Fair enough, but in that case the message from the Front Office needs to be "Trevor Story is our shortstop." I don't know enough about Story's elbow to know whether or not his arm will be a liability, but the Red Sox Front Office should know the answer; and if their answer is, according to Chad Jennings, "we don't know," then they should have signed a premium free agent. The statement about trading for Joey Wendle as part of some rotating platoon makes it sound like they don't have a clear plan.
Why is that message so important to you? Because of the defensive flexibility on the roster, any one of a CF, SS, or 2B would fill the hole in the lineup.
The contingency plan was Story, and it seems to me like a smart one.
FWIW, Jeter was a 2.6 fWAR average player in the 2010, 11 and 12 seasons. (I would have gone further back but the 6.7 fWAR in 2009 would have drastically skewed the numbers). He only played 17 games at 39 in 2013 and was terrible in those games as well as for all of the 2014 season. Jeter retired at the end of that season and the Yankees (in essence) moved Shane Greene for Didi Gregorious, as you mentioned, on December 5th, 2014. At the time Gregorious was entering his age 25 season, had less than 750 career at bats (call it less than a season and a half) and was a former top 100 prospect. He then averaged a 2.2 fWAR for the Yankees for the next 5 seasons (or he was a little bit better on average than the fulltime Montreal version of Orlando Cabrera).
The criticism of the Scwharber trade was not born from a reflexive opposition to Bloom. The criticism was that Bloom was ONLY willing to trade for an injured player - when the team had THE BEST RECORD IN THE AL at the deadline - and that is because he could get that player for cheap. Bloom didn't want to spend anything. And he did nothing else to help a winning but flawed team - a team in the last chapter of an excellent core, that had a real chance to win. He was timid at that deadline. Of course Schwarber was both appealing and effective, and it would have been nice to keep him, but Bloom was passive again in the 2021 off season. So, no, it's not hypocrisy, but looking at each decision in its context. Maybe, just maybe, some Bloom detractors have been on to something. He's done some things well. And other things really badly.
Isn't that basically what they did with RF last year? Hope and a prayer for a JBJ turnaround?
If he does, I'm more than happy to admit he had a really good plan all along and that I was wrong. Nothing in Bloom's tenure has suggested that he's going to make that kind of trade to me. If you can think of a deal where he moved prospects to acquire a core piece with multiple years of control, let me know. I honestly am just thinking off the top of my head and cannot think of one.
Bloom would be foolish to try to replace Bogey with another player that provides his offensive upside. What Bloom needs to do now is to collect a bunch of players that can replace what Bogey has provided. I would argue that he has upgraded the bullpen and I am bullish on the rotation with Bello and Whitlock in there.While Crawford, Winchowski and Seabold struggled last year, they have not played in the majors enough to determine if they can be useful or not. Add to that Mata and Walter as depth and potentially a signing like Evoldi or Pivetta to further stretch the rotation and I fill good about where it is heading. There are also options for right field. Conforto to who knows what trade. So yeah it is only December and there is still time to make moves that shore up the team. Losing Bogey sucks, but it is not the end of the world and losing his defense might be a blessing.
I agree that we most likely end up in the Segura/Andrus/Wendle bracket. I'm fine with that. I think we have significantly upgraded our offense over last year elsewhere, with Yoshida/Casas, to help offset the loss of Bogaerts (and yes, of course that's a big loss). Obviously the full picture hinges on Devers, but I don't see Betts/X as being particularly predictive to his situation.
You're putting a ton of eggs in the basket of a rookie, and a guy who's never played in the bigs before. Those guys could perform decently well and not hit Xander's 5.8 WAR combined. I remain unconvinced that this offense will be better than last year. The only real upgrade I've seen on the roster is the bullpen, everything else is a bit of a crapshoot.
Bloom wasn’t brought in to GFIN in 2021. He was hired to reset the finances, rebuild the minors and position the team to spend once the first two tasks were accomplished. Bloom was timid? Come on.
A Christian Arroyo sized hole. With Enrique Hernandez on the ML club and Enmanuel Valdez as a bat-first guy in AAA.
One reason, from the Jennings story: "The asking price has been high up to this point."
Fine, what do you want to do at 2b for the other 105 games? *That is admittedly just snark on my part, since Arroyo has once in his career been healthy enough to even play 80 games, it doesn't need to be answered.*
This is where I'm at also. Too many *obvious* question-marks and too much dependent on "two players to produce like one" style platoons, in my opinion. Which, I get is "the plan." Doesn't mean I have to agree with it because I think that style of plan is unlikely to produce a world series winner (not just this year, in general). Kansas City kind of did it in 2014, I guess. I haven't looked into that team a great deal, admittedly. FWIW, I think the offense is going to be a little worse than it was last year. We ended up 9th in runs scored, and I see much more of a 15th type of offense this year. This assumes we add in "Joey SeugrAndrus" type pieces.
What’s timid was the mechanics of the Schwarber trade. Bloom got a really good deal, but it came at a price—a price that almost cost the team a postseason shot.
I got a text from a friend today while I was driving. He was all pissed off that Bloom signed another Island of Misfit Toys type that would wind up being traded at the deadline and that all he remembers about Myers was the disastrous play in RF in Fenway ... blah blah blah. When I got out of the car, I looked it up and saw that it was the Reds, and texted my friend back. "We could have gotten him at that price," he texted back.
Hahaha, I think that sums up the state of current sports fandom very nicely, not just Sox fans.
And if you refuse to put a lot of eggs in a rookie's basket, you miss out on the Roger Clemens, Fred Lynns, Jim Rices, Carl Yastrzemskis, Mike Greenwells, and Dustin Pedrois of the world (ad nauseum). Accepting risk is something that everyone does every day, not just baseball management. Don't forget, too, that teams can make an in-season trade if a rookie doesn't work out, and that there's risk in giving any player a starting job. They might get hurt, or they might underperform. There is no such thing as a "riskless" baseball team.
What's so bad about these types? Kluber, Eflin and Heaney were the 48th, 71st and 85th best starting pitchers in baseball by FIP. If they were on the Sox last year, they'd have ranked 2nd, 3rd and 5th in that category among our starters if you count Bello, who only threw 52 innings as a starter.
I 100% share this concern.
Kudos to Bloom for acquiring the best bat that changed teams in 2021. He should be credited for that. That being said, the team needed a first baseman as well and Schwarber didn't really satisfy that. The bats went cold in the ALCS and perhaps had he also added Rizzo that would have been enough to make it to the World Series.
The Cubs got their 3rd-ranked prospect in that deal, Kevin Alcántara (MLB #86 overall), & also got a high upside, albeit older, arm in Alexander Vizcaíno...whose career appears to be stalled after not showing up for Spring Training this year.
I think we agree. Risk is a necessary part of (life) building a baseball team. I WANT us to take that risk on prospects / rookies. I want us to have more rookies on this team than we do. That's why I mentioned Valdez starting and going with all the kids on the big league pitching staff.
Mostly, see above. I don't think we're going to be good next year, and I don't think adding all the "Andrew Heaneys" you possibly can fit on your 25 man roster makes you any more serious an ALCS contender than seeing what "Tanner Houck" can do instead.
Well, Cordero/JBJ/Dalbec gave us 900 ABs of negative value, each of them and collectively having a minus WAR. It’s not hard to see Yoshida and Casas having solid, non-All Star years and still improving two roster spots by 4-5 wins. Turner hit as well as JD but did so while also playing D, so overall that switch could easily be a slight upgrade. If they can find another SS/IF who can provide 2 WAR (Andrus was surprisingly worth 3 last year, Wendle 2.4 in 101 Gs), the offense could certainly be better.
It could get better, but as we sit right now, it's not. I think there's also a real possibility of Yoshida being mediocre and Cassas not performing as we all hope. If that happens, we could be a bottom half offense in MLB. I'm fine with these risks, if we had more than one guy in the lineup who puts fear into the opposing pitching staff. Outside of Devers who is likely to put up a monster year to keep this offense afloat? Story...maybe, then........
KC could probably sell some tickets by signing him and Hosmer for a special throwback night sometime after the trade deadline when they've sold off a couple pieces to make space on the 40 man.
But it didn’t blow up in his face. It was a gamble that paid off handsomely. The Sox were in the hunt because of what Bloom did right. Added Renfroe, Kike, Pivetta and Whitlock. The bullpen with familiar names (that sucked in 2022) was great. Some moves definitely did not work Marwin, Cordero, Santana.
Fair.
Yoshida could be a roughly comparable Bogaerts bat, with Turner being a roughly comparable JD bat.
And will not have 1,000 shared at bats for Franchy, Dalbec, JBJ and Plawecki.
True - but I suspect Dalbec against lefties will be a feature unless something else changes. I'd be OK with that.
Yeah, the problem wasn't the 112 plate appearances against lefties at a 115 wRC+...it was the 241 plate appearances against righties at 64.
It might be fixable - his career #s are less skewed - but meh.
If the rotation is that good next year they’re pretty much guaranteed to be a playoff team but I don’t share your optimism. Relying on Sale and Paxton to not only stay healthy but also perform at a high level is tough. I’d honestly be thrilled if both were able to pitch 20 games and put up an ERA around 4.
