oldtimer

I agree on Correa. Good but also higher risk. Not a good match for the Sox.

The Wacha performance last night was our best pitching demonstration this year. I have not been expecting him to be in the Red Sox plans in 2023 but maybe he is a better bet than Paxton.

With Mayer probable for 2024 and Bogaerts potentially leaving, what is the smart move for the Sox to make going forward? Here are 4 possibilities. 1. Keep Bogaerts and play him at short in 2023 with and eye to using him at 2nd/DH going forward. Keep Story at 2nd in 2023 and look to trade him in 2024. 2. Switch Story to SS with Bogaerts leaving and play Arroyo at 2nd in 2023. Plan on moving Story back to 2nd when Mayer makes the jump and Arroyo to utility. 3. Go big by signing Trea Turner for short with Bogaerts leaving, Story at 2nd and Arroyo utility. Trade Story when Mayer comes up. Turner wants to return to the East coast. 4. Bring Mayer up in 2023 instead and get him on the job training assuming Bogaerts leaves. Story at 2nd AND Arroyo utility. My option #1 is workable provided Bogaerts is willing to go in that direction. It would be costly since Bogey would want a 6 year contract. My option 2 is least costly and leaves room to spend money in other areas such as SP, Closer, CF and Catcher. My option 3 is also expensive but would give us a terrific defensive capability up the middle will spend and hitting at short. It would create another problem with Mayer arriving in 2024 My option 4 is high risk as Mayer might need another year. It is low cost and leaves the freedom to spend in other areas.

Slight change in subject. I see the Atlanta Braves has brought up two 21 year old players to their 40 man roster and these guys are playing. The two are Vaughn Grissom and Michael Harris II. I wonder why it takes our prospects so long to get to the bigs. Is it because we don't draft high enough, develop players fast enough or we have a bias that says kids need 5 years in the minors to make it to the bigs? Devers is the last younger prospect that we brought up and Casas remains in AAA. We hear we are developing a strong farm. Let's see some results.

I didn't vote since no category seemed to fit my assessment, which is his efforts have been a mixed bag with some good and other bad decisions. The lack of meaningful action at the winter meetings, before the spring kickoff and at the trade deadline didn't match his rhetoric. All of this seems to be part of a pattern with him. The Sox still exceeded the CBT threshold while dropping to the bottom of our division. If I were a teacher I would give him a grade of C- and closely monitor his progress going forward.

What one is done or in this case what's not done is also done (over). Let's see if Bloom is really up to the job of building a more competitive team. The verdict is not yet out.

I think we have given Dalbec enough plate appearances to prove what he can do. I would rather see him moved then being with the team. Surely we can get right handed DH candidate who can hit better.

i believe we had some nice pitching and fielding out there last night. As far as hitting, it looks like Devers has read his press clippings and is now overswinging and trying to go long on every pitch. Hosmer overswings as well, but I think he has done that throughout his career. What bothered me more about the effort was the mental errors of some of our players. Did it make a difference? That is hard to say, but it does show we are not playing our best ball. Three plays come to mind in particular. Bogey getting picked off second on a bonehead play. Tommy Pham retreating toward first before heading to second on Devers little dribbler He was forced out when he should have made it. Then the lack of preparedness for the squeeze bunt that essentially won the game. The defense wasn't set and that was on Cora, although the players should also have reacted without managerial guidance. We have seen a lot of sloppy play this year. It's not just the lack of Bloom's moves involved but his approach hasn't helped much either. Watching the Sox this year, it becomes clear that JDM has slipped as a hitter and needs replacement. Schwaber would have been better but I can understand with the contract circumstances, why Bloom stayed with JDM.

Chalk up another loss in a game that we had a read chance of winning. Just the degree of ineptness we demonstrated can't be there on a team that needs to play it's best ball to have a chance.

It was a game that we had a reasonable chance of wining. It sad to see mental mistakes that reduced our chances. Getting picked off 2nd with a Yankee pitcher under pressure and then not setting the defense to look for the safety squeeze. The last when the pinch Tommy Pham retreated to first on the evers dribbler and got himself thrown out at second. One was on Bogey, one on Pham and the other on Cora. They individually didn't lose the game but did show a degree of ineptness. I do think that Devers is in a slump. My take is he may be over swinging now. He needs to make adjustments but hasn't for the last while. Hosmer also has a all or nothing swing. The Yankees won the game by playing smarter.

You are ranking needs plus giving a depth chart. If I did the same, it would be affected by whether we can extend Bogey, which is an if. Instead of your approach I will list what I think by position, 1B Casas (Hosmer) 2B Bogey (Arroyo) SS Story (Bogey, Arroyo) 3B Devers (Arroyo) LF Pham (Refsnyder) CF FA (Duran) RF Dugo (Refsnyder) C FA (McGuire) SP FA, Pivetta, Sale, Crawford, Winkowski, (Paxton?), Houck/Bello RP FA closer, Schreiber, Whitlock, Brasier, Barnes, Taylor, Seabold (MUrphy, Walter Ward, Mata, Bazardo) DH Hosmer, Bogey) As far as deeper possibilities for position players, I would consider Downs, Dalbec and Davis gone)

Don't forget, we also DFA'd JBJ. another addition by subtraction. We are still in last place and have little starting pitching depth and are also limited by too few reliable BP pieces. To make a late run, we seemingly would need more than we presently have. It has been commented that we were trying to trade both Eovaldi and JDM but our asking price for those rentals was too high for those teams considering taking those players. 2023 still looks like a year that we can move toward Bloom's goal provided he doesn't make trades like JBJ and prospects for Renfroe. You have outline our needs before. They remain as follows: 1. Quality CF 2. 1st base improvement possibly Casas with Hosmer in a backup and DH position which should also help with durability. 3. Do we even bother to sign a mashing DH. The assumption is JDM is gone. 4. SS is an if because of Bogey. Will we really make a value offer that will keep him and will we transition Story to SS and Xander to 2nd. 5. Will we find a front line catcher or even resign Vazquez? 6. I assume we will resign Pham and keep Verdugo 6. Our utility players should include Arroyo who is good enough to start but has a history of injuries. Do we use Refsnyder or Duran as our utility outfielder. Could we rotate DH designees as our third utility pllayer. Pitching: 7. With Sale's ability to hold an ace or #2 role, it appears we need an Ace to go along with Pivetta, Crawford, Winkowski and Bello. Is either Whitlock or Houck in the mix? 8. The BP has many question marks. Can we hope for any resurgence from Barnes. Will Brasier defy odds and return. Schreiber looks to be a solid piece. Is Seabold a starter or reliever. Whitlock and Houck may both, or either one land in the BP. Josh Taylor would be a plus lefty if he can recover. Then there are Murphy, Walter, Ward, Mata and others. Almost too many to keep. So who d we have now that will disappear and will new great hopes like Familia surprise? One has to wonder about Sawamura and DHern. I would hope that Bloom makes a significant move and gets another front line closer and then adjusts down from our current plethora of questionable performers. We will see if Bloom will really make significant moves at the winter meetings this year after making few ripples during the last two. Lots of holes to fill so get with it is my advice.

The Yankees either hit home runs or go bust. Against the better pitching they have not done well. Save your BS for evaluating your own team.

If Bogey goes, and that is likely, Turner would be excellent as would Swanson Maybe Pham could stick in left for a year or two (bridge to next prospect) Devers, Verdugo and Story are reasonable. Casas is worth a long look. I would keep Hosmer as insurance at first and he is inexpensive and is a legitimate DH candidate. To me Dalbec is not a good enough hitter for DH and is stiff in the field. I would send him down or trade him for prospects. We do need a CF. I don't believe Keirmerer is the right choice. We may be able to get someone who can field and hit at a better rate for secondary money. We do need a better catcher than McGuire who would be okay in a backup role. Vazquez will be difficult to replace. Bench: I would go with Arroyo, although if healthy he is starter quality. For catcher either McGuire or Wong. Neither are ML quality hitters but both are decent defenders. For utility OF, I would go with Refsnyder. Right hand hitter and better defender than Duran who I would look to trade.

Our proven hitters in the lineup who may still be on the roster in 2023 are Devers, Bogaerts, Verdugo, Story, Hosmer and Arroyo. With Bogaerts a question mark for 2023 and Arroyo is best in a utility role since he has an injury history. Casas is unproven but may prove to be acceptable at first and Refsnyder in a utility OF role. Is Pham in our long term plans? I doubt it. That is a decent start but we need viable hitters up and down the lineup to offer protection to our better hitters or else they won't see many pitches to hit. Guys like Dalbec, Duran, Plawecki, Jeter and Cordero were mainly easy outs and didn't much offer lineup protection. To improve our lineup, we need two OFs, a front line catcher and possibly a SS/2nd. That's assuming Casas displays ML ability and Hosmer can handle the DH role.A lot to ask when we need starting pitching and BP help.

As a Red Sox fan, I am not!

Just about every day we see details of ML players going to the IL. Some of those are key guys. Most teams have quite a few during the season and we certainly have had more than our share. Perhaps our problem is a lack of depth. It exists both in our pitching and our field players. We have a lot of dead money, perhaps keeping us from having real depth. Paxton, Price, Barnes and Sale constitute a lot of that so we wind up using guys over the Hill and rookie pitchers and in the field our depth was Dalbec, Cordero, Duran, JBJ and Plaweki. We even traded away our front line catcher. It has been evident for some time that we are not a competitive team and I agree, we should have been trading those not in our longer term plans. There are a lot of those, but clearly the two we might have gotten something for were Eovaldi and JDM. The front office and Bloom say we want to keep Bogaerts and while he would be a nice building block going forward, he may just want to move and may longer believe in Redd Sox management at any price. If he leaves, we have another serious hole to fill with an already difficult offseason scramble identified. Devers also can't be getting positive vibes from all this. So it looks like we better plan on Devers, Verdugo, Story, Arroyo and Hosmer for next season which leaves us looking for two OF, a SS/2nd, a 1st/DH (maybe Casas at 1st), a catcher and some depth pieces. Perhaps Refsnyder, Arroyo as depth with one of our catching prospects. In the pitching area we clearly have needs. The Sale contract has been a bust. I wonder what his real trade value would be? Probably significantly less than what we have to pay him in salary. Paxton is an unknown who probably shouldn't be renewed, so we have Pivetta, Crawford, Winkowski and a aging Sale to headline our staff. Perhaps Bello will become a viable MLer. In my view, we need 2 front line starters. Perhaps Wacha can be in the mix but Hill is toast. Our BP also needs help as they always typically do. I won't to into those but the demands on our budget may be enormous. I don't thin Bloom and the front office have put us in a position to be fully competitive in 2023 but like Moon, I would like to see major progress toward that goal with evidence of a plan to meet Bloom's rhetoric. It has been a very disappointing season. Let's give up any pretense of striving for a WC spot and give our best prospects some ML playing time.

Joining with Bogey, JDM and Hosmer. They need something from these guys.

That's to put it mildly. Two years left, but it's looked like one of the worst performing player contracts in Red Sox history.

That was unfortunately true. Add Kike to the list of players disappearing from the roster for 2023. Arroyo can be our utility infielder and Refsnyder our utility outfielder. Looks like a house cleaning is in order.

Trey Turner

The strength of the Red Sox batting order seems to have disappeared after the Vazquez trade. Guys like Arroyo and Verdugo still seem to be in there for the Sox

Interestingly, the Yankees have lost 5 straight.

Another possibility is Hosmer at DH part time and Casas getting a look at 1st base. Duran is having a tough go defensively in the OF and his hitting is not that good. time to look elsewhere for a CF.

I think that Bloom's moves have been constrained due to budget considerations. He has had to carry some dead money contracts and also needed to replenish the farm. All these points are valid but I see Bloom's moves as a mixed bag. The Bradley for Renfroe trade the removal of Vaz and particularly the way it was done. The long term contract to an injured Sale (was Bloom in on that?), the signing of Paxton with no return to date and others. Yes he has also had some wins in Pivetta, Hosmer, Whitlock so it has been a mixed bag. The thing I also note is the trajectory of the team's play. Instead of becoming more competitive as the calendar marches on, this team seems to be getting less competitive. Does this fit with Bloom's decryption of how he envisioned the team's growth? We need to give Bloom a little more time to see what he will do with more budgetary freedom, but I think the poster who noted we may have alienated both Bogey and Devers could be correct. That is also a bad thing.