southsider2k5

The kid has 19ks in 39 ABs. Let's let him simmer a bit in case this is a fluke

The defense has sucked because of the roster moves that Getz made, not because of the injuries to a large extent. There is no injury in RF. Martin Maldonado is having the worst season in baseball between his defense and offense both being the worst in the league. Eloy is one of those injuries, and he wasn't supposed to see the field anyway. The Sox have decent defensive CF, and they are running Tommy Pham out there. They have other choices and are running Sheets in RF. There is zero chance what is happening in the rotation is "planned". You don't start 9 different guys in 40 something games without injuries, and call it a plan. You know what is great for getting prospects acclimated to the majors? Getting minimal regular ABs/innings and being sent down before they could possibly get comfortable, or work through anything. They didn't HAVE to stop the start they had. They could have understood that their long term plan was more important and stuck with it. Instead they panicked and dumped as much of the roster as they could, all while having no hope of contention for years.

If they are going to spend on 2nd and 3rd tier free agents it really doesn't help though.

Cool. That expectation doesn't change what the team will do even for a second.

lmao, what does this even mean? Your "standards" have nothing to do with what the team looks like on the field. Most of us are looking at the roster and seeing the COMPLETE lack of talent in the system short term. It isn't that hard to not see this team being decent for a number of years. Knowing their history, even if they do go out and sign guys, they are going to play in the 3rd tier market anyways, which isn't going to move the needle enough to matter going forward. I really hope you aren't expecting this team to be real players for top free agents as a condition of being good soon.

Yeah, that might be said by a couple, but it isn't reality. -They started seemingly with a plan for a good defense, but as soon as they had offensive problems, that went away. Sheets and Pham are now in the OF on a daily basis, and Eloy just played RF. If they had stuck with that plan, sure give them credit for doing what they said. They said it, and then did the opposite as soon as things got tough. The team is dead last in MLB in defensive rating according to fangraphs. That includes being last in DRS, 2nd to last in UZR and UZR/150, last in FRV, last in runs saved by arms, and last in runs saved above average. -They might well have been trying to build rotation pieces, but how many starters have we been through? How are they identifying guys in like two starts? Either they knew they weren't good when they brought them up, which isn't much of a plan, or they are panic moving to the next guy when they pitch exactly how they expected they would pitch. A plan implies trying something for a while to see if it works. Nine different guys have started games for the Sox. Keller and Nastrini got two starts. Canon got three. If they through they were ready, they would have gotten more than that. -I do like you appreciate you reaching into the 3 players got hurt bag, but again, for teams who were anywhere near the Sox in roster moves, those teams have had more DL trips. The Sox moves haven't been as much because of injuries, but very predictable badness. -If they are trying to give prospects more time, that would mean NOT calling up guys like Nastrini, Canon, Ramos etc and just rolling with what you have. It would mean sticking with a middling guy like Sosa instead of starting the clock on Ramos, or a guy like Colas instead of going to the street again, and losing more roster slots. -Also if you want to talk about defense in terms of catchers, that unnamed catcher we brought in off of the street is 58th of 61 in DRS. He is 5th from last in Stolen bases saved. He's 8th from last in good fielding plays runs saved. He is 3rd worst in catcher defensive rating. He is 60th of 61 in Statcast fielding run value which covers throwing, blocking, framing, arm and RAA. I am sure the pitchers appreciate him at least giving them a boost on offense... oh wait.

There is just nothing in this organization offensively. We have a couple of guys, but there is no way to squint and see an entire respectable offense in this organization today. Even if you say that Montgomery, Quero and Ramos hit quickly with the team, we are missing 2B, RF, LF, 1B, and probably CF once Robert gets dealt. You can get by with say 7 decent hitters, you can't get by with 3 to 4. We have more pitching, but even then, our top level guys are 3-4 years away.

So Ortega HAD to be on the roster RIGHT at that moment, even though we didn't need to because we already had other OFs on the roster by which we could still send down Fletcher AND keep Bailey Horn, for what reason exactly then? If we weren't going to learn about him, if we weren't going to show him off for a trade, what exactly did he achieve then, other than churning another roster spot for no reason other than churning another roster spot? Even if you want to give Getz the benefit of the doubt on half of that Thompson trade to say he had some kind of insider knowledge on Thompson, how awful was the trade if the guy he got was cut that quickly? What does it mean for their evaluation process to arrive at Bailey Horn in the first place that he was bad enough and unsalvagable enough to dump that in about a month's worth of minor league work? Either their evaluation process is flawed, or their coaching is flawed. They already knew the kids character as they drafted Horn and had him in the system under Getz leadership of the MiLB system anyway. Remember, if they came into the season with a plan, but quickly yeeted the plan as soon as the team started badly, that is the very definition of panic moves. If they believed in their plans, their players, their evaluations, their player development etc, they wouldn't be surfing through all of these random guys for an AB, an appearance, or a week or two on the active roster just be sent out of the system. They would have just continued with what they were doing knowing the long term was right.

So if there was no point to having Ortega on the roster, why cut Bailey Horn to make room for him in the first place? They could have just kept Kevin Pillar if they wanted the extra placeholder OF. He would have brought exactly what you needed to the team without having to cut someone to make room for him, knowing full well you weren't going to get anything for him.

If that is your point, it is wrong. No one wants this failure that is happening now. People recognizing that there is a complete lack of vision and strategy here are also not wanting it to happen. The rest of it is again a lack of patience and consistency. The daily win loss results for an awful team are secondary to accumulating and training talent. Take Rafael Ortega and his singular butterfly effect. If the Sox really felt that no young OF was good enough to be on this team, then sticking with a guy like Ortega is fine. But dropping someone from the 40 man roster, so that they could recall him, barely play him, and then drop him doesn't make sense in that you had to drop someone to make a slot to not stick with blocking whoever you decided wasn't ready in the first place. Ortega was on the roster for 18 days and got 14 PAs. If he is needed to block someone from the roster, then keep him. If you wanted to audition him to see what he had, what did you get out of 14 PAs scattered over 18 days? He got neither consistent time to get comfortable, nor a real chance to show you anything in the first place. Did Fletcher learn so much in the minors in those 18 days which justified DFAing Bailey Horn to make room for Ortega in the first place, that they couldn't have just been left alone originally? if guys like Nastrini and Canon were being "rushed" why roster them in the first place? What did Nick Nastrini really get to do in 8 innings that helped him or the franchise learn something about him that they couldn't see in Charlotte? If you don't know he is ready enough for the majors to go through more than 8 innings to know he isn't ready, you probably shouldn't have rostered him in the first place. Same with Cannon and his extra appearance/5 innings. If you don't know they are ready enough to stay longer than 2 or 3 starts, just stick with the same roster holders as you did before. What are you doing for the confidence of these kids to give them 2 chance at the MLB level, only to pull the rug right back out from under them? Did they really learn from that? They sure didn't build any comfort or confidence in themselves with that fragile of an existence.

Oscar Colas got 1 AB. What could management possibly have learned from that one AB that gave them the knowledge he wasn't ready? Conversely if they already knew he wasn't ready, why did they recall him in the first place? Nastrini got 8 innings in two appearances. Canon got 13 innings in 3 appearances. Berroa got one appearance. What exactly are they learning that quickly, that wasn't apparent before they were called up, but they learned in once on the mound or at the plate? If they aren't ready, don't recall them, use these shitty placeholders. If you are going to recall them, give them some time. That's why it looks like lurching from plan to plan. Most importantly quit giving guys away so you can get one AB or one appearance from someone.

Right now years of control is very important, especially when you are talking about making room for a guy with no control and giving up a guy with a ceiling that isn't going to be any higher than the guy you send out of the system to get him into the roster.

A ridiculous exaggeration, as many of these moves which required our minor leaguers to be ditched never had to be made. Again, we didn't need to see Brad Keller to know he sucked. There were plenty of these which forced out guys who were long term controllable.

One more time, it isn't about one individual guy. I know you keep coming back to disqualify each guy one by one but that is not the point here.

Some of the guys we have gotten rid of have been very young and or very raw, including Thompson.

Again, it isn't always about the individual players. It is about the concept of hording as much as you can for as long as you can trying to get the one in five, one in ten, one in a million (like Tatis Jr.) No one though Getz was going to to remembered for losing Declan Cronin so they could sign Tim Hill, yet Cronin is singlehandedly destroying Hill in terms of production this season. Sure the odds are against each of these guys individually, but as a bucket full of guys, the odds increase dramatically one of them can breakout.

Ah, I didn't get that parse. How we paid people wasn't the problem, it was selecting one guy and who that guy was. The tax implication part was fine IMO.

The stategy makes sense, it was the player selection that didn't.

We also gave away Bailey Horn from the Thompson deal for cash. Look like I said, the odds of any one guy turning out to be big from one of the deals is low. But the point is you horde as many of them as you can to increase the odds of having the one guy who breaks out. I don't think anyone thought Declan Cronin was going to be anything when they waived him. Yet here he is in 2024 putting up huge numbers at the MLB level out of the pen. Take a Matt Thompson, he was an awful minor league starter. Why didn't we give him run as a reliever to see if he could redeem value instead of trading him for a 26 year old reliever who we also didn't keep around for any amount of time, only to trade away for cash? Also it isn't just those two/three guys. Alex Speas Sammy Peralta Jake Cousins Peyton Burdick Lane Ramsey Romy Gonzalez Plus there are other guys we have waived that just didn't get claimed like Berroa and Garcia.

They shouldn't be giving away any of them for guys who aren't going to be here in a year.

I will be honest, the Mariners aren't my first choice for a deal like this, because they lack that supertstar top prospect, and I think you need that huge frontliner to start a good deal for Luis Robert. I have no idea what the market for him looks like, but as with Cease, I am also willing to let the market come to us if the market isn't there yet.

The panic narrative is born by lurching from plan to plan. I would understand a team full of awful placeholder vets to protect the kids. I would also understand a team full of struggling kids. What I don't understand is going back and forth between the two in very short periods of time, and losing rostered prospects in order to do it.

I have to think that in some of those cases that the tax savings could have been the difference in being the highest bidder, or not. Obviously I don't know all of the bids, but just thinking of us tax structure, keeping an extra 30/40/50% of that signing bonus by not paying taxes on it is a defacto bonus of that many dollars higher than if they brought them to the US right away. Take a 3 million bonus, and say a million dollars would have gone to taxes in the US, but doesn't in the DR. An extra million dollars is a LOT of money.

I think that is kind of the point though. Did we really need to see five minutes of Brad Keller to know that he sucks? Did we really need to see Rafael Ortega hit like Martin Maldonado to know he sucks? If we are going to use sorry vets to hold places until the kids are ready, do it. Let them suck. But then two seconds later we are churning kids for a start or two like they are going to come up and be stars right away. If we are going to roster kids, let them play and learn on the job by occasionally getting their asses kicked. Either let them learn, or protect them. This thing of being all over the place isn't helping anyone.