Predictions 2023 Season

[elktonnick]

The Sox will not win 80 games and will finish last in the ALE.
Sale, K Jansen, Duvall, Turner, Arroyo and Kike Hernandez will all miss more than 60 games due to injury.

Despite all this Henry will not fire Bloom

[Sea Dog 23]

The Sox will not win 80 games and will finish last in the ALE.
Sale, K Jansen, Duvall, Turner, Arroyo and Kike Hernandez will all miss more than 60 games due to injury.

Despite all this Henry will not fire Bloom

It would not be justifiable to fire an exec if so many key players unable to play.    rofl

[longgame]

The Sox will not win 80 games and will finish last in the ALE.
Sale, K Jansen, Duvall, Turner, Arroyo and Kike Hernandez will all miss more than 60 games due to injury.

Despite all this Henry will not fire Bloom

It would not be justifiable to fire an exec if so many key players unable to play.    rofl

Bloom’s strategy to be sure.

I hope they can sniff .500, but not optimistic.

[MongoLikeSox]

We had 78 wins last season with a dog-poop bullpen, a disaster of a rotation injury plagued season for the starters and the big-3 stinking to high hell last season with runners in scoring position and a botched up OF. Oh, and team morale that would make an Assistant Crack Whore's job seem like it was worth living for.

That said, I'm thinking 78 wins again thanks to not having to play the ALE as much as last season.

Individual predictions:
Devers over-swings and loses 25 games and plays another 25 just plain too sore from it all.
Duval, Kike, Arroyo and Casas combine for less than 440 games.
We are last or second to last in the league on either side of the SB stats race.
Mondesi either doesn't make it back until June or doesn't make it past August.
Sale, Paxton and Kluber combine for less than 40 starts.
Whitlock and Houck combine for 30 starts.
Pivetta gets 30 starts, but finishes in the bottom 10% of ERA qualifiers.
Verdugo leads the team in BA as only 1 of 3 players to qualify for the batting race.
Devers and Casas are only two above 20 HR.
As far as official blown saves goes, we only finish with 5 less than last season.   

Or am I being negative. Actually I am in a wretched mood, but will explain at some other time.

edit: I crossed out the Mondesi prediction. Too early and too soon to take credit. Not even 24 hours. Sheeeesh! Nice trade.
edit: Fixed a typo on # games Duvall Kike, Arroyo and Casas play.

[elktonnick]

Actually you are being realistic

[Sea Dog 23]

Mondesi starts the season on the 60 day IL.  That's after a spring long rehab, and he still has a lot of work to do.  Mondesi is a free agent end of this year.  Will he play more than 6 weeks?  It is all redundant now, as Story will be available about the same time Mondesi is ready.  Meanwhile we could have gotten a healthy, low cost regular like Mongo was plugging.

Also on the 10 day IL are Paxson, Bello and Whitlock. 

[MongoLikeSox]

Maybe we should have a side pool going on Paxton before June 1st, yes or no?

[Sea Dog 23]

Maybe we should have a side pool going on Paxton before June 1st, yes or no?

I'd say at least by Memorial Day, lol.  Paxton and Sale must have the same mother.  Both could be blown away in a breeze.

[SeaBeachFred]

Unless there are radical changes and soon, this team of ours will lose at least 100 games this season,  They are a total train wreck.

[Sea Dog 23]

The hitting is there to win games.  BUT, the pitching is full of holes.  I think Cora threw out the white flag, bringing in the the AAAA guys Kelly, Ort aand Brasier.   But there is the reason he has never won an opener in Boston, 0-5.

I ythought they would sign Zack Britain last week with all the injuries. Hhe still does not have a major league cat cher, McGuire is just a utility level guy. But Bloom was busy massaging Ort and Politi.  Obviously Bloom has thrown in the towel as well.

[elktonnick]

Watching this team during Spring Training one thing jumped out.  No comraderie.   I saw no players talking with each other.  It may have been because no one really knew one another.  But it was not what I had seen in years past.  I will be watching to see if and how the club bonds with each other.  I see n oleadership figure currently on the team.. It will be interesting to see who if anyone emerges

[Sea Dog 23]

Watching this team during Spring Training one thing jumped out.  No comraderie.   I saw no players talking with each other.  It may have been because no one really knew one another.  But it was not what I had seen in years past.  I will be watching to see if and how the club bonds with each other.  I see n oleadership figure currently on the team.. It will be interesting to see who if anyone emerges

Maybe Justin Turner, based on some dugout shots.  He knows a lot of players from Mets/Dodgers.  But like you say,  this team is on pins and needles.  Joely Rodriguez was a noisy guy in spring training clips.  But he is on the shelf, like a lot of Sox these days.  IMO Bloom's fatal move was dumping Vazquez, the team loved him, and nothing good happened after that deadline move.  Now we are missing an MLB level catcher.  Base runners can steal on McGuire at will and his bat is about singles only with some walks.

[MongoLikeSox]

Watching this team during Spring Training one thing jumped out.  No comraderie.   I saw no players talking with each other.  It may have been because no one really knew one another.  But it was not what I had seen in years past.  I will be watching to see if and how the club bonds with each other.  I see n oleadership figure currently on the team.. It will be interesting to see who if anyone emerges

Maybe Justin Turner, based on some dugout shots.  He knows a lot of players from Mets/Dodgers.  But like you say,  this team is on pins and needles.  Joely Rodriguez was a noisy guy in spring training clips.  But he is on the shelf, like a lot of Sox these days.  IMO Bloom's fatal move was dumping Vazquez, the team loved him, and nothing good happened after that deadline move.  Now we are missing an MLB level catcher.  Base runners can steal on McGuire at will and his bat is about singles only with some walks.

I don't know about leaders, but the comradery might start with Kike and Verdugo the incumbents amongst position players. Maybe Arroyo. Kike's been around enough winning and he knows Turner and Jansen from his LA days so that there might be some potential bit of leadership. I'm just conjecturing. Chris Sale was a big voice on the formerly great Red Sox teams of the past, but those days came and went like a flower's bloom. (see what I did there?)

The Vasquez thing still ticks me off.

[Sea Dog 23]

Watching this team during Spring Training one thing jumped out.  No comraderie.   I saw no players talking with each other.  It may have been because no one really knew one another.  But it was not what I had seen in years past.  I will be watching to see if and how the club bonds with each other.  I see n oleadership figure currently on the team.. It will be interesting to see who if anyone emerges

Maybe Justin Turner, based on some dugout shots.  He knows a lot of players from Mets/Dodgers.  But like you say,  this team is on pins and needles.  Joely Rodriguez was a noisy guy in spring training clips.  But he is on the shelf, like a lot of Sox these days.  IMO Bloom's fatal move was dumping Vazquez, the team loved him, and nothing good happened after that deadline move.  Now we are missing an MLB level catcher.  Base runners can steal on McGuire at will and his bat is about singles only with some walks.

I don't know about leaders, but the comradery might start with Kike and Verdugo the incumbents amongst position players. Maybe Arroyo. Kike's been around enough winning and he knows Turner and Jansen from his LA days so that there might be some potential bit of leadership. I'm just conjecturing. Chris Sale was a big voice on the formerly great Red Sox teams of the past, but those days came and went like a flower's bloom. (see what I did there?)

The Vasquez thing still ticks me off.

McGuire with an ugly stat in Saturday's game.  0 for 8, 0-4 batting and 0-4 in throwing runners out.  I don't know if he has a dead arm, or maybe they didn't really work on the new baserunning rules this spring.

[MongoLikeSox]

The Orioles didn't run yesterday. Could the first two games have been about McGuire? Brutal stuff. Some teams used to gang up on the Plawster towards the end.