Sawamura & Davis DFA'd

[MongoLikeSox]

My eyes popped open this morning as I read the news. Davis and Sawamura both got the axe. I can't imagine both/either clearing waviers.

There are some who would argue that Bloom's strategy to rely on Davis as the only lefty out of the pen for a few weeks after deadline day was asking for trouble. Davis was, used Carefully by Cora in the past.  Me, I never got that trade to begin with. I was PO'd at the time it happened.

Sawamura's case was a little different. SOME of his struggles here were fitting into our system. In short, he was a low ball pitcher who now had to go up high. Didn't work out. There was so much more to it than that, though. His outings often got interesting. Of the two, I think this is the DFA that surprises me.

These are two Bloom pickups. One low-value trade, one low-end value free agent. We're bringing in Ort and Zach Kelly. Ort was already on the 40-man roster. I don't think Kelly was. There might be one slot left. That in of itself could be interesting. Who gets that slot.

[elktonnick]

Finally Bloom woke up.  I swear  Bloom  strategy on pitching was  dumpster diving hoping to get lucky.  Well it did not work.

[longgame]

You have to wonder what triggered that all of a sudden.  Maybe it would have been wise to do this earlier in the year when a replacement would have made a difference? Did someone have to force this issue somewhere in the organization?

[elktonnick]

Good questions .
One of the criticisms of Bloom is that he is slow to react.  He could get away with that in Tampa because the Ray's will draw 9000 fans regardless of how good they are
  The excess of that oots for the visitors


 

[Sea Dog 23]

Someone yelled at Bloom for him to wake up after all this time on the bullpen.  Interesting remarks from Jon Tomase on last night's podcast.  "Bloom did not learn anything in Tampa.  They turned over their bullpen successfully year after year.  Whereas Bloom carried old arms forward ... Brasier, Barnes as the heart of the pen, then traded his  good lefty reliever and did not replace him."  The two guys brought up are Ort, who has a bad MLB history with exploding ERA, and Kelly, a 27 yo journeyman.

Tomase is betting on the Orioles, of all teams, to possibly repeat what the Astros did five years ago with a title nucleus, starting with one of the best farm systems in MLB.

[longgame]

I have to wonder if there are more moves to be made and if this is the official throwing in of the towel at this point.  Will Casas come up?  Who else will be in the mix in the bullpen?  What other moves can they make to get some guys some ML playing time? 

[SeaBeachFred]

You have to wonder what triggered that all of a sudden.  Maybe it would have been wise to do this earlier in the year when a replacement would have made a difference? Did someone have to force this issue somewhere in the organization?

Could be Bloom is worrying about his job at long last and wants to show his cheap bastard owner that he is on the job.  He needn't worry.  To lose his job Pruney would have to ante up the rest of his contract and the hire a guy to take his place for a lot more money because no respected baseball exec is going to want to come to this shit show unless he is paid plenty and has a contract that will give him time to build his kind of team and that is at least three years.  Still those guy are only DFA'd which in Red Sox terms means sq uat.  They are DFA's, no one claims them and they're back in the minors.  A  total farce.  Release them and put their future con tracts in a savings account for some fresh meat this off season because there is a lot of garbage, pitching and position players and even some "prospects" who are no longer real prospects and rid the team of all that shit.

[MongoLikeSox]

I've wondered out loud before about how some of Cora's move seemed to be pointed, as if to say 'this is what you give me, this is what you get'. I'd say as far back as Toronto and maybe even with Robles earlier.

Both of the DFA's are still surprising to me. It seemed almost random. Look at the theoretical spots that those guys would fit given a for real bull pen. Davis never had any business up that ladder. Sawamura was supposed to. Well, maybe not as random as it seemed.
Closer -
Key Set-Up Men - Whitlock, Houck(IL)
Mid-Game fireman - Schreiber, Strahm
2nd tier Set-up - Barnes, Brazier, Sawamura
Fill Ins, 4th, 5th, 6th, Mop Up - Davis, Famillia,

[SeaBeachFred]

GM Kennedy comes through and spouts that both Bloom and Cora will be back and then gives us a pack of gobbily gooked nonsense that he believes things are going along at the right pace.  What kind of a flunky or dumb ass is this Kennedy anyway?  Anyone who thinks things are moving along swimmingly need to add a ton of bran to their diet because they are full of crap to the gills.  What I said yesterday still holds.  I said they would be back and said why.  To fire either or both of them would mean paying off the remaining contracts and then replacing them with successors who would command more money.  JOHN HENRY HAS BECOME A ROTTEN CHEAP BASTARD AND WOULD RATHER WALK ON HOT COALS THAN DO THAT.  In fact a few days back our  friend Ted called it right when he said that Pruney was using the Red Sox as his ATM to siphon money from the team in order to get his grubby hands on another franchise, this time either in basketball or football, to eventually run into the ground as he did with his soccer team.  Today on MLB two intelligent baseball writers from New York Joel Sherman and another  guy I whose name I can't remember were ripping the team for their stupidity in their trades and zeroed in on the one for Mookie Betts.  When you think of it we got Alex Verdugo, a solid player but no Betts and along with that that dud Jeter Downs who can't hit 200 in the minors and has been discarded by two teams already, and this non entity catcher infielder who still languishes in the minors.  All I learned from all this is that Kennedy is another one of the dunces who have run our beloved team into the ground.   End of rant my friends.

[MongoLikeSox]

Fred, I think the Catcher position might become interesting sooner than later. I believe Wong is making that push. They like his defense and he's been on an extended good hitting stretch. Might as well prep for next year and see what we have. Alas, that would mean no more Plawster.

[SeaBeachFred]

I have to wonder if there are more moves to be made and if this is the official throwing in of the towel at this point.  Will Casas come up?  Who else will be in the mix in the bullpen?  What other moves can they make to get some guys some ML playing time?

Look Ted, the 2022 game is over over over.  We are a last place team going nowhere and it is time to haul the truck up to the front of the ballpark and start unloading players like Brasier, Barnes, Downs, Cordero, Plewecki, and a host of others.  Face it, Pruney is not going to spend the money to upgrade this team and that should be clear to everyone right now.  He just doesn't give a shit about the team any more and thinks we all should be satisfied with the four titles he brought us as an owner.   He forgets that we have more last place finishes this century than titles.  We need starting pitching, power, relievers who don't give grand slam homers like that turd Brasier always seems like he does.  Hernandez is good but not part of our rebuild and we are in a rebuild whether Henry or Blom want to admit it or not.  Right now we stink like a sewer at high tide and the fact that rather than spend money on getting good baseball personnel at the top, they are bringing back Bloomer, a two year failure, a cheater like Cora whose ability to make the right calls are out to lunch and most likely has the Mark of Cain on him for being a filthy rotten cheater.  Our best pitching prospect, this Bello character, can seem to last four or five innings, cannot extricate himself from jams he gets into and still hasn't won a damn game for us in five or six starts.  You know as well as I do that WE STINK!!!!!!!!!

[SeaBeachFred]

Fred, I think the Catcher position might become interesting sooner than later. I believe Wong is making that push. They like his defense and he's been on an extended good hitting stretch. Might as well prep for next year and see what we have. Alas, that would mean no more Plawster.

Keep me posted Mongo if you can on the progress of Wong. It would take a lot anger out of my system if we can actually say we got two decent young players for Mookie Betts since it is almost a sure thing that Jeter Downs has turned into a strikeout swinging dud who was discarded by both Cincy and LA.  Still rankles me how we didn't get a king's ransom for Mookie who now has 32 homers for the Dodgers and him doing that for them hurts even more.

[MongoLikeSox]

Fred, I was thinking the same thing when I heard Mookie had hit his 32nd HR already - and that's with a home field of Dodger Stadium, no less.

I just looked it up. Wong didn't even play in August until the 13th, but ended up with 9HRs and a .368 average for August. The other catcher down there, Ronaldo Hernandez, has cooled off some from his great June/July, but still managed 2HRs and .277 avg for August. I understand they like the overall defense of Wong, but like Hernandez's arm and bat. Whichever way, Wong deserves a chance sooner than later.

You know my feeling son Downs so far. Electric tools, but they through him into AAA too fast. The flip-side part of it would be that he's not made an approach adjustment that's either stuck or worked in two years. Was he too delicate to demote? Would it have been bad PR for Bloom? Downs was the feature prize for a trade to the Dodgers and then the prize for a trade to the Sox. So far it looks like the throw ins will end up doing better.