Hugh2

100% although I would feel much better about a team winning in September than I would about a team winning in April.

I'm just happy the Sox are winning and we are back to arguing over the normal things that we can argue about when the team wins.

To me Anthony should be untouchable. You will never get back in return what his ceiling is right now and he's doing everything to make you believe he's going to reach it. At 20 years old he's already hitting the ball much harder than even an above average leaguer. If he pans out, he's going to be a contender for MVP's

The Sox are tied for the most wins in the A.L.

Or not, Casas with the power

well below......in 8 games.

If we are considering more than JUST their record then I'll throw my hat in the ring and point out it's April 22nd. Throw whatever asterisk you want, right now they're a playoff team. They are a .500 team that improved over the offseason and despite some slow starts have a winning record early. This team will be fine. Get on the train, there's plenty of room.

So there is more evidence than just their record then?

That's fair, but then aren't we also saying that record isn't the only evidence? if there are other considerations. My expectations were for the Sox to be better this year. That hasn't changed for me yet, but I'm concerned for a few players. But at the end of the day it's April 22nd. I'm concerned how these guys are playing on September 22nd.

I mean, if the season ended today we are in the playoffs. Going by record we are in a pretty good spot.

And there's probably some alternate universe where Verdugo turned into a complete stud. We are in the wong timeline.

There were a few times were I thought I was wrong, but it turns out I was only mistaken.

I had literally forgotten about that until right now. Graterol would have been a much better return in hindsight. Downs was a top 100, top 50 prospect in some rankings at the time, and up the middle was an obvious need at the time. In an alternate universe if Downs pans out, and the Sox spend the Trevor Story money more wisely people probably are still very upset with the Mookie Betts trade lol, but perhaps slightly less. That's the risk you take when trading a bird in hand for two in the bush.

Yeah, ok so we mostly agree on this. If you're not going to sign a guy, you should trade him (unless you have serious playoff ambitions) but how serious the Sox were about trying to resign him, and were they draw their line in the sand is objective and open to criticism. That's fair. I forgot that he was traded so late in the offseason, Was that when it was initially reported or finalized, because I do seem to remember the trade got held up for a little while due to some medical concerns.

Roman Anthony hasn't played in the field since 4/11 he's obviously going through something. There's absolutely ZERO reason to rush him in haste and make the roster log jam even worse than it already is. His time is coming, it will be this year at some point without doubt. I think we see him by the end of May, and as you all know I'm always right. 🙃

Rafaela is on pace for about a 2.5 Fwar season, mostly tied to his defense but that alone makes him a valuable player. I don't think he's ever going to be an offensive stud, but I've always hoped he could take enough steps forward to not be a complete black hole in the lineup and you feel fine about him hitting 8th 9th. It's early, the sample size is small, but the K% is down from 26.4 to 18.9% the BB rate is up to 6.8% he's actually making a little bit more contact this year, but his BABIP is lower around .250% but overall he's still chasing way way way too much. I think there's enough there, underlying to see a guy who can take steps forward and be a .650-.700 OPS guy, but the approach is not there, and there's not enough power to overcome the approach to ever be much more than that. I really really really like Rafaela a lot, but I never understood the extension. Guys with his profile just aren't well paid in arbitration, and his skill set probably does not age well once he losses a step.

That's kind of the new trend. Your elite closer may be the 8th inning guy if you have 2-3-4 coming up. Makes more sense. Still, that makes someone like Slaten the "set up" guy. Which is well deserving, hopefully the youngster continues to grow and shine.

I really don't think two weeks has erased Story's inability to stay healthy the last 3 years. And if he's this good all year why would we even want to trade him? Mayer doesn't strike me as the guy who is going to hit the ground running but rather a guy who needs a year or 1.5 years until he really reaches his own. Bogaerts and Duran weren't instant stars, most guys are not. If Story is good and healthy he's helping you get to the post season. If anything Story plays to opt out and that solves everything.

I was saying over the offseason how Slaten has elite stuff and could end up sliding into the closer role. One reason why I wasn't that down on the moves they made in the bullpen this offseason. I don't care how bad they are. 3 out of 4 is a good.

When you're talking about extensions it certainly does. If a guy is getting record setting money like that it's because they want to go to free agency and you have to offer them something higher to stop it from happening. That kind of money 2-3 years shy of FA is a lot different than offering it in a walk year. Your last sentence is why I make this stand, again and again and again....The Sox f***ing up the Mookie Betts situation should never be a point of criticism of them making smart moves in the future. I think Lou Merloni said something exactly like this in a section 10 podcast and I'm paraphrasing "Just because the Sox didn't sign Mookie Betts doesn't mean they aren't allowed to go out and spend big money ever again" but yet people will bring it up every time they pay a guy money. I'm not saying the Sox did the right thing, that's obviously subjective and Betts is an immense talent. But if you know you can't or won't resign a guy it's best to get something rather than nothing from him. Perhaps a better way to phrase my point is this. If you could definitively know the Sox would not spend what it takes to keep Mookie Betts should they have traded his last year of team control or kept him for one more season? To be fair, you have to pretend like you don't know how s***** Jeter Downs turned out.

DFA'ng Yoshida and assigning him to AAA is a consideration if someone is considering doing it.

No it's not, not alone but lets be real honest and candid here - Turning down the 3rd largest contract extension of all time is effectively saying I'm going to free agency. We could play semantics all day on this, but I'm saying right now that I'm not disputing the difference between definitively saying "I'm going to free agency" and eluding it by saying I'm turning down record money. But like I said, lets be real honest and candid with each other. Turning down record money, coupled with rumors and reports you're going to free agency is saying you're going to free agency. If we are being honest here. Betts saying he wanted to stay isn't evidence of the contrary. Judge wanted to stay in NY, and still chose not to sign an extension. Went to free agency and then came back to the Yankees to give them an opportunity to match/beat. Which they did, if people remember the SF Giants had Judge in the bag until NY swooped in. Maybe Betts stays if the Sox don't trade him and he goes to free agency, but again, if they're not spending the money and he refuses to sign a team friendly deal I can't really blame them for trying to gain assets by trading him.

Yes, he didn't. He's a stud.

A lot depends on what a player does after they leave. If Betts fell off a cliff last year, the Betts talk would have started to subside. A great example of this is Xander Bogaerts, you see VERY little people complaining about the Sox not keeping him here. I get it though, that it's always going to be part of a conversation here. It just irks me when people bring up the Betts debacle as some kind of contention about the Sox making future moves. E.G. people complained about signing Soto because they didn't sign Betts. Even if trading Mookie Betts is the worse move to have ever of been made in the history of sports it shouldn't exclude the Sox from trying to make other moves in the future. I don't think that's what happened here in this conversation so I'm not trying to point anyone out on this board today for this but....I'm just saying.

I'm sorry but that's just an inaccurate reporting of events. The Red Sox offered multiple contract extensions to Betts and he turned them down according to multiple outlets such as CBS and Masslive, as well as talked about over and over again in previously by podcasters who have inside connections to the Sox front office.