SoxFanForsyth

It's not even just that. It's pitchers who have X amount of 200+ innings under their belt basically. I think what they theorize is that pitchers only have X amount of innings on their arm, which is probably pretty fair, and so it's not necessarily "over 30" as much as it is "they have X innings under their belt and project to have another 1,000 innings, of which we project 500 of them will have an increased risk of injury"

Also hoping that going from the massive parks of the al west to the tiny confines of the al east help out. The foul ball territory is absolutely massive in Oakland. Zips, which projects stats fairly conservatively, has Cespedes as a .275/.330/.485 hitter for the Sox. I'll take that all day (though I think it's light on the slugging)

Please show me where I ever mentioned anything about his OBP. Please do. Ok I'll just wait here. All I ever mentioned was strikeouts. He doesn't K a lot like everyone seems to think. Not sure where this narrative came up but it's garbage. I agree and have always agreed that his plate discipline is poor and his OBP is poor. All I ever said is that he doesn't k at a high rate.

They could go after a Zimmerman or a Fister, sure. But, if they have a chance to go after a guy like Chris Sale and have Lester in the rotation? You chase that dream 100% of the time. As we've seen, prospects are no guarantees. If you can turn a few of those into an elite starter, you do it. Think about it - Vazquez is going to be a very good catcher, particularly defensively. Swihart is going to be a beast, but if you can go with Vazquez, you're can afford to dish Swihart. If you are trading for Sale, you can afford to dish Owens. Betts probably has to go in this deal too, which would hurt, but if the Sox really believe in JBJ, Betts is blocked. Maybe you can get away with sending over one of the Eduardos along with Owens and Swihart, since they're top 60 guys. So Owens, Betts/Eduardo, and Swihart for Sale? That's 2-3 top 15 prospects. That's a deal thats tough to turn down. Who knows, maybe Sale isn't available. I just think Cherrington is going to be extremely aggressive in finding top talent via the trade market, particularly top starting pitching.

weird that you just shut up after that, jackso.

Everything I've read projects him as a #3 with a ceiling of a #2. Does not project to be an ace, but you never know.

Hope this doesn't come across the wrong way, but I just saw Lester's presser, and something he said kind of jogged my memory a bit and something makes a lot more sense now. He said "The Red Sox were really good to me in the good times and bad" I wonder if he's got a soft spot in his heart for the Sox because of how they treated him when he was beating cancer. That's a life altering event that makes you reprioritize some things in life. Not saying that's why he was willing to take a discount, but I can see him having just an absolute enormous amount of respect for the Red Sox from that. It's not just a normal draft-mlb player-free agency type of relationship that they had. It was much, much deeper than that. You go through something like what Lester went through, it's a relationship you'll do whatever you can to keep going. After thinking about all this, I'm 100% sure Lester is coming back. They have the parameters set out for the deal. He'll get signed before Christmas by the Sox.

It's an average amount. It's literally league average. That would be "average". Salty, Chris Davis, Napoli. They K a massive amount. The league average K% this year is 20.3%. I guess the league K's at a massive %? Or what? Maybe you should read this, which you intentionally omitted, before you say "oh fangraphs says its below average to poor"

NO HE DOES NOT. My goodness. People. Look at stats.

I liked their moves a lot, and I agree with NESN, but they are probably a little biased.

lol ok. WE SHOULD JUST KEEP THE HISTORICALLY BAD OUTFIELD AS IS!!!! /spud Dude get a clue. Cespedes is a 30-40 HR bat in the AL East. He's got an 80 arm. Craig doesn't have to be great defensively because he is playing LF. He's having a bad 3 months and if you're going to judge him over 300 AB after he's had a successful 1200 then you don't understand samples or baseball.

err...the red sox struck out, as a team last year, at a rate of 20.5% (20.9% this year, but they didn't win a WS this year, so I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and go with the lower rate). Cespedes is striking out this year at 18.3%. So how about we do this, I have an idea. I'll stop asking questions about what the hell you're talking about when you start making comments that aren't factually and completely wrong. K? Cool.

Ok, can I just ask, because I've heard this a lot. Where are we coming up with "Cespedes strikes out too much"? Cespedes' K% this year is 18.3%. League average K% is 20.3% so he's striking out less than league average. This isn't a Salty-type player. Salty K's around 30% of the time, so 167% as much as Cespedes. I get the OBP thing, but two things: 1. OBP is down all over the league - the A's team has a .329 OBP. Last year, the Sox had a .349 OBP. The MLB leader is the Pirates, with a .332 OBP this year, so it's really down. 2. SLG% is more highly correlated with scoring runs than OBP is. Odd as it sounds, it really is (it's about 82% to 76%). So, the Sox needed some power really bad, and that is not available on the market, so they went after it when it was available.

not sure if you realize that 3/25 is an extremely reasonable contract.

They'll sign Lester. This is the exact same dance that Lee went through in 2010 when he went back to the Phillies after they traded him. Always wanted to go back, left money on the table. They've got about $70mm to deal with in the offseason (after arbitration & benefits). They can give Lester 5/120 and Shields 4/72 and still have $30mm before they hit LT. They have prospects for days. They can go give Owens & Swihart & Betts (3 top 20's) to the ChiSox for Sale. Then you go into 2015 with Lester - Sale - Shields - Kelley - Buchholz. It's entirely feasible. They've got all the flexibility in the world. Lets not act like they can't go do that. If anything, they're going to go out and overspend so that they don't have to go through 2014 again.

Why are we judging the 2015 rotation when it hasn't even been addressed again? I guess Tanaka is going to be s*** in 2015 and beyond because he can't pitch right now. /JacksoLogic

It is surprising that he doesn't miss more bats with his velocity. The kid throws 96-98. Coming out of the pen, that's 98-99. You're looking at a Jim Johnson type pitcher out of the pen, which is pretty valuable. Considering you'd have that for 5 years, it wouldn't be a horrible return for Lackey. I think a lot of people thought he would be a pen arm because he has a history of control issues. Those seem to have been sorted out though (2.57 BB/9 this year). If he can improve his secondary stuff just a bit, he's a mid-rotation guy.

Sign Lester, Sign Shields. Those two things will likely occur, IMO. The other thing is that you just don't know who is going to be available on the trade market. Could the Sox send over a bus of prospects for Chris Sale? Who knows. The Sox certainly have the kids to get it done. If you go with Owens, Swihart, Bradley Jr, and 1 more for Sale, maybe they'll consider it. That's a big haul, but Sale is under control for 3 more years at cheap, cheap dollars (6mm, 9mm, 12mm next 3 years). You go into 2015 with Lester - Sale - Shields - Kelley - RDLR? It's certainly feasible. Nobody thought Doug Fister was going to get traded last offseason. There's always a few names that go that shocks everyone.

This is why you're so disappointed with his moves. These expectations were unrealistic, and it's not your fault, it's what the media fed us all week. "Maybe if they package Lester & Lackey they can get Tavares or Pederson". But that was always a pipe dream. And more importantly, there is no guarantee those guys pan out whatsoever, certainly not enough to help us win in 2015, which is what this is, and has been all about. Tavares is really struggling right now, and Pederson, although his numbers look huge, is also hitting in the PCL where even JP Arencebia went nuts as a prospect. Take those numbers with a grain of salt. I think they will both be very good major league players, but they won't be impact players on the 2015 season. As for Allen Craig, he's averaged 15 HR over the past 3 seasons, but he played 75G in his first season, 119G his second season, and 134 his 3rd. So his 162G average is 23 HR, 40 Doubles. He's not going to play 162, so knock that down to 145 and put him in the bandbox parks of the AL East and he's a 20-25 HR guy. Cespedes, though? He'll hit 40 next year. He's got 80 power.

Lets just sit tight before we make any kind of declaration on this trade deadline. I think we can all agree on 2 things. 1: This FO is done with 2014, and is looking at 2015. 2: This team is not nearly complete for 2015. So it's really pointless to look at this deadline and grade it without knowing what they're going to do this winter. If they go out and sign Lester and Shields this offseason, the team looks a lot, lot better. You go Lester - Shields - Buch - Kelley - RDLR? You've got an excellent chance to do some things. Looking at this right now is like looking at anything else half finished, it's got a good chance of looking like absolute crap. In other words - don't look at our pitching staff until he addresses our pitching staff. For right now, how do you think our offense looks? Because that's all we can judge right now. My guess is that our 2015 lineup goes something like this: Betts CF Pedroia 2B Ortiz DH Cespedes RF Napoli 1B Craig LF Bogaerts SS Middlebrooks 3B Vazquez C That looks pretty damn strong to me.

Victorino is going to get traded. He doesn't have the hammys/back to play CF. No chance.

If we got prospects in our trades, we would be 3-5 years out from competing. The point of this deadline was to compete in 2015, and that's exactly what they did. This offense is set for 2015. Maybe they go make a huge deal for Tulo, who knows, but for right now, this offense is good enough to win the division. Go work on the starting pitching this offseason, and you're in good shape. Throw some dollars at Lester and Shields or Scherzer and Shields or, hell, go throw money at Scherzer and Lester and win the whole thing in 2015.

By the calculations I've seen, about $70mm.

You know what Cherrington got today? He got two right handed power bats that play corner outfield positions. You want to know what that market looks like via FA? Here you go. Right Fielders Norichika Aoki (33) Tyler Colvin (29) Nelson Cruz (34) Michael Cuddyer (36) Chris Denorfia (34) Jeff Francoeur (31) Scott Hairston (35) Torii Hunter (39) Nick Markakis (31) – $17.5MM mutual option with a $2MM buyout Alex Rios (34) – $13.5MM club option with a $1MM buyout Nate Schierholtz (31) Ichiro Suzuki (41) Left Fielders Melky Cabrera (30) Chris Denorfia (34) Jonny Gomes (34) Tony Gwynn Jr. (32) Scott Hairston (35) Reed Johnson (38) Ryan Ludwick (36) – $9MM mutual option with a $4.5MM buyout Darnell McDonald (35) Mike Morse (33) Alfonso Soriano (39) Vernon Wells (36) Josh Willingham (36) Delmon Young (29) So what did you want do? Go trade for an A level prospect? Wait 3 years, hope he pans out, and do what in the meanwhile? The Marlins aren't trading Stanton. Where are you going to get the power? Because it's 100% not on the FA market. No way. Melky is having a good year but he's not a power hitter, and that's the closest thing you've got. And Cherrington went and got 2 guys who will provide pop from the right side. It's an incredibly rare find in this market right now. You can find pitching. The Sox have plenty of pitching depth and prospects to trade. They can buy pitching (they will resign Lester, bank on that). Just look at what they did after they sucked in 2012 - they went out and spent money. They'll do it again. They'll sign Lester. They can sign Shields, and go Lester - Shields - Kelley - Buch - RDLR. They've got plenty of money. They went out and got a commodity that is not readily available. RH Power.

I'll tell you one thing right now. Cespedes, Craig, Napoli, Pedroia, Middlebrooks, Bogaerts. This team is going to annihilate left handed pitching. good luck tomorrow, Capuano.