moonslav59

If JH tells Brez to sell, he should quit... LMAO

Not at all. I think .725 to .775 OPS was close. He's not the reason we are losing, but he was decent depth, along with Duran for Anthony. Most felt we kept too many OF'ers and should have added a better offensive infielder. Instead, we kept depth for Anthony (and Rafaela/Abreu.) That's not evidence that we bet the whole house on Roman.

MLB has seen way too many pitcher injuries, recently, and many are big named stars. When you consider the quality of pitching the Sox have had on the IL, it's pretty amazing how well the staff has done, so far- particularly the rotation. We've lost... SP'ers: #1 SP Crochet #4-5 SP Houck #5-7 Crawford #6-8 Sandoval #6-8 Oviedo (Not to mention Bello's implosion and demotion and Early's recent move to the IL.) RP'ers (not bad at all) : Slaten, Moran and others.

He added many depth arms, too. While Kahnle, Watson and Oviedo have not helped us, Brez did add depth like Coulombe, Guerrero, Samaniego, Weissert & Slaten, Would you rather have minor leaguer Perales or Bennett? Fitts & Clarke for depth or Gray in the rotation, which added depth by knocking almost every SP'er down a notch? Suarez knocked all but Crochet down one slot on the depth charts, too. A pitcher out for the year (Priester) or Holobetz & Phillips as a longshot depth piece? You want Hicks and Sandlin back? You want Dobbins back for Willson? To me, one of Brez's top focus areas has been pitching depth and farm pitching improvement. He's traded away a ton of pitching, including Sale, Priester, Harrison and Drohan. Some were bound to do well, and they did. More have done squat or are still TBD,

Bottom line: I'm glad Devers is a Giant Forevers. I'm glad Bregman is a Cubbie. I'm glad Bichette is a Met. I'm fine with Contreras over Alonso. I wish we'd gotten a second bigger bat (or two.)

I always felt he had pretty quick reflexes and was more nimble that one would expect from his body type. About half his errors were throwing, so for a long time, I felt he'd be a better fit at 1B than 3B. We also had a big need at 1B for several years, so it's not like he was blocked. The Bregman signing made it obvious: 1B and DH. Why they did not prepare him for 1B, too is beyond me. It should have started years ago.

IT's hard to know if last night was more of the "one step up and two steps back" feeling about 2026, but I'm still hopeful we are a .500 or better team. Making a couple additions like B Lowe and Jeffers might be all we need.

Back to the original question: no Sox GM goes out with a whimper. Maybe Bloom was the closest to a whimper.

The money tied p in these two will likely push them to want to give them another shot or two. When is the question.

I seriously doubt the plan was for Early to pitch 180 IP in 2026. I would not be surprised if they planned on giving him a break, at some point. Taking time off now, and then the ASB could have been planned. I'm not sure who I'd give the Early starts to: Bello or Sandoval. There really are no other options other than using an opener. I was hoping Sandoval might help the pen. Bello did well as a non starter, but it might mess up his mind by making him a RP'er, now.

What made Anthony look like he was the "backbone" was more about the lack of additions to the line-up than what was needed. Had we signed Bregman not Suarez, as I think was the main plan, we'd have not viewed Anthony as the number one hopeful bat. I also think many underestimated the offense Contreras could bring. We rightfully did not view Durbin as a big add to the offense. Many here hated the idea of trading Duran, because he was such an offensive weapon with his bat and legs. Many felt Abreu reaching peak prime might have a big year. Story's 2025 season gave us some hope he could hit .750 with 22 HRs. Yoshida was not written off by everybody and .750 from him was not an outlandish ask. Hardly any of these came true, and yet Anthony is the focus of the finger-pointing. BTW, the two guys taking Anthony's place (Duran & Yoshida) are vets that should both be about 100 points higher than they are. If they were, the loss of Anthony would not have been as noticable. Because they have sucked, the loos looks huge, now.

Just what we needed! I guess he wont be getting the 180 IP he was on pace for.

The one "undo" might have been Duran+ Jh Garcia + Travieso for a better bat. (No Oviedo)

The only one I can disagree with is the one not made: for another big bat. Perhaps the Oviedo trade, which an injury makes look unsuccessful, could have been done with additional players to get a better bat than we have now. Suarez, Gray and Contreras have been very good to great moves, so far. The Durbin, Seager & Monasterio trade is looking better than it did a few weeks back. IKF and Coulombe look okay or decent.

Nobody said anyone was the backbone of the 2026 team, except maybe about Crochet. He was viewed as a major foundation piece for the extended future, but anyone who knows baseball would never say he will be the star or 2026 in just his 350th to 1,000th PA of his career. There was a ton of hope Anthony would turn out to be great, but nobody was certain it would begin in year 2 of his career.

The pen is showing signs of breaking down. Maybe Moran and Sandoval can help patch things up, but a trade might help more.

Pedro went from 145 to 195, then over 200 for 5 straight seasons: no ramp-up induced injury. Schilling went from 76 to 226 then followed that with 235- no injury. Pitchers are dropping like flies these days, and it could be related to being asked to increase spin rates or velocity and not sudden increases is IP. Maybe it's a combo. We don't know. Tolle and Early have been pulled before reaching 5 IP several times. Tolle has never gone past 99 pitches and has been under 89 in 7 or 12 starts. Under 85 in half his starts. Early has gone 5.1 IP or less in half his starts. He's gone into the 7th 4 times in 17 starts. He's been pulled before 5 IP in 3 of his last 5 starts. May be that's a sign they are ramping him down. He's gone over 90 pitches in 12 starts, so he's been taxed more than the harder throwing Tolle, but we'll see what happens the rest of the way. Early is 37th in MLB in IP in an era where nobody goes long nearly every start. Suarez is 54th at 89 IP and is on pace for a career high in IP. Gray is at 84 IP (ranked 62nd) Tolle is 94th at 71.1 IP 147 MLB pitchers have over 40 IP as a SP'er. Also, counting minors & majors: 2024> 2025: Early 103>120 IP (on pace for 180, at current rate) Tolle 81 in college> 108 (on pace for about 140)

I'm saying that's not an extreme ramp up and is very common. Is it why they all got hurt? Maybe- maybe not. You stated year one to year two. It was not year one-two for any of these guys and not even close.

No GM can ever keep you from saying "fire him."

You do realize if Brez is fired we will hire another one, and you can't name one who did better. Am I happy with his performance? That's hard to answer, but unlike you, I won't give a non answer. I think he has done a great job changing the focus on pitcher acquisition & development. We needed that badly. I think he put too much trust in the everyday players we had, as many of us did. The players have failed to play up to expectations and I blame them more than Brez, but ultimately, it's his job to be a fortune teller and he did not do well on that side of the game. I agreed with you that he failed to add another big bat that we needed, but unlike many here, I did not view Breggie or Bichette as "big bats." I think you'd have been happy had he signed them, then you convince yourself he could still have signed Suarez and paid Gray's $21M, and if JH wouldn't let him he should quit. That's your view of what a good GM should do: quit. I'm glad he signed Suarez over Breggie or Bichette. I don't think Schwarber was a true option, but I'm fine with dingning him for not trying. I was high on Alonso, but am happier we got Contreras, so I can't ding him there. I get your point about not worrying about positions, but signing Alonso to be our 5th DH is not a winning strategy. Could he have traded for a bat- certainly yes. That is a big strike against Brez and keeps me from giving him a B or B+. I'm glad we didn't give Tolle for KMarte, as KMarte is not meeting the threshold you set for what we needed. Yet, you blame him anyway- "for not trying" when he would have failed on almost every "try" you, others and I suggested last winter. To me, he trusted a team that looked pretty good, last winter and did way more good than bad and bad by omission. this past winter and the one before. I think dumping Devers was a bit lucky, but hey, a GM gets blamed for being unlucky, so he should get a plus when he gets lucky, too. He gets a B- from me. I blame the players and JH way more than him. Like JH 50%, Players 40% and Brez 10% for not getting a bat. I don't discount all the good moves because he failed to make one more good bat add.

Arias homered (#16) and is back over 1.000.

You think he left serious money on the table? I mentioned IDK to be fair to all he spent. BTW, he did better than many others who signed for way more. How about answering the actual question? Name just one GM. I'm waiting.

What GM got better bang for their buch, last winter? $21M Gray (STL paying $20M out of $41M) $16M Contreras (STL paying $2M of $18M) $7.6M Suarez (I know you dislike using AAV) $6M IKF $1M Coulombe

They will limit their IP, but not every pitchers implodes after a career high in IP. My point was, some other Sox players got off to good to great starts to the season. Houck pitched several seasons before getting hurt: Crawford, too. Houck: 60 IP> 106>179 (22>24) They ramped him up slowly. Crawford: 77>129>184 (22>24) Crochet went from 146 in 24 to 205 in 25. That's significant but hardly abnormal.

Tolle and Early have done fine. Bennett was not "developed" but the "organization," but they did acquire him by trading one of our own- Perales.