drewski6

Thats the elephant in the room. That the yankees, blue jays, phils, and dodgers are gonna keep spending.

Well theres your trade. Duran for 14 Grayson Rodrirguez's. (Logic: Ward gets you one GrayRod, and Duran has 14x the value based on these nubmers)

Toronto has a lot of money too (the city). Plus they are the only Canadian team (right?). I think this is spot on. Ill fall back from top 3 or pathetic to just outside top 5 or pathetic.

She told a bunch of billionaires that being a billionaire is immoral and they uncomfortably squirmed and it was awesome. Thats hardly telling the crowd what they want to hear. Also, shes gay. Accusing gay people of choosing or pretending to be gay for clicks/view/profits is right out of the playbook.

Yes, but that final line is significant. Like 75 trade value units to 50. But kind of exactly, he lost 1/3 of his trade value because he has 2 yrs of control now vs 3 at this point last year. The math maths.

Arent you the one with the BTV subscription? Yes Abreu is like 26, Cedanne is like 30 and Duran is like 50 (I think) Cedanne is so high because the team has him under control for so long.

Abreu has 2 gold gloves.

JH gets to decide the budget. But if you are telling people that they are being unreasonable for wanting him to spend more than 55m, than you are carrying his water for him. The Red Sox are the biggest market. Because LA's market is split between two teams, NY's market is split between two teams. And the RS control Mass, RI, NH, VT, ME, 1/2 Connecticut. You can say that you dont think hes going to spend more than 55m, and therefore your ideas are framed with that in mind. And I have no issue. But JH SHOULD spend more than 55m, and if he doesnt, hes saving up for a football team at our expense. And dont tell us that we are being unreasonable or greedy because we arent. We just refuse to lick boots or gaslit into thinking that we should have to compete with NY/LA with a 200m less in payroll when NY and LA have 2 teams each (Chicago too) and we have one team that covers 5 states. Top 3 in payroll or JH is pathetic. Arguing against that is silly. But arguing "he's not going to be there, so if you are speculating what team we build, dont go that high in payroll." Arguing that is different and not silly. Im honestly not sure if we'll get up to top 3 in payroll. Probs not this year. But Im not going to make excuses for a guy who uses our team as a cash-cow to fund NHL and NFL investments.

Well JH is taking the money and trying to buy a football team, sooo......

Reading about his pitch mix has me excited about him again. Im reading that he can back-door the cutter, which is awesome cuz thats very useful vs righties. Looks like he has a slider and a sweeper. The slider having more vertical break so it can be thrown to righties. The sweeper is best used as putaway pitch against lefties. They say his changeup has 2 shapes, one of which breaks like a sinker (which is actually how circle changes break) with the other change-up shape being more late break - straight down (a regular change-up). Seems like hes not changing his grip , its just that sometimes his change looks like a circle change and sometimes it looks like a regular change, and if he can figure that out and command/control it so he knows what shape its going to be (maybe he eventually keeps both if he figures out why one breaks like a circle-change and one regular). Then hes got 2 curveballs , one being a sweeper (I know this sounds crazy but a sweeper is a curveball NOT a slider, I know thats counterintuitive because it breaks horizontal even more than a slider does). But he also has a 1-11 curveball, which is more depth (so can be thrown to righties). I wonder if the 1-11 curve is slow/loopy or sharp like a hammer curve (hammer curve , or as Eck calls em an "uncle charlie") Did Eck make up the nickname "uncle charlie" for a hammer curve (a harder/sharper curve tha tends to break more vertical than a traditional curveball with later break). Tolle has the ingredients. I hope one day soon, the soup is as good as the ingredients.

Thats a good song too!

Thats on me, apologies. I knew I was getting close to the line

Do you realize that if the Re Sox signed Schwarber, Bichette and trade for Ryan, there would still be a sizeable payroll gap between us and the yankees?

Im with Billie. If you are a billionaire than instantly give away (or even spend) enough money so that you are no longer hoarding a billion OR pray that you never run into me

At the WSJ Innovator Awards, Billie Eilish delivered a speech questioning why people are billionaires and urging them to "give your money away, shorties". She announced she would donate $11.5 million from her tour to organizations fighting food inequity and climate change, in front of wealthy attendees like Mark Zuckerberg. The speech, delivered in late October 2025, asked for empathy and help for those in need during a "really bad and really dark" time.

"Low expectations of reaching high hopes" would be a great name for a modest mouse album

Am I wasting time if I am putting together trade packages for my favorite players in baseball even if I know they arent going to happen? That being said, I know I went too far yesterday pounding the table all day on why we need Schwarber and Corbin Carroll.

I agree, I dont think JH is as micromanagey as people seem to think. THe cheapest thing he did was hire Bloom, but Bloom kind of had a glow-up. Because those years were a bit frustrating, but he did rebuild the farm. And I cant hate JH for wanting a change of direction after DD. The DD years were great, but sometimes its just time to change course (similar to when we had to move on from Tito or even Bill B). But I think a lot of the patience and not spending and sititng around waiting on prospects to develop was Bloom over JH And I think he hired Breslow because nobody else would take the job, haha. Breslow was like our 6th choice. But I can hate JH for reasons that Billey Eilish so elegantly put (which I do) and I can hate him for buying the pittsburgh f'ing penguins (which i do x2)

I fell back to 1-4 and Crochet. Ill fall back even further to 1-4 + Crochet + 3 strong BP pitchers.

Theres middle ground between: A) Not wanting a team with holes at the ML level to use our best trade chip for prospects when we've had a frustrating last half-decade and finally look like we are turning a corner and B) Not valuing prospects. We've been stuck in mediocrity for 7 years while we waited patiently for the next core to come together, but now its time to compete.

He (Tolle) nees a circle change, splitter, forkball, or a 12-6 uncle Charlie Hammner. Something breaking eitehr down or arm side. Or a sinker. Theres a reason why so many left starters throw sinkers and 2-seams. Because they arent way more effective vs same sided hitters as sliders, sweepers, cutters Hes a lefty with a righty aresnal, and its currently preventing him from taking the next step. But one thing I overlooked until right now, being on the major league roster (vs AAA) increases the chances that Bello will teach him a 2 seamer/sinker (does bello throw a 2 seamer or a sinker because some nights it looks like a 2 seamer and some nights a sinker and sometimes it looks like he throws both, and i cant figure it out) but what i do know - teach it to tolle.

I disagree hes maxed at minor league level. He badly needs better secondaries. I also disagree with the notion that 50 innings at MLB will continue to development but 180 innings at AAA wont. If anything , i think its the opposite, because outta the pen at MLB he would lean on his fastball and not need to (as much) develop the secondaries vs at AAA he can hyper focus at developing his secondaries. All his "better" secondaries have horizontal glove side movement (sweeper, slider, cutter) so he could very much stand to benefit from a splitter (straight down) or a circle change (inverse, arm-side movement) to help vs righties. This is a situation where being a lefty actually works against him, cuz its very hard to throw left-to-right breaking pitches (from pitcher perspective) against righties and be consistently effective. A lot of that stuff is to play off other stuff (e.g. a backfoot slider, or an "running in on your hands" broken bat cutter). The reason you would put him a pen is because he can at present, probably already get lefties out with ease. But sweepers and sliders and cutters are dangerous to righties from a lefty. He doesnt have the command (yet) to back door em, which hed need to do. Thers only so many back foot sliders you can throw before major leaguers start crushing em. Thtas a diminishing return pitch (the back foot slider, so coming in on a righty), and with the cutter, he'd have to be maddux or Mariano level to feature a cutter vs a righty as a lefty. If he did master the cutter though, he'd lead the league in complete games (1 pitch broken bat ground outs , all day - which is an exciting possibility)

Giving away Bernie (we did we didnt trade him becaus the guy we got is eligible for rule 5 and wont get protected, vs trading for a guy who is not yet eligible) The more I looked into it, the more fine with it I was. I like most rooted for Bernadonuts makes me gonuts. But hes 33 and his peripherals did fall off a cliff last year and we needed the 40 man roster spot. Initially surprising cast-off that gets less surprising the more you look into it. I hope he wins his arbitration case and gets 1.2M vs 1M, and I hope he pitches well enough to get a decent arb 2 raise next year. Cuz I wanna see him make his nut.

Thats another good example of old-school philosphies that I still carry. No walkers outta the pen. That and theres value in a designated pinch runner. But Im completely over a lot of old-school philosophies like "Ks are the worst, and need to be minimized" and "platoon players are fatally flawed"

Just teach Tolle a splitter. Dudes a giant, I assume he has mitts for hands.