Hugh2

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.

I think you can permanently move Houck into the pen here, and that's a good thing. I think he can be elite there.

German was literally called up because the Sox think he could be in their plans next year. I thought that was obvious. Soxprospects have him projected as the WooSox closer so he could be first arm up. But I suspect he’s still going to need to prove himself in spring training.

It takes most prospects 3-6 years to be contributors at the MLB level, and closer to 6 when they are Highschool talent, which Bloom has leaned heavily towards in the top of the draft. Bloom has had the minors for 3 seasons, so we’re not even at the beginning of expecting a Bloom farm to start contributing to MLB success.

Now that I think about it, I have no ideal how long the Sox have been doing this but I know if you ever buy your ticket in a secondary market (Stub Hub, Ticketmaster etc) it's been this way for a LONG time.

Personally, I want to see the Sox bring in someone like Soler or Garcia from the Marlins and buy us some pitching by taking on their salary. I'll be beating this drum all offseason folks.

Casas and Hosmer are good enough......good enough to where you want to be spending your money on RF/SS/C starting pitching and relief pitching. WHen you have many holes to fill.....Casas/Hosmer is good enough. Also, sometimes the only way to hit MLB pithing is to hit MLB pitching. Look at Dalbec, he's been MASHING the ball at the AAA level. If we didn't know any better we would think he needs to be in the majors, he has nothing to learn at the minor league level, it's MLB pitching that he has had a hard time adjusting too and he might not ever...that doesn't mean Casas won't but at a certain point sometimes you just have to let guys sink or swim. Sometimes they are never able to put it together (think MIddlebrooks) and at other times it's all worth it (think Pedroia). I'm not worried one bit about Casas.

It's almost as if supply and demand effects prices......weird.

Well Devers is going to get a hefty raise, and if Bogaerts resigns he's probably getting a 5-10 million raise. We can expect both combined to cost an additional $15 million a year or so.

My prediction on Bogaerts is $207/8 on the high end and $178/7 on the low end.

If fans are going to be upset if he signs for more than 150-170 and are also upset that the Sox don't resign him, then be prepared to be upset no matter what.

That's the point, which is why guys go to FA, it takes two to tango. Sox can't just magically sign whoever they want.

Yes we are all entitled to our own opinions, but some may be more realistic than others. You may have the opinion that $10 million is too much for Kike, and others have the opinion that he is worth that. Again, we are all entitled to our opinions, but the facts and the statistics that show what players of his caliber typically get seem to support one opinion over another, and that's reality....opinions aside. It could be in my opinion that paying $25,000 for a brand new Honda Accord Ex is an overpay, but the data would prove my opinion is not shared by many others at all. $10 million for Kike is a good deal.