moonslav59

Jhonathan Diaz pitched a gem for Salem ( 6 IP 0 ER 2 H 3 BB 8 Ks), and the team came back to score 3 in the 9th to tie the game, but they lost in 10. Casas went 2-5.

Tearing down is not the only way to get back to the top. We won on 2004, 2007, 2013 and 2018 without any total tear downs. Yes, we had the Dodger dump. Yes, we had the rotation sell off of Lester, Lackey, Peavy & Doubront. Yes, we had some decent farm systems here and there, and I know it's harder to rebuild the farm, these days, when you keep winning and spending like we have, but if Henry is willing to spend near or over the max line from time to time, or most of the time, we can get back to the top quicker than teams unwilling to do so.

1) You guys haven't won crap, yet, so it's kind of comical you use your team as an example on how to rebuild. Like it's the only way to rebuild! 2) You want to believe Sale is toast, Price is done and Eovaldi will never be healthy. You may end up being right, but they are better than your top 3 going into next year, and I'm not even counting ERod in the mix. 3) We have a solid young core, still, and if we keep Betts, we'd have him, Devers, Bogey, Beni and Vaz. 4) We have something your owner doesn't have, the willingness to spend to win. 5) We have a much better manager than your team. Yes, we have current budget issues and a low ranked farm. When I mentioned drafting well and signing international FAs well in the next two years, I didn't mean it as something that was going to help us in 2021 or 2022. I doubt even 2023, but building it back up might help us win in 5 years- hence my liking to win every 3-5 years. If we reset in 2020 and spend near or over the max line in 2021, it is certainly not "almost impossible" to imagine a team that could be a top contender. I didn't say we would be. I didn't say it would be easy. I actually said almost every move we make going forward will have to work for us to be back on top by 2021, but that is far from impossible. More likely, we may be able to be back on top after Pedey's deal runs out and we're looking at the final years of Price, JD, Vaz, Eovaldi and JD (if he doesn't opt out by then). If we can't win in 2021 or 2022, we'll have a boatload of money to spend in 2023, and hopefully some infusion from the farm that we had improved from 2020-2021.

It will be tough, but the wait could be shorter than you hope. Reset in 2020. Extend Betts for 2021. Draft well in 2020 and 2021. Do well with international signings. Be careful with any other 2+ year big contracts. We may need all of the above to go right, and that is very hard to do, but we still have a solid core of young players and an owner that is willing to spend VERY BIG to win. It may take longer than 1 or 2 years, but I'm fine with a ring every 3-5 years.

I never thought Buchholz milked injuries, so no such analogy was intended. Both Buch and Moreland got hurt a lot. Both Buch and Moreland were inconsistent when they were healthy. That's two major similarities. I still like the comp.

I'm not sure many managers would stick with a career .667 OPS guy vs LHPs at this point in a lost season. He's been .562 and .620 vs LHPs the last 2 years. I love JBJ, don't get me wrong. He's my favorite player, but the writing is on the wall.

Moose played some games at 2B, this year (40 GS'd). I wanted to sign him and either have him play 1B or move Devers there.

Holt is not under team control next year.

That may be true, so my "nobody knew" statement may be flawed, but I don't think there was any way DD would know. It's not like routine medical examines look for obscure issues like his. Fine. Blame DD for trading for damaged goods, but I choose to think of it as just bad luck. I did think we overpaid, just like we did for Sale, Kimbrel, Pom and others before. My point was that nobody cares about the Pom trade because Espi has been hurt, yet they blame DD for Thornburg getting hurt and not giving us even decent innings.

Nobody knew Espinoza would get hurt. Nobody knew Thornburg would get hurt. Hindsight judgments are easy. Had we not traded for Pom and trades Espy for Thornburg, nobody would be complaining, and we'd still have Dubon and Shaw.

We do have Devers "left," too. I did not like the Thornburg deal, but even if he never repeated his numbers in Milwaukee, one could have expected better from him had he not gotten injured. We also let Buttrey go before ever giving him a look-see.

He's the Buchholz of everyday players. I was a big defender of Buch back in the day, but then I wasn't. As just about everyone knows, Moreland bugs the s*** out of me, despite being a good defender and raking RHPs often. His injury issues and platoon status was the main reason we signed Pearce instead of a RP'er. We overpaid him, too. Look what Moose got, and what he did.

One could argue the pen has over performed expectations 2 years in a row.

I try hard to avoid blame games, especially one one guy, but it's hard to not do in today's society.

Team Defensive Rankings by Position(Fangraphs): C 2. BOS 26.3 UZR/150 Sox Rankings 1B 21. -2.1 2B 7. +3.7 3B 15. +0.5 SS 12.+2.1 LF 19. -3.1 CF 16. -1.0 RF 4. +9.1

Team UZR/150 5. Red Sox 3.6 10. LAD 1.7 DRS 1. LAD 127 23. Red Sox -13 (Cue: metrics hater rants.)

SP'ers 1. Cole 2.62 2. Scherzer 2.92 3. Sale 2.94 RP'ers 1. Yates 2.21 2. Pressly 2.32 3. Hader 2.42 4. Kahnle 2.47 5. Anderson 2.56 6. Barnes 2.63

13 Ks tonight in our "pen game." The Sox have the second best K rate in MLB (9.9) Look at these sick numbers: 17.2 DHern (1st in MLB) 15.6 Barnes (3rd) 14.2 Shawaryn 13.3 Sale 12.9 Workman 11.6 Taylor 10.8 Hembree 10.7 Price 10.6 Thornburg 9.1 Brasier 9.1 Eovaldi 9.0 Kelley 8.8 ERod

4th post of this thread.

It would be nice to knock the Yanks out of home field advantage v the 'Stros.

The poynster back to looking decent!

They would have had a position for HRam had they not signed Pablito. 3B. Yes, he had been erratic and missed some time, but it's not like these amount of PAs in his previous 9 seasons screamed of fragility: 700 706 693 652 619 385 667 336 512 Even the two "injury seasons both saw 330+ PAs He had two down year, and they both were back to back in 2011 and 2012, and those were .712 in his injury year and .759 with 24 Hrts and 94 RBIs is 2012 (3 years before we signed him). From 2013-2014, he had these numbers: .308 33 128 in 848 PAs (62 2B+3B) .382 OBP .525 SLG .907 OPS He even had 24 SBs! The guy did have somethings going for him, and we did get that one good year from him: .286 33 111 (.866 OPS) He had an .811 OPS from 2016-2017 with 105 XBHs in 1045 ABs. The injury messed him up, and one can't totally blame him for that one. Like most deals like his, it was for 1-2 years too long, and putting him in LF was not a good idea.

Told ya, we shoulda cut Moreland!

Man, our pen sucks!

I think we have to "ignore" the starting AND Relief pitching. I do see the value in going for one more ring within this window, but I think trying to win in 2020 would mean signing someone good (or 2-3 good FAs), and you don't get "good" with 1 year deals, so trying to win in 2020 would further complicate the budget going beyond 2020 and making it nearly impossible to have a quick rebuild period. Then, there's the losing Betts part.