moonslav59

Yes! How could I forget? That was why we lost Kimbrel & Kelly and still saw the budget go up. It is the perfect example of how hard it is to keep a great team intact without spending way more money just to keep what you have. Everyone know standing still is not a winning strategy, and JH wouldn't even do that. Standing still would have cost a ton more, unless we got a taker for Full Price and got by without replacing Porcello.

I expected more spending, not really predicted it. The "full throttle" got me. I was scammed and shammed. It's always been hard to predict JH's winter spending budget. DD was easy, until 2019, but then again, he did just extend Bogey and re-sign Nate.

Agreed, and he actually got to spend some (Story and Yoshida,) and missed the boat. I will add that the spending did not really come close to what was lost (Kimbrel, Betts, Price, Porcello, ERod, JD, Nate, Bogey...) He was paid to build a team on less money but way more than the rays ever paid out, and he failed. Nobody is upset with the Bloom departure. Not many were with Ben's either, except the way it went down. Some felt he should have been given one more year, but wondered if he'd ever pull the trigger on a big prospect trade.

Getting both arb pitchers from MN is unrealistic. Subbing JhoanD for one of them, and lessing the return package might be a more reasonable offer.

One answer might be how JH seems to go with the idea of cycles of windows of winning vs rebuilding. Theo kinda did both. Ben was sort of i rebuild mode. DD was here for the winning window. Bloom was in total rebuild mode. Just my take, but I do not think DD was well-suited for a 3-5 year rebuild, just as I do not think Bloom would have been hired for a big spending 4-5 year winning window period. JH saw the talent we had under Ben, and how he mangled his big signings. It was the right move to go with DD. JH knew he was going to radically cut the budget, and knew that was not something DD would like or maybe handle well. Hence, the change to Bloom. The loss of heo was a weird one, but Theo wanted more control, and even admitted he got away from the principles the team had established earlier. I'm not saying JH handled things well. I don't think he did, and his methods were worse than the reasons for doing so, IMO.

That makes sense, and it's hard to disagree with this assessment of hoe this team's management "rolls."

Scott just turned 30- young for a RP. Flaherty just turned 29, so it would have to be by trade to get much younger.

That might have the same odds as JH spending to within $5M of the tax line or signing Tanner Scott.

That's why it's not all about having nasty stuff. DHern was super hard to hit. Guys with great control or K:BB ratios, sometimes don't have nasty enough stuff. Brandon Walter once had a 13:1 K:BB ratio. Pooof.

I'm not sure what this means.

The AL Central was a powerhouse!!!!! They were the only division with 4 teams over .500. They are the reason the CWS had such a crappy record. This is proven by the fact that the great Red Sox only went 4-3 vs them. The Braves lost 2 or 3, as did the Cards and Nats. You guys have it all backwards! (LOL)

This really should not be too much to ask, but I feel in my bones, it is or will be. Not long ago, we'd be talking Burnes, Tanner Scott and Estevez, plus maybe O'Neill.

I'm 90% positive they think they have their closer (Hendriks) and back-up closers (Whitlock & Slaten.) I'm not sure how much they are counting on Fulmer, but I think they count him in the 8 man pen, if healthy. They might think we need one other good set-up man and a LH'd RP- tops. We do have a good mix of promising pen arms to fill the 5-8 slots and still have AAA depth. The problem with that, IMO, is that all 6 of those in the mix are question marks, and what often happens is, you end up cycling through 6 or 8 guys, while many fail, until you find 4-5 that might do what is needed..."MIGHT." Then, at any moment, they can get hurt of implode like Bernardino did, this year, Brasier last year and the year before, and Barnes back in '21. I'd feel a lot better with Hendriks as our closer, if we also added a top set-up man that could maybe be tried at closer, if Hendriks gets hurt or struggles. (Remember, Uehara was like our 3rd string closer over a decade ago.) That might be the best we can hope for, but I'd add a solid LH'd RP'er, too. We need two really good RP'ers- minimum. I'd like 3 but know that is a pipedream. They think they already added 2 with Hendriks and Fulmer, but they come a far distance from replacing Jansen and Martin. Anybody that thinks this is a capable pen is kidding themselves, and that is putting it mildly and politely: Closer: Hendriks Set-up: Whitlock Set-up: Slaten RP4: __ add__ (LHP) RP5: Criswell RP6: Fulmer RP7: Guerrero RP8: Winckowski/Weissert/Bernardino/I Campbell Penrod/Kelly/Booser/Shugart I'd love to see our Woo pen be those listed at #7 and lower, at worst. Something like this: Closer: Tanner Scott Set-up: Hendriks Set-up: __LHP__ Set-up: Whitlock Set-up: Slaten RP6: Criswell RP7: Winckowski RP8: Fulmer Even this pen might not be enough, but the #9-15 depth looks like it should be able to fill 2-3 key slots over the season, but not be slotted as opening day pen arms.

I totally understand, and I greatly appreciate your efforts on improving this site. Keep up the good work.

While minor league splits don't always translate to the bigs, I think it is safe to think Anthony will do okay vs LHPs. I'm not so sure about Mayer. Campbell is a RHB who could be a big plus in that area. The return of Story may help. Replacing O'Neill will not be easy, but I doubt we spend big on getting a top RHB. We have too many greater needs. We may try to add a RHB at catcher. On the pitching side, I do think we need a solid LH's RP'er, but our biggest need is a closer and set-up man, regardless of which arm they throw with. Sure, making one a lefty makes sense, but getting 2 solid RH'd RP'ers and a decent LH RP'er would be fine with me. Bernardino looked like he might be the guy. .708 OPS Against in 2023 (.459 v LHB) .588 OPS Against 1st half '24, but then .980 over the second half. Maybe he can regain his form, but one could argue he was just a fluke for about 1.5 seasons. Some numbers that might calm the fears about not having LH'd RP'ers: OPSA vs LHBs .549 Slaten .513 Whitlock (career: .689 v LHB/.695 v RHB) .444 Guerrero (just 18 PAs) Maybe Whitlock is the pen solution v LHBs.

If we make no major trades, what would it cost to get the minimum quality players we need. There is some disagreement over what our top needs are and how much should be allocated for particular need area. Most think we need ... 2-3 RP'ers (from a closer to a couple set up men to maybe just 3 good RP'er) 1-2 SP'er (from an ace to an innings eater 4/5 slot guy) A RHB (with some power- maybe at Catcher of OF, if we trade Abreu.) I'm going to assume we go for 4 significant players and their price ranges: AAV SP: $15-30M (I'll say $24M) RP1: $8-18M (Maybe $16M) RP2: $6-12M (Maybe $8M) RP3 or RHB: $6-12M (Maybe $7M) That's $55M total. I think we'd be under the tax line paying that out, but will we? We could also make a big trade or a couple medium ones and either spend more on less players, of fatten JH's wallet by just spendingless.

I'm hoping you are joking.

Will Brez get the financial support DD was given? Does he have the freedom to trade several top prospects? Yes, the situation is much different than today, but how different is knd of unknown, right now.

I agree. DD was taking control from him. Nobody in charge likes that. This does not mean JH and others wanted Ben to quit, so I don't see it as being the same as firing somebody, but if they were pretty certain he'd quit, I can see thinking there is little difference.

The 2019 team did not do well, and yes, we can blame some of how bad 2020 was on the missing Sale and ERod, plus JD's .680 season, but these guys were FAs after 2019: Porcello, Moreland, Pearce, Nunez, Holt, Thornburg These guys might not be great, but with $11M to spend and you had to trade Betts and Price, all you can do is build up the lower part of the 40. This was the season end roster to 2019: https://www.soxprospects.com/2019SE.htm

Don't you think a mandate to cut tens of millions from the budget kinda forced his hand on that? I doubt he thought he'd be viewed as "smart" by replacing Porcello, Betts & Price with Dugo, Martin Perez, Jose Peraza and Jonathan Lucroy. (I think those last 3 guys cost like $11M.) No way did he think he was building a 2020 winner and would be called "the smart one." Even with the $11M winter spending by Bloom, the budget was still reduced by about $60M, according to cots adjusted CB Tax numbers.

There is an in between possibility: they knew he might quit, but hoped he'd stay and work under DD.

The thing is, there was a report that DD was all set to trade Betts, midseason 2019, but the Sox started winning, and they decided to give 2019 a shot. I'm certain no GM would want to trade Betts, so I'm assuming Bloom was forced to do it, or told He'd have to cut $45-50M from the budget, elsewhere. I think not being able to bring Kimbrel & Kelly back in 2019, and not given a penny to even try to replace them, might have been the beginning of the friction. I do think DD knew the Betts trade was on the winter horizon, and could likely have been the final straw in the relationship between JH and DD. I honestly cannot imagine DD running the Sox under the 2020 and 2021 budgets handed to Bloom. I'm not saying he'd have quit, but there would have been some major acrimony that would likely have led to a (not much) later firing or retirement.

Yoshida underwent labral repair surgery on his right shoulder. Duran (CF) and Abreu (RF) are Gold Glove finalists.

What? By intentionally spending less than he could have, to look smart?