Hugh2

If those things happened above, and perhaps we need a prayer for it do so. The lineup looks really good, they'd probably never do this with such a young player but Grissom looks like he could be a very good leadoff hitter. This puts Casas and Devers naturally into the #2 #4 slot in some order. Now you just need one of O'Neill and Story to be good to fill out the 3 hole. There's a path there for this team to be good. There's just so much uncertainty in this lineup compared to other teams.

Probably not as many as people think. Lets just say most of the players give you about what they have in the past, maybe a little more of less down the line and just 7 exceed expecations: O'Neil stays healthy Story stays healthy Grissom becomes an average everyday 2nb who can hit Bello takes a step forward and is a #2 Giolito gives you innings, gets his head right and is a #2/#3 1 of Whitlock/Houck/Crawford take a step forward and pitch well. That right there, might make this team much better than anyone in here will give them credit for. If a few of those things don't happen we need something unexpected to happen. Abreu taking a larger step forward than we think he can for example, or some of the other numbers on your list. This is not all too different than every other team in baseball. We just have more question marks. There are more paths towards this team being bad next year than other teams.

Hammer meet nail

The chances of all those happening is greater than zero. Also, the odds of someone being killed by a meteorite is also more than zero.

No you can’t. And it will probably be judged as such no matter what. Can’t blame people giving recent results Unfortunately for ownership they’ve painted themselves into this corner. There’s no words or moves that will ever restore the fan bases faith in their commitment to this team. Only results will. They have to go out and win games to shut people up.

This is accurate, but a good business person also looks at the payoff of an investment not just the cost of doing business. I’m a business man, buying a piece of equipment for $100k can be the best or worse decision I can make. If I believe the return on my investment is worth the cost, then it’s really just a question of whether or not I can afford it. Sox can afford all these guys they’re not signing. They just don’t believe these investments are worth it. In a vacuum, I can’t disagree with that, but at a certain point in time someone has to question their evaluation process if they have seemingly decided almost no premium free agent is worth investing in for several years. It’s one thing to sit a year of free agency out. But year after year, and the biggest investment they’ve made in almost a decade has been Devers and Story. It just doesn’t make much since. Their affinity towards shying away from the top of the pitching market would make more sense if they actually invested in finding and developing young pitching. At the very least, if they had a plan in bringing in young pitching. They have failed miserably.

I haven’t overlooked this side of it. Which is why I’ve stated recently that the Sox abysmal results may be at the very least just as much a function of poor execution than just simply apathy towards building a winning team

Reported that the Red Sox and the Mets have been in contact with Blake Snell since yesterday. LHP is seeking a contract worth $200 million. I think I everyone here, despite our vast differences, would be shocked if we sign Snell for $200 million, and even more shocked if we were to outbid the Mets.

They don’t want to spend in areas of need because they see the need to big. They will spend when they think the team is worth investing in. The team is not worth investing in because they have sucked at building one. It’s a vicious cycle of suck.

Exactly. If this was a .500 team, and we were expecting more from the youth movement going into 2024 I’d say trade for an ACE and buy one. But at this point it feels like you’re cashing in all your chips to get to .500 Let’s face it. We suck.

I wouldn’t trade those top three for a rental either. Apparently no other GM will either.

One has to wonder how much of being paid the most, or maximing your contract is an ego thing. Like, would Montgomery really chose texas @ $23 million over Boston at $24 because of a tax difference? he might, but if that was the case I think there's enough data out there to prove it one way or another if one wants to go back and look at all free agent signigns coming out of texas vs. California/New York/Massachusettes the past 10 years.

Does any player hire any agent so they can make less money???

I don't think Clev is even on the same level as those other guys. Urias appears to be a legit abuser, Bauer may have been vindicated in the eyes of some but he had other issues, ALso, he hasnt' pitched in mLB in years. Franco, is a legit PEDO who has actually been arrested now. Lets not put these guys all in the same boat. Maybe Urias and Franco are in the same ocean. MLB found no wrong doing. I'm a parent, I had DCF investigate my home once, not because I did anything wrong but because my ex wifes other daughter made a comment about at school that had nothing to do with me. When s*** like that happens, they take it VERY serious, and thats a GOOD thing but sometimes good people, innocent people get looked at under the microscope for a moment. As far as I can tell Clev is a good guy.

It does goes both ways, and I can't deny the reputation Boras has, but his clients from time to time do get screwed, and end up taking a one year deal when they're left with no suitors at the end of FA. I still think they don't beat their projections.

Despite the contrary being said, the price for pitching appears to be dropping, Breslow could look like a genius if he waits out the market and signs a Montgomery or Snell on the cheap. He won't, because I don't think Henry will let him. But I'd be willing to bet that both Montgomery and Snell get less than their MLBtraderumors.com projected contracts now at this point. We already know Snell was offered 50 million less than his projection, Yankees balked and went Stroman. I could be wrong, but lets see how this plays.

I mean look, I'm not going to go down this path today, I'm not feeling very argumentative. I'm just trying to wrap my head around the article written by McCaffery. It's entirely possible that someone can come up with a game plan, and it fails, where better personel (players) would have succeeded. I'm not in the group of people that want to throw the baby out with the bath water. I personaly believe Breslow deserves a fair chance and it feels like he may not get it here, but that's another conversation to be had. We can sit here and argue all day what is wrong with this team, and we do. We can sit here all day and say who we should trade for or who we shouldn't trade away, and we do. We can sit here all day and argue what ownerships true intentions are and their level of comittment, and we do. But I think we can all agree they have chose to bury their heads in the sand and disengage themselves from their fanbase. That is very disenfranchising. I think that may be the one thing we can all agree on here.

I made a post about this on another forum the other day but I will say it here too because I think it's very relevant to the McCaffery piece. There's a difference between having a solid plan, and then executing that plan. Lets do a thought expirement for a second, lets try to think about how less awful this team might have looked last year if someone like Jeter Downs panned out? A young short stop coming up and taking over SS last year would have looked pretty good. Now all prospects don't hit but it makes you think that Bloom had the right ideal in mind, he just got the wrong guy; he didn't execute. As Jen says, it's not so much that he doesn't believe what he is doing but rather Bloom did not do a very good job. This may not be what fans want to hear, but that might not be 100% incorrect. Anyways, I own a business, it's small but I employee on average about 9 people. My industry has seen some drastic changes over the past 20 years, with many of the traditional print products becoming largley obsolete, but other areas such as large format and signage have seen sales skyrocket. Some people who are stuck in their ways and taught to do one thing didn't understand selling a press and bringing in a UV flat bed to do more billboards, others loved the change. But one thing I never did was lie to people, or ignore them. I've battled my way throught multiple recessions, and I've been in some s*** situations before. I have always found that when I sit down, level with people, and tell them the truth, the backlast is FAR less severe. If John Henry or Kennedy showed up to winter weekend, and gave a detailed explanation of what their plan was and were honest with fans, Told them what the plan was, what went wrong, but also highlighted everything going right I imagine if the conversation could look something like "Our plan is to build a sustainable contender, and with that we have tried gone down a tempered path of buildimg up assets towards a future and invest in the interim in a way that puts a competitive product on the field and does not put that future in jepordy. We have not been as successful as we like, and we apologize, we understand our fans demand more, but we are actively looking to correct our problems. We have brought in new personnel to help build up a more robust pitching and development program and we have a much stronger farm system than we did 4 years ago. We anticipated this process would not take as long, and we are actively working to do better and recognice that we have to do better than falling short of our goals" Many fans wouldn't like that response, but I think at least they would be respected. I have found when I level with people, and I tell them the truth, the backlash is not as bad, and people will at least respect you. But they chose to dig their heads in the sand, and to not even face the fans. That......that is unacceptable to me.

Jen McCaffery said what I've been thinking about 1000000X better than I ever could, although, I'm not paid to write and my english has always sucked. I didn't know a lot about the investment going into building up around Fenway. That may be a good long term thing for the total Boston experience, but as she said, what is that really worth if the product on the field is crap????

I wouldn't bet large sums of money on it, but I would not be suprised if Clevinger was better over the next 4 years than Snell is, or at the very least worth the cost. He will like cost 1/5 of Snell.

Take out Blake Snells two cy young seasons and who is he? Snell might give you a Cy Young season, and then for disappear for 3 seasons, or forever. Take out his two best years and this is what he is. 118 2/3 IP 3.94 ERA 2.43 WAR I'm not saying that guy is not valuable, and can't help your team win. But he just turned down $30 million a year for 5 years, because he is looking for either more money per or an extra year. He's 31, and while some pitchers pitch well into their 30's, most do not. I could be wrong, it seems there's always one guy who can be dug up to break the mold, but I personally can't think of one pitcher who showed that level of inconsistency in their 20's who went on to be a good pitcher throughout their 30's. The odds are greatly in favor of whoever signs Snell coming to regret that contract. I'll root for him if he's here. But if he's demanding 180/6. I'm ok with the Sox passing.

Being reported that the Yankees made an offer to Snell

In a vacuum I don’t hate Clevinger, but it’s just the same old same old song of not willing to go big and hang with top dogs.

Well, looks like it’s another season of following the minor leaguers and dreaming about the future for me.

It's tough, maybe the gym bros can be the tie-breaker.