moonslav59

No. I've said Yoshida still has time to make the deal look okay. Story would have to be great to earn his keep. I'd say those two deals are better graded as incomplete, and when I say Bloom botched more than half his biggest deals, I'm not counting those 2 as botches (just yet) $8M or more Richards- botch Kluber- botch Ottavino (trade) close to a botch Kike II- botch JT- good Kike I- okay Story- INC Yoshida- INC Did I miss anyone over $8M? His $3-7M were much better, including Renfroe, Strahm, Hill, Wacha and Duvall. (Bad: Marwin and others I can't remember, right now.)

I have my doubts on both reports, and again, we keep going back to the argument that anything not refuted must be fact. It certainly sounds plausible. Let's assume the $162M/6 deal was real. While I do think that was an underbid, without knowing what Bogey was offering, I cannot place certain blame on Bloom for not countering a phantom counter. Also, what if Bogey barely earns $162M/6, even at today's market prices? (I doubt that happens, but it could.) IMO, $162M/6 might have been the highest Bloom would ever offer, despite the acts of surprise, when he signed with SDP. I think he made a mistake. I think Bogey was worth at least $200M/8 or maybe $190M/7. I'm sure other disagree. That's fine.

On the Bogey choice, maybe we should wait to see how well he does in the next 4-6 years, before saying letting him walk was a big mistake. Bloom sucked on his biggest and most important deals. That alone, gets GMs fired. He deserved it. He did a lot of what he was told to do, and did seem to build up the farm and roster depth to a large degree, but it does not seem like enough to get Brez over the hump. (I also doubt Brez trades away Bloom's prospects, like DD did with Ben's.)

I know I gave up on our chance to win in 2022 before most others, and I get the argument about being only x games behind the last WC slot on tarde day, but I just had a sense we were toast. IMO, we should have sold every player not under control for 2023. We should have told Bogey we were not going to offer him market value, so why not accept a trade and lose the QO burden. I might have agreed. We'd have been way better off for 2023 (and or beyond) had we done that. Being a little better off would likely have made being buyers in '23 more apparent, even to Bloom, but even selling in '23 was better than doing nothing.

Agreed. I think DD would have tried to extend him before those 3 years were up. I don't think Bloom was all that sure he wanted Bogey at even near market price. That's my own opinion. All we know on Bogey is no acceptable offer was ever made to him. We don't even know if or what offers were made. It's almost 100% speculation on Bogey.

When you don't know "how hard they tried," how is it real world to say they should have tried harder? IMO, they did not try "hard enough" and should have "tried harder," but I know it is just an opinion- not fact.

I'm not sure how you read that as an excuse. I laid out what I think people's stances are, based on what they think Betts was worth. I mentioned not having enough information to take a firm stance. How is that making an excuse for any body? Personally, I'd have given him $400M, but if JH thought that was too much, so be it. I disagree. I don't like it, but nowhere am I taking JH off the hook for losing Betts. Not many here suggested we give him $400M. I did.

I think Valdez can become a decent MLB hitter. A couple years ago, he was one of the best hitters in the minors. I think only 2 hitters had more PAs and a higher OPS than he did. I just don't see a slot on the Sox.

He did walk, a lot. .255 BA .386 OBP at AA

Is the fact they did not 100% proof there was never even a verbal $300M offer or framework to start talking?

How do you know they never did? If they never did, then they were set on a number they knew was too far away. We can say that was a wrong position to take, or not. I'd have floated another year plus $20-30M, at minimum, but maybe even that was beyond their range. With so much of this unknown, especially just "talks," it's hard to take a firm stance on any position. If you think Betts was worth $375-400M, then I'd say you can take a firm position the Sox blew it, but that's your opinion. (BTW, I suggested we offer $400M/14.) If you start getting to the $325-370M range, there are just too many moving parts to hold any firm stance, IMO. Why we never even tried $310-320M is beyond me, but maybe we did- as a verbally framework offer.

Agreed. I think they saw weak depth in AAA and just added a fungible guy like Guthrie. It's done all the time, by every team, every year. Who know who will be let go from AAA when needed? It could be any of 5-8 players. How many players on the IL can make an impact, too. Our MI depth looks like ... EValdez (horrible D and can only pretend to play 2B) Yorke (questionable D at 2B & can't play anywhere else) DHam (questionable D at SS & 2B, no bat, has speed) Meidroth (3B only- unknown ML skills) Our OF depth at AAA: Abreu or Rafaela (if they are not in MLB) Contreras & Rosier? (LOL) Guthrie offers some depth in both areas. That's it.

He botched his biggest signings (over half of them) and messed up the comp picks by going over the tax line. That's enough for me. The trade deadline blunders, other than the 3 trades: Schwarber, McGuire and Abreu/Valdez were just icing on the cake, to me.

I don't disagree. One thing that makes me wonder is that while most here wanted us to be buyers at the deadline, and it seems the upper brass was more upset about Bloom being indecisive on selling pieces like Sale & JT. Personally, I thought we should have fire-saled in 2022 and tried to get Monty in '23. I'm probably in a minority. The board seems split, and maybe the 17 Sox VPs were indecisive, too.

Is anybody really saying it was Mookie that would not have accepted any offer made by the Sox, under $400M, or are they just saying they felt he asked for the world, said he wanted to test free agency and the Sox refused to go over their top or "final" offer (formal or otherwise?) I feel like the Sox felt they need to come close to $400M to get Betts to avoid free agency, and they just did not want to come close to that number and tanked any more talks.

Yes, this has been presented, many times. The fact that the Sox have said nothing, including a refutation does not mean it's true. Also, maybe no formal offer of $300M was made, but that "framework" was given, orally. I'm pretty certain no counter to the $400M Betts ask was ever even discussed afterwards. I'm guessing they knew they'd never come close to a meeting point in the middle. I'm not sure why they couldn't go from $300M/10 to 320M/11, at the very least, but these guys are hard-asses, when it comes to their own. I feel like Schill was the only "own" guy they paid more than what they felt he was worth.

I'm really not sure they were ever serious about bringing Bogey back, unless it was at a lower than market value cost. It's just my opinion. The lack of reported offers made over the years makes me wonder. They must have felt Bogey would never accept the kind of offer they wanted to give, at any point in his time, here.Or, they didn't care if he walked.

Or someone else- or someone to the IL.

.791 in AAA Guthrie (.357 OBP) .801 in AAA DHam (.363 OBP) Small MLB sample sizes: Guthrie blows DHam away in OPS: .726 to .438. Not much difference. If Guthrie can field better and play more positions, he might very well be above DHam on the depth chart.

There seems to be some sort of weird dynamic that goes on when "negotiating" with our own players. (I put that in quotation marks, because it's not really a give and take.) We seem to set a firm value on our players and never go above that line- or hardly ever. The weird thing is, we start with that "top number" and never budge. Why not tell Mokkie, "$280M/10." he says, "$400M," and you come back with $300M? The only time I can remember offering more after the first offer was with Lester, once the Cubs offer was known, and even that offer was questionable in its authenticity and motive. I can understand a team thinking they know, mor precisely, the value of their own players. I think $300M/10 was a decent offer and very near what most felt was "market value." Why not come back with at least $310M? Do they think that might appear more insulting than twiddling their thumbs in silence? Was an extra $10-20M really a no way position? It's all really very strange. For all we know, Betts might have said no to a $330 or $340M/11 counter-offer, so it seems it will always be somewhat unknown as to what extent the Sox "blew it." Maybe, he'd have said no to $372M/12.

M/L= MLB deal? No, it's under 50% chance.

Stadium capacity: 56K LAD under 38K BOS

Agreed. 0% Snell 10% Monty 15% Clevinger 20% some scrub on a ML deal (Notice the total is under 50%.)

The issue with IFA signings went beyond one lost season due to penalties. While many of Ben's prospects, including some IFA ones were traded for key pieces, there really was a long gap in IFA additions that made any impact for the Sox. Devers was called up in '17 and then Bello in late '22. (That's on Ben & DD) Major IFA Signings: '13-'14 Devers (Called up before Bloom) '14-'15 Moncada & Espinoza (traded by DD) + Rusney '15-'16 Mata (out of options and 1st chance for MLB in '24) Lost Season (Hector Velazquez) '17-'18 Bello & Rafaela '18-'19 Wikelman '19-'20 Perales, Castro, Monegro '21 Bleis

DHam sets a pretty low O bar, too. He does steal bases, but can he get on base at the ML level?