Hugh2

http://news.soxprospects.com/2023/07/2023draft.html?m=1

Agreed, a manager can only do so much. To some Cora is the worse manager, well......5 years ago he was the greatest manager. He also had the luxury of managing a team capable of winning well over 100 games. Give Cora a roster like that again and watch how much better his decisions look.

All the mock drafts have a Plethora of position player infield players. That also happens to be the Sox M.O. so Maybe they cut a deal with whoever will take the least, or maybe they go after someone who falls.

Kiley McDaniels has Matt Shaw going to Boston as well. Here's another that's not the same. Keith Law: Boston Red Sox – Colt Emerson, SS, John Glenn High (New Concord, Ohio) Yes, another infielder for the Red Sox, although I don’t think you can have too many good infield prospects, ever. Emerson’s one of the younger players in the draft class and there are at least some scouts who think he’s one of the better pure hitters. I’m only hearing them with hitters, including college guys Shaw, Brock Wilken and Chase Davis; and high schoolers with Bryce Eldridge – who supposedly wants to go to a team that will also let him pitch – Houck and Mitchell as other possibilities.

You can't just throw the same 2-3 guys out there every night. A manager has to be conscious of who they're facing, who they will face tomorrow, the day after, and who they're playing next week. They have to see what matchups are going to happen or could happen. Guys like Garza, Jacques, Ort, Kluber (he's on the IL now) are going to have to pitch at some point, and unfortunately, the perfect opportunity (up 15-1 or down 15-1) is not going to present itself as much as it would to make the decision easy. Assuming you have 5 guys in the rotation, a manager only has 8 guys in the pen, and he's going to need 3-4 innings every night. If you have guys on your roster sitting and not pitching, then the fewer innings they pitch are going to be made up by the other guys thus increasing the chance of injuring the good guys who are actually worth something. I get in a vacuum, looking at one game it can become easy to scratch our heads at Cora "Why did he bring this guy in" but the reality is, he has to think about the rest of the week and all 162 games, and keeping guys healthy. It's not as easy as it looks from the armchair.

Story, when healthy, is an astronomically better defender than Yorke. Yorke's value is almost entirely tied to his bat.

I kinda hope while everyone is bidding on Ohtani Henry swoops in and gets Yama for 1/4 the price.

This is a great post. My only caveat is while I do think the scouting department primarily decides which amateur talent to bring in I believe someone in Blooms position is going to have their hands in the big moves. Like a first round pick or a Yoshida. I think Owners can get involved in the even bigger stuff. Like Signing Bogaerts, going after Ohtani, or trading away Mookie Betts. Henry, if he had any balls could simply say “go after Ohtani and do whatever it takes, the wallet is open”. I’d be happy with Yamma

Maybe the plan is to fire Bloom and hire Dave back

If that’s fair, and perhaps it is. The only moves Dave is really good for is Kimberly and Sale. And he extended Sale. Dave didn’t build this team, he put the cherry on top.

Personally I think GM/Presidents/whatever title you want to give the director of operations get WAY too much credit for player development. Aside from special cases like Yoshida, Ohtani, Dice-K or the first pick in a draft they probably never heard of half these guys until they're signed. I will say this however, people were very quick to give Dave D. credit for "not trading" the right prospects which he inherited. E.G. Devers, Benintendi. If that holds true in a balanced world, shouldn't Bloom get credit for "holding" on to Bello????

There are two types of people. Those who analyze everything Bloom does and recognize each move separately, there's good and there's bad. Obviously, when you have more bad you have bad results. Then there are those who just say "team bad Bloom bad everything bloom do bad bloom do thing so things must be bad because Bloom bad, bad bad Bloom bad" Which is fine, but don't tell the rest of us that we are Bloom lovers just because we don't hate every single thing the team does by default.

Imagine if we traded for Alcantara last year? We'd have him in our rotation, which might still look good long term but we'd be worse off because you'd be subtracting Bello, our system would also be less Rafaella, Mayer ++++ Bello might have reached an untradeable status, he's exactly what you want to trade for and he's here now. But a year ago he's the profile of the type of guy you end up trading for high-end pitching. And how much better would we be right now if Sandy was even pitching well? we weren't exactly blowing the world away when Sale was pitching like a vintage Sale for a month. This is why you strike when the iron is hot. Striking too soon would be like blowing your load just to get up to being a decent team. Also, there are many ways to build a better roster from Drafting, trading, and free agency. There's a time and place for everything, and with the money they have to spend next year and the FA class headlined by pitchers, it makes all the sense in the world to be looking to sign an ACE this offseason and NOT trading resources for them. Think of it this way, would you rather have Ohtani???? or Ohtani and still have Mayer+??? Not saying Ohtani is the guy the target but I think my point is made. To be fair, I thought all the stars aligned for the Sox to go after a big shortstop this offseason, they did not.

Who?

I think this plays out more with fan bases, especially fans who know ballpark factors in the minors. It's easy to forget, I'm reminded this morning that Polar park is a hitters park. One thing we also don't take into account, is the away parks these prospects are playing at as well. Now, I could be mixing these two up, but I believe the Stadium at Salem kills flyballs and Greenville is more homer-friendly. That's why guys like Roman Anthony get the promo and start killing the ball. With that said, FO isn't looking at statlines and home runs when promoting guys. They know what's what, and they're looking at so much more than the stat line, they're looking at contact rate, zone contact rate, chase rates, hard-hit rate, exit velocities etc etc. These things stay exactly the same no matter what ballpark you are in.

Kike would be fine if he was used right. Recently he's shown he can be a plus defender at other positions, he just can't throw worth a lick at SS. The Sox already sits below the luxury tax, so they could probably easily unload a guy like Kike if they ate his salary. Maybe they should sit Duran against a few lefties and let Kike roam CF again and see if he can still play plus plus D there. If he can, you will definitely get something for him, especially if you eat the salary.

Just think, by this time next week we will have a new young short stop in the Sox system for everyone to glorify and/or complain about.

Here is a crazy stat. The Rays are #1 in baseball for the most wins against teams with a winning record with 28. Can you guess who is 2nd? The Red Sox with 27. This is so perplexing about this team. They actually play better against great teams and then go and get swept by a last-place team. I suppose one could be forgiven for thinking if the team can get into the playoffs they actually have a chance.

The back half of the Xander deal is going to be very ugly, but I don't think he's fallen off the wall here and now, I think he's just in a bad slump.

I think the team viewed Story as a 2nd, but a guy who could play SS for 1-1.5 years until Mayer was ready if they failed to resign Bogaerts. Which is exactly what happened, then Story got hurt, and then apparently everyone else at the position as well this year. From what we know, it seems the Story situation wasn't shocking, but the other injuries were just bad luck. It's truly amazing, not in a good way but amazing the trails and tribulations which has become SS for the Red Sox. A product of BOTH incompetence at the front office AND bad luck.

IF and only if the Sox are sellers, Paxton may be the best chip. If they want to buy and sell, I suppose hypothetically you could think Paxton buys you Assets and Sale/Houck come back for the playoffs But if you actually had faith in Sale looking like he did when he comes back and playoffs see realistic, why would you not want Sale/Bello/Paxton leading your playoff team?

I agree with this whole heartedly but i disagree that Bloom is safe. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and if Henry decides to change direction Bloom is the perfect scape goat

Pitching is such a market inefficiency I think we could find teams to overpay for guys like Jansen and Martin, but given that the Sox are sitting below the tax line they'd be dumb to not up the return by paying down those contracts. That should be very enticing for a team buying but doesn't want to increase payroll.

There's zero evidence Henry is going to sell the team. Obviously, some day that may happen, but that narrative is just incorrect.

Our best trade chips (not including young talent locked up) are Pivetta, Paxton, Jansen, Verdugo, and Duvall.