moonslav59

My sentiments exactly. I've softened a little on Kimbrel, but not on Espi. I loved the Sale, Thornburg and Ziegler trades. The Smith trade was good. I disliked the Hill trade. I hated the Kimbrell and Espi trades. Overall, I'm fine with what DD did. I'm also fine with what Ben and Theo did. I love the team we have right now, I just wish we hadn't done the two deals I hated.

You need reading comprehension classes. Where did I ever even relate Ben to Theo, let alone say Theo was Ben's puppet? Ben made some big mistakes, especially the Pablo signing. Theo made some mistakes too (CC signing). Theo used some of Dan D's prospects to build a championship, but he never went overboard in stripping the farm. Dan D has a history of stripping the farm and signing big FAs and leaving the team worse off than when he started. Some cases were not his whole fault. He was forced to firesale the Marlins after their win. He started in Montreal and his team's finished 3rd, 4th and then ended 6th (71-90). He won a ring in Florida, but was under the heavy hand of Huizenga I'm fine with giving him credit for that ring. It's not easy building a championship from an expansion team. He deserves credit where credit is due. However, his record speaks for itself: 6th of 7, 5th of 5, 4th, 3rd, 2nd (Champs), 5th (54-108), 5th, 5th, 3rd and 4th No first place finishes that you seem to value more as much as rings. So, before going to Detroit: 13 seasons with no 1st place finishes and only one 2nd place finish- 1 ring. He joined a Tiger team that had finished 3rd, 3rd and 4th beforehand. They then went: 5th, 5th, 4th, 4th, 2nd (lost WS), 2nd, 5th, 2nd, 3rd. After his first 22 seasons: 0 first place 2 second place 4 third place 4 fourth place 9 fifth or lower place Then after trading away top prospects and signing some big FAs and extensions, the Tigers finished: 1st, 1st, 1st, 1st (They finished 5th the year after he left). No rings, 1 WS trip, 2 ALCS losses, 1 LDS loss Before joining the Sox: After his first 26 seasons as a GM: 1 Ring 4 first place 2 second place 4 third place 4 fourth place 9 fifth or lower place Count the 1st place finish this year and he's got 5 first place finishes out of 27, This is less than Ben's 25% first place finishes. His 1 ring in 27 is way worse than 1 in 4. Yeah, his 9 fifth place finishes out of 27 (33%) is better than Ben's 75% last place finishes, but at least Ben left the team in better shape than when he took over: something DD has never done.

And Ben's prospects were the drivers of DD's deals.

I am too, but you were comparing hypotheticals.

Name one poster who hates Sale. Even the one guy who has been highly critical of the Sale trade said it wasn't the Sale trade in a vacum, but rather the totality of farm gutting that was wrong.

...and within tougher rules for winning and richer teams.

Right?

Maybe true.

Maybe 2 rings and eight 3rd or 4th place finishes.

I didn't mean it as derogatory. Yes, I view Manny, Lackey, Schilling, CC, HanRam and Panda as "big splash" too.

I wasn't the only one, but I was 16, and I cried. I kept score of each game. The Ed Armbrister call irked me to no end. Bucky Effin Dent. Buckner. 2003. I said for years, I'd take 10 last place finishes for one ring, and I meant it. I don't feel the same now, but I think that sentiment is still strong.

Hard to imagine that if this really was factual, it wouldn't have been reported everywhere and dissected to death. All I heard was a rumor that his agent said he "might" retire rather than play for the minimum. That's how I remember it. No mention of a 100% ultimatum.

The Sox have fast-tracked players in the past. Fred Lynn spent 53 games in AA and was promoted to AAA the next year with a September call up that same year. He never went back...just 678 minor league PAs total. Bogey and Betts both moved through the farm quickly, but Bogey did get 378 minor league games under his belt before being rushed into 3B duty in 2013. Betts played 299 games on the farm. Both of these guys started out in the Sox system with no college or organized ball before hand. Beni and Moncada had different backrounds. If you count Moncada's Cuban games, he ended up with 298 games under his belt before his hasty call-up this year. Beni played 151 games hop-skipping through the minors, including jumping from AA to MLB, but he also played 126 games at Arkansas, so again, we see over 275 games under a player's belt before a ML call-up. Although Devers has 313 games under his belt with the Sox, he started at age 17 and was still at A+ ball to end the 2016 season. I don't see the same tracking as others listed above. The fact that he struggled at his new level this year makes me think we may be more cautious with Devers, but if he starts out well, I think I side with MVP on this one.

There were other options at the time we traded for Kimbrel. Some went on to do fine, some ok, some sucked-- all were cheaper options than Kimbrel, at the time. From all indications, trading for Sale a year or two ago would have cost way more than it did recently, so it's hard to argue with the timing of that deal. I doubt we win a ring in 2015 or 2016 with an ace added, but someone like Bogey, Betts or JBj subtracted. The Kimbrel deal looks better now, despite his struggles, because of sky-rocketing RP'er salaries, but he wasn't the only solution to building up our pen. He was a big splash name, like Price and Sale...something DD seems to value highly.

It felt like 43, but you're right; 1971 to 2004 is 33. Still, I'll take the stretch with Ben over those 33 years or heartbreak any day of the week, and not just because of the ring in 2013, but because of the enormous hope I had in our long term future at the end of 2014.

So, let's trade Pom, Devers, Groome and Travis for Quintana and get even closer to winning three rings in a row.

Try going 43 years without a ring and get back to me.

That was miserable. No, miserable was not winning a ring in the first 40 some odd years I followed the Sox. We one one ring in those 4 years while building a farm that was ready to deliver several more over the next 7-10 years. That was heavenly... not misery.

I'm not miserable. I'm happy as a pig in s***. I've never seen anyone in so much denial about the future. It's not one prospect, by the way, it was over a dozen.

Either analogy is appropriate.

Plans to replenish the farm. That's a good one! Kinda like Trump's secret plan to defeat ISIS.

Let's take a closer look at just how much (estimated) money will be available in each of the next few winters (luxury tax dollars): After 2017: $25.5M Total ($13.5M Buch, $6.5M Young, $5.5M Moreland) Raises: $8.5M Total (Kimbrel $10.5M to $13M (option) & Sale $6.5M to $12.5M) Arb raises: $31M Total 3rd of 3: Pom ~$4.7M > $8.4M, Kelly ~$2.6M > $3.9M, Ross ~$1.8M > $2.8M 2nd of 3: Bogey ~$5.7M > $10.2MM, Thornburg $2.7M > $4.7M, Holt ~1.7M > $2.7M, Rutledge ~$800K >$1M & Workman $600K >$900K 1st of 3: Betts $550K>~$7M, Smith ~$550K>$5M, Wright ~$550K> $4M& Vaz $550K> $3M NET: Minus $14M (Nothing to spend on free agents to replace anyone we lose) Replace Moreland with Travis, Young with Swihart and Buch with Owens/Johnson. Assuming we reset the luxury tax this winter, and if we keep everyone, we'll be paying a tax on about $10-14M . Or, we could dump some salary. After 2018:~$50M Total ($22M HanRam, $13M Kimbrel, ~$8.4M Pom, ~$3.9M, Ross ~$2.8M) Raises: $1M (Sale $12.5M>$13.5M option) Arb Raises: +$30M Total (Bogey +$6.5M, Thornburg +$3M, Holt +$1M, Rutledge +$500K & Workman +$500K, Betts +$6.5M, Smith +$2.5M, Wright +2M$, Vaz +$1.5M, Erod +$2M, Swihart +$2M, Barnes +$1M, Elias +$500K & Hembree +$500K) We may have close to $20M extra here, but since we were over by $10M from the previous year, we could be at about $10M to spend on replacing a bunch of talent. Devers replaces HanRam and maybe Groome & Owens/Johnson can replace Kimbrel, but who knows. We lose Pablo and Porcello and others the following years, but arb raises will be very high.

Yes, and we both were big Ben supporters to the end. I hope we win 1-2 rings in the next 3-4 years, but I'm prepared to have some lean years afterwards. I realize I may be surprised, if DD is able to rebuild the farm in 3 years, but I see no evidence to believe it can or will happen. DD never did it before, and the times have gotten more difficult that ever before. That's a double whammy we have to overcome. I'm not crying over our situation. I'm not losing sleep with worry, but I find myself having to respond to those who want to look at our extended future through rose colored glasses.

I have never advocated keeping all these guys. I suggested countless trades with Margot, Guerra and Moncada in them. My point was that if this wasn't "gutting the farm" then no team has ever gutted the farm in the history of MLB.

Then I guess you should be bashing DD for signing Price to be our "ace".