Let's Lay Off That Throttle

Alex Cole's Rec Specs · Jan 17, 2024

I don't consider myself to be an angry or reactionary fan, and I'll go on record as saying I was willing to be patient to see Chaim Bloom's plan come to fruition.

With that said, ownership made it pretty clear that Bloom was fired because they expect stronger results from the major league team. Currently, at best, the roster is about the same in terms of talent than it was in 2023. One could easily argue with the departure of Turner and Duvall, the roster is currently worse.

It makes absolutely no sense for the Red Sox to fire the general manager because the team didn't win enough games over the past two seasons, and then set a fairly conservative spending limit on the new general manager so that he can't improve the major league roster in any meaningful way.

Only one of two things can be true:

1. Breslow intends to spend but he's waiting out an unusually sluggish market
2. John Henry, Tom Werner, and Sam Kennedy are idiots who think that the same strategy of mostly sitting out free agent spending and waiting for deals will somehow yield different results

The fact that Jordan Montgomery, the most obvious Red Sox free agent target other than Yamamoto, is still out there gives me hope that #1 is true. But the fact that Werner and Breslow keep signaling that quality pitching of any kind is too expensive makes me worried...

TomRicardo · Jan 17, 2024

jbupstate said:
He’s now one of the Red Sox’ best pitching prospects in the upper minors, but that says more about the poor state of the organization’s pitching than it does about Fitts.

You literally just used a quote that disproved your primary thesis to try to prove a minor point to prove your thesis. Bold strategy Cotton.

If Fitts somehow at 24 in AAA finds a third pitch, yea he could be a starter. it is not impossible. Hell any pitcher in the organization could convert to a knuckleballer and be super valuable to the organization if he could throw it like Wakefield. The likelihood of these things are small and very tiny.

I think you and Rovin confuse realistically evaluating talent and cheering for or against their development. No one wants the prospects of the Red Sox to suck. But they have X amount of value which helps you look at them as trade chips or future pieces to the team.

The Red Sox currently suck. They came into the off season the worst team in the division and did nothing major to improve their team while no one above them did anything to drastically make their team take a step back. Two teams above them have more young talent you would think would improve. All this doesn't necessarily mean the Red Sox will lose the division but looking at Vegas the safe bet is that they will.

Trying to build a team with hope and best case scenarios isn't realistic.

nvalvo · Jan 17, 2024

Alex Cole's Rec Specs said:
I don't consider myself to be an angry or reactionary fan, and I'll go on record as saying I was willing to be patient to see Chaim Bloom's plan come to fruition.

With that said, ownership made it pretty clear that Bloom was fired because they expect stronger results from the major league team. Currently, at best, the roster is about the same in terms of talent than it was in 2023. One could easily argue with the departure of Turner and Duvall, the roster is currently worse.

It makes absolutely no sense for the Red Sox to fire the general manager because the team didn't win enough games over the past two seasons, and then set a fairly conservative spending limit on the new general manager so that he can't improve the major league roster in any meaningful way.

Only one of two things can be true:

1. Breslow intends to spend but he's waiting out an unusually sluggish market
2. John Henry, Tom Werner, and Sam Kennedy are idiots who think that the same strategy of mostly sitting out free agent spending and waiting for deals will somehow yield different results

The fact that Jordan Montgomery, the most obvious Red Sox free agent target other than Yamamoto, is still out there gives me hope that #1 is true. But the fact that Werner and Breslow keep signaling that quality pitching of any kind is too expensive makes me worried...

Or they’re negotiating with Boras through the press.

dynomite · Jan 17, 2024

Max Power said:
Yes. I don't know how this is even debatable. If they're both great, the team is going to win a bunch of games. Who cares if that doesn't mean they're going to repeat that performance for the Red Sox the following year? The 2018 team won 108 games and rolled to the World Series. Basically the same roster came back the next year and won 84 games. Past results are no guarantee of future performance, especially on a baseball field.

Right exactly, and I think this is the logical conclusion of the knots even diehard fans have been tying themselves into. In short, we are being asked to prioritize the hopes of winning in the future over the practical requirements of winning now, so much so that we aren't even sure whether to... root for the team to be good in 2024?

It's like this post which I've decided to post from another thread, since many of these threads seem to be debating the same topics:

103mph Screwball said:
I want to see some development of young talent. Moreso, I want to see some semblance of a plan. Develop young talent, and get turned back into a perennial contender. They're the Boston Red Sox, not the Twins. As long as they continue to charge the highest gameday experience in the league, they'd better start doing some winning, or at least showing a real plan of how they intend to do so.

My issue is I see the long-term plan -- develop prospects and become a winner from 2026-2030 or so. That's great.

But what about in the short-term? The point of a professional baseball team is not to develop prospects and not to maximize value. It's to win as many baseball games at the Major League level as possible.

The Red Sox have won 4 World Series this century, the ballpark is gorgeous, and Sox games are the soundtrack of summer. That buys from me a lifetime of gratitude and contentment.

It’s a good thing, too, because the fact that they finished last 2 years in a row and 3 of the last 4 and have responded by a little smart tinkering at the margins this offseason (so far, to be fair) and now seem to be telling fans “Just wait another few seasons” would be deeply infuriating otherwise. Especially since from 2003-2018 the team showed us again and again that they could focus both short- and long-term, contending for World Series titles while keeping an eye on the future.

sezwho · Jan 17, 2024

RS2004foreever said:
The following seems clear to me (though I get others won't see it this way)
1. The starting pitching is weak.
2. Attempts to acquire pitchers via trade are at impasse because the other teams want too much and some of our non-big 3 assets aren't worth a lot.
3. It is getting late in the FA market.
If we do nothing we are punting on '24 with no real direction for '25 given the state of the pitching on the farm other than signing free agents, which gets us right back to where we are right now.
I don't see how anyone can discern a plan at all here.

Hard to argue with that but I do want to parse the bolded.

Teams are very likely looking for the Right Amount. What I continue to suspect, apparently on a island, is it’s not as smart as we think to draft toolsy middle infielders then swap them for quality pitching when the position players then pan out at a much higher rate.

I can’t believe no one else see this obvious pitching market dislocation. It’s going to cost significant blood (prospects) and/or treasure to get a good starter and I’m not sure why we need to ‘time’ it right. Do we not want to win next year either? Does the window slam shut in three years if we get a pitcher and win a couple games over the next couple years?

TomRicardo · Jan 17, 2024

Alex Cole's Rec Specs said:
Only one of two things can be true:

1. Breslow intends to spend but he's waiting out an unusually sluggish market
2. John Henry, Tom Werner, and Sam Kennedy are idiots who think that the same strategy of mostly sitting out free agent spending and waiting for deals will somehow yield different results

Eh I think ownership has a completely unrealistic view of the market and also don't want to defer salary which makes almost no sense right now. That said, they definitely think they can out wait Boras which is where I think they are being unrealistic. Boras knows they are going to get merciless boo'd by the 25K or so that actually bother to opening day as presently constructed. Ownership knows how bad ticket sales are right now and have endlessly tried to posture like things will be fixed but the cancelling the Town Hall probably means it is going poorly. I guess owning the local media doesn't as much as they thought...

I really wish they just gave Breslow a budget but it looks like they are actively involved at least from Sam Kennedy's level with major deals. Typical management believing in success of their subordinates in the past in a different market was their success. I wonder if there is a point where they fire Sam Kennedy.

Rovin Romine · Jan 17, 2024

TomRicardo said:
I think you and Rovin confuse realistically evaluating talent and cheering for or against their development.

I think you're so stuck on pushing your argument you don't take the time to read what people write.

Me:

Rovin Romine said:
It's thin (and Fitts needs a third pitch), but. . .

JB:

jbupstate said:
The state of SP in the farm system isn’t good but Fitts is now highly ranked in it. He “might” have figured something out and maybe Breslow can add to it.

And then he bolded the part of the quotation he offered, saying the system is thin and Fitts is far from certain. The same part that you jumped on as if he was trying to conceal it or didn't understand what it meant.

You:

TomRicardo said:
If Fitts somehow at 24 in AAA finds a third pitch, yea he could be a starter. it is not impossible. Hell any pitcher in the organization could convert to a knuckleballer and be super valuable to the organization if he could throw it like Wakefield. The likelihood of these things are small and very tiny.

It's like the Monty Python Argument sketch.

HangingW/ScottCooper · Jan 17, 2024

BigSoxFan said:
We’d all love the Atlanta model but that model is nearly impossible to replicate. They signed Acuna for $100K and he turned into an MVP while signing one of the most team-friendly long term deals in sports history. And then Albies did the same along with Harris.

I think the Rangers model is more of our sweet spot. Some heavy FA spending combined with cheap farm talent and the occasional surprise like Adolis was.

They had this opportunity with home grown guys. I know the ship has sailed but Mookie and Devers were the Seager and Semien in the Rangers model. Now we have to wait and hope that Casas, Anthony and/or Mayer can fill that void. Ownership made a generational misstep in not breaking the bank for Mookie and it's led to a prolonged rebuild.

dynomite · Jan 17, 2024

HangingW/ScottCooper said:
They had this opportunity with home grown guys. I know the ship has sailed but Mookie and Devers were the Seager and Semien in the Rangers model. Now we have to wait and hope that Casas, Anthony and/or Mayer can fill that void. Ownership made a generational misstep in not breaking the bank for Mookie and it's led to a prolonged rebuild.

Right (although I don't understand the Rangers model comparison).

Similarly I don't want to turn this into yet another Mookie thread, but the Red Sox had the chance to pursue the exact same "Atlanta model." Mookie, Devers, Xander, JBJ, Benintendi, ERod -- the Atlanta model would have been to extend all of them, lock them up for their prime years, then to build around them with smart trades and free agents (JDM, Sale, Kimbrel, Eovaldi, etc.)

And... that worked! They were the best Red Sox team of all time. Then, for a number of reasons that continue to be debated endlessly, the franchise decided to tear down that core and start over.

DeJesus Built My Hotrod · Jan 17, 2024

TomRicardo said:
Eh I think ownership has a completely unrealistic view of the market and also don't want to defer salary which makes almost no sense right now. That said, they definitely think they can out wait Boras which is where I think they are being unrealistic. Boras knows they are going to get merciless boo'd by the 25K or so that actually bother to opening day as presently constructed. Ownership knows how bad ticket sales are right now and have endlessly tried to posture like things will be fixed but the cancelling the Town Hall probably means it is going poorly. I guess owning the local media doesn't as much as they thought...

I really wish they just gave Breslow a budget but it looks like they are actively involved at least from Sam Kennedy's level with major deals. Typical management believing in success of their subordinates in the past in a different market was their success. I wonder if there is a point where they fire Sam Kennedy.

Aside from just making their return, the possibility that I keep coming around to is that this ownership group simply doesn't feel like it has the resources to take risks on the higher end players/deferred contracts etc. I again go back the crazy quote from Mark Cuban/Tilman Fertitta about "middle class billionaires" after he sold the Dallas Mavericks this past fall:

"I mean, financially, we're in a far better position this afternoon than we were yesterday afternoon to be able to compete like that. So what did [Houston Rockets owner] Tilman [Fertitta] say about being a middle-class billionaire? Those are facts in this day and age. It really matters. So having the partnership and having eventually new and deeper revenue sources allows us to compete better."

I don't know FSG is constrained but they haven't behaved if they can actually afford the best players available for a very long while.

Big Papi's Mango Salsa · Jan 17, 2024

sezwho said:
Teams are very likely looking for the Right Amount. What I continue to suspect, apparently on a island, is it’s not as smart as we think to draft toolsy middle infielders then swap them for quality pitching when the position players then pan out at a much higher rate.

I can’t believe no one else see this obvious pitching market dislocation. It’s going to cost significant blood (prospects) and/or treasure to get a good starter and I’m not sure why we need to ‘time’ it right. Do we not want to win next year either? Does the window slam shut in three years if we get a pitcher and win a couple games over the next couple years?

First off - this has nothing to do with "smart" or "intelligent." I think that every person in every front office is assuredly smarter than I am.

However, to the bigger point, you're not on an island. I've been making this claim about the prior FO putting zero emphasis (in terms of spending of significant capital) on controllable starting pitching since I started posting.

As to the draft, I agree that a ton of teams are taking this approach. So what happens when you try to sell your guys (lets say for Dylan Cease, just as an example) you get no traction because not only do plenty of teams have their own versions of these guys, but the team you're trying to trade them to does as well. For example, FG has Boston's system as 2nd and ChW's as 12th. They also have their own version of Marcelo Mayer (Colson Montgomery, but I suppose he wasn't hurt and put up an .828OPS in AA), Nick Yorke (Jose Rodriguez), Cespedes (Jacob Gonzalez), and got their own version of Kyle Teel (Egar Quero) for 1/3 a season of...Lucas Giolito (but that is because LAA are dumb - so maybe I shouldn't say "every front office".

Now, I think Breslow is here in part because he (and the Cubs) focus on spending actual assets for starting pitching (in terms of on the FA market and with high draft picks) and that is a large part of why Bloom is gone. Unfortunately, from a pitching standpoint, Breslow is starting from scratch because it's been looked at as a "throw a bunch of **** against the wall to see what sticks" and nothing has stuck or it's still so far away that we still have no idea if it will stick.

Which means the team is honestly kind of in year two of a long rebuild as opposed to year five. It sucks, but it's where they're at.

jbupstate · Jan 17, 2024

TomRicardo said:
You literally just used a quote that disproved your primary thesis to try to prove a minor point to prove your thesis. Bold strategy Cotton.

If Fitts somehow at 24 in AAA finds a third pitch, yea he could be a starter. it is not impossible. Hell any pitcher in the organization could convert to a knuckleballer and be super valuable to the organization if he could throw it like Wakefield. The likelihood of these things are small and very tiny.

I think you and Rovin confuse realistically evaluating talent and cheering for or against their development. No one wants the prospects of the Red Sox to suck. But they have X amount of value which helps you look at them as trade chips or future pieces to the team.

The Red Sox currently suck. They came into the off season the worst team in the division and did nothing major to improve their team while no one above them did anything to drastically make their team take a step back. Two teams above them have more young talent you would think would improve. All this doesn't necessarily mean the Red Sox will lose the division but looking at Vegas the safe bet is that they will.

Trying to build a team with hope and best case scenarios isn't realistic.

I’m not trying to prove anything. I’m not confused… the Sox currently suck.

It takes some effort and a certain amount of courage to post on SOSH. It a great place to learn and be a fan of the Sox (even when we don’t disagree).

But my real question for you is this…

What makes you feel it’s your responsibility to break down certain posts (from certain members) that you don’t agree with?

You could choose to ignore. End of day you jumped on a post that didn’t require 100s of words in response. You generally have a lot of good things to say but you regularly have the need to win that comes across more bully than teacher.

The underlined is true. But end of day some of us know the score but chose to have hope.

dynomite · Jan 17, 2024

Big Papi's Mango Salsa said:
Which means the team is honestly kind of in year two of a long rebuild as opposed to year five. It sucks, but it's where they're at.

I guess my question with this is: why? Why is it a long rebuild?

With a $180M+ payroll, a solid middle of the order in Devers/Casas/Story (11th most runs scored in MLB last season with black holes at SS and 2B) and some other solid pieces across the roster, it doesn't feel to me like the 2024 Red Sox are hopeless. Indeed, as we've been debating on here for 3+ months now, they seem a top SP and another RH power bat away from aggressively contending for a Wild Card spot this season.

It's fair to disagree with that premise -- maybe you think Bello won't develop, that Story can't stay healthy, that Grissom isn't ready to hit at the ML level, etc.

But if you agree with that premise, many of the questions on this board seem to revolve around the same question: if they can't pull off a reasonable trade, why won't the Red Sox spend the ~$35M-$45M this season it would take to fill those needs (with one of Montgomery or Snell, plus one of Duvall, Turner, or Soler)? Even doing so would leave the Sox payroll below the CBT, at only about 6th/7th highest in the league (behind the Braves, Phillies, Rangers, and Astros), and still with plenty of payroll flexibility in 2026.

jbupstate · Jan 17, 2024

dynomite said:
why won't the Red Sox spend the ~$35M-$45M this season it would take to fill those needs (with one of Montgomery or Snell, plus one of Duvall, Turner, or Soler)?

If the Sox somehow signed Montgomery to a market rate 5-6 year deal…

Would that be considered a successful offseason?

Would it be easier to place some more hope of development of the kids and breakouts for Devers/Casas/Houck?

SouthernBoSox · Jan 17, 2024

dynomite said:
I guess my question with this is: why? Why is it a long rebuild?

With a $180M+ payroll, a solid middle of the order in Devers/Casas/Story (11th most runs scored in MLB last season with black holes at SS and 2B) and some other solid pieces across the roster, it doesn't feel to me like the 2024 Red Sox are hopeless. Indeed, as we've been debating on here for 3+ months now, they seem a top SP and another RH power bat away from aggressively contending for a Wild Card spot this season.

It's fair to disagree with that premise -- maybe you think Bello won't develop, that Story can't stay healthy, that Grissom isn't ready to hit at the ML level, etc.

But if you agree with that premise, many of the questions on this board seem to revolve around the same question: if they can't pull off a reasonable trade, why won't the Red Sox spend the ~$35M-$45M this season it would take to fill those needs (with one of Montgomery or Snell, plus one of Duvall, Turner, or Soler)? Even doing so would leave the Sox payroll below the CBT, at only about 6th/7th highest in the league (behind the Braves, Phillies, Rangers, and Astros), and still with plenty of payroll flexibility in 2026.

100% this. This is why this Breslow quote sucks so bad....

“And it’s going to require aggressive player development in the minor leagues and the major leagues so guys that we think are the next wave — Mayer and Anthony and Teel, that group — are not just big leaguers but impact big leaguers.

“The convergence of all those pieces is the fastest path to a World Series team . . . We want to build this thing in a way that there’s not just quality once in a while but there’s quality paired with consistency.

It's just not true. It's not true. You can absolutely add Montgomery and a right handed hitter (Turner/Soler) and compete for a World Series in 2024 if you get some other positive outcomes with Story, Giolito, Bello, etc.

Big Papi's Mango Salsa · Jan 17, 2024

dynomite said:
I guess my question with this is: why? Why is it a long rebuild?

With a $200M payroll, a solid middle of the order in Devers/Casas/Story (11th most runs scored in MLB last season with black holes at SS and 2B) and some other solid pieces across the roster, it doesn't feel to me like the 2024 Red Sox are hopeless. Indeed, as we've been debating on here for 3+ months now, they seem a top SP and another RH power bat away from aggressively contending for a Wild Card spot this season.

It's fair to disagree with that premise -- maybe you think Bello won't develop, that Story can't stay healthy, that Grissom isn't ready to hit at the ML level, etc.

But if you agree with that premise, many of the questions on this board seem to revolve around the same question: if they can't pull off a reasonable trade, why won't the Red Sox spend the ~$35M-$45M this season it would take to fill those needs (with one of Montgomery or Snell, plus one of Duvall, Turner, or Soler)? Even doing so would leave the Sox payroll below the CBT, at only about 6th/7th highest in the league (behind the Braves, Phillies, Rangers, and Astros), and still with plenty of payroll flexibility in 2026.

It's a long rebuild because they've disregarded the long term starting rotation for going on 4 seasons now (last move to try and address this was the Pivetta deal at the 2020 deadline).

I totally agree that they could be a really interesting team with one of Montgomery or Snell. I just know that (however one chooses to view the sources of these reporters) Cotillo, McAdam, Speier and McCaffery have sources (and I know that I don't, and I'm assuming nobody on the board does either, though I could be wrong). So I'm listening to the people that have sources and are basically telling us they aren't going to sign Montgomery or Snell, nor are they going to trade KAT for another top half of the rotation starter.

I think top half of the rotation starting is incredibly important. The Red Sox are (in my opinion) one top half of the rotation SP removed from being a real contender for WCs 2 and 3 and two of them away from being a pretty good bet for a playoff team. But I think those two things are so important that without adding them, the team is going to be pretty awful.

To be 1,000% clear, I think they could be a decent team (and stay under the LTT) by going out right now and giving Montgomery 7 and $175m (and I've been saying for them to do that since November). But I'm also realistic enough to believe that when everyone connected to the team reports they're not going to do that, then I think they won't do it.

TomRicardo · Jan 17, 2024

Rovin Romine said:
I think you're so stuck on pushing your argument you don't take the time to read what people write.

I can't understand what you are getting at. You are so utterly convinced you are right but I honestly do not even understand what you are saying. Are you saying the Red Sox are good now? Are you saying the Red Sox are somehow set up for a future dynasty with the farm system as constructed today? Both those are empirically wrong, it is not worth arguing. Shit even Red Sox ownership wouldn't argue that. Bloom wouldn't argue that. Only a hopefully optimistic six year old would argue those points.

If you point is it is possible the way the Red Sox are now they could land backwards into the playoffs if a bunch of things go their way? Sure Giolito and Pivetta could have contract years, Casas could continue to be a top ten bat in league like he was the second half of the year, Devers could bounce back, Bello could step forward, no one could get injured, and a bunch of other unlikely but plausible things. The issue is when you keep adding unlikely events to happen together the probability get smaller and smaller as multiplying factions or decimals just keep making a number smaller. You can't treat all as independent events if you need a bunch to happen for the desired effect to happen.

You made a deeply flawed point the Red Sox have the pitching talent in their system to lay out a homegrown rotation that is capable of winning. But then again you lay your arguments against the Schrodinger's Goal posts, so who knows what you will claim your point was. You wrote something to that effect and people actually started trying to discuss why that is silly instead of just laughing at the notion. No one in their right baseball mind thinks Bello, Crawford, Fitts, Wikelman, Perales would be a Championship rotations you could bank on today. To give you the benefit of the doubt, which no one should at this point, maybe you thought we somehow extend Giolito or Pivetta even though the Red Sox have not signed a free agent coming off the Red Sox in years.

The Red Sox at some point will need to address the hole in their starting rotation if they want to be competitive team. They also probably need a RHH bat. The FO knows this and have publicly indicated this. Ownership just have not wanted to pay the price for that talent. There is no other door which you keep seemingly alluding to Victor Adultman. There is no greater brilliance behind their moves. They know there is a need, but they don't think the current talent out there is worth the price. That is the real discussion. Everything else is spaghetti at the wall nonsense

Rovin Romine · Jan 17, 2024

TomRicardo said:
I can't understand what you are getting at. You are so utterly convinced you are right but I honestly do not even understand what you are saying. Are you saying the Red Sox are good now? Are you saying the Red Sox are somehow set up for a future dynasty with the farm system as constructed today? Both those are empirically wrong, it is not worth arguing. Shit even Red Sox ownership wouldn't argue that. Bloom wouldn't argue that. Only a hopefully optimistic six year old would argue those points.

If you point is it is possible the way the Red Sox are now they could land backwards into the playoffs if a bunch of things go their way? Sure Giolito and Pivetta could have contract years, Casas could continue to be a top ten bat in league like he was the second half of the year, Devers could bounce back, Bello could step forward, no one could get injured, and a bunch of other unlikely but plausible things. The issue is when you keep adding unlikely events to happen together the probability get smaller and smaller as multiplying factions or decimals just keep making a number smaller. You can't treat all as independent events if you need a bunch to happen for the desired effect to happen.

You made a deeply flawed point the Red Sox have the pitching talent in their system to lay out a homegrown rotation that is capable of winning. But then again you lay your arguments against the Schrodinger's Goal posts, so who knows what you will claim your point was. You wrote something to that effect and people actually started trying to discuss why that is silly instead of just laughing at the notion. No one in their right baseball mind thinks Bello, Crawford, Fitts, Wikelman, Perales would be a Championship rotations you could bank on today. To give you the benefit of the doubt, which no one should at this point, maybe you thought we somehow extend Giolito or Pivetta even though the Red Sox have not signed a free agent coming off the Red Sox in years.

The Red Sox at some point will need to address the hole in their starting rotation if they want to be competitive team. They also probably need a RHH bat. The FO knows this and have publicly indicated this. Ownership just have not wanted to pay the price for that talent. There is no other door which you keep seemingly alluding to Victor Adultman. There is no greater brilliance behind their moves. They know there is a need, but they don't think the current talent out there is worth the price. That is the real discussion. Everything else is spaghetti at the wall nonsense

Well, I'll let you choose Tom.

Do you want to talk about the rotation this year?

Do you want to talk about the pitchers under control for 2025?

John Marzano Olympic Hero · Jan 17, 2024

dynomite said:
With a $180M+ payroll, a solid middle of the order in Devers/Casas/Story (11th most runs scored in MLB last season with black holes at SS and 2B) and some other solid pieces across the roster, it doesn't feel to me like the 2024 Red Sox are hopeless. Indeed, as we've been debating on here for 3+ months now, they seem a top SP and another RH power bat away from aggressively contending for a Wild Card spot this season.

This is where I am too. Their infield is pretty good. Their outfield needs a little work, but not much. Their starting pitching is what needs a ton of work, but these are all things that were known in September, much less October. The Sox are smart, they know this and they're acting like they're the Athletics. "Ooooh? Us? Contend? With this roster and our resources and in this economy? There's no way we can! The only thing we can do is hunker down and wait for three 20-year-olds to zoom through the system, take to MLB like a duck to water and become superstars--all while at below market contracts! I really hope you can see the bind that we're in ... and don't forget to purchase your Red Sox Nation membership! You're not a REAL fan unless you have that in your wallet!*"

* And if you're going to Fenway for a game, that will be the only thing left in your wallet.

With the way that MLB is set up, the Red Sox are on the doorstep. I just can't understand what's stopping them from going in. Though if you would permit me to be a bit cynical, I think that John Henry thinks that we're all idiots and that we'll support the team no matter what he runs out on the diamond. After Fenway Park is America's most beloved baseball park!TM

nighthob · Jan 17, 2024

sezwho said:
Hard to argue with that but I do want to parse the bolded.

Teams are very likely looking for the Right Amount. What I continue to suspect, apparently on a island, is it’s not as smart as we think to draft toolsy middle infielders then swap them for quality pitching when the position players then pan out at a much higher rate.

I can’t believe no one else see this obvious pitching market dislocation. It’s going to cost significant blood (prospects) and/or treasure to get a good starter and I’m not sure why we need to ‘time’ it right. Do we not want to win next year either? Does the window slam shut in three years if we get a pitcher and win a couple games over the next couple years?

In 2019 Boston’s upper minors were bereft of talent. They had one goal in the draft, finding guys at the top of the draft that would progress rapidly. Go back to ‘21, what if Texas drafted Marcelo Mayer and Boston had given in to SOSH’s wishes and drafted either Leiter or Rocker? Both players are well on their way to washing out (Rocker due to multiple arm injuries now). Texas had a good enough system to withstand two top 3 draft busts. Boston was only ever getting one bite at the top 5 apple, they didn’t have the option of busting.

They’ve been pretty good on the position player front, but that’s because those guys are a better bet to succeed than pitchers.

Put another way the biggest failure of Bloom’s Draft/IFA strategy came on the development end. There’s nothing wrong with the draft/IFA strategy they’ve been using. The majority of the players drafted/signed have been pitchers, as have a healthy selection of their IFA pool. They have a lot oif live arms, they’ve just done a mediocre job of developing them. Hopefully that changes in the new regime.

jbupstate · Jan 17, 2024

John Marzano Olympic Hero said:
I just can't understand what's stopping them from going in.

I thought Yamamoto was going to be that jump in but it didn’t happen. I just can’t see another acquisition that meaningful makes it happen without some unexpected breakthroughs or crazy good injury luck (good for Sox / bad for AL East)

Although @Big Papi's Mango Salsa has almost convinced me that a JM investment is worth the risk as long as it’s for 5+ years… good in 2024 but builds a higher base going past.

CreightonGubanich · Jan 17, 2024

dynomite said:
I guess my question with this is: why? Why is it a long rebuild?

With a $180M+ payroll, a solid middle of the order in Devers/Casas/Story (11th most runs scored in MLB last season with black holes at SS and 2B) and some other solid pieces across the roster, it doesn't feel to me like the 2024 Red Sox are hopeless. Indeed, as we've been debating on here for 3+ months now, they seem a top SP and another RH power bat away from aggressively contending for a Wild Card spot this season.

It's fair to disagree with that premise -- maybe you think Bello won't develop, that Story can't stay healthy, that Grissom isn't ready to hit at the ML level, etc.

But if you agree with that premise, many of the questions on this board seem to revolve around the same question: if they can't pull off a reasonable trade, why won't the Red Sox spend the ~$35M-$45M this season it would take to fill those needs (with one of Montgomery or Snell, plus one of Duvall, Turner, or Soler)? Even doing so would leave the Sox payroll below the CBT, at only about 6th/7th highest in the league (behind the Braves, Phillies, Rangers, and Astros), and still with plenty of payroll flexibility in 2026.

This is pretty much exactly where I'm at. They're not awful, and I don't think they're as bad as last year's record suggests. They have young players both in the minors and on the major league roster who are improving and worth getting excited about. But their starting rotation is terrible. It was terrible last year and was an obvious Achilles heel going into the season. Not enough was done to address it then for them to be a remotely contending team, and sure enough, they were undone by their starting rotation. Thus far, not enough has been done to prevent the same from happening this year.

Would they be a World Series contender if they signed Montgomery and a right handed bat? No, but they'd be in the playoff conversation, and Montgomery, at least, would fill a gaping hole that will still be there when Mayer, et al arrive over the next few years. Like, they can do both things: put themselves into the playoff mix while not signing any albatross contracts and keeping payroll under the CBT threshold. A Montgomery contract (or Snell, if you prefer) should in no way prevent them from making whatever other moves they want to make over the next few years. Maybe it's about the specific player (meaning they just don't like Montgomery or Snell very much), but to me, the tone of their comments suggests that's not really the issue.

John Marzano Olympic Hero · Jan 17, 2024

jbupstate said:
I thought Yamamoto was going to be that jump in but it didn’t happen. I just can’t see another acquisition that meaningful makes it happen without some unexpected breakthroughs or crazy good injury luck (good for Sox / bad for AL East)

Yamamoto was this year's unicorn and it sucks hard that we didn't get him. But at the same time, you can't just give up because you didn't get your first choice. Would Snell or Montgomery be an improvement on the current state of the Red Sox staff? I'd say yes. That's all I'm looking for. You slot Montgomery or Snell as a one, you bump Bello down to a two, then Giollito as a three and then you round out the four and the five. Will this turn the Sox into the Los Angeles East? No and I don't think that anyone thinks that it would. But it would make the Sox a better team and more interesting to watch.

The other thing is that it's not like we have seven amazing arms sitting in Worcester waiting for a chance to throw and Snell/Montgomery would be blocking them. We have no one. And the ones that we do have are either average (on a good day) or hurt. Remember July when we were rolling out bullpen games two out of five games, which destroyed our pen in August and September? Maybe that doesn't happen with a Snell or Montgomery. And all it takes is money. They're nowhere close to the luxury tax line, they can afford it.

I don't expect Snell or Mongomery to be Pedro or Clemens or Lester. But I would like them to be better than Whitlock (the starter).

NeckDownAllStar · Jan 17, 2024

My first post after lurking for a long time...hope it does not wander too much.

I suspect that so far Breslow’s approach looks depressingly like Bloom’s is because they both work for John Henry and Henry is in financial territory he does not like.

Henry did not get rich by ignoring large scale financial trends. He is just two years older then me, but while I was still in college he was trading corn and soybean futures and developed his own methodology for managing futures trading. Before long, that allowed him to get rich during the 1980s – the front end of a rising economy. He rode the wave through the 1990s, took some big hits between July 1999 and September 2000 when the .COM bubble burst, and then kept rolling full throttle until his company got whacked big time in the unraveling that accompanied the collapse of housing bubble after 2005.

He tried to tough things out, but by 2012, after assets under his control had fallen from $2.5 billion to less than $100 million, he closed the business. All rough spots in his business were associated with rising interest rates.

Back in 2011 Theo Epstein told ESPN that:

"Early on in my tenure, I made a couple of decisions in a row that backfired on us. John and I were talking on the phone, and John drew a parallel to his other business, noting that in the world of stocks, there are two ways to react in the face of poor results. Some abandon their beliefs and adopt any new approach, searching for a quick fix. Others cling even tighter to their core beliefs and ride out the storm. The former group, he said, inevitably fails, while the second group prospers in the long run. I still think of that conversation to this day in tough times."

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/7005442/mlb-how-john-henry-built-sports-empire-espn-magazine

John Henry is very unlikely to switch gears. I suspect he he has been looking at the salary craziness of recent years, putting that together with rising interest rates, and has decided dig in and “cling even tighter to...core beliefs.”

He is opaque enough that, other than sabermetrics, I am unsure of his baseball core beliefs. I suspect they are subsumed by his business theories. Even if he thinks tough times are on the way, I expect him to hang on to a profitable asset like the Sox and hunker down.

I think we are stuck with him, and he will stick to his current approach.

DennyDoyle'sBoil · Jan 17, 2024

DeJesus Built My Hotrod said:
Aside from just making their return, the possibility that I keep coming around to is that this ownership group simply doesn't feel like it has the resources to take risks on the higher end players/deferred contracts etc. I again go back the crazy quote from Mark Cuban/Tilman Fertitta about "middle class billionaires" after he sold the Dallas Mavericks this past fall:

I don't know FSG is constrained but they haven't behaved if they can actually afford the best players available for a very long while.

I don't know what they can afford or not, obviously -- but I think it's correct to believe there is not a bottomless pit.

During this run, Henry has seen some spectacularly bad contracts. Some we've gotten out of. Some we've been able to weather. But some of have been really bad. For the most part, during Henry's tenure, the consequence of making a bad deal has been an impact on competitiveness. Carl Crawford, Rusney Castillo, Pablo Sandoval -- these were horrible deals. But in 2024 we're not talking about $95 million deals anymore. We're talking about $300 million deals. Heck, we're talking about $700 million deals -- with a present value of just south of half a billion dollars. For an asset that just needed major surgery and is one bad slide or bean ball from making $700 million on the bench. So a bad deal impacts not just competitiveness, but hurts deeply.

I know that I'm risking really pissing off people who have watched the valuation of sports teams sky-rocket at a far steeper rate than inflation of player contracts. I get it. But I also think that if you're an MLB owner right now, you really do have to start thinking of the impact of some of this not only on competition but also on your assets. I get where Cuban is coming from, and I don't doubt that guys like John Henry have to ask themselves questions about the future of MLB and revenue in an uncertain world with changing demographics. I mean, a $300 million deal in any part of the world is pretty massive. That's hedge fund stuff. That's like a multi-use apartment development in a high cost of living city. These are massive massive deals. For 26 year olds made of skin and bones and muscle. The Soto deal next year will be crazy.

I have no idea what's really in Henry's head. We've all done a lot of guessing. There is no guarantee that MLB clubs will always increase in value. And Henry can't exactly come out and say that he's worried about devaluation. Maybe he is. Sucks if so. No contract he's going to sign is going to ever make him not rich. But if he's forecasting a bubble, I guess I can see why he'd be cautious. I guess the only good news is that if he continues being conservative and there is a bubble, then long term we come out comparatively pretty good.

tl;dr -- I think I understand the Cuban point and how it might impact even mega-billionaires.

BravesField · Jan 17, 2024

I think I liked the Red Sox more when they didn't leak news. Some of these upper level managers should just zip it.

jbupstate · Jan 17, 2024

I think the Sale trade show creativity and balls that Bloom didn’t show…. They retained $17m to buy a 2B 6 years of control and with upside.

Response to @NeckDownAllStar first post.

nighthob · Jan 17, 2024

jbupstate said:
I think the Sale trade show creativity and balls that Bloom didn’t show…

I’ll never forgive Bloom for not making the Turner/Cabrera deal. There’s a thousand percent less pessimism in this place if we have a legitimate starter like him around.

moondog80 · Jan 17, 2024

jbupstate said:
I think the Sale trade show creativity and balls that Bloom didn’t show…. They retained $17m to buy a 2B 6 years of control and with upside.

I'll give him credit for saving 17 mil only if they actually do something with it.

Big Papi's Mango Salsa · Jan 17, 2024

jbupstate said:
I thought Yamamoto was going to be that jump in but it didn’t happen. I just can’t see another acquisition that meaningful makes it happen without some unexpected breakthroughs or crazy good injury luck (good for Sox / bad for AL East)

Although @Big Papi's Mango Salsa has almost convinced me that a JM investment is worth the risk as long as it’s for 5+ years… good in 2024 but builds a higher base going past.

I too wanted YY over JM (as I'm sure everyone else did) but there was just never any reason to believe it was feasible unless he was literally so close with Yoshida that he considered him one of his 5 literal best friends in the world.

My rationale on JM is (and continues to be) more about roster building than the individual player. I think it's damn near impossible to build a contending rotation in one off season. I'm sure it's happened before, but I literally cannot think of the last time it was done. Texas is the model I keep coming back to (just because I see parallels, whether fair or unfair, between Breslow and Young and what those two teams are / were).

They were complete garbage in 2020 and 2021, but they didn't let that stop them from acquiring starting pitching and ONLY relying on it from their farm system. Before 2021 they acquired Dane Dunning. In the 2021 season they acquired Glenn Otto and Spencer Howard. They also signed Jon Gray. They took a chance on Kohei Arihara. Last off-season they signed Heaney, Eovaldi and deGrom. They traded for Monty and Scherzer. I think of JM as a better version of Jon Gray, personally.

A 2024 rotation of Bello, Montgomery, Giolito, Crawford and Pivetta (thus pushing for certain Houck, Whitlock and Winckowski back to the 'pen) and suddenly you have a decent rotation and a pretty good bullpen, and are still below the $LTT (.97) . More importantly, going into 2025 you have Bello, Montgomery, Crawford with money rolling off the books from Giolito, Pivetta, Jansen, Martin, the rest of Sale's deal, Refsnyder (quick math is $70m) and at that point you only need one top half of the rotation starter and can then add someone from the one year wonder deals, and the rotation looks really good.

nighthob said:
I’ll never forgive Bloom for not making the Turner/Cabrera deal. There’s a thousand percent less pessimism in this place if we have a legitimate starter like him around.

Same. Even if Bloom needed to add Duvall to give them more offense or Paxton to give them a pitcher. There were plenty of ways to ensure that gets done.

NeckDownAllStar · Jan 17, 2024

jbupstate said:
I think the Sale trade show creativity and balls that Bloom didn’t show…. They retained $17m to buy a 2B 6 years of control and with upside.

Response to @NeckDownAllStar first post.

I agree with that completely. I just think JH is going to keep his check book in his pocket and we will have to wait and hope for the kids to develop.

I assume at this point that Breslow knows pitching, which IMO is a welcome change.

TomRicardo · Jan 17, 2024

Rovin Romine said:
Well, I'll let you choose Tom.

Do you want to talk about the rotation this year?

Do you want to talk about the pitchers under control for 2025?

Boca 2002! You have seen the tapes! #tigertactics

sezwho · Jan 17, 2024

nighthob said:
In 2019 Boston’s upper minors were bereft of talent. They had one goal in the draft, finding guys at the top of the draft that would progress rapidly. Go back to ‘21, what if Texas drafted Marcelo Mayer and Boston had given in to SOSH’s wishes and drafted either Leiter or Rocker? Both players are well on their way to washing out (Rocker due to multiple arm injuries now). Texas had a good enough system to withstand two top 3 draft busts. Boston was only ever getting one bite at the top 5 apple, they didn’t have the option of busting.

They’ve been pretty good on the position player front, but that’s because those guys are a better bet to succeed than pitchers.

Put another way the biggest failure of Bloom’s Draft/IFA strategy came on the development end. There’s nothing wrong with the draft/IFA strategy they’ve been using. The majority of the players drafted/signed have been pitchers, as have a healthy selection of their IFA pool. They have a lot oif live arms, they’ve just done a mediocre job of developing them. Hopefully that changes in the new regime.

I appreciate the pushback and no, I’m not suggesting they should have passed on Mayer (or Teel).

I see the fallacy of my argument specifically at the top of the draft, but there are many other methods to acquire pitching and we didn’t try enough of them. It wasn’t just the drafts, I don’t think they did enough in IFA, and the lack of moves at the deadline and in the off season to bolster things means that the Sox are where they are.

Breslow has improved the program already as far as I can tell, and added multiple potentially interesting arms (Fitts may even crack rotation this year) in his super brief tenure.

I think your point on development is well made also, another point in Breslows favor hopefully.

simplicio · Jan 17, 2024

nighthob said:
I’ll never forgive Bloom for not making the Turner/Cabrera deal. There’s a thousand percent less pessimism in this place if we have a legitimate starter like him around.

Ehhhh I'd be very reluctant to pencil a guy that walks more people than Snell into a starting job.

Big Papi's Mango Salsa · Jan 17, 2024

simplicio said:
Ehhhh I'd be very reluctant to pencil a guy that walks more people than Snell into a starting job.

But the odds of finding another SP for the rotation increase dramatically with him on the roster as opposed to the nothing that having Turner for the last 2 months of 2023 got the team.

Basically, you're "doubling" Houck and hoping that one of them becomes SP5.

simplicio · Jan 17, 2024

He'd be an asset in some fashion, certainly, but if he was ours I'd be hoping it was the kind you can trade for something else, personally.

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat · Jan 17, 2024

moondog80 said:
I'll give him credit for saving 17 mil only if they actually do something with it.

They didn’t save it, they spent it. And by doing so got their young second baseman.

moondog80 · Jan 17, 2024

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat said:
They didn’t save it, they spent it. And by doing so got their young second baseman.

I said that wrong — the trade netted them 10 mil in space under the cap this year. I hope they use it. Either way, I do like Vaughn Grissom.

BigSoxFan · Jan 17, 2024

simplicio said:
He'd be an asset in some fashion, certainly, but if he was ours I'd be hoping it was the kind you can trade for something else, personally.

Isn’t Cabrera exactly the kind of guy you want working with the new pitching gurus? The stuff is clearly real, he just can’t harness it, for some reason. I’d love to see what they can do with a guy with that much raw talent.

Bob Montgomerys Helmet Hat · Jan 17, 2024

moondog80 said:
I said that wrong — the trade netted them 10 mil in space under the cap this year. I hope they use it. Either way, I do like Vaughn Grissom.

Ah, gotcha.
I like him too. He’s going to be fun.

Big Papi's Mango Salsa · Jan 17, 2024

moondog80 said:
I said that wrong — the trade netted them 10 mil in space under the cap this year. I hope they use it. Either way, I do like Vaughn Grissom.

Adore the Grissom move.

That said, with the “spending reports” I’d be lying if I hadn’t thought to myself recently “I wonder what else the Sox could have gotten back if they’d eaten the entire $27m.”

As in could $10m have bought Owen Murphy (probably not), but maybe it buys Ian Anderson to see if Bailey could fix him since he’s going to be out until around the ASG anyway.

The way things look now, something like either of those would be a heck of a lot more interesting than whatever (if anything) that gets done with that $10m.

ehaz · Jan 17, 2024

nighthob said:
In 2019 Boston’s upper minors were bereft of talent. They had one goal in the draft, finding guys at the top of the draft that would progress rapidly. Go back to ‘21, what if Texas drafted Marcelo Mayer and Boston had given in to SOSH’s wishes and drafted either Leiter or Rocker? Both players are well on their way to washing out (Rocker due to multiple arm injuries now). Texas had a good enough system to withstand two top 3 draft busts. Boston was only ever getting one bite at the top 5 apple, they didn’t have the option of busting.

They’ve been pretty good on the position player front, but that’s because those guys are a better bet to succeed than pitchers.

Put another way the biggest failure of Bloom’s Draft/IFA strategy came on the development end. There’s nothing wrong with the draft/IFA strategy they’ve been using. The majority of the players drafted/signed have been pitchers, as have a healthy selection of their IFA pool. They have a lot oif live arms, they’ve just done a mediocre job of developing them. Hopefully that changes in the new regime.

sezwho said:
I appreciate the pushback and no, I’m not suggesting they should have passed on Mayer (or Teel).

I see the fallacy of my argument specifically at the top of the draft, but there are many other methods to acquire pitching and we didn’t try enough of them. It wasn’t just the drafts, I don’t think they did enough in IFA, and the lack of moves at the deadline and in the off season to bolster things means that the Sox are where they are.

Breslow has improved the program already as far as I can tell, and added multiple potentially interesting arms (Fitts may even crack rotation this year) in his super brief tenure.

I think your point on development is well made also, another point in Breslows favor hopefully.

Bloom's strategy of using 1st round picks (and even 2nd round picks) exclusively on hitters is defensible and many teams do something similar. As someone here noted, many of the ~30 or so pitchers in MLB's top 100 list were not 1st rounders. But all but 3 of them were above slot guys, ~$1M+ bonus guys, even if they were selected in the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th rounds. Where Bloom seems to have been an outlier is in the relative lack of bonus pool resources allocated to pitching. Bloom gave an overslot signing bonus to just one pitcher across all 4 of his drafts (Shane Drohan, $600k). In those 4 drafts, they've given bonuses of $500k or more to 15 draft picks. 14 position players and 1 pitcher (also Drohan).

Percentage of bonus pool dedicated to pitchers:

2020: 15%
2021: 13%
2022: 19%
2023: 16%

I haven't compared this with every other team from 2020-2023 but at a quick glance, this is pretty extreme even compared to teams that have found success dumpster diving for mid-round college pitchers and developing them into MLB starting pitchers. E.g., yes, Cleveland drafted and signed Tanner Bibee for almost nothing, but they also dedicated million dollar bonuses to Logan Allen and Gavin Williams.

So it's hard for me to conclude that Bloom's strategy for amateur pitching acquisition was fine and it was just the development part that sucked.

nighthob · Jan 17, 2024

Except they do have pitchers with good arms and repertoires. Again, between Luis Perales, Wikelman Gonzalez, Kumar Rocker, and Jack Leiter, I'd be betting on the first two making the majors and having success over Texas's top 3 picks. But their command issues clearly show that they didn't get the proper instruction. It really is a developmental issue.

simplicio · Jan 17, 2024

BigSoxFan said:
Isn’t Cabrera exactly the kind of guy you want working with the new pitching gurus? The stuff is clearly real, he just can’t harness it, for some reason. I’d love to see what they can do with a guy with that much raw talent.

I'm at my limit in terms of them having projects to fix; that's pretty much everyone in the rotation past Bello (and even there they have the day/night issue). They don't need another die roll, they need someone reliable to mitigate the risk of some of these projects not working out.

BigSoxFan · Jan 17, 2024

simplicio said:
I'm at my limit in terms of them having projects to fix; that's pretty much everyone in the rotation past Bello (and even there they have the day/night issue). They don't need another die roll, they need someone reliable to mitigate the risk of some of these projects not working out.

“I’m Scott Boras and I approve this message”

ehaz · Jan 17, 2024

nighthob said:
Except they do have pitchers with good arms and repertoires. Again, between Luis Perales, Wikelman Gonzalez, Kumar Rocker, and Jack Leiter, I'd be betting on the first two making the majors and having success over Texas's top 3 picks. But their command issues clearly show that they didn't get the proper instruction. It really is a developmental issue.

Perales and Gonzalez were pre-Bloom.

Big Papi's Mango Salsa · Jan 17, 2024

ehaz said:
Perales and Gonzalez were pre-Bloom.

Exactly.

To be in charge of an organization for 4 seasons and have added 1 starter still here at the MLB level (Pivetta) and your pitching acquisitions / development consist of one top 20 prospect (number 20) and two relief pitchers is I think some pretty compelling evidence that both the process and implementation / development of said process leave a lot to be desired.

People like ragging on DDski for his farm system, and I get it. But if KAT end up being another Casas and Duran, that would be a massive success.

Much less getting another Bello and Crawford (or even Houck) from Persles and Gonzalez. All of whom were added under DDski’s watch.

Which - again - is why I think anyone saying Breslow is just another Bloom is asinine. In three months Breslow has added more to the pitching pipeline than Bloom added since the start of the 2021 season.

NickEsasky · Jan 17, 2024

nighthob said:
Except they do have pitchers with good arms and repertoires. Again, between Luis Perales, Wikelman Gonzalez, Kumar Rocker, and Jack Leiter, I'd be betting on the first two making the majors and having success over Texas's top 3 picks. But their command issues clearly show that they didn't get the proper instruction. It really is a developmental issue.

This assumes you can just teach a guy to put the ball where he wants to when he wants to. It doesn’t necessarily work like that. You can have all the arm talent in the world but it doesn’t mean you possess the necessary skills to control and command where the ball goes.

YTF · Jan 17, 2024

NickEsasky said:
This assumes you can just teach a guy to put the ball where he wants to when he wants to. It doesn’t necessarily work like that. You can have all the arm talent in the world but it doesn’t mean you possess the necessary skills to control and command where the ball goes.

Correct. Breslow and Bailey come here with high praise, but we have to acknowledge that not every player is "fixable".

nighthob · Jan 17, 2024

ehaz said:
Perales and Gonzalez were pre-Bloom.

It doesn’t matter who signed them, it’s the follow up. 100% of Perales’s Red Sox career has been spent under Bloom’s organization (he was signed a month before Dombrowski left). Gonzalez had a year with Boston’s DSL team before the regime change.

(EDIT: The larger point here is that it’s the scouting team that finds these guys, the DBOs are responsible for the development, and the last two guys have an ungood track record in that regard)

NickEsasky said:
This assumes you can just teach a guy to put the ball where he wants to when he wants to. It doesn’t necessarily work like that. You can have all the arm talent in the world but it doesn’t mean you possess the necessary skills to control and command where the ball goes.

If you can’t teach a teenager command, how do we have any MLB pitchers with command? I mean I get that it’s hard to teach a four year college player command if they don’t already have it, but if you can’t teach a 17 year old, maybe it’s time to reconsider the quality of your development staff. That was one of my biggest problems with Bloom, I get that Dombrowski had let the instructional staff implode, but that was part of what Bloom was hired for, to rebuild the instructional/developmental staff. He did a good job with the hitting instruction, but the pitching instruction seriously lagged.

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