moonslav59

Big win. Keep it going!

October 10, 1971 My family had just moved from Milwaukee to Portland, ME. We had lived 2 blocks from the old County Stadium, where the Brewers played. Tommy Harper was my favorite player having had a 30+ HR and 30+ SB season (the first ever?). October 10, 1971: the Brewers traded Tommy, Marty Pattin & Lew Krausse for George Scott, Jim Lonborg, Ken Brett, Billy Conigliaro and Joe Lahoud I switched my loyalty to the Red Sox. Note: I'm still a Packer fan (saw Bart Starr) and a Bucks fan (saw Lew Alcindor).

Good to see JBJ heating it up a bit.

Well said, but perhaps there was more to the Lackey story than simply saying we gave up 8 months of Lackey for 4+ years of Kelly and wasted money for Craig (not counted for tax purposes though). If Kelly gives us 2-3 good years, I'm fine with losing a guy who seemingly didn't want to play here for no salary.

I'm not here to litigate DD's shortcomings. This was just about the failures of 2014/2015 when Ben straight up trashed the place and put the Sox in a hole they are still trying to climb out of. Then you probably think Theo trashed the place for Ben.

They could have and should have gone after Miller at the end of the season. He wanted to play in Boston. They screwed this pooch too. Dumb. Agreed, and had they done that the ERod trade would have looked even better.

You're leaving out years of control. A value that is important.

WAR since 2016: 6.0 Porcello 5.1 Lester 4.5 Price 3.4 Lackey Since 2015.... 13.9 Sale 10.9 Price 10.1 Lester 7.7 Porcello 7.0 Lackey Lester is 33 and is owed $110M from this year to 2020 (age 36). Porcello is 28 and is owed $62.4M until 2019 (age 30). Not Trash!

We could have re-signed Lester too, and had Porcello & Lester (and Miller)!!!

They won the WS and then went back to back with last place finishes. They trashed the place. Lester for Porcello - downgrade-- Jury still out Miller for ERod - downgrade-- 2 months of Miller for 4+ years of ERod is far from a downgrade. (We should have re-signed Miller and had both now!) Lackey for Kelly and Craig - downgrade-- Again, 2 or 8 months of Lackey for 4+ years of Kelly is not cut and dry. Peavy for Edwin Escobar and Hembree - whatever-- I'll take 2 months of Hembree over 2 months of Peavy, but we got way more months than 2. These are not great moves, but they're not really "trash" either. Edwin Escobar was seen as the key to that Hembree trade and the guy was DFA'd. They basically lucked into an ok bullpen arm. I always thought Hembree had a better chance, but Peavy was worth nothing to us at the time of the trade.

One out two is not bad.

They got Cespedes (which netted us Porcello) and a draft pick the forfeited for HRam for Lester. They got Kelly. They got Hembree. They got ERod. I like what the Yanks got for their purge, but we didn't totally "trash" the place.

Castillo was a gamble that failed. That failure was more than offset by the success of the Moncada gamble that netted us Sale. Craig was not the expected prize of the Lackey deal: Kelly was. There's still time for Kelly to turn that trade into a good one. That Pablo-HRam signings were bad. One would have been understandable but not both. To me, the biggest mistakes of Ben's tenure were Lester & Pablo.

Betts had a .726 OPS on May 18, 2016. I seriously doubt we are seeing a regression from him this year. Of course, any player can have a down year, and when several have them at the same time, it's not pretty. I did expect regression from Leon, but I expected progression from Vaz, and by replacing Hanigan and Holaday's PAs, I felt our overall catcher OPS would improve over 2016. 2016: .665 catcher OPS (.250 8 60) This included: .454 from Holaday in 34 PAs .449 from Hanigan in 111 PAs .584 from Vazquez in 181 PAs To me, this more than off sets the "up year" by Leon (.840 in 271 PAs). I think Leon can give us .680-.720 for over 350 PAs, and Vaz can give us .650-.690 for 300+ PAS. That should give us a better than .665 OPS from our catchers. Another big improvement was supposed to come from LF (.759 in 2016) and maybe 3B (.686).

soxprospects.com... ...The worst news of the evening came in the fifth inning when rehabbing third baseman Brock Holt had to leave the game due to a recurrence of vertigo symptoms. ... Soulda- coulda-woulda traded him while his stock was inflated.

Haven't you heard? Brock is an all star!

...and Craig's too, but at least Castillo's and Craig's contracts don't get luxury taxed.

They might have still signed Price and maybe not gone after Sale .

Yes, and this has been another loss that kind of flies under the radar. Young and Moreland were supposed to platoon. So far, both have hit "the wrong hand" better than the "right hand", so it has largely gone unnoticed, however, I seriously doubt the reverse splits continue all year. Morealnd will slump, at least vs LHPs, and Young will likely come down to earth vs righties.

I get your position, and of course we all would have loved to replace Papi "in kind". That task, however, was near impossible. Certainly, Moreland does not even come close. A full year from Beni might make up for a little of the offense lost, but surely a loss was expected to some degree. I guess the argument is really about to what degree, and to what degree did picking up Sale and Thornburg along with Smith's expected return "on paper" put a dent into the big offensive loss? I'm not saying you were or are wrong. I'm just saying, that I felt "on paper" we should have been able to break even. So far, it looks like I (and others) was wrong, but I'm holding off judgment until Price returns. Compare what Price, Porcello and Wright gave us the first half last year, and one could blame this mediocre start solely on that alone-- not Papi.

I still think once we get Price back, we'll win at a rate similar, if not better, than last year. (I also expect our offense to improve to top 5 in runs scored by year's end. That's looking harder and harder with each game gone by, but I'm still hopeful.

Unjustifiably so, GMs in all sports are mostly judged in hindsight- like they were supposed to know a player was going to get hurt or enter a period of steep unexpected decline. There's lots of gray area--like was it DD's fault Thornburg misinterpreted the winter workout regime? Was it DD's fault to sign a pitcher to $30+M a year with most years on the wrong side of top prime? (The club philosophy was not to do that before-perhaps for good reason-perhaps not.) Was it DD's fault to not nix the Pom trade? (Of course, I say yes, since I hated the trade even with a healthy Pom.) Some of these moves could be viewed as judging in "foresight". The Ben signing of Pablo was slammed by many of us. He was in a pretty steep and constant slide before we signed him. He was overweight. Did Ben drop the ball on not insisting on some sort of weight clause or check-in on over the winter? (I say yes and yes, and I'm a big Ben fan.) Should Ben have foreseen injuries for HRam? I say yes. That's the pessimist view. One could see it like this too: if Price and Thornburg were healthy and Wright was pitching like early 2016, we'd all be praising his genius as we'd be 3-4 games up in the AL East with Carson Smith's pending return brightening the future outlook. One could ask, would Ben still be here if HRam and Porcello had their 2016 seasons in 2015?

Yes. It's hard to credit a manager with wins, because it usually just involves doing what you're supposed to do. It's easier to find faults. I don't pick on game to game decisions, although I find myself disagreeing with JF more than other past managers. My beef is with the apparent lack of motivation, lack of fundamentals, and lack of any signs of brilliance. Francona lost the clubhouse during a trying time in his life, but the guy had smarts.

soxprospects.com... Third baseman Rafael Devers has long been talked about as the long-term solution at third for the organization, but some, including the Providence Jornal's Tim Britton, are starting to wonder if he could be the answer in the present? Still only 20 years old, Devers has been dominating at a level where he is over four years younger than the average position player. In his first 117 plate appearances, he has hit .324/.393/.590 with 7 home runs and 7 doubles. Those numbers have him in the top 12 in the Eastern League in average, OBP, slugging, OPS, and total bases.

My plan was to trade for K-Rod and sign Clippard for $7M a year. We'd have the same budget but could have traded the 4 prospects for someone else. Remember, Guerra had much higher trade value back then.