moonslav59

As you pointed out, I said "Bloom-Breslow," not Bloom and Breslow, separately. I did answer, anyway. They reached about #10 before Brez took over, so yes, not 3-5 before Brez took over Bloom's farm. You can pick apart the wording, but I'm sticking to the veracity of my statement. Bloom was largely responsible for the farm becoming top 3-5. I'm not sure what else to say. I think I explained myself well enough.

I'm not sure how good their top 2 are, but this seems like a deal Brez might make at the deadline.

Yes, after the game, Rafaela said he thought he would have gotten the runner out on an accurate throw. (I'm not so sure.) He kind of blew past the missing the cutoff point, which likely did not make Cora any happier. It's hard to fault Rafaela for these errors, since he more than makes up for them in other plays, but he does need to hit the cut off man. I'm just not sure "infantile" is the right word choice.

I think Anthony would be better than Duran in RF. How about LF Anthony, CF Duran, RF Rafaela?

Our current (2024-2025)rankings have been top 3-7 in just about every ranking service. I know you know this. Geeesh! It took a while to get to top 10 in most rankings, but when you are at #30, then COVID strikes, it's a pretty formidable rise.

You think the last 2 years ranking have little to do with Bloom? Bloom also added some prospects that graduated so quickly, we tend to forget they were prospects, and who did little to raise our rankings, like Whitlock and Abreu. I think BA had us 10th in 2023, but we were 30th in 2019 and around 20th for '20-'21 (the COVID years). We also had some penalties. Bloom brought us Whitlock, Abreu, Kelly, Wink, Wong, DHam and others through non draft or IFA methods. He drafted and IFA'd: Anthony, Mayer, Campbell, Guerrero, Arias, Romero, Valera, Early, Dobbins, Cespedes and others. We also traded some of his prospects, like Yorke.

At the risk of repeating myself, Anthony will get his chance at some point. What will change in August or next season? An injury? An OF trade? Why wait? get his feet wet now, or once that extra year of control is in the bank. If we have to trade Duran, Abreu or Rafaela, then so be it. It's not like we'd just hand one away for nothing. We do have other serious needs, like SP, 1B and more...

It's nearly impossible to not agree with this. It's debatable if DD would have agreed to work under the conditions Bloom was placed, or if he'd have won more games while still building our farm into a top 3 ranked system. We can't know for sure, but we do know some friction started after 2018. We did not pay to replace Kimbrell & Kelly and signalled the inevitable Betts trade to come, if not at the 2019 deadline, then the following winter, for sure. DD was not happy with this new direction and let it be known. IMO, the relationship was doomed to fail, once JH made the big choice to rebuild the team and revamp the philosophy.

Kinda-sorta, but not a top 3-5 farm like the Sox reached under Bloom-Breslow. Also, would he have stood for what Bloom did? Trading Betts was one thing, but not only was his contract cost not replaced, there were further cuts down the road for 2-3 more years. We never replaced JD, Porcello, Price, Nate, ERod and other rather large contracts. I guess we can say we tried to replace Bogey with Story, but that's it. Every stud we lost from the 2018 team was not replaced, in kind or nearly in kind. While several prospects DD did not trade went on to do well, Devers, Houck, Duran, Rafaela, Crawford and Bello, to name a few, many took years to make an impact. Maybe DD would have drafted college players over HS players and saw a quicker ROI, but I doubt he could have rebuilt the farm better than it ended up being rebuilt, especially if we won more, which is your premise, and had lower draft picks. No Mayer draft slot. Maybe no comp picks (Anthony & Campbell)

Agreed. I'm just saying that many who say firing DD was the biggest mistake, don't mention the budget. We can hem and haw and say "What if...?" all we want, but the budget was going to be cut, so I don't see firing DD as the issue. Bloom largely failed as the rebuild GM, but he seemed better suited for that task at hand.

I'm not one for change just for change sake, but you gott look at some of these numbers and ask "Why?" or "How can we change this?" Our 3rd highest PA player is hitting .591 (Story.) If you can't bring yourself to replace him, then bat him 8th or 9th. It's good to see we finally demoted KC in the lineup. He's 6th in PAs and batting .658. The Houck situation kinda took care of itself, as he is on the IL. He's tied for second in GS and while out has fallen to 5th in IP with his 8.04 ERA. However, our 5th leading GS pitcher and 5th in IP among players on the current 26 man roster is Giolito at 6.42. I gotta say, the plug needs to be pulled, if not now, then after his next disastrous start, which will likely be, next week. OPS Against by SP'ers: .920 Houck (203 PAs against is second most) .884 Giolito (150 PAs against is 6th, just behind Dobbins) .836 Newcomb is gone. .758 to .766 are the next 4: Fitts, Bello, Buehler & Dobbins.) .569 Crochet stands alone. I don't see any major issue with the pen order of most batters faced: 113 Whitlock is the long man .641 114 Weissert might be questionable at #2, but he's at .620. 103 Bernardino has done very well at .496 99 Chapman has been awesome .498. 90 Slaten at .465 lead the pen in OPS Against and missed some time 85 Newcomb at .791 is gone 81 Wilson at .584 has been fantastic. 59 Hendriks at .692 is on the IL. 57 Kelly at .739 has struggled. 52 Wink at .622 seems to still be in the Cora doghouse. 35 Guerrero at .362 should see more action. 33 Criswell at .830 needs to start. 21 Burdi at .649 may get a longer look. Surprisingly, the pen OPSA numbers look decent to downright good. I know some here poo-poo platoons and basing who plays on L-R splits, but here are the numbers: vs RHPs (PAs) .954 Devers (193 is #3 in PAs) .915 Bregman (168) on IL .875 Refsnyder (24) .847 Abreu (198 is #1 in PAs) .809 Narvaez (127) .800 Toro (55) .799 Romy (40) .785 Duran (198 is #1) .702 KC (166) .678 Rafaela (155) .561 Sogard (34) .552 Story (190) .548 DHam (78) .545 Mayer (29) .477 Casas (100) on IL .358 Wong (55) Some RHBs are doing well vs RHPs. Vs LHPs: 1.409 Casas (12) Out for season 1.000 Bregman (58) what we got him for is now on IL .962 Refsnyder is a god vs lefties (47) .842 Devers (99) forevers #1 in PAs .819 Narvaez balanced batter, so far (50) .786 Wong (10) .782 Rafaela (63) bucking his career reverse splits .727 Story (56) maybe needs to be platooned. .684 Sogard (9) .674 Romy (30) This was his strong area in '24. .672 Duran (99 is #1) .641 Toro (15) .569 Abreu (30) doing nothing to move towards a non platoon .524 KC (60) maybe needs to sit vs lefties. .533 DHam (6), .333 Mayer (6) I'd start Criswell over Gio. I'd platoon Story with Mayer (Mayer plays 3B vs LHPs, but I'm not sure who plays 3B vs RHPs. Toro?) I'd give Guerrero more innings in the pen. I still think an Anthony call-up would help, but not at Rafaela's expense. The Abreu-Ref platoon makes our RF one of the best in MLB, and Duran has done better, recently (.920 since May 16th.) The only way he can play, without sitting an OF'er is to DH and move Devers to 1B, but I won't opine on that, right now, except to present my plan: 1. L Duran LF 2. L Abreu/ R Refsnyder RF 3. R Narvaez C 4. L Devers 1B 5. L Mayer SS/3B 6. S Toro 3B/R Story SS 7. L Anthony DH 8. R Rafaela CF 9. L DHam/ R Campbell 2B Rotation: Crochet, Buehler, Dobbins, Bello, Fitts/Criswell Pen: Chapman, Slaten, Wilson, Whitlock, Bernardino, Guerrero, Weissert, Fitts> Criswell, then: Wink>Burdi>Kelly (Maybe Fitts ends up taking Dobbins' or Criswell's slot in the rotation, after some time.)

All true, but how would DD have handled the massive rebuild that included massive budget cuts. The budget cuts and rebuild plan were the culprits. Keeping DD for the rebuild would not have worked out, either, IMO. In fact, he may have ended up quitting being asked what was asked of Bloom.

You knew the other guy personally?

Not that much, but better than the next tier, I think. The Greek has them at 1 less win. Here is one major difference between them and the Sox: We have some top hitters that are platoon or have small sample sizes. The Tigers have all 5 of their top batters by most PAs over .773. 8 of their top 9 are over .728. Conversely, our #3 batter in PAs (Story) is at .591. Our #5 (Campbell) is at .658, and our #7 (Rafaela) is at .707. Our #1 OPS guy (Bregman) is on the IL, while our #2 OPS guy (Refsnyder) is 11th in PAs. Toro, at .803, is #12 in PAs. They also have 5 SP'ers w 9+ GS and all but one have an ERA below 3.72. Their 5th one (Jobe) is at a respectable 4.22. Skubal, Flaherty & Olson are all under 2.96! They have 2 RP'ers with 8+ saves and ERAs under 1.80 plus their pen leader in IP at 1.72. Maybe to start the year, they did not look all this good, on paper, but they do, now.

LMAO! How about looking at the rosters of all the other AL teams not named the Tigers and Yankees? What makes anyone think enough can't go 14 games under .500?

Bad throws are "infantile?"

That's how I see it, too. Kinda like Devers was extended because Betts and Bogey were not.

To be honest and fair, I thought it was a decent to good deal, even if Sale missed a full season. The fact that he missed part or most of every season was the knife in the heart. He signed for $145M/5. Had Sale been Sale for just 4 years, a $145M/4 deal would have been fine, especially as the prices for top quality pitching went through the roof, after 2019. (Remember, his extension was from 2020-2024.) Had he been Cy Young Sale, $36M x 4 would be expensive but worth it. Had he signed Betts, instead of Sale and the Boget extension, we'd have been better off.

I loved DD and have defended him on the "emptying the farm" thing for years. I'm not sure where you are getting this from. My position is that he probably is not the best GM to have on a team looking to gut their budget. His biggest strength seemed to be signing the right big ticket players, something not many GM are that good at. NHe also did a great job knowing which prospects to trade and which to keep- another very difficult aspect of being a great GM. His "empty farm" still kept Devers, Houck, Crawford, Bello, Duran, Rafaela and others. I have great respect for DD, but don't see him as a proven low budget GM. I also don't think he'd want to stick around after not only being forced to trade the face of the franchise, Betts, but also not being allowed to replace him with anything more than $5-10M deals scattered over a few years, until the Story signing. That's not DD bashing. I wouldn't have blamed him for being pissed at JH and Co.

True. Bregman was, until the injury. Devers, Crochet and maybe Ref & Toro to a smaller sample lesser extent.

LOL. Good one!

The book was "all glove- no hit," but I pointed out how he had a decent OBP and ISO in the minors, and it should not be assumed it can't translate, but I never expected this.

All the bigger ones, for sure, except maybe the Devers extension- made out of necessity to keep their heads from being removed by angry fans. DD didn't help with the Sale extension and failure to lock up Betts earlier, but two parties are involved in those decisions. When the team stops making mega deals, you kinda have to hit on the mid-level ones. We are 0 for 3. Bregman looked like a winner, and now he's on the IL.

Good to see Rafaela get the game winning homer. I keep thinking, maybe this will ignite the spark. I've been wrong, so many times, I'm losing hope. Gotta take to the Yanks, next!

Narvaez is one of the very few bright spots to the Sox season and roster.