moonslav59

Never losing less than 89 games is impressive. Two rings is awesome. Those were some good to great years (2 championships in 8 seasons and 1 first place) I can certainly see why many feel he was the best, but I still like Cora a little more.

Yes, I figured you'd reply and disagree, since you are so anti-progressive (LOL). Dick Williams did a great job in '67, and I have him 3rd on my list. We need more time to judge Cora, but I like his approach, and I find myself disagree with less of his decisions than others. I really liked Tito for a long time, but he lost control of the team. I realize he had side issues going on, and one could argue Cora has of is "losing" this team, but in my opinion, Cora is the best, but it's close.

Espi had arm troubles before the trade?

I'm certainly rethinking my positioning Cora on the top of my best Sox manager's list, but he's still there with Tito nipping at his heals and Dick Williams pretty far back.

Our farm was one of the best in MLB when DD joined the team. Almost every one who ranks farm systems had us in the top 5 or 6, maybe top 10, at worst. One can argue they were overrated and DD got the best or near the best anyone could possibly get for them, but the fact is it was ranked highly. In hindsight, several of the top prospects have already shown they are flops- like Guerra. Other are showing or starting to show promise- like Moncada. Others got hurt or are still not ready for the bigs, yet. Here's the soxprospects.com top 20 rankings at the end of 2015: Moncada Devers Espinoza Margot Beni Guerra Kopech (was 5th when traded) Johnson Travis Marrero Chavis Basabe (was 7th when traded) Allen Ball Rijo Longhi Marco Dubon (was 10th when traded) Light Stanki Red= Traded It wasn't a total gut, but it was pretty massive. I'm glad he won a ring for us, but we are paying for it, now. #4 Bleacher Report: https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2564903-re-ranking-all-30-mlb-farm-systems-after-the-2015-milb-season#slide26 #6 Baseball Prospectus: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/prospects/article/25592/2015-prospects-2015-organizational-rankings/ #1 MLB.com Red Sox head list of Top 10 Minor League systems | MLB.com WWW.MLB.COM The Official Site of Major League Baseball

There's a method to the madness.

I'd like to see a reset, myself. 1) It will lessen any future penalties for going over the limit in future years. 2) It helps keep other fans from saying we outspend everyone else and should win (or "we bought a ring.") 3) We need to get some better draft picks AND do well with them.

She's very good at getting the most out of her guests. I'd say 2.91.

We don't need to reset to have no draft penalties. Just stay under the $40M over line.

Sometimes players who look "meh" in the minors surprise in the majors. I do think watching them play in the bigs adds a little (not a lot) of insight. It's no biggie. Cora's already done it to a large extent.

Pom had actually started more than 1/2 year before the trade. 22 starts in 2012 (no relief). 4 in 2013. 10 starts in 2014. 9 starts in 2015. 17 starts in 2016 before the trade.

I wouldn't "tank," but I'd play every borderline 2020 player we can to possibly gain insights.

I do, too. It looks better afterwards, and the ring certainly helped, although CK looked bad in the 2019 playoffs. I loved having Kimbrel. We won a ring. It's hard to say the trade was a failure, and I'm not saying that. I'm okay with overpays. The Sale trade was an overpay. The Thornburg trade as well, but it wasn't a gross overpay, although the Thornburg one looks bad, now. It's like the Price signing. We all knew we paid too much and/or for too long, but we needed an ace, and he was one of the top 3 aces to enter free agents in a pretty long window. Overpay? Yes. Still a plus signing? I think, yes. (It's looking worse now than at the time, and that's scary with so many years left.)

I think Duran is too high. I've always liked Mata. I'd go: 1) Casas 2) Mata 3) Dalbec 4) Groome 5) Ward Big drop off here 6) Chatham (maybe wishful thinking here) 7) Jimenez 8) Houck 9) Duran 10) Fill in the blank ___________

I don't disagree with anything here, but I'd like to add: 1) To sign the best FAs, you have to go with longer deals than you want. Otherwise, you don't get the man you really want. 2) On the prospects we traded, most have yet to reach prime or are just breaking into the majors now, so lets wait on the "what have they accomplished" part of the judgment. 3) For many of us, it was not about wanting to hoard all our prospects, and I don't think Ben was going to keep even half of them.It was about trying to make deals like the Sale one- not the Kimbrel and Pom ones.

Espi was a top 20 prospect, which is very rare for a kid that age. I think we could have gotten better with a larger package, but we had very littleleft to add to a deal after the farm had already been nearly gutted. I'm thrilled DD had the sense to keep Devers & ERod.

There are trades that have some good and bad parts. Kimbrel was a great closer. We needed one. DD got one, but it's hard to deny he paid top dollar for him, like he was a FA AND he gave up a package that is usually only seen for s top SP'er or everyday player- not a closer. As I said, once the cost of a top FA closer began to sky-rocket, the finanical part of the deal didn't look as bad as at the time of the trade. We'll never know, if we could have gotten Kimbrel without giving up Allen, or who else we might have been able to get with a similar package or by adding Espinoza to a mix. It's all conjecture. I have no beef with anyone that still loves the deal. I hate it less now than I did then, but I'm still on the side that it was too much of an overpay.

We're closer to .500 than the Guardians. That's sad. We're as close to the 9th best AL record as we are to the 6th best AL record. We're 14th in MLB. 0.5 from 15th (NYM) 1.0 from 16th (AZ) and the second tier. 4.0 from 17th (TX) 5.5 from 18th (SFG) 8.0 from 19th (SDP) same as we are from CLE.

I think, barring any major losses to the line-up, we'll be a top 3 offense, again. That being said, will we still lack timely hitting and bunch our runs too much, then we'll be no better off. (Not that I'm placing blame on the offense for 2019.)

Good to see the team rise to show Cora who we are.

I thought it was a bad deal. I still do. Yes, we won a ring, and it's impossible to prove whether we win none, one, two or three had we not made the trade. Kimbrel was great for us- just about every year. It wasn't about the players we traded. I would have wanted to trade many of the prospects DD ended up trading. It was about trading so many AND paying top or near top dollar for his contract at the same time. Same with the Espi-Pom trade. I liked Pom, but I thought we needed better than him, and I wished we had the Kimbrel prospects or others to package with him for a much better pitcher. Look, I realize Sale and Quinatna might not have been available at the time of the CK and DP deals, and we'll never know what the other choices might have been available. I've said it many times. DD brought us a ring. I'm fine with what he did.It worked. That doesn't mean I have to like evey move he ever made, and I don't. I'm sure you probably don't like some things, too.

.178?

I didn't say I wouldn't have traded them. Also, We may have won a ring without Kimbrel.

Look what Oprah makes. Need I say more.

It's the nature of that profession.