moonslav59

While I agree with your point, and bringing Bailey aboard might have been his best winter move, this team is largely Bloom & DD's. DD was roundly criticized for "emptying the farm," and yet here we are enjoying several of his prospects and some of Ben's not traded away. Bloom was criticized, and rightfully so, for not winning more games, but many hardly ever give him credit for rebuilding the foundational depth and farm to respectability. He also did not trade away key prospects chasing wild miracle hopes in 2022 and 2023. Many here, including me and you, suggested we trade Duran. Many disliked the Vaz-Abreu/Valdez trade. I could go on, but it's all been rehashed, enough. On the surface, look at Brez's winter moves: FA/Rule 5/Waivers Giolito Criswell & Anderson Slaten Romy & Booser Hendriks & Fulmer DSmith & Keller Westbrook & Spears Trades: O'Neill for Robertson & Santos Grissom for Sale Weissert & Fitts for Dugo ICampbell for Urias Sandlin (Rule 5 trade) Cooper, Horn, Wingenter & Heineman It kinda looks like a Bloom winter: restricted by budget constraints, top spending failures, and some gems found at lower costs. His two best moves for 2024, only, look to be O'Neal and Slaten, who is now on the IL. (Just before yesterday's game, even O'Neill was being bashed.)

Are we better, now than we were in 2019 and 2020? Even if Sale and ERod were healthy for 2020, this team is better. They had to do a few things right to make that happen, and the farm is way better than it was in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021.

This is the reason I think we trade for a 5th starter type and 1-2 decent RP'ers. Not only will there be less sellers, there will be more buyers.

True. We have had worse years for pen injuries. We even started the year with Jansen and Martin missing most of the end to ST'ing. We've used 17 RP'ers, not counting Reyes and DSmith's mop up games. That's not a whole lot for a 13 man pen. Only 8 have gone 24+ IP. It's not uncommon for the RP'ers with the most IP to be the low leverage ones, and with the Sox, that is true: IP rank: (OPS Against) 1. Anderson .621 2. Weissert .804 6. Booser .619 (started the season in AAA) 9. Winckowski .764 (was demoted to AAA, at one point.) 10. Keller .702 11. Joely .875 12. Horn .670 13. I Campbell 1.175 The Core 5: .569 Jansen .579 Slaten (IL) .682 Martin (IL) .549 Kelly .674 Bernardino 8 our our top 13 pitchers are sketchy, and 2 of the others are on the IL, yet we rank as follows as a pen: T4 fWAR 3.8 4th in K/BB at 3.1 9th xFIP- 96 11th xFIP 3.93 7th ERA- 88 12th ERA 3.75 (10th SIERA 3.61) 12th in WHIP at 1.25 21st in BAbip at .294 (poor D behind them)

LOL. Others say I loved the guy and was his biggest defender. Bloom made some big mistakes. Most of his biggest moves back-fired. Look at the deals for over $10M: Devers- TBD Story- injuries derailed hopes, little left to be determined Yoshida- One year meh, 2nd year and beyond TBD Jansen- great Barnes- oops Martin- great for 1 of 2 yrs (the wrong year) Kike I- good for one year (the right one) Richards Kluber Kike II He did very well with under $10M deals and rebuilding the farm and foundation, and frankly by not trading away DD's best prospects. The current foundation has a lot to do with Bloom (and DD,) mostly because Bloom focused more on the longterm than the here and now. Well, the longterm is now the here and now, mostly because Bloom set it up this way. I thank him for that, but he failed to produce winning or exciting teams, along the way. He had a big enough budget to do so, and he did not. I don't hate the guy, at all. He did some good things. I don't hate DD, Ben or Theo, either.

Yup. Ever since I've returned from Spain/Portugal, my mind has been distracted.

Starting the inning with a man on 2B does not make any RP'er's job easier. That being said, he failed to get the job done, and it's not the first time. He has sucked, recently, but he did have a 1.96 ERA and 2.77 FIP after 24 games (out of his 42 total.) When he is bad, he is bad. 30 games: 0 ERs (5 times for more than 1 IP) 7 games: 1 ER (twice in 2 IP) 3 games: 2 ER 2 games: 4 ER (All 3 times, he pitched in extra innings, he has let the man on 2B score, and last night, others too.) His total numbers are not great or even good, but they don't suck.

Max, no two games decide what a team is or what they need. Houck and Crawford are at or heading towards shattering their career highs in IP for a regular season. If we make the playoffs, add 5-25 more innings. Adding 2 SP'ers sends Criswell to the pen to eat innings and help others in the pen. Going to a 6 man rotation eases the innings on the starters we already have. I'm not against adding a RP or two, as well, or 1 solid SP'er and 2 RP'ers.

Not having Martin & Slaten is taking its toll.

Blind squirrel climbing a broken clock... LOL. (just kiddin') He sure sucked, tonight.

Okay, make the "throw-ins" Fitts, Sandlin, Lugo and Meidroth.

That sucked, bigtime.

Who do I hate?

Yoshi. (Move Rafaela to OF and DHam to SS?)

Yoshi-doodle-doo-doo

It seems like it's Abreu or bust, tonight.

Sickening.

Can we now stop with the O'Neill bashing?

BAM! Cradle rock style!

Better score, this inning. It won't be easier than now. (Better get 2!)

Freeman up again.

Really? OMG!

Wink the magician!

Keep up the reverse phycology.

Woo is tied in 9th Kavadas homered (17th) and Dbld 1.012 OPS Grissom was walked twice. EValdez 2-4 Lugo 2-3 w BB POR lost 6-5. Teel 4-5 w HR & 2B (.868) 2-5 Mayer (.864) 1-5 Anthony (.799) 1-4 w BB Campbell (1.100) 2-5 Jordan (.758) GRE is down 5-4, but Monegro went 4 scoreless (1H, 3BB, 2K) Jg Garcia 1-3 w 3B Coffey 1-3 w 2B SAL won 7-6 3-4 Yuten w 2B & BB 3-4 Lugo w BB FCL lost 2-3 w BB Arias (1.055) 1-3 Reimer (.815) 1-3 Nunez (.761)