A thought on the Trade deadline

[MJantomaso]

Weither or not we are buyers or sellers at the deadline, I do not trust Cherries decision on what he thinks is best for this franchise's future. He has made nothing but boneheaded transactions that has this team headed into the wrong direction.

 

There is no doubt that some kind of move needs to be made at the deadline...I guess what I am trying to say is I don't feel comfortable with BC having the future of this franchise in his hands.

[SemperFi Sox]

He traded Lillibridge, he's a beast.

[a700hitter]

He traded Lillibridge' date=' he's done good. What else do we need?[/quote']and he got more for Lillishit than he got for Youkilis. He mus be a genius.

[a700hitter]

Well, we tried Theo's personal assistant as GM, and that didn't work. Maybe his barber or chauffeur are available.

[AGomREDSOX15]

What bad moves did BC make fill me in???

[a700hitter]

What bad moves did BC make fill me in???

Check the Red Sox transaction wire and take your pick-- basically everything other than signing Ross.

[example1]

Topic seems a bit thin for its own thread... no?

[InfernoOrangeSS]

Personally, I cut BC some slack since I am not privy to what could be done. I know he is a favorite whipping boy on these boards, but I am not sure what is available out there for him to trade for or the costs.

I am quickly coming to the realization that this season is going down the drain. I hate it. I thought with the injured coming back it would have been a turnaround, but I am not sure I see it happening now. I don't know what the problem is on this team. They have the talent and team to be tearing it up, but just don't.

I did like what Pedroia said after the loss, though. It's good to see him taking a leadership roll on the team, (at least publicly...as I don't know what he is like behind closed doors.).

[Palodios]

Check the Red Sox transaction wire and take your pick-- basically everything other than signing Ross.

 

I disagree very strongly with this one. Trading away Reddick was a huge mistake, I'll give you that. But his other moves have been fine. He added considerable pitching depth to the organization with a tiny budget. He added a lot of options, some turned to busts, and some turned into quality pieces. Even after losing a high-end closer, it is still a much deeper bullpen than Theo has ever build, and the back end of the rotation is much better we ever suspected. He did not give into the pressure, and let Varitek and Wakefield go.

 

Scutaro has had a .680 OPS this year, and he did well on selling high on him. Lowrie has played well, but even in a healthy year, he's already been on the DL twice. With our medical staff here, I doubt he would have played more than ten games in 2012 for the Red Sox.

 

Cody Ross was perhaps the best signing of any GM all offseason. Youkilis was a tough trade, but I don't think he'd be hitting .300 if still with the Red Sox, it seemed like a change-of-location causeed the increase in production for him. Punto sucks.

 

Its across the board. Some good moves, some bad. I don't think he deserves any lower than a C or B. If the team's aces had pitching like aces, he'd be gettting so much praise for building the depth, and Ross, but they're losing so he's getting s*** on. It happens.

[a700hitter]

I disagree very strongly with this one. Trading away Reddick was a huge mistake, I'll give you that. But his other moves have been fine. He added considerable pitching depth to the organization with a tiny budget. He added a lot of options, some turned to busts, and some turned into quality pieces. Even after losing a high-end closer, it is still a much deeper bullpen than Theo has ever build, and the back end of the rotation is much better we ever suspected. He did not give into the pressure, and let Varitek and Wakefield go.

 

Scutaro has had a .680 OPS this year, and he did well on selling high on him. Lowrie has played well, but even in a healthy year, he's already been on the DL twice. With our medical staff here, I doubt he would have played more than ten games in 2012 for the Red Sox.

 

Cody Ross was perhaps the best signing of any GM all offseason. Youkilis was a tough trade, but I don't think he'd be hitting .300 if still with the Red Sox, it seemed like a change-of-location causeed the increase in production for him. Punto sucks.

 

Its across the board. Some good moves, some bad. I don't think he deserves any lower than a C or B. If the team's aces had pitching like aces, he'd be gettting so much praise for building the depth, and Ross, but they're losing so he's getting s*** on. It happens.

We will have to agree to disagree on this. In my view, Benny has done nothing to distinguish himself. I like Ross. He is an excellent platoon type OFer who can play against righties at Fenway. His fielding isn't great, nor is his baserunning. He's a good acquisisition, but the best by any GM. In the offseason? I think that is a tremendous overstatement. It's not like he signed a good value for multiple years. It's a one year deal. As far as the bad deals go, you understate the Melancon debacle. Lowrie does break down, but as a utilitry guy who could get 300 ABS a year, he carries a big stick for that role and he would have been a very valuable fill in and sometimes starting SS. Melancon is a complete zero.

[mvp 78]

They'll use the deadline to trade for Jack s***. Heard he has good upside from Dojji.

[Designated Hater]

Cherrington has been with the Sox since the days of Duquette. If he was worth anything, another team would have taken notice and hired him away to be their GM. Nothing. He's been a monkey boy for 15 years. Now he's got the GM title, but he's really now just the King Monkey Boy - to Larry Lucchino.

 

Maybe he's a good dude and can make good decisions on talent, but he sure looks foolish right now.

 

This ownership group - Larry in particular - has a habit of doing this to people.

 

They will not make any deals at the deadline and it will go away like a whisper. There's no need to do any deals right now unless they can do some major league SUBTRACTION. Get Beckett out of here.

[jimbob728]

How about Beckett, Aviles and Valentine for Jose Reyes and Ozzie Guillen? At least the post game sound bites would be interesting and there really aren't that many Cubans in New England for him to piss off.

[Thunder]

How about Beckett' date=' Aviles and Valentine for Jose Reyes and Ozzie Guillen? At least the post game sound bites would be interesting and there really aren't that many Cubans in New England for him to piss off.[/quote']

 

Trading managers? This isn't that dumb Trading Spouses show on TV.

[SoxFanForsyth]

We will have to agree to disagree on this. In my view' date=' Benny has done nothing to distinguish himself. I like Ross. He is an excellent platoon type OFer who can play against righties at Fenway. His fielding isn't great, nor is his baserunning. He's a good acquisisition, but the best by any GM. In the offseason? I think that is a tremendous overstatement. It's not like he signed a good value for multiple years. It's a one year deal. As far as the bad deals go, you understate the Melancon debacle. Lowrie does break down, but as a utilitry guy who could get 300 ABS a year, he carries a big stick for that role and he would have been a very valuable fill in and sometimes starting SS. Melancon is a complete zero.[/quote']

 

The reason that the Sox are losing this year is not because of Cherrington. The guys that are crushing this team (Beckett, Lester, Crawford lately, Gonzo's complete lack of power) are all on Theo.

 

Aviles is not a major league shortstop, though, and hiding a poor bat in a stacked lineup is a lot easier than hiding a poor glove at a premium position. It's the equivalent of trying to hide Iglesias's bat by sticking him in the 3 hole. Say what you want about Iglesias's bat, but give me that glove over Aviles's bat all day. If they play LF or RF, fine, give me the bat, but defense up the middle is crucial to winning, and Aviles is not a good defensive short stop. Iglesias can at least hit the ball behind the runners and advance them via a bunt. He won't be the RBI guy but he will be the sacrifice guy, and that's fine with me. That's been a big blunder in my opinion.

 

I never give up on a team until they are mathematically out of it, but I am not at all optimistic about this team. It all starts with SP, but I guarantee you that Cook would have liked to have a SS behind him last night that could turn a double play.

[jung]

Aviles basically accounted for 4 runs worth of sloppy play at SS. That is a direct reflection on how important SS is defensively. Sure Cook was up in the Zone and paid for it but should have been out of those early innings without giving up any runs and should have been up 4-2 not down 2-0.

 

This has been steady and constant all year long with Aviles. Might have been harder to see early in the season but it has been there all year long. He was never better defensively...he did hit better early in the season. That is done for though. Pitchers have his number and he is not going to get much better for the remainder of the season.

[FenwayWest]

I don't know why we're pointing fingers at aviles or BC. It's starting pitching, if we had our guys pitching up to their payroll we wouldnt be talking about this.

 

As for Aviles, it was a couple miscues, not ideal, but let's not forget, we lost by 7. There was more to that game than a missed DP.

[jung]

Aviles has been a disaster all year long at SS. Nobody can use a guy at the most important defensive position in baseball that butchers that position and expect not to get hurt and badly. It is the pitching which makes defense even more important because more often than not the opposition is going to hit the ball someplace.

 

Just because the starting pitching is the biggest problem does not forgive keeping a butcher at SS. Does not excuse the Sox lack of timely hitting either. The starting pitching is only the most glaring problem on this team.

[SoxSport]

Cook is a lousy pitcher to be starting in Yankee stadium. Any fool would start the lefty Morales.

The Yankees are built to feast on RHP at home. That's been their secret weapon for 80 years.

[a700hitter]

The reason that the Sox are losing this year is not because of Cherrington. The guys that are crushing this team (Beckett, Lester, Crawford lately, Gonzo's complete lack of power) are all on Theo.

 

Aviles is not a major league shortstop, though, and hiding a poor bat in a stacked lineup is a lot easier than hiding a poor glove at a premium position. It's the equivalent of trying to hide Iglesias's bat by sticking him in the 3 hole. Say what you want about Iglesias's bat, but give me that glove over Aviles's bat all day. If they play LF or RF, fine, give me the bat, but defense up the middle is crucial to winning, and Aviles is not a good defensive short stop. Iglesias can at least hit the ball behind the runners and advance them via a bunt. He won't be the RBI guy but he will be the sacrifice guy, and that's fine with me. That's been a big blunder in my opinion.

 

I never give up on a team until they are mathematically out of it, but I am not at all optimistic about this team. It all starts with SP, but I guarantee you that Cook would have liked to have a SS behind him last night that could turn a double play.

Benny is not the only reason for the Sox losing this year, but he has been part of the problem. He did nothing to address the Sox most obvious needin the off season-- pitching. The pitching need was not addressed. He liked the pitching and thought he had enough pitching. He was very wrong. Two rookies in a rotation is asking for trouble. It puts pressure on the other 3 guys to win almost all the time leaving little margin for under performance from any of the three. Well, he lucked out big time. He got under performance from all three and they are out of the race before July ends. I expected that the pitching would fall apart, but not until much later in the season. In that regard, Benny and I both over estimated the strength of the pitching.

[Palodios]

Benny is not the only reason for the Sox losing this year' date=' but he has been part of the problem. He did nothing to address the Sox most obvious needin the off season-- pitching. The pitching need was not addressed. He liked the pitching and thought he had enough pitching. He was very wrong. Two rookies in a rotation is asking for trouble. It puts pressure on the other 3 guys to win almost all the time leaving little margin for under performance from any of the three. Well, he lucked out big time. He got under performance from all three and they are out of the race before July ends. I expected that the pitching would fall apart, but not until much later in the season. In that regard, Benny and I both over estimated the strength of the pitching.[/quote']

 

The reality was, the Red Sox needed 2 out of 3 of their aces to perform this year. Over the last few years, we've seen 2 out of 3 of them perform pretty much every year. Buchholz has turned a corner, but when considering the entire season, 0 out of the 3 have performed. The biggest holes-- the #4/#5 starters, the bullpen, and right field have all performed very well.

 

The Red Sox's top three starters have career ERAs of 3.76, 3.89, 3.88. This year, they are still young, have been relatively healthy and ended up with ERAs of 5.49, 4.93, 4.57. You can't blame Ben for that.

[a700hitter]

The reality was, the Red Sox needed 2 out of 3 of their aces to perform this year. Over the last few years, we've seen 2 out of 3 of them perform pretty much every year. Buchholz has turned a corner, but when considering the entire season, 0 out of the 3 have performed. The biggest holes-- the #4/#5 starters, the bullpen, and right field have all performed very well.

 

The Red Sox's top three starters have career ERAs of 3.76, 3.89, 3.88. This year, they are still young, have been relatively healthy and ended up with ERAs of 5.49, 4.93, 4.57. You can't blame Ben for that.

If 2 of the 3 had performed well, the Sox still would have failed, just later instead of in the middle of July. There was not enough pitching. Bard was a complete disaster. Doubront has been a good not great #5. I do blame benny for the pitching. There just wasn't enough and it was pretty obvious even in Spring Training. The pitching was going to fail unless all 3 guys had lights out years with no injuries. If 2 had performed, the pitching would have eventually fallen apart. In one way, I am glad that it fell apart so early and so badly. Falling out of serious contention before July is finished when there are 5 playoff spots is startlingly bad. It should make him reluctant to ever start another season with such weak thin starting pitching.

[jung]

Well I do think that Felix has performed very well as the 4 in the rotation. 5 turned out to be a bit of a problem though and exacerbated the problems with 1,2 and 3.

 

While Beckett's career numbers are much better than his numbers this year, he began a transition away from being a power pitcher in 2011, a necessary transition because he no longer has the velo of a power pitcher and is not going to get it back. His K/9 is not going back to where it was either. Besides the velo continuing to slide and the K/9 not improving the other item that reared its ugly head in 2011 for Beckett was the blowup inning. His really poor starts were never defined by multiple 1 and 2 run innings but one inning at 3 runs or better, generally somewhere in the middle of the game. His blowup innings would arise because he would lose control and could neither blow guys away nor regain control to get out of the inning without giving up multiple runs.

 

Beckett won 13 last year but the Sox went on to win 7 more games he started without him involved in the decision....an interesting stat. So while clearly being the best rotation guy for the Sox in 2011, the early signs were there that he could easily be in trouble this year. He was clearly attempting to transition and not quite succeeding.

 

Once again this year Beckett's poor games can be described in terms of the blowup inning. The difference is that this year his blowup inning is coming earlier in games and he is being left in long enough to generally give up even more runs beyond that or leaves runners on base that the bullpen does not dispense with leaving him with more adds to his ERA. I am no longer confident that Beckett will successfully make this transition beyond where he is now as I question his commitment to the work he still needs to do to get it done.

 

Lester suffers from the lack of a true leader of the rotation on this staff. To me Jon Lester will always be a guy that needs a staff leader...someone that tows him along with regard to the work needed to stay competitive and sharp and not slide into bad habits. He needs a good pitching coach as well. His slide into these mechanical issues are something he has battled now for longer than this year and has not worked out of them yet. It took tremendous concentration for him to stay on track Saturday night and still he slide into periods where he would open up, fall behind and start to get tagged, especially noticeable from the stretch. I believe with the right help he can and will work this out but I also think it will be next year before he does.

 

I think Buch has made tremendous strides back to health and solid pitching and baring injury will end the year the star of the staff.

[Palodios]

I do blame benny for the pitching. There just wasn't enough and it was pretty obvious even in Spring Training. The pitching was going to fail unless all 3 guys had lights out years with no injuries.

 

By your logic, Ben is a complete failure because he didn't get enough depth to withstand mediocrity from Adrian Gonzalez. Probably better to agree to disagree.

[a700hitter]

By your logic' date=' Ben is a complete failure because he didn't get enough depth to withstand mediocrity from Adrian Gonzalez. Probably better to agree to disagree. [/quote']I'll agree to disagree, but your statement makes no sense.