moonslav59

No doubt. 100%. One can argue we didn't even spend the Sale savings on Gio, since we actually cut payroll. Some expected us to spend up to or near the tax line, last winter, and not doing so had a clear impact of our roste5r and roster depth, especially pitching.

The MFY fanbase has not been happy for a long time. They do not think their owner is doing enough with the budget to get them over the hump.

Indeed, it was far from "almost everyone," and not a single person called Brez a "genius" for this trade. Some liked the idea of making a strong move to improve our 2B situation, which has been one of the worst positions in MLB for over 5 years. Some felt was some value in trading a high injury risk pitcher and using some of the savings to sign a pitcher known for durability. I recall many feeling skeptical about the deal on many fronts. Several posters were against the trade from day one, while others seemed to focus their distaste for the money aspect of the deal, only. Now, it seems like many are sounding like we did or should have known, at the time, this trade was awful or made "no sense." Hardly anyone said it "made no sense," back then. Had Sale gotten hurt, again, we'd have heard nothing. Had Grissom won the 2B job and done well, we'd have heard less, even if Sale was doing well. Had Gio stayed healthy and pitched well, it would not be so bad. However, every aspect of this trade and the loss of Gio for the season turned out to be the perfect cluster storm of failure.

There are a few teams that have really good farm systems OR a nice core of recently graduated young players who have proven they belong in the bigs. The Sox are maybe one of just a handful of teams that has both, despite the lack of a solid young core of pitchers to build around. To me, it is so obvious what our next step should be, and the when to do it the only debatable point. We need to build up the pitching staff. Perhaps we have already begun building the farm staff, but we cannot wait to see if we've done a good job. Even if we have done a good job, the wait would be 3-6 years from now, anyway. There are two major ways to significantly build up a ML pitching staff, with waiver wire, minor league deals and Rule 5 as long shot methods. 1. Free Agency: We will likely have to just bite the bullet and spend more, and not just on the rotation. Just replacing Pivetta, Jansen & martin in kind, will not be nearly enough. We spent about $6-12M a year on the rotation from 2020-2023, and the $19M spent on Gio was offset by paying for Sale to play with ATL, so the "big spending" of 2024 was a mirage. We've beaten JH to death, several times over this, and deservedly so, but it will be very hard to have a better staff, next year without spending more and spending correctly. The "correctly" aspect is often quesswork, and we've done pretty poorly in this area, but this is Brez's second winter coming up, and he should have a chance to redeem himself. 2. Trades: Here ie where I am adamant about the need to make a big splash. We have a few very strong positions with a bottleneck of talent- young and inexpensive talent that many teams would die for. Some teams are very good at developing young pitchers, but lack solid everyday players, at low costs. We need to find those teams a strike a deal or two. We also have some useful midtier depth players, who may be weak in one area of their game (many of defense.) We could find some teams to trade us some useful pitching depth, in exchange for these limited role players. Noting fancy, but something to give us mid season depth, when we know we will need it, eventually. We also need to stop counting on players returning from the IL to give us a boost. It seems like every season, we fall into the same trap. We skimp on deadline deals, because we have hopes in guys like Hendriks, Martin and Casas returning and returning to glory. It never seems to happen. That being said, I do think we have a few pitchers that can fill some meaningful roles on the 2025 pitching staff, but not the ones they needed to fill, this year. If we can count on Houck to step up his IP and be a solid 2-3 SP'er, not our #1, we should be okay. We should count on Bello as a 4-5, not a 2-3. We should count on Crawford as a 5-6, not a 3-4. We should not count on Gio for much, but certainly not as our #1. Being our #2 is asking for trouble, too. We need an ace. To me, we need an ace and a solid #3, as well as 2-3 minor league SP'er depth signings like Criswell was, last winter. I know that is wishful thinking, but we could trade for one major pitcher and sign another, then make some mid-tier trades for added depth, ending up with this: SP1 ____ SP2 Houck SP3 ____ SP4 Gio SP5 Bello SP6 Crawford SP7 Criswell SP8 _____ SP9 _____ SP10 _____ (Priester, Fitts, Dobbins, Mata, Murphy) Closer _____ RP2 Hendriks RP3 _____ RP4 Slaten RP5 Whitlock RP6 Winckowski RP7 Kelly RP8 Booser, Bernardino, Fulmer, Weissert, I Campbell, Mills, Horn That's 4 major additions to the staff, while losing 3 (Pivetta, Jansen & Martin.) I can't see us doing much better without at least 4 major pitching additions.

Fitts pitched a good game (5IP, 5H, 1ER, 1BB, 5K) Grissom 1-3 w BB Meidroth 2 BBs Casas 0-3 w BB POR was down and scored 2 in the 8th, 2 in the 9th and Campbell hit a 2 run homer in the 10th to win 6-4. Hickey & Jh Garcia went 2-4, Dobbins pitched 2 hit shutout ball through 6 IP (1BB & 3K.) GRE won 4-0 behind Monegro's 5 IP, 2H, 0ER, 2BB, 7K. The pen only allowed 1 hit in 4 IP. Team 3H, 3BB, 15Ks! Romero went 2-3 w 2BB (OPS up to .870.) SAL lost 4-3. Arias went 2-4 w BB and 2B. Zanetello 2B'd, too. Yuten 2-4.

We could sign Rich Hill.

You just can't lose games like this in a playoff run. This sucks.

The DP would have made 3 outs.

What? He should have put himself at SS?

My kingdom for a short stop!

It can't get any more sick than this!

That was crazy lucky Wong scoring on that hit. The ball was in the LF'er's glove, when he rounded 3rd. He should have been out by a mile with just a half decent throw. Good to see us have some luck on our side, and we did force it on the Rangers. Let's hope Wink can get the job done!

Romy G!!!!!

Danny J!!!!!!!

Quoting moon: There were "signs" he was doing well in '21 just like in '23. The only reason it's a big deal is that Sale finally did not get hurt, after 5 years, and somehow we should have known that was going to happen, based on how he looked for a stretch in 2023. "Somehow we should have known" is a totally unfair way to put it. It would be ridiculous for anyone to say the Sox should have known Sale would have a season like this. I really don't think anyone has said any such thing. The issue is with the possibility he could have a good season. -bellhorn Yes, saying there was a possibility is a good way of putting it. There was a possibility before 2019, before 2020, before 2021, before 2022, before 2023 and before 2024. Since many posters are upset we didn't guess right for 2024, I think using the phrase "somehow we should have known" captures the sentiment, too. We guessed rong 5 straight years, and had we traded hi before 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 or 2023, and he went on to do what he did in those seasons, nobody would be complaining. We did after 2023, and he is doing very well. We guessed wrong, and Brez is being roasted for NOT going with the possibility he might do well. He guessed wrongly. ATL guessed right. Yes, it was totally random, and we picked the exact wrong year to trade Sale. In hindsight, it was a 1 in 6 chance, and we picked the one. (And, we paid to guess wrongly, too.)

False signs of what though? You mean false signs that he was back to being healthy and would stay that way? After his TJ surgery he had a couple of fluke injuries and one concerning one, to his shoulder I believe. No one could possibly predict the fluke injuries. They were totally random s***. I'm not really sure what your point about 2021 is. The point about 2021 was that we saw signs of Sale coming back to form, and were let down. Yes, the point is we cannot possibly predict injuries, and nobody could after 2021 or 2023. We guessed wrong after 2023. Had we traded Sale after 2021, nobody would have complained, because he ended up getting hurt, again- making it 4 years in a row, to be followed by another one in 2023. There were "signs" he was doing well in '21 just like in '23. The only reason it's a big deal is that Sale finally did not get hurt, after 5 years, and somehow we should have known that was going to happen, based on how he looked for a stretch in 2023. Yes, some of the injuries were random, but the fact was, Sale missed significant time for 5 straight years, and Brez tried to take away the guesswork, and guessed wrongly in the process.

Casas & Grissom homered for Woo, as Anthony went 3-4. Drohan walked 4 in 3.2, but let up just 1 run. The big 3 are no longer w POR, but Campbell went 1-2 w 2BB in the win. Ehhard went 3-4 to lead POR to a second win. Early did okay. The DSL Blue team had 13BB and 13Hits in a big win.

Sox OPS (240+ PAs) .969 Devers .901 O'Neill .863 Refsnyder .853 Duran .833 Abreu .793 Wong .755 Yoshida .715 Rafaela .710 Smith .704 Hamilton All 10 are above .700. (Jansen is at 1.139 with BOS) XBH 63 Duran 61 Devers RBI 72 Devers 58 Duran & Rafaela SB 30 DHam (just 4 CS) 29 Duran (just 4 CS) 17 Rafaela Runs + RBI- HRs 122 Devers 119 Duran 107 Rafaela 82 O'Neill 80 Abreu 77 Wong

You gotta figure we will need to get a grip on home games to have a decent chance at joining the dance. I hope we can get back at HOU, when we go to H-Town, next week. (I'll be at one game.) Going to BAL, this weekend is not going to be easy.

MLB has really become the parity league. The top 5 teams (BAL, CLE, LAD, PHI & NYY) are all within a half game of each other. The next 4 teams (MIL, MIN, ARI & SDP) are within a game of each other and just 2-3 games behind the first group. The bubble group of 6 teams (KCR, HOU, BOS, SEA, ATL & NYM) are all 3.5 games apart and between 1.5 and 5 games from a playoff slot. Even teams like STL, SFG and TBR are hanging around- just one win streak from being in the next group up. 20 teams are within 5.5 games of a WC slot or division lead.

We are back to tied with KCR in the loss column. BAL & NYY are 70-50 (one should be a WC team) 67-52 MIN (is playing well.) 65-55 KCR 64-55 HOU (ALW leader) 63-55 BOS -1.0 63-57 SEA -2.0 59-60 TBR -5.5 Let's hope our rotation is on the path to some sort of rebound. While April sure looks like a fluke, now, I don't think it is as bad as it has looked over the last month, too. The rotation is likely somewhere in between, and let's hope they do closer to April's form than July's. We play TEX, tomorrow, while KCR plays MIN, again. We go to BAL THU, FRI, SAT, SUN, while KCR has THU off. MIN goes to TEX THU-SUN. KCR goes to CIN FRI-SUN. (Cincy is still in the NL WC race.)

They were "false signs" in 2021, and who here knew the difference in foresight? Of course, they were NOT "false signs" in 2023, but I will say this, there was pretty close to the exact same excitement on Sale in the winter after 2021 as the winter after 2023. That's my point. I'm not trying to say we didn't swing and miss, badly. We obviously did, but how were the "signs" in 2023 noticeably different? Oh, and BTW, ATL did force Brez to pay a big chunk of his contract, so it's not like they had complete faith in the "signs." Again, the trade sucked. ATL did a great job on the timing and the choice they made. That is clear.

Before tonight: Catcher OPS Leaders (300+ PAs) .865 Wilson Contreras .816 William Contreras .814 Salvador Perez .778 Connor Wong .776 Yainer Diaz .771 T Stephenson When playing catcher only: .839 Wong .797 Wm Contreras .785 Stephenson

Topsy turvy league.

very nice win