Here's an idea: Trade Ellsbury?

[SoxSport]

The time to trade Ellsbury is in a couple of years closer to contract time. His agent is Boras and he tends to overrate his clients--to put it mildly. They'll know better at that time if Ellsbury is worth re-signing, and their CF prospect?, Westmoreland, might be ready at that time if they haven't traded him. They certainly aren't going to trade both.

[Dojji]

I still think Westmoreland is our LF of the future. He can help convince me otherwise by having a healthy season next year. He's been with the team for 6 months and 2 injuries already. And not minor ones either, IIRC both required surgery, and I'm not even sure that includes his labrum surgery in 2008. That's Rocco Baldelli bad, and if it doesn't straighten out he might move to the corners in ao effort to stay on the field.

 

Under those circumstances I wouldn't mind trading the guy for the right price. If this continues, "Westy" might not see a single big league at bat.

[bostonule25]

Actually we do still have Che-Hsuan Lin' date=' Ryan Kalish, and Oscar Tejeda in various stages of development as far as speed goes. None of them are quite in Ellsbury's league as a raw speed burner though.[/quote']

Not to mention that our 1st round pick this year Fuentes IS ALREADY being compared to ellsbury

[bostonule25]

The time to trade Ellsbury is in a couple of years closer to contract time. His agent is Boras and he tends to overrate his clients--to put it mildly. They'll know better at that time if Ellsbury is worth re-signing' date=' and their CF prospect?, Westmoreland, might be ready at that time if they haven't traded him. They certainly aren't going to trade both.[/quote']

Why trade him then when you know his value is going to be higher now than when he is nearing FA

[bostonule25]

Ellsbury makes no sense. As you said Ellsbury is MLB proven. So lets go with your scenario. We trade Ellsbury and lets say Kelly. Now we know Ellsbury is proven and he's not that close to his full potential and this Kelly guy is a completely unproven prospect. Ellsbury only gets better and Kelly doesn't live up to his potential but still becomes a proven Major Leaguer, solid, fundamentally sound and a good guy to have on your team. Lets say Bucholz never gets where we want him and West-I-Got-Too-Much-Love-For-Me-By-Sox-Fans-Despite-Not-Proving-Anything-Yet turns out to be what I kind of have a feeling he will be, a bust. So we lose completely.

 

Now we could trade three prospects, stick with Ellsbury who is proven (and is one of the better leadoff guys and centerfielders in the league) and only has more he can prove and even if the other three do well or even live up to their full potential we still wouldn't lose completely. I can just see too many scenarios in which us sending Ellsbury would make us lose out completely.

 

As it is, we're going to stick with Lowell because of physicals that can't be passed which I think is the better deal overall. I don't want to see Bucholz go, especially with the potential of Beckett, Papelbon and Dice-K (who I've always felt was a waste but whatever) becoming FA's in the next couple seasons. I happen to think that Bucholz has the most upside out of all the Sox young players or prospects.

That is really bad logic. You’re just looking at one-half of the story and not the other. What if it was a fluke season? What if ellsbury doesn’t end up being a high obp guy? 1 MLB season means he has more value than Kelly/Westmoreland doesn’t mean it’s better. I mean just as easily, we might trade Kelly Westmoreland and Buchholz become the next Grienke Sizemore and Hamels (in terms of prime production wise)

Ellsbury will NEVER be a complete player. Buchholz and Kelly have the “stuff” to be an ace. Westy has the “tools” to be a 5 tool player, and a great bat. Ellsbury doesn’t have that stuff to be a premiere OF, nothing more than a very good leadoff hitter at best.

[SoxSport]

Trading Ellsbury right now would dump CF into the lap of a 37 year old player. That's Cameron's best position, but I don't think they want to do that right now. They probably see him as a platoon player, and none of their CF prospects are ready yet. Besides, Ellsbury still has some upside if he works on his deficiencies.

[ehaz]

I could consider trading Ellsbury for Gonzalez, but Ellsbury + Buchholz is too much IMO.