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It all makes a ton of sense when you admit they really had no reason to have faith in Sale. None of us did (except cp). Because every Spting Training since 2020, I’ve said the upcoming season depends heavily on Sale, and 100% of the responses said “you can’t count on Sale.” If Sale had been pitching, they don’t trade him and don’t sign Giolito…

But Giolito made things MORE EXPENSIVE. Why was Giolito involved in this at all?

Most of the main points look painfully obvious. If the Sox had as much faith in Sale’s 40IP August/September last year as you think they should have, do you think they really trade him and sign Giolito? They had no faith in him bouncing back, and he gave them very little reason to have any in recent years…

Explain to me how trading Sale and singing Giolito saved money? The Sox are playing Sale and Giolito a total of about $35mill this season. Before the deal, that number was only about $27.5 mill…

It looks painfully obvious Sale’s injury risk was a driving factor here, not just part of the calculus. That the main contribution of his replacement is the ability to rack up IP also lends some support to this. In this trade and subsequent transactions, the Sox 1. Moved on from Sale, who gave them 150IP in the past 4 years. 2. Replaced him with a pitcher whose thrown nearly 600 IP in that same timeframe 3. And added an MLB-ready 2b who was ranked as highly as #3 in a stacked Atlanta farm system to fill what had been a void in their infield. The one thing they didn’t do was save money; they spent an additional $7mill for these moves. The downsides are multiple, as Murphy’s Law just ran wild on the Sox here. Sale bounced back. The normally durable Giolito got injured. Grissom got off to a slow start and battled injuries and illness. The middle infielders that made him necessary (Valdez, Hamilton) all got off to great starts and leapfrogged him. But not one item on this list looked like any sort of obvious outcome…

And that’s fine. But it also means this trade was not solely about saving money. They could have traded Sale for much less and included less cash, right?

So what was the point of dropping Sale to add Giolito? Clearly not to save money, since keeping Sale was $7mill cheaper. It seems to obvious to point out, but just because WE expected them to add starting pitching didn’t mean it was on their radar. And this Sale/Giolito swap also points out they really didn’t add anything. They swapped out two plsyers and spent money to do it…

But why take back Grissom when you can include less money and take back a lesser prospect?

For box scores, the Globe was king. Only paper I know of in the USA that at one point included NPB box scores from Japan. No idea why…

Baseball Digest is still good. But it’s no longer that handy pocket-size journal. Full size pages (and not as many of them). It still has the Quick Quiz, which is the most difficult monthly baseball trivia quiz in print. (In 30 years of quick quizzes, my record is 6 out of 10.) Sporting News for baseball peaked (IMO) in the early 2000’s when they added journeyman RHRP Todd Jones to the staff, and then Jones got an offer to pitch for the Tigers, so he wrote his columns as an active major leaguer. Also, like him or not (and I like him), Ken Rosenthal was still there at the time…

There’s also a reasonable chance dgalehouse thinks all blown saves occur in the ninth inning. And are losses…

Well, if it was about dumping salary, why give $17mill and take back Grissom when you can include less money and get back a lesser prospect? Because despite what you think, Grissom was a highly regarded prospect at the time. Also, if it was only about saving money, why spend on Giolito to replace Sale? It seems obvious the Red Sox did not buy into Sale pitching 43 innings without any sort of injury as the indication that his health problems were clearly over and he was going to be able to pitch a full season. With the money to get the better prospect plus the money spent on Giolito to replace Sale, they didn’t save money. In fact, they would up spending about $7mill more…

Saves are wins but blown saves are kind of meaningless. First of all, they’re not necessarily losses. Second, you can get multiple blown saves in a game. And really, a relief pitcher can be effective but still get a blown save, thanks to inherited runners. Not to mention, a pitcher can be credited with a blown save in almost any inning and didn’t need to give up an earned run to get one. Ryan Brasier was credited with a blown save in the fifth inning when he was in Boston. How is that indicative of a win or a loss? The reason that fWAR was better was the similar FIP (unless you like blaming pitchers for weak defense) over the 100+ more innings pitched. That’s a huge chunk of innings, and a big reason the 2019 team didn’t do as well. The starters were more of a problem than the bullpen that year…

A few more facts, 2019 bullpen: 665 IP, 4.14 FIP/4.40 ERA, 10.5K/9, 5.6 fWAR 2018 bullpen: 561 IP, 3.90 FIP/3.72 ERA, 9.6K/9, 4.1 fWAR “Spin” is looking at saves and blown saves and pretending it measures bullpen performance…

The bullpen actually pitched better in 2019, considering they were needed for about 100 more innings. The big problem with the 2019 Sox was the rotation, with Sale, Price, Porcello and Eovaldi all pitching much worse than they did in the previous season for various reasons…

I think most people think of 2013 as a clear outlier in the Cherington years, which are most often described as “three last place finishes in 4 years,” are they not? If nothing else, that marginalizes his one title. The entire point was Henry clearly didn’t like paying the top dollar for a 90 win team. And the East was getting better, and his expensive Sox team probably wasn’t as good as the 2018 team lead us to believe. And that was a big part of why DD was dismissed. And not solely because of 2019. He wanted a cheaper winner, which he didn’t think he would get from DD, whose history of success is supported with large financial commitments, even in Miami. Or we could ignore all that and go with your theory, which was what again? Yes I did my math wrong. But if you include 2018, the standard deviation for his 4 years was 10 wins, which is a large variance and why it looks like the outlier over 2019. The standard deviation without 2018 is only 5.15. The point is his run was less stable than many want to believe, especially for that money. 90 wins was good enough for a WSC in 2023. But in 2021, 90 wins puts you fifth in the AL East, the division we need to get out of to get into the playoffs…

So? There are maybe a couple dozen people on this one forum. All those other sources might have different foci, but they’re still foci. It doesn’t make anyone wrong or right…

Yeah don't care for all that. I grew up in Boston, familiar with the media. Know how it works. Not sure what you're point is, other than you seem to think anything said on talksox is unique. It isn't. Metrics are all mainstream now. That's reality. Not everyone likes them, but they're not the ideology of some limited group. The only place they are ubiquitous is among MLB front offices, and even their usages vary...

Yeah post 333 was on the tale end of an argument you were having with Hugh about whether or not Atlanta would have taken even less money for Sale (post 284). As it came on the heels of the 2 year extension, there were people who believed Atlanta willingly extended Sale for no reason other than a strong belief he was clearly going to return to form. And not because they needed to get one done to get him to approve the trade...

Or whatever your local media source is. Point being, I'm not going to hear it because I'm in the Midwest, where they don't talk much about Sale anymore, let alone give him catchy nicknames pertaining to his health...

I don't listen to Boston AM radio. I live in Chicago...

Post 232, from Old Red "I was all for trading Sale, but just didn’t like still paying him $17M to do it, but I’m over it, so I’m fine with the trade, and will feel even better if Grissom works out." Or would you like me to go back to post 165, where you question if Sale will pitch even a single inning? Dude, it's ok to not have seen this Sale Resurgence. Not sure why people are so afraid to admit they didn't see it coming. I'm not even sure Atlanta PBO Alex Anthopolous saw this coming. Certainly Breslow didn't. Quite possible even Sale himself didn't. If you look back through the thread, almost no one says Sale will bounce back and be great again. a700 does, albeit sarcastically. Why you need to insist now that you did it so you can proclaim yourself a soothsayer on some random internet forum is beyond me, Like most of us, giving up Sale was not something you had issues with. Heck, you overtly state multiple times you would prefer this deal go down with Henry keeping more money!!

Hard to say, especially with the number of top ten lists. That could cover a wide range of prospects. If we go by Soxprospects.com, I think the top 4 are all out of bounds, especially with Perales taking himself out. But the one I question is Bleis. I know he looks like a "sell low", but I don't think A ball stats matter nearly as much as scouting perception and tools. I am not real sure about Zanetello, but I figure the Sox likely hold on him for a while and see how he develops...

"Another idiotic complaint that, because I called Frail Sale as many others did not only on here, but lots of other parts of Red Sox Nation as well I wasn’t allowed to say that I think Sale will stay healthy this year, and have a good year with a lot better team in Atlanta. Imagine that! As the people at PF say just when you think things can’t get anymore ridiculous on here someone outdoes someone else, and it goes to an even lower standard. From PF to the few, but not so proud. S A L U T E." Where? I know you don't get ho preferences, ideas and predictions work, but this is just commentary on other people reacting to you. Look, if you want to call yourself a prophet as you repeatedly try to do, I'm fine with it if it will get you to shut the f*** up...