drewski6

Plenty of good bats change hands every year, and btw (not directing this at you) the de-prioritization of getting (and keeping) stud hitters didnt start this offseason. Its like every year we subtract a bat and then just cross our fingers that it will magically be replaced. And I think you are seeing a team that shows the flaw of that logic. Logic being : "we never struggle to hit"

There is getting around that. For example, if we had a great DH, then Durbin wouldnt be a huge problem because we could count on a steady stream of runs from the top of lineup and could focus on cheap defensive players to fill whatever is left over after we go get the studs. And in 2026 where there is a lot of cross-training and people are changing position to accommodate all sorts of combos....I think us, and most teams, have the ability to fit in elite bats. Its hard to build a team without defensive versatility in 2026. But we are left behind because we look at players through the lens of their position. If you replace Durbin with Yordan Alvarez we are better. And we have enough defensive versatility to make it work.

I credit Cora and a host of fired coaches getting the most of guys like Toro, Lowe to get us through the season and eventually make the playoffs. But in the playoffs, talent usually wins out, and out lack of bats in the playoffs was too much to overcome. Because Breslow botched last year by making our offense worse as the year progressed. ANd then breslow botched this offseason, again, not doing what he needed to do to fix the offense. And this is just not a good hitting team. Maybe we are ranked like 29 and some of that is slumps and unforeseeable disasters, but this team was ranked by almost everyone to be a mid hitting team at best. And the only lesson worth its weight here is : never again But when people talk about how bad all the other FA are doing that we didnt get, and jumping for joy that at least we arent the phillies, or making excuses....Well, it makes me think that the lesson here isnt getting fully absorbed by those who "got the Sox team they wanted" (no big contracts, infusion of youth, everything looked at from a $/WAR standpoint (chasing max efficiency), worrying about position so much that you ignore potentially lineup changing hitters, thinking defense moves the needle nearly as much as offense, thinking you can skimp on the bats or use hopium, thinking we dont need elite hitters, thinking Breslow is worth keeping, thinking we had a good offseason.......To all that , I say : peeeee-youuuuuuu

Theres a few lessons in there, 1. Build through the offense for reasons MVP just said, 2. If you get a year like Crochet gave us last year, dont waste it like we did at the deadline last year because an end-to-end ace staying healthy is rare and has enough of a crapshoot factor so you shouldnt overspend on it.

I honestly think hes just a pompous jerk and doesnt treat people with respect. But at least he has some common ground with pitchers to relationship build. But Breslow is a relationship ruiner and Tek aint coming back. Im hoping to see Tek as the next great manager for another team. Not that I believe that managers move the needle enough to be "great" But I saw this happening and was saying that Breslows inability to communicate/relate would be a problem and everyone last year was like "um, record!!" And I said fine, and even stopped complaining so much about Breslow. It appeared that he and Cora settled their weird thing at the beginning of last season (especially when Cora was extended). But Breslow has the biggest ego in the room and you just cant have that from an executive. And it makes this team extremely hard to root for. In a way, Breslow is almost the perfect fit because this spread rumors , insult...was an issue even before Breslow and I cant help but wonder if thats why/how he hit it off enough with his interviewer to get the job. Wait, you think humans are nothing but a means to your own ends? OMG, welcome aboard.

I didnt say he doesnt respect hitting, I said he doesnt respect hitters. He insulted Bregman to his face. But I do agree that Breslows original plan was Bregman+ more and Contreras wound up being the "more"

Exactly.

I dont think we went from Breslow talking big about adding to the offense (along with bringing Bregman back) to bringing in Willson alone for offense because we decided we had enough. Not much changed regarding Mayer, Rafaela, Abreu from early off-season to late offseason. What did change , however, was the market of available bats (including Bregman) because Breslow couldnt get enough done to fix or even tread neutral on the offense All of this is to say that we pivoted. And we didnt pivot because we decided that we no longer needed the bats, we pivoted because we couldnt get them because Breslow doesnt respect hitters

Isnt a Gamboa one of those little mushroom men in Bowsers army or is that a goomba?

if nothing else but to drum up some buzz

Shouldnt have let Masa's preference stop us.

This team took a giant leap backwards and Breslow fired Cora to save his own job.

Very good players move around MLB every year, I just cant give a break for any kind of "well who did you want them to get"

The sox failure was not targeting very good players, instead they targeted positional fits when they had enough positional versatility to fit any great bat, regardless of position.

Cedanne to infield, Duran to Center, Masa to LF, done.

Id rather have aging stars than no stars.

Ive got a friend who is a redskins/commanders fan. In our group chat, hes the only fan....Rest of us are patriots guys (im not really into football, personally, its fourth for me by a lot out of basketball, baseball, hockey, football)....But im from providence and root for all home teams, so im pats fan by default. But im always teasing my buddy cuz hes just always looking for any opening to talk about the commanders nad nobody cares. Like Ill be talking about a friend of ours from back in teh day and he'll be like "that guy has a funny name. You know who else has a funny name, the backup safety on teh commanders. You know, I really liked what the commanders did this draft" then he'll go on for a while." And Im like are you just going to go on for a while about a football team that only you care about? I got those vibes from harmony changing the convo to mariners players.

eaton over other options like mikey romero (jsut to name one) too?

well i just made it up

I was looking for a white fur jacket because i wanna be trick williams now. I was willing to spend $10k. I found a nice one for 80$. Like finding $9.9K in your pocket

6 foot 5, sexiest infielder alive....trick willllllll.....I mean marcelo mayyyyyyyyer

i know my hip hop

At trivia they tried to tell me that the first song to ever go to #1 featuring rap was beastie boys. It was blondie - rapture and ill die on that hill. Rap song. Not the first rap song (that was sugar hill gang), but the first to go #1

I still feel like my joke comparing Harmony to Joe Hendry was underappreciated. Say the Ms and he appears, I believe in Har-mon-ee (clap clap)

I know who Im trolling, I got the right fish on the line. If I wanted to reel in MVP , Id use different bait. For that, I would go to the thread where Harmony compares Cole Young to Mayer and point out that Mayer is 6'3 and Cole Young is like 5'9