5GoldGlovesOF,75

Any discussion of ex-Red Sox players let go and new guys acquired for the big league roster the past four years is really all about the imbalanced Bloom Era. Optimists admitted everything had to go right this season, but so far Bloom hasn't discovered the fountain of youth, and his mad scientist department hasn't invented Herman Munsters out of bionic body parts. In the end, it's all reflected by the won-loss record and the standings. But games above .500 doesn't matter in the cellar, if the four clubs ahead all make the playoffs. Last place can't in the AL East.

In an interview a few weeks ago, Cora hinted -- but wouldn't admit -- that Devers may have a nagging injury slowing him down to explain why he doesn't bust it down the line on groundballs. This could also explain why a guy like Verdugo gets "benched" for not hustling, while Raffy gets "rested" once a week. Any double standards for professionals would otherwise destroy team morale.

Nothing, except people keep bringing him up, and posting why he isn't that good and why no big league clubs think so, either. It's all subjective, even if posters dig up stats that say Wacha sucks and the Red Sox don't. Personally, I could care less when he actually breaks down and eventually lands on the IL -- like every other MLB pitcher does and will. All we know right now about this year, today, is what Wacha has accomplished, and where the Sox sit.

It's quite amazing how lucky Wacha is. His sub-3.00 ERA this season is only because he plays on a team with 17 shortstops... And winning 11 of 13 decisions for the last-place Red Sox last year? His team-best WHIP for starters was obviously the product of constant atom balls drilled directly into the gloves of immobile fielders, along with the good fortune of having generous umps with extra-wide strike zones... for an entire season.

My gut instincts tell me you may be right. But they wind up wounded, not even dead.

He also knows if Devers has another hammy or leg ish that needs rest (or has maybe affected him all season)... which could excuse him for jogging on groundballs -- a cause for public benching for more healthy teammates.

If only Paxton stays healthy for the next month and goes 5-0... then we might be able to get a decent prospect. Otherwise, who else will return any value beyond more David Hamiltons (a guy playing the position in Triple A that's the biggest need for his last place parent club... and they won't even give him a call)?

Obviously the offense has to rebound if the Red Sox are to make any kind of wild card run. Verdugo, Yoshida and Turner will continue to contribute. Two keys: if Duvall regains strength and stability in his injured appendage to swing a hot bat again, it provides line-up protection for Devers, and allows Raffy to heat up with the weather; another source, like Duran or Casas, will also have to break out. Not impossible, and we'll know in the next month if Boston will be buyers or sellers. For the latter to make any difference in the rebuild, Bloom has to be prepared to trade his major assets. The Sox aren't going to land any future rotation or line-up mainstays for Rob Refsnyder. Fans should expect to say goodbye to guys like Jansen and Verdugo; it may hurt for a second, but then it'll be over...

The most important thing is to rest Devers now that he's heating up, so he can get cold again.

Some posts here and on other forums have defended our poor CBO as a company man merely following the mandates of ownership: "His budget was so limited, he had to recruit versatile utility men or back-ups to fill several positions (some they had never played fulltime or ever at the MLB level)... for years... He was only allowed to sign old castoff and rehabbing free agents for the rotation... and never allowed to trade prospects for healthy arms under 30... He was forced by the PR dept. to sign a strikeout-prone infielder with a bum elbow for $160 million (which they knew would be a lot less for a replacement of the soon-to-be-departing face of the franchise)... He was banned from trading most assets with expiring contracts at the last deadline, and from resigning them the next winter... And then, in the ultimate PR-stunt, he was forced to pay an all-or-nothing slugger more money for the next decade than the team offered a five-tool future Hall-of-Famer in his prime (who he was hired to trade, so they didn't have to pay market rate)... " If the above conjecture is actually factual -- and Chaim Bloom was just following orders and not truly responsible for such moves -- then doesn't it make sense why some reporters feel his job is safe, no matter the standings?

Liked an image.

The position player version of an overpaid Sale damaged goods/IL waiting to happen? Yep.

[quote= This may be an unpopular opinion but the Sox philosophy and strategy is a sound one......it's their execution of it that sucks. The way they've punished fans this year has been rather cruel and unusual.

Yet someone will defend him.

2020 may be the worst Sox team I have seen die.

Henry has so far accepted the rational of a five-year rebuild and pretension of contention, with Bloom and Kennedy as mouthpieces. The in-season promotion of top prospects at various levels of the minors provides promise for the future or at least contrives trade-bait hype for future transactions to fortify the big league roster. Henry has waited this long, and just might have the patience to keep Bloom through 2024 to at least finish his first five-year plan. Yeah, I typed that...

Talking heads in Boston now discussing firing Cora, while Tomase just wrote a column speculating "why Bloom may have a job for life." I don't see a scenario where both Bloom and Cora are axed together in sweeping organizational change. Cora has been as subtly outspoken as he can be with his oft-repeated, "the roster is the roster." His oft-criticized moves have all been made with the players he was assigned. Any honest fan still watching knows that the talent is just not there. But Cora will be long gone before next season. Bloom -- who isn't going anywhere because he is doing exactly what he was hired to do -- will finally be allowed to bring in his own man... and it won't be some recycled grizzled vet tasked with firing up wet tinder. The next Red Sox manager will be a young, first-time big league skipper; someone schooled in ivy halls whose MLB resume begins and ends at an analytics department. His main strength is he'll be really good at doing puzzles...

It wasn't my idea. A poster claimed that Red Sox world champs of the recent past didn't really care much about shortstop defense, so I looked up their dWAR, and thought I'd share that they were all positive defenders with the board.

I just can't see making a strong run with a weak defense. Recently, someone posted that shortstop wasn't really a focus (paraphrasing) of past Sox teams that won titles. I looked them up, and all had positive dWAR for Boston in '04, '07, '13 and '18: Cabrera 0.9, Lugo 0.8, Drew 0.2 and Bogaerts 0.1. While I'm not an expert on calculating WAR, I understand the acronym as a stat showing that all Red Sox championship shortstops this century were therefore better than a "replacement player." So far this year, Kike Hernandez is a negative dWAR shortstop. I'm not sure how his handful of games at second base or in centerfield factor into his total dWAR, but he has 14 errors at short and zero at any other position. Since WAR is now probably the most popular metric used to gauge player value, considering its very definition... how hard can it be to find a replacement player to replace a guy currently performing below the norms of a replacement player?

Posters here have been noting this since the offseason. If the pitchers don't have swing-and-miss stuff, the fielders better have sound fundamentals -- or you're sunk. Waiting for injured guys -- whose ailments, even in recovery, don't guarantee improved defense at the MLB level -- won't make a difference if it's too late. A big market team that is all-in contending for the postseason -- and not full of crap -- makes necessary moves to fill glaring holes with Big Leaguers in June.

As we age, maybe we've all been in relationships that are just broken, even irreparable. While we know the next one won't necessarily be better, we come to realize that it's still just time to move on.

Amazon uses cars for shipping. Nobody gets seasick unless they're texting.

So tonight will be the result of a climate change in Boston...

I really like Bello, and posted over the winter that the season would hinge not on Sale and Paxton, but on the development/recovery of Bello, Whitlock and Houck. But to answer your question: I don't know how anyone could say "yes" right now, when Eovaldi and Wacha were named the AL and NL Pitchers of the Month less than a couple weeks ago. And if you want to counter that they're both better than they were in Boston, the Sox aren't better yet for not having them in the rotation that has ranked near the bottom of MLB for the first third of the season.

Ties are worse. And uncomfortable. And any public educational institution requiring them of male employees is breaking the law of gender bias established by Title IX.