drewski6

Thats not the endorsement that you think it is

But a 90 win fourth place team.

Wait, we're buying now?

I remember falling in and out of love with Webster cuz he had a 99 mph sinkerball.

Where was VMArt playing? How did he fit in?

I think SF would take that trade. I dont understand why we are looking for trades that involve us getting recent free agents at a discount (the 20m eaten). Giants seem to want players. RS and their fans seem to want budget and payroll efficiency.

hes more of a sideshow than a LHB OFer.

who is starting? In any case, I can agree with this. This is like that soft sell that I am talking about. You trade IKF and move Durbin into a bench role. Why? Durbin is younger and still has pre-arb years and IKF is a pure band-aid. Right now , with IKFs hot streak at hte plate and ability to cover multiple positions, hes the type of guy that can get you something. Durbin is just plain selling low and giving away a guy with pre-arb years left who can at least field a position, so of the 2 , I think IKF makes a ton more sense as a "we are not selling. We are not throwing in the towel.....But we are going to start making some moves around the margins that suggest we're getting close to selling"

are you advocating for 5 bench players? I like it

I dont believe the last part. I think that most 23 yr olds will continue to get better working with hitting coaches. I dont think it needs to be MLB to improve. And I think that he will see plenty of MLB level pitches in AAA (and AAA level pitches in MLB). ALso, did you read yirsandy article? This team is terrible at punishing mistakes. So maybe some AAA at-bats will help with that. Lets learn how to crush meatballs before we start dismissing at-bats against the meatball mikes down in aaa.

Agree. But Mayer should have a clear path back, even in 2027. Durbin may have to get lucky with like an injury in front of him or something. Or get like really really really hot in AAA. I still view Mayer as an important part of our future. Maybe downgrade him to " a potentially important part of our future". Durbin is behind Sogard and IKF on the depth chart to me.

I understand wanting to shift playing time / at-bats towards younger players as we start a soft wind-down of competitiveness this year. Not saying we wont hit a winning streak and ramp back up, but I understand thinking "we arent throwing in the towel, but at the same time we're gonna start thinking about what it would look like to start prioritizing future over present" But one thing I always fall back to is that development isnt linear with playing time. In fact, I would argue that the correlation is overrated. Theres more to this than just promoting a bunch of 21 yr olds and thinking "if I just stick with them, by age 25 these guys will be great! I just gotta take the growing pains along the way and not stray" But the truth is that it doesnt work that way. I see this level of thinking in NFL. Sometimes, if a rookie or sophmore QB starts and then there is talk of moving on after, a lot of fans get uncomfortable on the wasted resources and time. Its depressing to accept that youve spent what 3 yrs getting this QB (first year tank for a pick, draft him high have him ride the bench and learn for a year, start year 2 and flop)....And that leads to a lot of homerish overrating of ones own youngsters. In this particular case, though, if we are talking about Mayer and Anthony. My gut right now is on the side of keepers (both). Mayer is 6'3 and fluid and I think that Anthony will become at least a very good hitter. But I also think that the benefits of playing time are overrated and Mayer specifically can still grow if he starts hitting lower in the order or getting benched for IKF/Sogard or even sent down. I do acknowledge that from what weve seen with like KC, Grissom....Its hard to come back from that. But I dont think that moving Mayer to bench or AAA is going to like ruin him.

when "we are so bad its depressing" turns into "we are so bad , its funny." . ...... thats ... well, I honestly dont know what it is.... But it is why I want Sogard, Gasper and IKF to be our 2,3,4 hitters. Trade Duran for pitching!!

Well, sometimes, its time to root for the most humorous outcome.

You havent gotten any whiffs of this?... Our record is not Breslows fault but a series of unforeseeable declines and Breslow actually did a good job this offseason. The real problem here is an impatient and spoiled fan base! And Im going to love the tears of RS fans when they get more disappointment!! Players shouldnt get to question Breslow over the axing of their leader. Shut up and do your jobs or you will be replaced!! We would be much worse off had we signed Bregman over Suarez and for that reason its unfair to ask why/how Bregman negotiations broke down! I refuse to even admit that the conversations and communications broke down and instead (due to wanting to believing it to be true) frame that as some kind of shrewd value move. Boy am I glad to have such a shrewd GM. Going into this offseason this was the second best team in baseball right now and we are set up better for the future than any team in history! And then on top of that , we had close to one of the best offseasons in history! ITS STILL EARLY!!! You dont need slug, just OBP and the offense is not poorly constructed. Oh you made the debatable statement that toxic bosses are bad news - well let me provide anecdotal evidence to counter. I hope corporate office takes away our weekends and slashes our pay!

so you're saying theres a chance!

Or are we back up?

Agree Breslows intentions do not matter from a wins/loss perspective, but Im interested in the behind the scenes. You dont need to see the making of the movie to know if the movie is good or bad, but if its bad, examining the "how" and "why" via reflection can be helpful. Specifically, it may help determine if we still trust Breslow or if we should lame duck him, and wait for the next captain to steer the ship. Last year, when I expressed concerns about Breslows inability to get out of his own way, many pointed to our record / how we were on track to be a playoff team. And I understood the narrowed focus on wins/losses, but even last year, I was seeing underlying issues. Ultimately, I was grateful for playoff baseball, even if I didnt love the team featuring Masa, Eaton, Lowe, Sogard, ice cold Narvaez..... But roll forward and the "dont worry about Breslow, look at our record" seems to have become "well dont look at our record because guys Breslow actually brought in within this last offseason are at least better than some of the potential names we could have acquired" And I guess it comes down to are we making excuses or providing context? Are we here because of bad luck or any other variable outside Breslows control or are we moving goalposts and making excuses to avoid having to come to terms that Breslow is yet another dysfunctional person in our organization.

well hes been hitting more recently and it wasnt my idea. But if he finds his way back to 80 OPS+ , I wont cry if hes deadline flipped

My point is that when you are this far away, fit becomes less important.

but if we're blaming breslow i dont want to get too greedy

See, I still dont think this was the team that Breslow intended to build. I still think its a team full of fall backs from failed moves. I think he intended to fix the OF logjam, keep Bregman and not sign 57 starting pitchers. But he cant execute. Had the heat in his hand but he couldnt shoot.

We cant take Juan Soto, even if we can get the mets to trade him for IKF and eat 50% his contract because we already have Masa!

We still play half the games on the road and unless we get the 1 seed are going to need to win some road playoff games at some point. I can give you having a team built bad for Fenway as A problem but I cant give you THE problem

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