moonslav59

Thanks for all the thoughts.

I'd keep Jimenez. I'd try to use a lefty as an opener, since our pen would then come in almost all as righties.

Guys, I don't like to bring my personal life into this site, but I just got some devastating news. My best and dearest friend from Maine died yesterday. He was hit by a train while walking on the tracks with earbuds on. I'm crushed. I may not be here for a while. I'd be grateful to all who could say a prayer for his long time girlfriend and siblings. He was 62. Biggest heart you could ever imagine.

Of course not, and my point isn't about not signing several SP'er to minor league deals. I think we should sign more than we have been, recently. I'm just pointing out the fact that they rarely work. What works best is when you improve your rotation from the top not the bottom. We had Pedro and got Schill: RING! We had Schill and got Beckett: RING! We had Lester and got Lackey: RING! We had Price and got Sale: RING! We sign scrubs like Masterson and Penny: No Rings!

Thanks! In Bloom I Trust The Rays have seven Top-100 prospects, the most of all 30 organizations. As exciting as that may be for Tampa Bay fans, it's worth noting McKay and Honeywell are the only two of the seven to reach Triple-A.

True, but when we signed him people said all the "nice depth signing" mantras.

I thought about it, but I expect Bloom to make a few more moves now that he has some budget room.

They hardly ever work our for us, and the ones that do are usually remembered as doing better than they actually did. (some not signed in the winter) '19 Andrew Cashner 2-5 6.20 '12 Aaron Cook 4-11 5.05 '17 Doug Fister 5-7 4.71

For some reason, we seem to come up short on minor league deals, especially for SP'ers.

We better hope we don't get draft penalties for the cheating case. One of the few good things about doing poorly in 2019 was finally getting a decent draft slot.

Even if we did better, expecting greatness with those picks is asking a lot. The best pick DD had was year 1, and it was the 12th pick. We can haggle about Groome all we want, and if you want to say DD should have known he'd get hurt, fine. You won't convince me it was a bad pick, except in hindsight. That draft also got us Chatham at 51, Shaun Anderson at 88 (traded for Nunez), Dalbec at 118 and Shawryn at 148. No way can you say that was a very bad draft. Maybe not great, but not bad. The 2017 draft had us picking 24th. Expecting greatness with those picks is unrealistic. We drafted Houck 24, Brannen 63, Netzer 101 & Scherff 161. I'm not going to pretend we did well, here, but with those picks it's hard to say we did badly. The 2018 draft had us pick 26th. We got Casas- a top 80 prospect. Later we got Decker 64, Feltman 100, Cottam 130, Ward 160 & Duran 220. This was a very good draft, if not excellent, for picking so low. The 2019 draft was the penalized draft for going over the max line. We picked 43rd. Expecting anything from this draft was a pipe dream. Nevertheless, we seemed to get some promising players: Cannon 43, Lugo 69, Zeferjahn 107, Song 137 & Murphy 197. All in all, I still believe we did better than expected with the picks we had. Had Groome not gotten hurt and did well, there would be no question we did better than we should have. The IFA market got us Mata, Jimenez, Velazquez, Aldo Ramirez, Brian Bello and Antoni Flores, Ceddanne Rafaela, Pedro Castellanos, Jorge Rodriguez, Chih-Jung Liu & Jonathan Arauz (rule 5)-- all current top 27 Sox prospects on soxprospects.com. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to convince anyone our farm is great. Adding Downs and Wong helped (thanks Bloom), but it's better than I thought it would be after trading away just about everyone and getting such poor picks and low IFA bonus pools.

Come on. Be serious. We actually did pretty well with the draft picks we had. Expecting to strike gold with bad picks and blaming our position now on that is kinda weak. The IFA signings have sucked compared to the Theo and Ben years.

Now, you supposing much more than just Eovaldi and Price, and you assumed we could trade Price alone after 2018. "Draft better?" We've had crappy picks, penalties and low IFA bonus pools.

The Sox have always been known to set a price and stick to it, so you are probably right, but had our budget not been so high it might have made it easier to offer slightly more than our "final offer" if it meant getting Betts. Just speculation, here.

With no wiggle room on the budget to add more and still a crappy farm.

I don't know enough about Duffy's situation to take a side, but it's not $31M over 2 years. They'd be taking JBJ's $11M, so it would be $20M/2 and $13M on the lux tax next year and $2M this year (counting no JBJ). That makes it sound more reasonable, but only if Bloom believes he can do well. Again, I'm not sure about this deal, but here are the 3 year numbers: Duffy (Just turned 31) 432 IP 103 ERA+ 1.356 WHIP Price (Turns 35 in August) 358 IP 122 ERA+ 1.204 WHIP Porcello (Just turned 31) 569 IP 96 ERA+ 1.322 WHIP

I think there are 4 GMs in MLB's HOF.

By not signing Eovaldi, trading Price and not replacing them? We'd have had a cliff season in 2019, although some kinds think it was anyways. Blow up a championship team right away? Sure, in hindsight, great idea. The Eovaldi-Price ideas llok great, but we'd have spent big to replace them and not reset.

I like the Ian Kennedy idea better. I'm still not sure $11M JBJ is worse than $16.5M Kennedy ($14M on lux line), but with Pillar on the team, I'd do it. I'm not sure KC would do it it just to save $5.5M. They could get a nice prospect for Kennedy and $5.5M cash towards his deal. What are your thoughts on JBJ for Danny Duffy? He's owed $15.25M and $15.5M over the next 2 years and $13M x 2 on the lux tax line. He's declined recently and would add to the 2021 budget. Chris Archer has $9M/1 left, but Pitt won't want JBJ, unless we paid down much of his deal. Anyone else?

I should have put Chatham in the 2B depth chart, but I need to see more from him before I move him above Lin and Chavis. Moreland will start every game vs RHPs, if healthy, so in a sense, he's the starter at 1B. Chavis or Dalbec (if he shows life) will play 1B vs LHPs. I doubt Chavis plays 2B vs RHPs, unless Peraza stinks up the place, so I see Peraza as the FT 2Bman, unless and until he loses the job.

So everything was fine up until the 2018 decisions not to trade Price and to sign Eovaldi? (BTW, Eovalid was signed as part of the whole "win now at the expense of the future" philosophy DD has followed for a long time.) Our farm was crap and even though it improved a little with the Betts-Price deal, our future is not really brightened by our projected input from our farm. The Eovaldi deal fell apart quickly. The Price deal was know to be worrisome towards the end of his deal. There were a lot of other deals that severely mortgaged the future for the here and now (2-4 year window). I'm glad we won the ring in 2018. I'd have a totally different attitude, right now, had we not. But, I knew all along we'd come to a point like we are today. Maybe it won't be a "cliff," but it certainly isn't pretty, right now. All those deals combined contributed to where we are today. It's easy to blame it all on one or two "take-back" what ifs, but the day of reckoning is upon us. Let's hope it does not last long, and IMO the Betts-Price deal was the first move we've made in years that improves the long term outlook. We've made a step in the right direction and may need more like it to hasten the comeback to serious competitiveness.

"Anymore" sounds too permanent. I'm not giving up hope on a reunion, until he signs the long term deal with someone else.

True, and if the bidding on Betts gets way out of hand, the money we prepared to pay him for can be used elsewhere to help us get back to the top. I won't be crushed, if we lose Betts for good, but I think we need to go pretty large and long to try to get him back.

Several fans wildly applauded nearly every move DD made and explained away the future with vague statements like "we'll build the farm back up, like always." Several denied the day of reckoning (or "cliff) would ever happen.

So, you want us to be the highest bidder next winter (within limits)? I'm getting mixed messages. What is the most you'd pay him? What do you think he may get (top end estimate)?