Nick

Ryan Fitzgerald, once called ‘baby Andrew Benintendi’ by Red Sox teammates, can taste MLB call-up after 8 homers with WooSox I saw him on TV during spring training, love his bat. Instead of Fitzgerald padding his stat sheet with monster games, the Red Sox want him to do everything on a more consistent basis. If he does so, he’ll be knocking even louder on door to the major league clubhouse. “I’ve been closer every year,” Fitzgerald said. “There are a lot of things out of my control, so I’ve got to just try to keep hitting home runs.” Gotta love his attitude...... Is it time to rethink strikeouts when a guy is hitting bombs? Look what singles are getting us.

I have Sox offering Xander $200M/6years. I doubt he'll do any better. You have to make choices. I rather take Kike's $7M and Wacha's $7M and pay Xander. We gave Wacha a one year deal for a reason.

There is a path to keeping our key players..... Keep +13.333M Xander (6 year/$200M) +11.000M Devers (Arb 3, wait for winter of 2023 for Mega Deal) +07.000M Eovaldi (4 Year/$96M) -02.000M JD (2 year/$40M)...I can't see him getting much higher, his current luxury tax pay is $22M so he'll save Sox money Total say $30M Financed by +16.000M Price +07.000M Kike +07.000M Vaz +05.000M Hill +07.000M Wacha Total say $42M Sure we'll have to fill in some gaping holes....but I rather work on replacing Vaz, Kike, Wacha, Hill than JD, Xander and Eovaldi. Wouldn't you? Our starting rotation could be Eovaldi, Whitlock, Sale, Paxton, Pivetta.....Hell by spring of 2023, we should have plethora of young arms to fill up the pitching staff. We'll still have Story Devers JD Xander Verdugo JBJ Dalbec/Codero/Cass Arroyo I don't believe Sox will 'blow it up'.....just don't see it. They're not stupid. Sorry, I'm a numbers guy. I can't talk about roster without mentioning payroll.

And of those 5 run game was a 10-5 loss (?) with a meaningless grand slam home run by JD in 9th. We're not hitting and we're asking Cora to manage games based on projected one or two run offense? Hell we better start bunting every time we have a runner.

We have a winning post here. Why not manage each game like the 7th game of the World Series then? In the end, that too will fail over 162 games. Every time we have a lead after 7th inning, only pitcher NOT available would be next day starter. We scored one run, one run, one run. That simply won't get the job done. Biggest mistake Bloom has made is to extend Barnes when he did. He's back to where he was couple of years ago. Unreliable, unconfident, 5th inning reliever.

Boston Red Sox keeping Garrett Whitlock as starter, believe Tanner Houck ‘can actually do what Whit was doing’ as reliever For all your Whitlock should be a reliever believers......I TOLD YOU SO! There's no going back now. Starting Pitcher #1 Whitlock for 6 YEARS...You're going to complain because why? How about some concrete ideas on how to turn our hitters into hitters? Okay......we're all fans here. One problem solved. It was unrealistic to move Whitlock around for entire year. I'm glad it's settled.

For the next World Series chase, the core group maybe headed by Whitlock as a starting pitcher. We sit around and talk about signing an 'ACE' for $30M. Well we got one locked up for several years at a very reasonable price. Re-sign Eovaldi and we have the top two locked up. Go find a closer in July trade deadline. Let the Whitlock starting era begin. We're NOT scoring runs right now. That somehow needs to be fixed. Maybe Cordero and/or Duran can get hot.

Other pitcher's pitch count was over 90. He faced the Sox lineup 3 times, including Story 4 times. Isn't this what starting pitcher looks like? Or are you now going to tell me that the opposing pitcher is Cy Young caliber? Our bullpen problem is partially manufactured by Cora and the pitching coaches. By limiting starter's role, we give ourselves greater chance to fail out of bullpen. Put that in your analytics. Common sense to me especially when the starter is pitching well.

You are selective with your stats.....what happened against the Yankees? Whitlock couldn't hold a one run lead and despite me protesting to my TV, Cora pulls him out. Point is because of that outing, Whitlock still had to rest up for his next outing...... But I respect your opinion about Whitlock being a closer.....My final point is to quit jerking him around. It will backfire. Count on it.

Lets be realistic. For Whitlock to peggy back Hill as an example will almost make him a starter. I guess if the game is out of hand, either way, Whitlck would be held out for another time. But if comes in to peggy back for someone else, then he probably won't be available when Hill starts next time. What I'm saying is that it's a stupid plan, plain and simple. Now if he's the closer and does go two innings, can he pitch on consecutive nights? Probably not. That means he should mostly be a one inning guy. The ninth inning guy. If Whitlock comes in a high leverage situation say in 7th inning, we may still lose because someone else is closing. I need for all of you to lay out a pitching plan for Whitlock. Don't simply say he can pitch 3-4 times a week. Tell me when, how many innings, which innings, etc. All of you are making generalized comments....Give me a f***ing plan. My plan is to make him an ace and start every fifth day. Not much thinking involved. What if he's the next Pedro Martinez? I want to BUILD A PLAYOFF CONTENDER. IDENTIFY THE CORE PLAYERS AND THEIR POSITIONS. 1 3B....Devers 2 SP.....Whitlock 3 SP.....Eovaldi 4 SP....Sale, next time he's hurt, he's our next David Price 5 2B/SS..Story 6 SS...Xander....not sure if he can be extended 7 DH...JD...not sure if there are any upgrade guys at this position 8 SP/Closer....Houck.. I'm not sold on Verdugo as an example. There are other, worse problems with this team so Verdugo gets a pass at this time. I'm not sold on Vaz as long term catching solution. This position should be upgraded. I'm not sole on Arroyo as a full time starter. He's a utility guy.....

There's no f***ing way he pitches 3-4 times a week unless he's limited to one inning stints.

Cora lets Eovaldi throw 101 pitches. I thought he was injury prone? Not anymore?

I think Eck shares my sentiment and I'm good with that...'babying" or whatever you want to call it. I call it 'babying'. It's interesting to follow Cora's strategy. There are games he manages very tight but at other times he'll put the worse hitting lineup possible without a care in the world. His record speaks for itself so I'm good with that.

Wacha 26 IP 4 ER .095 WHIP .257 AVG Whitlock 16.2 IP 1 ER .078 WHIP .218 AVG Let's quit babying him. I think they are ready to stretch him and that's my prediction. Not sure if he's been 'overworked'. Last night, Eck was laughing when Wacha got pulled with his 60 or so pitch count. I know what he thinks of current state of pitcher management. I agree with him.

Kopech was the only player I regret Sox had to relinquish to acquire Sale. Worth the title in 2018. Sale was a great get at the time. It's his extension that's in doubt.

Jackie Bradley Jr. has started 18 of the 23 games in right field. He went 0-for-4 Sunday to drop his batting average to .147. He has a .227 on-base percentage and .206 slugging percentage. The Red Sox right field position has posted a .445 OPS, which ranks 29th in the majors. Dalbec has garnered much of attention I know, but geez, catching fly balls in outfield is not enough, is it? Right now he's costing us $12M because of his option, but if we pick up his option, that money rolls into 2023 for luxury tax purposes. That's where I'm going.

I really love having him here. I think he's a good guy and knowledgeable. But, he's beginning to set himself up for a bigger disappointment. Yankees have high hurdle to go over. Winning the Division is no big deal. They've done it. Not sure getting into the World Series is enough. They have to win their last game. Sox can squeeze into the playoffs, have everyone healthy, pitching and hitting come together at the same time and go do battles with Yankees. He'll be mad, we'll laugh a little bit and wait for his 2023 prediction.

Sometimes as an accountant, it's better to simply write off bad assets and start 2023 with a clean slate. No need to make numbers look bad for 2 years. I'm speaking strictly as CFO of Sox. Free advice.

There's a possibility of having JD, Xander and Eovaldi all coming back. First of all, you have Price's $16M coming off the books. Xander may take a $5M upgrade for longer terms. A $30M dream may just be that. It'll be interesting to watch how all the new money SS do this year. If couple of them fail, GM's will think long and hard. Having a great year in itself will NOT guaranty big pay day of Xander. Eovaldi may come in at $22M for 5 years, another $5M raise. JD will not get $22M from any team as a DH. His actual pay is $19.375M this year. It's hard for me to imagine him getting that either. He will not cost the Sox any addition to his luxury tax payroll number if we retain him. Only other significant increase will be Devers. Sox can decide to EAT Bradley money all this year and let him become a free agent. That will save $12M for 2023. Wacha, Kike and Vaz all come off the books at $7M apiece, sum of $21M. In summary, if Bloom wants, he can keep top tier players and do away with lesser players. It doesn't have to be a 300' cliff. You'd want to keep best players to mix in with younger ones.

Good point.....He's better at cashing in players with likely career bests. I have no inclination paying either Xander or Devers $30M at this time. They both probably will be traded at some point.

Back to Starting Rotation I did not watch today's game. I see that our catcher is pitching now. Isn't it about time Sox do something with Pivetta? 10 day disable list? He needs to work on whatever is ailing him. These games count. You can't let him 'work' on his game in a real game. Just a thought.

Looks like we're very pleased with ourselves for taking the lead 1-0 against dreadful pitcher. I'll wait. Not sure if this is a good hitting ball club.

Thank God....get rid of old, out of shape has beens not in our future plans. Good for Bloom. I puked every time he came to the plate.

I'm old school. He's a starter. Moon does all the thinking for me. Maybe Bob Gibson would have helped the team more as a closer. Who the hell knows.

DATE IP-(ER) Pitcher Eovaldi 04/08 5.0-(3) 04/13 5.0-(2) Quality TEAM WON 04/19 4.1-(1) Quality TEAM WON 04/25 7.0-(2) Quality Pivetta 04/09 5.2-(4) 04/15 2.0-(4) 04/20 4.0-(5) 04/26 4.2-(2) Houck (he's not on the 40 man roster right now, no stats in MLB.com, back on tomorrow) 04/00 3.1-(3) TEAM WON 04/16 5.2-(0) Quality TEAM WON Wacha 04/11 4.1-(1) Quality 04/17 5.0-(0) Quality TEAM WON 04/22 5.0-(2) Quality TEAM WON 04/27 6.0-(1) Quality TEAM WON Hill 04/12 4.1-(3) TEAM WON 04/18 4.2-(4) 04/24 4.0-(0) Quality Whitlock 04/23 4.0-(0) Quality Board members want to minimize starting pitching. Making fun of me of my statement that a team has a fiduciary responsibility to start a pitcher that give us a reasonable chance to compete, every game. 6 of 8 wins come via Quality Starts (say Moon's definition) I'm not ready to discount the role of starting pitchers. No kid grows up wanting to be a closer.