TheFutureIsNear

I would have preferred Joc or Brantley, but this could have been worse for sure. Nothing to meltdown over. Eaton and Engel will form a perfectly fine platoon in RF...obviously “perfectly fine” is not anything we should be striving for, but it’s not going to get me nearly as upset as I see people here. My excitement for this team isn’t going to wane because of unexciting, yet solid, signings.

Fans need to give up on the fairly tale that the Sox are going to build some decade long dynasty. Not going to happen. Go for the World Series when you can and this move signifies that. If this is the only major move made you can b****, but until then you’re just whining for the sake of whining

Obviously there’s a chance this blows up in our faces in 2/3 years, but love that we are going for it. Just gotta keep going and continue to do more. My biggest issue with Dunning was velo...don’t know if he was still recovering/building strength but obviously his ceiling is capped if he continues to sit at 92. At the end of the day, trading a 4th/5th starter (even with control) isn’t going to be the undoing of any franchise. Of course if he improves into a TOR arm it will be painful... Would also be interested to know if Texas wasn’t interested in Cease or we valued him more than Dunning?

Garrett would be a nice addition...Winker wouldn’t be a bad RF platoon option either. Career .915 OPS in 848 career PA’s against RH. Reds have Castellanos, Aquino, Senzel and Akiyama capable of playing OF already. Reds don’t have a decent current C option that I’m aware of. Possible home for Collins? Cease, Collins, Foster, and a Rutherford/Sheets/Micker type prospect for Gray and Winker?

I think we have a much better chance of winning a world series in the next 3 years than we do building a dynasty...trade whoever needs to be traded to make a serious run at a World Series. To each their own, but I’m not the type of fan that is happy with my team just being competitive and making the playoffs. While that’s obviously nice, I want to see my team win a World Series and I’m more than willing to sacrifice a couple of future years of being competitive for it.

So we have a 76 year old drunk as our manager. Awesome. What could go wrong?

Personally, I’d trade Vaughn and Cease for Woodruff in a heartbeat. Resign mcann and sign Joc. The offense is set with Luery and Engel on the bench. Add another cheap vet stater and a bullpen piece and or resign Colome and I think we're favorites in the division and a team no one wants to see in the playoffs. But I also certainly wouldn’t be upset if we gave Bauer that contract and went in a completely different direction than above. We have a lot of options..

Woodruff is the guy I would have my eyes on...no idea how available he actually is tho. Plus it would likely take at least Vaughn + Cease

Of course not. Don’t get me wrong, it won’t surprise me if it does, but let’s hope JR is past 9 mil more in payroll being too much to put the best possible team on the field. Not like we’ll be anywhere near the luxury tax. Hopefully since he hired a 76 year old coach JR is at least in WS now mode and will get the payroll up to at least 150. Not to mention that a good 2nd C is necessary with Grandal. Is Collins ready? Or would we just end up signing someone else cheaper/not as good to save 4/5 mil?

The contracts I have seen have been surprisingly low. I would absolutely keep McCann around for something like 2 years 18 mil

What does everyone think of a cheap trade for Polanco from the Pirates for RF? Too close to Mazara? Or worth a gamble?

What does everyone think it would take to get Woodruff from Milwaukee? Would Vaughn and Cease be too much?

Feels very similar to the Mike McCarthy situation in Dallas...he admitted to lying about adopting analytics into his coaching style just to get the job. Now he’s up to his same old tricks from a decade ago and the team is a dumpster fire. Can’t imagine it’s any different with LaRussa- he might be old but he’s not stupid. It would be crazy of him to say that he doesn’t support analytics at this point, so he just lied and told people what they wanted to hear. (Although I will say that I think the Sox are too talented to be a dumpster fire like the crappy cowboys) Not to mention JR making decisions (clearly) by himself and not consulting the actual baseball people around him is starting to get very Jerry Jones like as well.

Yea because obviously your opinion means more than EVERYONE else’s.

This is seriously like a gut punch. I get that it’s his team and his $, but I just can’t even imagine being so selfish and self indulged to not care what literally EVERYONE else thinks. This is a terrible hire and will likely set the team back after finally taking steps forward. JR is pretty much the poor man’s MLB version of Jerry Jones and it’s sickening

Am I crazy that I would have rather just stuck with Ricky than hire LaRussa? This is just madness by JR. Sorta kinda took a couple steps forward last off season with player acquisition... and now this off season we’re going to run backwards with an actual living dinosaur as coach

Thanks Ricky, you did your job. But it’s time for someone else to take us to the next level. Pretty shocked this actually happened and very happy... who’s next should be interesting

Not even a question in my mind. Both are in the rotation next year. Either via FA or trade we need to add a guy who can can give us minimum 180 innings and 3.5 era. A Compliment to Gio and DK at the top of the rotation. Cease and Dunning for dirt cheap as our 4th and 5th starters is great. Unless 1 of them gets beat out by an internal option it’s a no brainer they are slotted in. Spending assets to replace them would be crazy IMO. Starter and RF should be the focus

I can take a loss to a better team but that just wasn’t the case in this series. The Sox lost, the A’s didn’t win. And that hurts.

Pitching will be the story but this offense has come up very small in big situations....2 games in a row. Can’t win like that.

I can take getting beat by good hitting but this is flat out mental weakness by our pitching. The moment is too big for these guys and they are shrinking. Very disheartening

Anything else want to go wrong? And now have mccann on 2nd as a very important runner

Well this bullpen game is only going to get scarier. I really don’t want to see Cease or whoever else shouldn’t be in a playoff game

Would like to just throw it out there for no one to see/hear/care...but it is complete and utter horse shit that this entire series was played in the middle of the day on work days. Way to go MLB, put the young and exciting team on at a time most people can’t watch. Morons

I say we just hit the hell out of the ball so we don’t have to worry about who/how many pitchers to use. Get out to an early lead and let Dunning go 5