Hugh2

He was BA’s #40 prospect heading into 2026. 23 years old, bad timing for us for him to have a breakout game

Yes, but keep in mind that no other team traded for those guys either. Every other team interested looked at the price and said "yeah....that's too much" I'm sure they wanted Arias PLUS a boatload.

It also got you several years of control of Mead. We had a lot more starting pitching depth than we had middle infielders.

Another fact though, is all the short stops in question did NOT get traded at the deadline. We didn't get Otto Lopez, but no one did We didn't get Francisco Lindor, but on one did We didn't trade for C.J. Abrams, but on one did We didn't trade for Eli De La Cruz, but no one did. We didn't trade for Zach Neto, but no one did. This tells me one of two things happened in each of these situations. A.) the player was just simply not for sale and there was nothing that could have been done. or B.) The price was so high that not a single team in baseball was willing to go that high and considering what we paid for 1.5 years of a catcher I'd be scared to see what the price for some of those guys might have been. I'm not sure we can blame Breslow for not picking up a short stop......no one did. He did get a 2nd baseman who had the best offensive numbers moved at the deadline. Unfortunately he got hurt.

I'm giving them an B+ They picked up who was arguably the best bat to move at the deadline (not their fault Mead got hurt) and then picked up and all star catcher, filling in two of their biggest holes. They also got a very intriguing bullpen arm, who is a control tweak away from being a late inning guy. I knock them down from an A for failing to get an innings eater and givin up a lot of value. But I'll take a B+ at ever deadline all day.

Durbin/Contreras/Gray/Suarez/Bennett have all been amazing additions this year. Even the lesser role players have looked good for what they were signed/traded for (middle relief/bench/depth) Guerrero/Moran/Seigler/Monesterio/IKF. Kind of makes me wonder what Johan Oviedo would have looked like this year if he stayed healthy.

For the past 2 months Caleb Durbin has arguably been the best 3B in baseball.

I don't disagree, and I think a long lock out is a very real possibility. But to me a long lockout could also be 1/2 the season......and not a full season. Which would still be awful.

This is pure conjecture on my part, but I find it very very hard to believe we lose a year of baseball. Playing a partial season does seem much more likely however.

If Jarren Duran gets going (and it's looked good the past week) this team is going to be legit dangerous. Now they can hit and pitch.

I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone surprised the Sox started to play better and improved their record this season. But I don't ANYONE could have seen this type of turn around coming. If anyone predicted the Sox would be where they are two months ago they'd be called an idiot. The crazy thing about this run, is it was hard to believe in it in the beginning because the team was so bad for so long that a good week or two just felt like a blip, but now we are 6 weeks in and this team does nothing but win. They win and they win, they play good teams and they win, they play LA and they sweep them. This is crazy.

The only time I can remmember a season with this level of extreme, and I don't want to open up my mouth here but it was the 2011 season, the "chicken and beer" season. But this team is different than that one in so many ways. But they started off cold as hell. Played like a 100 win team for 4 months, then completely fell apart in September.

One thing about being on top is the buck stops with you. You get the blame when things go wrong, but you get the praise when things go right too. Right now, Brez is looking pretty damn good.

We’ve all had our moments

I certainly wouldn't believe every dude with a blue checkmark on X.