moonslav59

Certainly, developing our own pitchers, especially starters is a great way to build up a staff. We can see the boost Crawford, Houck and Bello have given this team and its future. We also acquired Pivetta, Wink and Whitlock, along with others, who have helps, but are not ace-types. You set the bar at 1.5 years, and examples were given for 2 year guys being traded just months ago. Trades for proven, young or younger pitchers followed by extensions are numerous, as well. It is still a viable way to add a solid SP'er to a staff; it's just not been the Sox way since Nate (.5 yrs and re-signed,) Porcello (1 yr and extended 4 more,) and Sale (3 years and extended for 5 more.) Sometimes, trade & extensions come in below FA market value, which might be something JH would prefer over another David Price situation. There are several ways to add pitching. DD and Bloom ended up providing a better staff than many of us imagined possible, of course with the help of Bailey and Brez. No doubt, our farm still looks pretty weak, when it comes to pitching, but we are strong enough and deep enough, there, to provide players and prospects to trade. Others have done it. It has gotten harder, as you have pointed out, but it is not impossible, and it is still happening, every winter.

We have a pretty nice foundation or young and or controllable players at every position, along with strong or promising depth at most. Our staff has some key pitchers on their last year, and we will need to add there to take the next step forward, but the core looks very promising, to me.

Hey, we clawed back to within a half game of MIN for the last WC slot. (Cue: It's too early...) -5.5 from KCR -4.5 from BAL -0.5 from MIN Whodathunk we'd see 3 ALC teams in the top 6. We have the 12th best record in MLB and are 1 game behind a tie for 9th best. The Yanks now have the best ERA in MLB, but we are still under 3.00: 2.92 NYY 2.99 BOS 3.17 PHI 3.23 LAD 3.28 CLE 3.32 BAL 3.33 ATL 3.40 KCR We are 12th in runs scored (1 behind TEX and 4 behind BAL for top 10.) Out of the top teams in least amount of earned runs allowed, here are the differentials between ERs and Runs allowed: 37 BOS 23 PHI 20 NYY & BAL 16 ATL 15 CLE 14 LAD 6 KCR All I can say is "WOW!"

The Price deal might have been a failure, but it did lead to a ring in 2018. Maybe we win without him- maybe not. I'm not saying it was a good deal, but the time did come after we spent.

Lopez pitched 5 seasons with MIA before being traded with 2 years remaining, which is more than the 1.5 you set. Cease pitched 5 seasons with the CWS and was traded with 2 years remaining. It's not as rare as it might seem. There are also many examples of trading for an established and somewhat young SP'er and extending them- sometimes at a little less than FA market money, which might someday appeal to JH & Co. The Sox have a long history of trading for an ace and extending them. Every ring we have this century was shortly after acquiring an ace-type pitcher or two. It could happen, again, but I am not going to predict or expect it.

Big sweep. Group effort.

Luis Tiant was the greatest baserunner the Sox have ever had.

I love speed, but oppo hits and HRs with men on base is pretty damn good, too!

Lopez had 2 full seasons on arbs. Cease had 2 seasons left Castillo had 1.3 seasons left. It does happen, as do extensions. We traded for Pedro & extended. Schilling and extended. Beckett and extended. Sale & extended. Porcello & extended. Nate & extended.

Even our outs look nice.

Ref is killing RH'ers, this year. He's earned a FT job. (DH and LF when Rafaela plays SS)

How about Luis Castillo, Pablo Lopez, Dylan Cease and Burnes?

They can't even all get together and agree on the same lies.

We paid $17M and got a bum in Grissom, so what would be expected by paying the full contract?

Within 8 years or so, we also got Sale, ERod, Nate, Kimbrell & Porcello by trade. And, lessers like Kelly, Ottavino, Pom, Wright & Hembree.

The FO said a lot of things.

The best rotation ERA- since at least 1967: 64 BOS 2024 and PHI 2024 (in progress) 70 LAD 2022 71 CHC '16, CLE '20 72 LAD '21 73 ATL '98, LAD '19, CIN '20, ATL '97 SOX Best 2024 (64) 2002 (77) Pedro 2.26, Lowe 2.58, Wake 2.81, Burkett 4.53, Castillo 5.07, Fossum 3.46 1990 (81) Clemens 1.93, Boddicker 3.36, 3.38 Bolton, 3.97 Kiecker, 4.00 Harris 1999 (82) Pedro 2.07, Saberhagen 2.95, 4.12 Rapp, Rose 4.87, Portugal 5.51 1993 (84) Sele 2.74, 3.26 Darwin, 3.14 Viola, 4.46 Clemens, Dopson 4.97, Quantrill 3.91 2018 (85) Sale 2.11, Price 3.58, ERod 3.82, Nate 3.33, Porcello 4.28, Johnson 4.17 1986 (86) Clemens 2.48, Hurst 2.99, 3.78 Boyd, 3.80 Seaver, Nipper 5.38 1978 (87) Eckersley 2.99, Tiant 3.31, Lee 3.46, Wright 3.57, Torrez 3.96 (notin has a good point) 1992 (88) 2017, 1979, 2008 (89) 1973, 2000, 2007 (90) 2004, 1995 (91) 2013, 1998, 1994 (92) I like the 2002 and 1986 rotations, a lot. To me, 2018 was the best. The 2004 one was great, but Wake was at 4.87 that year, and Lowe was at 5.42. Best fWAR rotations: 1990 (20.6) 2002 (19.9) 1999 (19.7) 2004 (18.2) 1992 (18.1) 2003 (17.7)

Nothing but players...LOL.

There was a good chance Grissom would have more value in 2024 than Sale. While I do think the trade was more about 5 years tan 2024, there was a significant chance Grissom would out fWAR Sale in '24... maybe even 50-50.

Grissom is your McGuire for 2024.

There was also concern that even if he was able to stay healthy for a full season, how close could he come to the great Sale of 2018 and before? He had 25 starts in 2019 and 20 in 2023. Between, he had 11 in 3 total seasons. That's 56 in 5 seasons, or about 11 per season. 2019-2023: 4.16 ERA (114 ERA+) 3.56 FIP/1.14 WHIP This is pretty good, but not close to vintage Sale. 2010-2018: 2.89 ERA (144 ERA+) 2.86 FIP/1.03 WHIP Even better from 2014-2018: 2.89 (145 ERA+) 2.69/0.99 Surely, I'd take the 2019-2023 Sale for 28-33 starts in 2024, if I knew he'd have given us even that. I'm not sure I'd take that over the promise of 5 years of Grissom, but it was a close call, even assuming he'd go 28-33 starts. The fact that he is doing great, and Grissom is sucking doesn't change the ideas of the past winter. It was a tough trade to make. I disliked it, at first. I like it less now, than I did on opening day, but this deal's grade is still in the solid "incomplete" category.

That is the issue, not that no teams are offering them in trade. We had several chances to make better offers, and we have a strong enough farm to propose top offers.

Here is why I mention it: before the trade, most of the talk about Sale was about the burden his extension has been on our restricted budget, and how we could not count on him for anywhere near a full season of pitching. There were also doubts about what level of performance we might get from the aging SP'er, even if he was able to give us 28-33 starts. I'm not saying anyone is re-writing history, by now complaining about trading him away, but I do think the rosy view of the 2024 Sale is a lot different from what it has been for the last 3-4 years. I get that this is no revisionist posting, as many disliked the trade at the time. I did, too, initially. I do think there was obvious merit to the trade, as were looking down the road, perhaps beyond 2024, and Sale was not in our long term plans. I bet a poll would have shown most posters would have predicted we would not take the 2025 Sale option, had we done one, last winter. Now, the view has changes, for obvious reasons. Our team had the 30th fWAR at 2B from 2022 to 2023. There were strong reasons to make this trade, beyond just fattening JH's wallet.

Weren't you the one implying Criswell was lucky due to his much higher FIP than ERA? Yes, we all know some of our SP'ers have been much luckier than others, when it comes to W-Ls and team W-Ls. That tends to even out over the long run, but not always over a season.

I hadn't read that. Hopefully, he joins the program. I liked seeing he had no BBs, last night.