moonslav59

I've never said there are no upsets in baseball or that there are less than other sports, but it is not random. Better teams win more often. It's not 50-50. Yes, it's closer to 50% than 100%, but it is far from totally random. FAR!

I'd rather we trade JD and get something in return, but if he opts out it would be a positive step in the rebuilding process. It will hurt our chances for next year and maybe 2021 and 2022, too, but if Bloom spends the saved money wisely, maybe it won't hurt so much in the near future as losing JD seems to indicate.

I didn't say I wanted to offer him that- just that we could, if we wanted. I'm for trading JD, if he doesn't opt out. I'm still not sure he will. It makes more sense to opt out after 2020.

If he's worth that at age 35, we could just counter with a similar offer, if he opts out.

He's a left coast guy.

It's easy to just say, "Trade Price & Eovaldi." Are you for it or against it? How much salary are we chipping in? Are we adding some decent talent or prospects to the deals to get someone to take them without us paying so much? If so, who? Also, we can just non tender JBJ, so we don't need to trade him to cut salary. We would not "save $60M" unless we trade Betts with Price and Beni with Eovaldi. Am I for that? No. I do think we should explore any interest in these guys, but unless we can save a lot of money by trading them, and don't lose significant players as add-ons, I'm thinking we may be better off hoping and praying they bounce back and either increase their future trade value or help us win more in the next 3 years.

That does not prove randomness. Even if you go by each head-to-head series, here's what it looks like: Nat> Mil check Rays> Oak (1 win difference, but Rays had higher total WAR) STL>Atl (6 wins less but had a better 2nd half record 47-27 to 43-28) WAS> LAD (13 wins less but was one of the best 2nd half team) NYY> MN check HOU> TBR check WAS>STL check HOU>NYY check So far, 5 faves have won, and 3 did not, but one could call the TB-Oak play-in game as an even game. If you don't count the one game play-in game, which is certainly more "random" than a 5 or 7 game series, the record is Faves 4- Underdogs 2. It's still not random. 2nd half records: 50-22 HOU 47-27 STL 46-26 NYM did not make playoffs 46-24 LAD 46-27 WAS 46-24 OAK 45-28 MN 44-27 TB 43-21 CLE no playoffs 43-28 ATL 42-29 MIL I'm not trying to move the goal posts with this second half stuff. I mentioned season W-L records may not be the best way to determine who were the best teams each year and then show if the best teams win, but to me it it pretty obvious the better teams win more often. I still have yet to see any clear evidence to show it's 50-50. I'm open to change my mind, but give me something. Overall WAR totals and playoff records? Second half records vs PO wins. Last 30 game records vs PO wins. Does anyone really believe the better team doesn't have a better chance at winning a 5 or 7 game series? You gotta show me more than 2 or 3 upsets out of 8 match-ups this year. If anything that should be used as evidence it is NOT random.

Maybe next year the Yanks will have the sort of surprise we had this year.

It's definitely worth it, if the projected offer is for real. It also would mean he and his contract are tradeable, assuming he does not opt out.

So, if he stays in Boston, he gets $63.5M/3. If he opts out he might get $80M/4 plus the $2.5M for opting out. He's basically adding an extra year for $19M. Right?

Yes, it was pure sarcasm. Maybe Max had not read my previous posts on the matter. Can someone give me all the examples where the worst team to make the playoffs winning it all? One might argue the 2006 Cardinals, but that's all I see in over 2 decades. If you only count the WC play-in game winners, there are 8 teams in the playoffs. Randomness would dictate every team has close to a 1 in 8 chance of winning. The fact is, the top 4 teams have won about 75% of the last 16 WS. If it was random, they'd have won about 50%. Better teams win more often. Long series weed out the worse teams. I'm still kind of amazed that some here are arguing the better teams don't win more often.

No, honestly, it isn't. Yes, any team can beat any other team, and baseball is more random than other sports, but in 5 or 7 game series, the better teams win way more often than random flipping of coins.

I agree, but some GMs sign better FAs than others- or make less big mistakes.

The more I think about the Bloom hiring, the more optimistic I get. I'm looking forward to some shrewd winter deals, an improved draft and some better IFA signings. We may even see a surprising team in 2020.

Excellent post. Yes, it is possible to like what DD did but still think it was right to move on.

It's all a random crapshoot.

It might be better to hope Price rebounds. If we trade him, we'd likely have to pay half his salary. Is saving $15M worth opening a new hole in the rotation? Close call, IMO.

With no Betts, I don't see the benefit of keeping JD. 2020 would be over, so then just look to 2021 and beyond- fully.

It's not really all that laughable to imagine a division win. Every year sees some surprises. Plus, we are just one year removed from a record season. It just takes nearly everyone being healthy, and although that may look like a long shot, our best players are on the right side of prime or in the middle of their prime. We are likely to lose almost all our oldest players, and we haven't been counting on the oldest remaining player (Pedey) for anything in 3 years. 36 Pearce 35 Pedey 34 Wright 33 Moreland 33 Price (Still not far removed from prime) 32 Nunez 32 Cashner 31 Holt 31 Gorkys 31 Josh Smith 30 Leon 30 Porcello 30 Thornburg Ages of our oldest significant players: 33 Price 31 JD (may opt out or be traded) 30 Sale 30 Workman 30 Walden 29 JBJ (may be non tyiendered or traded) Borderline significant: 31 Brasier 31 Chacin

I may be in the minority, but with all the "pen games" and "opener games" these days, I'm not seeing it as a problem. It can really mess up the lefty-righty set line-ups early in a game. With 26 man rosters coming up in 2020, we can pretty much be sure of a 13 man staff all year. (I think we carried 13 pitchers all 2019- the first time, I think, that happened with the Sox.) Hell, we may see 14 pitchers at some point- not counting September. Anyone know, if they changed any rules about September call-ups?

As long as nobody trips up the other.

He is NOT "fully healthy," and when we signed him, he was an OF'er about to be used primarily as a DH. Now, he's a DH who can play OF in NL parks. Teams may realize part of the reason he was relatively healthy the last two years was precisely because he was almost a FT DH. To me, he's worth $22M- not more and not much less.

In my opinion, the darker it gets, the faster the rebuild might be. Having a high budget can keep us from being really bad, but being really bad gets top draft picks (or better ones). The IFA market might be the real key to rebuilding the farm quickly and finding ML ready players, too. I've been expecting a cliff for a while now, so I was prepared for this, and I was okay with DD's plan as long as it got us a ring. It did. I lived through decades of futility with no prize at the end of those waits. A 4 year wait would not be fun, but if there's a prize afterwards, all is good with me. Those 3 last place finishes with Ben at the helm sucked big time, but I never lost hope. We had a great core of young players AND a super farm, so the optimism off set the gloomy 3 seasons. I'm hopeful this guy will make the rebuild go more quickly and more forcefully.

Are you yanking our daisy chaim?

Certainly, an argument could be made that was the wrong choice, especially in hindsight. To me, it would have made sense to either pick up a decent RP'er and give the impression we were "going for it" or have a mini-sell off. Playing it halfway almost never works. (The 2013 team did.)