sk7326

Ellsbury is worth the money if he could repeat this year for the next 5-6. Chances are, he won't. His durability has not supported it, and if he cannot play CF the duration of the deal, his value goes down a ton.

Nobody is untouchable. If Boegarts could get Felix Hernandez, I'd be very very tempted. But that is the sort of thing you have to be looking at. Lee is an elite pitcher - Bradley would be an interesting proposition, closer call to me than you I suspect. Fortunately Red Sox have enough interesting depth to be able to make a deal without touching the upper crust.

Oh sure - at some point people can pick them badly. But the worst contracts involve the worst decisions. Some decisions can be defensible without working out - nobody can predict the future. The Howard contract was a bad idea at the time - he has been overrated his whole career. The Pujols contract, Angels were willing to eat the later years for a few more prime-ish years. That was a dicey decision, but not on the level of the Howard one.

Red Sox did not in Oakland - good pitching staff and arguably the best pitchers park in the AL. Their 4 losses after the break - Kuroda, Moore, Price, Tillman, 4 of the best pitchers in the AL. Caught them on bad days too. Sox could use a little more depth in the lineup - the pitching has actually not been too bad. Given the history of the "best team" winning the Series, just get in an figure it out then. Baseball is too weird a sport for a team to be truly a dead team walking. Even the biggest favorites are still not >50/50 to win it all. But yes a bit more pitching would help. That said, the team DOES do one of the things which is required to win it all - generate baserunners and create tough outs.

You are right, replacement level is very low. A .250/.300/.370 sort of guy with his glove is actually an above average starter. The problem is that until the first 2-3 months of this season, nothing in his resume supported that slash line as a long term outlook. The question is whether the first half of this season is a legitimate, bona fide, scouting related improvement - or whether it was just an insanely high BABIP (which it was) that was bound to regress while he actually did not really get better.

As far as the trade deadline goes, I expect pitching is the order of the day. Peavy is really the only starter who qualifies in any way as an "impact arm" - as long as the Phillies are not going to be realistic and put feelers out for Cliff Lee. Bullpen depth makes sense but I wouldn't pay much. It has been proven, your odds are just as good of shoring up the bullpen by signing Brian Wilson's corpse and bringing up Rubby De La Rosa or whomever. And besides, adding a 6+ inning a start guy will help there. From a position player perspective, I don't expect much - the big front office decision to me is whether they want to give Boegarts the wheel at 3B for the stretch run.

Maybe make it out of stale Yaz bread ...

Oh I don't think management is convinced at all. But you ride him as long as he performs. But his average was built on some crazy crazy luck and run counter to his performance at any other level of baseball. I hope he can hit well enough to justify carrying him (that threshold can be low) - and he has so far. He's not a guy the media say can't hit - he is a guy who has a rich history of not hitting. He has to show more to get to an Elvis Andrus level, let alone Aparicio.

Ben's done a nice job. Being Theo's right hand man is a good experience clearly - and the way the farm system has replenished is a good reflection on him. He has fallen a bit into the "overpay for relievers" fetish tradewise - but I suspect some of that comes from the WEEI-obsessed ownership. But his ability to take a management ordered salary dump and turn it into an acceptable baseball trade (the Dodgers deal) has to be admired. And the Beckett deal is easy to defend - flags fly forever, and because he lost his stuff the last 2 seasons does not take away his 2007 ALCS MVP. Also, if you are going to trade guys like Ramirez or Sanchez, a 25 year old controllable pitcher with #1 stuff and championship resume is the sort of guy that you trade for.

Worst contract in baseball is pretty clearly Ryan Howard's. When evaluating the contracts, you have to look at the decision at the time with limited information. Pujols the bet was that he could still hold good to great value for another 5 seasons. The dip he had shown his last season in Saint Louis has seemed to continue. But he was the best hitter in the game one season earlier - Angels with their money had reason to make that move. It's free agency, the winning bidder almost always has to overpay. BJ Upton's deal has to be tempered with understanding that the industry is drowning in cash. A 28 year old, plus center fielder, with power, a good approach and still some upside is probably worth that investment. He has obviously really struggled, but the Braves move made sense. He was a better long term bet than Michael Bourn, who might not be a playable regular if he loses a step. Victorino's contract is also a pretty shaky one if his defense drops at all - but only 2 seasons after this so that tempers it quite a bit.

Peavy has excellent strikeout and walk numbers, and got them 219 IP last year and has been averaging 6+ IP per start. He is pretty dependable. The contract is not great, but that NESN money might as well go somewhere. The record is not great - but friends don't let friends use pitcher wins for a measure of anything. He will be expensive, but the Red Sox DO have the prospect depth to put a solid package without giving up a Boegarts/Cecchini level prospect.

Flashes of potential. Good power, microscopic walk rate and struck out a ton. Pitchers realized they don't have to throw him strikes. This is not a sudden thing - this has been an issue throughout his minor league career too. A lot of his success was tied in a high BABIP - his approach is a real problem that he needs to fix. I am skeptical whether he really can - approach is often born not developed. His issues are exacerbated by whom he replaced - since Youk was this team's best hitter before his body started to fall apart.

The BABIP fairly tale is ending. He has not shown an ability to hit at any level ... that said, if he could hit for more than 2-3 months, he could be a good solid SS. Elvis Andrus has made a career out of it. That said Boegarts is on his heels ... if Iglesias cannot hit as a rudimentary level he becomes a non-starter.

It is not overreacting - and his ability to hit big league pitching and put together big league at-bats is very much an open question.. He also wasn't very good last year either. He had a couple of good stretches, but the pitch recognition is poor and has been a problem since his minor league days. That is really hard to overcome. Let's put it this way - superior pitch recognition is what has kept Drew as a .225 hitter from being a total zero offensively. Being as much of a hacker as Middlebrooks has shown can work if you have generational contact ability like Garciaparra did or Vlad Guerrero did. Middlebrooks doesn't square up that many balls.

It is a weird use of an asset. Delmonico has tools and approach from what I've read - but has had injury problems. Not a Top 100 prospect, but certainly someone with a pro possibility. You are trading that for 20 innings of value. This is why the prospect position for reliever trade is always so dicey. Even if Machado might be their future at 3B/SS, Delmonoco has more value as a commodity one would think.

Clearly, one underrates the value of #3 pitchers. The Sox down the stretch in 2011, and most of last year had a ton of trouble scrounging up #3 starters. A #3 starter (assuming we have the same definition of a #1 starter - there might be 10 of those in the league) can play a decade in the bigs and deliver 180-200 innings. If these guys can get to a #3 level, that'd be success. Frankly, Ranaudo and Barnes probably are looking at that sort of ceiling. Owens has a lot more, but he also is far away from the show and has not actually thrown a ton of strikes - his potential is all projection. Trey Ball is even more projection, but also not eligible to be traded except as a PTBNL. Webster has more probability - although his ceiling is debatable. For a ground ball pitcher he gave up a lot of homeruns in his show starts. But he definitely can be a useful starter. De La Rosa might have more ceiling. Sox could use another starter - but if you look at their 3-4 record since the break, they have scored a combined 3 runs in the 4 losses. The pitching has been relatively good, just have run into some buzz-saws. Kuroda, Moore, Price and Tillman are 4 of the best in the AL. Not a ton of shame in those losses.

seller's market early for sure - late, a matter of how much a team wants to move somebody. White Sox price could move down - and if it means the Sox can move one or two of their "non-untouchable but ok" prospects (Middlebrooks IMO, Marrero, Ranaudo, Brentz) so be it.

This is a place that can be fixed (and was) ... umps suck in general, i have no idea why they still call balls and strikes.

Drew's having himself a day ... that should be a homerun period. Drew has been frustrating (all that non-contact) but when he actually puts the ball in play, it has been going far - virtually all season.

way to pitch out of it ...

Obviously long run - would have been nice. That said, Lester's ability to just take the ball and compete has been valuable this year considering how the injury bug has flown. The Sox last 2 seasons have been severely lacking in just getting any sort of reliability.

Not sure Peavy is the right price. That said, WMB is absolutely, 100% expendable. Not saying his future is dead, but a guy with that approach is not someone I bet a ton on.

With Lackey the body language is bad on TV. But you have to sort of take what his teammates say as the truth, and from off the record stuff I have read (from the Rosenthal-Verducci sorts), Lackey is really respected on that team. I suspect perhaps pitching a season or two with his elbow hanging from his body has earned a lot of respect.

His 2011 season with the 30 homeruns - he was probably the MVP, and definitely the MVP among position players. If he did THAT every year, he could write his own check. If he could give 140 games of THIS SEASON, that is a 5 win sort of player, and that is really really valuable - easily worth a 15-20M a year number in today's environment. He is one of the best CFs in the American League this year. Problem is he has not been able to put the number of games together consistently. The SBs are valuable - it's nice to have them. But getting on base far out-trumps the other stuff ... he could be that valuable as a 30 SB guy. The future risk with a guy like him is that as a 30 year old, how long will it be before he has to move to a corner, and if he does can his bat still play? Both of those are open questions - let alone the durability one.

Bradley has had precious few at-bats above AA. The spring hype was both silly (for his 2013 output) and justified (for his promise in general). You look at his approach at the plate and it's super advanced. He has shown potential to be a plus-plus defender in center field. The power will be fine. The baserunning will not be as amazing. That said, the marginal value of a 70 SB guy is not that high. I think Ellsbury will get 5/75 somewhere. Quality CFs in an industry drowning in cash.