Say it with me: there is no ethical consumption under capitalism.
I don't know that anyone's seriously threatened to jump ship yet and I must say that I love this post.
That could certainly be the case. Mind you if they don't sign him, we'll never know the real reasons or who made the final call.
Along these lines I’m trying, fitfully, to let go of a least some cynicism around the RS and their bullet catching shill.
I think rolling the dice on hitting with at least 2 of the Crawford, Houck, Whitlock and Winchowski is a higher risk than rolling the dice on Montgomery. And honestly I don't see how it would even be a situation where it has to be one or the other. I don't think Whitlock should be sniffing the rotation right now- and I'm saying this as someone that was 100% moving him to the rotation last season to find out what they had, and the answer was: likely injured. If they DON'T sign JM, and only one of those 4 guys looks like they can stick as a rotation guy that puts them in a really shitty situation after '24 with basically only 3 starters. Maybe Fitts or Wikelman are outfitted to do the same thing after '24 then?
I couldn’t igure out their hats. I mean, was it an ‘M’ or were they trying to spell out Expos?
I think this is a strong possibility. If nothing else, it seems that they've at least made a highly competitive offer and think they have a strong chance of landing him once he stops messing around.
Meh - I think there are options between "I will only root for an ethical owner" Pollyannaism and "whatever, nobody's ethical" nihilist resignation. I'll say that although there's a baseline level of unethicalness in capitalism, there's still a level of ownership bad behavior beyond which I'd stop supporting the Red Sox. (Although I hope to never find out what that level is.)
It was actually a three in one design. The overall shape was supposed to represent an "M" for Montreal, the red at the left end of the logo was a lower case "e" for Expos and the blue, lower case "b" at the right end was for baseball. Put together it was "Montreal Expos Baseball". It was all tilted towards the right to represent forward movement. For the record, I really liked their tri-color hats.
I thought it was another one of those designer-smuggles-in-a-phallus things.
I think I was maybe 4 years old and went to a game with my Old Man. We had front row seats at CF and in between innings he noticed that there was a baseball right at the base of the wall so he lowered me down onto the actual field to pick it up. A security guard ran over and I got scared so just started running across the outfield to who the fuck knows where. Anyhow... hilarity ensued. I was caught and my father, my brother and I got escorted out of the game without the ball.
There is an episode where George is trying to decide what team to root for. I stole that line from him.
For the record, I think everything you posted is entirely possible, with the way that Breslow views the roster. Entirely possible.
I'll push back a bit on the OF comment. Do you have inside info?
I have ten bucks that says if Musk bought FSG this place'd become The Sons of Thurman Munson.
I think the catchers are likely below average. But, I have a hard time seeing the OF assessment as being a possible perspective, as each of those players (plus O'neill) could/should be average or above if deployed properly. As for the rotation, if Crawford or Pivetta were on the Mariners, we'd be clamoring for a trade, so I again think your potential perspective is too pessimistic to be a plausible belief by Breslow.
I didn't mean this in any way to come off as having any inside information, sorry if it came off as such. I was responding to the post from @Dewey'sCannon (which again is totally plausible) about the optimistic side of the coin and why it might make sense not to sign Monty or similar. I was merely providing another (yes, pessimistic) viewpoint of why it also might make sense not to sign Monty (or similar).
Crawford sure. Pivetta no way (and to be clear as a starter I like Pivetta more than Crawford, Houck, Whitlock or Winckowski and it's not particularly close. I want him extended yesterday, personally). That said, I have literally zero interest in one year pitching. Pivetta has one year left. I'd have no interest in trading for him (or anyone on a one year deal) whatsoever. I have no interest in signing a one year contract either.
Is it? I mean, beyond the variance of health?
I think so.
No apologies necessary, but now that I have a moment I'll just clarify what/why I was asking. I think Breslow's on record as saying he'll entertain offers on most players. I'm not sure that means that he's been trying to trade these guys, but it's certainly a possibility. That's why I was wondering if you knew something more than what the rest of us might. It was the other bit about the entire OF being a :"AAAA players and an over paid DH". That really got my attention. I suppose everyone's MMV to some extent concerning the definition of a AAAA player, but to me it's a guy who has had a good deal of success in the MiL and despite several opportunities could never put it all together as a major leaguer. I think the best current example we have may be Dalbec, but his story's not quite complete. Abreau's rookie status is still intact and while I personally am not 100% sold on Duran yet he was for a period of time by far the most exciting player on the team. I'll grant you that might be a low bar, but he cleared it quite handly. At this point I think that it might be short sighted to write of either of those players as AAAA.
Just to be clear, even I‘m not quite that bearish on the players I mentioned. I like Duran. I think from Crawford, Houck, Winckowski and Whitlock you’re going to get one long term (back half) of the rotation starter and some high leverage bullpen arms. I really like Rafaela.
I'm with you here on Duran. He has a lot to prove, but writing him off as AAAA seems like a clear mistake for someone who just put up ~350 PA at a 3.5-4 WAR/600 PA rate. Depending on if you are looking at a minimum of 400 PA or qualified OF, by fWAR a slightly above average MLB OF is around 2.1-2.3 WAR.
The James quote is kind of a head scratcher for sure, but I also think he has an axe to grind with the organization for some reason that I don't really know. From his Wikiepedia:
I don't think the James quote is a nothingburger, necessarily, and while I am not nearly the expert he is (nor are any of us), I see as roster that is middle of the pack in MLB at worst, and has a lot of upside to go with that. I think the "needing 18 people to fill the roster" quote is an absolutely ridiculous take from a guy who is way smarter than to need to resort to histrionics. I will grant that "middle of the pack in MLB" is a rough place to be in the AL East right now, but I don't think there were many moves that could have been made this offseason to move them into the "top 5 in baseball" level, or whatever it is everyone seems to think they need to get to in order to "compete". Montgomery would make them better, but I don't think he makes them 10 or more teams better in the grand scheme of things.
But should the Sox spend $6.9M on the Dalbec roll? Normally I’d say “it’s only money” given their proximity to the LT threshold, but with a much more limited payroll it might actually be tight and I think they have to wait to see how Monty shakes out before making any expensive depth moves for the back end of the bench (that would’ve been no brainers in early years).
Chapman/Boras evidently turned down twice that amount for him earlier and TOR moved on.
I am just a cage in search of a bird.
Interestingly enough, James retired literally the day before Bloom was hired. It‘s entirely plausible that Bloom wasn’t going to continue to utilize his insights, and someone that had been with the organization for over 15 years and 4 titles was given the chance to “retire.” That would give him a big axe to grind against Bloom and would likely color his opinion of the roster Bloom put together that Breslow took over. Entirely plausible scenario for him having an axe to grind and a somewhat extreme opinion.
I have doubled back on this discussion and played with some historical data. I now think that, although his comment was timely in the spring of 2004, Schilling’s opinion about starters’ health was somewhat over stated.
There's a lot of context needed for the 1980 A's, they were kind of a special case.
Martin's heavy use of the starters worked well in 1981(possibly helped by the 2-month-long strike in the middle of the season, which gave the starters an unusual long break to recharge.)
The A's had the best record in the league and made the playoffs f or the first time in 6 tears, reaching the ALCS. Their main 5 starters completed 60 the 109 games they started.
Martin basically abused his talented young starters in 1980 and 1981 and it worked great for a little while before the whole thing crashed in 1982.
