drewski6

46-27 = 63.0 winning % winning % when crochet starts: 71.9% (23-9)

Right, I agree with all of this. I may not be as confident in improving from .860 as you are, but certainly would not bet against RA becoming .900+. Hes very good. But my point is not that he isnt very good or still getting better. My point is that if we didnt have Crochet, you may look athte 2026 team and think Mayer, Crochet, Campbell, Cedanne, Bello - these guys are all prob pre-prime, so this offseason , one might think - lets hold off on those pricey free agents for now until this core is more squarely in their prime. Youve said that in the past. And it was wise. If the best players on your team are 21, you dont usually sign a 31 yr old superstar to an 8 yr deal. Becasue you want alignment. Peaking at the same time. Planning for your window. Its not *yet* time to get aggressive on free agency/trading. Your still building a young foundation. This all started when I said I dont want to sit around and wait for RAs prime. All I meant by that is that its time to get aggressive on building the team. Its not time to be cheap, slow, or build for the future. If we didnt have Crochet, I would be fine with Campbell in a starting spot. Because we'd be seeing what we have for the future. But sorry Campbell, Casas, Yoshida, its not time to roll over the same roster. Its not time to see if dudes can play better. Its time to put out the best team we can, and if guys get squeezed or pushed out of starting spots.....to them i say: "skate better"

What we have is the best ace in the AL. The list of assets starts there. I would agree that RA is second, even above Chapman. And that has nothing to do with age. I think that for 2026, RA is the second most important player that is on the team today.

Are you going out of your way to avoid crediting Crochet? Are you trolling me?

I dont even believe that you believe there is anybody close to crochet in terms of overall importance to team. In all of baseball. Maybe Cal Raleigh?

Sure. But think about next year without crochet. Bello is your ace? ANd who exactly is behind him? Now think about next year without Anthony. You have DUran, Abreu, Story. Its a huge loss. But you still have a good leadoff hitter. It doesnt feel as f'd. We still beat the yankees when the ball was in crochets hand in the playoffs.

Blooms plan of wait for my big 4 of prospects to fully arrive and carry this team got wrecked. Because Crochet made us competitive faster than we had planned. Similarly, the patriots are having to rethink their slow build through the draft plan. Sometimes your window arrives before you thought it would. Im not saying that bloom was wrong to be thinking about 2027 in 2023. Or that the plan was flawed when it was implemented. What Im saying is that its time to switch gears to full throttle. And thats a lot because of RA, but its because of Crochet more.

ANd i got even sicker of people telling me verdugo was good.

I got so sick of seeing this team just roll over Verdugo every year.

My peeve is complacency. Dont be complacent and I am happy. I do not expect WS every year. IM not even really a results guy. Im an input > output guy. I am not a believer in win or fail or do or do not there is no such thing as try. But I do not want to start plugging holes with dudes just because they are here because they are cheap or we are lazy or we overrate our own guys. Need to get busy, cuz this team has work in front of them. Its a crucial offseason. And we need bats to hit behind our excellent lead off hitter (roman)

Fair enough. My point is that we need to try to win a world series next year. Not buy and sell. Not half try.

I agree. I meant the carriers of 2025, and really chapman wasnt even really close to carrying the weight that crochet did last year. The question is not: is there any red sox more important to the team than crochet. The question is : is there any player in the mlb who is more important to their team than crochet is to the red sox? And I would argue no. Even Ohtani, its not like the dodgers miss the playoffs without him. THey are still really good. Can you imagine the 2025 red sox if crochet went down in spring? What would we even look like?

Im sorry , but I honestly dont see how anyone could even argue against Crochet being the most important red sox in 2025, 2026, 2027, 2028. No jinx but RA gets hurt in spring and its going to be hard to overcome, Crochet gets hurt and we're fast forwarding through the season.

Crochet and Chapman are the carriers of the team. RA may be the best position player on the team. But a leadoff hitter, a table setter, needs people behind him. He cannot carry a team like a middle of the order bat or an ace can.

And if they turn into stars at age 26, you cant count on crochet to still be a star at that point.

Sure. But for years we heard: wait until the next group arrives. Thennnnn I'll see. I heard it from Bloom. I heard it from my friends. When the young group of prospects fully mature- thats when we'll be true competitors. And certainly there have been teams, where you look at who you got right now, and you look at who you got coming down the pipeline and you think - the next group is better than the current group - and so im not going to go sign that free-agent (yet) because I dont want him washed and a budget drain when that next (better) core arrives. Im going to wait to line up that pricey acquisition with my next group. So we'll get "bridge" free agents. Band-aids. We'll be okay, but we arent actually trying to win WS right now. We are just trying to bridge. ANd sometimes you look at your roster and it makes sense to think like this. We should be planning for 2028. My point is that plan got wreckt. It was the plan. Its no longer that plan. Cuz Crochet came and changed the plan. And now, the future is here. And its time to focus on the present. RA is a big part of that.

Even more reasons to get good players to hit behind him. When I said hes not worth waiting around for, what I meant was dont plan your compete window around his prime. Our compete window is right now. And hes a big part of that. I have friends who tell me that we need to wait for RA and Mayer and campbell before we are true WS threats. I say bring back Breggie, get Alonso, trade for one of those reds pitchers and we're in business. And RA (and even mayer) are a big part of that. But I dont want to "bridge" to RA's prime. And by that , I mean, I dont want to continue to half-ass it while we wait , wait , wait (which was the bloom years, even bloom said this). RA is ready to help now. The yankees won a ring in jeters rookie year (i believe).

I would agree that hes our best position player right now.

Since people are misunderstanding what I meant when I said RA/Mayer/Campbell arent worth waiting around for is that I meant that for years I heard - the sox will be competitive when this group matures. And the shiny new toy is such a trap. But its not like how JoeB says it, its the suspects. This has always been how sports fans are. This next group is going to be soooo good. Yeah maybe, but are they better than the current group who will be washed by the time the next group arrives? Are they worth being borderline competitive for , and half-trying while you wait for them to develop? Theyd have to be reallllllly good to be worth that. But thats how we did run our club. Under BLoom. Wait till my prospects. my prospecttttttts (gollum voice). My preciousssssss. Meanwhile its deadline punt after deadline punt. Im not saying RA is years away. That he isnt already good. That he should be in AAA. What Im saying is that hes 21, his prime will start in 5 years. DOnt take the next 4 years off because then like whats the point of crochet, chapman. Roman isnt good enough and neither is mayer and neither is campbell for me to think, we are going to be soooo good in 4-5 years, i really dont care what happens now. Cuz crochet is better than all of them. combined.

Bregman was signed to play 2b and didnt get moved to third base until it was apparent that Devers shoulder wasnt healthy enough to start the season at 3b. Had Devers been healthy and you move him to 1b, you are playing the same dangerous game. Your best hitter is a stubborn blockhead, and you risk pissing him off. And now we have 0 hitters in the top....what?.....50?

Crochet is the franchise. And we just wasted one of his prime years by having a team full of noodlebates in the playoffs. RA is nice to have. But hes not scoring from first with his legs. So we need power behind him. Or we risk wasting more of Crochets prime.

This team has an extreme lack of pop. We traded pop. We never replaced pop. Thats a problem. That was the problem. That continues to be the problem. Its not about who plays where. Its about zeee powah (and lack thereof) we ended last season full of noodlebats. We went into the playoffs and scored like 5 combined runs in 3 games in a hitters park against a team that was decimated with sp injuries.

Fine , dont trade Devers as DH until you can get a 1b who can hit because you simply cannot have a team that has a noodlebat DH and a noodlebat 1b. they dont need to play the same position to have one compensate for the other.

So lets plan for 4 years down the line because Roman? Lets half go for it , next 2-3 years and waste years of Crochets prime? Its time to get urgent.

Elly, Harris Jr, Cruz, Turner are a lot faster. Wood, Corra, JRod are significantly faster. Wheels matter a lot. Yandy has made one all-star team. RA is , in my prediction, going to be a very good baseball player. He is not, in my prediction, going to be a "carrier" or a "superstar". Yelichs best seasons give hope, but Im not sure RA has the raw strenght to match Yelichs ISO in those seasons. I think RA is good already and will get better. I also think fans are overrating him.