JoeC

Bought the ebook. Will likely order a hard copy too. What distribution gives you the most profit?

Please. This is the age of smartphones. They just had everyone download a free graphing calculator app on their phones.

Tons. Lineup constructions, pitching decisions, pitch selection, . . . There’s a little more to modern baseball than “throw hard and swing hard.”

Renteria’s tactics suck. However, you can pretty easily change tactics with buy-in. Besides, the 2025 and 2026 teams are going to suck. They’re going to suck really bad. Will tactics actually matter? What the team needs is a clubhouse presence who will show guys how to be professional - not just between the foul lines, but how to prepare and get along with each other… as grown ups. The manager for 2025 and 2026 should be chosen based on how they will prepare the team for 2027 and beyond. To me, tactics don’t matter for these next two years, because the wins and losses are a foregone conclusion - they’re going to suck. So let’s just pick the guy who will set the team up to succeed on their own starting in 2027 (I hope it’s that early).

I don’t disagree.

Yeah, the won-loss record in 2025 is going to be a trainwreck anyways, so I’m looking at the manager as someone who: 1. Will contribute to player growth / development (for younger players) 2. Will let veterans (read: “scrap heap pickups”) do what they need to but hold them accountable for performance Basically the goal is for the young players to be able to develop, and for the veterans to be able to play well enough to be flipped for assets. I don’t completely lack confidence in Getz’s ability to do that.

I mean, the Wings were good during the 2000’s, and the Pistons were also good at the time. The Lions were truly miserable. I moved to Michigan from Wisconsin after college. I was so used to 2-way trash talking with Packers fans, but I quickly found that Lions fans were immune to taunting. How do you hurt someone’s feelings when you say stuff that they agree with 100%?

Yeah. It was worth it in 2020 and 2021.

You can pretty easily circumvent blackout rules by VPNing to a different location. Just don't let it be Iowa, where you're basically blacked out from 1/2 of all games at any given time.

They're the 2000's era Detroit Lions.

This is correct. I can't watch the Sox when they play in Detroit. (caveat: I gave up my MLB.TV subscription after the 2023 season and the Getz hiring)

Or did they just stop paying attention and kept forgetting to turn off the feed after the game ended? Both are equally likely.

I would love: 1. For the Sox to be good 2. To be able to pay a fee to stream all Sox games, regardless of where they are, regardless of what network they're on, regardless of where I am.

The one area that Getz seems to be competent is in making personnel hires. I don't have high expectations, but I'm less frightened by the idea that Getz would pick his own guy.

We'll never know, of course, but I'm of the opinion that the regression would have been less severe.

Yeah, Ricky definitely had his flaws, but I'm of the opinion that the team in 2022 (and 2023) would have been in much better shape had Ricky been in charge in 2021 rather than TLR.

The 2025 staff shouldn't be focused on wins and losses so much as an extension of player development. I'm still a firm believer that, when TLR came on board, all player discipline went out the window with regards to professional mentality. The clubhouse was basically turned over to the players, and their natural laziness and personalities took over. The team needed Ricky, or someone similar, for one more year to teach the young kids what it actually means to be a big leaguer. It seems like the previous core didn't have that.

I would not want to hire anyone dumb enough to take on this job.

An actual GM would have been nice a little over a year ago, but JR blew that one.

I’m going to go out on a crazy limb and predict that Michael Jordan buys the Sox. Has money? Check. Ties to the organization? Check Completely illogical and unrealistic, but that’s my prediction.

They DO pay for top talent. …. just never in their prime.

I guess my post isn't really directed at the insanity of the situation (where they've effectively implemented a blackout over a significant portion of the local market), but rather at the posters who are diving into personal attacks on each other over their choice of streaming, antenna, set top box, or whatever. It kind of blows my mind that people get worked up over things that don't affect them.

I'm trying to figure out what's so hard to understand that people have different preferences as consumers. Some people prefer to go exclusively with cable or satellite. Some people prefer to go exclusively web-based. Some people don't have a problem watching things with an over-the-air antenna. Some people don't have a problem VPNing and watching pirated broadcasts. I'm not sure why people get angry at other people's preferences for how to watch baseball. Can someone please explain this anger to me, logically?

The most additional benefit Sox could have expected out of Rodon was a draft pick from the QO they didn’t issue.

Sounds like the perfect “Overton Window Hire” to prepare for the return of Ozzie.