Article: Despite Early Returns, the Red Sox Won the Quinn Priester Trade

[notin]

1 minute ago, moonslav59 said:

Past performance of certain draft slots are not projection tools. I'm sure research will find something like pick #79 do better than pick #59. It's pretty random, especially after the top 10-15 picks,

Sure they are.  That’s why many scouts think Bryce Harper has the potential to one day be a Poor Man’s Mickey Moniak…

[harmony]

12 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Past performance of certain draft slots are not projection tools. I'm sure research will find something like pick #79 do better than pick #59. It's pretty random, especially after the top 10-15 picks, IMO.

The Sox have done very well with picks 20-60 and beyond- even better than their 1-20 picks, in many cases.

On my chosen percents of 18, 17, 16, they were likely too high, but even 3 chances at 10-15% gives a team a good chance at one guy reaching a 1.0 fWAR in a season.

Yophery Rodriguez, John Holobetz or Marcus Phillips could be the Auntie Gertie who beat the odds.

But the probabilities are stacked against them ... even in the aggregate.

Lost in this conversation are Quinn Priester's potential future WAR. Even before his breakout this year, ZiPS had projected Priester with 1.4, 1.5 and 1.5 WAR in fewer than 120 innings each in 2025, 2026 and 2027. Priester, who has tosssed 124 innings this year, remains under team control for four more seasons.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/quinn-priester/25977/stats?position=P#zips-3-year-projections

[Bellhorn04]

59 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Stonehenge, mud flaps, Cleveland, eleven and all that. 

IMHO the best part of "these go to eleven" is Rob Reiner earnestly questioning why they couldn't just make ten louder, and Christopher Guest staring at him blankly.    

[Bellhorn04]

1 minute ago, harmony said:

Yophery Rodriguez, John Holobetz or Marcus Phillips could be the Auntie Gertie who beat the odds.

But the probabilities are stacked against them ... even in the aggregate.

Lost in this conversation are Quinn Priester's potential future WAR. Even before his breakout this year, ZiPS had projected Priester with 1.4, 1.5 and 1.5 WAR in fewer than 120 innings each in 2025, 2026 and 2027. Priester, who has tosssed 124 innings this year, remains under team control for four more seasons.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/quinn-priester/25977/stats?position=P#zips-3-year-projections

Except Priester is going to get the voodoo doll treatment. 😊

  

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, harmony said:

Yophery Rodriguez, John Holobetz or Marcus Phillips could be the Auntie Gertie who beat the odds.

But the probabilities are stacked against them ... even in the aggregate.

Lost in this conversation are Quinn Priester's potential future WAR. Even before his breakout this year, ZiPS had projected Priester with 1.4, 1.5 and 1.5 WAR in fewer than 120 innings each in 2025, 2026 and 2027. Priester, who has tosssed 124 innings this year, remains under team control for four more seasons.

https://www.fangraphs.com/players/quinn-priester/25977/stats?position=P#zips-3-year-projections

This isn't like fangraphs analyzing batting and pitching performances and coming up with numbers that assign value to a player's performance, and even those numbers are not predictors of what is to come, despite some correlations and tenancies. Why would draft pick numbers carry so much weight as projectors?

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

IMHO the best part of "these go to eleven" is Rob Reiner earnestly questioning why they couldn't just make ten louder, and Christopher Guest staring at him blankly.    

That was a classic. Very fitting for this topic, too.

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

That was a classic. Very fitting for this topic, too.

I read a biography of Jeff Beck, and there was a part about Beck going to see the Spinal Tap movie, and being in convulsions of laughter through the whole thing, partly because he recognized that Nigel Tufnel was largely based on him.  

[moonslav59]

2 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

Except Priester is going to get the voodoo doll treatment. 😊

  

The funny part about all of this is...

Priester has yet to have a 1.0 fWAR season:

-0.6

+0.1

+0.9

Last 2 starts: 7.45 ERA/7.98 FIP

2025: 3.48/4.33 is good enough to have been a big help for the Sox, no doubt, but he's not Cy Young, just yet.

I 100% wish we did not make the trade, but I like what we got back.

Generally, I'm for making 3 for 1 trades, not the reverse. I value quality over quantity, but our farm was graduating a lot of players and this helped address that. We are now set up for another 5 for 1 Crochet type deal, this winter, and this trade helped to set it up to a small degree.

[notin]

7 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

This isn't like fangraphs analyzing batting and pitching performances and coming up with numbers that assign value to a player's performance, and even those numbers are not predictors of what is to come, despite some correlations and tenancies. Why would draft pick numbers carry so much weight as projectors?

Agreed.  Not following why draft pick number matter.  Was anyone projecting Zach Cox or Richie Shaffer to post similar numbers to Mike Trout?

[moonslav59]

4 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

I read a biography of Jeff Beck, and there was a part about Beck going to see the Spinal Tap movie, and being in convulsions of laughter through the whole thing, partly because he recognized that Nigel Tufnel was largely based on him.  

I had heard that, too. I'm a big Jeff Beck fan.

Hello Jeff

 

 

[Bellhorn04]

It was an unusual trade under the circumstances, and a risky one.

It does show that Breslow has a lot of confidence in himself and in the evaluations they do.

We'll see if that confidence was well placed or not. 

[Bellhorn04]

Just now, moonslav59 said:

I had heard that, too. I'm a big Jeff Beck fan.

Hello Jeff

 

 

Jeff Beck is a guy I always liked, but later in his career I really came to love him.  It was a sad day when he passed.

[moonslav59]

1 minute ago, notin said:

Agreed.  Not following why draft pick number matter.  Was anyone projecting Zach Cox or Richie Shaffer to post similar numbers to Mike Trout?

Just because numbers exist that show draft pick X has had an X success rate does not show what the next draft pick X will do.

I find it odd that anyone would believe that.

Of course, higher picks, in general do better, but baseball is much more random than other sports, and I just don't see the value.

Maybe I'm a homer- okay- okay- I'm definitely a homer, but I try hard to be realistic and logical, and I happen to really like these 3 to varying degrees. I think their combined chances look pretty good.

[moonslav59]

3 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

It was an unusual trade under the circumstances, and a risky one.

It does show that Breslow has a lot of confidence in himself and in the evaluations they do.

We'll see if that confidence was well placed or not. 

Agreed, and it's not like Brez did not already know Crawford, Sandoval and Hendriks were going to miss a lot of time.

He did not know Houck was going to suck and then need TJS, but Bello, Buehler, Dobbins and others were still largely question marks. Hell, Newcomb won the 5 slot out of camp, for god's sake!

I don't think a single person liked the trade. That does not mean we might still get something of value from it.

The Gio signing went from horrific stupidity to not so bad, anymore.

The Story signing still looks pretty bad, but much better, now.

I absolutely hated Brez stopping at just the Chapman & Wilson signings to boost the pen, last winter. Now, he looks like a genius for that. (I still wish he did more, but...)

[Bellhorn04]

3 minutes ago, moonslav59 said:

Agreed, and it's not like Brez did not already know Crawford, Sandoval and Hendriks were going to miss a lot of time.

He did not know Houck was going to suck and then need TJS, but Bello, Buehler, Dobbins and others were still largely question marks. Hell, Newcomb won the 5 slot out of camp, for god's sake!

I don't think a single person liked the trade. That does not mean we might still get something of value from it.

The Gio signing went from horrific stupidity to not so bad, anymore.

The Story signing still looks pretty bad, but much better, now.

I absolutely hated Brez stopping at just the Chapman & Wilson signings to boost the pen, last winter. Now, he looks like a genius for that. (I still wish he did more, but...)

We all envied the Dodgers for signing Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates.

Both have been pretty lousy.

It's crazy hard to make the right calls with pitchers.

 

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

38 minutes ago, Bellhorn04 said:

We all envied the Dodgers for signing Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates.

Both have been pretty lousy.

It's crazy hard to make the right calls with pitchers.

 

Just don't trade any for Wily Mo Pena.

Career WAR: Pena -1.2; Bronson Arroyo 23.4 -- the guy who, when he wasn't a Red Sox pitcher, had over two thousand innings pitched. In the majors...

[moonslav59]

23 minutes ago, 5GoldGlovesOF,75 said:

Just don't trade any for Wily Mo Pena.

Career WAR: Pena -1.2; Bronson Arroyo 23.4 -- the guy who, when he wasn't a Red Sox pitcher, had over two thousand innings pitched. In the majors...

Maybe the Slocumb for Lowe & VTek trade cancelled that one out.