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Oh I just acknowledged the possibility, as did a few others. I never said anything was “most likely”, especially on a player who was examined by two teams in the second half of last season alone…

I don’t know what they saw in Giolito, but the Angels and Guardians were not phased by his performance…

A medical diagnosis!! We are all so glad you took time out of your busy schedule to examine Mr. Giolito…

Did you feel this way when the Sox dealt Price? Not about Mookie, whom we all wanted. Just Price…

I didn’t expect the next Ichiro, but I did expect a Japanese Brandon Nimmo. But he is still along way from that…

I like Yoshida, but his approach in the states isn’t what I expected after seeing his stats in Japan. He’s a good hitter I expected more from. He’s a bad fielder. And it’s not hard to see why a lot of fans are frustrated with him…

Neither Hamilton nor Valdez is much of a defender. Hamilton might be an acceptable 2b. Valdez is probably a LF or DH…

Pretty sure a700 was referring to the Grest Reset Button trade in which the Sox unloaded AGon, Carl Crawford, Josh Beckett and Nick Punto’s contracts and got back what turned out to be nothing. The Sox actually did include money in that deal, but that’s besides the point. They spent their massive savings on a slew of short term free agents and won the World Series 14 months later…

Probably some truth to it being that way on nearly every baseball forum on the internet…

I get where you’re going, but I have my front Henry will allow another spending binge like he did in 2013 where the Sox signings included Napoli, Dempster, Victorino, S Drew, and Uehara…

I’m still on board with this team. I expect good and bad stretches. I’ve even suggested my deadline but targets - Tyler Anderson (Angels RHSP) and Paul DeJong (White Sox shortstop). And some others have made theirs, and it will go on from there. Now the prospect thread has had some discussion about who the expendable prospects are, which is buy talk… But it only takes one person not enjoying them to start the sell discussions…

So are you saying you’re being positive about this team now? And don’t want to read anything negative about them? If that’s the case, wow. Less predictable than the Chris Sale Resurgence…

That’s actually the point. They’re saying this team isn’t fun to watch, and hopefully some new team in the future built with trading these players away will be more fun. Whether or not the team is fun to watch is up to the viewer. But if someone isn’t enjoying the team this year, what do you suggest they do?

Actually the last two years, it looked like the options were buy, sell, hold, and oversell Eric Hosmer…

Cora’s thoughts on this are irrelevant on this little web forum he’s never heard of and will never visit. Nothing we say will ever reach him, and certainly wouldn’t impact anything he did if he somehow caught wind of our existence. I assume you were talking about posters who discuss selling. If so, you do realize these folks have zero impact on what the Sox do, right? Sox fans have had negativity since long before the internet. And those negative types fall into two classes. 1. Those who complain and it ends there. And 2., those who complain and discuss how things could change to get better. In the grand scheme of running a team, neither type matters. Neither type even gets heard. But I would rather talk to the second type. But both types will ALWAYS exist, and we know this because they ALWAYS have…

True, but as I said, I prefer the former. But as I said earlier, if any of you front office bashers have a line on where to get Sox office voodoo dolls, clue me in. I’m not opposed to Henry Bashing, and definitely not above it. It’s just secondary to talking team/player stuff like I mentioned earlier…

Appropriately timed example, because according to Lou Merloni, this is essentially how the Padres got Bogaerts. Apparently he was not their prime target, but Trea Turner was. However, Turner’s wife is from Philadelphia, and after they offered him $400mill, Turner all but begged the Padres not to counter. The Padres took their unspent capital and then offered the bulk of it to Bogaerts. So, this does happen….

I disagree. In December through March, this board was loaded with negativity. Almost everyone predicted another last place finish. Very few said anything positive. And this was before we all saw Chris Sale put the Fountain of Youth into a Time Machine. And all of those last place prognosticators could still be right. But right or not, they’re being very negative, and certainly not saying anything Cora or the players want to hear (which they won’t). Isn’t that worse? The folks calling for sell offs are doing the same thing, but are at least suggesting follow up actions. Granted, no one who needs those suggestions will hear it. But again, what’s better baseball talk? What is Chris Martin worth in a trade? Or why won’t John Henry spend money anymore? The negativity is always here. It doesn’t start with the seller talk. Some of the fire sale people go all in and expect an air strike and a complete rebuild if the Sox give up multiple runs in 3 or more consecutive innings. Those guys are a little crazy. But hoping to turn a mediocre Nick Pivetta into something decent next month? Not the most negative thing in my eyes. I get how seller talk can be annoying when the team is doing well overall and you just want to get some teams behind Boston in the postseason hunt. I just can’t think of it as the bottom of negativity…

Before the season, I really liked Houck, Crawford and Bello in the rotation. I still do, although they’re not as fire as they were in April. But I hope they can extend Houck and keep those guys around. I’ve never liked Whitlock as a starter, much like everyone on this forum. I’m not throwing any new, deep insight out there with that. But so far multiple CBOs appear to like him there. Certainly economics is part of that. But also at some point, I’m not so sure our view of the Sox starting pitching aligns with that of the people in the front office…

Exactly. But wow has this flopped. The guy who was supposed to at a minimum, supply IP, is out for the year. The guy they didn’t think could supply IP is not only supplying them, but is doing so with an efficiency we haven’t seen out of him since 2018. Even if the Sox kept Sale, I would have thought the 2019 version was best case scenario. The hot prospect has been sick, injured, absent, and ineffective when he does show up. And the guys the hot prospect was supposed to replace each showed they are capable of carrying the team for short stretches. And those complete and utter lack of upgrades only cost the team about $7.5mill!!

Yeah but those types are putting a positive spin on a team they view negatively. “Hey this team is no good, but we can use that to make the future brighter!!” types. As much as I don’t want fire sales, they are a legitimate way to improve the future, and discussing potential Jansen trades is far more appealing baseball talk to me than complaining about John Henry. (Not that those of you out there who spend weekends sticking pins in your little Sam Kennedy dolls are misunderstood by me. In fact, where did you get that Kennedy doll? And do they have one for Werner?)

Some folks are negative because the venting is cathartic. If you need this forum to let out some Sox-related frustration, and clacking some keys here keeps you from actually performing Schrödinger’s Cat, I get it. Of course there are a few who show up in darker times and tell us we’re stupid for being Sox fans are a different matter…

No need. I had re-read a lot of this thread recently, and you were clearly on a very short list of people who objected that day. The bulk of the crowd here were frustrated with Sale repeatedly getting hurt, had little faith in his health, probably had little faith in his abilities as he hadn’t really displayed them much over the last four years, and many were at least glad the Sox tried to use his trade to get a good player rather than just dumping all his cash, which is something they’ve had chances to do. I get why Breslow made it, assuming his logic agrees with my thoughts. But this one couldn’t have worked out much worse…

… and that he would get to that lower payroll at full throttle…

On the bright side, he gets out of starting tomorrow’s game thread…