S5Dewey

It's times like this I wish this format had something to indicate an "upvote".

Not a guarantee with Betts, but contrary to what I posted yesterday, it's probably the end of JBJ's tenure here.

I keep telling you that JBJ is coming back. DD & I sat in the same class: Building a Team 101. Be as solid as you can up the middle even if it means one of those guys has to bat 9th. Also, signing JBJ to a two year contract guarantees that the Sox won't be without both of their premier outfielders in 2021. He'll be back. Book it.

If they try moving Beni to CF and filling the LF spot they're going to be creating a log jam in the outfield. They'll have figured out by the ASB that Beninitendi isn't a CF'er. Then they'll find someone else who can actually play CF, move Beni back to LF to keep his bat in the order, and the new Flavor of the Day, the new OF'er, will become our 4th OF'er which in turn will push someone else off the 25 man roster. But... I still think DD will keep JBJ, so what do I know?

What?? Something we unequivocally agree on? LOL

lol

I'm all for resetting, but not in 2020. 2021 looks a lot more reasonable to me. I know I said this a few days ago but this is STILL one of the best teams in baseball IF you ignore the starting pitching. There's no doubt that taking a chance on our starting three (Sale, Price, & Porcillo) is a huge gamble but I'd rather take that gamble in 2020 than throw in the towel and dismantle a team that's THIS GOOD overall. But... that's just me.

Hahahahahahahahaha From the BOSTON RED SOX???? NEVER!!

IMO you need to edit that to say that "he's getting an elite player's salary for being an average pitcher in 2019". Unless, of course, you want to step into a time machine and undo his entire contract. That would negate 2016 when he went 22-4 for $20.125M and won the CYA and his 17-7 2018 ($21.125M) when the Sox won the WSC. I'm disappointed in his performance this year (in spite of the fact that I believe the new ball has a lot to do with it) but I would NEVER say that he wasn't worth the $82.5M he got paid.

That should give us some idea of how misleading some stats can be.

Isn't that what they call using the entire field? LOL

WANTED: General Manager for the Boston Red Sox. Must have crystal ball capable of infallibly predicting each player's Career Years, Slumping Years, and injuries. Others need not apply.

Age mattters and it's not realistic to think that we're going to get as many year from Johnson as we do from Erod. We only need a year or two out of Johnson and our window will be closed anyway. Johnson isn't the second coming of Sandy Koufax but he can be enough of a one-year stopgap to help in 2020, and he does have known potential. He's always had the pitches. His problem in the past was between his ears. In that regard he reminds me of Grinke. Grinke almost washed out of baseball because of his anxiety issues but once he got those issues under control he became a ML pitcher. Now, before someone reminds me that Johnson doesn't have Grinke's stuff - I know that. But he's not going to command Grinke's salary either. You get what you pay for and at the ML minimum he's good enough to be a #5 or 6. Or beyond.

Johnson continues to remind me of someone...who is it?.... ....someone who had problems in past years with durability.... and control... got a lot of criticism for it.... some wanted him DFA'd even!.... It's coming to me now... Hispanic name... Hmmm... yes... Rodriguez. That's it!

...and this was the attitude during the 80+ years of Red Sox futility. "Let's 'wait til next year' because if we go for it now and fail we'll be in worse shape the following year." I realize it's easy to be disappointed in this team right now but to listen to some posters one would think that "The window" slammed shut on their hand! There are those of us who would throw in the towel on 2020 right now in the hope of rebuilding an offense and defense as good as this one is now by 2024. I'm not one of them. I'd look at what we have rather than what we don't have and plan accordingly. The OF is set, the left side of the IF is set, and at least half of the catching duo is set. We have solid and cheap possibilities on the right side of the IF in Chavis, Marco, Travis, Lin, and possibly even Ockimey. Sign Brock Holt and call it a day for position players. These guys are good enough offensively and defensively to win a championship. The question mark is at pitching with the biggest ? being the condition of Sale's elbow/shoulder and by being an optimist I'm going forward today hoping he's back at full strength next year. He may have to reinvent himself a bit but everything I've seen from him makes me think he's enough of a competitor to do whatever is necessary. Beyond that there's Price, & ERod, both of whom can easily be predicted to have a better 2020 than 2019. The only starter probably needing replacement is Porcillo and if releasing him and replacing him with a slightly more expensive #4 it's something I can live with. We have plenty of arms with the potential to be our #5-9 pitchers. I say this is the time to be brave, not cowardly. The nucleus of this team is still possibly the best team in baseball. Don't scrap it now. Have the courage to take a chance. That window is still open. Teams like this don't arrive every year.

A great perspective from Nostratrollus, a Yankees fan who continually hopes the Y's opponents are weak enough for the Y's to finally get another flag flying in NYC. The ONLY question marks going into the 2020 season involve the pitching staff. It's far too early yet to say "with Sale limited or possibly not available for 2020 and Price continuing to decline, your rotation is setup for problems next season. ERod will be the leader of the pack with the hope that Eovaldi can "not suck" enough to be useful. Particularly humorous is the last sentence that ERod will be the leader of the pack, etc. That's wishful thinking on the part of a Yankees fan who knows that if either of those guys revert to 2018 form the 2020 Red Sox will be more than the 2020 Yankees can handle. The entire post is built on the premise that the Red Sox stud two pitchers are going to flop. That's nothing but wishful thinking.

If that's where we are without JBJ - and I don't doubt Moon's numbers - then I don't see a reset. At that point it's "In for a penny, in for a pound". If the FO is going to spend that kind of money they may as well tweak where necessary and give it another go.

Ya. I believe this is it. If the Sox were getting six or seven innings and an average ERA of ~4.0 regularly from the SP it would take a lot of pressure (and INNINGS) off the 'pen. While we don't have knowledge of how the BP would have performed in a better situation we can probably assume that they would have performed better given fewer innings. If you buy into that^ the next logical step is to think that all this hate for DD is misguided. He did exactly what a GM is supposed to do: He assembled a team that should have been favored to win the ALE. Yes, he could have done 'more' at the deadline but by that point he would have been bringing in a garden hose to help the fire department. The damage was done and even if by some miracle the garden hose had helped put out the fire the house was probably still going to be ruined. One garden hose isn't going to make much of a difference. IMO this season's lack of success lies on the backs of the starting pitching. I'm not suggesting a lack of effort from any of them. It's just what it is.

I have a friend who does PA for UMaine & larger venue high school games and he's currently getting away from those to do PA for something called Rocket League. Apparently it's an online game mimicking soccer but using cars with rockets as the playable characters. Say what you want to about it but he's making money doing it so there must be some following someplace.

To answer your questions... 1) Absolutely not. Football fans are mostly regional (and fickle). Remember when the Cowboys were "America's Team"? Now the Pats riding the crest of that same wave. Once B & B are gone most of these"fans" (a/k/a 'front runners') will revert to rooting for their more local teams. There'll be a few who cling to the past just as there are still some who cling to the days of the Cowboys, Yankees, and the Oakland Athletics of old but for the most part they'll go to whatever team gets the most media exposure in their part of the country. 2) I heard Bob Costas say in an interview some years ago that, "Unless football does things to mitigate these concussions and injuries I can see a point where football becomes as marginalized sport as boxing". (loosely quoted). The NFL is trying to make an impact (ok, poor choice of words. ) on the health of its players but they can't undo the fact that fewer and fewer parents are allowing their children to play football at a younger age. This is going to have an effect on the popularity of the sport in a few years when these children have to choose between watching a sport they played and can relate to (soccer) and football. IMHO many football players are now knowingly putting their health and future at risk because it's their way out of poverty but as more and more research is done many of them will see that the risk isn't worth the short time reward.

Here we go again with the overpaid/underpaid argument. Let me first say that nobody making $550,000/year for playing baseball is "underpaid". Especially when they're being treated like kings to do it. They fly in chartered planes, they stay in the finest hotels, their meals are paid for, heck, they don't even carry their own bags. However, underpaid/overpaid is a matter of comparison and when compared to what the owners make the players ARE underpaid. But that's just my opinion because since the teams are privately owned we don't know what the owners are making. Convenient, huh? It appears that the ones who are overpaid are the owners and it's their unwillingness to pay the players a larger piece of the pie is the culprit here. The owners just have a better PR bureau then do the players so the owners have managed transfer the blame for high ticket, ticket, beer, souviner, etc. prices to the players. At the core of the problem is us the fans. We continue to pay inflated prices for anything to do with MLB in the need to quench our insatiable appetite for entertainment. And I'm not excusing S5Dewey either. I'm as guilty as anyone, but it's a fact. We - the players and the fans - are willingly being taken for a ride by the millionaire owners who continue to pad their own pockets at our expense. I'm aware that I've railed on ad nausem about the high players salaries in relation to their contribution to society but that doesn't mean that I don't support the players. I do and I'll continue to until I see some credible evidence that the ownership is paying the players a piece of the pie that's commensurate with what the owners are making. Still, the bottom line is the fans. We have met the enemy and he is us.

You should be safer on the West coast than those on the East coast. Don't go for any walks in the rain in the near future. We'll be thinking of you and looking forward to your next posting.

Oh, I don't foresee that at all. JH & the FO are going to want to keep packin' the fannies in the seats so they're going to want to keep as many 'core players' as possible. That's Vaz, Devers, XBo and JBJ. Maybe Beni. Some of Mookie's money can go toward JBJ's $10M (that's only a $1.5M raise) and the other ~$30M (!) they would have paid Mookie can go toward his replacement. [Holy sweet God. I just looked up Trout's salary. Is he really making $36M EACH YEAR??] (that's rhetorical, btw)

I agree that if anyone on the Sox is irreplaceable it's certainly Mookie. I wish it were Sale and Price but it's not. Unfortunately Mookie is holding all the cards here and it's looking more and more like whatever he does the Sox are screwed. If he bolts for someplace else the FO is going to be charged with trying to replace someone who's irreplaceable. If he stays the Sox are going to tie up so much money in him that they won't be able to afford to fill in around him. Choose your poison, as they say. I say that Sox need JBJ more than he needs the Sox because I believe that whatever happens to him he's going to be playing for ~10M next year. Someone is going to want that glove and be willing to hit him down in the order. He doesn't need them. OTOH if he leaves the Sox are going to be facing the possibility of losing the best 2/3 of this great outfield and 2/3 is TWICE 1/3 and it's a huge hole. IMO they need to decide what they're going to do about Mookie and make him a generous offer. Sign him quickly if he accepts it, sign JBJ and resign themselves to Mookie's leaving if he doesn't. As I keep saying, dickin' around with this thing is a recipe for having two new outfielders next year - something I don't want to see.

Are you guys really suggesting that playoff experience doesn't matter? WOW.