Hugh2

I do apologize for not playing along, but adding an all star short stop, I was mixing up Trea Turner with Tray Mancini, along with a young ACE makes the team pretty good with bullpen help. Regardless, it's never worth tanking for #1 pick. This is baseball, not football or the NBA. The draft lottery should even further desensitize tanking.

It's all about outcomes. If the Sox "win the offseason" but perform bad how will that be perceived? We've been here before, remember the monster offseason Boston had after the 2010 season in which they went out and got Carl Crawford, Adrian Gonzalez and they were supposed to have a super team? They won that offseason but went on an epic collapse. Suppose Bloom has a mediocre offseason, with maybe a big move and a bunch of under-the-radar moves that pan out and this team wins 92 games next and wins it all. Then who cares if he had a bad offseason? I get what your saying, for the sake of not arguing semantics, the Red Sox have some serious roster construction to do. I'm just saying that in the end, he will be judged by the results of the 2023 season...and that's fair.

Folks, Story is not moving back to SS, I will eat my socks if this happens. It’s been discussed, analyzed, and agreed upon that 2nd is his home. Also, the SS market is a lot deeper than the outfield market this off-season. And Kike is GG in CF. But moving him back to 2nd means you need TWO outfielders in a weak market including a CFer

I call up Florida and offer a non top 5 prospect for Edward Cabrera, because we’re taking back Garcias contract. Sign Mancini and have 7 million left over for the bullpen.

Screw the off-season, pundits are often wrong, they need to actual win games next year.

Why does everyone assume alike moves to second and Story to SS. Story ha lost arm strength, and that will hurt his value back at SS. The new shift and base rules will add more value on arm strength and range at 2nd. Story is perfect at 2nd, and Kike is a GG caliber CFer. Also, there is a good market for SS, but not a very good on for outfielders. Kike and Story are at CF/2B no matter what Bogaerts does.

They’re not trading Devers. And they’re not never signing a big contract again. They’re top 5 spenders every year.

well the 140 million number is just wrong, it's closer to 100 million and that's assuming Bogaert's ops out, if he does not it's 80 million coming off, and they've already committed 10 to Kike, so they probably have about another 65 -70 million to spend at this point.

Don't catchers also tend to be late bloomers offensively? He's only 27 years old. Still, I'm fine with the Wong/McGuire combo batting 9th if they're stronger up/down the lineup elsewhere.

Per Soxprospects Player Options Explained Governing Rules. Options are governed by Rule 11 of the Major League Rules. Overview. In general, a team may only send a player in the minor leagues for three seasons after that player is added to the team's 40-man roster. Each of those years is considered an "option year." Thus, a player is said to have three "options" or "option years." Once a player has burned all three options, that player may generally not be sent to the minor leagues without first being designated for assignment, clearing waivers, and accepting an outright assignment. Minor League Contract. Prior to being placed on a team's 40-man roster, a player is not on optional assignment, but instead just on minor leage contract. Options are not burned in seasons before the player is on the 40-man roster. Burning Options. Once the player has spent twenty days on optional assignment in a given season, that player's "option year" will burn at the end of that season. However, it is important to note that during an option year, the club is free to option the player up to five times that season, while only burning one "option" for that season. If a player spends less than twenty days on option in a given season, the option does not burn for that season. Fourth Option Year. Players are eligible for a fourth option season if they have been optioned in three seasons but have not yet amassed five full seasons of professional service time. This is rare. Ten-Day Rule. A club may not recall an optioned player until ten days of the season have passed since the optioned player reported to the minors, unless one of the following conditions applies: (a) the player is replacing a player placed on the disabled list or the bereavement list; ( the affiliate’s minor league season, including playoffs, has concluded during the 10-day period; or © the optioned player is being assigned to the active list of another MLB club.

The way the game is played today the bullpen is more valuable and relevant as ever BUT starting pitching is still king, and the team arguably needs that more.

Thank you for the clarification, ok yes, I think you're correct. I thought you were saying he might be the set up guy.

Well if your bullpen is slotting into the 7th 8th inning and uproven rookie who looks shaky at times (no matter how high his potential is) you have a horrible bullpen. Which the Sox do so I suppose this all makes sense. But the Sox aren't going to plan on German being that guy. They're going to make a move to strengthen the bullpen this offseason. Maybe give some clarity to Houk/Whitlocks roles moving forward, Houck is definitely moving there full time, Whitlock I'm not so certain yet.

I think he can be a full time player on another team. Dalbec always struck me as streaky hitter, and even last year posting an above average .800 OPS he had really good and then REALLY bad months. He never got it going this year and the Sox effectively pulled the plug on him as a starter before he could. It's ok to live with a guy like that in your lineup if you believe in him long term but when the team starts falling apart in other areas you really start to stand out in the lineup, especially big market Boston. a smaller market team, who is less competitive would probably plug Bobby at 1B all day all year. And he will probably have a few more season above .800 in his career too, and some ugly ones as well.

You're not wrong, but it's also one of the trickiest things to accomplish.

Yes that's a very generous projection of an unproven rookie reliever. How often does that pan out? Most guys don't reach their ceiling, so I'm not going to project him to do just that and neither should the Red Sox. If he turns out to be a shutdown reliever then guess what? your pen is awesome but you can't pencil him in the 8th inning role right now, heck I wouldn't pencil him into the 7th inning role right now. If he finds himself in a higher leverage role, it will be after the season started, other guys have failed, and he has more of a track record.

Here's a little reality check on Bloom. We can all disagree on his moves, although I think we are all in agreement the JBJ/Renfroe one sucked, but there's really no disagreement when it comes to WHAT he's doing. We can disagree on his level of success to date, and if his plan will ever pan out, all day, over and over again, but we shouldn't be surprised by what comes next. Bloom wants to build a sustainable winner, the keyword there is sustainable. Not one riddled with aging contracts, and barren of any minor league depth, or young talent ready to come up and fill the void of above-average to great players on your roster. The Red Sox are going to spend the money, they're going to go over the cap and then reset the cap every 2-3 years. So they're not going to be like the L.A. Dodgers, but they won't be quite like Tampa because they will keep a payroll well north of 200 million. His strategy required "bridging" the Sox to get there. And when we really think about it, we've been here before with Ben CHarringtong. Ben brought in a bunch of short term contracts on middling players and aging stars who ultimately panned out in 2013 (Koji, Vic, Napoli, Drew) and it was almost that same exact team that went from first to last the very next year. Last years team over achieved, but it was still a team Bloom pieced together to try and compete while he's been "bridging" this team, he has to get some credit for that. But if you remember, this team wasn't sure to make the playoffs last year and did very little at the deadline. They didn't make certain moves because they were banking on getting healthy, so Bloom preserved the Farm and banked on Chris Sale coming back healthy and strengthening the rotation and guess what? it worked. The Sox came within 2 games of a world series and kept their farm system building up towards that "sustainable success" level. When you think about this year, the Sox were in a similar situation this year at the deadline. They didn't make a ton of moves to the MLB roster because they THOUGHT they were getting healthy. Sale was coming back, Story was coming back, Arroyo was just coming back, Kike Hernandez was coming back, Paxton was supposed to pitch, and there were others who didn't miss time but at certain points were obviously struggling with injuries that hampered their performance (Bogey and Devers). But 1/2 those guys didn't come back and others started going down as well. This all makes perfect, 100% sense, and explains the deadline philosophy. It was the same philosophy two years in a row and right now Bloom is 1 for 2, if they didn't get bit by the injury bug we had every reason to hope this team was going to make a run and why not? this same team did the same exact thing last year. Bloom has a ton of money to spend this offseason, but they're going to want to reset the luxury tax this year, so their wallets are not bottomless. You can expect them to pass on guys like Judge and Degrome, but the roster will likely get filled out and they will go into next year stronger, and even more so with a clean bill of health. It will be very interesting to see how Bloom fills out the roster this off-season. If you take his philosophy at face value and try to project when the system might be strong enough to start expecting a constant stream of success, then the year 2024 looks much better than 2023 which is why I think they reset this year. This isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, so there's really no need to complain to me.....we have 363 pages of everyone in here going back and forth and regurgitating the same arguments. What I think might be an interesting topic and something a little new is to state what level of success Bloom has to attribute next year for his job not to be in trouble. I think at the very least, they have to have a winning record and compete for the playoffs AND look to be on the upswing going into 2024.

Yeah, this is an absurd claim, and one unsurprising from Stork. The thing is, Judge is a big dude, but it's not a disproportionate big. He's listed at 283 LB's, now if he was 6'1" and jacked I'd say he's probably on PED's.....but the dude is 6'7" unless his parents put HGH in his baby formula he's obviously just a naturally big guy. If you're 6'7" and you lift weights.....you're going to be pushing 250 lbs easily.

11 WAR should cost you about $66 million in free agency, well under the Sox budget.

Judge ain’t getting 400, but he will eclipse 300. Depending on the years he could get anywhere from 35 to 50 per. It will be huge.

Bobby was coming off of a season in which after 1.5 years at the MLB level he was sporting a .820 OPS and Casas who is your top-ranked prospects (a first baseman) is a year away. Almost NOBODY was criticizing the Sox for not upgrading the first base position. Probably the most justifiable move Bloom has made (or not made). Not all decisions work out, even if they're good ones seemingly at the time.

You never really know what guys will do, but he's projected as a middle reliever. A late-inning arm is his ceiling, most guys do not reach their ceilings.

They went into the season thinking after two years and a .820 OPS that Bobby D would be fine. Probably the most defensible move Bloom made, not plugging a hole that seemingly didn't exist at the time.

I think that's VERY realistic, but I bet Pablo could be had and save Rafaella and maybe even Yorke too. If we agree to take back Garcia or Soler for him, the Marlins have already publicly stated they're looking to shed payroll and if one of those guys rebounds then you have depth in the outfield and DH too.

I don't think he's a late-inning arm, I think he can be a good middle reliever. I think the Sox know that as well. Still, there's a ton of value when you can get that guy at the league minimum instead of paying the free agent market of relievers, which when you factor in you practically have to sign 2 to get 1 good one a guy like German you're saving yourself 5-10 million a year.