moonslav59

We do have numerous hopes- not just 1-2 promising pitching prospects, but it is worrisome we don't have nationally ranked pitching prospects. The one who was the highest was Perales, who was always hurt even before this latest TJS injury. We do need a lot to go right- maybe not everything, but a lot.

Devers began his contract, this year. It's the biggest contract in Sox history. Yoshida's began, last year. Story's began the year before. We've seen 3 big contracts in 3 years. The problem has been two-fold: 1. We don't spend big on pitching. (We've cut $40M from our rotation in 5 years, combined.) 2. Other teams have begun spending wildly more, and passed us in the rankings. It's not only about JH not spending as much. I'll add a third point: our spending has not worked well (Story, Yoshida, Gio, Kluber, Richards, Barnes, Kike II...) CB Tax numbers: 192 in 2017 239 in 2018 244 in 2019 185 in 2020 208 in 2021 236 in 2022 226 in 2023 (208 projected for 2024) This does not look like some sort of massive budget cutting, to me, but again, I'm not supporting what JH has been doing, recently. We could have and should have spent more. Maybe we will agaiun: maybe not. It does look like other will.

Are you encouraged by Dobbins and E R-C?

We've already seen a change in focus on the farm. I'm not going to dispute your claim about JH needing to go for real change to occur. I've seen him wobble between spending and cutting several times, before. This is, by far, the longest stretch of austerity under JH, especially with the pitching, but it's not like he has totally stopped spending- just with pitching. I'm not hopeful he will start, anytime soon, but nobody knows if he will or won't.

I'm always for obtaining a TOTR SP. I'm always for having plus SS defense. (2B and CF, too, and C & RF to some extent.) With our middle IF being our weakest area outside of pitching, I like the idea of keeping Mayer over Anthony and or Teel.

Thanks for taking over, when needed.

Isn't it easier to just trade for a .500 OPS SS with a great glove? They are a dime a dozen.

Well said, and since this is not the 5th year in a row where the budget prevented the upkeep and upgrade of the staff from happening, it's no wonder we are where we are, right now. Here is a look at the "net" rotation spending (rotation contracts lost and replaced in winters:) 2020: -$14.6M ($6M Perez-$20.6M Porcello) 2021: +$9M ($10M Richards + $5M Perez -$6M Perez) 2022: -$5.3M ($10M Paxton +$7M Wacha + $5M Hill -$10M Richards -$8.3M ERod -$5M Perez) 2023: -$25M ($10M Kluber +$4M Paxton -$17M Nate- $10M Paxton-$7M Wacha-$5M Hill) 2024: -$3.5M ($19.2M Giolito + $1.3M Anderson -$10M "saved" from Sale to ATL -$10M Kluber -$4M Paxton This is almost $40M cut from the rotation in 5 years.

Garcia and Sims looked like decent RP'ers- not real good, but decent. Once on the Sox, they became "scary" like the rest of them. The rotation has actually settled down a bit. Last 4 weeks: 1.98 Criswell (1GS & 4 RP) 3.86 Bello (3.38 last 2 starts) 4.85 Houck (4.58 last 3 GS) 5.40 Pivetta (4.66 last 2 starts) Not great, but better than early to mid July numbers.

If he's in a lot of pain, I'm thinking shutting him down for a couple months and having him play winter ball might be the best plan.

It has been a long time, and when you couple this with the fact that our recent graduated pitching prospect list is also better than it's been in a long time, maybe we should be more hopeful than it appears we are, right now while watching our staff implode over the last month. 2021: Houck & Whitlock 2022: Bello, Crawford & Wink 2023: Kelly, Bernardino & Murphy 2024: Slaten & Booser Maybe 2025: Fitts, Guerrero, Penrod & Shugart Big drop off from '21-'22 and '23-'24, but not a bad list, compared to any other 4 year stretch since the Lester-Buch days.

Nobody thought this was a great staff, to begin with, but this bad? The shock of April got our hopes up, but this has become frightening.

The idea includes the "must go on IL," if a pitcher comes out due to injury.

Stunning news!

I agree he is better than DHam, but he belongs in CF.

And SLG% .583 Jh Garcia .581 Campbell .559 Gasper .551 Kavadas .538 Romero .515 Arias .492 B Gonzalez .489 Anthony .480 Mayer .471 Dalbec .452 Teel OBP .458 Gasper .453 Campbell .438 Meidroth .424 Kavadas .421 Arias .385 Teel .382 Sogard .370 Mayer .367 Anthony .367 Jh Garcia .551 Ka

Some Sox Pitchers on the farm: SAL 2.51 E R-C (61 IP) 3.18 Duffy (79) 3.21 Blanco (63) 3.65 Cohen (79) 3.96 Dean (61) GRE 3.06 Paez (50) 3.18 Monegro (51) 3.59 Sena (48) 3.72 Early (68) 4.28 Mullins (69) POR 3.36 Dobbins (99) 3.46 Kwiatkowski (55) 3.62 I Coffey (87) 4.21 Webb (68) WOO 4.09 Gambrell (84) 4.41 R Fitts (100) 4.79 Alexander (98)

Casas should be called up. I think he has to the 20th, but WTH? He went 2-3 with a 2B. Meidroth continues to impress at the AAA level by going 1-2 w a BB (.834.) POR won 5-3 with Bolden going 4IP w 2H, 0ER, 2BB 7 5Ks Hickey went 2-3 w two 2Bs, after the demotion. Jh Garcia went 2-5 and Campbell 1-5. GRE won a tight one. Dean went 4 IP allowing just 1H, 1BB, while K'ing 7 (oER.) Ehrhard went 2-4 (.825.) SAL won 6-4 w Arias going 3-5. Yuten 2-4.

Gotta wonder if last night's loss took the last wind from our sails. Maybe not, this team has shown a lot of grit, and our rotation has actually seen some improvement over the last few starts. Now, we just need the pen to just approach mediocrity.

Agreed. He has had a much longer stretch of hitting well, than not, and pitchers have adjusted to him, and still can't figure him out. .586 first 203 PAs .810 last 242 PAs, including .845 last 202 PAs

I liked that idea, too. I think he has even hit pretty well, after the deadline.

I wondered about why DHam was at SS and Sogard at 2B, but figured they knew who was better on D. DHam is pretty bad, but Rafaela is no great SS, too.

I can certainly understand the reasoning behind trading the upside potential a Chris Sale had for a more durable but less upside pitcher like Gio, especially when you see how badly we've done with injury-prone pitchers over the years (Richards, Wacha, Hill, Kluber, Paxton...) It didn't work. We got it wrong. That does not change the fact that there was a reason for trying it. (The other reason was to try and fix our worst position in 5 years: 2B.) Anyway you look at it, we did not address the need to vastly improve our rotation. We basically swapped out Sale, Kluber and Paxton for Gio. I can understand not wanting to trade top prospects for pitching buy spending less AAV on Gio ($18.5M) + $17M for Sale to play in ATL vs last year's $27M for Sale, $10M for Kluber and $4M for Paxton was not what I had hoped for. Spending less to try and fix a rotation that was severely flawed last year is asking for failure.

Agreed. We had the money to try and mitigate the Gio signing: whether you call it the "money saved" on Sale or not, we did not spend it (all). The "swap" of Gio for Sale was an overall cost increase, both in AAV and actual cost, but when you consider we lost the Paxton and Kluber's money, we barely kept rotation costs the same from '23 to '24. It was just one way we neglected the rotation. There were others, including not signing enough experienced pitchers to minor league deals.

Agreed. I called this a "sham," and i still think the term fits. That being said, our bench and young talent was deeper and better than many of us expected, and the planned kinda worked, except for the pitching. After trying a few middle infielders, and then settling on Rafaela and a second stint from DHam and later additions like Romy and Sogard, we actually have seen better IF play over the last 6 weeks than we did in the first 3 months. Certainly, not great, especially on D, but much better. We've seen the OF go from one of baseball's worst, just a couple years ago to one of the best. We stumbled at 1B with dalbec and Cooper, but D Smith and Romy did stabilize that position wrecked by injury. The catching position was one area some felt we needed to make a signing. It turned out, we did not, and now the jansen addition is looking great. Some started to question the devers extension, after just one month into it. Not much of that, anymore. Despite missing both starting MI'ers and our star 1Bman, as well as O'Neill for some extended time, our everyday players and player depth has been our strength- bad defense notwithstanding. We botched the pitching staff, badly- both in terms of quality and quantity. Doing this for 5 straight years is inexcusable and unforgivable.