moonslav59

And he'd likely be demoted like Fitts was. Last 8 games: yes, all into 5 innings pitched or more, but... 4,54 ERA (4,65 FIP) Fitts: 5 GS and 21 IP (4+ IP/GS) 4.71 ERA (5.88 FIP).761 OPSA in 9 GS/42 IP Career: Fitts: 3.24 ERA and .684 OPSA Priester: 5.39 ERA and .793 OPSA in 28 GS and 10 RP games/155 IP (5.16/.819 as SP) This is pretty close to a non issue, IMO.

You like running with the projection thing, I see.

We saw what it took to get Crochet and then extend him. The Sale trade was long ago, and he had one more year of control than Crochet did. I'm not sure who is available, but for the right price, anybody is. Skenes comes to mind, and if we could get him without giving up two of our big 3, maybe it would be worth it. I think we can only part with one from Mayer, Campbell and Arias. I don't think Romero, Grissom/DHam/Romy/Sogard and Alcantara, Anderson and Nunez is enough left-over depth, and much is too far away. Parting with Anthony would be major, and I'm not sure Duran, Abreu or Rafaela is what a team like PIT wants to pay, instead of Skenes. We could roll the dice with our current 3 OF'ers plus Refsndyer & Jh Garcia, but imagine what we'd hear if Anthony becomes the stud some think he will be. We'd likely have to also trade Fitts or Dobbins or Perales, Tolle, Clarke or Valera- maybe 2 pitchers. Something like Anthony, Arias, Clarke and Fitts might be what PIT would demand. Mayer, Jh Garcia, Tolle, Clarke and Dobbins? I don't think a package like Arias, Jh Garcia, Jo Garcia, Cespedes and Monegro gets what it used to get a few years back, when farther away prospects were viewed as more valuable than they are now. (Besides, Arias might be our best prospect, in the long run.) I really like the looks of this: C Narvaez 1B Jh Garcia 2B Campbell SS Arias 3B Mayer If this means trading Anthony and rolling out Duran-Rafaela-Abreu, every night, I think I could live with that, as long as Crochet and Skenes top our rotation. We'd be without others like 2 from Bleis, Romero or Cespedes plus two from Perales, Clarke and Tolle, but at some point we have to make some hard choices. How long do we run with "depth?"

Dorian Soto was 2-for-2, yesterday along with a pair of RBIs and a run scored gives him nine hits over his first 19 at bats with four runs driven in.

But do any look like better options, now? I Campbell is sucking, so far. I'd say, based on what people have looked like, so far, Van Belle and Drohan look like the best choices, and DFA's Stock for one of them would be okay with me, but Stock has looked real good with Woo, and some on this list are doing worse with POR.

1. Several is 2 or more people. 2. I could care less about your idea of who RSN is and your opinion on what most or several are saying. You get my opinion wrong 99% of the time, so I'll hardly trust your assessment of a bunch of people's opinions. 3. I never said a lot of people or the majority said or agree with your statement: "Fire the whole bunch of them." I'm not sure what that has to do with more people wanting Cora gone than the "whole bunch," but so what? More people blame Cora more than Brez. That would be a switch from Bloom vs Cora, for sure, but yes more than 1 person is not for firing Cora, at this time. That is what "several" means. 4. Try using a dictionary. They even have sites online that will tell you what words mean. The problem is, they use other words to define what words like "several" means, and you don't know what those words mean, either.

How many are ML ready, we think they'd be better than Guerrero, Kelly or Burdi? Okay, better than Stock, probably someone. However, here are the WOO OPSA numbers (listed by most IP): .615 Stock .651 Van Belle (maybe?) .774 Mills (Nope) .539 Criswell (has sucked as a RP for BOS) .830 Mata (Nope) .779 I Campbell (I once had hopes for him) .571 Drohan (most likely of all?) .859 Cellucci) (Nope) .685 Uberstine (long shot) .685 Wink (on 60 day IL) .682 Guerrero (getting his chance) Maybe, someday, Chris Murphy will be ready or Sandlin will be ML ready. Connelly Early in 2025?

Several of us are not for firing anybody, except maybe some coaches under Cora. I'm upset about Anthony, too, and a few other issues, like how they handled the Devers' position change and the lack of more investment in quality pen arms. If GMs were fired over 2-3 or even 5-6 significant mistakes (many in hindsight, only) over a 2 year period, we'd have no GM with more than 3 years of tenure.

I don't buy the "smarter" argument. There is no way any GM knows a pitcher will stay healthy, Max, and to "know" this after 5 years in a row of lost hope is more luck than smarts. I do not doubt that we'd be much better with sale over Gio and Grissom, and that is on Brez, but I cannot say Brez was stupid to do the deal, at the time. I guess that's how we see things differently, and I'm fine with that. I was Sale's biggest fan. He was CHRIS "FRAKIN' SALE to me, but nothing about less than 300 IP in 5 lost seasons was encouraging to me. Not the "but he's finally healthy this winter" argument. I remember a stationary bike. Not the "his arm is well rested now" argument. The guy had a 4.16 ERA over those 298 IP, all on a well rested arm. This is all hindsight wishing and praying, to me. I'm glad Sale regained his form, and BTW, he missed the end of the season, when the Braves needed him most. Let's see if he makes it through this year. Would you bet on 32 GS'd? How about even 28 or 25?

Whatever people used for an excuse, Gio pitched pretty well over his first 19 starts of 2023. He had a 3.45 ERA and was pitching better over his 7 starts (2.45 ERA,) then the wheels came off in a big way. No doubt, wheels coming off so extremely should have raised major red flags. For that reason, I did not like the signing, but to say the guy offered no hope, at all, is far-fetched to me. Sure, we saw him miss a full season and then suck on his return, so it's easy to say it was obvious he never had any hope, in hindsight. I guess we should blame Brez for now knowing Houck was ready to pull a Gio, despite being happily married. He should have seen the Crawford injury a mile away. He should have not counted on Buehler coming back from injuries, but instead known sale was going to. He should have known Priester would do better than Fitts over a small sample size. We need a bonafide fortune teller for a GM, I guess.

He offered more hope than Kluber and Richards did. He actually was a decent pitcher just a half season before we signed him. That did offer a smidgeon on hope, IMO. I guess some could claim Kluber & Richards offer some slight hopes, too, but to me Gio offered more (and cost more, too.) Obviously, that hope never came true. We all know it did not work.

Nice article. On Guerrero, while 5 BBs in 35 PAs against is awful, he's only allowed 3 hits. He blows all our pitchers away in OPS Against: .396 Guerrero .465 Slaten (IL) .483 Chapman .581 Bernardino .580 Crochet (SP) .596 Wilson .604 Weissert .622 Wink (60 Day IL, but in doghouse before) .641 Whitlock .649 Burdi (IL) .692 Hendriks (IL) .702 Kelly I think we need to roll the dice with the healthy guys on this list. Closer: Chapman Top set up: Wilson & Whitlock High Leverage 7th & 8th inning: Bernardino and yes, Guerrero No better options: Weissert & Kelly, until Slaten returns. My guess is Hendriks and Burdi will get another look, if and when... Also, maybe a SP'er gets converted to the pen, if we ever get a healthier rotation than we've seen, so far. I'd like to give Criswell a shot at starting, again. He seems to do better there, but moving Dobbins to the pen would be a mistake. Criz could replace Gio, but do we really think a pouting Gio would/could be a boost to the pen?

You don't think saying "Clean house on all of them" is intense disdain? WOW is right!

Your selective memory is your only true constant. Just like you've always been for moving Devers off 3B. LMAO

Monday morning QBs are never wrong. I realize many disliked the Sale and Gio deals, when made, but seriously, everyone was fed up with getting nothing from Sale for over 4 years, and he'd appeared "healthy" many times before- only to go down again, with some new injury. I disliked the Gio signing, at the time. Although he offered more hope than guys like Kluber & Richards, he cost almost twice as much, as does Buehler, now. The swings and misses on FA SP'ers has been a major downfall of this team. The only decent one was Wacha, and he missed time, when we needed him the most. Yes, that is on the GM, fully. Brez ha swung and missed on Gio & Buehler and maybe Sandoval, too. He did strike gold on Crochet and made a decent attempt with Fitts, but it's not been wnough.

The deal backfired, spectacularly, no doubt. I'm sorry if I don't share in the intense disdain for a GM giving up on a guy who gave us absolutely nothing for 4+ years. Had Sale gotten hurt again, we'd never have heard a peep, and nobody here expected a CYA season from Sale. The fact that Grissom sucked and sucks didn't help, and the "money saved" was used to pay Gio's deal. All I can say is just about every GM has a deal or two that look awful. Brez has made many deals that looked and still look good and real good. Some others have not worked out, some due to injury and some due to unmet expectations. The bottom line is we are not playing any better. Our record is worse than last year's s***** year. We all see that and feel it. Are you for firing Brez, after 2 years? Cora, too? (I'm all for showing Kennedy the door. I'm wondering about Bailey and our batting coaches.)

Wow, I forgot he did that. Thanks for reminding me. Remind me of the poster who said the worst part of the Sale deal was the money included.

In hindsight the Priester trade looks not so good, as of now, but he has been doing worse, of late, and we got two good prospects, one a pitcher plus the 33rd pick in the draft for a guy that was one of about okay, decent or having some promise 10-11 SP'ers we had on our depth chart before his trade. In general, I agree: trading any promising pitcher is not a good idea. When the top name we got back is an OF'er, it looks even more suspect. I will say, I will not be surprised in 2-3 years, if we look back and call this trade "genius." I'm as pissed as everyone about the 4 years and 6 out of 7, too. Even 2021 was no feather in top management's cap. The signings before that season mostly sucked. We only won on the remnants of the 2018 team and a confluence of better health, peaking vets and career or near career years by several players. (I won't mention Cora's role. Ooops, I just did!) Personally, this past winter was the first one in many years, where I felt we did a good job filling almost all of the major flaws in our roster. The one I think we fell short of was the closer role, and I was wrong on that. I would feel I'd be contradictory, if I now bashed management for doing what I felt was right. I'm not saying what they did was right, and sometimes good moves just don't work out. I thought Buehler was an overpay, but he was a better gamble than guys like Kluber, Richards and Martin Perez were. The Bregman deal broke the stretch of mizerness. His injury was unfortunate, but not a "wrong move." The remnants of the 2024 signings: Gio and Hendriks bit us in the ass, and that's on Brez & Co., but we did start the season with the best ML ready SP'er depth I've seen the Sox have, perhaps in the 50+ years of my Sox fandom. Crochet, Houck, Buehler, Bello, Crawford, Giolito (Sandoval in August?) Fitts, Dobbins, Criswell, Whitlock, Winckowski, Newcomb Granted, not all these guys were household names, but these are 13 pitchers after the Priester trade. Okay, throw out Newcomb, Whitlock (pen) and Wink (Pen & doghouse,) and we still have 10 guys for 5 slots. I can't blame Brez for Houck sucking. (I'm not sure Bailey is to blame, either, and I guess Brez hired Bailey, so...) Brez is to blame for Gio & Buehler, yes, although both did hold some level of promise. Crawford's injury is not on Brez, but I do think he planned well on having the depth needed to cover 1-2 rotation injuries, at any given time. Ultimately, the GM gets the blame for a team failing, and Brez is no different. For right or wrong, the team he built is failing. He's made a lot of changes in just 2 years, so in many ways this is "his team," already. Bloom's curse is still present, but Brez was handed a top farm system to use as he wished, and he was also recently handed a budget Bloom never saw, and even DD was denied in 2019. I am far from the "clean house" claims some are making. We tried that 2 years ago (except for keeping Cora.) Maybe, last nights win will be the spark we need, but I think I've thought or said that a dozen times, already this year. We have some very serious flaws with no easy in system fixes on the horizon, except for MAYBE Bregman's return and a possible boost from Sandoval (or even Crawford or Houck,) but I'm dead tired of these type of hopes we've seen dashed year-after-year. The waiting is certainly the hardest part.

Continued losing has helped our draft positioning, but we have always seemed to master the comp pick rules, as well as capitalized on the actual comp picks we get- often better choices than picks we made before them. It's actually 4 in the top 87 picks, and with 30 teams, that's one more than we should. There is also added signing bonus money that goes with the extra pick(s.). We got the 33rd pick for Priester (YRod & Holebretz) and #75 for losing Pivetta to free agency. We lost our #54 pick for signing Breman. Revisiting our spectacular Comp Pick history: 2005: Ellsbury & Lowrie for losing OCab, plus Buccholz for losing the declining Pedro. 2006: Daniel Bard for Damon 2009: Workman for J Bay 2011: Barnes for VMart & JBJ for A Beltre 2014: Kopech for Ellsbury (see 2005) Kopech also helped us get Sale. 2022: Anthony for losing ERod (He was our 3rd player selected) 2023: Kristian Campbell for losing Bogey, plus Riemer for losing Nate. We selected 4 players before KC I hope we do well with this extra pick.

Okay, but he also traded for Crochet & Fitts, as well as some far away pitching prospects.

That was nice. '96-'99: 30.2 Griffey Jr 26.1 ARod 22.8 Edgar The Big Sox trio (pick any 3) did not overlap perfectly: 27.6 Nomar '97-'00 21.1 ORTIZ '04-'07 20.8 Pedroia '08-'11 20.4 Youkilis '07-'10 19.9 Manny '01-'04 14.7 Ellsbury '10-'13 13.8 Nixon '00-'03 13.7 VTek '02-'05 (27.3 Betts '16-'19/ 17.6 Bogaerts '16-'19/ 12.6 JBJ '16-'19/ 11.8 JD '18'21)

He's real close to being MLB ready... LOL!

Trevah Novella is seeing some rising action in the plot curve. Maybe it's just taken some time to shake all those cobwebs off.

I like soxprospects.com, and I don't get to watch as many games as you do. I appreciate your insights. I'm really pumped up over our farm, and maybe because I'm channeling my disappointment with the Sox towards the one plus we have. I think we are deeper than many feel we are. They see 6 or 7 in the top 100 and thinks that's it. I know we lack bonafide pitching prospects, but many good ones never amount to squat, anyway, so I like the fact that we have 20-25 pitchers with some sort of promise or hope. I'm figuring 2-3 might work out real well and another 3-4 pretty good to okay. I'm supre high on the Garcia brothers and Cespedes, and now with Bleis mashing and Arias doing his thing, we have a nice second class coming in after soon graduating or past trading away Anthony, Mayer, Campbell, Teel and Montgomery. How many teams have a second everyday 5 like ours does? Arias, Jh Garcia, Bleis, Cespedes and Romero or Soto. Couple that with deep yet not spectacular pitching, and I think are well set up.