Team meetings and smashing phones are bullshit. They make no difference and never have.
Crazy their payroll half of Boston Red Sox. Looking at Chris Sale and the contract.
The Rays had a lot of lean years while they were developing their program. I’m sure they would have loved to win a World Series 5 years ago.
Chaim, who you seem to not like, was the GM of the Sox the last time they met the Rays in the postseason. And guess who won?
There's time but with Texas & Baltimore breaking out, they are significantly out in that race right now. It might take 92 wins and this team isn't sniffing that number.
How do you figure?
What was his payroll then?
I was optimistic about hitting that number but it seems like the pressure of injuries concentrated initially all in the starting rotation, and now all in the middle of the defense, is producing cracks. They papered over the injuries for a while but that can only work for so long.
Exactly. 2 and 5 at home this week. I am a die hard, but bet the masses have no interest in this team.
Well that's the existential question, how good is the current FO at evaluating talent. They've had hits and misses. Tampa seems to lead the league in evaluation/development hits every year (although they still haven't won a title). That would be nice to pull off. But the Sox don't need to be better than Tampa at evaluating and rehabilitating prospects. They need to be close enough so that when they recover their full spending power they can blow past them. Obviously they couldn't do that last winter, and even if they did, Carlos Rodon isn't changing anyone's outlook too dramatically. But that will shift maybe this winter? tbd.
Exactly Chaim never ran Tampa. He was only the assistant there. Erik Neander and Peter Bendix ran it. Surprised we always get the story from the media that Bloom was in charge. Truth is it's Erik Neander. Bloom was his assistant.
This team doesn’t suck. It’s just very mediocre. Sometimes mediocre is enough to squeak into the playoffs (if the Sox were in the AL Central they’d be a game out of first place) but not in this division.
Sox title winners were mostly built around pitching that was acquired at the major league level, no? If you clear enough payroll you can go that route again. In some ways it's the safest route given the attrition rates among pitching prospects.
I really agree with your Ohtani theory. Kluber And Hernandez alone is 20 million savings next year. Hope they pull it off.
Other teams have injuries too
This might be an interesting thread on its own. My main question about Ohtani is whether he's going to be a two way player for most of his career. Paying him $50M/year to be a 33-43 year old DH seems like a real risk.
I know, it's annoying as hell. The scouts seem to have a real problem picking the right people and developing them. You'd they would have almost gotten a good one by accident in all this time.
