Nick

Untouchable: RHP Brayan Bello, 3B Rafael Devers, LF Masataka Yoshida. I'm wondering if we can do better at $18M/5years. If we have a taker and gives us something in value, losing $18M commit doesn't sound all that bad to me.

You have a point.....I'm not married to him as the head of baseball operations as before. We're currently separated.

If money is not an issue and trading away any and all prospects are doable, who do we get to make us an immediate contender next year? We don't have enough to win it all this year so at this point we should be 'sellers' at trading deadline. How do we make the Sox a World Series contender next year? My first thought is to package Paxton, Verdugo and Pivetta to Texas for whatever young talent they have..... Sign the young Japanese starting pitcher. Sign Soto the following year. Can the Padres sign another $300M player?

To me 2020 season never happened. Congrats to Dodgers for winning the most meaningless world series title in the history of major league baseball. Like it or not, I do think the Sox management thought we had a good team when the season started in 2019. We survived 2021 without Betts so I'm not sure not signing Betts was the biggest issue facing the Sox. So the real problem is 2022 and its aftermath. Bloom was horrendous. He has to correct it this winter. Last place finishes two years in a row requires change in approach.

Congrats.... so you knew the COVID would hit and Price would opt out? Now you're making some arguments based on facts not known in 2019. You and I agree on almost everything. But please give me the best case scenario after 2019.

2019 Roster Keep in mind that we were trying to repeat with a starting rotation of Price, Porcello, Eovaldi, Sale and E Rod. Pretty good rotation on paper. If we had the Mets owner, we would have built on this whatever the cost. $31.900M David Price (2019-2022) $22.000M JD Martinez (2018-2022) $20.625M Rick Porcello (2019) $20.000M Mookie Betts (Arb 2, set to become FA in 2021) $17.000M Nathan Eovaldi (2019-2022) $18.455M Pablo Sandoval (2019 only, DFA's previously) $13.750M Dustin Pedroia (2019-2021 DEAD $$$) $15.000M Chris Sale (extension signed in April, $25.6M starting in 2020) $12.000M Xander (final year) $08.550M JBJ (arb 3 of 4) $04.300M E Rod (arb 2 of 4) $04.157M Vaz (2019-2021) $11.711M Rusney Castillo ($14.271 in 2020 remaining)....OFF THE BOOKS, NOT ON THE 40MAN ROSTER Obviously with short season in 2020, money part got sketchy. What could we have done differently? Had we given say $350M to Betts over 10 years, what to do with Xander and others? Moon, why don't you take a crack at it......obviously we all have the hindsight of what did transpire. My guess is based on some overpays, JH was in no mood to give out a $400M contract that most of us would have done. Xander would sign a 6 year, $120M contract in 2020. Devers not even on the radar.

I hear what you are saying but you need to get over Betts. Otherwise, please let me know how Betts signing would have changed the course of FA acquisitions. You can't simple pick good parts. What would have happen to 2021 had we signed Betts as an example? would everyone else be on board with Betts money on the roster? I don't have the time to do the mental exercise. I'm not trying to be a jerk. Just enlighten me with what you would have done each year in terms of signings/acquisitions. What would you have done with David Price's massive payroll? You think the Dodgers would have picked up David Price without Betts?

I see Yoshida as a DH at some point. He has quick feet but he doesn't get anywhere while running hard. He runs in place or it seems.

I realize the Yanks did not have Judge but Tanner Houck pitched a great game last night. You can almost say that both homers were Yankee stadium special. I'm not sure too many parks that would have been a homer on the second one. It was hit very low and not deep. Also in both games, I believe Story would have made the difference at second base. The transfer mishandle by Arroyo in game 1 and at the very least holding the runner at 3rd base when the Yanks scored run #3. It is what it is but You give credit where the credit is due. Tanner pitched like a major league starter last night. It sure seems easier to find middle reliever than a bullpen arm. It's very unfortunate that we don't have Eovaldi to go along with Paxton. With a healthy Sale, that would been a very solid starting rotation. My guess is we're all IN on that Japanese pitcher that's coming over.

But in an TV interview, he did say he prefers playing shortstop. Not much action in centerfield or something in that vain he said.

There is humor in Kike seeking assurance from the team that Sox would be better in 2023. The question should have been directed from the Sox to Kike.

First Whitlock then Tanner. They both pitched well. 6 and 4 years of team control. Isn't this how you build a staff? Up next is Bello.

You sell high on Verdugo before he goes into slump or is due for hefty raise. That's Tampa way.

Why not merge Part I and Part II chronologically? This is confusing.

How much of that is attributed to crappy weather we've have this spring? They've had some horrendous home weather.

I'm good with guys like Whitlock, Bello, Tanner and Crawford. It would be nice to have an ace leading the group but they are hard to come by as we've found out. I'm all about developing young talent and identifying the 'core' group moving forward. Basically you have Devers, Yoshida, Story, Casas, Wong, Duran and maybe Dalbec (he's our until traded) and Valdez. Sooner we find out about Mayer, Yorker, Rafaela the better off the team will be...... Funny that there's not much talk of Whitlock being in the pen today.....He's a #3 starter type in my mind with potential to be a #2.

Bloom better start thinking about this off season right now.....I just don't see any point in having someone like Kike playing full time, unless of course Cora wants him back on ANOTHER one year deal for $12M.....we get his game.

Bingo.... We waste so much money on fringe players in the range of $5M-$10M each year. I guess then you can always use the excuse of "well, it's just for one year". Ugh.

Yep.

There's the other half of GIDP twins.

Verdugo Paxton Arroyo should all be traded.

Kike is his boy.

I am here to watch Whitlock.

It's time to clean house.

Great...we now have 2 guys who are proficient at GIDP.