CaliSoxFanViaSWside

I just got done saying Meidroth was their most MLB ready prospect based on AAA seasons . Unfortunately Sosa is likely to get 1st shot at 2nd base. And If Vargas or he produces offensively one of them is likely the new 1st baseman to replace Vaughn.

No one anticipated 121 losses but you traded Cease .You also signed Fedde who apparently no on wanted to give a better offer to and you had Crochet who no one thought could stay healthy or pitch as long and as effectively as he did. They were both big question marks. Everything was in shambles after an 101 loss season and trading away most of your assets. Your bullpen was gone, your prospects weren't ready. 110 losses seemed pretty likely even with Crochet and Fedde pitching well because the rest of the starting pitching and bullpen, offense and defense was garbage once Robert, Moncada and Eloy all took the year off torpedoing any trade value you were hoping to regain. But Robert should've been traded .He was the one guy you were sure was worth a good return, not a great return because of injuries. That isn't hindsight or revisionist history. As I've said Tampa Bay in the same situation trades him. You get the money off the books and you get good prospects perhaps at least 1 really good one and a 2nd pretty good one near MLB ready and some lower level 45 level players too. Money gone and good new blood helps the rebuild tremendously. Then you still have Cease and Crochet to trade.

You think if that was going on with Robert then they definitely should have traded him after the 2023 season unless they thought he had conquered those demons . However even if you were model citizen there were still those injuries and now add the 2024 injury to that long list.

I've also said they should hold him and I'm not sure Getz or the team feels differently. I do think that they like Taylor's defensive and base running skill set and acquiring him is more of an insurance policy in case they get a better than expected trade offer before he opens the season in the OF. Taylor's defense will give Robert a day off once every 15 days or so especially if they can give him 2 days off in a row with an off day in the schedule with Taylor in CF on the preceding day or day after the open day on the schedule. Taylor's not likely to be facing any soft tossing RHP . He'll get the much tougher RHP that Robert likely wouldn't want to face.

No I'm not ok if Montgomery is the OD starter but defense at SS is going to be iffy no matter who they put there unless it's longshot Amaya and I think I'd rather have Baldwin get a shot as SS because while they are trying to get offense out of Vargas and Sosa I'm not looking forward to their defense when one of them DHs or plays 1st base or w/e they have in store for them. The infield is a lot more crowded with potential MLB players than the OF is. Fletcher got over 230 PA with the Sox .He failed miserably and it's not like he or Deloach lit up the Minors either. Again you're dealing with marginal types. Failure of all turds is kind of normal. But you can't give up on trying to trade turds into a few minor leaguers in lost seasons. Nor should you play prospects who are some of the turds. They are still here. Let them knock down the door to beat out the trade candidate vets.

Sometimes you need to explain it all out. There was nothing in what the Sox were doing at the time or Roberts career trajectory that said Luis Robert is going to stay healthy and be productive for 2 years in a row or that this wasn't a near rock bottom path the Sox were on. It was all wishful thinking and delusions of a mind-blowing trade based on outlandish fair value by fans.

They didn't even need that great of a deal to be much better off than they are today. He wasn't nor was he ever worth all that based on one season and 4 years $70 million left on his contract. He was only worth that if he had 2 or more seasons like that in a row. All his injuries always prevented him from being worth as much as all that. Unfortunately that was proven in 2024. Even a return like the Crochet trade and they would've still been much better off. Sure fans would've bitched about it but then realized if he got injured with his new team in 2024 how lucky we would've been to have made that trade.

It's hindsight to plenty of fans who overvalued him. It never was about his contract.Trading him after a great season with his injury history would've been done by an organization like the Rays .Selling high is paramount in baseball . Look what Crochet got after his lone good season eason as a starting pitcher. I think if you pulled up the thread in the 2023 off-season you see a lot thinking calling him a superstar and overvaluing him . I'm on record as saying he wasn't a superstar back then so it's not hindsight to me. Also the Sox were selling everything in sight. What was it about Roberts career path and the Sox 2023 season that makes you think 2024 didn't have a good chance of being a train wreck for both the Sox and Robert ? I seem to remember @WestEddy arguing that Robert, Moncada and Eloy getting hurt was a deciding factor in 2024 being historically bad and Soxtalkers mocking him like expecting them to stay healthy was stupid since they were always injured. I'm sure plenty of them were the same people telling us that Robert was a superstar and it was impossible to get fair value for him back in the 2023 off-season.

Fletcher has shown no signs whatsoever since his arrival in the minors or major last year of being capable of providing value. I have more faith in Colas providing value and we all know how deep Colas is buried on the depth chart.

I think it makes sense just for the possibility Robert may get traded before the season . The longer you wait the less chance you have that Taylor is not there to replace Robert . As far as roster construction goes it's a bit odd but Rojas can play the jack of all trades roll along with Baldwin playing SS if Colson Montgomery isn't just handed SS. I'm rather interested in seeing how Catcher plays out during the preseason with McKinven. Him and Fuller have a lot of work to do.

Jimmy I always respect your opinion but you can't call it 4 years. In reality you're talking a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 4 years if by after 2025 the trading team deems his options worth picking up. His injury history alone was reason to get whatever you could for him. No GM should care whether he's crucified by the fan base as long as your getting a good deal. Based on the fact that his injury history vs his output in 2023 still favors him getting hurt again over putting up another good season in 2024 a trade seemed immediately prudent. Also 1 5.0 War season does not justify calling him a superstar. This has always been when fan bases get overzealous about value. The same thing happened in the long Cease thread with the Orioles fans even though he had a down year in 2023 and Getz traded him which further indicated it was a rebuild. You don't hold onto Robert praying for him to buck the odds of getting injured again.Maybe those extra 2 years of options gets you slightly more but his injury history needed to be taken into major consideration. Plus the Sox were and still are in desperate need of position player prospects especially in CF or SS. Trading Robert shouldve taken precedent over trading Cease. If you were going to hold one of them to try to get a better deal , the much healthier Cease coming off a bad year was the better bet to stay healthy and improve his value. Then you have Crochet,Cease and Fedde in this alternate universe since trading Robert but keeping Cease still freed up money to afford Fedde.

Because he can field CF defensively way better than anyone else available for that little cost . He can also put Benintendi on the bench in the late innings or against LH starting pitchers . He leads all MLB OFs in DRS with 54 runs saved since 2020. He's also likely their best Pinch runner and despite his inability to hit he usually generates positive WAR overall. Incrementally he'll do things to help them win and avoid another season like 2024. Why are you so opposed to it ? Can you name one OF who truly was available or currently on the Sox for equal or less money who can provide what Taylor can defensively and on the basepaths ? Certainly not Fletcher. Getz didn't even trust him to handle RF where he contributed decently defensively but he doesn't have the wheels to be as good defensively in CF , on the bases or as a late inning defensive replacement for Benintendi or occasional starter against LHP. If Fletcher was the best you could do to replace Robert in CF that's pretty bad. He couldn't even earn RF and you're going to hand him CF ? If you're thinking Slater in CF you're going to have to convince me that taking him out of the RF platoon roll against LHP and sticking him in CF full time in the event of a Robert trade helps OF depth ,RF weak side Platoon , late inning defense in LF pinchrunning and defense in CF and contributes more to wins than just adding Taylor. What if Robert and Tauchman are traded ? Then won't you need a left handed RF ( presumably Fletcher or Colas) to hold down the fort in RF unless you prefer Joey Gallo out there ? If the goal is to win more than 41 games again but still have the best chance at the Top pick in every round of the draft you're going to have to come up with better reasons than it saves JR $2M dollars or blocks the 5'6", -.8 fWar Dominic Fletcher from playing CF.

While everyone knows that I generally defend Getz for the onslaught of over the top criticism , the whole reason we're talking about this is because I said not trading Robert was Getz' biggest mistake. One of Getz' harshest critics who calls him Captain Panic picked that up and ran with it because, oops , now he didn't panic and held onto him and in doing so was either stupid or a liar. One thing is certain even without knowing the offers, the return would have been far better than what he's likely to get if he's traded before the season starts . There was zero reasons to hold onto him. 101 loss season, everyone traded at the deadline, budget and payroll cut drastically. There were no high quality assets besides him at the time which was before Crochet's unexpected ascension. Soxtalk reader Liam Hendriks contract was over but was cancer free . Eloy Jimenez just had his healthiest season by playing 120 games , most since his rookie year in 2019 but he was clearly not the same player. Nor was Yoan Moncada for that matter who had a 1.1 fWar in 2023. In hindsight both of them should be been moved also. All 3 of them had extensive injury history and still had value but moving Robert should have been a priority given his injury history and big statistical year. He would've saved Jerry $30M and got about $30M worth of prospects back . They probably would've had to pay off a large portion of Moncada $25M remaining contract but they ended up paying off all of it. Eloy's final salary in 2024 was around $13M . The Sox probably would've ended up paying off most of that too if they had traded him after the 2023 season but might have got a better younger prospect than Trey McGough. The Os only ended up responsible for $1.5 million of his $3M buyout and the Sox essentially paid off all of his remaining contract.

But after the '23 season after you lost 101 games and traded away everyone they could at the TDL. Anyone with half a brain knew it was the start of another rebuild regardless if they were choosing not to use that word because JR happened to pin Getz into a corner by talking about a quick turnaround. What the heck could Getz do except try not to make JR look like a liar . If you only had 1 good player to build around that's not a good reason to keep him. You'd think after Hahn and Williams were fired and JR hired Getz that some time in the next 4 months that JR would've gave Getz the lay of the financial land and he had to know that he'd have very little money to work with. His one player still left on the team who could fetch some really good prospects was Robert . He had to be traded. They weren't going to turn a 101 loss team who just traded away almost anyone with value and they were going to cut payroll and spend next to nothing. He could've jumped started the rebuild with a strong return if he got a return equal to the Crochet trade.

It's a rebuild .You may be right about Vargas but being right about guys isn't the point. Rebuilds require patience. Vargas is out of options . It's his last chance and Sosa's too. He's had very good minor leagues numbers.He can't possibly be as bad as he's shown. Being a good hitter is harder than ever. Numbers across baseball were down. Pitchers make improvements faster than hitters. Adding a pitch with a lot of movement with command is not easy but I think it's easier than making split second decisions about swinging the bat. You're dealing with a lot of prospects , any of whom can flop or succeed. We're all guessing here. Someone like Meidroth might be the most MLB ready prospect the Sox have based on his AAA numbers but unfortunately he's not 1st in line based on options. There's a pecking order whether we like it or not. I think the logjam has a purpose. Another name for a logjam is a dam. You remove a few logs ( guys out of options , guys you trade off), you let guys show they are ready and push hard against that weakened dam until they burst through. The wheat will be separated from the chaff .It's just going to take time. There will be a lot of comings and goings of guys Getz made minor trades for because he's dealing on the fringes. There's lots of failure doing that. If you're angry about Getz being hired or his performance so far it's understandable. However I haven't seen many counter solutions to what Getz is up against. Who would've taken a no win position like Getz is in and done better ? You can all dream that someone could have been hired but he or she still would need to do the same things Getz has been trying to do with as little money . Maybe Crochet would have been handled differently if a different GM fired Katz and didn't hire Bannister. Maybe they don't sign Fedde because apparently the rest of MLB didn't think enough of him to offer what the Sox did. It also might be why they were so reluctant to trade for him. For a guy who didn't have much money to work with signing Fedde was a quite a coup. It's pretty pitiful that in 2 off seasons as GM that $15M Fedde contract is the most he's spent on any one player. The fact that he hired a few well respected coaches and seems to be making an effort to overhaul the infrastructure all seems to be the right things to do. You might be skeptical and say Hahn said and did the same things but that doesn't mean Getz shouldn't get his shot at doing it better. I just don't care if Fletcher doesn't get to play CF when Robert is traded .Better to have a guy who saves runs in Taylor than a guy who can't save runs in the field or create them at bat. A good fielding RF isn't necessarily a good CF. Dudes are going to have to show they deserve a shot or get out of the way.

Sarcasm ? I was about to give u a love emoji on Valentine's Day until I thought oh this may be sarcasm.🙂

True. My stances are twofold usually. I can find reasons for optimism . I can also know last year was terrible and it was apparent it was to going to be bad from the get go despite what JR and Getz said. I always maintained piling up junk and trying to turn it into gold was a poor plan but likely the only one available to any GM who took the job. I've used metaphors like the Sox are crack addicts trying to sell their banged up Rolex to a pawn shops ( the other GMs ) and getting take it or leave offers because JR put Getz over a barrel. And it's the same plan this year but with more prospects ready to play this year while still trying to turn crap into filet mignon. I know what's going on sucks but I'd like to think we hit rock bottom and there will be progress behind the scenes even if on field results are still 110 loss bad. If it wasn't in poor taste I'd make a poll .What happened 1st a new labor agreement or JR passing away ? JRs going to live as long as Virginia McCaskey did.

I can't really take your word for it .It can't be literally what I said last year because there's a lot different names this year and there weren't a lot of MLB ready arms last year. And I highly doubt I said some of those arms from last year had good years the previous year. But points for using hearsay to impune my usual spring optimism. Look be as pessimistic as you want to be but I don't see the point of spitting on my outlook .

What you're losing with Fedde and Crochet you could be gaining in the number of starters who could be solid in the 3-5 rolls. There's more depth. I think there's also more depth for a better bullpen. I know it's easy to look at the amount of strange veteran arms and some of the younger arms and think of it as better than last year. It is deeper and they're going to sort through a lot of arms . Maybe Trey McGough, Shane Smith ,Peyton Pallette, Addison Coffey and others can eventually give solid contributions. They have more arms that had pretty good years last year but they are pretty unfamiliar to the average fan.

I admit there's a lot of questions marks which is what you get doing what Getz is forced to do. I think some of the kids are more ready to be productive and it's really hard to be much worse than last year. Rather not see the new manager and coaches have that kind of year. 110 losses would be bad enough but at least wouldn't have to face all time bad again.

I might take that bet. I also might lose it in the next couple of minutes .They really did need a backup CF though. On one hand I'm like Jerry really doesn't want to pay that $15M does he ? On the other hand Getz is running out of quality assets to peddle for some young CF or SS . He has to keep him and hope for a bounce back then trade him a couple weeks before the TDL. Didn't get lucky hoping Eloy or Moncada ever bounced back. Maybe just take some really young OF prospects but one has to show some power potential or have the frame to develop power. Tough call .Trade him now or wait. Decent enough offers might not be there yet . Teams may want to see him play well first.

Really ? Who last year was solid compared to this year ? Maldonado? Lopez? Catchers ? Outfielders ? SS Was Dejong so maybe ? Vaughn was still at 1st. Bullpen could t be much worse than last year. Starting pitching might be a toss considering Crochet didnt win that many games . You're expecting less than 41 wins ?

So because I think outside the box makes me wrong ? I suggested that as a possibility in case Crochet and his rep were seeking an extension right away. I always knew the odds of that happening weren't good. Harped on it ? Nope. And yes I was right about my thoughts that neither Crochet or Robert were going to be traded at the deadline and that was before the Crochet extension controversy. The whole reason Crochet's team did that was to protect Crochet's arm because he loved his routine the Sox developed for him and did not want to be used by a new team willy nilly . It only follows that if they were willing to prefer staying with the Sox to ensure they continue his routine and don't want to pitch in the postseason at random intervals without an extension ,that they might also seek an extension right away after or before he was traded. No it didn't happen that way but it's strange that mentioning it as a possibility and using creative thought is so foreign and wrong to you. I guess you prefer group think and wolf pack attack mode. The perfect mid level robot executive.

It's probably as good of a guess as anyone else but I don't think any of those 3 start at the positions you have them, at least on Opening Day.

Easy as reading the tea leaves. Eagles had a lot of momentum headed into the game . When you start playing your best football in the playoffs that's usually the winner. Got a nice parlay win once the score went over 48.5.