southsider2k5

Two of my other all time favorite Soxtalk threads.

He's fine. He still has a 3.50 FIP and an xFIP of 3.36. His defense has been awful behind him.

Oh man, this is one of the GOATs.

You mean the guy with an OPS 120 points higher than anyone on the Sox or with 5.2fWAR more than the entire position player roster combined, including double any one single players fWAR this year? Yeah, what we would ever do with that kind of a failure. And Cleveland has Jose Ramirez.

And we can't do that now. That is more door that is closed to us.

Take the O's another great example. You get a Jackson Holliday absolutely bust in his first trip to the majors despite being the #1 prospect in the game. Down he goes again. But the O's have enough juice in the system that they worked around it without blinking and are still in contention. Need pitching? Sure they do. Guess what they have a loaded list of guys they can move for them. Contrast that with Yoan busting after being the absolute #1 prospect in the game. The Sox couldn't replace him. Contrast that with if Colson Montgomery stalls out, we are now trying to push Gonzalez along, or we are looking at someone like Lenyn Sosa at SS.

Tim Anderson was that guy, at least until whatever happened after TLR got here.

Still "a few more drafts" is something that takes 5+ years to even start to shake out. Vaughn is 5 years ago. Crochet is 4 years ago. You also still have to get those kids here, get them to the majors and let them figure out if they will even make it, let alone have enough of them make it at a level where we can win. You mentioned the Twins? Let's. They went out and added a superstar contract at SS to move their build along. Do you see the Sox adding a Pete Alonzo to fix 1B or a Juan Soto to shore up the OF? And their worse season in recent years was a 73 win season, or approximately 30 wins better than where the Sox are on pace to be this year.

"A few more drafts" pushes Crochet out the door for sure, and Robert in his walk year, assuming we were to keep him and exercise him along the way. Those drafts also won't be helping for years after they are picked.

It's not though. If you want to talk about a playoff team, that is way more than one major league star out of the last five years worth of drafts. Ultimately that is what this is all about. If you have a narrow window to contend, that isn't nearly enough.

He didn't start one, he relieved in one and hurt himself.

Which again is the point. Even the right pick can have set backs and failures, which is why the entire system is so important, and not just pointing to one guy who is NOW living up to his potential after so many years.

And Andrew Vaughn still isn't playoff team good. Being on the team, vs being a part of a playoff caliber roster are two different things. Vaughn is still five years post draft, and the Sox still have a hole at 1b. Some of these guys will absolutely fail. Others will take years to live up to the hype. That's why talent accumulation is so important, and getting one basic major leaguer isn't moving the needle.

Not to mention pointing at a guy like Crochet as a success story should have an asterisks next to it. It took into his 4th MLB season before he lived up to his potential, which is exactly the point.

And even more so, if you aren't willing to add big names in free agency, you need way more than one player a year to make it. You need to be like Cleveland and be able to hit it big in the draft, intentionally, and to acquire guys in the trade market for the guys you know aren't resigning here because you won't pay them. Otherwise a guy like Crochet is going to be gone before our 2024 draft pick makes an impact, no matter who it is. If you want to win in modern baseball you have to be able to quickly accumulate talent into a small window of contention if you aren't going to spend large contracts to keep or acquire players.

Say it again for those in the back of the room.

Oh man this reminds me of the crazy McDonalds thread from back in the day. One of the top Soxtalk threads ever, up there will the attack thread on Mark Buerhle.

But this time it will really work!

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

Yep, it goes back to the you can build a successful baseball franchise a lot of ways, but if you aren't drafting and developing, they will all quickly fall apart, which is what we keep seeing here. They are also willing to give their young players a lot of run to see what they have, while we block ours with guys like Moldy and Nicky.

Apparently he had a bad start

Can you see Jerry winning a bidding war for a manager? Yeah, that.

Getz signing mediocre vets to block the kids? Never.