an oft-injured pitcher is pretty damn good.

There's always a "but." Theo had one. Ben had a few. Tito had one. DD deserves one, too. "Buts" don't negate the good things, but they also should not be buried or made unspeakable just because the great moments were so wonderful. I'm still thrilled and grateful for what DD did, but that doesn't mean I have to sweep the consequences under a rug.

Well, if people are going to make the point that some of the highly valued prospects we traded were flops, then we should also count some of the lower valued prospects that moved up in value, too. I remember there was talk about Allen during the trade and how many felt he has a lot of promise, and how maybe the deal might have been done without him.

Is that why you hold all of this recent misery over Bloom?

Agreed, and certainly not better enough to compete, but our farm would be rated slightly better, and our longer term outlook and 40 man roster depth would be improved, especially looking forward, which is all hypothetical, of course.

Agreed.

The team would be better now with Allen over Kickham and Springs. Better now and maybe even better going forward. 2020 ERA 4.70 Allen 7.13 Springs 8.49 Kickham 18.69 Hall 6.55 Covey 6.27 Brice

No doubt, the DD trades made us very good to great for 3 years. We won a ring and had exciting teams to watch. That being said, would today's and tomorrows teams be better, if we added these players to our roster and farm? Moncada Buttrey Kopech Dubon Margot Allen Beeks Noe Ramirez Bautista Basabe Espinoza Nogosek Santos and others

No, but you responded to a post that mentioned Allen & Kopech, and Allen does offer more hope than a lot of pitchers on the Sox roster, right now..

He's 24 but only has about 1,000 PAs in pro ball. His .852 OPS jumps out at me, and he was even better in AA (.997). It's his defense and lack of long term experience at any position that will keep him in the minors for most or all of 2021, unless he can DH in Boston. He could be viewed as midseason ML depth for 2021.

He already spoke to this. I can't find where he posted it.

Allen and Kopech offer much better hope, but we won't know what they do for years to come. It's funny, to me, how all those past prospects are now viewed as s***, but the ones we have now are gold. Two weeks ago, who would have said no to a Houck for Kopech trade?

That's a more revealing question, to me, and gets at the crux of how to view DD's legacy.

That is a good question, and the hindsight does seem to say "NO WAY," if you figure we needed the trades to get the 2018 ring. (I think we did-many of them, anyways.) It's hard to imagine us winning it all without everyone he added, but one could easily argue we might have without several of the moves. Some players weren't even all that good in 2018, and some did poorly in the playoffs. Although almost all the prospects we traded are having bad seasons, this year, their control time is still going on many of them. If one can argue we could have won without Sale, then surely one could think we'd be better off with Moncada and Kopech, even if we might have traded them, later, for something good. I'd like to have Margot and Allen, now, but neither looks all that great, now. Kimbrel did great for us, but we likely would have made the 2018 playoffs without him and his playoff performance left a lot to be desired. Pomeranz did very little in 2018, and could easily be viewed as a negative that year, but Esperanza has been hurt forever. I'd still like to have Espi in our system than not. The Thornburg and Smith deals looked good, at the time, but if we are looking in hindsight, they did not work out. I'd like to have Dubon, and Travis Shaw played well for a stretch after the deal. I see what DD did. He went for broke and built a team that could win despite having off seasons or horrific playoff performances from several stars. That's one way to insure a ring- overkill. I said all along, I was fine with what he was doing as long as we got a ring, and we did, so I'm not going to roast him for doing it. However, I also knew at the time, that he was sacrificing our future for a 4-5 year window. I was fine with that then, despite the fact that we didn't really get 5 great years. We got the ring, and DD was a big part of getting it. I'm not going to sugar coat the fact that he's also a big part of why we are where we are now- the cliff. It is what it is. It was what it was.

Sale will likely miss 2-3 months. Eovaldi rarely goes a season without missing 2-4 months. Yes, ERod may be done forever and could even be non-tendered. Add 2-3+ 2-4 + 0-6 and you get 4-13 out of 18 total. The over under on total months from these 3 might not even be at the half way mark of 9. I'd take the under on 10 months.

Aybar may be not be on the 40 man roster after we add rule 5's and free agents. Wilson is no big deal, except for our super short OF depth, right now.

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, I do not trust dWAR numbers for catchers. I'm not big on SB% being used as the main tool, either. CERA is number 1, and for many years I have documented Vaz struggles in this area when compared to other catchers on the team with the same pitchers (mostly starters). Pitch framing and blocking tough pitches is probably second, and Vaz seemed to have more than his share of PB+WP over the years. Maybe he's improved, this year. VTek was not viewed as a great defender until after age 29-30. Maybe the Ray use metrics that show Vaz as a plus on defense. I tend to think of him as a minus on D and a plus on O, when compared to other catchers.

The Rays usually, and rightfully so, look for defensive catchers. I don't see Vaz fitting that profile, but reports said they wanted Vaz.

I'm probably higher on Wong than he deserves, but I'm wondering if we might just go with what we have at catcher, without Vaz. If we end up being in the race, maybe we add a catcher mid season. I know that's not ideal, as we'd want a catcher to build a relationship with the staff before the playoffs. To me, we need pitching, pitching, pitching, centerfield.

So, we go with Plawecki, Grullon & Wong or pick up a catcher? Who is the Charlie Morton of this winter's FA class?

LOL. How could I have forgotten JD? (Maybe his 2020 season?) Okay, so we are one for six.

Our problem was the first year or two or three were pretty much all let down or horrific letdowns. HRam went from having a .907 OPS his previous 2 seasons to: .717 year one and .776 in his 3+ yrs with the Sox Pablo went from having a .794 OPS with SF to .658 year one and .646 in his 2+ seasons with the Sox Price went from being a horse 133 ERA+ in 866 IP in 4 yrs to 112 ERA+ year one and 75 IP year two and a 118 ERA+ in 4 seasons with us. Eovaldi was no "horse" when we re-signed him, so giving us 110 IP over the first 2 seasons with us is no surprise, but the ERA+ of 90 sucks. It was 112 in 2018- not counting the playoffs. The Sale deal has just begun, so the jury is still out. He still has 3-4 years left, buy year one saw zero IP'd. We're basically oh for five on the "first 2-3 years" of all our last major 5 signings.

Yes, I meant the Sale re-signing. You all know how much I loved that trade. When we signed HRam, I thought he'd play 3B, and I liked the idea. I barely had time to think about it before they announced signing Pablito. I was okay with the HRam, Sale, Price and Eovaldi signings. In hindsight, none look good.

Looks like we might end up with the 3rd to 5th worst record. That will still be the best draft pick we've had since 1967 (3rd pick), assuming they don't mess with the order. We've never picked higher than 3rd. 3rd 1967 (Mike Garman) 4th 1966 (Ken Brett) 5th 1965 (Billy Conigliaro) 7th 1993 (Nixon) 7th 2013 (T Ball) 7th 2015 (Beni)