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Even if it’s a Bundt cake?

What kind of cake?

Waste of Mookie’s arm and an unnecessary risk for him getting Machado’d. Bellinger is leaving. Put Mookie in CF…

There are conflicting reports?

Do you have one of him in Dodger Blue?

The point is Verdugo was already in MLB. The Sox didn’t take a bunch of A ball players for Mookie. Did they? See, when teams are actually rebuilding and looking years down the road to win, they tend to acquire minor leaguers and hope they pan out. Like the Orioles did (poorly) with Machado…

Of course, lost in all this Dombrowski Love is that during his tenure in Philadelphia, Bloom’s Red Sox actually have a better won-loss record. Boston: 170-154 Philly: 169-155 Who knew?

No one inside the Sox organization has set that timeline. In fact, the goal has been stated to be competitive every year (except 2020, which was an intentional step back). That Bloom is acquiring controllable MLB players and numerous prospects above A ball does show that they have designs on the present. You don’t acquire players like Story, Verdugo and Pivetta with 2027 as the goal…

Really I think the biggest pieces he traded away might have been Andrew Miller and Curtis Granderson. Miller took a long time to really discover his niche, but he did excel in it. And Granderson became a terrific all around player in New York. But DD also acquired two future Hall of Famers in those trades. He also dealt then top prospect Cameron Maybin in one of those deals. Maybin tells the story about his reaction about hearing he was traded and how he was shocked and angry and just yelling at everyonet because he thought the Tigers had given up on him. Then he was told he was traded for Miguel Cabrera. His reaction? “Oh. That makes sense.”

Diaz is certainly on the “highly unlikely” list, but Judge would be my choice for Least Likely. The Yankees certainly can’t afford the PR snafu of letting Judge go to Boston. Cashman would be fired before the ink dried, and then repeatedly hired and fired multiple times over the next week just to drive the point home. Followed by being burned in effigy. Hopefully in effigy. The other way might not be legal. Now not to mention having to outbid the Dodgers. Judge’s chances of manning RF in Fenway next year are roughly the same as mine…

The Fielder contract looked like a massive overreaction to the knee injury to starting DH Victor Martinez, especially since it lead to one of the worst decisions that FO made - returning Cabrera to 3b the following season. Fortunately the damage was short-lived as they were able to pawn off the overpaid Fielder to Texas for the overpaid Ian Kinsler…

DD did do a nice job in Detroit, although even at the time many questioned that insane extension he gave to Miguel Cabrera (which will still be in place in 2023). Certainly Cabrera has declined to the point where he is not an asset at $30mill per, but I do think the PR for having him conclude his HOF career and collect his 3,000th hit in Detroit has been one of the few things Tigers’ fans have had to watch…

Be fair. Bradley was net $5mill

(I’m also betting Old Red forgot how badly the 2019 underachieved and that they had a losing record in the division despite playing two truly horrible teams 38 times.)

I’m not picking on anyone’s typos. That’s a door I don’t want to open…

What are you basing that on? I mean, besides absolutely nothing…

That’s just conjecture. The 2019 team DD constructed was only 6 games better than the 2022 Red Sox and didn’t play 76 games against 4 division opponents that were all over .500. Heck the 2019 team got to play 38 games against the Blue Jays (67-95) and the Orioles (54-108) and still only won 6 more times. Obviously that’s not the norm for a DD team, but certainly he showed he’s fallible…

So why do you think the 2019 losing ticket was cashable but the 2022 losing ticket was not? The 2019 team did drop 24 games in the standings. Even the 2022 team didn’t do that…

I went with “could” because If Dombrowski wasn’t allowed to go higher - and he reportedly went pretty high - do people think Bloom was allowed to?

So the $140mill the paid Story plus the $16mill they paid Barnes is equal to the $360mill it took to sign Mookie? Hmmm. Math issue for me. Dombrowski himself was not able to sign him. Reportedly he offered $300mil over 10 years. He could have tacked on $60mill more? Maybe just not extended Sale? Why did DD stop at $300mill? He was right there with the same AAV! If Dombrowski couldn’t go high enough, why do you think Bloom could?

The point is that 2020, 2021 and 2022 were paying the piper for 2016 through 2019. If you enjoyed those years, this is the inevitable fallout. And it giant even Mayer if the prospects panned out elsewhere or not. Folks on this site were railing about the “cliff” for years, and the Cliff Deniers kept denying even as the team went over the precipice and for the entire way down. And only in 2022 did we see the potential end. Players like Casas and Bello, buried in the low minors, finally emerged and gave some hope that the Sox would have at least some minimum wage talent to offset the high-priced talent. If you enjoyed 2026-2019, great. But know this is the fallout. And repeatedly saying “ Bloom’s had 3 years” is burying your head in the said. Epstein took longer to clean up the Cubs mess. The Sox had numerous years of Sale and Price absorbing roughly one quarter of the payroll - each had 3 years at least. Sale’s 5 year contract isn’t going to go away in 3 years. And no way was out getting moved, because $145million dollar Tommy John patients just aren’t in demand. And if you really think Bloom should have moved him, look what it took to unload half of Price…

He gets credit for 2018 and people are complimenting him on this thread, but whether or not it was a blunder remains nothing but speculation. Another (probably important) factor is he was fired after the team got 24 games worse with basically the same extreme lofty payroll. Would the Sox be better off today with him? That is pure speculation. If he continues to do things he did with the Sox, it’s very easy to doubt they’d be better off…

Todays version of Anderson Espinoza is better than Drew Pomeranz was in 2018…

I railed against Eovaldi’s deal, but he was outstanding in 2021 and actually healthier than I thought he’d be, which doesn’t mean he was healthy. The problem was when DD left, the Sox had about $300 mill tied up in Sale, Price and Eovaldi. And Eovaldi - with a history that already included two TJs - was the healthiest of the three…

If the criteria is “better today than what we got at the time,” auspicious as that criterion is, then non-prospect Wade Miley “The Unpleasant One” fits. Since Carson Smith made no contribution beyond sitting on the Injured List in between tantrums.