Keith Law's Prospect Stuff on Sawx

[cp176]

I always followed the Red Sox minor league system. In recent years, I have been following prospects of other organizations, because several of my fantasy leagues have minor league drafts. I like to be competitive in those leagues so I have to do my homework before and during the season. But for that, prospects are sort of like the tree that falls in the forest with no one around to hear. It doesn't matter to me much until they are making significant progress and are a step or two away. That's just me. I'm a big league fan and I watch every Red Sox game and tons of games of other teams. I just can't get too excited about the minors. I do like seeing the kids in the flesh at big league Spring Training to size them up against the big boys. If a kid shows promise at Spring training, I do make a note that I could be seeing them during the season. If they look like a deer caught in the headlights, they go back to the forest.

 

i appreciate what you are saying here. I have a great deal of interest in the Sox minor league programs for lots of reasons. First of all, I enjoy going to and watching a minor league game much more than I enjoy going to Fenway. I'm just getting older I guess. Been in Boston and have fought the traffic, tried to figure out the MBTA, and tried to follow the map at the Fine Arts Museum. No luck for me - I am a rube. Another reason I enjoy following them particularly recently is that I am just not sure that our overall lineup is as good as it could be and might be soon. First base - third base - the outfield - our rotation and our bullpen quite possibly will be helped by the infusion of youth that will be here soon. I am really anxious to hear what you have to say after you see a few of these guys this spring. Brian Johnson - Pat Light - Sam Travis for 3. Sadly when I read Buccholtz's comments about needing to do everything this year that he should have been doing forever because it is a contract year, I can't help but look forward to watching some of these youngsters who treat everyday with a sense of urgency.

[Behindenemylines]

You never "pick" a guy drafted last year to have an impact on 2016. However, Benintendi has the profile (accomplished collegian, slaughtered the short season levels) to at least be on a watch list. One expects he starts in Salem but with every expectation he's not gonna be there long ... although he might force them to start him right at Portland.

 

He is the reason why they felt comfortable trading Margot to the Padres. This guy is on the fast track.

[sk7326]

The Red Sox Report: http://espn.go.com/blog/keith-law/insider/post?id=4792

 

Sox Top 10

1. Rafael Devers, 3B (7)

2. Yoan Moncada, 2B (17)

3. Andrew Benintendi, CF (18)

4. Anderson Espinoza, RHP (38)

5. Michael Kopech, RHP

6. Sam Travis, 1B

7. Brian Johnson, LHP

8. Deven Marrero, SS

9. Luis Alexander Basabe, OF

10. Travis Lakins, RHP

 

Overview

Boston's system remains strong despite their trade for Craig Kimbrel, which sent two top-100 prospects to the San Diego Padres for about 140 innings from Kimbrel.

 

The first four prospects here are all strong top-50 prospects with star upside, something few other systems can rival. Kopech could crack the Top 100 next year with a full season. His 2015 ended early due to a PED suspension, but before that he was pitching comfortably at 96-97 mph with good life on his fastball, although his breaking ball and changeup remain raw. He's a great athlete and has one of the best baseball bodies in the system.

 

Travis, Kyle Schwarber's teammate at Indiana, can flat-out hit, with more power for doubles than home runs now. He uses the opposite field well but with a clean enough swing that he can pull something on the inner third. He has a fairly high floor as a good defensive first baseman who hits .280 or so with 10-15 homers and a slew of doubles. Johnson missed the last two months of the season with elbow tightness that flared up shortly after his big league debut, but he's fully healthy again and on track for a regular spring training. He's a better choice for the Red Sox's fifth spot than Joe Kelly, possessing a fringy fastball but three other pitches and good command. Marrero would start for a lot of teams as a plus defender at shortstop with good contact skills, but there's no room in the infield in Boston. Basabe is the good twin -- his brother, Luis Alejandro, is also in the system -- a center fielder who shows all five tools and has some patience at the plate, albeit with a bit of swing-and-miss.

 

Michael Chavis (11), Boston's first-round pick in 2014, struggled badly in his first full year in pro ball, going to the full-season Sally League at age 19 and frequently having to DH because of the presence of Devers, Moncada and Javier Guerra on the roster. Chavis has pull power, but his plan at the plate is lacking, and he's particularly weak with two strikes. Trey Ball (12), their first-round pick in 2013, remains a highly athletic kid with a projectable frame that just hasn't projected. If anything, his stuff has gone backward a tick from high school, and there's no clear reason why he hasn't gained velocity as he has begun to fill out. First baseman Nick Longhi (13) has great feel fof hitting and plays an above-average first base. He shows raw power in batting practice but not in games, where he uses the whole field more and hasn't shown yet that he can pull the ball. Pat Light (14) moved to the bullpen in 2015 and added a splitter that's probably plus now and could end up a 65 or 70, but he needs to throw his fastball for strikes so he can get to that out pitch.

 

The Red Sox picked up infielder Marco Hernandez (15) from the Cubs for Felix Doubront, and Hernandez had a minor breakout in 2015, hitting for more average and power than he had in any season before, although he still walks less than once a week and profiles more as a second baseman than a shortstop. He's probably a quality utility infielder at the end of the day. Right-hander Chris Acosta (16) is now the "other guy" the Red Sox signed on July 2, 2014; even though his $1.5 million bonus was close to Anderson Espinoza's, he's nowhere near as advanced physically or mentally as Espinoza. Acosta's fastball will sit 88-92 mph, with some sink, and he has good spin on his curveball. He just turned 18 a few weeks ago and should be ready for the (rookie-level) Gulf Coast League or even (low-A) Lowell this summer. Mauricio Dubon (17) is an above-average to plus defender at shortstop and has good bat control. He lacks strength for power or even the ability to turn on better fastballs, but his ability to put the ball in play and work the count a little should be enough to get his glove to the majors in some capacity.

 

Williams Jerez (18) was drafted as an outfielder but couldn't hit, so the Red Sox put him on the mound, where he has worked in the low to mid-90s with an average slider and fringy control. However, he currently doesn't have a decent weapon against right-handed hitters. Austin Rei (19) is probably a backup catcher due to the lack of offensive potential. Tate Matheny (20), son of Cardinals manager Mike, looked like a potential fourth outfielder or fringe regular before the 2015 draft, when the Red Sox took him in the fourth round, but was badly overmatched in short-season ball after signing. And finally, right-hander Austin Glorius was signed after the draft as a passed-over player and lived up to his name, hitting 98 mph with a promising breaking ball, while still working on his command.

 

2016 Impact

Johnson could end up being the team's fifth starter now that he's healthy again, while Light and Jerez are possibilities for the bullpen. Deven Marrero is ready to be someone's starting shortstop but is currently blocked in Boston.

 

Fallen

Ball was the eighth pick in the 2013 draft, a highly athletic, projectable two-way player out of an Indiana high school, but he hasn't projected at all. If anything, he has lost a couple of mph and struggled to miss bats, despite a great work ethic and attempts to improve his repertoire by adding a cutter.

 

Rising

Lakins, the team's sixth-round pick in 2015, didn't pitch this summer due to his spring workload, but threw 93-96 mph in instructional league play with a lightning-quick arm and a plus curveball. He's a very good athlete who signed as a draft-eligible sophomore and came into pro ball without a ton of pitching experience, so his stuff is ahead of his feel and command.

[jacksonianmarch]

This is where I have another bone to pick with KLaw. The guy is fawning over Espinosa, and rightfully so. But with his lapping of Espinosa, he completely misses Domingo Acevedo, the NYP pitcher of the yr. I get the whole age gap (Espinosa is 4 yrs younger), but the high impact fastball and breaking ball plus the command is at least on par if not better for Acevedo. And KLaw has him outside the Yankees top 10? Huh? I don't get it. The guy masquerades as a prospect guru, yet he has no clue

[sk7326]

This is where I have another bone to pick with KLaw. The guy is fawning over Espinosa, and rightfully so. But with his lapping of Espinosa, he completely misses Domingo Acevedo, the NYP pitcher of the yr. I get the whole age gap (Espinosa is 4 yrs younger), but the high impact fastball and breaking ball plus the command is at least on par if not better for Acevedo. And KLaw has him outside the Yankees top 10? Huh? I don't get it. The guy masquerades as a prospect guru, yet he has no clue

 

From what I've seen, org PoTY are performance awards (as they should be) less than scouting related. That a guy who throws 100 can get single-A hitters out is not proof of that much.

 

The Red Sox minor league players of the year (Sam Travis, Williams Jerez) are not in top half of Red Sox prospects either.

Edited February 17, 2016 by sk7326

[sk7326]

Relevant blurbs from the 2017 list (behind paywall - you're welcome - ground rule: prospect = rookie eligible in 2017)

 

Full index http://www.espn.com/mlb/insider/story/_/id/18559400/index-top-100-prospects-2017-including-andrew-benintendi-others-mlb

 

Methodology

I see players all year long, as amateurs, in pro ball, at the Futures Game, and in the Arizona Fall League. If I've seen a player, my scouting report becomes the foundation of his capsule and his ranking here. I can't see every player, and sometimes only see a player once on a day that isn't representative of his abilities, so I supplement all of my content with conversations with various scouts and with at least one executive with every MLB team who has seen his team's prospects enough to discuss them and suggest how I might rank them.

 

I refer within player capsules and descriptions to grades on player tools and overall forecasts, using the industry standard 20-80 scale, where 50 is major-league average, 60 is 'plus' or well above-average and All-Star level, 80 is a Hall of Famer, and 20 is the bottom of the scale. You'll see a lot of 55s and 60s, but very few 80s because those are rare skills and the grades themselves should be reserved for the best cases, and very few 20s and 30s because someone with a 30 hit tool or 20 command isn't a prospect.

 

In some cases, I try to give rough odds of certain outcomes, but otherwise refer to things as likely, very likely, or unlikely simply to make the capsules easier to read. If I say likely, I mean better than 50 percent odds; very likely means better than 75 percent; unlikely means below 25 percent.

 

I write each year's rankings independently. While it may seem like a player made a big jump or suffered a big drop from last year, that's a consequence of the process, not an input. I didn't look at last year's rankings at any point during this year's writing, and a player moving up or down is not per se indication of a change in his ability, but a reflection of what I believe to be his current value and projection relative to all other prospects.

 

This is by nature a forecasting exercise -- what I think players will become as big leaguers, and when, and how likely those outcomes are. I'm also balancing the two sides of the player projection coin: probability, how likely is the player to become something more than a replacement-level big leaguer; and ceiling, what is the reasonable best-case scenario for the player if everything works out. If a player has a high ceiling, and I think has a relatively strong probability of reaching it, he's probably in the top 10 or even top five. The remainder of the list is sprinkled with players who have more of one or the other, but I tend to favor prospects with higher ceilings over those with low ceilings but high "floors" -- meaning a reasonable worst-case scenario, assuming the player stays healthy.

 

"Raw power" refers to the player's physical ability to drive the ball far; "game power" refers to his ability to do it against live pitching, which to some extent incorporates the player's ability to hit and to recognize what pitches he can drive. "Control" refers to a pitcher's ability to throw strikes; "command" refers to his ability to locate his pitches and to make them do what he wants in terms of spin, break, sink, or run. I separate grades for defensive range from arm strength, but if I refer to a player as, for example, a "60 defender," that's referring to his total defensive value, which in the case of a 60 grade would be at least 5 runs saved better than the average for the position.

 

Org Ranking

 

#16. Boston Red Sox

 

2016 rank: 10

 

The Red Sox have dealt heavily from their system since Dave Dombrowski took over, trading three top-25 prospects just since last June, to make the major league team the best in the AL on paper. But that has left them with the most top-heavy system in baseball.

 

Boston has three elite prospects leading off their system, led by the barely-eligible Andrew Benintendi. But after that troika and Sam Travis (who is coming back from an ACL tear), it’s a quick drop to players who either have much lower ceilings or much lower probabilities of becoming average big leaguers.

 

Some creativity in this past draft helped, with the team landing my No. 2 prospect in the class, Jason Groome, with the 12th overall pick. Also, fourth-rounder Bobby Dalbec’s pro debut was very promising, but all those trades and two years out of the international market have thinned out the system quite a bit.

Edited January 29, 2017 by sk7326

[sk7326]

#1. Andrew Benintendi (2016 rank: 18)

The Red Sox picked seventh in the 2015 draft and used that selection on a draft-eligible sophomore from the University of Arkansas who hit .276/.368/.333 with one home run in his freshman year. Of course, Benintendi then hit 20 bombs with a .376/.488/.717 line as a sophomore, won the Golden Spikes Award and has since dominated at every level of the minors. He earned a call-up on Aug. 2 that would have cost him his rookie eligibility -- and his spot on this list -- had he not suffered a knee sprain that held him out three weeks.

 

 

Benintendi is only about 5-foot-8 (though listed at a generous 5-foot-10) but has no problem generating plus power between his hand speed and the loft in his swing’s finish. He has more power to his pull side but more than enough to drive the ball out to the left-field wall. His plate discipline might be even more impressive than how hard he makes contact; he walked more than he struck out across his brief minor league tenure and then saw just more than four pitches per plate appearance in the majors last fall. Benintendi showed enough patience that manager John Farrell has said he might make the outfielder his No. 2 hitter.

 

Although Benintendi played more left field in the majors, he’s capable of playing above-average defense in center if need be, thanks to above-average speed and good instincts. And if he was a center-fielder with just average defense, he’d still be an All-Star thanks to the potential for him to post OBPs near .400 with 25-plus homers and value on the bases. And if the Sox end up putting him in center, Benintendi would be a potential six-win player. That’s incredible value for the seventh overall pick, and it makes Benintendi the best prospect in baseball for 2017.

 

#11. Rafael Devers (2016: #7)

Devers has been somewhat overshadowed the last year-plus by more famous prospects in the Red Sox system, including Andrew Benintendi and the now-traded Yoan Moncada, but Devers is an elite, high-upside prospect in his own right. He's a true third baseman with an exceptional ability to hit and huge raw power he’s just beginning to display in games. Devers’ main tool is his bat. He has great hand-eye coordination, and the ball comes off his bat exceptionally well; power should come easily without having to change his approach or swing.

 

After a miserable April, Devers hit .310/.354/.478 in 107 games the rest of the season, all as a 19-year-old in High-A. He was the third-youngest regular in the Carolina League, but despite playing the entire year at the level, his strikeout rate was just 17.2 percent, ranking 18th of 56 players who had at least 300 at-bats in the league. And there is big power to come -- Devers can already put the ball out to dead center on a line, so it’s a matter of some physical maturity and maintaining that hard-contact approach rather than becoming too pull-oriented.

 

Devers is big for third base, but he's agile enough for the position with good hands and a plus arm. Moving Moncada clears a path for Devers to take over at the hot corner in Fenway sometime in late 2018. Even average defense at third would make him an All-Star given how much I expect him to hit for power.

 

#20. Jason Groome (NEW)

Groome was the No. 2 player on my board in the 2016 draft, but he slipped to the Red Sox at the 12th pick overall because of concerns about his signability and off-field questions, which allowed Boston to take a lefty with one of the best curveballs I’ve ever seen from a high-schooler.

 

Groome is a good athlete with a very easy delivery, sitting 90-94 mph pretty regularly with projection to get up to the mid-90s on his fastball in time, something he has only done before when pitching in short stints. The curveball is a hammer, a grade-70 pitch he can throw for strikes that will buckle a lot of knees in A-ball this year, though I would guess the Red Sox will ask him to throw it less often to work on fastball command and develop his untrained changeup.

 

His arm works well, and he has the size to work downhill with his fastball, one of the aspects lacking from his game at the moment. He’s still relatively unpolished and probably four years away from the majors, so there’s a higher flameout or injury risk -- maybe 30 percent or so -- than there is for other arms in this region of the rankings. I’ll still take a big lefty with an out pitch curveball and potential for a grade-55 or better fastball any day of the week.

 

#98 Sam Travis (2016 unranked)

Travis was on track for a major-league call-up in 2016, but he tore his ACL -- as his former Indiana teammate Kyle Schwarber had done -- after 47 games in Triple-A, ending his season. Travis is a bit of a throwback as a first baseman, a guy who’s going to hit for average and doubles power but might get to only 12-15 homers a year. He has a clean, simple swing that should produce some line-drive power in time, although in 2016 he was putting the ball on the ground a little more than he should.

 

He's an above-average defender at first who might have been OK as a left fielder, but that's not an option in Boston given their other players and the difficulty of playing left at Fenway. I think Travis could be a Mark Grace sort of player, hitting for average with good OBPs and 30-40 doubles a year, an average to above-average regular at a position where the Red Sox might shortly have a need.

[Fisk]

Very impressive after trading so many prospects we still have 3 top 20, along with our young core. And have added Sale, Kimbrel, pomerantz and Thornburg.

[sk7326]

On stuff that was traded

 

7. Michael Kopech (2016 unranked)

Kopech’s pro career got off to a rocky start, but once he returned from the disabled list in mid-June 2016, he emerged as one of the top pitching prospects in all of baseball, which in turn allowed the Red Sox -- who selected him with the 33rd overall pick in the 2014 draft -- to use him to land Chris Sale in a trade with the White Sox.

 

Kopech can touch triple digits with his fastball, which regularly sits in the upper 90s -- he was clocked at 96-99 mph in his first outing in the Arizona Fall League -- with ridiculous arm speed and huge extension over his front side that must make hitters think the ball is coming in at 110. He has some feel for both a hard slider and changeup, though neither is very consistent just yet, with the changeup a little ahead the last time I saw him pitch.

 

Kopech has modeled himself after Noah Syndergaard, another huge Texas right-hander who came out of high school with a fastball, a good delivery and little else, and the results so far are very promising. Other than a slight cutoff in his landing, Kopech’s delivery works and should allow him to develop average or better command over time. He just needs to pitch, both to build up durability and work on fastball command and getting those two off-speed pitches to be regularly above average. His upside is that of a No. 1 starter who has two or three truly plus pitches and logs 200 innings a year.

 

17. Yoan Moncada (2016 #17)

He's an enormous, explosive athlete who can flash all sorts of baseball skills. Moncada looks like Lawrence Taylor in a baseball uniform, but if you saw him in the majors in September, you also saw some of the flaws in his game. Moncada is a plus runner with good bat speed and plus raw power, with a better left-handed swing but potential on both sides of the plate. He has moved around the diamond a little, looking too stiff and upright at second but much better at third base, a position that demands quicker reactions and relies less on getting down to field slower ground balls.

 

He destroyed High-A to start 2016, then hit well in Double-A (.277/.379/.531) but struck out 31 percent of the time, and then looked lost with a late promotion to the big leagues. However, Moncada wraps his bat and can’t get to the stuff thrown inside and backspin it, getting on top of those pitches or missing them entirely. When he reached the majors, it was as if he’d never seen a breaking ball in his life. The latter problem can change with development time, but the former is a more significant mechanical question that reduces his likely ceiling for me. The White Sox, having just acquired him, have no need to rush him and should let him spend the year in Triple-A. I think he’s going to be a good big leaguer, maybe an above-average one, but there’s also a pretty high risk involved here, maybe 30 percent, that he never lives up to his physical tools.

 

21. Anderson Espinoza (2016 #38)

Traded in a surprise deal in July for Drew Pomeranz, Espinoza was one of the youngest pitchers in any full-season league in 2016, and he won’t turn 19 until this March. Espinoza is way beyond his years in stuff, pitching at 94-95 mph with his four-seam fastball already, touching 99, while already showing feel for a curveball and a changeup. Neither offspeed pitch is consistently above-average yet, but the changeup is further along.

 

 

He has a great body and his delivery works well, with the velocity coming fairly easy and with no real obstacles to command or to improving the breaking ball. Given how good his raw stuff is and that he throws strikes, it was a little surprising he didn’t have better results in low-A between Greenville and Fort Wayne, but again, he was just 18, so this was like a high school senior pitching in the Sally and Midwest Leagues.

 

Nevertheless, that kind of arsenal doesn’t often lead to a 4.50 ERA. That may be an indication that he’s not going to zip through the minors, and will need a full year or more at each level, but even that would have him in the Padres’ rotation at the age of 22, and the upside given all of the raw material here is at least that of a No. 2 starter with ace upside not out of the question, and minimal risk as a reliever, too.

 

24. Manuel Margot (2016 #25)

Margot came to San Diego as part of the four-prospect package from Boston for Craig Kimbrel, and should be the Padres’ regular center fielder in 2017 over Travis Jankowski. Margot can really play center as an above-average runner with great instincts and the ability to cover all that ground at Petco, one of the more difficult center fields to play in the majors.

 

At the plate, he’s a high-contact hitter with quick hands and a short path to the ball, although I think he can get a little over-rotational when he tries to hit for power, which results in him getting on top of balls and hitting them into the ground. He’s at his best when he just tries to put the ball into the outfield, as he’s very unlikely to be a 10-plus homer guy, but could hit .280-.300 with some doubles and triples thanks to his speed, slugging in the low .400s in peak years.

 

Margot is ready now, and projects as a plus-10 runs or so defender in center. That, combined with his ability to put the ball in play, should make him an average regular now, with a little more than that to come when he reaches his physical peak.

[sk7326]

Very impressive after trading so many prospects we still have 3 top 20, along with our young core. And have added Sale, Kimbrel, pomerantz and Thornburg.

 

Lot of work to do to rebuild the org's depth and ceiling as a whole - but still a number of studs

[Fisk]

Will not have the advantages of the past, hopefully they will find a new advantage. I do like they made Romero an asst. Gm he seems to be a great evaluator of talent in Latin America.

[moonslav59]

Lot of work to do to rebuild the org's depth and ceiling as a whole - but still a number of studs

 

At least DD kept the 3 that fill immediate needs:

 

LF: Beni replaces a revolving door wee've had in LF since our last ring.

PAs in LF--

2016:

222 Holt

190 Young

102 Beni

58 Brentz

51 Swihart

9 others

 

2015:

379 HanRam

102 Castillo

86 De Aza

51 JBJ

32 Holt

21 Craig

13 others

 

2014:

190 Gomes

185 Cespedes

131 Nava

91 Sizemore

32 Holt

31 Carp

20 Brentz

5 others

 

3B: Devers can hopefully replace Pablo soon. Perhaps Pablo will move to 1B or DH once Devers arrives.

 

Pitching: Groome looks like a steal from the 12th slot of the draft. Hopefully, he can replace Pomeranz in a couple years and then maybe become a solid #2-3 type by the time Porcello and Sale reach the ends of their contracts.

 

 

[jacksonianmarch]

Grooms fell into your lap. The other guys had been there. Your depth has been seriously impeded due to deals and promotions, but who gives a s*** really. You've got a now team and when you have a now team, your farm goes from being the source of your talent and turns into the source of your trade bait.

 

On the topic of Groome, how stupid are the other GM's? Groome was the top prep pitcher. Rutherford, rated the top prep hitter. They fell from top 3 consideration because of signability issues? Rutherford fell because he was 19? Groome came off arrogant in his interviews? The reasons for a big league draft day drop are stupid.

[moonslav59]

Grooms fell into your lap. The other guys had been there. Your depth has been seriously impeded due to deals and promotions, but who gives a s*** really. You've got a now team and when you have a now team, your farm goes from being the source of your talent and turns into the source of your trade bait.

 

On the topic of Groome, how stupid are the other GM's? Groome was the top prep pitcher. Rutherford, rated the top prep hitter. They fell from top 3 consideration because of signability issues? Rutherford fell because he was 19? Groome came off arrogant in his interviews? The reasons for a big league draft day drop are stupid.

 

I thought questions about his signability was the main reason he fell so far in the draft.

[Fisk]

We have a now team with 3 top 20 prospects. Yes our depth is hurt we no longer have the cache to trade for a top of the rotation starter or a great hitter, but probably will not be a need for us for a few years. We will have the ability to sign and trade for role players to fill in holes we might need.

[Hugh2]

Grooms fell into your lap. The other guys had been there. Your depth has been seriously impeded due to deals and promotions, but who gives a s*** really. You've got a now team and when you have a now team, your farm goes from being the source of your talent and turns into the source of your trade bait.

 

On the topic of Groome, how stupid are the other GM's? Groome was the top prep pitcher. Rutherford, rated the top prep hitter. They fell from top 3 consideration because of signability issues? Rutherford fell because he was 19? Groome came off arrogant in his interviews? The reasons for a big league draft day drop are stupid.

 

Maybe Groome fell because MLB had a draft day moment and no one knew what to do when they didn't expect him to fall.

 

Often times you already have deals in place with a guy(s) you think will fall to you. It's tough for a GM to blow that up on a guy who perhaps they've spent less time on. When that's the case you risk blowing up your whole draft if you can't sign the guy. That's why some of these players really drop. Sometimes once you fall a few spots you're guaranteed to fall 30 more until you get to a team who has the money to sign you. A perfect example of this was Daz Cameron in 2015.

[jacksonianmarch]

Groome was the consensus top prep pitcher and a consensus top 5 pick. He fell to #12 due to rumor and innuendo

[sk7326]

Grooms fell into your lap. The other guys had been there. Your depth has been seriously impeded due to deals and promotions, but who gives a s*** really. You've got a now team and when you have a now team, your farm goes from being the source of your talent and turns into the source of your trade bait.

 

On the topic of Groome, how stupid are the other GM's? Groome was the top prep pitcher. Rutherford, rated the top prep hitter. They fell from top 3 consideration because of signability issues? Rutherford fell because he was 19? Groome came off arrogant in his interviews? The reasons for a big league draft day drop are stupid.

 

He was a Vanderbilt signee iirc, and historically Vandy has gotten their HS prospects to go (no wonder, tremendous education, reputation of protecting pitchers). All his advisor had to do was create the threat he'd not sign to the teams he did not want to pay for. Good for him, take whatever leverage you can.

[Jack Flap]

 

 

21. Anderson Espinoza (2016 #38)

 

 

 

 

I'd really feel better about Dombrowski's whole body of work thus far if we could have this one trade back.

[moonslav59]

I'd really feel better about Dombrowski's whole body of work thus far if we could have this one trade back.

 

I agree. I was against the Kimbrel trade too, but have softened my stance a little bit.

 

Having Espi or Kopech had we swapped Espi for Kopech in the Sale trade would really balance things out a little more right now. Not having Pom would really make our rotation depth look much worse though.

[Fisk]

Espi is so far away right now have no idea how he's going to turn out. Pom if he stays healthy should be a solid 3. It will be interesting to see how this trade turns out. I was fine with the deal at the time we were badly in need of another starter, and had Groome and Kopech.

[moonslav59]

Espi is so far away right now have no idea how he's going to turn out. Pom if he stays healthy should be a solid 3. It will be interesting to see how this trade turns out. I was fine with the deal at the time we were badly in need of another starter, and had Groome and Kopech.

 

Oh, I get why they made the trade, but I hated it then and hate it just as much now.

[Fisk]

I can't hate it because I know why they made it.

[moonslav59]

I can't hate it because I know why they made it.

 

I can. It was a horrible trade.

[Fisk]

We will see Espinoza is so far away and if pomerantz stays healthy it could work out.

[moonslav59]

We will see Espinoza is so far away and if pomerantz stays healthy it could work out.

 

Of course it could work out.

 

I really like Pom, and think he will do fine.

 

I'm just a huge believer in Espi. I know he's "far away", but when a kid that young gets ranked that highly, there's a reason.

 

 

 

[Fisk]

You are right very highly ranked and I'm sure for a good reason, but there are so many different outcomes that can happen.

[moonslav59]

You are right very highly ranked and I'm sure for a good reason, but there are so many different outcomes that can happen.

 

I know that. One outcome could be he's the next Pedro.

 

I don't fault anyone for liking or being okay with the deal.

 

I just really hate the deal.

[Fisk]

I will hate the deal if he's the next Pedro, but the odds are very low that will happen.

[moonslav59]

I will hate the deal if he's the next Pedro, but the odds are very low that will happen.

 

I agree, but he doesn't have to ever be that good or to end up doing better than 2.3 years of Pom.

 

To me, it was a high risk of trading about 5 years of ML control of Espi for 2 1/3 years of a pitcher who had just shown a half a year of greatness before the trade. I'm not trying to badmouth Pom, because he's good starter to have in the mix right now. He certainly makes us a better team on paper for the next two years, but I plan on being alive long enough to care as much about this team's future 3-8 years out.

 

If Pom does well or better and/or Espi fizzles out, I'll still think it was a bad gamble that we happened to win.