Nick

I don't really want to argue with you, but Sox were coming off two last place finishes, three out of four. We proceeded to win three straight divisional title for first time in franchise history (I maybe off on that), winning the world series title along with third division title. On paper, I thought our starting pitching looked strong in 2019, Sale, Price, Porcello, E Rod and Eovaldi. It just didn't work out due to injuries. I think we can argue whether DD gave up too much of our young talent in order to win the world series but I'm not sure he had 'all that talent' to do much better. There were other pretty good teams.

Noah Syndergaard for Mets is a name I've been very intrigued by in the past. He's only 29, pitching for $9.7M. He's a free agent next year. He's been shut down for six weeks due to inflammation to his elbow . He had his Tommy John surgery year ago March. Probably all kinds of red flag but at his age, I don't think he's finished.

Per MLBTradeRumors Left-hander Mike Montgomery is planning to opt out of his minor league contract with the Yankees on June 1, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). If New York doesn’t select him to the major league roster, he’ll become a free agent. Montgomery signed with the Yankees in early April, not long after being released from a minors pact with the crosstown Mets. He’s since pitched in four games with Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, working to a 7.56 ERA with mediocre strikeout and walk rates (21.1% and 11.8%, respectively) over 16 2/3 innings. While the 31-year-old has worked exclusively as a starter in the minors this season, he has plenty of experience in a swing role. Between 2015-20, Montgomery made 183 MLB appearances, 70 of them starts. He’s posted a solid 3.84 ERA over that time, although his best production came earlier in his career. Montgomery pitched to a 4.95 ERA/4.90 SIERA between the Cubs and Royals in 2019, and he was limited to just 5 1/3 frames last year by a lat strain. I wonder if we'd have any interest in him.

Moon, I would love it if you would continue to accumulate/update Blooms acquisitions going forward. We can quickly see how he's done. I don't really see a bad deal. I'm also looking forward to this year's draft.

I would love to hear from Jacksonianmarch, my favorite Yankee poster, laying out his views projecting Sox and the Yankees roster makeup going forward with payroll implications.

A look back at Bloom's major moves: by Moon 9 of 30 prospects acquired by Bloom during off season via trade. Technically, Whitlock could have been the 10th. 4 PTBNL will show up this winter. Bloom's done well.

It's been a quick turnaround for sure without adding lengthy contracts or trading away prospects. No matter how it ends this season, we're much improved.

I noted elsewhere that Ray's luxury tax payroll for 2021 is $83M compared to $205M for Sox and $207M for Yankees. Top 4 earners for Rays are Kiermaier, $9M (21,22), Archer $6.5M (21), Glasnow $4.0M (A2), and Low $4M who has the longest contract, 21-24. Several players will go through multiple arb years. That's what they do. Keep churning/recycling players. Yankees top 4 earners make combined $86M (Cole, Stanton, MeMahier, Hicks). Yanks are on the hooks for them through seasons 28, 27, 26 and 2025. On the horizon, Judge will become FA in 2023. He's earning $10.175M this year in his 2nd arb year. I can see a $30M deal, question is just the length. Thus Yankees top 4 earn more than entire Rays. In fairness, we're also close. Sox top earners are Sale ($25.6M thr 2024), Xander ($20M thr 2025). JD and Eovaldi earn $22M and $17M for next two years. Combined, they earn $84.6M, but the length of contracts are much shorter than Yankees top 4, 26 combined years for Yankees to 13 for Sox. We will have more flexibility than the Yankees. So what? Rays have found a formula to be a playoff contender with limited resources. Not sure they can win a world series with that formula. Yankees' payroll will continue to inflate, with looming free agency for Judge. I don't see anyway they won't pay what's needed to sign him to a long term deal. Other contracts will still be in place for 2023-2025 when Judge is signed, maybe $30M?. One contract drops off in 2026, 2027 and 2028 to alleviate payroll crunch. Devers free agency will get here in 2024, but by then JD and Eovaldi contracts will have expired after 2023 season. Moreover, Dustin's $13.75M drops off after this year, Price's $16M drops off after 2022 along with JD/Eovaldi contracts, $39M combined. That's total of near $70M. I get it that we'll have to replace JD/Eovaldi. Obviously Dustin and Price have both been replaced already. Perhaps some of our younger kids can replace JD/Eovaldi and several of one/two year deals currently in place, Ottavino,Richards and Perez come to mind. That will be the key to afford Sox to go after an 'ace'. If that comes internally, great. I like our position better than the Yankees going forward. That's a quite a turnaround after last season.

I actually like this poster. I think he adds quite a bit to discussions. But his prediction from March is on the wrong track... At 12 games over .500, we'll finish with 87 wins by winning half of our remaining games. Probably what can derail us the fastest is to suffer an injury to one of our starters. Not much depth there right now with injuries in the minors.

Receiving Verdugo essentially for a rental in Betts (short season), trading away middle of the road relievers for Pivetta (and getting one back), trading away Beni for multiple prospects and grabbing a Rule 5 player off the Yankees are ways in which Sox and Bloom are enhancing our future. He's teaching us you don't have to buy all your good players. And when you do, you minimize risk by dealing out short term deals. (Richards, Ottavino)

Here we are, again. After trading away Snell, and a key injuries to Yonny Chirinos (4th starter) and Nick Anderson (closer), many felt the Rays would be lucky to finish over .500 in 2021, let alone compete for a playoff slot, yet here we are. They also traded away their starting SS a few weeks ago, Wlly Adames. FanGraph had top 100 prospects list with 133 names. Here are the hard facts. Rays #1, #4, #12, #24 Sox #53, #54 (Downs and Casas) NO ONE ELSE listed out of 133 names. Rays also own #84 and 7 ADDITIONAL PLAYERS ranked between 107 and 131. Unreal. Bloom has his work cut out for him. Anyone that thinks we should trade our future for a 2 month rental won't like what Bloom will do. Sit tight on Sox prospects (unless its younger guys for younger guys). Bloom is undoing what DD did. Fortunately we did win a world series ring. Yankees are getting older and Rays remain young and deadly.

Question regarding Rule 5 players. What if Whitlock is injured? Can he even go on IL? IF yes, can he get a couple of rehab appearances in minors?

The pen should be well rested. I think I only saw 2 IP by Whitlock, very few 1.1 IP, mostly 1 IP or less. M.Barnes.. 29 xx xx 26 xx xx xx 22 xx 20 Ottavino... 29 28 xx 26 xx xx xx 22 xx xx Josh Taylor 29 xx xx 26 xx xx xx 22 21 xx Darwinzon. 29 xx xx xx xx xx xx 22 21 xx Sawmura... 29 xx xx xx 25 xx 23 xx xx 20 Andriese.... xx xx xx 26 xx xx 23 xx xx xx Valdez....... xx xx xx xx xx xx 23 22 xx 20 Whitlock.... xx xx xx xx 25 xx xx xx 21 xx Workman pitched a clean inning yesterday in Worcester. 14 pitches, 3 K's, 0 BB, 0 H. Chavis went 0-7, 6 K's. He will not get better at AAA. He is, what he is. .751 OPS hitter that strikes out a lot. It doesn't help that Cora has no confidence in him.

you beat me to it.....Go Tigers...get the bloom out.

I'm good with it......to play in this weather....just about money.....sucks for fans and players.....play on a nicer day.

Changing topic...we live in time where from outer space we can pinpoint a spot on earth. We need to use technology to provide consistency in calling balls and strikes. We use videos when the call is challenged. Calling balls and strikes requires keener eye than the challenges. Between two teams, you see over 200 pitches. There's no f***ing way a human being can be right making balls and strike decisions. Impossible. I'm sure someone has tracked the right call rate. I'd like to know what that is. Ottavino was lucky today. A ball outside the strike zone was called strike to bail him out from walking a batter. Not the last game but the game previously, Ottavino ran into some tough calls by the ump. Calls went against him. (based on TV replays aided by the strike zone box) The strike zone is not consistent from pitch to pitch. We really need to address this in a near future.

Per MassLive Pitching prospect Josh Winckowski — who the Boston Red Sox acquired in the Andrew Benintendi three-team trade — threw 7 scoreless innings for Double-A Portland on Saturday. He earned the victory over Hartford, giving up just one hit and no walks while striking out nine. Portland won 4-3. The 22-year-old righty is 2-0 with a 1.33 ERA and 0.89 WHIP in five starts. He has held the opposition to a .152 batting average in 27 innings. He has 26 strikeouts and nine walks. I will take Renfroe, Kike and Verdugo trio over Beni......wait till we find out who else we're getting in the deal

Renfroe is growing on me...helps the has gun in outfield, when he makes contact, he hits hard

Only 8 players in AL with OPS above .900. Sox has 3, Angels 2 (not Trout). Pretty impressive....

Definitely team full of guys with command issue...

Sawamura has good stuff....theoretically we can have a decent pen 1 Barnes 2 Ottavino 3 Sawamura 4 Darwinzon 5 Taylor 6 Whitlock throw in Brasier and long shot Workman...add Houck to the group...beginning to take shape

Yankees down 6-1 to Tigers in 8th.

I don't see any need to be looking outside the organization for anything at this point. I fully agree with that statement.

I think you and Bellhorn04 are pretty smart. So we can only 'worry' about one thing at a time? Mark my words. Our top hitters will come down. Bottom of the lineup will eventually have to be accountable. Lets talk about pitching shall we? Our starters have been healthy. We're little concerned that they can't seem to go deep into the games. Right now it's 5 innings and handoff. But they've exceeded my expectations. Our issue right now is lack of depth mainly due to injuries. 1.Brasier appears to be on the mend. 2 Not sure if he can come back to 2018 level, but Workman is back with the Sox 3 Houck has started throwing....he can give us bullpen depth or as a starter if someone gets hurt 4 Seabold I hear is week or two behind Houck, potentially another depth piece for rotation We have 9 non starters in the pen. I bet the management is looking for improvement from those 9. 1 Ottavino can be a stud. I thought last night was perfect example. After getting two quick outs, he walks next 3 batters. I get it, it was f***ing crazy to have to pitch in those conditions. He was visibly frustrated. He finally was able to get a good grip on the ball and I think he threw 3 straight strikes to end the game. My point is he is frustrated, sometimes I think he thinks umpires are missing his pitches. When his strike zone command returns, he will be a shut down reliever in the 8th. 2 Darwinzon...another stud with strike zone command issues. If you give him a clean inning and allow him to walk one batter, he can get couple of strike outs to get out of the inning. I don't trust him with runners on base. But if you need a strike out, he's probably the guy. He can be a shut down reliever in the 7th. 3 Sawamura...I thought the management was pleasantly surprised with his 'stuff', better than expected fastball. Maybe he's still adjusting to bigger baseball. I thought he'd be our shut down 6th inning guy. 4 Whitlock....I posted an article on him where its noted that he's working on a slider. He needs it to be spot starter. I always forget that pitchers are constantly working their craft on off days to improve. Although I'd like to see him pitch more, Sox are doing the right thing with him. 5. Taylor...it's been night and day in May for him. Another guy I thought that struggled with command of his pitches. He's pitched well lately. 6. One guy is the designated third shift clean up guy. Colten Brewer has that job right now. Our pitching staff can get better internally. Getting everyone healthy would help the depth. Eventually, return of Chris Sale will elevate the pitching staff. Who starts for us in the wildcard game? We'll probably have to outscore the opponent. Sooooooo, can we talk about replacing low OPS guys to score more runs?

American League OPS median is Ray's .718. Sox lead the way with .767. JD leads DH with .976. Only two others are above .900 Xander leads shortstops with .973. What's amazing is 2nd place Bichette has ops of .801, pretty big drop from the leader. Devers leads 3B with .939, next 4 are all in the .800's. Verdugo is 10th with .824: taking into account that 3 outfielders on the field at the same time, you can say that he's in top 3 for one of outfield positions. It will be interesting to watch if they can keep this up, I think we'll see a slight drop off as competition gets better. Arroyo at 2B ranks 13th, .673 with those with 70 bats or more (Arroyo has 73 AB). Interesting that Chavis has an ops of .758 albeit, a small sample size, 33 at bats. Dalbec is ranked 15th at 1B .640. He's headed for platooning unless he heats up vs right handers. Vaz is ranked 9th, .651 for those with 70 at bats or more. He can do better. Kike and Refroe are 31st and 35th (70 at bats minimum) in the outfield, .728 and .689....I'd say they're both just outside of top 10, combining the outfield positions. (only 3 players on the list are worse than Cordero by the way). Kike's .728 ops would rank him 6th among 2B in AL. Wouldn't it be a no brainer to play Kike at 2B and find another outfielder? I need a name. Also maybe, maybe, we should have worked in Chavis in left field. His .758 works in left field and at 1B (yep, I'm a big Dalbec fan) We're trying to lengthen our line up, no? Lack of production from bottom will become more noticeable once the top cools off. We lead the league in runs scored so why worry, right?