oldtimer
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Everything posted by oldtimer
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Bloom and Cora are busy making gratuitous promises that the Sox will be much better in 2023. The proof will be in the efforts made and the resulting record. i've heard enough of the banal comments by them this year and the result was to wind up in last place. Get with it or get out of the way!
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Changes to speed up pace of play will be welcomed by me. After watching a Sox pitcher stand like a statue for 26 seconds, presumably to keep the first base runner from timing his steal and the batter staying in the box that long, that kind of thing borders on the ridiculous. I am not a fan of the shift driven by front office technical nerds either. They shifted Ted Williams long ago, but now players consult their printouts kept in their hats for virtually every player. Doesn't feel like baseball. Yes, I'm for technology assisted umpires behind the plate. There is too much variability game to game and in game. With the pitchers throwing ever harder,, the hitter needs to know that balls out of the zone won't be called strikes and the pitchers need to get a fair shake when they do make a great pitch. The technology is currently available to help the umpires make the correct call consistently.
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i No doubt that trade was a blunder which harmed the team. We need to move on and the hope is that Bloom and the front office will consistently make better decisions his off season. It does give one reason to question Bloom's decision making but he deserves another shot.
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Another team doing amazing things are the Braves. They brought up 3 youngsters from the minors who are helping them win, Good athletes but none were high draft choices. The Braves are apparently good at recognizing athletic talent and good also at rapidly developing it. They are also not reticent about bringing up guys who are only 21.That kind of movement of prospects help them stay competitive while keeping their budget down.
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Our pitchers need to become more Familia with the strike zone. Do we lead the league in walks and hit batsmen?
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I was of the opinion that most active posters on the site believe Bloom has made some decent moves but has also not acted quickly to fill holes an has made some questionable moves. What none of us know is what resources he was allowed to utilize. Bloom will be given 2023 to show better results and the expectation is that he will have a substantial budget to work with. How the Sox handle Bogey and Devers will be important and how active Bloom is in the offseason and the wisdom of his moves will be questioned. Ultimately, the results will tell fandom how well Bloom is doing his job.
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My suggestion is to get a pro right hand batter with some pop capable of platooning with Casas should he need that. We will also need a DH with JDM most probably leaving. Hosmer can play first as well but his bat is really not suitable for the DH role. Cron could do both as could Mancini and Mancini is also still capable of playing in the outfield. Casas may be a future star, stay tuned but he is still a young rookie and we need to take steps to have a backup plan. I don't like Arroyo there so the suggestion I made was in the spirit of improving the team with a 2 to 3 year acquisition.
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Add Paxton to that list.
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I would pick up a right handed 1st baseman/DH to platoon with Casas if he needs it. Cron or Mancini would be my choices. We have Hosmer who can also fill in a both but I would go for a right hander with power. If not Bogey, Story to short and Arroyo to 2nd. We need a front line catcher go go with either Wong or McGuire. Moon wants Stallings which is a reasonable choice. I'm ambivalent on Hernandez in CF. If we can sign Nimmo it would lift the team. Refsnyder and be our backup outfielder. Not sure if we want to stick with Kike. Still need a RF with quality.
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Now we need to be patient with him. He has a good defensive reputation to go with a good hit tool in the minors. Good time to see what he can do.
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Bloom didn't make us better than last year's team. In that respect, the team got worse.
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It's a combination of how much you spend and how wisely you spend it. The Sox have a large expenditure this year but are also carrying dead money contracts and woefully underperforming contracts. The extension of Sale was questionable at the time and getting Price of the books will help. W e had a badly underperforming contract with Barnes and the Paxton contract was aa total loss this year. The JBJ/Renfroe trace was the ultimate head scratcher. Not all of this was on Bloom but it is a reflection on the Sox front office. Let's avoid the errors of the past. spend wisely and react more quickly when problems surface, such as relief pitching, the outfield and first base.
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My idea of a #1 starter is a guy who can be relied on to make at least 25 starts per year and gives a quality effort of 5 or more innings in 80% of those. Wacha had the quality starts but the total number was low. Sale's inability to provide any reasonable number of innings was a big reason for the Sox issues and Paxton was a total non-entity. More guys like Wacha and less like Sale.
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I looked up smokeless tobacco use rules in the ML's. It turns out to have been banned in the minors and also banned for use in 16 of the ML parks with perhaps more added recently. ML new players are not allowed to use chewing tobacco but players in the league were grandfathered in. As time goes by the use rate will drop to zero but at the time of the attached article, it still was at 37% down from close to 50% a while back. https://sports.betmgm.com/en/blog/mlb/is-chewing-tobacco-banned-in-mlb-bm15/
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For a long time this year it looked like tobacco juice he was spitting out. I did notice lately it looked more like chewing gum. People who chew tobacco often wind up with some form of mouth cancer and it was a prevalent habit among BB players in the past. By the way, Devers has looked like a different player at the plate since just after the AS game. I wonder if it is due to him overswinging. He always swung hard but seems to have even a more violent all out approach of late.
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Okay, because my take is that we need to make impact changes if we expect to become more competitive. I will give Bloom one more year to do that before writing him off. Some of your depth players should be DFA'd or traded. Guys like Downs, Duran, and Cordero/Dalbec need to be replaced.
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With that depth chart how many games do you predict the Sox could win?
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His tendency to keep a chaw of tobacco in his mouth is more worrisome for his longer term health.
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We have had two years of so-so to bad fielding 1st basemen until we lucked out in signing Hosmer. None of our 1st basemen have been reliable hitters, when 1st is usually considered a position that generates offense. It appears that Bloom has had difficulty finding a 1st baseman so I would get a look at Casas now with the hope he is the future for us at the position and at low cost at that.
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You and I are on the same or similar wavelengths. You didn't mention DH and that is where we need to replace thee aging JDM. We need someone who makes contact and has power. Certainly guys like Dalbec and Cordero have power but they both have real issues making contact. I think we will have to bring in a DH, even if it is just for 2 years.
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Why suggest Casas as an option when 1st base is a position of great need?
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It's good to look for some of the positives in this down season. Perhaps one of the most important is to get a look at some of the prospects so we have a better idea of prioritizing the off season moves. Still I have to wonder with acquisitions such as Familia if we are stuck in the dumpster diving routine. That approach hasn't worked well to date. As far as field players we would have a decent start with Devers, Bogaerts, Story, Arroyo, Verdugo, Hernandez and perhaps McGuire. We could use help at 1st. Hosmer is a good inexpensive fielder and perhaps we should look at Casas soon. We could get by with Pham but a top quality outfielder would be a plus and we will need a high performing DH. Pitching should be a priority. We do have a lot of prospects to draw on but Paxton was a bad idea and Sale is not reliable. Our need is for at least one quality starter as Nate will probably be gone along with Hill. We are also in need of at least one setup man/closer type BP arm. The money should be there, will Bloom use it wisely?
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Bloom should be judged by the results of the team and the progress toward competitiveness. So far the results have been poor and we have gotten less competitive. I would suggest 2023 will be the final year for excuses. The team will have to show real progress if Bloom is to be kept as GM.
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He didn't have to give up Vaz. At best, we got a couple of mid level prospects. The impact on the team probably involved negative feelings and decreased performance by some of our key players and also debatable performance loss from our catching position. It appeared to send mixed message from Bloom to the team and it's fan base.