Dojji

I wasn't around much in 98, but in 07 they were working Cora in around Pedroia until Pedroia found his feet. Pedroia still got his chances, but the two split time for most of April before Pedroia really started turning it on in May. Fortunately Cora got hot for awhile and picked up the slack while Pedroia made his adjustments and got himself right, and Pedroia was ready to go by the time Cora glided back down to earth. That's redundancy working out the right way, it's how it needs to happen with Bradley. The thing that concerns me with Bradley, is that the team seems to be using Bradley as a chip in the Ellsbury contract dispute, discussion, whatever word you want to use, rather than actually assessing Bradley as bradley. They're building a narrative about Bradley being able to replace Ellsbury right now, without actually proving that he can or has done, which makes me nervous that they might be overselling the kid. They've done it before.

Keep overrating those prospects, SFF. At least you're consistent. A prospect isn't a productive regular until the moment he is. Projections are all fun and nice and optimistic and crap, but that's the reality of the prospect game. I used to be as head in the clouds as you, then Lars Anderson happened. I wait for evidence now. With pitching in particular, you can literally never have enough redundancy. If you can expand your practical depth in the starting rotation you always do it because entropy will always find a way to screw you over if you don't. We've seen it happen too many times for me to let you get away with ignoring the lessons of history now.

In other words, he thinks we're doing to WMB what the Twins did to Ortiz. Don't let him play to his own style because we have prejudices against free-swinging offense or something. Jung thinks that letting WMB swing away with confidence is going to be a better answer than forcing him tl second-guess himself trying to develop discipline he doesn't have, never really had, and possibly never will.

No, SFF, at some point you do not have to take the training wheels off. Not in Boston when you can afford to have players in your 3 outfield positions that are capable of working someone else's position and a 4th outfielder good enough to start. Maintain a high redundancy level at a given position any time you're working a rookie in. The Red Sox get that. It's why I expect them to go in hard to bring in a "utility" man to back up shortstop who could start at need.

Hmm, Gomes and Carp, or Choo. Choo, or Gomes and carp. Hmm, doesn't sound like much of a decision, and I like both of Gomes and Carp. If we have to jettison Gomes to bring in Choo, then we jettison Gomes and bring in Choo. As the forum's leading Nava fan, this is hillarious. If we replace Nava with a better player I won't care one jot about whether Nava is "blocked." Nava is a serviceable starting corner OF, turn him loose and he'll land on his feet somewhere in the majors after the year he's had. He's the sort of player Oakland snaps up after we turn him loose and makes us look silly for giving up on. But if we're replacing him with a guy as fundamentally sound and productive on both sides of the ball as Choo, I won't turn a hair.

I'm still taking a wait-and-see approach vis-a-vis Bradley. I really suspect there's going to be further growing pains there. He's talented, don't get me wrong, but he still hasn't had a ton of reps in the majors, and I'm not all for handing him a starting job sight unseen without a danged good Plan B.

No it shouldn't. One, megathreading sucks, two, that thing is on freaking page 3, and necroing a thread just to continue it as a megathread is 5 different flavors of suck.

Never turn up your nose at a chance to add pitching depth. If you think Tanaka can translate his skillset to the big leagues, sign him. If you have 6 or 7 big league starters ready to do and you still think Tanaka can translate his skillset to the big leagues, sign him anyway.

Choo has played 4 games in right for every game he's played in center. If you have Victorino, Choo, and RF and CF available as jobs, Victorino is your CF. While true, Pedroia would make a better leadoff hitter than Choo, whose power I would rather use lower in the order. It actually comes down to what we'd get out of Bradley, Victorino and possibly Nava. If Nava is playing, and all of those players are hitting to their ability, then Nava and Victorino are probably going to be your default 1-2 in some order and then you use your better power hitters deeper in the order. If Nava is not playing, and Bradley is hitting up to his ability, then some combination of Victorino and Bradley are probably your 1-2. If someone's struggling but still getting the playing time then you might have to move someone like Bogaerts or Choo up higher in the order, but that's unideal.

Apparently Tim Thomas signed, or is close to a contract, with the Panthers. Looks like a solid move on both sides. Playing the role of starter until a rookie can transition into the #1 role is a situation Thomas gets, since it's pretty much all the Bruins ever thought he was supposed to do except for the unfortnate fact that he kept proving them wrong every year. And it'll be nice to see him in the league again. If the Panthers' young stud thinks TT is going to surrender the job easily though, he has a surprise in store. Rask found that out the hard way, and Rask is probably better than the Panthers' heir apparent. I still think having to compete with a warrior like Thomas for playing time helped shape Tuukka into the stud he was last year, one more thing to be grateful to #30 for.

i really expect the Braves and McCann to get something done. if not, I still want no part of McCann. He's not a bad catcher certainly but he's about to be on the wrong side of 30 and he's got a lot of mileage on his knees. I like the idea of the flier on Abreu, I think that's low risk high reward and we can eat the consequences if it fails it's a good move for a big market to flex its muscles because its upside still outweighs the cost. Love the idea of bringing in Choo, he's an ideal Fenway type player. I do not think that the Red Sox are prepared to pay what it will take to bring in Giancarlo Stanton. I think it would cost Bogaerts, simply because the Marlins are in a position with some pretty solid leverage and what they're trading is Just That Good (which is why we all want it). Even if not, it's still going to cost us a lot of our talent, and while we have a lot of talent, we don't have a ton in the upper minors just now. Not everyone who looks expendable is. Besides I just don't get the vibe that he's on Cherington's radar the way Adrian Gonzalez was on Theo's, and given the misfortune we ran into in the wake of the Gonzalez acquisition the "go big or go home" faction in the Red Sox FO is likely still in the doghouse a bit. would not mind a short years flier on Carlos Beltran if we really decide we need an additional upgrade. Beltran still has it and this team has no problem laying out some money on short year deals, this may be where we can put our footprint and get something done in FA to upgrade the team and manage risk.

They're not going to trade him on your schedule though. There's plenty of time to wait for a better deal if they don't like yours. that's going to allow them to cherry-pick what they want out of a deal and I maintain that what they want is going to be a premiere position player who's got 6 more years of control and is big league ready. Maybe more than one, but definitely at least one. If their rotation wasn't already their sole saving grace there might be other alternatives, but right now, they have enough leverage, and their need is sufficiently weighted towards position players, and we have few enough really supremely talented position players in the high minors, that both the BPA theory and the team needs theory favors going after Bogaerts -- or another team's top offensive prospect if Bogaerts is not available.

you're still not seeing it because you're making the mistake of looking at the Marlins operation as an ordinary franchise and applying ordinary franchise assumptions to the Marlins MO. They don't act like an ordinary franchise, and the reason why is the owner. Jeff Loria will not pay for talent, at all, ever, and that leaves the FO to try to make the best them they can with NO money spent. in order to provoke some kind of attendance in any given year. The FO does care about both PR and attendance, as well as rebuilding, but they are given NO money to work with. The reason that seems illogical to you is because it is. However, Loria does not care for your puny logic. He's there to skim as much money out of the lucrative Florida market as he can without sinking or reinvesting any money into it ever, leaving the actual baseball people to make as much of the situation as they can. There's also the fact that the ownership and the FO have sworn not to trade Bogaerts, and their credibility gap with the fans is bad enough to begin with right now after trading Buehrle and Reyes, who they also swore they would not deal. I'm assuming that even if Loria is insane, the baseball people in the FO are not, and the trade of Stanton will be done to minimize the fan revolt that will inevitably follow a Stanton trade. Since they have the leverage they need to make strong demands in any deal for stanton, one of those demands is a player they can placate the fans with in the short term while the team preps for another owner-induced selloff. in other words, you're making a trade proposal presuming an ordinary franchise running with total operational freedom and few extenuating circumstances when none of these assumpions apply to the Marlins.

No, yours is. The closest thing to contradictory the Marlins have ever done to contraindicating their usual MO is BRINGING IN Reyes and Buehrle in the first place. This is a team that stresses maximum PR bang for minimum ownership buck, and always has under Loria.

Who said anything about competing? Who said the Marlins CARE about competing. they haven't shown yet that the concept of competing is even in their headspace, they just want a headline guy they can sell to the masses to keep trying to sell their brand of baseball in Miami, and if they're going to lose Stanton they want a similarly charismatic talent back. Anthony Ranaudo ain't it. Xander Bogaerts on the other hand might be.

No, it's silly reasoning by Miami, because you watch them do exactly that.

They don't need a guy who's half a year or more from being big league ready. They want a guy WHO IS ON THE ROSTER AND A STAR OF THE TEAM ON OPENING DAY. Again, that would be a good package on any of the 27 teams we'd deal with other than Miami. The Marlins are limited in what they can accept for Stanton because of the unique demands a Stanton trade puts on their franchise. Loria will only accept players in a deal with 6 years of control going forward, that's a longstanding practice of the team under his ownership, and the franchise needs that centerpiece guy they can immediately start saying "Sure we broke our solemn promise to the fans, again, for the umpteenth time, by trading Stanton, but look at this great player we got back, he was so worth it!" If they can't get that guy they're spiking themselves in the foot and destroying any shred of credibility they have left in their community, so they'll go hell for leather after that kind of deal even if it means throwing away a bag-o-goodies trade anyone else would accept to get him. Heck, your deal probably is better on paper, in a vacuum, but the Marlins are enough of a unique case that they'd still demand Bogaerts instead.

For any team other than the Marlins, I'd agree with you, but the Marlins are a shoestring budget operation and they don't like paying for players. They want that guy who they can start the clock on. That's what they've traded for every chance they get for as long as the current owner has owned the team, so while Loria's in charge down in Miami you know that's coming when you discuss a trade with the Marlins. At least you do if you've been paying attention. If we were doing a deal with any of the 27 other teams we'd actually trade with, you'd be exactly right, but not the Marlins. Add that to the fact that for PR purposes they need a headliner coming back, someone they can immediately sell as their new face of the franchise, and the conclusion that the Marlins would demand Bogaerts or no deal, becomes inescapable.

The flaw in your argument is that Florida is not obliged to make a deal at all. They don't have to take the least awful deal. If they don't see a deal they like, they wait for someone to get twitchy and overpay at the deadline, and work on keeping Stanton if possible in the meanwhile. They have more than enough leverage that a team is not going to back them into a corner and force them to accept a small handful of B+ guys when that's not what their franchise needs from a Stanton deal.. The Marlins' target in a Stanton trade is someone they can sell as a true replacement for Stanton to keep the fans from checking out entirely over the fact that Stanton was traded at all. On our roster, that *is* Bogaerts, however you want to rationalize that it isn't. They aren't interested in "fair value" if "fair value" is 12-18 months away from big league time because 12-18 months of empty stadiums will be the direct result of that kind of trade. So from Florida's perspective, looking at things through the window of their front office, value isn't the only consideration -- they want specific results from the trade. Bogaerts happens to fill that demand in a way no one else they can ask us for will do, and from this team with this extended roster, they will ask for or accept no one else other than Xander Bogaerts headlining a deal for Giancarlo Stanton, you can take that to the bank SFF. If you're not prepared to part with exactly Bogaerts, and no one other than Bogaerts, headlining the trade for Stanton, the Giancarlo Stanton pipe dream is exactly that. The Marlins have too little reason to accept the bag-o-goodies package and too much need for a headline guy for me to think any other creative/clever offer package gets it done this time.

Then Florida hangs up and works on an extension with Stanton, or gets onto the phone with someone who's actually willing to pay what it actually takes to bring in Giancarlo Stanton. The Marlins are not in a position where they have to accept the least awful deal at the moment, they aren't going to give an inch because they don't need to, so why make deal proposals as if they might or should? Florida has little to no interest in Doubront since he's burnt some years. They want that first year high profile guy they can sell as a replacement for Stanton. that's Bogaerts. James Shields cost Wil Myers from the Rays despite being near the end of his deal and not exactly being Felix Hernandez, do you really think the Marlins are going to take less value than Wil Myers for Giancarlo Stanton? Really, do you actually think that?

I can get behind that. If we're talking about bringing in an outfielder next year, I think the target should be less Giancarlo Stanton and more Coco Crisp. Would not mind at all bringing Crisp in as a roleplayer to provide insurance in Centerfield if we lose Ellsbury, since he's a danged good CF, knows our park, and hits well from the right side, all things we could wind up needing next year.

Not enough from Florida's perspective. the talent is there but they want big league ready players, not prospects. Any package that brings Stanton to Boston involves Bogaerts plus. Likely Bogaerts, Bradley, and 2 from SFF's list.

Ahh, so we've been academically trolled. Somehow doesn't make it better

Then who plays right field?

You're too fixated on home run power. Middlebrooks is not consistent, and until he shows some consistency, he isn't even as good a prospect as Nava was. That lack of OBP is not a minor flaw, and it's not going to allow him to be OFFENSIVELY effective in the big leagues until he gets it fixed. And until he does, I'll take the OBP guy, thankyewverymuch. Realistically, Carp's in line before either one. But for all Middlebrooks' power, a .280 season OBP is not going to cut it at first base in Boston. It doesn't give him enough of a chance to have a useful at bat in a given trip to the plate, to allow his power to be more than an interesting curiosity. We saw the same thing back a few years with Wily Mo, and we'll see it plenty with other future power hitters that have no idea how to take an at bat. Give me a guy with plate discipline, even if he's less flashy or exciting, and I expect to win with that guy over Jonny Bigswing 7 times out of 10. The other 3 times representing the roughly 30% chance he actually does something useful at the plate I mean hell UN, who did we win both of our World Series with at first base? OBP guys. Millar was great in 2003 but for his career he was a 15-20 guy with a .350 OBP, and we won with Youk before he broke out, when we thought he was a 15-20 guy with a million doubles and great defense. There's a lot to be said for an OBP guy at first base, if you're not so narrowminded you can't get past the caveman mindset of "him have power, him play first base." I'm not even saying put Nava at first base. But if for some reason the FO did? It would not remotely be the first time they made that decision, and the last few times they tried it with a similar type player it worked out in our favor. So yes, your deeply-entrenched hatred for any idea put forward by myself notwitstnading, you really are going to need to make a case why your free-swinger is a better idea.