WestEddy

Flexen will finish the year as an average major league pitcher. 2 WAR. I don't really look at ERA. Too many other factors out of the pitcher's control affect it. Gowens k/9 and BB/9 are good. Doesn't allow a lot of baserunners. Could do more to limit HRs. But he's an interesting prospect. He'll probably get to AA after the trade deadline. Flexen, granted, he's a bit of a Houdini. But he is getting results. He's not a top of the staff ace, no. He is an arm that keeps you in most of his games. I wouldn't say he sucks. I just wouldn't rely upon him. Somebody will take him in a trade. Thanks for saying I sometimes have good posts. It's appreciated.

No, I'm me. Yes, Nicky Lopez has brought good defense to the position. Just because the team is on a historically bad path doesn't mean I must declare that every player on the team sucks at every part of the game. Out of Lopez, Remillard, Mendick, Sosa and Shewmake I think Remy hits a little better than the rest. I think Lopez is the best, defensively.

Now you're changing the subject. Losses don't matter. and yeah, they're trying to showcase guys like Pham, Eloy, Sheets, etc. to turn them into a bullpen arm. Is 5 weeks of playing time more important than getting another arm in the system? I honestly don't know. I think Colas, if still here, will have a whole 2 months to get PAs with the big club.

Why would he have wanted to non-tender Soroka? He could have also non-tendered Eloy. Or Robert. Soroka was part of the plan to get a small group of starters, and to see who popped, if any. Lopez is probably the most balanced of the group of utility infielders they were going to fill second base from, you know, in a rebuild year. And you with the hyperbole. Flexen already has more than 1 bWAR. That's an average major leaguer. I think most teams would love to slot a 2-WAR pitcher for 33 starts at #5. I'm not even going to look up names, but there's guys who could barely cut it in AAA that the Sox ran out there for 10 starts in years past who were "weak" #5s. Flexen is so much more than Odrisamer Despaigne, or whatever. Yes, a team that is in the wild card race, has been hit by injuries, and doesn't have 'that guy' at AAA will be 'desperate' for a guy like Flexen who could take the ball every 5th day, and has a fighter's chance of throwing you a quality start. That's about a third of the league, at this point.

But you would mock any moves to shave 20 losses off of that final total, wouldn't you? At this point, while there's a difference, that difference doesn't matter.

Why would he have wanted to non-tender Soroka? The plan was to get Fedde, Flexen and Soroka, and try to make any of them pop. As I told TRU, the ~$12m invested in those three was a huge success. That would be like signing Frankie Montas, but having him be one of the most sought after arms on the trade market. Flexen is also serviceable, and may even bring back an interesting piece. The same goes with the money spent in the bullpen. I don't know how Getz would do it differently, but Knebel and Barlow also exist, and are both throwing rehab games right now. I'm sure they won't be productive before the TDL, but it was a gamble. If Wilson or Brebbia bring back pieces, that gamble was a success.

Lopez is a small part of the bad offense. He's also a saving grace on the infield.

The point of this season was to grab up a bunch of pitchers, see who they could rehab into innings eaters or better, then flip them. You won't hit on every player. The $12m spent on Fedde, Flexen and Soroka was an insanely great investment. Fedde will be one of the best pitchers on the trade market, and Flexen will bring back an interesting piece. He does not "suck". He's a serviceable #4. The Bummer trade brought us a pretty good pitching prospect in Riley Gowans and an okay bullpen arm in Shuster. You're not going to hit on every single player who puts on a uniform. I think of them in bunches. If one of three hits, the whole exercise is a success.

Sure. And maybe he cut a year or two of "kinda suck" off of the timeline by biting the bullet.

1) If you don't think this is a rebuild, then there's really nothing to discuss. However, all activity points to this being a rebuild, so I will react accordingly. Getz' job is to raise value on the talent, and trade that talent for prospect. He seems to be doing that, and well. Please tell me how 10 more wins will be important for this team. 2) Tommy Pham is 36. If you think he's the same player he was at 30 when he last played CF, then you should tell the guy who logs into your account to whine about older players. And in case you haven't noticed, players go on hot streaks, cool off as the league adjusts to them, they make adjustments and start hitting again. You declare Gavin Sheets' "hot streak" over every 10 days. It's silly. Pham is doing much better than the 33 year old Michael A. Taylor. I can't imagine how loud you'd be screaming about how Getz screwed up had he signed Taylor. I guess you could say Taylor's hot streak NEVA CAME!! I feel bad for the saps who wanted him on our team. 3) Julks has pretty much always hit lefties better than RHPs. Please tell us where a 5 WAR starting RF is so we can sign him for the major league minimum. Julks came across the waiver wire, we claimed him, and he did his job. Maybe he's a keeper. I think it will take more than your small sample size to make that determination. BTW, have you looked in on Canaan Smith-Njigba's AAA line lately? Hint: you don't have to start screaming that Getz messed up by not claiming him. 4) Fletcher's 2023 was evidence that he has hit in the majors. I don't think I talked about him as more than a platoon, maybe I did. Many players get multiple chances to take over a roll. You seem eager to declare victory every time a player takes a strike, or grounds out.

No, they shouldn't have bullshitted their way through that press conference. However, in biting the bullet, not trying to patch holes with $15m players, I think they might just be shortening the timeline of the rebuild. Well, they at least cut out the 2 year descent into total suckage.

Nobody on this board, outside of maybe Poppy, thought this season wasn't a rebuild year. Breaking camp, pretty much everyone thought we had 2 assets to sell: Cease and Robert. Now, lo and behold, we seem to have 2 more valuable assets in Fedde and Crochet. We're also talking about Brebbia, DeJong, Pham, Flexen and Kopech. In a rebuild, I choose to judge the GM based on how he can raise value on assets, and get that value back in trade. I'm happy with the Cease trade, and have no reason to believe I won't be happy with returns for Fedde, Crochet and Robert.

$4.3m is a low price. It's time to stop pretending this is big money when 1 WAR is worth about $9m.

I'm not sure what or who that was a dunk on.

How so?

Lopez plays good defense, but has no power. He won't be the second baseman going forward, but in a rebuilding year where we're not expected to be competitive, he's fine. As far as the future, you have Ramos, Baldwin and Gonzalez in the pipeline. You're going to have a solid, regular 2B at some point in the next year.

1) It's a rebuild year. The team isn't expected to be competitive. 2) Pham provided an offensive spark, and is playing out of position. In the event you disagree, see #1. 3) Julks also provided an offensive spark upon arriving, and will be the weak half of a platoon. OPS of .806 vs. LHP. 4) Fletcher started to hit in AAA, and is now injured. He's the very guy everyone has been yelling to give playing time to. Again, read #1. They're still giving playing time to the players they want to showcase for trade. There will certainly be space for Fletcher, Julks, Colas and DeLoach to get PAs once Pham, Sheets, and DeJong are dealt. It's a rebuild year. The team isn't expected to be competitive.

Sheets didn't get his first OF start until 4/17, well after the last of Eloy, Yoan and Robert went down.

I'm not going to quibble about the actual words of an introductory press conference. He did make a couple positions better, defensively. Not as good as he wanted to, but SS and 2B aren't the black holes they were last year. I would also argue Lee is better than the tandem of Zavala/Grandal. Injuries and timelines forced them to revert to Sheets in RF to get his bat in the lineup.

They didn't "suck". Pham is fine, and Julks is adequate as the weak half of an OF platoon. Both provided a bit of a spark to the offense. Grossman could take a walk, and brought back a future bullpen arm. If you're referring to the trades for Fletcher and DeLoach, they're not considered "ready". It's a rebuilding year. They were never expected to be competitive. Please point us to this magical GM you know of who has won every single trade and FA signing.

Moncada started out hot, and is still top ten in bWAR on this team. Eloy and Yoan's 2023 numbers would make a world of difference on this team. Robert and Eloy don't seem to be lifting this team on their return.

1) This year was an obvious rebuild year. There was no plan to be competitive. 2) Nobody has ever claimed that Getz didn't know players could get injured. They had a plan B on each person who went down. No, those plan Bs weren't "plug in star player who will be better than the guy he replaces". The disconnect comes when you're expecting Getz to have multiple layers of plans in place to be competitive in a year that we all agree could not, in any way, have been "competitive". It's like, if 5 starting players are killed in bus crash, then you start complaining that GMs should know that bus crashes happen, and they should still be competitive.

I'm not claiming he knew. You are. And it's not even an excuse. Those 3 players actually got injured, and then didn't play in games for long periods of time. The Sox weren't a competitive team. You don't get to sweep away the actual *fact* that Eloy, Yoan and Robert were injured and couldn't play by saying Getz "should have known". As I just posted to WS2023, they either could have loaded up with offensive players at the other positions to absorb their absence, players we don't even know were available to them on the FA market, or should have had better players in reserve to replace them. If they had better players in reserve, those players would be starting. It seems to me that you are claiming that if Yoan, Eloy and Robert never got injured and played every game, AND if Vaughn and Benintendi magically turned it around and OPSed a passable .700+ and played good defense, they would still be losing an historic amount of games, just because.

Nobody ever said that "Getz didn't know these three were injury prone". That's a ludicrous strawman. When your three main offensive players all go down at the same time with injury, that's a setback, regardless of whether somebody "could have known" or not. Knowing doesn't magically make them well and put them back on the field. If they had better players in reserve, those better players would be starting over the injury prone. I seriously don't understand what's so hard to understand about that. It's argumentative to try to take that "excuse" off the table by saying he "should have known". The only ways to have prevented those three injuries from derailing the plan of "just kind of bad" was to either load up the 4 open positions with the best players available, either by trade or free agency, or to just cut Robert, Yoan, Eloy, Benintendi and Vaughn, and again, then go out and replace them. And we don't even know if the first option was possible, given payroll restrictions, the Sox' reputation, and that players signing a contract would be looking at playing during an obvious rebuild. You don't know what players were available in trade or FA, and seeing that it took until the season started for them to finally sign Pham and Clevinger says to me that anybody was holding out for a better offer from anyone.

The bizarre narrative is that Chris Getz didn't realize that players could get injured. To me, that's the most bizarre strawman of all time. 3 key players were injured, 2 other key players crashed and burned. Saying Getz "should have known" is the most bizarre strawman of all time. "Knowing" doesn't change the fact that 3 guys got injured, and 2 others produced zeroes. Competitive teams often don't recover from that. The Sox weren't built to be competitive.