Hugh2

Everyone and their mother thought JDM was toast after last season. I don't think anyone can really fault the Sox from moving on from him, and while Turner doesn't have quite the same stat line.....he's been fine. I'd be willing to be their OPS are closer to each other by the end of the year as well. His K rate is the highest it's ever been, and his BB rate is the lowest, and I highly doubt he's going to continue SLG .596 the rest of the season. If he does......good for him.

This. Saying we should not have signed Kluber is 100% a hindsight statement, but without a doubt he’s been a disappointment. I wasn’t against the Kluber signing, I liked it, but I was disappointed it was the only move they made. I thought the rotation needed a lot of work and the Sox needed an ACE at the top. They’ve been lucky that all of Sale/Bello/Paxton look good right now, and Whitlock/Houck might be added to that group too, especially with more consistency.

Dear god Duran is so freaking fast

Both Wilkeman and Perales with great starts today. Gonzalez 5.1IP 4H 0ER 0BB 12K Perales 5IP 5H 1ER 0BB 10K

This is what happens when you get a new phone, lose all your passwords and want to comment.

Would just like to toot my own horn in that I was behind Casas the whole time. Even in the beginning of the year he was among the league leaders in P/PA, that type of approach for such a young hitter with power was bound to pay off eventually. Don't change a thing with this kid....he's only starting to come into his own.

Exactly, the vast majority of position players drafted are up the middle guys. Guys move off of position all the time, a guy you drafted at SS could be your right fielder one day (Mookie Betts), in another lifetime he may have been your 2nd baseman. Also, this is baseball and not the other sports, these guys are 4-6 years away from being broken-in contributing MLB players so drafting for need is senseless. And after all that, you can always trade strengths for weaknesses. Sox seem to do better than just about anyone out there at drafting position players.

They should absolutely 100% take a short stop if that's the best player available. Best. Player. Available. Every time.

Oh I'm not going to argue if it was a good deal or not, but when he was healthy he was a really good pitcher.

Lackey also had that one AWFUL year pulling his total line down. His last 1.5 years in Boston he was pretty good.

Bloom overpaid. The media man said so so I have to believe it.

Casas hasn't been that bad lately. In the month of May, he is hitting. .250/.355/.442 That's a .797 OPS. He will also continue to just be 23 all year and conceivably is learning to adjust to MLB pitching. He should get better. Duran has cooled down substantially as well, but he still looks a shade better than he did during his first couple stints in Boston. If Ohtani was a RHB, he'd be the perfect fit for this team next year. A Right-handed bat and an ACE. But there will be other options for pitchers such as Urias, Nola, Yamamoto, and Giolito will headline a pretty nice class of pitchers headed by Ohtani. The position player side of things isn't exactly exciting, especially considering we would like a RHB. The best options for a RHB might be Teoscar Hernandez, and Matt CHapman, but we don't need a 3B or a corner outfielder right now, unless you consider trading Devers or Verdugo. The later seems more likely than the other but not likely. I think the team will either have to trade for a RHB, is there a MLB team out there that is the right-handed hitting equivalent of Boston? or we will have to fill in the roster with a few platoon bats that can really mash LHP, like we have this year with Refsynyder. Of course, if Trevor Story can ever get healthy, he could end up being a big RHB in the lineup.

Especially when the team isn't good. Imagine adding Chris Sale to this team, what has it done for us this year? Sure, if we pull it together he's going to look nice at the top of the rotations and hopefully he's still "back" next year. But why strike when the Iron is cold? FWIW, next years FA class looks pretty good for pitchers. There's some intriguing names.

I think he does too, and that could end up paying huge dividends for this team....or just put added pressure on the bullpen for a longer period of time. We will see.

expecting a full bill of health is a lot these days, but for the time being, let's do so. At some point things will work themselves out, the rotation could get much stronger by subtracting guys like Kluber from it. Sale/Paxton/Bello at the top might be really really good, and I think there are still multiple outcomes for what type of a season Houck/whitlock can give us. The pitching has actually been really good lately, and almost feels like it's starting to come together.....except now the team doesn't want to hit all of a sudden. Baseball is a funny sport, we just had an 8 game winnings streak and then went right back to being a sucky team. The pitching looks like it's trending towards a good place right now, but that could reverse course as well....or not.

Can't count your fortunes if you don't acknowledge the misfortunes. That would have been Blooms rotation too, largely.

It was obvious the Sox wanted to keep Nate, but they obviously had a price they thought he was worth and it wasn't enough to entice him to stay and go elsewhere.

To think we could have a rotation of Sale Paxton Bello Eovaldi Wacha Whitlock That would look good now, but it would have looked like a disaster waiting to happen this offseason. It still could be by seasons end (the one listed here and the one we have now). \ baseball is a funny game.

I was chastiszed around here for suggesting the Sox even offer Nate (and Wacha too) a Q.O. Wacha probably would have accepted though, which....given the cap space and the Kluber situation would look pretty damn good right about now. No one wanted Nate around here last year. His arm looked like it was falling off. Bloom would have been chastized all winter if he resigned Nate to that contract.

Yeah, I don't think this is one of those situations where we can get upset at the Sox for being too "thrifty" for Nathan Eovaldi.

They're really high on Anthony, and love the underlying data on him. But I can see him jumping Walter and sneaking into the top 10 right before he graduates. Remember, the defense is below average and he has yet to get ONE hit vs. LHP. He's doing GREAT for what they're asking of him, but it's a small sample size and to date he looks exactly as advertised, sub standard defense at 2nd and can hit righties.

Played 3B and 1B in college as well as catcher. If he can hit, they can get him in at 1B/3B/LF/DH....not the sexiest profile, but if he can hit and field a few of those positions there can be a home for him. it's not like a guy never came up as a catcher, sucked as a catcher, and learned to play elsewhere because he can hit. Maybe he can be our Schwarber. I remember there was a lot of talk about him getting 1 million dollar signing bonus. Some people thought that money could have gone to Jud Fabian, or that perhaps they had it for Hickey because they couldn't sign Jud.

Oh I was actually just about to look up the details of his contract because I didn't know if his 2025 option was a club option or a player option. I mean.......lets just say hypothetically Sale pitches like this for the remainder of the year and next year. You have to pick that option up?

Agreed, I imagine them being flexible with the staff in this scenario.

Kluber would have been fine as a #3 #4 starter if he could have given us what he did last year. Hey, some guys just fall off a cliff, and that's what it looks like with Kluber......I don't think the Sox can wait on him much longer.