Hugh2

No I’m not, I literally never said “all the problems are on the starting rotation” I explicitly laid out position players who have been injured as well. But again, you fail to address that point, and answer my other question about major trades happening in May and early June. These are all facts, you can still assign some blame to bloom it’s a feee country. But you can’t deny the facts. When do major trades happen in May? How many other teams in MLB history have had over 100 million on the DL and reached the playoffs?

How many teams could lose almost their entire rotation and still compete?

Did they ever lose more than 1/2 their rotation, a starting CF, 2nd middle of the order bat at the same time? Did they have over 100 million in payroll on the DL? And did they win the World Series any of those years? FTR we are not a sub .500 team, we are a .500 team. If we win tonight we will be above a .500 team. With an unprecedented number of key injuries.

Name game? Did I call you a name? Read my comment again. I also noticed how you couldn’t answer a simple question.

And this whole “not building a bench” fallacy falls flat too. Your bench is not going to be as good as your starters. If you had someone to match Chris Sales production he wouldn’t be starting in AAA, if you had someone as good as Story ready to take over 2nd you’d have switched his position or likely traded him for a need elsewhere. You can have good backups, that can perform for a short period of time, but bench guys are bench guys for a reason. And to think the Sox should have a plan for when 1/2 their payroll goes down is just unreasonable. The rebuttal I could care less about but for anyone else listening this might be a fun trivia ideal. What’s the most cash a MLB team has ever had on the DL in an MLB season. The Sox have had well over 100 million this year, more than some other MLB teams entire payrolls. That has to be a record or close to it.

Why does everyone else always wait for the trade deadline? If Bloom is so dumb for doing so where is the plethora of big names moving in May and June every year? You’re getting mad for Bloom not doing what’s obviously not done for a reason. No other GM is looking to trade.

And how come moves like this don’t happen all across baseball? Didn’t anyone stop and ask themselves why the other 29 teams don’t do this either?

You have this duality. You keep on arguing about how horrible this team is and no excuses for being in last place. But you wanted upgrades made to the team at the deadline. This is like having $15,000 to put towards your car and wanting buy a new engine and transmission for your beat up 1994 dodge neon with 250,000 miles on it, and it’s 2018 and you think you should fix up the old car instead of just buying a new one. This team can’t be too poorly constructed to compete, and yet only a deadline move or two away from competing. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Weren’t Kike and Dalbec really good at the end of last year too? When GMs sign guys they should make sure they’re going to be good every year, not just sometimes. If you can’t predict future outcomes and injuries you’re just a small market ray.

So what you’re saying is the team, not injured on opening day is the team Bloom is at fault for? The one that effectively took you two games within a World Series? So KIKE sucked, bad Bloom, how many people have him strife for that pick up last year. Good players and good teams get off to slow starts, bad teams and bad players go through stretches were they perform above their means. That’s what happens in a 162 baseball season. Imagine if the Yankees flip flopped their first month with their last month? They’d have been worse than us to start off the season yet look where they are now. You have to look at the season as a whole and the BIG PICTURE. Hard to not have tunnel vision while consumed by hate. I get it, we always need someone to blame. I don’t t debate this team comes without criticism. Trading for JBJ was pretty dumb, but it’s undeniable that this team caught the injury bug worse than any other MLB team, if you don’t think key injuries have had an affect then I suppose you believe just any pitcher can replace Chris Sale, or a jar of peanuts could have replaced KIkE in center, because injuries don’t have an effect on a team…that’s just a silly little excuse.

It’s not an excuse it’s a reality. The Sox had over $100 million per annum on the DL. More than any other team in MLB. Blame that on whoever you want, but no one can deny that the Sox have had worse injury luck than any other team this year. FWIW the Sox wouldn’t be last in any other division in MLB.

Almost the same exact team was two wins away from a WS last year. That ALCS caliber team got decimated by injuries this year. If the Sox had key players not injured, do we think they’d still be in the cellar? Or do we think we’d have a wild card spot right? I’d bet on the later.

Welll, 2020 changed a lot. It turned this team into a team that mandated a payroll reset. That's what Bloom was brought in to do. Get under the cap and rebuild the farm.

But, John Henry was still the owner then right?\ EDIT: Did you just unknowingly and inadvertently defend Bloom for this albatross of a team? I think weeeeeee diiiiiiid.

Looks like JH has invest more moeny in this team than 27 out of 32 owners. I think that's a guy who's trying to win.

I think the question would be, WHERE are they signing him to play. You need 180 guys in your organization, and that doesn't include IL and unassigned players.

For the most part, every single free agent who is signed is going to the highest bidder. That means every time you sign a guy to play CF, RF, SS, P, RP, are wherever you're paying more for him than any other team who tried to sign that guy. That number is almost NEVER going to line up with what most fans want to pay for that player. There seems to be a disconnect here at times where fans often have this duality of wanting to sign quality free agents to improve the team but want them to sign for what is likely going to be below their market value.

.921 ops in august. My biggest concern with Casas is his platoon splits. Going down the stretch, after the 22nd he doesn’t start the service clock if brought up. Given his stature and recent level of play…..it should really be an option at this point.

Wow, way to go Kevin. It’s the Pirates but you did something!!

No I would suspect he would come up if Hosmer keeps laying eggs. Especially if the Sox start inching closer to the post season, another bat would like pretty nice.

Don’t worry, we are about a week away from Casas making his debut. He can platoon at 1B for the rest of the season

300 million while still under team control is an insanely reasonable offer. Regardless, you don't start negotiations with an above rate big. I think Mookie and his agent said they were dead set on going to FA, turning down 300 million is a pretty good indicator of this. I don't think we'll ever know for certain, but I feel it's insanely realistic to assume Covid changed a lot. An uncertain future and 365 million waving in front of your face would get a lot of people to change their minds. I bet if it was Covid17 Betts would be on this team with a 300 million dollar deal. No way we can ever wager this, but I would if we could. Of course, it's entirely plausible I am 100% correct and Bloom traded Betts away last offseason for Prospects.

No particular order above ^^^ Would love to hear other suggestions.

Free agents I think the Sox should at least look at: Catcher: Christian Vazquez Wilson Contreras SS: Carlos Correa Xander Bogaerts Dansby Swanson Trea Turner Jose Iglesias OF: Brandon Nimmo Aaron Judge Mitch Haniger Joey Gallo SP: Carlos Rodon Noah Syndergaard (if healthy maybe he takes a short-term deal to rebuild his value) Aaron Nola Clayton Kershaw Jacob DeGrom I think the Sox should explore the trade market for either a SP1 SP2 as well.

The salary cap moves up next year, also if the Sox are willing to go over, you really have an additional 20 million to spend before the next threshold. This means in a year the team is looking to expand payroll they have up to $253 million to spend. Despite the criticism, the Sox have a history of going over the cap, not every year but often. With no options exercised and Bogaerts opting out this leaves the Sox with somewhere around 110-125 million to add. Cap moves up 4 million more and another 20 million coming off the books next year (probably eaten up by arbitration costs). Still, retaining Devers may be doable as well, especially if Story becomes tradable. Sox can make big moves if they want, and if anything making big moves now preserves the farm for another year or two while Bloom still builds it up. I suspect something in between, the Sox will make a big splash or two this offseason but on top of that do a little bargain dumpster diving at the same time.