Man. If the season started today . . .
Thank goodness for the lockout?
I was at my neighbor’s house yesterday. He just was putting his tree up. There were NO PRESENTS under it.
Red Sox in season discussion
- Thread starter Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat
- Start date
Thank goodness for the lockout?
I was at my neighbor’s house yesterday. He just was putting his tree up. There were NO PRESENTS under it.
Yeah, at the risk of preaching, maybe it means something that two people who basically never post (me and @Mo Vaughn Over! ) both read your posts and felt the need to chime in. MVO hit on a lot of what I saw/felt as well so I won't repeat that stuff: Suffice to say, a black man who speaks out about perceived racism is, to at least two other posters, not inherently similar to a known malcontent who has shipwrecked his current and previous team-- except for their race and the fact that they like social media. In that context, it's hard to read your posts and not connect some pretty distasteful dots. If that's not your intention then I'm sorry for implying it was—but whether it was innocent error, implicit bias, or something more nefarious, you should know that it reads like a dog whistle to people who don't know you.
If Schwarber gets signed elsewhere for less AAV than JDM I'm going to be a little pissed. Anyone that claims that he's redundant with JDM isn't thinking long-term. JDM is gone after this season, and Schwarber addresses a lefty middle of the order bat with plate discipline and team leadership. He's perfect for Fenway and while I really like Bloom... if doing all this juggling ends up with JBJ, Wacha and Paxton as the centerpieces of the offseason, while Schwarber signs for $15M per season elsewhere.... I'll become much more skeptical of his motives. Is he trying too get praised for putting together teams of winning misfit toys or just trying to put together a winning team? I know the media loves the misfit toys story and it's pretty ego satisfying to be the architect of something that people didn't believe in.....
Just generally will be upset if Schwarber goes elsewhere for less than $18M per year. Bloom should be offering him up to 5 years and up to $19M annually. There's now redundancy now even if Bloom doesn't deal JDM away.
Just generally will be upset if Schwarber goes elsewhere for less than $18M per year. Bloom should be offering him up to 5 years and up to $19M annually. There's now redundancy now even if Bloom doesn't deal JDM away.
While I wont consider any single move a referndum on Bloom's motives, I would be disappointed to lose Schwarber. And even though a 5-year deal probably guarantees one absolutely shitty year of being paid a lot, I agree that that's what it will probably take. There's almost no way to avoid "dead money" (or the MLB equivalent of it) when signing good FA's to longish contracts.
The Sox should put this one up in the clubhouse, to remind certain members it's time to vax up.
Didn't he, uh, trade for Schwarber?
More to the point, I think there's a perfectly logical reason to prefer Martinez to Schwarber, which is that the lineup gets very left-handed very quickly now that Renfroe's gone: Devers, Verdugo, eventually Casas. We don't know what kind of value Martinez would have on the trade market, so it's possible that even if you prefer Schwarber to Martinez, swapping them would not really help in the net. There's also a perfectly logical reason not to want both on the team, which is that neither one can really play the field with any skill. And while I also like Schwarber's plate discipline and team leadership, Martinez is also a tremendously talented hitter who adds a lot to the clubhouse with his mentorship of other hitters.
I mean, I like Kyle Schwarber, and I'd be okay if they re-signed him and we had to watch JD Martinez fall down chasing fly balls a few times a week, but questioning Bloom's motives just because he values Schwarber slightly lower than you do seems like a pretty severe overreaction, no?
EDIT: To add something to the conversation, I think their first preference, assuming Correa doesn't happen (and I still think there's a small but real chance it might), is Suzuki, to add defensive value and balance to the lineup. I think Schwarber is probably Plan B, and I think that's about the right way to look at it.
I don’t question his motives because he takes direction from a boss who, as we know after nearly twenty years, sets the short-term agenda and has no fear of big expensive moves. Bloom’s style is different than, say, Dombrowski, and I wonder what that says about Henry’s current thought process. That said a $150 million dollar contract dropping any time would not surprise me one iota.
Yeah slight overreaction. I’ll just cool it to the point of- I’ll be upset if they let Schwarber go for less than JDM’s current AAV.
Just curious why it matters so much whether it’s Schwarber. I think we all believe Bloom is going to acquire another big bat. I like Schwarber a lot and would love to have him back. But if he signs elsewhere and Bloom gets somebody else good, well I guess that will be fine, too.
Yeah, the Schwarber obsession is weird. Joc Pederson looks more Bloom’s style; he profiles very similarly to Schwarber and should be much cheaper, coming off a down year. His 18-19 were excellent, he’s still only 29. Seems like the type they might be able to get for a year and an option.
As a baseball player, there's no doubt that he is somewhat fungible. I just like the guy. (with the caveat, of course, that that's based solely on his public-facing attitude last year, and the fact that it looks like he put the work in at 1B to go from "hey, I could do that," to "OK, now he looks like a below average major leaguer, which I can't do.") . So while I'd be disapointed, it doesn't mean the team would necessarily be worse off in the end.
That’s fair, he does seem like a pretty good guy and it’s fun to root for players you like, and not a revolving door of players who are only gonna be here for a year or two.
Pederson and Jose Martinez look to me like two guys Bloom should target to if they don’t bring Schwarber back. If it’s true that Kyle is only looking for three years, than it seems like a deal should be doable (once deals can be done, that is).
Pederson and Jose Martinez look to me like two guys Bloom should target to if they don’t bring Schwarber back. If it’s true that Kyle is only looking for three years, than it seems like a deal should be doable (once deals can be done, that is).
How can you possibly tell someone they are claiming racism too often? Are you kidding me? What an absolutely awful post.
And maybe, MAYBE, you'd have some merit if it was actually Marcus Stroman who said that quote and not a COP FROM CA who called into Kay's show. Be better than this, man.
It was a poorly worded post. I take it back. I've not responded to let the Stroman stuff die.
How do you figure that Joc Pederson is Bloom’s style? Or similar to Schwarber? Pederson is a low-OBP power doofus who is unplayable against lefties. He’s Benintendi with a little better power and worse average.
The obsession with Schwarber is that he’s an elite major league hitter. He hasn’t always been, but he is now. You have to buy that the changes he’s made are real, and there’s plenty of evidence that they are, because plate discipline peripherals like chase rate are not subject to luck. Add in the facts that he’s a fan favorite, has had positive and well documented clubhouse impacts, and replaces a downward-trending guy five years his senior at roughly half the cost and keeping him seems like a no-brainer.
I'd rather have Kris Bryant than Kyle Schwarber. Bryant has a career .880 OPS vs. Schwarber's .836. Bryant is much better defensively and can play multiple positions plus is right handed so he would balance the lineup out moreso than Schwarber would.
Career wise, 28 year old Schwarber is 237/343/493 while Pederson is at 232/333/462.
Pederson is a better and more versatile defensive player, too.
Sure, Schwarber has been slightly better, but they are pretty similar players. The most similar batters thru age 28 to Schwarber are Miguel Sano, Pederson (and then Carlos Quentin, Rob Deer, Randal Grichuk, and Rob Deer).
You talk about Schwarber as if he’s Wade Boggs, a .343 career obp is hardly elite and much of his success last year appears driven by a much higher babip than usual.
I think Pederson could be a Bloom guy because he’s a guy coming off a relatively down yet but who was excellent two years ago. His 18/19 #s are virtually indistinguishable from Schwarber.
This FA market seems to really be overweighting the most recent year of data, IMO and Bloom has not done that.
I know you like Schwarber but I think there’s a decent amount of guys similar to him and falling in love with him could be a mistake.
Pederson is a better and more versatile defensive player, too.
Sure, Schwarber has been slightly better, but they are pretty similar players. The most similar batters thru age 28 to Schwarber are Miguel Sano, Pederson (and then Carlos Quentin, Rob Deer, Randal Grichuk, and Rob Deer).
You talk about Schwarber as if he’s Wade Boggs, a .343 career obp is hardly elite and much of his success last year appears driven by a much higher babip than usual.
I think Pederson could be a Bloom guy because he’s a guy coming off a relatively down yet but who was excellent two years ago. His 18/19 #s are virtually indistinguishable from Schwarber.
This FA market seems to really be overweighting the most recent year of data, IMO and Bloom has not done that.
I know you like Schwarber but I think there’s a decent amount of guys similar to him and falling in love with him could be a mistake.
I can better see that argument, but it’s not like Bryant’s such a good fielder anywhere that he wouldn’t be a liability one of these years. The position he’s most valuable at (3B) is already occupied by our best player, so his market will be determined by people who want to play him there. He’s arguably a passable RF (-4 DRS 440 innings over 20-21), but that doesn’t inspire confidence that he’d be able to handle ours.
Bryant’s obviously a very good player, but his arc has been a little odd and he’s farther removed from his best years. I’m fairly swayed by stuff like barrel rate, chase rate and exit velocity, and according to those his bat is not quite as good as Schwarber’s these days.
He's not far removed from his best years at all. By OPS+ since his career started in 2015: 135, 146, 142, 121, 132, 73(only 34 games played), 124. By OPS: .858, .939, .946, .834, .903, .644, .835. He's been a pretty consistent player outside of 2020.
Schwarber himself put up an 88 OPS+ in 2020 which led to his getting non-tendered by the Cubs. He had a great June this year for power and August for discipline and average. It would be nice to have another year's worth of hitting info before committing semi-big dollars and years to a guy who can't really play defense.
Sorry, don’t mean to come across as curt or anything. But yeah, our frameworks are really different here. Lemme try again.
I don’t think it’s super helpful to look at career stats, especially with players who debuted before the age of 24. There’s nothing really instructive to learn from Devers’ first two seasons, is there? I think a lot of players figure things out, or get figured out, and the game changes pretty dynamically over the span of a few years. Stuff like the ability to hit the ball hard and not swing at balls outside the zone are fairly constant and strongly correlate with good hitters, so I weigh them pretty highly.
Re your point about Pederson and Schwarber, I think one of the reasons their stats seem similar to you is that Pederson has been largely shielded from hitting against lefties at all, whereas Schwarber has not (and has hit better against them with time). Only 16.5 percent of Pederson’s career PAs have been against LHP, compared with 23 percent career for Schwarber (league average is about 26 percent).
Schwarber’s power is zapped a little against lefties, but he still put up a .268/.389/.398 line against them last year. That obviously plays — it’s higher than any other Sox hitter against LHP last year. On the other hand, Pederson’s teams have realized that he hits them about as well as anyone they might pull from the stands.
Well, in defense of you, Trotsky, it is true that Bloom has yet to secure an elite player in their prime in his tenure as CBO. I've written about similar apprehension and got basically ridiculed. Maybe, yes, we are both being reactive. I admit that as a preemptive qualifier to this post.
But I think it's an open question: Is it Bloom's MO to avoid expensive contracts entirely, and he will build a team on "misfit toy", reclamation projects, undervalued guys ? I acknowledge that the (interrupted) off-season is early, and that we maybe still haven't seen Phase B Bloom. But we still haven't seen Phase B Bloom. We've seen him pass two good pitchers in ERod, and Matz (there was rumor at least he was in on him) in their prime, and instead pursue a guy out with TJ, a guy who had the worse year of his career, and a 42-year-old ....
Maybe all those acquisitions will work out in total. And maybe at a certain point Bloom will become more aggressive. But it is true that we haven't seen that yet in 2 years.
It’s the 4th inning and the Sox are winning but Cora hasn’t used his closer yet. Now, maybe he will (it’s certainly possible and I don’t want to suggest that it isn’t!) But it’s an open question whether he will. We haven’t SEEN Cora use his closer yet. Maybe the Sox will hold the lead and win the game. But it’s been four innings and we haven’t seen Cora use his closer yet.
I think they are fair questions and don’t need to be met with snark. But perhaps they could be framed as…
-Bloom has yet to hand out a deal for more than 2 years or for more than $10M. He has yet to guarantee a pitcher more than two years. Is this because of circumstances he’s faced so far or a philosophy that he will adhere to going forward?
-The Red Sox have a large amount of their top players hitting FA in the next year, including at C, SS, CF, DH, and potentially the top two starters. How will they handle that? Is he willing to hand out long term deals at FA rates and under what circumstances?
-Bloom has yet to trade a top prospect, and has taken on salary to acquire mid level prospects from other teams. How rigid is this philosophy? Etc etc.
Of course these aren’t questions we know the answers to, but that’s true of almost everything discussed here. Just dismissing it as not worth talking about because of that seems odd, to me at least.
-Bloom has yet to hand out a deal for more than 2 years or for more than $10M. He has yet to guarantee a pitcher more than two years. Is this because of circumstances he’s faced so far or a philosophy that he will adhere to going forward?
-The Red Sox have a large amount of their top players hitting FA in the next year, including at C, SS, CF, DH, and potentially the top two starters. How will they handle that? Is he willing to hand out long term deals at FA rates and under what circumstances?
-Bloom has yet to trade a top prospect, and has taken on salary to acquire mid level prospects from other teams. How rigid is this philosophy? Etc etc.
Of course these aren’t questions we know the answers to, but that’s true of almost everything discussed here. Just dismissing it as not worth talking about because of that seems odd, to me at least.
I think it's dismissed with snark because it's the same damn questions (and jumping to conclusions) over and over and over again, as if the unknowable answers have changed since the last time they were asked. Every move Bloom has made has been met with "is this a trend?" whether it has a positive or negative outcome. It's not really a fun topic, IMO.
I think the error in the whole train of thought behind these questions is that there really is no rigid overarching philosophy being followed except trying to do the very best to keep improving the ball club, both on the field and for the future.
I dont think questions are being dismissed, except to note that "has yet to" is a bit premature, especialy considering that the period of "as-yet-to-ness" included a trip to the ALCS. I think answers to those questions based on what we know now *are* being dismissed. And even some of the questions seem premised on uncertainty as to whether the GM is a functional adult.
I think if there's any trend to what Bloom has done so far, it's restocking the farm system with mid- to high-level prospects. As fun as it was watching Dombrowski wheeling and dealing, my recollection of his time here was that he threw too many prospects at other teams to get deals done, which hurt the team in the long run. Here's a pretty good list of his trade history with Boston. He'd often throw in 2-4 prospects to get high-level players - helps the team in the short term, but by 2020 we've got a pretty barren farm system because of it, and we're forced to sell off valuable players because there's no low-cost help on the horizon.
Bloom seems to be doing the opposite right now - acquiring prospects, restocking the farm system, drafting interesting pieces, and augmenting the core with low-cost, high-upside players. It's the beginning of the type of cyclical team-building that the Dodgers and Rays are so good at. In another 2-3 years, we can begin dealing from a position of strength again - but I don't think we're ever going to see Bloom playing Dealin' Dave unless the return is incredibly enticing (Scherzer + Turner, etc.).
This has been discussed to death, but it’s still interesting. Almost none of the players Dave traded came back to bite us. Everyone’s MMV with the Sale for Moncada and Kopech deal, but it’s defensible and we had a redundant star 3B prospect.
I kind of think Dave’s problem was not dealing enough. Bloom is constantly doing these smaller deals and I think it helps quite a bit. Dave’s biggest black mark in my book is not trading Benintendi for pitching after 2018, followed by not moving Porcello after either of his lucky good years, but both would have been pretty unpopular moves at the time.
It’s hard to compare the two tenures so far. Bloom’s time here has been completely defined by the pandemic, which has had all sorts of downstream effects on scouting, roster management and service and development time. I think his team is better equipped to take advantage of that stuff. I sometimes liked Dave’s sure-handed style, but I’m glad my GM didn’t give Didi Gregorius $28 million.
I fully agree with your assessment that Bloom is trying to restock the farm system and am happy for it. That said I ask you to look at the article you linked and tell me which of these "throw ins" hurt the team in the long run. I'm really not seeing much there. The very best of our farm system (Bogaerts, Betts, Bradley, Benintendi, Vazquez, Rodriquez, etc...) had all been elevated to the major league level during that time period and that along with some bad draft classes is as as much if not more responsible for the shape that the farm system was left in.
You're not incorrect. Though with Dombrowski, it isn't so much that he dealt a ton of prospects away (vanishingly few of them amounted to anything the Sox could use now) so much as he wasn't very effective at replacing them. But the overall point is the same, Bloom inherited a mess and is still working his way out of it. To put it in the context of the previous era, we're at the 2013-2014 stage right now (this year's ALCS team = the 2013 championship team...kinda outta nowhere). The key right now is to avoid the Hanley/Sandoval type pitfall contracts en route to having a system that can be exploited Dombrowski-style to build a powerhouse.
He sure got the better of the Rays in the Jalen Beeks for Nate Eovaldi trade and the Rays paid for it in 2021.
I also see nothing regrettable in the Kimbrel deal and have no second thoughts about the cost for Sale.
Just because the prospects DD traded didn’t amount to much doesn’t mean they didn’t have potentially more value than they were used for, though. Cherington was kind of the opposite - he held on to a lot of guys too long to the point where they had no value. Ultimately, DD seems like a guy who wanted to get deals done quickly. Did he give up too much at times? That’s possible but it’s also possible that bid approach got deals done and avoided losing players he really wanted.
I think Bloom’s approach is going to allow the Sox to compete each year and be flexible enough to pivot quickly.
Finding great value with Pivetta, Hernandez, and Renfroe was fantastic- as those guys get more expensive, do you compensate them with fair market value or do you look for the next version of them? I know this question bores some to tears but it fascinates me.
I think Bloom’s approach is going to allow the Sox to compete each year and be flexible enough to pivot quickly.
Finding great value with Pivetta, Hernandez, and Renfroe was fantastic- as those guys get more expensive, do you compensate them with fair market value or do you look for the next version of them? I know this question bores some to tears but it fascinates me.
So we have known unknowns, and unknown knowns. Those we can deal with, but not as well as we can with known knows. When you want to start discussing unknown unknowns, then you are operating in a whole 'nother universe from the rest of us
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Wasn't some of the retrospective analysis on Dombrowski's tenure also that he was a little *too* ready to tack on a prospect or two onto deals? Even if the prospects given up don't amount to anything useful, they still had value at the time. I think of prospects like different kinds of scratch-off lotto tickets that you have and are bartering with. Just because some of the $1 ones aren't winners doesn't mean you should just give them away. Like the guys we got from the JBJ/Renfroe swap---sure, they may never turn into productive big leaguers and they are lower-ranked prospects from a not great farm system. But they are still worth something, and now we have them. I always felt like Dombrowski was always a little too happy to tack on an extra prospect or two with his deals. Sure, those guys rarely pan out to be much, but if you keep adding them on, you run out of them and then you don't have any more to add as a sweetener.
Add to this that Price was a FA and given a 7 year 217M contract. The same sort of contract that some are crushing Bloom for not yet handing out.
Sure, in hindsight very few of those players amounted to anything. But at the time, some of these guys were highly-rated. Brad Ziegler cost us a top-20 prospect plus a promising 20-year old pitcher with 45 strikeouts in 53 innings in Low-A. Hell, half a season of Addison Reed cost us 3 pitchers who were ranked 18th, 23rd, and 28th on MLB Pipeline at the time.
All those throw-ins and sweeteners, while they did help the team in the short term, eventually lead to long-term problems.
IMO, not being able to replace those guys as well those stars that were elevated to the majors with good talent was the issue. Most of the players we're talking about here were nothing, their loss meant nothing. In effect we got the absolute most that we could have hoped for out of Beeks and those involved in the Kimbrel trade.
I agree that he might have been a little too eager to tack on one of those "$1" prospects, but ultimately the failing of the Dombrowski era was not replenishing the system he gutted. Sure, keeping a few more of those nothing prospects has value, but probably only in the sense that they could have been used to replenish depth in other ways.
At the risk of seeming like I'm stalking you, I'd like to reiterate that the two "good pitchers" that you keep bringing up (Matz and ERod) are not bell cow pitchers. Matz is below league average ERA+ for his career with a crap FIP to go with it. ERod's career numbers are better, but he was league average last year ERA+ (better FIP) after missing 2020 (not his fault). Not just "not sure bets", but kind of risky both.
Now, that doesn't mean that they won't be good pitchers next year. ERod in particular had a better FIP than his ERA+ would imply. And maybe Matz has finally figured it out after four blah years in a row.
But your premise seems to be that Bloom not pushing his chips into the middle for those guys implies that he won't do it for the right guys. And these facts are not in evidence.