Nick

I'm not sure I ever enjoyed the busy season! I always had to sell half of my season ticket for basketball.

In a case of injury lasting longer than couple of weeks, I always prefer the defensive first option the best, especially for middle infielders. I still like Dalbec.

I am looking forward to 2023. Chris Sale has another 3 years with us. Hopefully, Casas and Bello will join Devers as a part of our 'core' group in search of next championship. Good luck to Betts and Xander and that is ALL I'm going to say about THAT. We're tied for 1st place (I'm sure many of you will argue that we're tied for last place)

Moon we talked about construction of the team based on distribution of team controlled years ....in a perfect world 4 rookies added to replace 4 players becoming free agent. My question is do you split the roster 50/50 with home grown talents versus free agents/traded players? Thus you only need 2 homegrown players and 2. FA/Trades? Obviously you won't sign too many FA for 6 years so you may need 3 or 4 depending on the length of contract.

I made slight adjustment to Moon's opening roster and went with 25 man roster. I just wanted to do a little mental exercise on constructing a team. To be absolutely cheap, I need following break out of contracts. 4 players in Arb 3 year (say $10M/yr) 4 players in Arb 2 year (say $5M/yr) 4 players in Arb 1 year (say $3M/yr) 4 players in 3rd year 4 players in 2nd year 4 players in 1st year 1 player named Devers....life-time contract At the conclusion of each year I would simply trade or let go of Arb 3 players and replenish them with 4 rookies. We will have 4 players with 6 years of team control and I think it's a pretty good 'class'.....Casas, Whitlock, Bello and Wong. We only have 2 players with 5 years of team control, Yoshida and Houck We then have 2 players with 4 years of team control, Schreiber and Story (24-27) We have 9 players with 2 years of team control and 5 with just one. The point being Bloom has tons of work to do over the next couple of years to extend/replace 14 players. The key being quality of replacement has to be better. I'm not sure you can consistently win with as much turnover as we've had recently. At some point, Bloom should have a team put together that has some stability and obviously the one that can get into the playoffs. I'm not sure we're there yet.

Moon, I need a favor. Can you tell me our opening day roster? Just your opinion. Don't worry. I won't pull a Red on you.

We will have to see how many starting pichers will start 25 games minimum. Many here assume that won't happen.

Obviously baseball is a business. With that, on an average, how many rookies should Sox count on to make and establish themselves on the big league team? One pitcher and one position player a year? Should that be the standard to which Bloom should be held accountable? If the player control is six years, then does it make sense to 'budget' 1.5 position players advancing from our farm system to the bigs annually? Now with Devers on the hook for 11 years and Yoshida and Story for 5 years, are we on track for adequate replenishment? Is that standard enough, knowing you can 1) trade for a player and 2) sign a free agent? Different rule for $230M budget Sox vs say Ray's (maybe they need 2 to 3 per year, both in position and pitching)? 2023 Casas, 1B Bello, SP Give Bloom an A 2024 Rafaella, CF Mata? 2025 Mayer, SS ????? So it goes.... PS...Perhaps we say 4 players annually to give an A....

You lock up players before they get to arbitration. Otherwise you end up paying what you paid Devers. How many of those can you afford? I didn't hear many of you asking for Betts' extension say his 3rd year. Bunch of f***ing Monday morning quarterbacks on this board.

Justin Turner's contract is interesting. First, Dodgers declined 2023 club option of $16M, buying it out for $2M. Turner got what he needed from the Sox, signing for $8.3M for 2023 but with the buy out option of $6.7M (seems high). Thus he will get $15M for 2023 at minimum. With incentives for plate appearances, he can get to $16M, matching his 2022 salary with the Dodgers. He also has a player option of $13.4M for 2024. Let's hope he has a good year and decides hitting in Fenway is good for his career.

What if Whitlock, Bello, Houck and Mata become future starters? They are locked up for at least 5 years (Houck). I'm good with it. Enough time to develop more pitchers. We do have a war chest of $230+M budget. We're not the Rays.

Why is Ryan Brasier still on Red Sox “I know (Brasier) has been kind of a lightning rod for this. People talk about projections that can kind of roll their eyes,” Bloom said. “The fact of the matter is there’s a lot of things you can look at that that pitchers do that are really good indicators of what they’re gonna do next, and in many cases might be better indicators than the ERA. That doesn’t guarantee anything going forward. Obviously, we deal in probabilities, right? Nothing in life is guaranteed to us. “But those indicators are real and there are things that not not just we, but also the industry as a whole, increasingly believe in because more often than not, they do prove out. And with Ryan, it’s not rocket science, he throws a ton of strikes. He has really good stuff, made some adjustments later in the season, just in terms of how and when he used what he had to sequence it better and help him get outs. The product of a lot of good work, first of all, obviously by Ryan, but also by various members of our staff... that really worked together to help him understand, ‘Okay, why are our results under-achieving what our stuff says we should do? “It’s not because we don’t throw strikes, right? He throws a ton of strikes. So how else can we sequence our stuff to help us get outs better? Again, does that guarantee anything going forward? No. It’s something that has to be earned. But there’s a lot of reason there and optimism that’s shared by both front office and field staff that that we will get better results going forward.” I hope I'm wrong about him.

It's interesting that many here thought extending Devers (to the tune of 10 years, mind you) was the biggest goal this winter. Mission accomplished. We also wanted a 'real' bullpen. Mission accomplished, at least on paper. Starting rotation needed a makeover with departure of Eovaldi, Hill and Wacha. Again mission accomplished. (I'm going to consider Whitlock, Sale and Kluber as new additions to the starting rotation, hell I haven't seen Sale in 3 years) We needed upgrade in the outfield. Mission accomplished. Two of the three starters are new. We needed a replacement for DH. Mission accomplished. New DH can play in the field from time to time if we need additional right handed bats in the lineup. JD was useless as a fielder. Now, no one player will replace Xander's offensive numbers. Kike won't match it but he certainly is capable of playing defense as well as Xander. Thus incremental improvement in offensive category at other positions will be enough to compensate for the departure of Xander's bat. Tell me again how awful this winter was?

At some point, even JH will run out of patience if the team continues to underperform. But I'm not sure what directives JH can give without blowing up the budget and/or greenlighting emptying out the farm. I am not trying to be difficult but what would have done differently?

“His defense is elite and he’s a 70 runner as well, so he doesn’t have to hit that much to be a solid big leaguer, and he could be an above-average regular as a low-OBP, 20+ homer guy. The hope is that he improves the choices he’s making as a hitter and that he recognizes pitch types sooner with experience and reduces some of that chase to give himself a chance to be a high-average hitter and potential star on both sides of the ball.” To that ******* Yankee fan, I never said he was Betts, just that his defense was as good. He plays elite level DEFENSIVELY at TWO PREMIUM POSITIONS. Shove it. #37 on the Athletics List of 100 top prospects. For all the naysayers, our farm is better.

Maybe the brass is thinking Bobby D as backup to both 1B and 3B, and to Pinch Hit.

On a positive note... It does appear that Sox pen is vastly improved, on paper at least. I have no clue what advanced metrics may say.....I'm pretty simple minded and old fashion. With that I give you following statistics.... Blown Saves AL East 36 Rays 44-80 saves/save opportunities 28 Sox 39-67 27 Jays 46-73 19 Yanks 47-68 13 Orioles 46-59 1st thing that pops in my mind is that Rays really needed to upgrade their bullpen, more than the Sox. It also proves that they do play in many tight games. (80 SO) Orioles would have hard time repeating their stat on only having 13 blown saves. I didn't realize their pen was so good. Sox will be better just based on our pen being better.

Rays don't seem to worry too much. I'm good with a one year deal for Wacha. Might as well see some of our youngsters. This year, we need both Bello and Whitlock to become legitimate starters. I think we have six years of team control for both.

How can we know anything was botched or not, without ever knowing what Bogey would have accepted, if offered? [/QUOIt's all speculation, and even if we could have gotten Bogey for $160M/6 (doubtful,) are we sure yet, that was a botch? It's not like the history on these types of deals is an exact science. That being said, I do wish we could have kept Bogey, especially after losing Betts. In hindsight, I wish DD had worked the Bogey extension better and paid him more to not have the opt out, and extended Betts and not Sale & Nate. Once all those deals were set or not set, the die was cast. We can argue till the cows come home about "JH spending more, if he wanted to," but the fact is he didn't want to, and he did not do it Wasn't that in essence Notin's point? That I agreed with? Sox hedged the bet by signing Story. That came out of left field for me but it sure looked liked they were looking at the possibility of focusing more on Devers than Xander with the Story signing. You do know that Sox could have signed Xander if they really wanted to.....sure they wanted to buy a car, but JH had put a budget on it. Xander was bigger priority.

What notin just said!!!!

Wow, we're still talking about Betts? It takes two to tangle.....keep believing that it was all Sox. Could've, would've, should've.....time to move past your disappointment. I suggest MLB package for $125. You can still watch Betts.

You maybe right and it may be hard to defend him.

“At that time three years ago, we were faced with a similar choice with one year from free agency with a superstar player. And we didn’t sign him,” Bloom said at Winter Weekend. “And I want to explain why, because it relates to where we’re going. We didn’t sign him because when you make those bets, they’re big bets and (more boos) those bets — hang with me here. Those bets, you all know it and are smart — they are much better up front than on the back end. We know that but if you want to make that type of bet, you better be ready to back it up and surround that with a whole lot of talent, a whole lot of young talent, or you’re not going to win. You see it all the time in this game. I don’t think anybody would disagree where the organization was, we just weren’t ready to back up that bet.” When Bloom is directly quoted, it matters. It makes no difference what we think, what he thinks matters more. I agree with what he just said at the Winter Carnival. We made a bit this winter, Devers or Xander. I think he made the right call. We're still buying time. I would think playoff expectations become realistic next year. Everything would have to go right for this year's team to do it. Principally, everyone must stay healthy and need a stellar year out of guys like Sale, Yoshida, Bello and Casas plus the bullpen.

Moon, you are killing me. You are half empty guy on few topics, usually you're optimistic. (of course you'll respond "I'm realist)......beat goes on. I'm counting on Casas, Arroyo, Kike, Devers to play 140+ games. They are paid to play, no?

Because as of today 1/23/2023, like many Sox position players, he is ready to go for spring training. Is he hurt right now?