Early Trade deadline deals the selling Sox should make

[drewski6]

10 hours ago, JoeBrady said:

Except in this case, the RS are getting the player, not the Giants.  And the Giants are getting budget and payroll efficiency, not the RS.

Adames has roughtly 150m in cash payouts, left on his deal. The proposed deal had the giants eating 20, so we would add 130m in salary, thereabouts.

Duran has arb 3 and arb 4 left, and obviously a portion of his 7.7M remaining this year....so thats like 30m in future commitments.

Bello has like 50m-ish in future commitments.

So yes, this is net cash out by the red sox of about 50m.  But its not a pure "get the player" trade, we are sending 2 and getting 1.  But thats not even my question.....

Why if we are trading Duran for Adames, we are using the excess value that Duran possesses to lesson the financial commitment to Adames?  Instead of us getting as much baseball value out of Duran, we are instead using a significant amount of his excess value to get the giants to eat 20m off a recent FA signing (which is LOL in and of itself...How about instead of us signing free agent bats, you sign them then trade them to us eating some money and we'll flip you something back like I dont know, our best hitter of the last 3 years).....And we are also using it to dump Bello.

This is more of the same.  This is how we became last place larry.  Its not a trade for offense.  Its a trade of our best offensive player of the last 3 yrs for a different player who you think is a better positional fit and the excess value between our outgoing player who is getting sold (Duran) has over the incoming player (Adames) is getting used to clear some money off a recent FAs contract and salary dump Bello.

MAX EFFICIENCY

[drewski6]

27 minutes ago, notin said:

Exactly.

When Lester came up, I remember some folks being upset the Sox dealt “the good lefty” Kason Gabbard (for Eric Gagne?) instead of the slower starter in Lester.  Clearly they made the right choice.

The Sox do have a very young team right now, with Anthony, Mayer, Durbin, and Narvaez all starters in their second season.  Certainly they assumed some would struggle but not necessarily all of them.  Add to that other starters (Duran, Abreu, Rafaela) who don’t have much more experience.  Basically only Contreras and Story as experienced starters, and both of them at ages where decline sets in.

There was clearly a lot that could go wrong, and I would be surprised if they didn’t expect some of it too.  But they had issues with far too much going wrong.

And even then, they built a strong rotation and a good defense, which can be enough to carry a team a long way.  They had their lifeboat.
 

They just forgot to put a bullpen in that lifeboat…

yes, the problem with the weakest offense since the dead ball era is the bullpen

[notin]

Just now, mvp 78 said:

Add to that other starters (Duran, Abreu, Rafaela) who don’t have much more experience.  

Duran has 560 games and 2349 PA spread out over 6 seasons, with the overwhelming bulk (317 games, 1431 PA)  of it in 2024-25.

He’s a veteran, but he really hasn’t been around that long…

[drewski6]

19 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

Durbin is 26

Narvaez is 27

They aren't that young. Inexperienced? Maybe. Young? Not really. 

I would also argue their status as "starters"

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

Yes he’s having a terrible season.  No one is arguing that.  And if all he had was 2026, it would look stronger.

But Durbin was good last year, so we do know he has the ability to succeed at some level in MLB, right?

He wouldn't be the first player to have one good season and fall off the map. To have two full month of being absolutely horrible is not a great sign. 

[mvp 78]

2 minutes ago, notin said:

Duran has 560 games and 2349 PA spread out over 6 seasons, with the overwhelming bulk (317 games, 1431 PA)  of it in 2024-25.

He’s a veteran, but he really hasn’t been around that long…

That's still basically 4 years of service time. C'mon man. He's a guy you need to be relying on. He should be a leader now. We can't keep looking at these guys and saying "well, they're young." At some point, they need to step up! 

[drewski6]

6 minutes ago, notin said:

Duran has 560 games and 2349 PA spread out over 6 seasons, with the overwhelming bulk (317 games, 1431 PA)  of it in 2024-25.

He’s a veteran, but he really hasn’t been around that long…

After watching noodlebat city in the playoffs last year, all these if you squint, you could have saw a - you know bottom half offense but not this bad....which means the problem wasnt the offense in the offseason rings hollow.  

We were projected 19 offense by some.  So thats bottom 11.  Okay we are bottom 3.  WHen you go into the season with a bottom 10 offense and you wind up bottom 3, you dont get to claim bad luck. You set yourself up for it.

The lesson here needs to be never again.  Never again should we enter the season with anything but a top 10 offense, and we should really be striving to be top 1.  Teams built around pitching and defense gets you what we have.  

[notin]

8 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

yes, the problem with the weakest offense since the dead ball era is the bullpen

It really has been lately. 
 

But the problem is that they didn’t try to address the issue. Basically, this Sox same Sox lineup averaged 4.84 RPG last year after trading Devers (compared to 4.86 RPG with Devers), top 8 in MLB. They lost Bregman and Toro/Lowe and replaced them with Contreras and Durbin.  Contreras has worked out, Durbin not so much.  
 

But this year, Story has been non-existent. Duran was as well until recently.  And the second year crew hasn’t even equaled their performance from last year…

[drewski6]

4 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

That's still basically 4 years of service time. C'mon man. He's a guy you need to be relying on. He should be a leader now. We can't keep looking at these guys and saying "well, they're young." At some point, they need to step up! 

Out of everyone on the red sox right now, rank them in order of who you expect to have the most xtra base hits over the next 5 years

Single hitting roman who struggles to stay healthy?
37 yr old Contreras?

Duran is one of our best bet for xtra base hits and we need xtra base hits.  

[notin]

2 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

After watching noodlebat city in the playoffs last year, all these if you squint, you could have saw a - you know bottom half offense but not this bad....which means the problem wasnt the offense in the offseason rings hollow.  

We were projected 19 offense by some.  So thats bottom 11.  Okay we are bottom 3.  WHen you go into the season with a bottom 10 offense and you wind up bottom 3, you dont get to claim bad luck. You set yourself up for it.

The lesson here needs to be never again.  Never again should we enter the season with anything but a top 10 offense, and we should really be striving to be top 1.  Teams built around pitching and defense gets you what we have.  

The postseason Sox had their bench on the field too much in that THREE GAME SERIES.  Nate Eaton, Nick Sogard, Romy and Refsnyder combined for 25 of their 96 plate appearances, not exactly representative of the regular season…

[notin]

10 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

That's still basically 4 years of service time. C'mon man. He's a guy you need to be relying on. He should be a leader now. We can't keep looking at these guys and saying "well, they're young." At some point, they need to step up! 

Ive ranked him among my biggest disappointments all year, if not the biggest.  But  “basically 4 years service time” spread across 6 years isn’t the same as actually playing for 4 full seasons, either..

[drewski6]

4 minutes ago, notin said:

It really hasn’t been around been lately. 
 

But the problem is that they didn’t try to address the issue. Basically, this Sox same Sox lineup averaged 4.84 RPG last year after trading Devers (compared to 4.86 RPG with Devers), top 8 in MLB. They lost Bregman and Toro/Lowe and replaced them with Contreras and Durbin.  Contreras has worked out, Durbin not so much.  
 

But this year, Story has been non-existent. Duran was as well until recently.  And the second year crew hasn’t even equaled their performance from last year…

The team that had Sogard, Eaton, falling off a cliff Narvaez, and Lowe and Masa in their playoff lineup last year....Now has Sogard, Durbin, Gasper (at DH), falling off a cliff Narvaez

We got lucky with Contreras, we didnt go get him because we thought he would be the best hitter on our team. We liked his price tag.  But sure.  And we dont even need to analyze this....Breslow himself said "its obvious that the strength of this team is pitching and defense."

Breslow built a team that tries to win with pitching and defense and less focus on offense.  ANd he has been deprioritizing offense since last year, and I really dont care that he caught a few lucky breaks with Toro or Dom or Lowe over the years to add to our offense or the pre-post devers trade metrics, when looking at the offense last year , the playoff version, it was noodlebat city....and going into this year we were noodlebat city. 

[mvp 78]

3 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Out of everyone on the red sox right now, rank them in order of who you expect to have the most xtra base hits over the next 5 years

Single hitting roman who struggles to stay healthy?
37 yr old Contreras?

Duran is one of our best bet for xtra base hits and we need xtra base hits.  

I don't know which ballpark Duran will be playing in so it's hard to project. 

Total Bases: Wilyer

XBH: Rafaela

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, notin said:

The postseason Sox had their bench on the field too much in that THREE GAME SERIES.  Nate Eaton, Nick Sogard, Romy and Refsnyder combined for 25 of their 96 plate appearances, not exactly representative of the regular season…

Sogard is the glue. This offense is nothing without Sogard. This offense also really misses Romy and Refsnyder TBH. 

[drewski6]

3 minutes ago, notin said:

The postseason Sox had their bench on the field too much in that THREE GAME SERIES.  Nate Eaton, Nick Sogard, Romy and Refsnyder combined for 25 of their 96 plate appearances, not exactly representative of the regular season…

Lowe? Toro? Coulda got Josh Naylor but he went to the scrap heap.  Coulda had Devers but he bruised Breslows ego.....

I dont get it, yesterday MVP was like nobody was defending Breslows offseason....And today its but but but the unforeseeable bad breaks!! 

Unacceptable.  Never again.  THis is how we have become last place larry.

[drewski6]

1 minute ago, mvp 78 said:

I don't know which ballpark Duran will be playing in so it's hard to project. 

Total Bases: Wilyer

XBH: Rafaela

One person each is not exactly a ranking, but sure.

[drewski6]

Last year we traded Devers who had been our best offensive player of the last 3 years.  This year, the problem that Im reading about here are 1. My expectations 2. Not addressing the bullpen, 3. That we did not trade our best hitter of the last 3 years again for the second time in a row.

Again, I must ask: Am i getting trolled?

[drewski6]

Maybe stop trading away our better hitters?

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Lowe? Toro? Coulda got Josh Naylor but he went to the scrap heap.  Coulda had Devers but he bruised Breslows ego.....

I dont get it, yesterday MVP was like nobody was defending Breslows offseason....And today its but but but the unforeseeable bad breaks!! 
 

Huh? That's a wild leap in logic. 

[drewski6]

Every non RS fan who I spoke to this offseason about the RS getting good (I was jazzed at one point) laughed in my face and told me "no offense"

Granted that was like 3 people.  But 3 neutral people who watch a lot of baseball.

[moonslav59]

53 minutes ago, notin said:

Exactly.

When Lester came up, I remember some folks being upset the Sox dealt “the good lefty” Kason Gabbard (for Eric Gagne?) instead of the slower starter in Lester.  Clearly they made the right choice.

The Sox do have a very young team right now, with Anthony, Mayer, Durbin, and Narvaez all starters in their second season.  Certainly they assumed some would struggle but not necessarily all of them.  Add to that other starters (Duran, Abreu, Rafaela) who don’t have much more experience.  Basically only Contreras and Story as experienced starters, and both of them at ages where decline sets in.

There was clearly a lot that could go wrong, and I would be surprised if they didn’t expect some of it too.  But they had issues with far too much going wrong.

And even then, they built a strong rotation and a good defense, which can be enough to carry a team a long way.  They had their lifeboat.
 

They just forgot to put a bullpen in that lifeboat…

Some (not all) of these young players will turn things around, if the odds remain true. It just might not be quickly enough for the impatient or nonbelievers who think no player ever changes from what they have done in the past year, month or even week.

Counting on every young player to mash in year one or two is a mistake, but I don't think Sox management did that. They clearly expected some to do better than they have, but they did have 4 OF'er & masa in case Anthony struggled or got hurt. They signed IKF and added Monasterio & Seigler as depth for Mayer. They added over 5 catchers to the farm system for both immediate MLB depth (Thaiss, Delay & Gasper) as well as longer term depth in case Narvaez turned out to be a flash in the pan. They didn't even have Tolle and Early in the opening day rotation, so they were clearly not penciling them into an immediate FT role.

A lot has gone badly, this year- some beyond even our worst thoughts, but these kids will get more chances, either now or down the road.

22 Anthony

23  Tolle & Mayer

24 Early

25 Rafaela & Bennett

26 Durbin

27 Abreu & Narvaez (Bello & Samaniego)

[mvp 78]

4 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

One person each is not exactly a ranking, but sure.

You want me to rank the entire roster and how they'll perform over the next five years over XBH? No. 

1. Rafaela

2. Anthony

3. Abreu

4. Duran

5. Mayer (only because I believe he'll be a starter that long)

[mvp 78]

1 minute ago, moonslav59 said:

but these kids will get more chances, either now or down the road.

26 Durbin

27 Abreu & Narvaez (Bello & Samaniego)

Not kids...

[drewski6]

Just now, mvp 78 said:

Huh? That's a wild leap in logic. 

Pointing to unforeseeable drop offs implies its not the  fault of the captains vision.  Sometimes y'all sound like an insurance company trying to claim "act of God" to get out accepting fault.

Not you, MVP.  Your only part in this is telling me that nobody is saying stuff that I read every day.

Joe Brady really did say second best team in baseball.  He really did say that we were set up to have an unprecedented 5 yr run of success.  That we had a great offseason and the best part of it was the that we left the door open for Casas.  Joe Brady and Moon high five every day over the players we didnt get.  Or choices Breslow made.  Notin is right now defending the offseason approach to fixing the lineup.

To be clear - I dont think you are doing much of this.  I just dont understand why you saying "nobody is saying that".

Im not the guy using straw-man extremes to argue disingenuously.  Thats stuff like: some guys can play ss, c, and 1b but thats not duran.  Thats not a good faith argument

[moonslav59]

16 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

We got lucky with Contreras, we didnt go get him because we thought he would be the best hitter on our team. We liked his price tag.  But sure.  And we dont even need to analyze this....Breslow himself said "its obvious that the strength of this team is pitching and defense."

It's clear Brez wanted another bat and pivoted to Suarez and Durbin, but Contreras was clearly the best bet to be our best hitter on day one. Yes, I think Brez thought: 1st Bregman (He was wrong on several counts.) and 2nd Contreras (maybe Abreu or Anthony.)

Fangraphs projected OPS:

.804 Contreras

.775 Abreu & Anthony

.749 Duran

.737 Romy

.726 Rafaela

 

[drewski6]

3 minutes ago, mvp 78 said:

You want me to rank the entire roster and how they'll perform over the next five years over XBH? No. 

1. Rafaela

2. Anthony

3. Abreu

4. Duran

5. Mayer (only because I believe he'll be a starter that long)

Why would you say "no (period)" and then do it?  JK I wondered that for a sec then realized No meant number.  

I would submit that based on your list, which I think was made thoughtfully and in good faith, so I will accept it....That there is a better chance than not that Duran winds up top 3.  Hes significant more durable than 2 of the guys above him.  Rafaela still needs to convince me hes become this good....But I dont hate your list....Also, I would note the drop off after 4 but before 5.

[drewski6]

Just now, moonslav59 said:

It's clear Brez wanted another bat and pivoted to Suarez and Durbin, but Contreras was clearly the best bet to be our best hitter on day one. Yes, I think Brez thought: 1st Bregman (He was wrong on several counts.) and 2nd Contreras (maybe Abreu or Anthony.)

Fangraphs projected OPS:

.804 Contreras

.775 Abreu & Anthony

.749 Duran

.737 Romy

.726 Rafaela

 

I like the contreras move.  But my point is that what he really liked about contreras is that he was affordable enough to add him alongside another player (which was going to be bregman but became suarez).  

But I think he pulled the trigger on contreras because he was good value and still had room to add another bat.  I liked the contreras deal. STill do.  

I just feel the need to disagree with some kind of notion that the state of the offense is as much bad luck as it is breslows incompetence....And I think when people say things like "all the guys you would have wanted are struggling too"....or "we couldnt have predicted so many drop offs".....This points to things like "hands were tied" or "couldnt have saw that coming, its just bad luck"....

But I think we are in last place because we have a bad GM.  ANd I said last year, I think we are a playoff team despite a bad GM....adn everyone was like yeah , but playoffs....And I ultimately accepted that......

But where Im coming from righ now......Is the old notion: "if you dont like what you are getting, change what you are doing" applies.  But that feels contra to things like "it wasnt the strategy or execution of breslows plan, it was a bad FA class" or "nobody could have known all these drop offs"

I think those things are both true.  And Im not trying to hate on you (or Notin) for pointing this stuff out.  Im just saying that we went into the season with a bottom half projected offense with a GM gleefully saying "we are built around our pitching and defense" and so Im not willing to accept these excuses.

Maybe bad luck and a bad FA class are contributing factors to why we stink it up in an extremely stinky AL, but it cant explain away all of it.  Breslow is a failure.

[notin]

29 minutes ago, drewski6 said:

Lowe? Toro? Coulda got Josh Naylor but he went to the scrap heap.  Coulda had Devers but he bruised Breslows ego.....

I dont get it, yesterday MVP was like nobody was defending Breslows offseason....And today its but but but the unforeseeable bad breaks!! 

Unacceptable.  Never again.  THis is how we have become last place larry.

I spent last summer at least asking for the Incredible Shrinking Andrew Vaughn, whose dead red StatCast page made his weak baseball card numbers look meaningless.  The Brewers snagged him, and he wound up blasting baseballs all over the Midwest as he helped them take the NL Central. 
 

But Ive also seen plenty of Sox teams focus on powerhouse offenses wuth no pitching and defense and miss the postseason, albeit under different rules  As there is no magic formula, I’m Ok with trying to as long as they do it right.

In 5 games before yesterday, the Sox scored 25 runs and went 1-4.  In 3 of those 4 losses, the bullpen either gave up the lead or pushed it just out of reach.  And yesterday, the game was 2-2 until the bullpen came in.

With a good bullpen, the Sox could have gone 5-1 in that stretch.  With a decent one, maybe 4-2 or 3-3.  But with this bullpen, 1-5

[drewski6]

7 minutes ago, notin said:

I spent last summer at least asking for the Incredible Shrinking Andrew Vaughn, whose dead red StatCast page made his weak baseball card numbers look meaningless.  The Brewers snagged him, and he wound up blasting baseballs all over the Midwest as he helped them take the NL Central. 
 

But Ive also seen plenty of Sox teams focus on powerhouse offenses wuth no pitching and defense and miss the postseason, albeit under different rules  As there is no magic formula, I’m Ok with trying to as long as they do it right.

In 5 games before yesterday, the Sox scored 25 runs and went 1-4.  In 3 of those 4 losses, the bullpen either gave up the lead or pushed it just out of reach.  And yesterday, the game was 2-2 until the bullpen came in.

With a good bullpen, the Sox could have gone 5-1 in that stretch.  With a decent one, maybe 4-2 or 3-3.  But with this bullpen, 1-5

were the sox teams that had powerhouse offenses but lacked pitching and defense this bad?

[drewski6]

8 minutes ago, notin said:

I spent last summer at least asking for the Incredible Shrinking Andrew Vaughn, whose dead red StatCast page made his weak baseball card numbers look meaningless.  The Brewers snagged him, and he wound up blasting baseballs all over the Midwest as he helped them take the NL Central. 
 

But Ive also seen plenty of Sox teams focus on powerhouse offenses wuth no pitching and defense and miss the postseason, albeit under different rules  As there is no magic formula, I’m Ok with trying to as long as they do it right.

In 5 games before yesterday, the Sox scored 25 runs and went 1-4.  In 3 of those 4 losses, the bullpen either gave up the lead or pushed it just out of reach.  And yesterday, the game was 2-2 until the bullpen came in.

With a good bullpen, the Sox could have gone 5-1 in that stretch.  With a decent one, maybe 4-2 or 3-3.  But with this bullpen, 1-5

also, after re-reading your post from the previous page i see that you more so said the problem with building around pitching and d to keep you afloat is the hole in said boat that is the bullpen....ANd I reframed your position as if you were implying that the problem with this team is the bullpen.  I think I inadvertently tweaked your position when I tried to reframe it, and I apologize for that.

And yes MVP, arf arf.  But again, basset hound guy, so its more of a woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo (keeps going)