drewski6

no, i think chasing cap space and WAR/$$ efficiency is based on a couple of myths....Like that a FA that everyone wants will go for the team with the most efficiently designed roster. And if a team that shouldnt be the highest bidder because they are already way over the tax line is the top bidder anyways and gets the player.....Thats okay "our budget space will help us get the net one" (nope) Or that there is like some infinite supply of these really good players who are willing to sign for market value or even slightly above market value deals but a very limited demand for such players because all the other teams dont have the affordable contributors and therefore cant bid. I think that if you have a 200m budget and a 150m payroll , its not as easy as one thinks to turn that 50m burning a hole in your pocket into significant additional wins. I use to think like that. Like that the hardest part was getting the players who were the deepest discount of market value. The core of home grown guys who are contributing at min wage or arb 1 or a team friendly extension....I use to think thats the hard part, now if we can get that in place, its actually easy to go get elite studs....Just offer them market value and now you can!! But thats not how it goes. The supply of available top talent isnt bountiful enough for that type of thinking to work out. "Woohoo, the dodgers went crazy on ohtani, this takes them out of the running for kyle tucker! hehehehe. Hes all ours because we have the budget room!! Wait, he signed with the dodgers? BUT THATS NOT FAIR" And its most sports. Build your roster top down. Preferably through the bats. Its the way to go.

I get that. But I think that the best and most consistent route to fielding a sustainably competitive team is through the bats. And I use to think that DHs were so easy to get because everyone would say not worth $$ because only play one side of the ball, and I was thinking hey, a #3 hitter is a #3 hitter and that may be a cheap way to get one. BUt now I realize that no, you arent getting Yordan Alvarez, Brent Rooker, or Kyle Schwarber easily. So I have to eat some crow there. I think winning without a top 6 offense is like trying to win a super bowl without a great QB. Sure , you can get there with a Brad Johnson "game manager" but for that to work you need not an elite defense that year but one of the best defenses of all time. You need 11 studs at every defensive position along with depth, and an elite running back room too. Must have A+ special teams....Or, and hear me out.....you can just go get a QB.

Because they decided that a DH is only worth so much, and they can now high five over budget flexibility and cost controlled prospects haha.

I never said defense doesnt matter. I said defensive versatility > ideal defensive alignment I said you should be able to play your 9 best hitters without being a trainwreck defensively - thats the way to go and defensive versatility gets you there.

Instantly. Take Devers at 240m. Without hesitation. And Id send value back too.

Good stuff. Regarding the "whiffing", swinging for slug is going to lead to more whiffing because you are making your swing decisions earlier, meeting the ball out in front of the plate....as opposed to staying back and waiting for the pitch to break, and then slapping it oppo for a single or taking the walk. Some of the whiffing is approach. BTW , we are above average in whiff metrics. But I honestly dont know how much of the whiffs we do have are from a slug approach or how many are from just not having good hitters. And its not like Im saying that one should never go the way. 2 strikes outer half, you gotta go with the pitch there. Line drive into shallow right (assuming righty batter) is a win there. But how did you get to 2 strikes? Were you trying to draw a walk or take pitches? Because an 0-0 count is a fastball count. And MLB hitters should be looking to punish fastballs and we dont. Thats different us vs rest of league. Great article, Yirsandy. To me, and Im sorry IVe said this to you before, its about the "why" , the mentality. The thought. When you are a good hitter and you decide to hold back on a pitch, it should be because its not crushable. Not because you want to walk but because thats just not a pitch you can crush. Being selective isnt necessarily about drawing walks. Its about getting to the mistakes. And we let too many mistakes go by. Now if we start swinging for some slug which means hunt fastballs, swing earlier, meet the ball in front, drive it....That pull-air approach will come with more whiffs. But maybe we can offset those increased whiffs by frankly jsut getting better hitters and reading pitches better. And we dont need to exclusively pull-air. It depends a lot on the situation, the pitch, the batter....Many factors. WHen I play video game baseball, I dont love going oppo but theres a time and a place to do it. And its frequent. When I play real-life baseball, I have a different approach that is kinda old school. Aim up the middle so if you are a little early you hit a monster homerun and if you are a little late you hit a line drive single oppo. Maybe xtra bases into the corner if you really smash it. But most of my homeruns wound up being to center lol.

No. But I do feel that examples of Boston teams being built with so much focus on pitching and D and still flopping outweigh examples of other teams going heavy ptiching and defense and not flopping. Best I got is that Milwaukee will likely run into a buzz saw of an offsensive team in the playoffs (again). I dont feel like these are winning arguments on my part, tho. But you do kind of sound like the guy who is like, look , last year , only 3 of the 5 top payrolls made the playoffs....so obviously, spending money is for PR.

sure, he misused the word literally. Its a very commonly misused word. ANd if we are saying that maybe Harrison wouldnt have been great here just because hes doing so well in Milwaukee, can we say that maybe Devers wouldnt be the same player he has been in SFG had he remained here? I do believe in the butterfly effect. These arent even my main points , I havent gotten to that yet (arf arf)....What I feel you often miss (respectfully) is the "why". To me, you keep summarizing the movie well, but wont address the behind the scenes. How was this movie made? Why was it made? And the answer is ..... Breslows monster arrogance and pettiness. He fired our best scout for saying "stiff" faster than that guys finger could hit the mute button. Cuz his ego was bruised. The Devers trade? Say whatever you want about it, but the truth is that it was mostly water under the bridge by the time Devers was traded. We were winning, Devers was on fire. That trade was out of freaking nowhere. All the you wouldnt switch positions thing , all the youre a bad teammate stuff was water under the bridge cured by a consistent cure-all known as winning. We were hot, we were winning. BUT Breslow came back around and dumped a guy he had an ugly public feud with. He made sure he got his revenge. Sounds like someone else who I wont name. Its all connected. Breslow doesnt human well. ANd so he gets Contreras because he can fit that contract alongside another big bat (Great!) But he accidentally (cant help himself) spits in teh face of the "other big bat" hes trying to resign (regardless if it worked out for the better), so he loses that fish. So he has to pivot. But all the hitters are gone, so he pivots to pitching. But rut-roh raggy, we are now 14 deep in starting pitching with a bad position player mix. So he again makes a reactionary move, all downstream from his inability to respect fellow humans, this time flipping pitching depth in a desperate attempt to get an infielder Durbin. None of this needed to happen. And none of this was by design. This is a mess of Breslows own making. And his biggest flaw, his fatal flaw, is not his inability to understand baseball. Or a lack of intelligence. Its his thirst for revenge, his arrogant personality flaws, his inability to communicate respectfully getting in his way. That is how the 2026 Red Sox were made. And then he came back for Cora and axed him to get more even revenge and consolidate power. And he contributes to the toxic culture. For example, telling Whitlock and Story "no you dont get to ask questions about Cora, you must shut up and play baseball because thats what we pay you to do"..... Yer boy Joe Brady squealed with delight at the authoritarianism and went further to scream at the nerve of story and whitlock for daring to question the dictator....Dont forget sam kennedy clarified, removing cora was the whim of one man. Sounds like someone else who I wont name. I wish I was whitlock, I would have flipped him off and cut the juiciest media promo ever. But even whitlock and story let me down by letting it blow over. Getting told to shut up and dribble.....they shouldnt have let that blow over

over a long term view, there is a reason ops has been king. Because they found that obp and slug were almost equally important, and so ppl use OPS. It does have a much stronger correlation with runs than OBP along and SLUG alone. But OBP just narrowly edged slug......But thats a zoomed out view. In more recent, due to pitcher dominance and teams having better bullpens than theyve had (maybe not us), I would submit that slug has replaced OBP as top dog. And by that I mean goin from like 52% OBP vs 48% slug (zoomed out view) to like 55% slug vs 45% OBP (recent years only)..... Because you just cant rely on the dudes behind you as much anymore. So you want that double so that runner from first scores. You dont want first and third with 2 outs and now we just need one more. Cuz the chances of getting that one more are much lower in recent yrs vs a zoomed out view. Also, getting the bullpen faster isnt as important as it use to be cuz science shows you wanna leave that starter in cuz hes gonna stink third time through lineup (unless hes elite)....so the value in chasing the starter has also gone down

Im really not interested in the "I can find a team that was 13th in payroll in 1970 but they finished with the best record in the NL"....so this proves spending money is useless arguments.

there is nothing more underrated in mlb than doubles and triples literally nothing. This is why OBP gets too much faith put in it.

ah, the ole Milwaukee fallback. Not the first time Ive seen this here. You say home runs, I say xtra base hits. Thats a big difference.

will you meet me that obp is an important metric but its very close to equal weight to slug? Some people think its 2x importance (obp vs slug) and thats the myth , im tyring to bust. I wouldnt argue if someone said its like 55% -> 45%. I just think if you arent hitting xtra base hits, a plethora of hits and singles are very unlikely to save you. Its similar to trying to win with pitching and defense.....Its too much pressure..... To win with pitching and defense and walks......you need elite pitching, elite defense, and soooooo many walks.....And its just a better bet to go get some dudes who can drive the ball.

average probs around 6 weeks....So hopefully only 2 more weeks on the shelf as we are about 4 into it.

Here are the myths that have been busted open: 1. You can compete with a team built heavily around pitching and D 2. OBP yayyyyyyyyy. (we have good obp, but singles and walks aint it) Not trying to like come at anybody hard or be super argumentative.....Just saying.....THese are myths. And theyve been....BUSTED!!! This is the least shocking myth busters episode since the one that busted the myth that shaving your face makes your beard grow back thicker.

those teams were bottom 10 in offense , top 5 in pitching and defense and they flopped. Much like the team that breslow built. My frustration is the not learning our lessons. Bottom 12 in offense? Thats a skip year.

aaron sele?

Ive praised him. I like how active he is. But I cant forgive how he treats people and let the offense go to s***.

I just checked in 1993 we were seventh FROM THE BOTTOM in runs/game (hitting) and THIRD FROM THE TOP in RA/game (pitching /defense)....In 1994 we were like twelfth, again, from the bottom. Thats a bottom 10 offense those 2 years averaged.... And we were like seventh from the top in RA/game. So I asked for examples for sox teams that were built around offense and were as bad as the team we have.... You gave me a window, and in that window - yes those teams were bad.....But they had a top 5 staff and a bottom 10 offense. Again, dont go into the season with a bottom 10,11,12 offense. Live in the top 10 or get these results.

also, after re-reading your post from the previous page i see that you more so said the problem with building around pitching and d to keep you afloat is the hole in said boat that is the bullpen....ANd I reframed your position as if you were implying that the problem with this team is the bullpen. I think I inadvertently tweaked your position when I tried to reframe it, and I apologize for that. And yes MVP, arf arf. But again, basset hound guy, so its more of a woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (keeps going)

were the sox teams that had powerhouse offenses but lacked pitching and defense this bad?

these days im having a hard time accepting that this season is not squarely on breslows shoulders. So I dont love reading about the other players who breslow shrewdly avoided (even though I can acknowledge that the most recent FA class was full of landmines) or that we had all these unforeseeable drop offs (even though I can acknowledge that there were plenty) or blaming Kennedy or Henry (our payroll did go up this offseason) Breslow shouldnt get to excuse his way out of this.

doesnt sound like you two are friends

I like the contreras move. But my point is that what he really liked about contreras is that he was affordable enough to add him alongside another player (which was going to be bregman but became suarez). But I think he pulled the trigger on contreras because he was good value and still had room to add another bat. I liked the contreras deal. STill do. I just feel the need to disagree with some kind of notion that the state of the offense is as much bad luck as it is breslows incompetence....And I think when people say things like "all the guys you would have wanted are struggling too"....or "we couldnt have predicted so many drop offs".....This points to things like "hands were tied" or "couldnt have saw that coming, its just bad luck".... But I think we are in last place because we have a bad GM. ANd I said last year, I think we are a playoff team despite a bad GM....adn everyone was like yeah , but playoffs....And I ultimately accepted that...... But where Im coming from righ now......Is the old notion: "if you dont like what you are getting, change what you are doing" applies. But that feels contra to things like "it wasnt the strategy or execution of breslows plan, it was a bad FA class" or "nobody could have known all these drop offs" I think those things are both true. And Im not trying to hate on you (or Notin) for pointing this stuff out. Im just saying that we went into the season with a bottom half projected offense with a GM gleefully saying "we are built around our pitching and defense" and so Im not willing to accept these excuses. Maybe bad luck and a bad FA class are contributing factors to why we stink it up in an extremely stinky AL, but it cant explain away all of it. Breslow is a failure.

Why would you say "no (period)" and then do it? JK I wondered that for a sec then realized No meant number. I would submit that based on your list, which I think was made thoughtfully and in good faith, so I will accept it....That there is a better chance than not that Duran winds up top 3. Hes significant more durable than 2 of the guys above him. Rafaela still needs to convince me hes become this good....But I dont hate your list....Also, I would note the drop off after 4 but before 5.