it was a Sean O'Sullivan vs Steven Souza Jr. (long foul ball)
View: https://youtu.be/r3_j2yepVzY?t=6927
The Wong/McGuire tandem has been fine, Duvall/Duran has been fine, Kike/Reyes/Arroyo has been fine. None of those groupings have been championship caliber. These were valid complaints during the offseason and they continue to be valid complaints.
Just posted about this in the other thread. It will be hard for them to improve this deadline because of the relative averageness at certain spots (I am agreeing with you). Duvall is a big risk because he can go so dry, year to year but obviously banked a ton of good will already. Casas and Turner are just good enough not to mess with.
Theo Epstein used to be transparent about his goals — 95 wins in 8 out of 10 seasons. I think most of us would agree that’s not a reasonable standard anymore. Other teams have gotten smarter, and the rules have changed to reduce the extent to which the Sox can utilize their financial advantage to produce a consistently superior farm system.
Counterpoint - 2013.
Sean O'Sullivan should be the poster boy for "Forgot he was a Red Sox." Even his biggest moment wasn't about him.it was a Sean O'Sullivan vs Steven Souza Jr. (long foul ball)
https://www.overthemonster.com/2016/7/8/12133772/red-sox-6-rays-5-sox-do-just-enough-to-keep-rolling
View: https://youtu.be/r3_j2yepVzY?t=6927
here is that full at bat
These buzzwords with no real-world meaning kill me.
I never understood the Kluber move. There's no reason to go after the unknown when the Sox had seen what Wacha could do. I thought Eovaldi had been underwhelming the past few years, but good for him!
Solely about length of contract and uncertainty about his career path, Wacha not being a guy you want blocking your younger guys. Plus he missed some pretty important time last year, so it's not like he was a workhorse.
I’ve worked with some really good negotiators that are deliberate and considered and do not impulsively. In fact, those are the traits you would want in many cases.
I know it's been discussed before, but Wacha's contract isn't really 4-26 unless he either sucks or gets hurt, in which case you're stuck with him. After this year, if he's decent, the Padres are either going to have to let him walk or pay him 2-32
Wacha's BABIP in 2022 was .260, which was notably lower than the .318, .366, and .313 of his preceding 3 years. So it would have been considered likely that he may have regressed in 2023 from his 2022 numbers.
Yeah because he couldn't get the four years he had been insisting on and it was Feb 16th when he caved and took that deal.
Exactly. I've said it before, but if Wacha was willing to take 4/26 (with his player option) or 3/36 (with the club option) in late November or early December, Bloom probably jumps on it. But Wacha wasn't signing for that in November or December. He took that in February when he finally realized his market value wasn't as high as he'd hoped.
IIRC, Wacha was initially asking for 13-14M per for 3-4 years. From a financial standpoint as well as a commitment standpoint, Kluber at 10M for one season with a team option for '24 made much more sense. Wacha sign his deal late when he realized that his market wasn't what he hoped it would be.
What the hell is this bullshit? Can you show us one person who has even hinted that Bloom can’t be critiqued? Or even a single poster who’s said that there is, currently, nothing to critique him for? Maybe if you posted in just a little bit of good faith you could have a decent conversation.
this is from the post that I literally quoted in the message
Sounds more like a bad trade, which can have several causes besides being a "bad negotiator". I doubt anyone here has witnessed Bloom actually negotiate with an agent or one of his fellow GM's/Baseball Ops folks.
If you cherry pick a few deals then every GM would look terrible. Btw, you were the one trashing him for not getting more for Betts a few months ago because we already knew what Verdugo and Wong would ever be right?
I'm not even anti-Bloom, I was responding to the post quoted. And, yes, if that was Milwaukee's opening offer for a 2 win player and $17.5 million then the guy that took it negotiated poorly. If that was their final offer the response should have been "Enjoy JBJ."
I agree that trade has been bad. But yeah, I think the issue has always been with the valuation of how well JBJ, Hamilton & Binelas would play more so than the negotiation aspect.
Here's what I don't think you or any of the pro-Bloom contingent understand; none of us want the Red Sox to lose. None of us want the Red Sox to be boring. When we (the royal we here, I'm speaking for myself) take to a message board to voice our displeasure about the Red Sox, it's for that particular game and/or time. It's not us saying that we're never going to root for the Sox again or want to burn Fenway to the ground with everyone in it. Prior to this six-game win streak, the Sox played like uninspired dog shit for a month, losing games in the dumbest way possible.
We also tend to be less grouchy during a winning streak especially when it includes a sweep of the Yankees. Despite that, while the Sox are only 1.5 games out of the last wild-card spot, I still have a hard time thinking of them as a playoff team. I mean they could technically still get in, but the difference between them and teams that have a legit shot of winning it all is like night and day.
They're also last place in their division, which means something. (I know that they'd be in first place in either of the Central divisions, but I don't think that the Sox are moving to Omaha any time soon so that argument is null.)
If I squint I can see how the Sox have a shot of winning it all. Once you’re in the playoffs anything can happen. And this team is proving that for stretches of time they can hit and pitch very well.
Feels like one of those "both things are true" situations. It's true that they are in last place, and it's also true that over the course of about half the season they are playing better than typical "last place" baseball.
And the Falcons were in the NFC West. And the Brewers were in the AL West for a little bit too. With history on our side, maybe we can petition Manfred ...
I don't think that's accurate at all. I don't think you [like you, I'm talking about a SOSH contingent, not you in particular] want the Red Sox to lose. At all. I think you are rooting for them to win, just like the rest of us. And I think you genuinely believe that the best way for them to accomplish that goal is to go all in for a championship each year. So when you see a performance on the field that is somewhere between below average and above average, you see it as evidence not of a front office that is balancing competing priorities for its resources, but of a front office that is focusing all of its resources on winning at the big league level, but lacks the competence to do so. That's what why we see one poll about how long Bloom will last--with answer options that are either he will be fired sometime in the next two years or that imply, in the form of "BLOOM FOREVAH" that if you don't want him fired in the next two years then you're a fanboi--and another asking whether we prefer a full rebuild or "whatever it is that Bloom is doing," which, of course, implies that it's somehow impossible to discern Bloom's plan, let alone that it might be a good one.
Who are those teams with a "legit shot at winning it all?" Atlanta is clearly a great team. But I don't really believe in the Rangers' pitching or the Rays' ability to keep hitting homers. The Astros have struggled with injuries and a drop off in bullpen performance. The Yankees can't hit. There doesn't seem to be a huge gap between the Red Sox and the best non-Braves teams in baseball right now.
