jacksonianmarch

Pedroia has a “joint preservation” surgery on his knee. Whatever that means

That’s the rub here. You’ve got to draft and develop well. When one wave graduates, have another a year or two behind. DD committed two long term team building sins. He dealt long term assets for short term ones and he drafted and developed very, very poorly.

We aren’t barfing this year. We’re just as good as any team. The depth of the Yanks is insane and outside of Andujar (for now) all of our injured players are expected back. We’re ready to give Houston a run for their money in the AL.

Urshela is hitting a little better than he did in the minors, but I doubt Cashman saw his big league performance and thought All star. It turns out the Yankees AAA hitting instructor helped his swing and reverted it back to what he did in the minors. Maybin is a total luck job there. No way Cashman saw his performance the last couple years and said, hey, he’s gonna hit .300 in a reserve role. Tauchman was different. He was a hitter first, then developed power and had very good exit velocities in the minors but was buried. Cashman loves exit velocities. He got Voit the same way. Tauchman and Voit were extracted for this very purpose. Cashman anticipated they could play well in the bigs and he was right. Urshela and Maybin are sheer luck If only Cashman has a magic formula for pitchers

There are no dynasties? The Dodgers are favorites to go to their third straight WS. The Astros are favorites to win their second title in 3 years. The Giants won 3 titles in 5 years. It’s not that there are no dynasties. They are very rare. You need to keep a solid and deep farm while having a very strong big league club. Long standing great play only occurs when you start with great talent and are able to replace that talent with cheap talent from within.

If the Sox rebuild, there’s zero chance it’s a one year thing. When you dealt Lester, Miller and Lackey, you had the #1 farm system in baseball. You drafted Chavis in 2014, the following winter you signed Moncada, and the following draft, with a really high draft pick, you got Beni. You had Devers, Kopech, Betts, Vasquez, etc all in the minors. You had just graduated Bogey. Timing is everything. You dealt Lester in 2014, then sucked again in 2015 while trying to decide if the rebuild had worked. That is what led to the Dombrowski era. Dombrowski has leveled your farm. Like salted earth and flames. So bad that outside of a single prospect (Casas), nobody wanted your prospects for pen help. DD said he was “good with what we have” but that really isn’t true. Teams with pen upgrades weren’t interested in s*** prospects. He’s backed into a corner and will likely retire this offseason for someone else to clean up. With the contracts the way they are, the Sox aren’t going to have the financial wiggle room to add money. With the farm the way it is, you’re going to have to hope for shrewd cheap signings or deals if you’re to stay relevant in 2020. You’ll also have to hope for some rebounds from aging or diminished veterans. If you go the rebuild route, the assets you have to trade come with enormous price tags, questionable performance or both. Betts is on the price tag side. He’s likely to see a near $30 mil price for his final arb season and has said he has no interest in extending before FA. That price tag and the single year of control will limit his return, but you still should get a young big leaguer or a single top 100 prospect. ERod has pitched to his peripherals for two consecutive years. This is the first year he’s neared a 6IP per start season even though his production tailed off this year compared to last. A change of scenery from the ALE and two years of arb control would probably make ERod your most tradeable asset. Another player likely to bring a return but only if the Sox eat money is JD. The guy can swing it for sure, but now a back issue has crept in. He’s not cheap and is likely not going to opt out. You’ll get some useful prospects for him, but likely guys far enough away or with a lowered ceiling to not be top 100 worthy off the rip. I don’t think you get anything for a year of JBJ. He’s gonna be non tendered IMO. Then there’s Beni. If there’s a rebuild, Beni is likely gonna go too. He’s a corner OFer with what will likely be a second consecutive 3+ WAR season. His offense is good. His defense is league average. What will limit Beni’s return will be his rising K rate, falling BB rate and ridiculous .360 BABIP. That being said, he’s got 3 arb years ahead which will increase his value and his return would be good. Workman is another guy who could return some value. He’s outpitched his peripherals yet has the single deadliest pitch in baseball. His OPSa vs the curve is lower than Bradley’s OPS in April of this year. Crazy good. He could return someone Outside of these guys, anyone else you deal would be salary dumps or smaller deals of limited consequence. You’ll still be left with an enormously expensive club full of underachieving former stars. It will take 3 years for a big chunk of these contracts to go away and 6 more years for them all to expire (Xander is the longest controllable Red Sox, although you’ll probably want to keep him). This thing ain’t gonna be a one year thing. It’s going to be 3 years at least. Welcome to the cliff, DD pushed you off it this year

and he robs a HR, wow

If a rebuild is what happens, then you deal Betts and ERod. No point in keeping a rental in Betts and no point in keeping a guy for 2 rebuild years in ERod. Those guys should bring back a lot

This from Shaughnessy. The vultures are circling

Torres pulled again. I would bet he ends up on the IL

The Rays just dropped a 6 spot on the Jays and tied their game up

Tauchman goes ya-ya again

You wanna see a horrible call? Look at the "check swing" on DJ Lemahieu on a 3-2 count. Leadoff walk instead of K. Guess who the ump was, you get two

Tauchman is entirely legit. His first two times up, he was a pull happy lefty incapable of hitting the outside pitch. Since he’s returned, he’s been a hitter capable of driving the ball the other way. He was another Voit guy. High exit velo, never got the chance, buried behind good talent. We stole him for essentially nothing. He alone has made Clint Frazier entirely superfluous. Tauchman is hitting himself into the equation for next year and probably saving the Yanks some money in the process

And got a core player in the swap

He was being relied upon early in higher leverage situations and he failed. Now it’s snowballed. He was nails in the post season last year, but he always had Kimbrel to back him up. Coming into the year, he was the best reliever back there and he’s been an abject disaster

Will be almost impossible to do

He’s not opting out. His biggest questions since he started hitting have centered on his health. Now, with a recurring back problem and limitation to DH due to defensive liability and injury concerns, he isn’t gonna get a better deal than 3-$63 mil. You’re stuck with him for better or worse. Also, he has to understand that the Sox would QO him and he’ll be stuck waiting until June to sign

You might for sure. Stuff isn’t a problem.

Barnes is a candidate for a change of scenery. He’s going to get some cash from the arb fairy and has looked like a deer in headlights in big spots. He’s got a great arsenal, but it’s either he’s tipping pitches or he’s got no deception and hitters see him well.

Defense helped for sure, but early on Tanaka got the splitter to work. With his limited velocity since the partial UCL tear, he’s entirely dependent on the slider and splitter. The slider has been pretty reliable, but the splitter is the only thing he has that changes the eye level. When he loses feel for the splitter, he’s toast. This happens every single year for about a month to six weeks where he’s barely pitchable. Last night, he had some good ones but lost it in the inning he got shelled. I think he’s coming out of it, well, I hope he is. We’re gonna need him

Was he a HBP

Just got a message that Betts left the game due to leg injury. Was it obvious?

Not really. Tanaka ran out of gas and Boone hung him out to dry. We’re having a pen game tomorrow, so Tanaka was asked to go deeper. Through 5, 5IP 6H 2ER 2BB 3K. Not great, but good enough. He lets Tanaka give up 4 straight hits and put the tying run on base before pulling him. Stupid when you have a starter dealing with Tanaka’s issues

Torres is DHing today. Urshela not in the lineup. We likely won’t see him until the last game of the series.