moonslav59

Coulombe, Guerrero & a healthy IKF might gather better returns.

I recall the Padres were also interested in Judge. I think the Cubs were also in on Bogey, but I'm not sure if they ever made a serious offer.

That is clearly hyperbole, at best, and a misrepresentation at worst. You do know he added Harrison and Priester, too. They just never or hardly pitched for the big club. The Sale trade was unfortunate, and backfired spectacularly on several levels. Adding injured or injury-prone pitchers is true and very concerning, but Sale was injury-prone, and Brez is blasted for trading away injury pitchers and for signing them. Hmmm.... Okay, he traded away Sale- big whiff. He traded for and away Harrison, Priester and Drohan. None have had more than 24 GS'd for the other team, yet. Let's count them as 4 decent pitchers dealt away from our depth. Brez also traded Fitts, who we never hear about as trading away depth. Now, let's look at the additions, not counting the Harrison & Priester adds. Crochet: could cancel out the Sale loss. Giolito: had 26 GS in 2025, which is more than Priester (24) and Harrison (16) PLUS Drohan (3) (Buehler was healthy when we signed him and during the 2025 season: he just sucked. Sandoval has been a big bust at $18M/2.) Gray (16 & counting) winning trade Suarez (17 & counting) Best pitching signing since _____? Tolle (16 & counting) was drafted by Brez Bennett (7 & counting) winning trade. Oviedo (0) is on IL Newcomb (5) was a bust as a SP'er, and Brez should have kept him as a RP'er. He's done very well since that tarde. (DMay & Paxton were minor additions and busts) Minor league depth added- some far away from MLB ready Trade: Holobetz, Ziehl, Jose Bello & others Draft: Eyanson, Witherspoon, Futrell, Phillips, Finley, Brown, B Morgan, Mayers, B Ortiz, Patton & others MiLFA or IFA: Delzine, Rivera, Montero & others Rule 5 returnees: Paez & Bastardo Ranked Pitching prospects traded away: 4 Perales (Bennett) 8 Clarke (Gray) 10 Fajardo w Aita (Contreras) 11 Sandlin (Ziehl) 12 Dobbins (Contreras) 18 Drohan w Harrison (Durbin, Monasterio, Seigler and Comp B pick) Do you see a net loss in rotation strength and depth, here?

It DOES suck being him, if you look beyond his bank account. His 335 PAs, this year is the 3rd highest amount in 7 seasons. He's been over 500 PAs once in 7 years. Okay, throw out 2020 and the half season of 2026: 396 games in 5 seasons. AVG: 79 games.

Who is saying NO? Schwarber was my first choice. My question was "MUCH better off."

Duran's offense goes beyond just his bat. While your point about other players having better BAs and OPS, ponder this... No Sox player with a higher OPS came within 200 PAs of Duran's 696. Only Bregman (495) and Abreu (417) came within 350 PAs. Duran more than doubled the PAs by Romy (341), Devers (334) and Anthony (303) who all had better OPS. XBHs: 70 Duran (695 PAs) 67 Bregman PLUS Refsnyder (704 PAs) top 2 OPS guys 60 Devers PLUS Anthony (637 PAs) #3 & #5 OPS guys 54 Story (#9) in 654 PAs 43 Romy (#4 OPS) PLUS N Lowe (#6) in 460 PAs 39 Abreu (#7) in 417 PAs (projects to less than Duran in 695 PAs) He was also second in RBI while leading off in 70% of his starts. Before anyone should poo-poo this RBI number, consider this: OBP by our 7-8-9 slots: 7) .308 8) .271 9) .306 Duran was clearly a top 3 offensive player on the 2025 team. Counting players with 300-350 PAs as better has some merit, but Devers should not count. The other two: Romy & Roman have been on the IL, so counting them is questionable. Bregman was 4th in PAs and is gone. Story second and on the IL, plus Duran out OPS'd Story. One could argue returning players ranked as such on offense: T1 Abreu, Duran & Anthony T4 Story & Romy T6 Rafaela & Narvaez

I think the hope was we'd use someone from our 10-11 man deep rotation to eat major pen innings. We may see Sandoval do just that within a week.

I've been suggesting Duran trades for years, but the argument that trading away a top 3 offensive weapon, when offense was and still is our biggest weakness made some sense, last winter. I expected he and Anthony would have been above average DHs and maybe as good or better than Alonso at DH. Who we could have gotten in a Duran trade, would have, in theory, tipped the balance towards Alonso being a good add, but then subtracting Suarez makes it a close call. Trading Duran might also have saved us $8M, although that depends on who we got back. Taking his $8M and IKF's $6M plus Suarez's money, maybe Alonso plus ____ might have worked better. Not knowing the other what ifs makes this speculation. If it was Contreras vs Alonso, I'm glad we have Willson not Pete. The best near miss was Bregman. I was against paying even what we ended up offering, so I'm glad we did not sign him. It doesn't mean it's good news that Brez botches signings he wants, but on this one, the end result worked out, and he's been bashed for hindsight judging, so the same should be applied here. He did well not signing Breggie. Suarez is an All Star and Contreras & Gray almost made it. Let's not forget the Chapman signing and extension.

I'd still have kicked the tires on hiring him.

This is an even stronger point than the one made about finding a flaw in his "5 major moves." IMO, even if we got Schwarber, it would have meant no Suarez, and would we really be much better off, even if more "balanced?" I don't think Schwarber was ever leaving PHI, and with DD in charge, we'd likely have had to way overbid to pry him away. The other big question was Alonso vs Contreras. Yes, we could have signed Alonso to DH and not signed Suarez, and again, we'd be more "balanced" but how much better off? Other adds are hindsight based: Murakami, Okamoto, BLowe, Donovan or Arraez. To blast Brez for not getting any of these guys, when none of us were strongly advocating for them is not something I see as constructive criticism. The unbalanced question is legit, though, and after missing out on Bregman (Thank God!) and Bichette (Thank God and the Holy Trinity!) he should have gotten more than Durbin.

That was the "downfall" and why we traded for Durbin. As it turned out BLowe could have replaced the LHB Mayer and we'd have the same balance. When Durbin was struggling, we could have platooned Mayer/Durbin, and when RHB Story went down, move Mayer to SS, as we did anyway. BLowe has horrible splits vs LHPs, this year (mid .500s) and career splits of .850 v .680, so that was a major concern. Donovan is about the same: .820 vs .640. In hindsight, trading for one of these two and trading Mayer for something else, would have worked well for 2026, anyway.

I joined B.com after the first "law." The second one was handful enough! LOL!

Abreu and E Valdez were very near MLB ready. Both played in MLB the next year, and EValdez became a starter in mid April that next year. It was a great trade that many of us praised at the time. People in HOU always knew Abreu was the prize, but I also expected EValdez to hit better than he did- maybe end up a low-powered DH.

Whitlock has been MLB's best or near best set-up man. Our pen needs help now and going forward. Whitlock has 2 years of control after 2026. Trading him for single A players is signalling a long term rebuild- not a quick turnaround one. I mentioned I'd be okay with this, if the other deals we make are all about 2027 & beyond, but by itself, it's a bad signal. (Not necessarily a bad move.)

Just about everyone expected good to great seasons from all these guys, Narvaez, Mayer and maybe Bello and Story had some serious doubts, but we figured even if some of these guys floundered, we had some good young talent to help take up the slack. It became too hard to take up the slack for all these guys, at once. The rotation depth stepped up and did, but the everyday player side did not. Actually, Wong kinda stepped up and he and Narvaez basically flipped OPS from 2025 to 2026. Story and Mayer were replaced by a ragtag group of players who could not give what we needed. IKF started to, then got hurt. Maybe Romy can help, going forward. Nobody cam close to replacing Anthony, and even if you expected .750 from RA, the replacements fell way short of that, too. Durbin should be mentioned, too. His horrific start hurt us badly and was not expected. He played every game, because we had no replacement. Not mentioning Duran, I'm assuming, was an oversight. His decline, though not unexpected by some, was steeper than anyone projected. Maybe his homer, last night is the start of a turn-around. It sucks hoping for several turn-arounds and returns from the IL, but that might be all we have to hope for. Sandoval pitched his last rehab start and looked real good. Bello or Kelly might be able to help the pen, later. We just got Moran and Romy back. Seigler is doing well, and maybe IKF can return and replace Cheng or Monasterio. Anthony remains the major wildcard return.

That CWS trade may work out well in the long run. Gotta love Futrell's K:BB ratio. Eyanson has not really slipped, at all, except one game.

Is 17 K's a POR record?

How about the Rays? They were 77-85, and their off season was rather underwhelming, yet here they are! FA Signings: $13M/1 Nick Martinez 2.61 ERA in 100 IP (Very nice) $15M/2 Steven Matz 6.28 ERA in 53 IP $7M/1 Cedric Mullins .651 OPS $3M/1 Jake Fraley ,690 OPS and on IL a lot. Major Trades: B Lowe, J Mangum & mason Montgomery for Jacob Melton & Anderson Brito Shane Baz for de Brun, Bodine & Forret Josh Lowe for Gavin Lux & Chris Clark Colton Ledbetter for Ben Williamson Tristan Gray for Luis Guerrero What GM had the better "on paper" offseason?

Ex Sox Pitchers (Qualified) 2.25 ERod 2.27 Sale 3,45 Wacha 4.02 Eovaldi 5.79 Springs 50+ IP 2.58 Newcomb 2.82 Harrison 3.12 Drohan 3.54 Martin Perez 4.61 Buehler 4.80 D May 6.28 Matz

Some ex-Sox numbers: .937 Schwarber .796 Nate Lowe ,791 Devers .756 Dubon .736 Betts .722 Benintendi .717 Meidroth .715 Dom Smith .704 Br Montgomery .694 Teel .685 Bregman .672 V Grissom .658 Bogaerts .642 Blaze Jordan .636 DHam .605 Moncada, .600 Tristan Gray, .586 Danny Jansen .581 O'Neill, .555 Yorke, .483 Z Short, .472 Jh Garcia .445 McGuire, ,422 Refsnyder, .182 Sandy Leon

Yup, two solo blasts in the Giants loss. We could use that! 🤣

Maybe we can finally win three series in a row. We've only won two in a row, once. Yup, we've gone 8-2 and lost 1 in the last 3 series.

Day off then 3 at CWS and 3 at NYM. We were 8 games under .500 a month ago, and here we are again. Run Diff Standings: +78 NYY (2nd best AL record) +35 TBR (1st) +27 SEA (T4th) +26 CWS (3rd) +11 DET (13th) +5 BOS (12th) _____________ -8 TEX (6th & last WC slot) -9 CLE (T4th & ALC leader) -17 MIN (8th) -28 BAL (10th) -42 TOR (9th) -44 HOU (7th & 1 GB WC slot) -72 ATH (11th & ahead of the Sox)

Yes, his knee, shoulder, ankle....

I really wanted Neto, last winter, but the Angels are a tough team to trade with.