moonslav59

Pearce had some very good regular season numbers over the prior 2-3 regular seasons. I don't think the post season numbers were the only reason DD decided to sign him.

Look what happened to Tommy Harper and the Sox as late as the 70's. It was a sad stain on our team's history.

RIP Pumpsie Green.

3 games before he goes on the IL again.

Cots has us at spending $236M this season, and here we are. Yes, Eovaldi, Moreland and other have been hurt, but look at the other teams: NYY have had tons of injuries and are spending more than $30M less than us. TBR has a budget almost 1/4th ours. CLE has a budget just over half of ours, lost Brantley and others to free agency and Kluber & Carrasco to injuries. Oak has a budget of about 40% of ours. No excuses. I still think we have a better team, on paper, than most of these teams, but we are where we are. We have 2 weeks to turn things around, of I'll be leading the big sell parade bandwagon.

Nice. The Sox have always been way ahead of my other sport teams' following. I used to score the games by radio or try to watch them on my TV set on UHF Channel 38 all the way from Portland, Me. I was a kid in Milwaukee during the Packer and Bucks championships, and they still have a place in my heart but no where near the Sox. I played fantasy football for 3 years and won twice. They booted me out of the league by changing it to postal workers only. I think I lost my extreme love of the Packers while rooting for Emmit Smith and Gud Frerotte to score, score, score... The Pack and Bucks sucked for many years, but they've had their moments in the sun or partial shade. I admit I've channeled much of my OCD tendencies to one thing: The Boston Redsox!

Well said, and what GM, in their right mind, would not try to win again in 2019 without going even more nutty with the spending?

Yes, he overpaid for Moreland and Pearce. I doubt anyone would have paid Eovaldi that much for 4 years. I do not think he overpaid for Price. He was the best, and the best cost mega bucks. I loved the Sale signing, and we'll see if it becomes our next albatross or not. JD was not overpaid. Bogey was not overpaid. Overall, DD seems to have come out about even on the overpay/underpay scale,to me.

I agree. We should have spent on the pen, instead of Pearce, but Moreland did get hurt and nobody expected Chavis to be better than both. Yes, DD made mistakes. I'm not saying he didn't. It was part of my point. The budget was limited, and we had had many needs: 4th starter, 5th starter, Closer, Set-up man, 1B, 2B and some felt catcher and another RP'er. I have no issue with anyone saying Eovaldi & Pearce were mistakes, and many said so at the time, but it's not like DD did not try to fill the holes he felt were needed most. I'm not giving DD a pass- far from it. He gets credit for getting us the 4th ring, but he also gets the blame for forcing us to max out the budget while emptying the farm to do so. I was okay with the plan. I had hoped we kept more of the farm, but his plan worked. Now the second part of the plan is fast arriving, and it's time to face the consequences. DD gets credit for the win and the blame for where we are now.

We had very limited funds this past winter and very little hope from our farm. This was a direct result of always trying to get better every year. In theory, the philosophy sounds great, but we sold our future for today, and the future is now here. Yes, signing Pearce instead of a pen arm was a mistake, but we thought we needed help for the fragile Moreland. Was DD wrong about that? Yes, Eovaldi got hurt. That sucked. Yes, DD made spending mistakes, but to expect no mistakes in FA signings is unrealistic.

It must have been easy not following the sucky Broncos after their 2 wins. I'm not sure I agree with your generalizations, since there are many cerebral Sox fans, many of whom have gone on to "heady" jobs in baseball.

I totally agree, and we all knew we were going for broke and giving up a bit of the future to do it. Yes, any team that outspends everyone else (some competitors by 3 X) should be more competitive than this, but we emptied the farm for the ring #4, and it may be time to pay for it with a down year or 2 (hopefully not more). Being a Sox fan from the early 70's to 2004 has made me more accepting of 1-3 year lulls, despite mega spending.

I wonder what the demos were 20, 30 and 40 years ago.

This is "the cliff" many of us spoke of. 9 Keepers 6-8 prospetcs called up 8-10 low cost free agents signed this winter, just to field a team and stay under the tax line. This might be the opening day roster (with more than 7-9 keepers) with NO free agents signed: SP: Price, Sale, ERod, Eovaldi, Johnson/Velazquez RP: Workman (last arb year), Barnes, Hembree, Taylor, DHern, Brasier, Brewer/Walden/Lakins/Shawaryn Poyner/ Reyes/ Weber/ Kelley C: Vaz & Leon (at min salary) or Centeno 1B: Dalbec/Travis/Ockimey/Curletta (Chavis from 2B) 2B: Chavis & Marco (Maybe re-sign Holt) 3B: Devers SS: Bogey & Lin/Chatham LF: Beni CF: Castillo/GHernandez/Duran RF: Betts (if not traded) DH: Pedey/Dalbec/Ockimey No: JD Porcello JBJ Moreland Pearce Nunez Wright I think that's enough to get under the luxury tax line. (I'll do the math later.) Maybe Betts or Beni will be gone and replaced by 1-2 cheap free agents on 1 year deals.

Well said. It's hard to stay highly competitive every year, even when outspending everyone.

The offense is the least to blame, for sure.

Agreed, but the offense has struggled when needed

Yes, especially when you never reach the ultimate goal between rebuilds

Cleveland or Oakland might be more likely.

The farm was much worse by the time Theo left. Ben left DD with a great farm.

I've not given up. In fact, I think we should make 1-2 trades right now to get better (2 solid RP'ers). However, we can't just decide on July 30th to sell. We need to put out feelers now, just in case. Plan to win this year, but also plan to sell off, if we look hapless over the next 2 weeks.

Assuming we become sellers, I'd trade him for the best offer and then try to re-sign him next winter.

Does this mean we're done bashing Ben?

We also have to remember that although we have used the pen-starter strategy less than some teams, and our innings are higher than most, we've had an 8 man pen all year long. That should have more than made up for the 14 IP extra we have. I can't remember the last time the Sox have gone with 13 pitchers all year long. The pen was thin to begin with and short on top quality arms. The hope was they'd get us to the trade deadline, and some help would arrive. The hope was our starters would dominate and pitch longer than they have to help take some of the stress and innings away from the pen. The hope was the hitting would help make up for some of the pen's shortcomings. The pen has sucked, especially the last 4-6 weeks. The starters have sucked and not given the innings hoped for. (We've had some long extra inning games, too.) The hitters have not come through, when they have been needed most. We've scored a lot of runs, but not enough in close games. Even our defense has looked worse than expected, despite Devers improving a lot at 3B. Our GM, manager and coaches all are partially to blame, as well. To me, it's one giant let-down. Only Bogey, Devers, Price, ERod, Vaz, Workman, Chavis and a tiny sample size from Marco have been doing better than expected. You don't win with just 5-6 guys doing well.

Trade him to a big NL park team, and he's a good gamble for a contender. Plus, we can pay most of his remaining salary to increase the return prospect or two.