Hugh2

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.

I'm not sure who to blame more with this thought I'm about to share but I'm leaning John Henry's way. Sox are a big market team, and after resetting the luxury tax and sitting 100 mil below I'd fully expect them to add pieces to the team of the future with the core thats here now and guys like Mayer on the cusp. If Payroll goes up and it's jut more middle-of-the-pack guys then I blame Bloom, but if the Sox don't go big at all I blame Henry. If not, then heads should roll. I have zero problems with them doing what they did the past few years if they go out and sign someone like Ohtani this offseason.

No you shouldn’t go on, you’re just making anyone reading your posts dumber.

I saw that attitude when he was in Portland. His stuff is unhittable when he's on, he's still so young, it's great to see a pitching success story in Boston after so long.

When Sale was still in Chicago it was widely speculated that he was going to need elbow surgery one day. Scouts always saw an effort in his delivery. Sale getting injured was extremely predictable. They took a chance with the trade. They took a chance with the contract. They ended up going 1-2.

His average/ops by month April .137/.585 May .257/.766 June .267/.848 Keep in mind, the average batting average and OPS for 2023 so far is .248/.729 You take out his first month this seasn (as a 23 year old rookie) and he's an above-average hitter. It's not unreasonable at all given his talent, age, and upward mobility that he's only going to get better.

Told ya'll Bello was going to be good.

Are we seriously complaining about Mickey Romero and Nick Yorke here???? haha

I remember when I had my first beer.

What's the point of trading Kluber though? you won't get a thing back for him, especially if this is not a phantom injury. Don't say salary relief, the Sox don't need it.

The scouting report even says will likely move off of SS at the pro level. It helps to read up on these guys other than just reading their names and position.

I always thought the reasons for not developing pitchers was multi-faceted, and I think few would disagree. 1.) Drafting more hitters than pitchers. 2.) The player development personnel on the pitching side failing young players. 3.) Luck...yes I think it's partially luck. Because at the end of the day, no one can predict or mold how a human being is going to develop with precise precision even if you do everything right. The thing is, if it's #1 and #2 more, it's going to take a long time to see the results. Think about it, if you put into place the best pitcher development staff, and the best amateur talent scouts for pitchers alive it would not result in instantaneous results. It would take years to see the fruit of that labor. What we are seeing now is encouraging, but I'm not ready to declare victory yet. How things develop over the next few years will tell us if it's more 1&2 or if this recent trend is more #3. You'd think if it's more 1 and 2 they'd have a pretty good ideal internally, and maybe shift towards spending little bit more draft capital on pitchers. Which to be fair, in terms of numbers they do enough, they're just taking pitchers later in the draft.

Next year we are one year closer. I see the next wave of talent percolating up 2024/2025. Also, it's my opinion to look at things over a multi-year horizon. If you want to add an ace, maybe it makes more sense to add an ACE in 2025, but the market is better for it in 2024. So you buy in 2024. That's my reasoning, otherwise, I can understand why those two statements seem contradicting.

Got to spend it somewhere....unless we truly want our beloved Sox to become Tampa North.

Yes exactly, they couldn't develop talent, so why waste resources, until you see your development machine, is turning out product, then you add to it.