Hugh2

I would make the argument that acquiring two top-of-the-rotation starters makes the team even stronger in that the Sum will be much greater than the parts. This is the case because three of Crawford/Houck/Whitlock/Pivetta are getting moved to the pen if you add two premium starters. All of those guys have been and can be absolutely dominant in a shorter burst out of the bullpen. Adding two premium starters gives us a legit rotation and a shut-down bullpen.

I don't disagree with any of this, but I just think someone like Nola or Snell taking 5 probably isn't practical unless you're dishing out 50 million per year. Yamamoto might be a risk, but I'm not sure it's as big as a "Daisuke" risk, Dice-K was a Boston guy, but there have been a lot of other players coming over from Asia since him with a much better track record. I also don't think there's as much uncertainty about how a guy's talent will translate to MLB hitters. Particularly pitchers. I don't care if you're pitching against high schoolers or MLB players, spin rate is spin rate, velocity is velocity, and control is control. The baseballs are more similar now than they were when Daisuke played in the Japan Pacific League. Also, Yamamoto is just 25, and will be for 1/2 of next season as well. You will just never get that in FA here. Yes, the bidding for Yama will be high, as it will be for Nola and Snell, but the perfect price point for the perfect pitcher will NEVER exist. Everyone places a value on a guy, and so does every other GM, 30 people. All it takes is one person willing to be a little less rational than you to win the bidding. This was ultimately BLOOMS biggest weakness, if you're the most rational guy in the room every time you will get outbid every time. We don't need one pitcher, we need arguably 3 and at least 2 this offseason. You can't trade for 3 premium pitchers, probably not even two without completely depleting your farm. At some point, you're going to have to be able to get out of your comfort zone to build a winning team. No risk, no reward. This may, or may not be why Bloom was fired; he may have been let go to bring someone in who has the conviction to bring in premium talent.

The Sox are obviously not good enough as composed right now. For some time they were fairly competitive this year and looked like an average to decent club, they had a .500 record for a lot of the season. I think the future is bright, and that may be hard to see the way they have played lately, but I think there has been a sense of "it's over" for a while now. They're 7-16 this September, that's pretty awful. Flip that record around for this month of September and they'd be sitting 85-72 and .5 games out of a wild card. It's kind of crazy to think that just one good hot streak this year, could have made things look very different. Perspective matters. Look at the young core, the ones here now and coming soon. Really makes me believe that if they make the right moves, improve the D and add some premium pitching in the offseason, they can be a lot better. Meaningless baseball in late September isn't fun. Hopefully, a change of the guard brings us some hope. Onto the Bruins/Celtics/Patriots.

It's a nice catchy phrase, but I find it to not be 100% true, people do change.

Casas has turned into one of the best hitters in all of baseball the last 3-4 months. I get what you're saying, that at that point in time Abreu looks as good stat-wise, but if that's the bar for Abreu then people should be prepared to be severely disappointed. We don't know how he will look when the scouting book comes out on him, what type of adjustments he can or can't make. At the end of the day he just doesn't have the raw talent Casas has, and while he still might shatter expectations he could just another guy who comes up and looks good for a few months and falls off a cliff. There are way more Will Middlebrooks, and Blake Swiharts (and those guys were top prospects) than Tristan Casas out there. I like Abreu, I think he's something in between. There's a MLBer in there, but I'm not convinced he's a first-division starter in Boston.

We get it, you don’t like him. Some of us do. End story.

Yea this. Even with his helium I wouldn’t pencil him in as a possible everyday player until 2025. But if I was a betting man, I might be inclined to wager he’s up in Boston by next August. Who knows, he might even contribute in October

Cora can only manage the players he’s got. He’s proved when he has talent to work with he’s a very very good manager. That’s all there really is to it.

The ones who say they’d be millionaires, I question their math skills. Dude, you didn’t hear something 20 million times, you’d have maybe like $5

I know this is a joke, but if the farm starts churning out pitchers or even position players at a much higher rate doesn’t he get partial credit for that?

The analytics department don’t make decisions.

A little? A lotta. On top of what you said. He was just mandated with slashing payroll so he couldnt sign free agent pitchers, despite losing Porcello to free agency and Sale to Injury and was mandated with trading Price. He couldn’t trade for a guy because he had the worse farm and was just asked to build it not spend it. Can’t develop a pitcher in a month. Then EROD opted out of the season. Dude lost 4/5 of a rotation. Sports aside, 2020 should just be stricken from the history books and never talked about again

Not sure what else he could have done In 2020, that was his first team, and it wasn’t his team. He was also operating under the directive that came with the position. While that may be an excuse for some people, I think the criticism of Blooms inability to build a pitching staff becomes a little more justified the closer we get to present day. But that just proves how desperate he was with what was given to him. First year on the job; he couldn’t sign anyone, and he couldn’t trade for anyone. Although he did get Piveta for a bag of balls.

Perales is the top ranked pitcher in the Sox system according to Baseball America (7) Soxprospects (7) pipeline has him as the 2nd best pitcher behind Gonzalez at 10. He’s a consensus top 2 pitcher, and considered by some to be the top pitcher in the system. You must be seeing him on bad days. Will be interesting to see if the scouting reports on hi. Change.

It's not like some secret mystery, it's pretty well known that that was his mandate when he came in here. To slash the budget, build the farm, try to compete while building a franchise for sustainable success. Fail he may, but it's pretty well known that was the plan when they brought Bloom in.

The game has also changed. When Henry won those championships he was a big spender. Didn't have to be the biggest but top three for sure. Now, he's not alone at the top with NYY and LAD anymore. There's several other franchises out there spending, everyones spending is up. There's more money in the game. I would have believed he wanted to build the farm and clear out payroll before starting a higher level of spending, in the aim of "sustainable success". It makes sense to switch gears a little bit at the moment, but the only head-scratcher is the contracts given out to guys like Yoshida/Story in that light. Even Devers, The Devers deal feels more and more like a freak-out attempt to appease the Boston fan base after losing out on both Betts and Bogaerts.

Agreed, I think most fans see things this way. In the past I've always thought Henry's ability to seemingly change his mind was an asset, the narrative being put out there now can make one skeptical of that point. I'm still cautiously optimistic about his desire to build a sustainable winning franchise here. But he's on the clock for certain, and unfortunately, he can't fire himself.

The stories pass the smell test, that doesn't mean that they don't stink either. Stories can often lack information. How many of his moves that are being criticized now had either the full backing of the front office or even it's complete approval and probable directive (Betts)? It can be both true that Bloom has made decisions that ultimately led to his downturn and at the time had the backing of Henry and maybe even his guidance. But so what, we know this FO will throw people under the bus in a heart beat. It kind of reminds me of when I was a child at 20 years old (yes 20 is still a child) and I was angry at my parents for not pushing me to go to college more. Bloom is gone, at some point Henry is going to have to start looking at himself in the mirror. Or not.

Did you forget about Perales? he has better stuff than both those guys and is the top ranked pitcher in the system.

I'd give him a B- at best, maybe even a C. May sound greedy, but I expect nothing less than an A in Boston.

Back in 2014 after Betts graduated shortly after Bogaerts the top for were. 1. Blake Swihart 2. Henry Owens 3. Manuel Margot 4. Rafael Devers Eduardo Rodriguez honorable mention at 5, and that offseason they added Moncada to the system as well. The System was STACKED back then. Shortly after many of those prospects help build a core that won a lot from 2016-2019

Mayer will probably slip in the rankings a little bit, but he didn't get on the field a lot during the second half of the season. I don't think it's a drop in talent, definitely still top 10 worthy. Looks like the Sox have 2 of those guys. That's really freaking exciting.

Because he was hurt, I didn't name him I put him in a bag of balls. If you want to talk about Joely in a vacuum I don't think he's on the roster next year. I just don't think they're going to go out and buy two LHP relievers. Also, we are talking about a reliever, these guys are so up and down year to year. If Murphy and Bernardino look like crap in camp and Joely is pitching decently he probably makes the 26-man. If he even comes to camp that is.

This is what I was saying the other day. Bloom didn't have an above-average number of bad moves, he actually had quite a lot of good moves, just never good big moves. If Bloom was a ballplayer he'd be the all singles guy. The average would look ok but then you'd see that sub .700 ops.

agree. I think you figure one of Murphy, Joely, Bernardino can do the trick and then you pick someone up on the free agent market. Left Handed relievers who I really like. Matt Moore, Wandy Peralta Brent Sutter give me Sutter, Yamamoto, Duval, + another mid-rotation starter. With a little bounce back, sophomore progression, and luck that team should be a f***ton better.