Unofficial Adrian Gonzalez thread.

[BSN07]

I think Hoyer's holding out. He might not even be traded this year' date=' but he doesn't start 2011 with the Padres.[/quote']

 

Reasonable stance

 

And Gom's?

[example1]

Right. He said if they need to. He also said that it would be easier to pick up a big bat at the trading deadline than to pick up a pitcher. He has made several remarks about picking up the bat later. Tito this week siad that he likes this team and doesn't think it needs another bat.

So I am taking their remarks at face value. I leave the mind reading to you.

 

You don't need to do any mind reading. Tito says time and time again that whenever he's asked by Theo what he thinks about how to improve the team, he asks for a pitcher. Run differential is real and is strongly predictive of success.

 

If they don't want to pony up the prospects, because it will impact the future, then pay to get one of the FA's. I don't care which direction they take to get the big bat. They just need to get one. They either opt to pay for it in cash or prospects. They are saying that they'll wait to see if they need one.

 

You do realize that the FAs and available trade talent play different positions and have different skills and values, right? Does this bat come from 1B, 3B? LF?

 

Why would you be happy with Jason Bay but not with Mike Cameron? Cameron has mached or outproduced Bay pretty consistently for the past 4 years and he plays a more valuable position.

 

You seem to get an emotional release from the FO having to pay extra money for virtually no extra production.

[BSN07]

 

Why would you be happy with Jason Bay but not with Mike Cameron?

 

Because he has never "seen" him play.

[example1]

If you want to talk about old posts from 2006, here's a classic from you. You and others were convinced that a piece of s*** like Chris Duncan and WMP could provide the necessary protection for Ortiz if Manny got traded. I told you guys that Duncan was a bench warmer and that WMP couldn't be trusted. I said that Ortiz wouldn't need to buy bats, because no one would pitch to him. You went a bit further in your projections of WMP and Duncan predicting that they could "realistically" put up 55 HRs and 160 RBI over a full season. :lol: Read it and weep. You want to look up old posts to discredit current arguments? This discredits just about anything you have since said. I keep re-reading it to make sure that you really said it.:lol: Wow, they had some careers. WMP hit all of 37 HRs in his entire career after coming to the Sox, and Duncan had a whopping 55 career HRs. Both of them had wrapped up their major league careers before they got to age 28. What an eye for talent!

 

http://www.talksox.com/forum/202936-post416.html

 

I'll do this all day if you want man. I'm very conscious of the fact that this is an open forum where we can see what we've posted.

[a700hitter]

You don't need to do any mind reading. Tito says time and time again that whenever he's asked by Theo what he thinks about how to improve the team, he asks for a pitcher. Run differential is real and is strongly predictive of success.

So, why did you accuse me of mind reading?

 

Why would you be happy with Jason Bay but not with Mike Cameron? Cameron has mached or outproduced Bay pretty consistently for the past 4 years and he plays a more valuable position.

 

You seem to get an emotional release from the FO having to pay extra money for virtually no extra production.

I would rather have Bay. I think he is the better offensive player. Apparently so do the Sox who offered him almost twice as much money each year for twice as many years. Why would they offer so much more if Cameron is just as good?

[a700hitter]

I'll do this all day if you want man. I'm very conscious of the fact that this is an open forum where we can see what we've posted.

You are missing the point. If you are going to go back to 2006 and beyond, so will I. Personally, I think it is irrelevant, and I have told you in the past that it is irrelevant, but you continue to dredge up old stuff from 3 or 4 or more years ago. I know that you search old threads when we debate issues. If you want to do it, so will I, but IMO, Zito, WMP, and Duncan have no bearing on today's issues.

[Dipre]

Reasonable stance

 

And Gom's?

 

He agreed. It was his daily moment of reality after all.

[a700hitter]

Because he has bever "seen" him play.

I've said several times that I go to lots of Mets games. I saw a lot of him, and he was not as good as I had expected him to be.

[example1]

You are missing the point. If you are going to go back to 2006 and beyond' date=' so will I. Personally, I think it is irrelevant, and I have told you in the past that it is irrelevant, but you continue to dredge up old stuff from 3 or 4 or more years ago. I know that you search old threads when we debate issues. If you want to do it, so will I, but IMO, Zito, WMP, and Duncan [b']have no bearing on today's issues[/b].

 

Oh, but they absolutely do.

 

What would have happened if they followed my advice? They would have been disappointed with WMP and Duncan and they would have shipped them off, or stopped paying them, or paid them to go away. They were both young, cost-controlled players who, in a pinch, would have been easy to get rid of.

 

What would have happened if they followed your advice? They would be regretting having traded Youkilis or Lester and they would be wondering what they could do about the players they got in return.

 

Getting Chris Duncan was a bad plan, but it wouldn't have crippled the franchise.

[a700hitter]

Oh, but they absolutely do.

 

What would have happened if they followed my advice? They would have been disappointed with WMP and Duncan and they would have shipped them off, or stopped paying them, or paid them to go away. They were both young, cost-controlled players who, in a pinch, would have been easy to get rid of.

 

What would have happened if they followed your advice? They would be regretting having traded Youkilis or Lester and they would be wondering what they could do about the players they got in return.

 

Getting Chris Duncan was a bad plan, but it wouldn't have crippled the franchise.

 

In that same thread you also advocated to get jason Schmidt, Zito, and Andruw Jones (for whom you would have traded Bard, Crisp and Hansen). Oh and you posted that you like the idea of getting Lugo after I said that I hated the idea. Do you think some of those deals might have crippled the team a bit? Lugo did cripple us at SS. Unlike you, I don't view discussions from 3 years ago being relevant to your opinions today. If you'd like me to pull the posts I will, but I deem them to be irrelevant. Pretty much everyone advocated for Zito at one point or another in that thread, so it's a little unfair to attribute to 1 poster. I know that you were deep in that thread for an extended period before this post^, looking for gotcha material.

[example1]

In that same thread you also advocated to get jason Schmidt' date=' Zito, and Andruw Jones (for whom you would have traded Bard, Crisp and Hansen). Oh and you posted that you like the idea of getting Lugo after I said that I hated the idea. Do you think some of those deals might have crippled the team a bit? Lugo did cripple us at SS. Unlike you, I don't view discussions from 3 years ago being relevant to your opinions today. If you'd like me to pull the posts I will, but I deem them to be irrelevant. Pretty much everyone advocated for Zito at one point or another in that thread, so it's a little unfair to attribute to 1 poster. I know that you were deep in that thread for an extended period before this post^, looking for gotcha material. [/quote']

 

Here's something I said about Zito:

 

I believe that there are 4 guys who meet those qualifications: Matsuzaka (great upside, question marks), Schmidt, Clemens and Zito. The sox need to get one of these guys and I don't want them to bend over and take one from behind from Clemens. If he plays for an agreeable sum then fine, but none of this $20m a year business. So I would want Zito 4th, but if I couldn't get the other three then he is as well as they could hope.

 

They needed a pitcher and decided on Matsuzaka.

 

As for Lugo supposedly crippling the franchise, I'm going to disagree. They won a WS, made it to an LCS and then made the playoffs this year despite paying to get rid of him. He clearly wasn't a success, but you can't say that moves they made (Dice, Lugo) crippled the franchise when that franchise went on to win a WS the next year.

 

I advocated for they to get Andruw Jones after moving Manny. Not trading prospects to get him.

 

Do you not see a pattern here? Even in the proposal you thought you got me on, (Bard, Crisp and Hansen for Andruw Jones or whatever) I feel like it was appropriately conservative and in the same thread I touted Ellsbury, Buchholz, etc., and mentioned that with patience the farm system would be paying off in a year or two.

 

You lectured me on patience and talked about the Red Sox in the 70s to argue against having any expectations for highly touted prospects. You had seen it before and would move them when they could be sold high.

 

I'm ready to drop this discussion as it is boring. I'm just pretty confident that we have both established patterns of evaluating players and prospects and advocating for particular directions by the FO.

[Mr Crunchy]

This is an odd thread but I'll throw my hat in here and tell you all that trading Arroyo for WMP was a f***ing disgrace and further evidence that this team doesnt like anything that doesnt resemble the IBM look...I dont know if Theo was jealous of Arroyos hair or his grundge rocking abilities but I do know that Arroyos thrown a ton of innings in Cincinatti and wouldve been a consistant 5th starter.

Arroyo made out on the deal, he got 30M after his great start but since then hes been very average pitching in that bandbox....

[Dojji]

Arroyo for WMP was a good idea when it was attempted and that's all you can ask. He'd been a consistently solid hitter for the Reds, and the reason he failed in Boston was a combination of inadequate playing time, his own inability to advance defensively, and the fact that Fenway Park designed as it was in the state-park-of-an-outfield era, is a danged hard place to homer in -- which was pretty much all Wily Mo brought to the table..

[Mr Crunchy]

Jason Schmidt was my guy, before he took the last 3 years off he was pitching tremendous in LA with great velocity, power pitchers can make the adjustment a lot better than the soft tossers and Schmidt was a guy I followed closely, roids?? I dont know but i am looking forward to Kato Matsusaka to pitch like a big boy this season, how would he look in Seattle or SanDiego?

[ORS]

I'm sorry, but that trade is a poor choice to play the "IBM" types card. Sure, Arroyo had some character, but he resembled an investment banker (at least one with a wild side) more than the 250 lbs. black goliath they got in return.

[Dojji]

I dunno, there wasn't an offspeed pitch low and away that he ever didn't want to swing at, but Wily Mo was actually cleanshaven and fairly professional and he conducted himself fairly well. The only way that really invalidates Mr.Crunchy's argument is if the so-called IBM look is whites-only.

[Mr Crunchy]

Arroyo for WMP was a good idea when it was attempted and that's all you can ask. He'd been a consistently solid hitter for the Reds' date=' and the reason he failed in Boston was a combination of inadequate playing time, his own inability to advance defensively, and the fact that Fenway Park designed as it was in the state-park-of-an-outfield era, is a danged hard place to homer in -- which was pretty much all Wily Mo brought to the table..[/quote']

 

I dont see this at all, Pena made Rob Fukin Deere look like a contact hitter.

he couldnt field for s*** and it seems every year he was in the league he got worse...

He had his shot when Nixon went down and didnt get it done for whatever reason and if they guy could really play hed still be in the league.

The guy broke .300 once in his career and it was over 84 games and his obp that year was .319, sort of like veriteks was this year....

Its f***ing pathetic and the year we traded for him David Wells was our #1 with Matt Clement and the Lenny Dinardo experiment was used frequently.

His last 2 years in the league were in DC and he couldnt crack that lineup for playing time...This guy was a victim of his agents greed and was never properly allowed to develop due to the f***ed up contract he signed...

There are a lot of teams looking for a power bat but he was just so bleeding inconsistant nobody dared give him a pop,even as a DH.

To me it was a disaster from the get go and has been buried in my belly like some other trades theyve made that turned out disastorous.

[Dipre]

Arroyo for WMP was a good idea when it was attempted and that's all you can ask. He'd been a consistently solid hitter for the Reds' date=' and the reason he failed in Boston was a combination of inadequate playing time, his own inability to advance defensively, and the fact that Fenway Park designed as it was in the state-park-of-an-outfield era, is a danged hard place to homer in -- which was pretty much all Wily Mo brought to the table..[/quote']

 

Fenway park is not a hard place to HR for RHH. Part of the reason the FO brought Willy Mo in the first place was because they thought playing in Fenway would probably maximize his power capabilities.

[ORS]

I dunno' date=' there wasn't an offspeed pitch low and away that he ever didn't want to swing at, but Wily Mo was actually cleanshaven and fairly professional and he conducted himself fairly well. The only way that really invalidates Mr.Crunchy's argument is if the so-called IBM look is whites-only.[/quote']

Yes, cleanshaven indeed, and that tattoo down below the sleeve, you see that on all the "IBM types".

 

http://www.sonsofsamhorn.net/wiki/images/e/e3/WilyMo.jpg

 

Strap on your seatbelt kids, we are about to go for spin.

[ORS]

http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/81473801.jpg?v=1&c=IWSAsset&k=2&d=17A4AD9FDB9CF1934B869679A269F9CC22EF9FD9253C14BA26FD13ED7B73D4BC

 

I could easily see an "I" and an "M" flanking that "B" on his pullover.

[Dojji]

I dont see this at all' date=' Pena made Rob Fukin Deere look like a contact hitter. [/quote']

 

you're focusing exclusively on 2007, when he barely played after July or so. His plate discipline was bad, there's no doubt about that, but he had enough power to keep the outfielders back so if he could have gotten reps, maybe things would have started falling better for him.

 

he couldnt field for s*** and it seems every year he was in the league he got worse...

 

And that's the real problem, and why actually getting more playing time on a team like the Red Sox was a bit of a pipe dream.

 

He had his shot when Nixon went down and didnt get it done for whatever reason

 

Actually when Nixon went down he got it done just fine, it's just that after they signed Drew -- and believe me, they should definitely have signed Drew -- Wily Mo had no plac left to play.

 

and if they guy could really play hed still be in the league.

 

How many chances has he really gotten to just get in there and play long term? even with the Nationals he was getting platoon at bats or less other than one stint of regular playing time at the end of 2007 in which he was effective.

 

When the guy's gotten to play, I mean really play more than one or two games in a row, he's been an effective hitter. It's because we couldn't give him that that we gave up on him -- that and the whole fielding thing of course.

 

The guy broke .300 once in his career and it was over 84 games and his obp that year was .319, sort of like veriteks was this year....

 

Except that in 2006 he hit .301/.349/.489, with the Sox, because he got regular at bats, but of course that doesn't help your argument so you're inclined to forget it.

Its f***ing pathetic and the year we traded for him David Wells was our #1 with Matt Clement and the Lenny Dinardo experiment was used frequently.

 

Yeah, because Schilling, Beckett, Wakefield and Lester didn't pitch at all that year, and Clement and Wells didn't win 28 games between them the prior season.

 

We had no way of knowing that Clement's shoulder resembled Salisbury steak or that Wells would take a line drive off the knee early in the season. You can't judge transactions like that off that level of hindsight. Our best pitching prospect got FREAKING CANCER. So many things just plain went to hell that year that I think you just have to give Theo an overall mulligan, especially given the results the following year.

[Dipre]

Yes, cleanshaven indeed, and that tattoo down below the sleeve, you see that on all the "IBM types".

 

http://www.sonsofsamhorn.net/wiki/images/e/e3/WilyMo.jpg

 

Strap on your seatbelt kids, we are about to go for spin.

 

Willy Mo's a whore-chasing, liquor drinking, over-speed-limit-driving, cursing,hide-your-daughters-wives-sisters,badass party animal.

 

This i know firsthand not only from stories of his exploits, but because i've seen him in nightclubs while he plays in the DWL.Really don't know where Doiji is getting this.

[Dojji]

Eh, I bow to superior experience. I was going off media reports and memoriesthat are about 4 years old now, so anyone who actually knew the guy knows more than I do.

[TheMino007]

Arroyo for WMP was one of the worst trades ever. In a season were the Sox become desperately thin at SP was a season in which Arroyo was an all star for the Reds. It was just a terrible trade from the start, Pena was 27 I believe and even at that age couldn't get a full time gig in the majors. Arroyo was a versatile guy who could pitch from the pen or rotation, a guy who could eat innings and post a 4.30 ERA in the AL East. All the Sox pitchers went down that year and we were f*cked b/c of it. Arroyo has been mediocre to above average in Cincinnati, and he has become a very streaky pitcher, but last season he didn't have a 3.84 ERA and the guy is def. serviceable, unlike that load we brought in for him.

[Mr Crunchy]

In 2006 he had 90ks in 276ab's, 11HRS and 42RBI from a guy who swung himself into the dirt each pitch he hacked at, he had 26 xtra base hits in 276 ab's,those arent good #s for a power hitter.

I dont see any reason for the love here...

He was just the exact opposite of our offensive philosophy of plate patience and you have to ask why he never got consistant playing time even while playing with last place teams who had s***** attendence..

Beckett pitched all thru 2006, in fact didnt he lead the AL in homeruns given up that year?

He looked a lot like Eric Milton in 2006 and we knew Schill was banged up and that Clement was inconsistant in the 2nd half of 05 and we also knew David Wells was 48 years old.

Thats not the time to dump a 200ip guy for a pinch hitter unless you just wanted that guy out of town.

Matt Clement had a good start in 2005 and made the allstar team, after that he turned into Claude Raines and was invisible for the rest of his sox career....

Another career .500 pitcher that just wasnt good enuff for the AL East...

The end results for Pena are 476ab 16hr 59 rbi .271 .328 obp and slugged at .451.

This is in the lineup that had the best 3/4 combo since Ruth and Gherig, he saw good pitches to hit but was always a sure out against anyone with any kind of decent stuff...I think Theo thought he may have gotten himself a Vlad Guererro type of hitter but guys who can hit a 98 mph eye high fastball or a down and out change up 3 feet outside are few and far between....

If he couldve played even mediocre defense I think they keep him around but he couldnt and again, due to his failure to develop after the age of 17 he is now out of MLB baseball and if he is playing hes doing it for Peso's in Mexico.

If the NL had a DH I think Pena may have had some 30Hr years, theres no disputing his raw power but his plate discipline and fielding just werent good enough to hang around MLB.

[Dojji]

In 2006 he had 90ks in 276ab's' date=' 11HRS and 42RBI from a guy who swung himself into the dirt each pitch he hacked at, he had 26 xtra base hits in 276 ab's,those arent good #s for a power hitter.[/quote']

 

Actually an XBH per 10 at bats is pretty good for anyone, and a .489 SLG is more than acceptable for a power hitter.

 

Just because he failed doesn't mean he wasn't worth the attempt. Sometimes we try things that don't work, that doesn't always mean we shouldn't have tried it. The reward if WMP had panned out was worth the fairly modest risk.

[Dipre]

Arroyo for WMP was one of the worst trades ever. In a season were the Sox become desperately thin at SP was a season in which Arroyo was an all star for the Reds. It was just a terrible trade from the start' date=' Pena was 27 I believe and even at that age couldn't get a full time gig in the majors. Arroyo was a versatile guy who could pitch from the pen or rotation, a guy who could eat innings and post a 4.30 ERA in the AL East. All the Sox pitchers went down that year and we were f*cked b/c of it. Arroyo has been mediocre to above average in Cincinnati, and he has become a very streaky pitcher, but last season he didn't have a 3.84 ERA and the guy is def. serviceable, unlike that load we brought in for him.[/quote']

 

Not even close to one of the worst trades ever.

 

A trade that didn't work and hurt the team one year. That's really all it was. He went to thrive on the NL Central for a short while, but i doubt he would have succeeded equally in the Al East. Pretty sure All-Star pitcher in the NL Central =/= All-Star pitcher in the AL East.

[jacksonianmarch]

It wasnt the worst trade ever, but it was a terrible trade. He picked up a guy who was useless and gave up a durable pitcher.

[Dipre]

It wasnt the worst trade ever' date=' but it was a terrible trade. He picked up a guy who was useless and gave up a durable pitcher.[/quote']

 

It was a "bad" trade. Some objectivity is in order. I'm pretty sure at some point you said Arroyo was garbage too.

[bsox0407]

It was a "bad" trade. Some objectivity is in order. I'm pretty sure at some point you said Arroyo was garbage too.

 

All i have to say about Horrible trades is the Heath Cliff Slocumb deal for the Mariners. Gave up two All-stars for a POS pitcher.

 

Sox win in this one.

 

Mariners= EPIC FAIL.