Nick

Yes, very much. You called it. Reminds me of a Yankee that pointed to bleachers while standing in batter's box. Epic.

It's funny how this past winter, all we heard was how well the Yanks were set up for the short AND long term. Now, look! Yep, I thought our 2019 starting pitching looked good on paper, too. That's why you play the game, as they say.

Biggest frustration watching Dalbec is him taking strikes and then chasing balls out of strike zone. He is dead in water with 2 strikes against him I guess that's pretty much true for all .200 hitters.

Not being able to smash balls over the fence, they can't overwhelm opponents as in the past. You never think it'll happen but you do get older. Just look at Gardner. He plays like an old man now. Not a good look for a centerfielder. They're saddled with Stanton's contract for six more years after 2021. 6 year, $90M man LeMahieu is now a singles hitter. Yep, he just signed the new deal beginning this year. This version of Yankees will not play well in Broadway but it works in my household. And they can't help themselves. Judge will end up with Betts deal and that's good news for Red Sox. Yankees will have 3 guys having signed a deal in excess of $300M. Another financial disaster in making.

As bad as Dalbec has looked (I'm his fan), his ops of .625 is not far behind Kike's .654. Kike went 0-4 with 3 K's. More concerning is Santana. I'm beginning to think his 2019 season was an aberration. He's BA is .125. Even more concerning will be if Cora bats him first again.

We're 13 games over .500 for first time. Finished the tough road trip 4-3. The team is hanging in there.

Absolutely not. I don't mind buying players, Just don't give up young talent.

Barnes only pitched 1/3 of an inning last night....should be ready to go....

9 hits 3 runs Yankees 5 hits 4 runs Red Sox sweet, we're efficient.

So if you have the lowest OPS on the team, you get to lead off? Okay Cora. I'm not complaining, we're winning. That's the formula.

Nope, so far he's shown he is a valuable utility player.

Sox saved $3.8M by trading away Beni. Beni is in A3 contract year in 2022 then becomes a free agent. Sox used $3.1M of the money to sign Renfroe. Renfroe is in A3 and A4 for 2022 and 2023, then becomes a free agent. Even without the PTBNL guys, I think we came out ahead.

“Big, physical kid,” Bloom said about Gambrell. “Power arsenal. He’s got two different fastballs, a breaking ball and a changeup. And this is a guy who because of the strength that he has, has the chance to be a workhorse in some capacity. Still obviously a long way to go for him.” Gambrell is 6-foot-4, 225 pounds. He is 2-1 with a 4.37 ERA, 1.01 WHIP, .190 batting average against, 18 strikeouts and seven walks in five starts (22 ⅔ innings) in High A this season. It’s likely the Red Sox will send him to High-A Greenville. “I would anticipate him being at the same level with us as we get to know him,” Bloom said. “But he’s been a starting pitcher and has a chance to continue in that role all the way up to the big leagues. We’ll obviously see how it goes. “I think what happens when you get these types of players is there’s a lot of different paths they can take,” Bloom added. “And it’s great to add the talent to the organization. In those two guys (De La Rosa and Gambrell), we feel we got two guys who have a chance to be starting pitchers in the big leagues. And you’ve got to fill up your system with starting pitching prospects to have the pipeline that we want to have in terms of that constant flow of pitching from our system.” I trust Bloom. You don't think he's excited about the return we received for Beni? Think again.

This is the best summary to date. Good job Moon.

I disagree. Getting Pivetta was good deal. I'm leaning towards signing of Kike for $14M, 2 year deal not so good for Bloom. So far. I'm talking about the money vs production here.

I think we need to wait a little bit to analyze the trade. It maybe that these young guys will fail much sooner than later. Lets see what Beni does in 21-22 seasons and compare to what we received. Sometime club gains by subtraction and I think this was the case.

Adding an Ace for 2022 season. We let E Rod walk. Frees up $8.3M. We get relief from Pedy/Beni cash payouts...$15M I'm sure we can find few more millions to make it work. (some of Ottavino $$) Nathan, Perez, Richards and Price money comes off the books, totaling close to $50M after 2022. For 2023, rotation could be Ace, Sale, Pivetta, Houck, Whitlock. As someone said, that's lot of hypotheticals Nick......Yep....We can always pick up a Perez type for depth/insurance.

I pretty much follow your line of thinking....not sure if we'll get what we want in terms of singing an ACE. (I know we both advocate that)

Baseball is business. It is what have you done for me lately. Tampa due to lack of financial muscle knows when to get rid of a player. Sell high. They would be trading away Devers this winter if they had him. What boatload of good players can we get for him? (not advocating, just asking)

Do you ever think Sox just did not want him? I don't miss him one bit. Non-athletic, slow footed left fielder with no power. You can say it million ways, Sox didn't want him. And hats off to JBJ's agent for swinging the deal with Milwaukee.

Kike, Santana, Marwin are all just place holders. Maybe they had bigger plans for Kike. Beni would have been in that group. I think we keep JD and Xavier...along with Devers and Verdugo. We need long term solutions at C, 1B (it may still be Dalbec with Casas on deck), 2B (maybe Arroyo but I think we can do better), and two outfield spots, (Duran is on deck and maybe Renfroe takes over RF). This is what's so exciting about this year's team. Competing for a playoff spot and at the same time building a sustainable, competitive playoff team. Historically we've had teams that can score runs. Sox has not been able to develop a successful pitching staff internally. Bloom has that covered.

However, Cora does not want to disrupt what he feels is a perfect 2-5 combination of Verdugo (lefty), J.D. Martinez (righty), Xander Bogaerts (righty) and Rafael Devers (lefty). "One thing for sure, putting Alex like everybody wants to in the leadoff spot, it doesn't guarantee us to keep scoring runs at this rate," said Cora. "We've been doing a good job scoring runs. It just happens that our leadoff guy hasn't been able to get on base at the rate that we would love to or he would love to. Intellectually, Cora's statement does not make sense. What the hell is the difference between 2-5 vs 1-4 by moving up everyone? Right now, 2-5 comes up with one out. I know some of you will jump in and say well they may not feel comfortable. Only thing these guys want from comfort standpoint is they want to FOLLOW the same guy. Only person the change happens to is Verdugo. Everyone else is on deck with the same guy that's in the batter's box. I agree if there's an high OBP guy, current 2-5 works. But please don't give me ******** about 1-4 will not score as many runs as 2-5 with same order.

All true....good things from last night 1. E Rod did look more comfortable on the mound 2. Great to see Whitlock come in a high leverage situation and get the job done. 3 Ottavino looks closer to what we expected 4 With 2 strikes, Barnes is almost unhittable. 5 Good to have Kike moved off the leadoff spot and take some pressure off of him 6 Maybe, maybe Dalbec found something 7 Marwin has been making decent contact recently I do think Santana is struggling...

Based on what you say, it's obvious Sox expected MORE from Kike than what he's delivered. I hear he is what he is, but Sox obviously thought he is much more than what he 2 year, $14M was an overpay, so far.