moonslav59

That is a sign, too. Correct. You seemingly enjoy being here more when we lose. That's true, too, right?

I do feel we have a window, for at least as long as Crochet is here, so the way some people seem to feel, the time will never be right to call up Mayer or Anthony, unless we are 15 GB or we have a major injury at middle IF or the OF. "We can't afford to ride through the adjustments and struggles they will likely face." We have been riding through the struggles of Rafaela, Wong, Casas and vets for years. These three seem better suited for success, to me. We just had a major injury and slot opening. It's not one that Anthony or Mayer play, but we can shuffle and make room. I'm all for doing it, knowing fully well, whoever we call up may not work out. This isn't just throwing things at a wall. Anthony and Mayer are projected by many experts to be very good and maybe great players, someday. To me, the wait should be over. We have a way to call up Mayer, now. The Anthony promotion is more complex and problematic, so his call-up could wait a little longer. I really like Rafaela, and he's not the reason we are losing: I get that, but Anthony has an enormous ceiling, especially on offense over Rafaela and maybe even Duran. He also has shown he can hit lefties better than Abreu did on the farm.

Unless someone gets hurt or traded, when is the right time? There will be 4+ established OF'ers and 4+ established IF'ers. Only Bregman is not under strict team control beyond 2025. Are you waiting for someone to suck, so badly, he gets yanked? Is it about how long the leashes are on Story and maybe Rafaela? Are you expecting them to lose their jobs? Then, you are adding Yoshida onto your should play list. Do you demote Campbell to make that happen?

You know things are going badly for the Sox, when MADSTORK shows up, and Red's posts quadruple in number.

Who, me? No. Saying 3 prospects can be called up at the same time, as an example, is not saying these three are or will be as good.

If he's not better than Mayer or Anthony, it doesn't matter. Hell, he may end up being a DH platoon with Refsnyder, but only if we can get Devers to pick up a 1Bman's mitt. He should not play the OF, despite the hold up being his throwing arm. He's not better than Duran, Rafaela, Abreu/Refsnyder, and IMO, I'd bet on Anthony being better. (Even Campbell in CF is a better option.) I guess we trade him for pennies on the dollar or just DFA him, if nobody wants him at $1M-5M a year. You'd play him over who I just mentioned?

I don't see how waiting and staggering the kids matters, when we have a guy like Sogard playing FT. Yoshida is a huge dice roll. I'm glad they didn't stagger Lynn, Rice & Cooper.

To me, Mayer or Anthony playing over Yoshida makes way more sense. When do these guys get a chance? Unless Bregman opts out, we'll be in the same boat next year and in 2027, too. The two kids are ML ready. They may not do well, or they make start off slowly, but rip the bandaid off. Rolling the dice with these two kids is no more risky than dice-rolling with Yoshida & Sogard/Romy.

Story does not need to be benched for Mayer to get a FT slot. Bench Sogard and play Campbell at 1B. The Anthony promotion is more complex, unless we're okay with making Rafaela the super utility man. (I'm not benching Duran just yet.)

I think they hoped Casas would just mash his way to offsetting the terrible D at 1B, but despite him being fragile as all hell, they continued to neglect 1B depth or preparing anyone to be depth at 1B. We shouldn't be doing this on the fly, unlessthree 1Bmen get hurt at the same time.

We have Refsnyder up 4th vs the lefty, Sale. Campbell 5th. Our bottom 5 are slumping or have sucked, all year, except for #8 Narvaez, who is up to .767, now.

That was a major part of my choice. Finding a way to get Mayer or Anthony into a FT slot was about as important. The other aspect was about looking at the other choices and determining which was the least disruptive, risky or in other words, the lesser of all evils. Devers at 1B might be an improvement over Casas, but likely not over any other choice, and it opens the DH slot, which is not really where we want to play Mayer (Story, Campbell or Bregman) or Anthony (Duran, Abreu or Rafaela.) Bregman is too good at 3B to move him and then replace him with iffy 3Bmen like mayer or Campbell. Story at 1B looks so wrong on many levels. Mayer? Same. Refsnyder makes some sense, but there is a reason he has never played there, and he'd just be a platoon anyway, so it would not solve the problem for 65% of our games. Duran or Abreu? LOL.

KC was my pick to play 1B. It looks like Mayer time is nearing.

I think we knew for a while that Crawford would go to the 60 Day. They just waited for the time they wanted/needed to add someone to the 40. We can also add Casas, Perales or Yoshida, if and when we need to (Anthony, Mayer, I Campbell, Drohan...)

My point was to say that the roster Cora had to work with, especially the pitchers. Could another manager have done better? Maybe, but it would not have been very easy. I don't think anyone expected us to even make the playoffs in 2021, and we nearly made the WS. I do hold 2022 against Cora, to some extent, because we added 3 pitchers that did better than almost all the others: Wacha, Hill and Strahm, although the first two missed key starts, and we did worse than '21. The roster did not get better in 2023. It did, somewhat in 2024, and the team did win more than '22 and '23. I think the "bottom line" is more suited for GMs and the budget setters. The manager does not construct the roster. His job is to get the most out of what he is given. I'd like to hear why you think the rosters were playoff worthy, when for 4 years, you and others have roasted Bloom, JH and others for continuous horrific roster construction. Has Cora made mistakes? Yes. I have disagreed with several things he has done, including too many rest days and how he prescheduled them, even if the right-handed pitcher was starting that day. I think he has squeezed the most out of rotten pens on paper. Our rotations have sucked and or missed too much time with injuries to ever be a playoff rotation. I don't even think the 2021 rotation was playoff worthy. The team defense has been terrible, and I do blame Cora for some of the alignments he stuck with for too long. He even tried to lobby for Bregman at 2B, so Devers could keep throwing the ball away at 3B. I'm not sure the amount of mistakes warrants a firing, just yet. I will say, I'm not as high on him as I once was. Sometimes, firing a manager creates a spark. Many times, it does not. Morgan magic was one example, but nobody can convince me he was a good manager.

2020-2025 Sox Pitchers by IP 6.33 Pivetta 4.29 (I'd say he overperformed expectations) 474 Houck 3.97 (peaked in 2024?) 404 Bello 4.28 (not a highly touted pitcher prospect on the Nat'l level) 340 Nate 3.79 (missed 35-40% of his starts) 264 Whitlock 3.48 (has been up & down) 242 Wink 4.20 (WOW, 6th in IP) 176 Perez 4.65 (Yuck-a-doodle-doo) 158 ERod 4.74 (missed all of 2020) 151 Sale 3.93 (didn't even reach a full season's IP total) 137 Richards 4.87 (Come on) 128 Hill 4.29, 127 Wacha 3.32 (Not bad results, considering) 120 Brasier 5.24 118 Bernardino 3.36 (overperformed) 117 Barnes 4.07 (mystery man) Schreiber, paxton, Criswell, Sawamura (all over 100 IP)

In defense of Cora and the pitching results: argue all you will about what WAR tells us, but here are some numbers: Cora got these rankings with these pitchers: 2021: 6th in SP fWAR: Nate 32 GS, ERod 31, Pivetta 30, Richards & M Perez 22 8th in RP fWAR: Whitlock, Ottavino, Barnes, Sawamura, Taylor, DHern, P Valdez, Andriese (all 37+ IP) 2022: 18th SP: Pivetta 33, Hill 26, Wacha 23, Nate 20, Wink 14/Crawford 12 27th RP: Whitlock, Schreiber, Brasier, A Davis, Sawamura, Strahm, Danish, barnes, Diekman (37+) 2023: 23rd SP: Bello 28, Crawford 23, Houck 21, Sale 20, Paxton 19/Pivetta 16/9 Kluber 13th RP: Wink, Whitlock, Martin, Bernardino, Murphy, Scheiber, jansen, Blier+Brasier 2024: 11th SP: Crawford 33, Houck 30, Bello 30 Pivetta 27, Criswell 26 (What were the hopes on these 5 in March?) 14th RP: Wink, Weissert, kelly, Slaten, Jansen, Anderson, bernardino, Martin, Booser For 5 years, we have heard how JH and Bloom failed to build a strong team, yet it's Cora's fault we sucked? I think he got the most out of a crappy pitching staff, especially the pen and the big SP'er additions each year mostly sucked.

Sounds about right... No Early chance?

Here is a look at some 2025 numbers... .596 D Jansen (11 PAs) .605 O'Neill (6 XBHs) .625 Meidroth (80 PAs) .657 E Valdez (102 PAs) .699 Bogey (.691 2024-2025) .781 Betts (1.6 bWAR) _______________________ 6.55 K Jansen (1.46 WHIP) 4.50 Bosser (16 IP) 3.97 Sale in 9 GS (1.406 WHIP) 3.05 Pivetta in 8 GS (1.06 WHIP) 2.12 Schreiber in 17 IP (1.12 WHIP) 1.93 C Martin (0.964 in 19 IP)

I then asked who had a better trade idea. The ideas were about more than just finding a 1Bman. One trade brought us one of MLBs best catchers for 3 years. I was thinking maybe some would say, "Add ____, and I'd say yes."

Could happen. Maybe even a surging Mata (if it happen) could sneak in. Early is probably a longshot.

He'll be cheaper than more proven 1Bmen, and has as much or more upside than many other 1Bmen that may be on the market, next year: FA and via trade.

I said, "NO," too

So negative. He's batted 4th a lot, over the years, including nearly 3 X the amount as the second slot in 2024.

I get that, and have said the same, several times. These two signings were his largest FA deals, but neither was a mega deal. Still, we expect better than this for $40M a year over 5-6 years. I have praised Bloom's work in other areas as much or more than others. He did a pretty good job on farm building and strengthening the depth of the 40 man roster, which was horrific in 2019. He did not draft all of the players we see today, but he also did not trade many good ones, and maybe he had a hand in their development. The Houck, Crawford, Bello, Whitlock foursome has been about as good a 4 homies as we have seen since the Theo days. Not great, but a clear improvement. He also set the table for the Crochet trade by drafting Teel & Meidroth.