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He's probably the best pitcher in the last quarter century to not have a CYA, so it is arguably overdue. Right now, the three biggest obstacles between him and the Cy Young award are his own durability, Imanaga, and Ranger Suarez...

And I did, too...

I only disagree with the Sox ruining Bard by making him a starter. He was overrated as a reliever to begin with…

Mata is a DFA/re-sign candidate. He’s barely pitched in the last 3 years, has no MLB experience, and no options left. He’s not s guy I see getting claimed…

It was explained. Not my fault you don’t know how BABIP works…

So Grissom gets optioned for being unlucky? Grissom is third on the Sox in line drive rate (26.8%) yet has a BABIP of .171. That’s crazy bad luck. He also has the third lowest strikeout rate for players with 30 PA or more. Not so sure optioning him is the right idea…

Moon’s post was largely sarcastic, but calls attention to some truly bizarre Devers Hate. Some of the criticisms of this guy do seem crazy. “He only hits solo home runs!!” “He’s no Ortiz!!” Ok so he isn’t a Hall of Famer and he’s struggling with some clutch situation this year. He’s still the best player on this team and will probably go down as one of the ten to fifteen best hitters in the history of the Red Sox…

Florida offers a nice combination of a tropical climate and some older architecture that you just don’t get in other warmer states…

Starters throw more innings but relievers throw harder (than they would as starters). I think the greater workload probably trumps the greater effort when it comes to injuries…

I like the stretch of equating WWII to gator-wrestling. But it really is just that - a stretch. Bottom line we both agree that the point was neither were in the same class as Williams, which was the whole point...

The Yankees have absolutely won their share of titles by flexing their financial muscle, because you can do that nowadays, But if you read "Summer of '49", at the end of the book, Halberstam details some conversations between Sox and Yankee players to reveal that the Yankees were actually the lesser paid team, and they outplayed the Red Sox because they needed to in order to get the extra money from winning the title. Oh, how times have changed...

Well put. The mere fact that the Sale trade takes longer to evaluate is in itself a big difference. Even if Verdugo turned into Dwight Evans Lite and Jeter Downs panned out, we knew that deal was not going to be even. And we knew that the same day it happened...

Would you have preferred Greenwell? I lose some of my parallels that way, but Greenwell was the better player. But I still think these trades are miles apart. When Sale got traded, the previous seasons at least made it easy to understand why. When Betts got traded, we knew the previous years had nothing to do with it except that they upped his cost. Betts' trad also came at the tail end of 3 years of failed negotiations for an extension. Sale's trade came at the end of 4 years of frequent IL trips. When I look at those two players, I feared that when Bett's deal was coming to an end, it would mean he was trade bait. With Sale, it was getting to the point where I just wanted that deal to end. Just last year, some story broke about how Bloom turned down the chance to trade Sale and his entire contract for nothing. Pure salary dump. And Bloom turned it down because he was getting nothing in return. And a lot of people still blasted Bloom for not doing it. But they move Sale for a legitimate prospect, and Sale manages to not get injured for his first 8 starts, and suddenly this new trade is mentioned in the same sentence as the Mookie trade because minimal parallels can be drawn? I think you're looking for hyperbole in the wrong place...

We knew he had blasted his way through the Atlanta farm system and was ready for MLB, and had nowhere to pay in Atlanta. And if something led you to believe that, did the first 53 PA negate it completely?

Hall of Famer in his prime like Betts vs aging Sale and his 151 IP over the previous 4 seasons, clinging to hope that he magically rediscovers his health in his mid-30s? Exactly how close do you think these deals are? This is not just like trading Betts but with fewer calories. I mean, Williams and O'Leary were both left-handed hitters from southern California who played left field for the Red Sox. Gee, there are parallels there, too. But does that really make them similar?

With Sale, it was clearly not just about the money; they also wanted a player. They probably could have paid none of it and taken back someone much less than Grissom. someone to just fill a roster spot for little to no cash. David Fletcher? Grissom at least has some potential. The Betts trade was to get under the luxury tax limits and included throwing in half of what was left of David Price. This was a much more blatant salary dump...

If he keeps this up, he probably gets demoted at some point. I believe he still has one option year left. There are a few reasons to think it won't happen anytime soon. 1. No real 2B prospect/option knocking on the door to replace him. Enmanuel Valdez' has been hitting better, but really if Grissom has one 4 for 4 day, his OPS would jump to .424 (assuming all singles) and that puts him right there with Valdez. 2. Don't need the roster spot. 3. He's not the only problem. The Sox are not going to turn anything around until a few people start hitting a little more. And Grissom will not be one of them if he is in Worcester...

To be fair here, there aren't many owners who do that in any sport. He has front office people like Kennedy who lay it out for us, but they things like "full throttle" and then do not even come close to following up on that...

I can't even look at them the same. One deal was a 27yo future Hall of Famer in his prime who had no drawbacks whatsoever except his salary (and only then if you had to pay it). The other was a 35yo with HOF ability who had struggled to stay in the field for the past 5 seasons. The only way the Mookie deal went bad for LA was if he just never signed an extension. With Sale, there was a helluva a lot more risk becuase he was a much older and oft-injured pitcher, and no one would be surprised if he had issues this year. You simply cannot say that last part about Betts and never could...

Also helped by having two All Stars at middle infield. Atlanta had no place to play Grissom if they kept him. Except in Gwinnett…

Calling this trade Betts-Lite is like referring Troy O’Leary as Ted Williams Lite. Outside of money, there was no reason to move Betts since the guy was perfectly healthy and performing. Sale has been sporadically available for multiple seasons now. Last year, everyone was down on losing Eovaldi and Wacha, two oft-injured pitchers who claimed the Pitcher of the Month Awards in May. Then both got (predictably?) injured a few weeks later and suddenly the noise around them stopped…

Yes holding him looks worse if Sale stays healthy, but his track record in that department has been abysmal since 2018. I don’t blame the Sox for getting what they could out of him at this point. Even waiting until the deadline was far from without risk…

Also the Braves’ farm is very topheavy with pitching prospects. Even if Sale goes down for a few stretches, it creates an opportunity to work some young arms into the rotation…

I’ve heard those words about lots of players who then wound up injured.

Story to 3b. Devers to 1b/DH with Casas…