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Fair, but what inspired that change in direction? He wanted to stop being successful for no reason? I could see that change being inspired by the facts (plus others) I mentioned concerning the 2019 team…

So now Bregman’s contract was a conspiracy to trade Devers? That does lead to two painfully obvious questions. 1. Why not just trade Devers? It’s not like any good PR from signing him could outshine the negative PR from dealing him. And clearly, even with his me-first attitude, Devers was very tradable. 2. Does the risk outweigh the reward? There was always the chance the player doesn’t opt out and then at attempt to drop a $300mill contract winds up costing an additional $80mill. The Sox probably learned a valuable lesson about opt outs after David Price didn’t exercise his. This is an over-convoluted conspiracy theory to explain things that didn’t work out, but it’s dealing with an organization that has historically moved on from expensive players and willingly taken the bad PR while simultaneously cashing the good checks. It turns out all you had to do to make Devers look bad was move him off third base, something that should have been done years ago given his (to be kind) questionable defense there. This could have been done without risking the $120million on Bregman. And it’s far more plausible that Dombrowski was fired because he needed the largest payroll in MLB to build a mediocre 84 win team that came nowhere near the postseason, and whose future was heavily reliant on 3 oft-injured pitchers that were still owed a total of $300million. Even if Dombrowski wanted to pay Mookie more, that kind of thing pribably happens to every CBO at some point and very few (re: none) get fired for it. It’s more likely that kind of thing would convince Dombrowski to resign than it would get him fired…

So the home runs had nothing to do with throwing at Story and the timing was coincidental?

Most fire sales don’t involve corr players with multiple years of control left. If Houston has one, I would expect them to keep Alvarez, Peña, Hunter Brown, and very likely Cam Smith. Priority moves will be Walker snd Hader….

Hamilton wasn’t that bad when he was here. He basically filled a role and got relied on too much due to the failures of others. Of course in both cases, that other “failure” had a bad stretch of 100 or so PA very early in their career. And yes, the Boston media has always been horrible about magnifying ex-Sox players. I’ll start the bidding with Bob Lobel, the most annoying sportscaster in media history, and his oft-repeated “Why can’t we get players like that?” for every highlight wuth a former Sox players. Gee, Bob, maybe because you whined about him endlessly when he was here…

Oh i dont think stats translate - even OPS+ - but I do believe struggling isn’t always just because of new geography. Stats do convey that struggle. Plus Theyre facts, while “he’d hit if he were here” is an alternate reality pipe dream. And I certainly don’t give ex-Sox or players the Sox avoided a pass for their new locations while holding new Red Sox players to a completely different standard. Some injuries are probably inevitable regardless of geography. We call them elbow injuries…

Somehow I struggle with “his goal was to get out of the game” was higher on his priority list than “f*** these guys and their back-to-back home runs.” Especially from a guy as mercurial and volatile as Valdez…

I think he meant when Gibson played.

That might be a dangerous precedent. Especially with some unpredictable types like Manny Machado, not to mention some of the immature types like Pete Crow-Armstrong and Alec Bohm…

At some point, it’s probably important to realize a major league fastball strikes with more force than a pellet fired from a riot gun. You know, the weapon police use to subdue people that are out of control…

I wonder where he thinks anyone can find just such a pit. There can’t be too many of them…

That was actually his twin brother, Coleb Durbin…

Yeah Valdez is a new breed of horrible. Gibson is just another run-of-the-mill *******, like many other professional athletes only maybe a little more so. I assumed Valdez’ anger issues contributed to his lack of interest this off-season. But he got paid, so why learn?

And the notion that any contract can be traded after a hot streak is pure fallacy, unless it’s a really, really extended hot streak. Like 2 years long…

Bob Gibson was probably not the best example of a sportsmanlike human being. Most stories kind of portray him as a major *******…

And if you replace Durbin with Manny Machado, we’re even better because Machado can make pays at third base the others cannot…

… which was nice except he had the job for a few months…

Yes. Can he play it well? No idea…

I was all about Marte or Paredes. Not sure AZ was wild about my Duran/Bello offer. Never even returned my calls…

Or go with my other alignment with Yoshida at DH, Anthony (when back) in LF, Duran in CF, and Rafaela, Mayer and Story at 2b, 3b and SS in some arrangement that doesn’t have Story at SS. Durbin can sit out for a bit. Or call up Braiden “the Unlikely Savior”Ward..

Well, let’s not forget about Story and, until 4 days ago, Duran. As little faith as I have in Durbin, I do think he can reach Abraham Toro production…

But the point is that largely the same post-Devers lineup that was producing 4.84 RPG last year Is now only producing 3.71 RPG (not counting their 5 runs off Weston Wilson). And while they’re without Bregman, they do have Willson Contreras putting up Bregman numbers from last year…

Maybe Grissom wasn’t as bad as we thought when he was here. Atlanta was in love with him at some point for some reason, and even appeared hesitant to let him go. This front office definitely has very little patience with the young players they try to use. They have fan-level patience and not FO patience. Probably need to listen to me more. It’s working for other front offices…

That’s fine to give them credit, but when this year the same players were dreadful right out of the gate, were those same coaches accountable?

Just get 9 bats and figure out where they play later? I’ve never seen that work. Durbin (admittedly my focus) isn’t the problem because they chose position over offense in the same way Schwarber would be the problem because they chose offense and ignored position. The Sox did need an infielder. There’s no getting around that. The problem is that Durbin was clearly not the infielder they needed, at least not yet. Of course most of the hard-hitting free agents that were available, at least as free agents (Bregman, Bichette) are not off to much better starts. And the rumored trade candidates only seemed to be available at the expense of the more notable names on the young pitching depth chart.