Nick

still pissed that Lester wasn't signed...

Easy there Cowboy....I was simply reinforcing Original Poster's thesis about the Rays and young talent. Maybe I didn't make myself clear. My perception of Rays is that they know they don't have the money to sign long term deals on many of their young talent. So if the Rays had Devers as an example, they maybe faced with two additional years of huge salary increases which they can't afford. They simply would move Devers to a big market club or a team desperate in need of big name player, securing couple of young major league talent, say with 10 years of team control between them. No way was I suggesting what you said. We should extend Devers. He's part of our core moving forward. As the announcers mentioned today on YouTube telecast, Devers is younger than Dalbec.

Well if we take their approach, we would be trading Devers this winter because you can't afford him and get couple of good major league ready pitching prospects in return. I think that's how you would do it.

Dalbec finally gets on board, going 2-4. Looks to be a pretty good defender at 1B. His height there seems to play well. Xander, JD and Vaz swinging the bat. Great outing by Eovaldi. I love to see him throw more breaking pitches. He probably could have gone another inning but up 9-1, what's the point. Great to see we only used two pitchers. We get a day off on Friday then 16 straight games, Orioles (2), Twins (4), Blue Jays (2), White Sox (4) and Mariners (4). See what our bats can do vs Orioles.

I agree....college pitcher from great college program trumps any high school kid.

Good article on MassLive (subscription required for this piece) about how Bloom is gathering young, starting pitching talent. He's very high on several young pitchers, detailing pitches they have and pitches they are working on. Whitlock as a Rule 5 player is working not only to help in a long relief role for Sox in 2021 but expanding his pitches to return to starting pitcher. Houck is working on a third pitch but Bloom thinks his slider is special and he could become one of those pitchers that may thrive as a starter only having two pitches. Noah Song will reapply to get relief from his military commitment in May. His fastball had topped 97 and he has several secondary pitches to go alone with it. Potential high ceiling guy. Bryan Matta's elbow issue has raised some concerns, reading between the lines. A top prospect. Thaddeus Ward, Conner Seabold, Chris Murphy, Frank German, Josh Winckowski and Chi-Jung Lui were other pitchers mentioned. He said he's been on the job for 17 months and has not seen a minor league game and THAT's been difficult. His primary focus (farm system) is developing young pitching talent right now.

I could agree with you except I just think he wanted out of Boston.

Yep.....I think you know more about him than anyone here....

Tidbits 3 out of 4 starts have been acceptable. Little concerning with Richards. Not sure I liked his comment about "I threw some good pitches".......perhaps, but you threw several bad pitches. I wouldn't mind seeing Houck start another game. Let's see if Pivetta can stay in the rotation for entire year. More and more I read about Whitlock, I'm intrigued. I can see Bloom doing the Rays thing with him. That is eventually extending him to become a starter. I think Cora is FORCING something that's not there. I know he wants Kike to leadoff but maybe that's not his best spot. It's early. To me this is typical Red Sox offense. Dormant for 3 out 4 games but cumulatively right in the thick of runs scored category in AL East. We feast on bad pitching at Fenway to bring up the offensive stats.

If the data above doesn't refute the idea that Henry is cheap, well noting will and we have nothing to talk about. It's what you do with the money that's most critical. We're big market team, however the Yankees and the Dodgers are in another category when it comes to revenue. It's far superior to the Sox. My guess is our player payroll budget is the top line of competitive tax payroll. If I'm the owner, that's where I would put the payroll budget. If the GM can not toe that line, he's gone. You sign multiple year deals so the additions to payroll must be viewed in the context of future obligations. Businesses are always forward looking. Sox will fetch multiples of free cash flow. It remains to be seen how quickly the top line will fall in line Pre-COVID. We need infusion of production from our cost controlled players. Period. Whitlock, Dalbec, Devers, Houck, Pivetta...... We have $153M in play right now. They have to produce. That's what I would tell my baseball people. YOU got me into this position. Fix it. I think Bloom is working on it.

I see this year as identifying the core group that can take us to become competitive teams into the future. As Moon has said, many of the players are on a short leash contracts. I'm more interested in development of Devers....find out once and all his best position...don't we have professionals that can decide? Dalbec....is his bat for real and can he make enough contact to be a major leaguer? Whitlock....can he be expanded and be a starter in the future? Houck....can he develop a third pitch and command the strike zone to be a middle of the pack starter? Duran....can he make enough improvements to reach majors this year? can he come close to what Bloom is predicting for him? a potential to be a 'great' player? Chavis...what will convince Cora to believe in Chavis? Downs...is he a viable major leaguer in 2021 at some point? Pivetta....is he a permanent major league starter? Casas.....what positions will Casas, Devers, Chavis and Dalbec settle into? Hernandez....at what point can he become a closer or is he a finished product? Great stuff but no command? etc, etc The Cliff is real. We need to separate the future from the place holders such as Peters, Richards, Eovaldi, Barnes, etc, etc....

Pretty good list...I would note however the cost of acquiring Moncada...doubling the bonus payout or something crazy? Let's look at what DD left us behind Triston Casas Jarren Duran Tanner Houck Gibert Jimenez Boby Dalbec Bryan Mata Noah Song Jay Groome I think this group has as much chance to succeed as Ben's group.

You also have to throw in Sale....big difference between on injured reserve and Sale's case. I'd wish he return tomorrow but there's no guaranty that he'll return this year. I keep saying $43M of our contract is shut down. How often 'a setback' results in weeks of shutdown?

Cora is too busy preaching peace and unity. Someone should tell him he was hired to coach.

You made my point. Some posters come up with some half assed ideas which has no chance of happening. There's no way JD is traded or just let go. Also there's no way JD is extended beyond 2022 with same pay and just DH'ing. Not happening. Not in Bloom's DNA.

I would be happy to trade JD and his $44M luxury tax payroll amount. Do you honestly think there's a team out there willing to pay that EVEN without ANY compensation in return? If not, how much are you willing to pay? And for what? We're already under the tax limit for 2021. Let's think through and have an honest discussion. Give me a viable trading partner in AL. And how much are you willing to eat?

Marwin looks good at 2B. Kike to CF? It's game 1 and I'm not getting excited about the start. But long term, why are we trying to please Devers by playing him at 3B? His biggest issue seems to be throwing. He maybe better suited for 1B. And at some point, if Xander sticks around, I'd say he maybe candidate at 3B but that's in few years. And to the poster who wants to eat JD's money, are you freaking nuts?

Well what do you expect? Cora thinks our guys can play multiple positions. Maybe he should put everyone at their best position to start. Devers on 1B, Dalbec on 3B, Verdugo in RF and Kike in CF. (But Cora is a genius).

He will turn 30, how long can he play SS? If he's opting out, he'd want something like 8 yr, $200M? Maybe I'm way off base.

.........while Kluber and Taillon sit on the bench nursing their sore scouting reports.. That's really good.... Back in late 60's, my favorite day of the week was Thursday. That's when our local drug store had the new edition of Sporting News. It was either 25 or 50 cents at the time. I'd read cover to cover. The paper would have publication by columnists from several major cities....some had great writing style....

Michael Chavis wasn’t happy when the Red Sox optioned him to the alternate training. But manager Alex Cora views that in a positive way. He likes Chavis having that type of attitude. Chavis will begin the 2021 season in Worcester. The Red Sox chose Christian Arroyo for the final position player roster spot. “There’s a lot of circumstances that go into the decision but one thing we like about Christian, he can play shortstop,” Red Sox manager Alex Cora said. “Michael, he made some strides. And I’m glad he was upset because that’s part of it. Nobody’s happy when they send you down. But we talk about a few things that he needs to do to be the complete hitter we know he can be. I think at the end, he didn’t control the strike zone. He was very aggressive chasing pitches out of the zone.” Chavis went 13-for-43 (.302) with a .362 on-base percentage, .767 slugging percentage, 1.129 OPS, six home runs, two doubles, 10 RBIs, nine runs, two walks and 12 strikeouts in his first 18 games of spring training. But he went just 2-for-17 with eight strikeouts in his final seven games. “Now with his swing, knowing that he knows boundaries of the strike zone up, now we have to make sure, ‘Hey, we can drive pitches in the zone,’” Cora said. “So he’ll work on that. And I’ve been saying all along, it takes more than 26 guys to win this thing. Because you’re on the Opening Day roster, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be here the whole season. There’s circumstances and injuries and other stuff, especially nowadays. ... He needs to be ready. Not only him. All those kids down there.” No way he was making Cora's team. I told you.

Is this the new Yankee mentality? They are gloating because on paper, they are better than the Sox? So that's their goal, now? Just to be ahead of Sox? Sox mentality is this. We want world series championships. We get it that it probably won't be this year even if everything goes right. But Bloom is building a winner. I don't really give damn about the Yankees. They've shown me that they're not good enough to win it all. They are the Atlanta Braves of 1990's.

I'm just asking if we were all in, what players were out there for us to improve the outfield situation? Obviously the management didn't think much of JBJ and Beni after the 2020 season. Problem I have is posters not presenting solutions to their perceived problems with the Sox. I'm not trying to be a jerk. I was thinking there was an outfield free agent available. I'm old and I can't remember. To me it appears that with all the short term deals, Sox is trying to find up a core group going forward. I like the idea of Hernandez playing CF also; although Bloom has said on record he thinks Duran has chance to be 'great' so Sox thinks he's our future CF. Quite frankly, I'm excited to see which new comers are 'keepers'. Let the season begin.

Why don't you tell us which outfielders will get us to 'we'll all in status'? Did you consider JBJ and Beni as core of contenders?

Yesterday, he spoke about Perez as "he is what he is......he just needs to be himself....not trying to do too much.....just go out and gives us a chance to win" or something to the effect. He's candid about his players. And there's nothing wrong with that.