A Realistic View at 2017 Part II

[Nick]

Good D at 3B does not overcome WORST OPS in minors last year. It's still hard for me to believe Devers can do worse than Marrero.

[Jack Flap]

Allen, we hardly knew ya.

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/06/red-sox-to-release-allen-craig.html

[oldtimer]

Allen, we hardly knew ya.

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/06/red-sox-to-release-allen-craig.html

 

Reading that just makes you wonder what our FO was smoking to do this and other similar awful deals.

[Spudboy]

Allen, we hardly knew ya.

 

https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/06/red-sox-to-release-allen-craig.html

 

Some team will sign him.

[moonslav59]

Reading that just makes you wonder what our FO was smoking to do this and other similar awful deals.

 

We still have Kelly as part of that deal, and we will still have Kelly for two more years.

 

I'm not saying it was a good deal, but Lackey might not have been with us for his "free year", and probably would not have re-signed with us afterwards.

[Spudboy]

Still a s***** deal.

 

And I never bought the Lackey explanation.

 

In this case a bird in the hand was worth more than two in the Bushe.

[Jack Flap]

That trade has been one of my most hated Red Sox transactions pretty much from day one...no way in hell will I ever believe that was the best we could have gotten for Lackey.

 

Kelly could still recoup some value as a reliever, of course, but the strikeouts are still too low and the walks too high for me to believe he's morphed into the relief stud we all hope he can be (yet).

[moonslav59]

Still a s***** deal.

 

And I never bought the Lackey explanation.

 

In this case a bird in the hand was worth more than two in the Bushe.

 

I never believed Lackey would sit out a year either, but maybe the Sox and other GMs knew otherwise.

 

I did not like the trade at the time, but I did think trading Lackey was totally understandable. I liked Kelly at the time- as a starter, and I felt Craig had a good chance at winning the 1B job. The season we traded Lackey was lost, so we basically ended up trading one year of Lackey, in which he would not have been enough to help to make the playoffs that year, for 5 years of Kelly and Craig's awful contract.

 

It was a bad trade, but I can see why they did it.

 

I was actually more upset with the Lester trade return.

[moonslav59]

That trade has been one of my most hated Red Sox transactions pretty much from day one...no way in hell will I ever believe that was the best we could have gotten for Lackey.

 

Kelly could still recoup some value as a reliever, of course, but the strikeouts are still too low and the walks too high for me to believe he's morphed into the relief stud we all hope he can be (yet).

 

Kelly could turn into a great RP'er. He's off to a great start this year, and he had a great ending to 2016.

Edited July 1, 2017 by moonslav59

[Nick]

That trade has been one of my most hated Red Sox transactions pretty much from day one...no way in hell will I ever believe that was the best we could have gotten for Lackey.

 

Kelly could still recoup some value as a reliever, of course, but the strikeouts are still too low and the walks too high for me to believe he's morphed into the relief stud we all hope he can be (yet).

 

His 100 mph is not as effective as Kimbrel's 98 mph.....no movement is my guess.

[SoxHop]

That trade has been one of my most hated Red Sox transactions pretty much from day one...no way in hell will I ever believe that was the best we could have gotten for Lackey.

 

Kelly could still recoup some value as a reliever, of course, but the strikeouts are still too low and the walks too high for me to believe he's morphed into the relief stud we all hope he can be (yet).

 

I hate Lackey with the heat of 1000 suns.......

 

I think he backed them into a corner........I mean what shitbag says he wont play because he got hurt and wont honor his contract.......

 

It's possible us not getting the best performance out of Kelley was because we were dumb........... he is bullpen material.......... and we beleived the hype after he put up some good numbers during the second half of a garbage season.............

 

Craig was a good chance......... I still have no idea how someone goes to great to complete garbage like he did.........

[moonslav59]

I hate Lackey with the heat of 1000 suns.......

 

I think he backed them into a corner........I mean what shitbag says he wont play because he got hurt and wont honor his contract.......

 

It's possible us not getting the best performance out of Kelley was because we were dumb........... he is bullpen material.......... and we beleived the hype after he put up some good numbers during the second half of a garbage season.............

 

Craig was a good chance......... I still have no idea how someone goes to great to complete garbage like he did.........

 

Kelly had some very good numbers as a starter for the Cards, too. It wasn't "hype".

 

It's not easy knowing if and when to convert a starter to a RP'er, but with Kelly, it sure worked out well, so far.

 

Last 365 days (50+ IP or 200+ PAs) Sox Leaders:

 

OPS against :

.412 Kimbrel

.525 Kelly

.554 Sale

.655 ERod

.673 Barnes

.715 Price

.716 Porcello

.763 Pomeranz

.786 Hembree

 

WHIP

0.794 Kimbrel

0.906 Sale

1.071 Kelly

1.139 ERod

1.184 Porcello

1.199 Price

1.350 Pomeranz

1.354 Barnes

1.428 Hembree

 

ERA (not a good stat for judging RP'ers)

1.05 Kelly

2.38 Kimbrel

2.77 Sale

3.38 ERod

3.58 Hembree

3.65 Price

3.75 Porcello

4.17 Pomeranz

4.43 Barnes

 

Craig had a recent three year stretch that was excellent before the trade. I'm not sure anyone or any GM could have known how badly he'd decline. With pablo and HRam there were signs, but with Craig, there was just the foot injury.

 

[moonslav59]

soxprospects.com has updated their rankings with recent draft picks inserted:

 

http://soxprospects.com/

 

Big moves or insertions:

4 Chavis (from 11)

5 Tanner Houck

6 Mata (from 16)

7 Ockimey (from 10)

8 Chatham

9 Dalbec (from 5)

10 Beeks (from 29)

11 Lakins

12 Johnson

13 Longhi (from 9)

14 Cole Brannen

15 Alex Scerff

16 S. Anderson

17 M Shawaryn

18 D Hernandez

19 J Callahan (from 33)

20 R Raudes (from 8)

21 B Taylor

22 T Buttrey (NR)

 

other big movers:

40>24 A Maddox

NR>26 Velazquez

NR>31 T-W Lin

44>32 D Mars

47>33 J Tobias

17>34 T Ball

45>35 R Baldwin

29>37 T maheny

18>40 L Ysla (DFA candidate)

15>41 J Cosart

30> 51 K Washington

 

 

 

 

 

[Carter]

I just idly glanced at the AL standings. What the f***? What happened to those 2 Yankee kid sluggers? What happened to Toronto? Is Sale back to form? Did Poppi come out of retirement?

[Dojji]

Nope. A flawed team just has enough different players coming through on any given night that W's keep happening.

[Kimmi]

That trade has been one of my most hated Red Sox transactions pretty much from day one...no way in hell will I ever believe that was the best we could have gotten for Lackey.

 

Kelly could still recoup some value as a reliever, of course, but the strikeouts are still too low and the walks too high for me to believe he's morphed into the relief stud we all hope he can be (yet).

 

Personally, I liked the trade. I thought that both Kelly and Craig would be at least decent players for us, if not really good players. Additionally, they both had several years of team control.

 

Who knew that in Craig's case that those several years of control would turn out to be a big detriment.

[Station 13]

Pablow Sandoflop was 0-5 in his rehab tonight with a strikeout.

[moonslav59]

The Yankees lose! Thaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh Yankeeeeeeeezeeeee LOSE!

[SoxHop]

The Yankees lose! Thaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh Yankeeeeeeeezeeeee LOSE!

 

Hot diggity ...... dang diggity.......... suck it yanks...

[moonslav59]

I expected the Sox to be hurt by the loss of Papi's retirement, but I still expected a top 5 offense, or even top 3.

 

I'm looking at some of the teams with more runs scored than us, so far, and I do not think I am alone in thinking there is no way anyone expected the rays to have a better offense than the Papi-less Sox. The Rays have scored 15 more runs than us. Before the season started, who liked these players on offense?

 

C Derek Norris (.637)

1B Logam Morrison (.916) More shockingly good than Moreland!

2B Brad Miller (.645)

3B Longoria (.752) The one guy we thought might be great!

SS Tim Beckham (.757)

LF Colby Rasmus (.896) Better than any Sox OPS

CF K Kiermaier (.737)

RF Steven Souza (.853) WTF?

DH C Dickerson (.938) Better numbers than with COL. Leads AL in hits

Top 6 bench guys by PAs have OPS between .662 and .768.

 

Other surprising teams scoring more runs than the Sox:

 

CIN and NYM-- nobody here thought these two teams had a better offense than us,

even without Papi.

 

We all knew Cincy had Votto. His 1.046 OPS is a big part of heir surprisingly good offense this year, but here's the rest:

.966 Zack Cozart

.915 Scooter Gennett

.904 Adam Duvall

(we don't have anyone over .855 and Cincy has 4 guys over .900!

.875 Scott Schebler

.828 Devin Mesoraco

.813 Eugenio Suarez

 

I'm not in any fantasy baseball leagues, but am I the only guy that hasn't even heard of some of these guys?

 

 

[Carter]

Nope. A flawed team just has enough different players coming through on any given night that W's keep happening.

I know what you mean Doj. We been getting some luck lately. We suck but the Cubs ain't doing any better.

 

A word about Steven Drew: I hate his guts!!!! You probably know that his brother JD Drew was a Cardinal phenom, but became a pariah when it was obvious that he didn't give a s***. So when we played you in '13 this light hitting brother gets his 1st hit in 3 weeks to win one of the games.

 

He damn near did it tonight! Got a solid single on our flame thrower in the 9th plating one and now he's the winning run on base! We got out of it but my nerves were wrecked.....that little rat-bastard!

[Bellhorn04]

I know what you mean Doj. We been getting some luck lately. We suck but the Cubs ain't doing any better.

 

A word about Steven Drew: I hate his guts!!!! You probably know that his brother JD Drew was a Cardinal phenom, but became a pariah when it was obvious that he didn't give a s***. So when we played you in '13 this light hitting brother gets his 1st hit in 3 weeks to win one of the games.

 

He damn near did it tonight! Got a solid single on our flame thrower in the 9th plating one and now he's the winning run on base! We got out of it but my nerves were wrecked.....that little rat-bastard!

 

Both of the Drew brothers were what you might call 'polarizing figures' when they played for us.

[Emp9]

I expected the Sox to be hurt by the loss of Papi's retirement, but I still expected a top 5 offense, or even top 3.

 

I'm looking at some of the teams with more runs scored than us, so far, and I do not think I am alone in thinking there is no way anyone expected the rays to have a better offense than the Papi-less Sox. The Rays have scored 15 more runs than us. Before the season started, who liked these players on offense?

 

C Derek Norris (.637)

1B Logam Morrison (.916) More shockingly good than Moreland!

2B Brad Miller (.645)

3B Longoria (.752) The one guy we thought might be great!

SS Tim Beckham (.757)

LF Colby Rasmus (.896) Better than any Sox OPS

CF K Kiermaier (.737)

RF Steven Souza (.853) WTF?

DH C Dickerson (.938) Better numbers than with COL. Leads AL in hits

Top 6 bench guys by PAs have OPS between .662 and .768.

 

Other surprising teams scoring more runs than the Sox:

 

CIN and NYM-- nobody here thought these two teams had a better offense than us,

even without Papi.

 

We all knew Cincy had Votto. His 1.046 OPS is a big part of heir surprisingly good offense this year, but here's the rest:

.966 Zack Cozart

.915 Scooter Gennett

.904 Adam Duvall

(we don't have anyone over .855 and Cincy has 4 guys over .900!

.875 Scott Schebler

.828 Devin Mesoraco

.813 Eugenio Suarez

 

I'm not in any fantasy baseball leagues, but am I the only guy that hasn't even heard of some of these guys?

 

 

 

TB's offense may get even better, having traded for injured catcher Wilson Ramos in the offseason and patiently waited for him to get healthy, Ramos is off the DL.

[Kimmi]

The Yankees lose! Thaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh Yankeeeeeeeezeeeee LOSE!

 

That was a fun game.

[Kimmi]

At the exact half way point, the Sox are 2 games better than they were at this point last year. Not bad for a team that has dealt with a lot of struggles and hasn't really fired on all cylinders yet.

 

Our offense might be coming together, though I've thought that a couple of times before and it didn't happen. But our pitching staff owns the best ERA in the AL.

[moonslav59]

TB's offense may get even better, having traded for injured catcher Wilson Ramos in the offseason and patiently waited for him to get healthy, Ramos is off the DL.

 

Who here would have traded our Papi-less offense for TB's (on paper) before the season started?

 

As well as Moreland has done, what if we signed Morrison instead?

[moonslav59]

At the exact half way point, the Sox are 2 games better than they were at this point last year. Not bad for a team that has dealt with a lot of struggles and hasn't really fired on all cylinders yet.

 

Our offense might be coming together, though I've thought that a couple of times before and it didn't happen. But our pitching staff owns the best ERA in the AL.

 

We're showing there are ways to win without a lights out offense led by 1-2 giant legendary mashers. Other teams have known this all along.

 

I'm not saying this team is destined for a championship, or that our offense is good enough as is, but I like our chances, especially if ERod gets healthy and/or Porcello can get his act together. Pomernaz could also continue doing well enough that we don't need ERod and Porcello to do very well.

 

I'm not counting on Carson Smith to help at all this year, and the pen has shocked me this year. I think we don't need to trade for a pen arm. I was dead wrong about our pen back in March.

 

We're on pace for 92 wins. That's far short from my 100 win projection, but we're closer now than a few weeks ago.

Edited July 2, 2017 by moonslav59

[a700hitter]

I'm not counting on Carson Smith to help at all this year, and the pen has shocked me this year. I think we don't need to trade for a pen arm. I was dead wrong about our pen back in March.

Anything we get from Carson Smith this year will be gravy.

[Emp9]

Who here would have traded our Papi-less offense for TB's (on paper) before the season started?

 

As well as Moreland has done, what if we signed Morrison instead?

 

Not I, that's for sure. One only has to look at Blue Jay's Justin Smoak to realize some players defy expectations and from out of nowhere have un-normally good or bad seasons.

[Nick]

Red Sox trade Nick Longhi to Cincinnati for international bonus pool money

 

It appears we picked up some talented 16 year olds in the international draft. There's now a hard cap based on team's finish from prior year but pool money slots can be traded. Sox went way over the hard cap amount (say $4.6M or so) so they needed 'additonal money'. Thus the trade.