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  1. cantor44

    So....who is the new GM/head of baseball ops?

    I think fundamentals are certainly coachable to the extent that they are drilled. Even pros need to drill (virtuoso musicians still play their scales, great ballet dancers work the bar, etc.). Somehow I recalled this article about the Rays carving out time during the season for this purpose...
  2. cantor44

    Let's Predict the 2023 Red Sox Season

    Thanks, Rovin, for doing this. Fun to follow here at the end. Congrats patinorgange - spot on!
  3. cantor44

    The Red Sox have fired Chaim Bloom

    If they were trying to win, then perhaps they should have traded for some clear upgrades here or there. Was there anyone out there who thought the team, as it was constituted around the trade deadline in 2022, would be a competitive post season team? And surely no one believed Pham and Hosmer...
  4. cantor44

    The Red Sox have fired Chaim Bloom

    I was pilloried earlier this summer for describing Bloom as conservative. Derisively told to "keep doing what I do." I think it's clear he was cautious. And now the intel suggests even too cautious for ownership, mayhaps. Alas.
  5. cantor44

    2024 Core

    Abreu's emergence (SSS I know) could make Verdugo trade-able. And Verdugo's strengths - that you describe - might make him part of a package that brings back a high quality pitcher. They definitely need to get 2 this off season - say a 1 and a 3, if they hope to contend; one on the open market...
  6. cantor44

    The Red Sox have fired Chaim Bloom

    Perhaps this is so, and I'm with you on what you hope for, to avoid the organizational mood swings, which are going on 12 years now post Theo. Surely they can find someone who has the capacity to balance building a farm while also acquiring top line ML talent to build a championship caliber...
  7. cantor44

    The Red Sox have fired Chaim Bloom

    The point it not scapegoating per se. Perhaps they scapegoated Tito, but only after things went awry in unexpected ways. If the 2011 team wins a few more games, maybe Tito is STILL managing the Sox. They were responding extemporaneously to very disappointing results. The particular tangent...
  8. cantor44

    The Red Sox have fired Chaim Bloom

    Though if he was doing the dirty work that they charged him to do why would they need a fall guy? To quell the angry masses? If a stealth 4-6 year rebuild was the organizational plan all along, surely they would have anticipated the angry masses and not scapegoated Bloom when the pitchforks...
  9. cantor44

    The Red Sox have fired Chaim Bloom

    This seems to dispel the notion that Bloom was executing a stealth rebuild exactly as ownership wanted (but couldn't publicly admit). Perhaps their hope was to rebuild the farm, and dip under the tax to create space to be more aggressive on the FA market. Bloom could have dipped under the tax...
  10. cantor44

    The Red Sox have fired Chaim Bloom

    Though the team won a Championship under Cherington.
  11. cantor44

    Bloom, Cora -- Do they stay or do they go?

    I think both will be here in 2024. Though I suspect the team needs at least make the post season next year for either of them to be here in 2025.
  12. cantor44

    2024 Core

    Neither Houck nor Whitlock has acquitted themselves particularly well as a starter (Houck still can't get through a line up three times), and probably should be relievers. Crawford, actually, has performed better as a starter. It seems to me three rotation slots are taken next year, as well SP...
  13. cantor44

    2024 Core

    Right field.
  14. cantor44

    '23 AL Playoff Picture

    Yes, but that team has Fred Lynn, Dwight Evans, Jim Rice, Yaz, Fisk, etc., etc.! And I remember it and I'm under 60! My first experience of deep down existential sports grief.
  15. cantor44

    '23 AL Playoff Picture

    I liked the single wild card format. The reason being is the imbalance of the divisions, with some divisions stacked. That way, the top two teams in either league could be assured of being in the playoffs on any given year. I almost came around to the second wild card, because it prevented teams...
  16. cantor44

    Cora, Cora, Cora!

    I don't think that Umps are "in it" to help one team or another. But unconscious bias certainly must come into play, and that bias, in sports, usually falls to whichever team, or player, has higher "status." Of course this is obviously the case in the NBA, where star players get most of the...
  17. cantor44

    '23 AL Playoff Picture

    With your list of players, sorta seems like it's a Cora phenomenon. His teams almost universally have played sloppy and unintelligent baseball (I suppose 2018 is the exception, though of course that was a team brimming with elite talent). Not sure WHY that's the case (not good enough...
  18. cantor44

    When Is It Okay To Worry About Triston Casas: An Attempt at the Reverse Jinx

    Exactly! Yeah.
  19. cantor44

    When Is It Okay To Worry About Triston Casas: An Attempt at the Reverse Jinx

    Well he did say he is cerebral in his preparation and then instinctual when at bat. These things are not mutually exclusive, each has its place in the execution of a physical craft - each needs the other essentially. His approach seems ideal, actually, a kind of dialectic -- between critical and...
  20. cantor44

    When Is It Okay To Worry About Triston Casas: An Attempt at the Reverse Jinx

    This interview is astonishing. Casas is astonishing. I mean - he his preternaturally intelligent about hitting, and a post playing coaching career seems inevitable. What a goddamn delight.
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