moonslav59

We've scored about 40 more runs than HOU, this year. They have had better pitching, despite having way more injuries to their rotation than we have had.

I think we should start talking about the loss of Carlton Fisk for nothing, more often.

The Betts discussion will never go away. It shouldn't, either. The Babe Ruth topic lasted over a century. Pitching is the top need area, for sure, and is deserving of much discussion, but that does not mean talking about other things means we no longer think pitching is the biggest problem. A related issue to pitching is spending. They have gone hand-in-hand for years. Trading prospects for pitching is also a related topic worthy of debate.

To make matters worse, when we tried to change the philosophy of relying on oft-injured pitchers by trading one (Sale) and signing a "durable" SP'er (Giolito,) we get that one horribly wrong, too. That being said, the Astros have something like 5 of their top 6 SP'ers on the IL, and are streaking into the playoffs.

One understated fact about all those winning seasons the Sox had starting around 2003 was the fact that we let some very productive players bolt, before they reached their declining years. Some still hurt like hell, and a few we wish we never let go- like Beltre and Lester, but for the vast majority, we made the right choice. Even the Damon departure worked out okay for us. When Ellsbury bolted, many were pissed off, but wow- nice job, right? Many hated letting Beni go, and he did have a couple good seasons afterwards, but right now, he has one of MLB's worth fWARs among everyday players. We made plenty of mistakes on some, but we did well letting many go, when the time was right, just right or nearly right. Letting Betts go, was a big mistake, but he did say he wanted to be a FA. DD acted on that, and the rest is history.

Agree on all points, here. I do think Betts was DD's top priority, and once it looked like he was dead set on reaching free agency, he did what he should have did: he locked up our next best players. The budget was not ever going to be endless, and the fact that DD could not even bring back Kimbrell and Kelly in 2019 proves that point. If we couldn't bring them back, how can anyone think Betts was still "on the table" after 2019? Our new spending in 2020 was a joke. 2021 was not much better and we barely replaced the contracts dropping off the books in those years. We never even replaced Porcello's money, Bett's arb money and half Price's money.

Every game is a big one, now. We've dug a hole that is perhaps already too deep. To climb out, we need to take one game at a time, and it sucks that this one will be without Devers, but in baseball, anything can happen. We need a good game from Paxton and the pen. That sounds like a lot to ask, I know. GO SOX!!!

To think Bloom actually had a chance to sign Betts and chose to trade him,because he wanted to, is alternate universe thinking.

Except that he was about to trade Betts in 2019. The "blame" on DD was about him choosing to sign Sale, Nate and Bogey and not Betts. If you think JH was going to allow him to sign everyone, that is not reality thinking.

I think the odds are pretty accurate. We have almost half the chance of making the playoffs as the next lowest team, who both (HOU and SEA) are fighting for a weak division title. 90%+ NYY, BAL CLE 85% MIN 53-65% HOU & SEA 36% BOS (Nobody else is even over 6%)

My position is well known on that. We need to trade top prospect capital for a TOTR pitcher, ASAP. It would be nice to spend bigly on another one, at the same time, but I am not expecting that to happen. (I'm not sure we trade top prospects, either, but trades like Yorke for Priester was encouraging to a much lesser degree than what is needed, of course.)

We did spend more than all but two teams, that year. Injuries to Sale and ERod hurt, bigtime, but we were still a big spender. The problem was, hardly any was new spending- same as 2019, and that was largely because of JH, but also because DD chose to sign JD, extend Sale, Nate (re-sign) and Bogey and not Betts, Kimbrell & Kelly. (The Porcello money was never spent, either.) This is not meant to be a criticism of DD. To me, he was not allowed to keep everyone. Someone was bound to be left out. Too bad it was Betts, and Mookie seemed to have a role in that choice made by DD, too.

Yes, indeed. His "emptying of the farm" was a gross misrepresentation of what he did, although his moves did contribute to a serious lag on farm infusion between the Devers call up and the Casas & Bello arrivals. I will say that we will soon be seeing the Bloom influence on farm building manifest itself. It may not be enough to get us to glory, again, but we should get a huge boost.

Yes, and we were still a "top tier spending team" in many of their seasons as GM. Hell, we were the third highest paid team in 2020, one of the team's worst all-time losing percentage seasons. We've been in the top 6-10 as late as 2022.

True, and when you look at MLBs largest and longest deals ever signed, you'll see a pretty high swing and miss rate, as well. (It is one major plus area for DD. His success rate on big signings seems much better than most GMs, although Price, Sale and Nate were not all that great.)

The loss of Betts was a huge gut punch. It was worse than not offering Carlton Fisk a contract, in time, and then blowing up the team of the mid and late 70's. Guys like Betts are generational- even multi-generational. He's like a hundred year storm event. You just can't let a guy like that get away, and we did. Even if we somehow-someway get ourselves back to a championship, I'm not sure that stench will ever go away. For me, I doubt I can ever let go and stop "giving a s***" about the Sox. They are in my blood and bones. I guess a blood transfusion might work, but I've never heard of complete body bone transplants. I'm doomed.

Indeed, along with many of the losing seasons and even last place seasons.

I made no predictions. We all should know almost anything can happen in baseball. Hell, the A's are outplaying many of the higher ranked teams, over the last month or so. Saying things can change, and being called "wrong" for saying that is nothing short of absurd. Nobody is doubting the fact that we turned south at the ASB. Nobody doubts the fact that we cannot make the playoffs, "if we keep playing like this." What is in doubt is where we go from here, and nobody knows where that might be. Nobody. Not knowing the difference between a suggestion and a prediction is something Red will ever understand. It's not worth the effort to even try and shine a light into that vacant brain. Words have different meanings to him, and if you call him out for getting definitions wrong, he call you out for "over-analyzing." Not to mention, the fact that he over-analyzes more than anyone else here, and more often than not, misunderstands the position he is criticizing.

Part of run prevention is defense, and while the numbers may not show it, our defense looks better, to me, than it did in April. Devers ha stabilized. Duran made a big step forward, this year. Smith stabilized 1B. While DHam, Romy and Sogard are no wonders on middle IF D, and Rafaela, too, it has not been god-awful D. Abreu has been inconsistent, and the GG O'Neill has not looked like even a plus. Rafaela in CF would be a great improvement to our D, but lacking a SS and 2Bman makes it tough to do that, right now. The pitching has been a near total collapse. Less than a handful of pitchers have even given us sporadic good games. The majority have been bad to awful in every game for about a month, now. If this continues, all hope is lost. Our only hope is that some of most can turn things around and quickly. There is no evidence this is happening, except for maybe Houck, Jansen and maybe 1-2 others, but baseball is a sport that is very difficult to project. Going by a player's most recent 2-4 weeks to predict the following 4-7 weeks or our remaining hopes, is not something I adhere to. I'm not predicting a turnaround, but I do think it is still possible. The rough starts by Paxton, Garcia and Sims has not helped, but there is no reason to think they all will suck for the rest of the season. Martin's return could help. Slaten & Hendriks, might, too. To me, it will come down to our rotation. They just cannot be this bad, going forward, or we will be toast, real soon. (Some seem to think that is already a certainty.)

Looking "forward," I feel... Less confident than I did in March on: Bello Crawford Bernardino, Weissert, I Campbell About the same: Giolito Whitlock Winckowski Hendriks & Fulmer (although I expect more) More confident: Houck Criswell Slaten Kelly Booser What hurts the "going forward" the most, to me, is how we replace Jansen, Pivetta and Martin, if the budget does not expand. That's more on JH than Brez. (We also need to replace Paxton, Garcia & Sims.) The "return" of Gio, Henriks, Fulmer, Murphy, Slaten will only make a small dent on the needs.

We should have "hit" on more of our moderate expenditures, but I do not think we swung and missed much more than the norm for signings at $5M/1 to $10M/1. You get what you pay for, and that's pretty much what we got. The Kluber & Richards were are largest SP signings between Nate and Gio, and they both bombed, but others gave us about what we should have expected: Wacha R Hill Paxton Perez I & II The pen signings are more mixed: Jansen Martin Barnes extension Strahm Diekman It did kill us that our biggest 3 SP'er signings bombed, bigtime: Giolito, Kluber & Richards. Then, the Sale trade just threw gas of the fire. That's basically our 4 biggest SP'er decisions since the Nate extension. All failed, badly. While that is more on the GM than JH, I still blame JH more than the GMs for the state of our rotation, right now.

I "like it," but do not think it is great. I see improvement beginning, but improvement over being the worst in MLB may still fall far short of what we need. It was good to see us draft more pitchers, this year, and I realize having many pitchers in the 20th to 60th rankings on soxprospects.com is not something to get joyous about, it looks better to me than it did just 1-2 years ago and certainly beyond. Also, while some of our younger pitchers in the bigs are struggling, like Bello, Houck, Crawford, Wink and Slaten, many are having better seasons than homegrown pitchers have had since the Lester-Buch and Masterson days. Again, better than s*** can still be s*****, too, but there were our highest ranked pitchers over the last 15 years: (I only listed pitchers on multiple year lists, once.) 2010: 1. Casey Kelly, 7 Pimental, 11 Doubront, 12. Bowden, 13 Tazawa, 19 Weiland, 20. Fife 2011: 3. Ranaudo, 4 Drake Britton, 14. Workman 2012: 7. Barnes, 14. Alex Wilson, 20 Henry Owens 2013: 4. Allen Webster (trade) 5. Ruby de la Rosa (trade), 12. Brian Johnson 2014: 12. Trey Ball, 15. Stankiewicz 2015: 6. ERod (trade), 10 Kopech, 14. E Escobar (trade) 2016: 3. Espinoza, 10 Lakins, 15 Pat Light 2017: 3 Groome, 8 Raudes, 14 Shawaryn, 15 Cosart, 16 Mata, 19 S Anderson 2018: 4. Houck, 7 DHern, 9 Scherff, 13 Beeks, 15 Thompson 2019: 9 Feltman, 19 D Reyes 2020: 9 Song, 11 TWard, 13 Zeferjahn, 14 Aldo Ramirez (traded for Schwarber), 16 Murphy, 19 Bello 2021: 4 Whitlock, 7 Seabold (trade) 2022: 9 Walter, 11 Wikelman, 12 Winckowski (trade), 16 Crawford 2023: 8 Perales, 13 Drohan, 16 E R-C 2024: 9 Fitts (trade,) 12 Sandlin, 20 Slaten The 2025 Rankings may include: 8-20: Perales, Sandlin, Tolle, E R-C, Dobbins 21-35: Valera, Cason, Early, Paez, Monegro, Mullins, D Reyes, Dean, Wikelman 36-60: Clarke, Tygart, Mata, Carlson, Ingrassia, Penrod, Guerrero, Horn, Gambrell, Rogers, Duffy, Hoppe, Drohan,

The worst part about having only a 36% chance at making the playoffs is that 7 teams have a better chance. It sucks that two of those teams, HOU & SEA, currently have worse records than we do. It is very easy to be cynical. They give us ample reason to go down that road, and there are no signs of a turnaround in spending in sight. The rebuilt farm offers some hope, but it's hard to imagine us coming close to a ring, without some major expenditures directed towards our pitching staff- either with spending or trading farm capital. With no sign of that coming, it's hard to build up hope.

Not a good weekend, so far. Gotta pull out tomorrow's game. KCR and MIN both won, so we are... -2.5 from KCR (-1 in loss column) -3.5 from MIN (-3 losses) -6.5 from NYY (-5 losses)

POR no hit through 5 and scores 10 in the 6th! Campbell, Binelas and Sikes homered. Ehrhard 1-3 w 2BB