Nick

I agree, better than paying Porcello $15M-$20M as the fifth starter in 2020. (no sarcasm please, I still have Sale in my top 4) If his option does vest, that just means he pitched well for Sox, well enough to average close to 7 IP per start. Hopefully Eovaldi will be back in starting rotation next year.

I agree....we have the technology, why not use it.

His AAV was $8M for 2019. We'll pay less than $4M plus deduct whatever cash we're getting from the Orioles. Very Solid. Well done, DD. PS. Has $10M option guranteed for 2020 with 340 innings pitched combined for 2018-2019. He pitched 153 innings last year and so far has pitched 96 1/3 for combined 249 1/3 innings. He needs 91 more innings to qualify. Sox has 71 more games, every 5th day would mean 14 more starts. He would need to average close to 7 innings per start.

Goal has to be not losing any series moving forward and sweeping some against bottom dwellers. A sweep in essence flips a losing series.

I did not read one thing your post said or the post you were responding to Starting Pitching Price $31.0M Porcello $20.6M Eovaldi $17.0M Sale $15.0M E Rod $4.3M total $87.9M Bullpen I expect lot more from starting pitching. Betts makes $20M by himself. Yeah, our bullpen sucks. But you do understand that our team was built around starting pitching and our magnificent offense, right?

Yes, I consider him as the front runner. Chavis at 1B. With our financial situation, we can live with Vaz, Devers, Xander, Marcos and Chavis. Pablo's money will be eaten up by new contracts to Xander and Sale. I'd bring back Holt because of his versatility. Moreland, Pearce and Nunez will save almost $18M. That money will be used to pay for arbitration raises. We'll see what we do with $22M coming off the books for Porcello. Maybe use half for a closer and other half for a fifth starter. Big picture for Moon.

Oh, I was nervous. I'm never comfortable with our pen. I just wanted to make a point that we should had a bigger lead. I think we were one walk away from tying run coming up to the plate. All I could think was all the f***ing rain delays over the past two days and here we had chance to go extra innings. We're good.

All six runs were allowed by our $22M starter, Rick Porcello.

Justin Verlander asked for Sandy to catch him.

And Vaz isn't even our best catcher.

I think many are glossing over the fact the Eovaldi is going to the pen just so he can pitch sooner this year. I read him or Cora said it would take extra month to get his arm build up to be a starter as opposed to being a reliever. Hell the season will be over soon enough. I'm his big fan but everyone DID warn me about his arm issues.

Problem is when Sale had it going, getting a 3-1 lead as he did last night would have been good enough for him to retain the lead before the bullpen handover. It's just not happening this year. Freakin Chris Sale is right.

I like our infield of Vaz, Devers, Xander, Marco and Chavis. We have many issues with pitching staff right now but the biggest is nothing having Eovaldi available. Hembree is back. Wright is back. We need quality starts. We have $100M invested in our starting pitching. They got to perform, simple as that.

Batting average: .329 (1st) Home runs: 14 (T-5th) RBI: 56 (1st) OBP: .378 (2nd) Slugging: .548 (1st) Stolen bases: 8 (1st) Runs: 64 (1st) Hits: 107 (1st) Doubles: 25 (1st) Total bases: 178 (1st) Extra-base hits: 41 (2nd) Offensive WAR: 3.2 (3rd) Numbers don't lie And he's only 22. He sure looks legit.

Porcello should ask to bat for himself.

“It’s not a luxury tax issue, it’s a question of how much money do we want to lose. We’re already over budget and we were substantially over our budget last year and this year. We’re not going to be looking to add a lot of payroll. And it’s hard to imagine fielding a better team. If we play up to our capabilities we’ll be fine. That’s the question: Will we? We’re halfway through and we haven’t. “It’s a worthy team because we invested. Two years in a row we have the highest payroll. It’s not a matter of investment, it’s a matter of playing well. If we play up to our capabilities we will easily make the playoffs. That’s how I see it.” HENRY HAS SPOKEN AND I AGREE WITH HIM. These kinds of things just kind of happen or they don't. I'm not sure there's anything management can do, except to hope the players pull together and bring on the transformation. AND MOON HAS SPOKEN. I'm really not in the mood to give up on this bunch. We really need Eovaldi back. If we don't play well, we can't beat good teams, simple as that.

One big issue I have with the organization is not being realistic on some players, and I'm not even talking about our bullpen. 1 Sandoval....the guy was finished long before anyone in the organization was willing to admit it. Out of shape slob. By clinging on to false hope, it prevented us from moving on. 2 Hanley...we finally came to our senses and let him go. 3 Pedroia....hell Jacksonianmarch KNEW that his type of injury was career ending. Everyone in New England kept their fingers crossed. Yankee fan knew it all along but not our medical staff. We did nothing to have a back up plan. Only good thing to come out of it was Michael Chavis. 4 Steve Pearce...at this point why do we need him back? Is he an upgrade over Chavis? I do like it that we're getting to see young players, finding out if they're good or not. Shawaryn can't throw strikes. He lives off the strike zone. I don't want team full of Dice K's. Try someone else. If they can't cut it, move on. Better find out the bad news early rather than later.

Chris Freakin' Sale has moved towards Freakin' Chris Sale! Good one, Moon. I needed a chuckle after watching Sox and Yankees go at cricket. BTW, I've seen enough of Mike Shawaryn for 2019. It took him something like 30 pitches to get out of one inning when I watched him. Now this.

22 year olds need a rest after long flight...what a bunch of f***ing pussies. Let's call it the season. Our starters can come in well rested and refreshed come spring training in 2020.

Porcello ate only one third of an inning today. If we have a blowout Sunday, punish him by making him the long reliever on Sunday. He needs the work.

The goal is to win the World Series. Just ask a Dodger. Yeah, it's nice to be the NL champion. But they don't throw a parade for coming in second, do they? Playing well going into October is a must. We can second guess all we want but I want to see the entire team healthy before I give up on this team. They will go on a run at some point. For me, Eovaldi returning to starting rotation will cure many of the pitching problems. He will lengthen our bullpen.

Seriously, after WINNING the World Series, and you're drafting 30th at best, what's another 10 spots below? It's not as though we're dropping from top 10 to top 20.

Dave Dombrowski's dilemma: What if Red Sox need to acquire starter instead of reliever? I feel the same way......Fifth starter trumps over bullpen depth. Here's the part that worries me.....barely 3+ innings per start. The group of Hector Velazquez, Ryan Weber, Josh Smith, Darwinzon Hernandez, and Johnson has combined to go 2-7 with a 7.31 ERA in 14 starts covering just 44.1 innings. In addition to getting hammered, they've only averaged a shade over three innings a start, which has killed the bullpen.

My only point was not very many starting pitchers make $22M.

Moon you missed it, few games back he had some elbow issues.....he's on 10 day DL