moonslav59

It might take a 6 game win streak to even have a shot. I'm not seeing that, but stranger things have happened, like the 3 biggest NFL Faves, lost outright, today.

No love for Elmer Rodriguez? (Or, IFA D Reyes?)

He's not getting a QO. He's probably not getting what I said was the most he might get, this winter. If we somehow traded Abreu and Yoshida, I might make him a FA offer, but not a QO.

The final grade is years away, but it sure does not look good.

I don't think the viewed Story as just a "dime-a-dozen defensive SS." From 2018-2021, Story had the 24th best fWAR at 14.9. (Bogey was at 16.3.) His .880 OPS was also 24th, while Bogey was 15th at .894. People like to point to his COL Home advantage, and he did have one, but Bogey had a home advantage, too. Road OPS 2018-2021: 4. Betts .903 5. JD M .890 10. Devers .849 12. Bogey .838 32. Stor y .761 (was not bad, at all.) The injury, and the fact that we knew about it, was the worst part of the signing. Had he been healthy and hit ,750 on teh road and .790 at Fenway, the signing would not have been bad, and that might have been close to the expected floor for his O.

He may get a $25M/2 year deal somewhere, but not with BOS, who has Anthony banging on the door of a team that already has an OF of Duran-Rafaela-Abreu with Campbell able to play OF, too. (Ref may not retire.)

I seriously doubt he gets a QO. He won't even get a $15M/1 or $27M/2 offer from anyone.

We sure need some pen arms for 2025.

He's been a beast, despite the lower than expected rbi total. He's had some big hits and come up short quite a bit, too. We will need to find a way to bet lefties, next year w/o him.

You are assuming both Whit & Fulmer are healthy. I could also see Whit used in short relief, but more often.

That he is. It was a risky trade, but even if Yorke truns out to be good, he may never have gotten a chance with the Sox and a middle infield of Story, Mayer, Campbell, DHam, Grissom, and later Arias and others. I hope we see more trades like this one.

Great post. I will say that Houck had horrific numbers after 4-5 IP or 75 pitches, too. I hope we finally decide to keep Whit in the pen, all year.

Crawford need to solve the HR issue, if he is going to be a successful SP'er, going forward. I'd prefer him in the pen for 2025, as the co-long man with Whitlock, but I fully realize that ain't happenin'.

Top 3 of the biggest favorites, today, all lost their games, outright!

We have done very well in this one area: 1 year stints by an OF'er: 2024: O'Neill .254 31 61 (.888) 2023: Duvall .247 21 58 (.834) in just 353 PAs (Off year in 2022.) 2021: Renfroe .259 31 96 (.816) 2020: Pillar (traded after 126 PAs) .274 4 13 (.795)

I know Tyler O'Neill is not under team control for 2025, but we do need to think about how we replace the best RHB on the team- a team that really struggles vs LHPs. As of now, he is tied with Devers for the Sox lead in OPS at .891. He leads the team in HRs (31 to 28 over Devers.) Much has been said about his unusual RBI total of 61, but can we get by without adding another RH'd bat from outside the system? On top of this, Refsnyer, a top 30 OPS vs LHPs batter in MLB over the last 2-3 years is saying he may retire. Maybe Campbell of the return of Story can make up for O'Neill's loss. Maybe the LHB, Anthony, can do well enough v LHPs to help us forget about O'Neill's loss. Let's see,,,

Priester went just 3.1 IP, today with Woo. 63 pitches. 2H, 2ER, 3BB, 2K. It's the bottom of the 9th and Woo has 3 hits. Anthony is 0-2 w 2BB. Grissom 1-3. No Teel or Campbell. POR lost 4-0, but Blden pitched well: 6IP, 2H, 0ER, 2BB, 6K. The bats got 3 hits: Hickey, Jordan & Jh Garica. Hickey & Garcia also drew a BB.

Tell me you or anyone disagrees: (Maybe not in this order) 1. Pitching 2. Pitching 3. Pitching 4. Catcher and corner IF defense 5. RHB

You are doing a great job. Relax. Although Sox fans can be brutal, we generally aren't towards people not in charge of the Sox.

Bello might be considered a number 3, too. I agree, we need an ace most of all, but we could also use another Bello or Pivetta or a "3 type SP'er."

We know where we need help.

I've always felt a line-up is better with a mix of batting styles that includes some "aggressive -type" batters. We have Devers and Rafaela. Other batters may K, too much, but I would not call them free swingers. Maybe they can help Rafaela improve his discipline, but sometimes trying to tweak a batter's whole syle can backfire.

No doubt, Bloom failed on his drafting of pitching, but the idea of drafting the best available player has a wide following among GMs. It's sad to say that maybe his best pitching choices was not trading Houck or Crawford and trading for Pivetta and Wink, along with the Rule 5 pick of Whitlock. I will say, draft picks often take 3-6 years to make an impact, so the jury may still be out. His drafts rounds: 2020 (only 4 picks total): 4 Wu-Yelland, 5 Drohan 2021: 4 E R-C looks promising, 8 Dobbins & Guerrero, too. 2022: 3 Rogers, 5 Dean, 6 Hoppe, 10 I Coffey and 12 Mullins all look like long shots. 2023: 4 Duffy, 5 Early, 9 Wehunt and 14 Ingrassia look faw away. IFAs: Paez & Nunez "21, Portes '22 (traded away by Brez) & Cohen, C Lee & A Bates in '23 and in 2024, D Reyes looks promising. Overall, these were Bloom's major and decent+ additions to the Sox pitching system (farm + MLB) Pivetta, Wink & Robles (trade) Whitlock (Rule 5) Kelly, Bernardino, Schreiber (MiLB FA/Waivers) FA: Jansen, martin, Wacha, Hill, Strahm, Paxton was okay for $10M This list is not impressive, at all.

Outstanding post, Max. 100% spot on. Certainly, paying so much of our spending budget on players not giving us much value, if anything is a major reason for our lack of success. That is on the GM/CBO's. Not spending enough is the other major reason and that is on JH & Co. It has really been a tag team event since and including DD's final year with the Sox. Here is a look at some of the failed big contracts by year, starting with 2019 (in $millions): 31 Price began his steep decline, 21 Porcello had a god-awful season, 17 Nate (5.99 ERA in just 12 GS), 15 Pedey (nada) and 15 Sale (4.40 in 25 GS) In some ways, the 2019 saw the biggest waste of big money contracts over a long period of time... more than any year of Bloom, Brez and maybe even Ben & Theo. 2020 was a total disaster and was Sale's first extension year (25.6M and 0 GS). Even JD 22M hit .680. 17 Nate did okay but missed 25% of his starts. 14 Pedey gave nada, 8 ERod sat out the year. The 6.5 spent on Martin Perez pales when compared to those listed ahead of him, but was still a bad choice by Bloom. 2021 was the feather in Bloom's cap, but in reality, we still saw a lot of wasted salary, including the $10M Bloom paid Richards and 5.5 on Perez. We also saw... 25.6 on 9 starts by Sale and 8.3 on ERod's 4.74 ERA. The others pulled their weight, so this was one of the better years for least amount of sunken cost, and it's no fluke, we did well. 2022 saw another 25.6 wasted on Sale's 2 GS. 17 Nate did okay but missed 12 GS, 23.3 on Story missed, badly (Bloom,) 22 JD was down at .790. The $12M spent on JBJ and 7 on Kike hurt, as well. The 9 Barnes extension fell apart mid season. (Bloom did okay with the Wacha, Hill, Strahm and Renfroe deals) 2023 saw yet another letdown by 25.6 Sale w only 20 GS and a not-so-great 4.30 ERA. 23.3 on Story was another year missed. Bloom's 18 on Yoshida, 10 on Kluber and 10 on Kike were near or total busts. (Bloom did okay with themis to lower deals like 16 Jansen, 11 Turner, 7.5 Martin & 7 Duvall. 2024 saw a frighteningly low amount of additions, especially large ones. Brez's 19.5 on Gio was a complete wiff. Paying 17 for Sale to win the Cy Young w ATL was worse than a total bust. 23.3 on Story (Bloom) was yet another wasted year. 18 on Yoshi looked a little better, but he missed time and still has not earned his contract for 2024, alone. 16 on Jansen was okay, 7.5 on Martin was not. (Only the 6 paid for O'Neill and 1 for Criswell worked out well.) 5 Hendriks gave us zero for 2024. I'm not going to total all this up, but it has been a huge percentage of our budget.