I do think Story can play short, I also don't see how Story, Mayer and Yorke are all a part of this team in the somewhat near future. And Yorke doesn't really have the type of bat that would make him valuable in many other spots, he's the first guy I'd be trying to include in a deal this off-season.
I think they've got at least a year to figure it out, maybe longer. All three could be on the same roster if one of them is the back-up/utility player. Most likely that would be Yorke, which means that you are correct, he's more likely to be a trade chip than a part of the team's future.
Because Mayer is also at AA and a better prospect, I think ideally Story goes back to 2b and he's handling short. Sure, Yorke could be a utility infielder, and a valuable piece to the major league team, I just think odds are someone will value him as more than that in a trade.
I don't dislike Bloom but do you realize how crazy it is for a big market GM's best moves over 4 years to potentially be those?
I really don’t think it’s crazy at all if the strategy is to build a foundation of cost controlled players before doing anything splashy. We might not prefer that strategy, but isn’t that sort of what the Braves did when they were creating this juggernaut?
I prefaced my earlier comment along those lines, we really don't know the extent to which ownership was directing this process. Perhaps he just wasn't able to make more impactful immediate impact moves and he was just playing the hand he was dealt. Entirely possible he had no choice but to play the long game.
This is entirely fair, and the story (hah) hasn't been written on some of the deals. We've yet to see what the back half of Story's deal will provide, or how Yoshida will adjust to his second year, whether Urias will go back to himself, whether Wong takes a leap, whether Abreu becomes a middle-of-the-order bat, etc. We all want to judge Blooms tenure now, and it's clear that while he was here, the team did not compete most of the time, it's also clear he made a few deals that have the potential to be huge value-adds. N
The multi-million dollar question is whether the plan is to lock up Casas and Bello long term. I'm not savvy enough to know if the timing is right(i.e., when is the right time to make some of your cheap guys no longer cheap), but my fandom says do it tomorrow.
Let me get outside SoSH's window with my Bloombox on my shoulder and say something outrageous: the Vasquez for Abreu/Valdez has the chance to be a boner on the level of the Bagwell deal for the Astros.
I remember listening to a game earlier in the year when Dalbec had just gotten called up. The radio guys said they had been talking to him and that Dalbec had gone out of his way to tell them that this Abreu kid at AAA was different, that he was a very special hitter.
For sure, the list is fortunately pretty long. Even recent top picks like Mayer and Teel too (among others).
Hadn't heard that! The adjustments Abreu made this year are really fascinating. K rate dropped by 6% (6!), probably with the help of robo-umps, but despite that, he still had a BB of 16%. When he swings at marginal stuff he's often checking in with the umps to see if he should have laid off. I take that as a sign of a really mature hitter. Fascinating to see his strends. A+ ball he really looked like nothing special - the K rate was astronomical. The changes he's made since then show a hitter who's really a student of the game.
I’m pretty sure that Dombrowski’s habit of making 4 and 5 for 1 trades had more to do with the absence of upper minors talent.
They don’t need to be, Story gives them the leisure to let Yorke and Mayer develop and to trade one (read Yorke) when the opportunity arises.
The whole thing with Dombrowski leaving the cupboards bare issue is multifaceted. I've often mentioned that during that particular period of time all of the best young talent had been recently promoted to the bigs. Within just a couple of seasons we saw Bogearts, Betts, Bradley, Benintendi, Vazquez, Swihart, Beeks and Devers making their way to Boston. Without much coming up behind them, the actual depth of the remaining talent wasn't good.To his credit, DD was pretty steadfast in refusing to deal from that young core, but it resulted in having to make the 4 or 5 for 1s that @nighthob mentions. So not only was the remaining talent not all that great, but all of a sudden there was a shortage of suitable bodies to fill AAA and AA rosters.
This post nails it.
