sk7326

I did not love the Kimbrel deal - at the same time a single-A shortstop and a middle class Michael Bourn is something that was going to be hard to feel. Kopech is roughly where Carl Pavano was when he was dealt in 1997. That worked out well.

But did Dombrowski overpay? I mean ex ante he did not get Kimbrel for a steal - and I have a general revulsion to "proven closers" as a species. At the same time, he aimed top shelf - and the prospects he gave up were not actually very likely to play for Boston anyway. Now - nobody is running a charity - but given that Margot was clearly a major league capable player, getting him to a place where he could actually draw a salary above minimum wage is good for everybody. Sale cost a steep-ish price ... the White Sox do that deal every day of the week. But the prospects dealt there had a pretty high degree of variability. (Kopech by being a pitcher, and Moncada by being so raw) Compare that with one of the few true #1 starters alive - it's not really much different than the cost to get Pedro. Here is the thing with long term goals - to a certain degree they addressed that by that bonanza of talent the previous regime got into the system and graduated. I mean, they've made 3 straight postseasons with nothing really stopping them from making another 1 or 2. I mean - the Red Sox HAVE thought about long term, and now are the beneficiaries of that - and unlike Tampa, they can extend the party for quite some time. The one thing Dombrowski has done is be proactive on the calls with the kids. "This guy is a stud", "This guy is alright, but we won't miss him" etc ... and then make choices on that. The TL;DR version - I'm not sure how much the guys dealt really lowered the long term prognosis of the major league team.

That has been somewhat by choice. Position talent is less variable than pitching - and the Red Sox have leaned in that direction.

Clutch may or may not exist ... but all of the ways folks have tried to measure it - RISP, Close and Late, have revealed nothing.

I promise to be more literal from now on. The hard thing is a team like the Twins taking inventory and asking how real last year was ... and misdiagnosing themselves.

No. I said the farm exists to service the major league club. And that means both aims - they are not mutually exclusive. Given where the Cubs were - the value of Gleyber Torres as a trade chip was more important than his value as a future cog. If they were where the Padres were, that would of course have been madness. And good teams (and in particular good teams with lots of revenue) have different decision sets than others. Trading every prospect nailed down doesn't make sense - as you have rightly noted. But neither does hoarding them! For a contender, there are too many stakeholders - including the blocked prospect themselves - not to make a deal in that context.

Nothing you have said counters that.

Benintendi, Betts and Devers were identified as franchise caliber talent - and there were job openings - so there you go. Margot (for instance) was blocked and lacked the upside - so he became trade fodder. And remember, considering how crappy the life of a minor leaguer is (scandalously low pay in particular), this is for the best. Dombrowski has done a great job here - been very aggressive with the guys he believes in and have moved other guys. One of the big failings of the past administration was not necessarily making those decisions so the organization had some direction. As I've noted before - while every team wants to be a scouting and development machine (and I desire that for the Red Sox of course), we are not the Oakland A's, and the franchise should not act like they are (and fortunately they are not), and the fans pay way too much money for that sort of rationalization. (whether that be rationalizing not signing a premium asset, or mainpulating service time with a guy who obviously should be here) Now, the Red Sox have largely done the right thing organizationally and have benefitted from a rather amazing set of prospect graduations. The challenge is replacing them, but that would have been true no matter who the GM was.

The teams where those sorts of trades would have been relevant were bad ... when Betts made his monumental leap, the Red Sox were a bad team. Benintendi was available specifically because the Red Sox were bad. The team was not a small number of moves away, so it's a moot discussion. The Red Sox traded talent for Kimbrel but it was blocked talent. I am certainly not advocating for trading your future superstar tier of player for instant gratification. But the Cubs were filled to the rim with good talent, the players they dealt were blocked (you can argue choosing Addison Russell over Torres was a mistake, but they were right for making a choice). Nobody benefits (including the players themselves!) from the status quo there.

The entire purpose of your minor league is to service the major league team, full stop. That can mean as cost-controlled future talent. It can also mean stuff to trade for big league help. One goal is not more correct, or more noble than the other. It is all based on where the franchise is, both in terms of payroll and contention. These are not mutually exclusive aims. If a team did not have near term World Series goals (with a reasonable likelihood of achieving them with a move or two), then you'd make different decisions. But if you are where the Cubs were in 2016, you owe all of your stakeholders your best chance to win the whole damn thing. This does not mean make an idiotic (Bagwell for Andersen) deal, but your priorities are different than the 2018 Orioles.

Yes and no - it was an overpay, but the Cubs system was deep and flags fly forever. At some point you have to cash in some chips - that's the whole point of having them. Foulke was also not just a closer - but arguably (with Rivera) the best reliever in baseball those years previous. Theo went very top shelf - with the sort of closer you could actually bring in at any time. Chapman was similarly top shelf. Even that crazy Game 7 when he gave up the tying homerun, he pulled things together to keep the game alive for the Cubs to eventually win.

It's not a rational market - because there are not a lot of quality players. Teams play a premium to win the process. Now while this is long run inefficient - flags fly forever, and the early part of the contract can justify the net worth of the deal in general. And with the owners having been found guilty of collusion before, any mass reduction is looked at (correctly) with suspicion.

It's been a remarkable year for AL position talent. 6 guys over 7 WAR (to give a contrast, in 2008 when Pedey won the MVP there was only 1). Betts, Ramirez, Trout, Chapman, Bregman and Lindor all have good cases. That said, Betts probably wins it - and deserves to.

25-man roster. Has to be set for each series. An injury replacement can be made BUT the replaced player is not eligible to return until the series after. So - a player replaced in the ALDS to injury cannot return until the World Series.

I cringe as a fellow Georgia Tech alum.

I'll put it this way - the deal was useful for clearing the roster of crappy players so we can replace them with non-crappy ones. Gonzalez was not quite crappy yet, but there was good evidence it was heading in that direction. I am much more skeptical of the angle that clearing their salaries meant adding more salary was possible. Given how much the Red Sox are paying now for players not to play for them, I feel comfortable with this assessment.

The best part of that was it was the second time Grady ended up doing that - you would have thought after riding Pedro too long in Oakland that he'd have learned something.

He may or may not - but it's the best baseball decision. 2 yrs at whatever salary you want, if someone else wants to offer job security, fine. No closer is that irreplaceable - aside from maybe prime Rivera.

it's tempting to say he was never the same after the wrist injury, but that would be not precisely correct. He still hung a couple of 6-win seasons (including the season he was dealt). But the Achilles and other stuff piled on after that. While I love great approaches - it was genuinely amazing to watch hitters like Nomar or Vlad Guerrero who could get the head of the bat on almost any pitch.

Lindor and Javy Baez have been the best shortstops in the league. Alex Bregman would probably be there too if that job was actually open in his infield. Andrelton Simmons is a bit less offensively but such an otherworldly defender that he has to be on the elite list. But even if I said Bogaerts was (as a total package) the 7th best SS in the majors - that's still a damn good player and at his age very much worth keeping. He'll be coveted because guys his age just don't get to UFA very often.

No, you go the other way ... offer him more money on a shorter deal.

To a degree - it definitely got them off of those contracts. But who is to say they would not have signed FAs anyway. It's a counterfactual which is impossible to prove. It definitely made them feel better, and freed up roster spots.

Relievers are a fleeting, unpredictable species. Any deal over 2-3 years is asking for trouble. The best option is always just keep throwing bodies at the problem until something hits. Hell, in 2003 the bullpen was utterly flammable, but Epstein kept trying and trying and they hit on something that finally worked late in the season.

To be a good starter, you need three good pitches. To be a good reliever, you need two. Rivera threw his cutter the vast majority of the time. He also had a useful four-seam fastball to get strikes on the other side of the plate and to keep hitters from timing the cutter. Chapman has a good slider. Uehara had pristine command of his fastball and a wipeout splitter. Kelly's non-fastball stuff is ordinary at best.

Get a team on the other side of a trade like the Blue Jays who bet on an aging knuckleballer. (how the Mets got Syndegaard) Get a contender on the other side of a deal like the Giants who needed Carlos Beltran for the stretch run (how the Mets got Wheeler) The Red Sox have blessedly only been in the position to sell a couple of times - unfortunately due to goofy ownership priorities, the only trade which got that accomplished was dealing Andrew Miller for Eduardo Rodriguez.