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Soxprospects.com lists the Sox making the following additions: 1 SP (but they count Erod as being active for the 2021 team, which is not a guarantee) 2 RP 1 2B 1 CF (they highlight Bradley) 1 LHH for the bench (And former Bloom acquisition Brad Miller is a perfect fit) They include Arroyo an Munoz as bench players. Obviously, either or both could be economical solutions at 2B, and each with some risk. Per Fangraphs, the Sox are 4th in MLB in E-F, which is ERA - FIP. And they have a number of pitchers with significantly worse ERAs than FIPs, iunclduing Mazza, Covey and Stockj. (Brice, too, but his FIP still sucks, unlike the other 3). So will this be a factor? Ther e are 3 ways to interpret this. 1. The Sox pitching might not be as bad, but a lot of them were victims of weak defensive play. 2. FIP is useless. (Which might be true, but won't matter if Bloom has faith in it.) 3. The sample size was just too small for this to matter. If the Sox operate under the pretense of option 1, and they need to improve some defense, they might not be so quick to hand 2B over to Arroyo/Munoz, and they might be more likely to bring Bradley back, as his defensive metrics increased this year, possibly due to the Notin Theory from last year that they would with the departure of Betts. Or maybe for some other reason, although that his cumulative DRS went up in a significantly shorter season might be a good indicator...

Bauer is obviously a good fir for Boston, but I doubt Bloom goes all i on one big contract like that, especially since he spent this offseason tying to get put of those types of deals...

He also left no ability to replace any of them if they get hurt or reach free agency...

I’ll go 50/50 on Bauer to the Angels (assuming they actually hire Dombrowski). With the New Mets ownership also in line to make a big splash, Bauer does make for a good PR target for them...

I don’t think they’ll spend $240 million, but they will spend. They painted themselves into that corner with the Reset Button tweet..,

Sorry for not genuflecting at the Altar Dombrowski. Maybe you missed the 2020 season?

And your source for this is?

Nah. And all SF did was kick start his free agency by a few weeks...

He did. And I recently realized his immediate moves to upgrade the bullpen instead of the rotation were actually the right moves, so mea culpa there...

The thing is, with DD, you get some winning seasons but you also get a mess like the 2020 Red Sox and the Tigers the last few years. His MO is very simple - spends lots of money and trade away all tradable prospects to win today and then hope tomorrow never comes. There may be a flaw in that strategy, one you described as “unwatchable “...

I think the veteran presence needs to be an MLB veteran....

Actually unemployed cofffee boy Dombrowski built this Sox team. The Sox payroll (unlike the Pirates) is about $180 mill, and Dombrowski brought on board about $170 mill of that...

Soxprospects.com has the Sox acquiring 1 starter (they do assume ERod pitches), 2 relievers, a CF, a 2b, and a LHH for the bench. Miller can fill that last role. Bloom has acquired him before...

The Sox are 26th in bullpen fWAR....

Mazza, Covey and Stock all look more impressive with their FIPs than their ERAs (which is true for a lot of Sox pitchers this year). But one guy who looks worse that way is Valdez...

If Puello is on the roster, it’s as a 4th outfielder who gets maybe 50-75 at bats. He’s not fighting with Duran for a position. I’m surprised Duran and Mata did not get the call. I don’t think 1 week of service time gets them significantly closer to arbitration...

Possible Per BTV, the following pitchers have roughly the same trade value as Christian Vazquez Yonny Chirinos (Rays), Brady Singer and Kris Bubic (Royals), Framber Valdez (Astros), Domingo German (Yankees), Sean Manaea (Athletics), Dane Dunning (White Sox), Adrian Morejon (Padres), Caleb Ferguson (Dodgers), and Edwin Diaz (Mets). Now some of those teams, notably the Athletics, White Sox, Dodgers, Yankees and maybe the Padres, might not be looking for a catcher. The Rays and Mets are extremely likely to be looking for a catcher, and the Royals might be as well given that Perez iisn't the player he used to be and has only one year left on his deal. So which of these arms is most desirable for a trade of Vazquez? And does the other team want him badly enough to make the deal? I would think Valdez is the best option, but I do not know if Houston goes there. The Mets, per my own completely uneducated opinion, are most likely to be interested with the names involved...

So... Brad Miller?

I think you need to launch a Tweet Storm at Bloom and get him to call up the MataHorn. Also, to make sure he gets that nickname...

And be fair to Hanley. He got off to an incredible start in 2015 where he hit 10 HRs and had a .999 OPS in April. Then he injured his shoulder, and posted a .654 OPS with 9 HRs the rest of the way. Yes, he hit 10 HRs in April and did not hit 20 that year. But if Hanley doesn't hurt himself, while he probably doesn't have a .999 OPS with 10 Hrs every month, he does probably exceed his 2016 totals, possibly by a lot...

If the plan is to have an opener, the bullpen becomes an even more pressing need...

Again, the 2015 rotation really might not have been the big problem people say it is. In that respect, Dombrowski's early trades to acquire Kimbrel, Thornburg and Carson Smith were actually smart ideas in hindsight, despite two of them flaming out catastrophically. I still think Kimbrel was an overpay, but at least he was addressing the biggest need, despite many not recognizing it as such. (Whether or not closer itself was the biggest need from the 2015 team that had Koji Uehara, who was coming off a very good year, is another matter.)

And which ones they address prior to the season. If Perez is bad Perez, but they have already added Trevor Bauer, not so big...

The 2015 Sox starting pitching was 13th in fWAR and 11th in FIP that year. In both cases, they were ranked ahead of the World Series champion Royals. The 2015 Sox bullpen ranked 30th in fWAR and 30th in FIP. I'm not so sure the starting pitching was the actual problem. What you're doing (and many fans do) is judging against preconceived notions of what a starting rotation should look like, and making that the cause of the team's failures. "They didn't have an ace" was not the problem. The problem was, they didn't have a bullpen. Now there is some organic relationship here, in that the bullpen might have been better had the rotation eased some of the burden. But ultimately, they were the weak link and at best, the rotation exposed them more. Of course, the Sox bullpen ranked 19th in IP so maybe the issue of overusage was not the biggest factor in the root cause here either...

Maybe he did?