moonslav59

soxprospects.com reports: http://news.soxprospects.com/2023/01/fallwinter-league-roundup-players.html Matthew Lugo was one of two players named the LBPRC Rookie of the Year, and recent signing Edwin Diaz was named the LBPRC MVP. Lugo hit .275/.360/.450 with six home runs in 120 at-bats, while Diaz hit .229/.375/.418 with eight home runs in 153 at-bats. Both players helped lead Caguas to a first-place regular season finish. Jorge Alfaro, signed as a minor league free agent on January 16, led his team to a title. He only had 21 regular season at-bats for Licey but was ultimately named MVP of the LIDOM championship series. In the round-robin portion of the playoffs, he hit .383/.471/.633 with two home runs in 60 at-bats. He turned it up another notch in the championship series, hitting .417/.417/.667 with another home run.

3 years of control could turn into a big win. We basically traded Diekman (a net negative), Groome, Northcut and 2 months of Vaz for... 3.3 yrs of McGuire 0.3 years of Pham and Hosmer 5+ years of EValdez, WAbreu, MFerguson, CRosier The deadline trades of 2020 (Hembree, Workman, Moreland and others for Pivetta and others) worked. The deadline trades of 2021 (ARamirez and scraps for Schwarber, Iggy, Shaw, Robles and davis) worked. It's the winter trades that kill Bloom. let's hope that changes with Mondesi and Mills help Bloom turn the corner on this phase of his job.

Key word "If," and that's why he got what he got. He may be worth double: he may be worth nothing. He got about in the middle. We'll see if it was an overpay. We may never know how high the second offer might have been. It won't matter, if he does great. If he sucks, we'll be hearing a lot about us "bidding against ourselves," like the Dice-K signing, years ago.

One really bad thing about last year was that many of the injuries happened at the same time at like positions: Story and Arroyo went down at the same time, which forced Downs, Sanchez, Arauz and others to play 2B. (Kike might have been an option at 2B, but he was out, too.) I think 4 of our SP'ers were all out at the same time, and 2-3 were out, together for long periods. Of course, we knew Sale and Paxton were starting the year on the IL, but we lost Wacha, Nate, Hill and Whitlock/Houck for much of the same time periods. The weakest area of the team, the pen, might have been the healthiest, although Houck, Whitlock and Barnes missed time. (Taylor missed the whole year.)

What is his biggest drawback from being a capable SP'er?

We might be done for the winter. Adding Harrison might work, but we may save budget space for the deadline.

If he can ever get 650 PAs, he might hit 20 HRs, steal 65 bases and be a huge plus on D at SS. Once again, the "BIG IF" is about health. Sale Paxton Mondesi Arroyo Kike Kluber Barnes (Houck & Whitlock wer4e hurt, last year)

Taylor was really good, when injured, so we basically just swapped out injury for injury, but gained at a position of high need. This guy is pretty damn good. The big if on health is getting to be our team banner.

MLBTR... In Mondesi, Boston is acquiring an immensely talented 27-year-old infielder — but also one of the most frequently injured players in MLB over the past few seasons. Dating back to the 2018 season, Mondesi has appeared in only 40% of the Royals’ possible games, missing time due to a right shoulder impingement, a groin strain, a pair of left shoulder subluxations, a left hamstring strain, an oblique strain and, most recently, a torn ACL that wiped out his 2022 season. Both the left shoulder injury and ACL tear required surgery. It’s a daunting list of injuries for Mondesi, but it’s nevertheless difficult not to be enticed by Mondesi’s blend of power, speed and defense. In 1366 Major League plate appearances, Mondesi has 38 home runs, 54 doubles, 20 triples and 133 stolen bases. He’s also amassed 23 Outs Above Average and a 13.3 Ultimate Zone Rating in 2126 career innings at shortstop.

Some may have had a dedicated closer, all year, but just changed horses in midstream.

I thought the Beni trade was to build up farm depth and some hopes that one of the 5 guys we got would end up balancing out Beni's questionable future. Cordero and Winkowski were ML or near ML ready, and the other 3 were long shots, but our farm was weak and shallow. It looks like the return will not pay off, as with Hamilton & Binelas with the Renfroe trade, but I suppose more time might flip the script. (Unlikely, in my view.) The Pivetta trade was better than some seem to think it was. He's been on of MLB's best 5th starters over the past 2.5 years. While the 5th starter is not a shiny position, 180 solid innings has been very helpful. He's even pitched like man teams' number 3 for much of his time with the Sox. The Vaz trade is still largely unknown, but I do think EValdez and WAbreu look better now than hamilton and Binelas looked at the time of their trade and Cordero/Wink looked at the time of the Beni trade. For someone who is supposed to be good at finding gems in the rough, Bloom has not done it via trades- only waivers, Rule 5 and MiLFAs.

Depends how McGuire does. Trading Diekman without giving any money was a good trade with no return.

Do you see him staying a RP'er?

IKF was included to offset Donaldson's "emotional" baggage.

Good one! Will Andrus and harrison be signed by the first day of ST'ing?

You said you don't read my posts but responded to one (not the one with my list.) Not incorrect.

It doesn't make the trade not a good one. He gets dinged for a bad signing and a plus for the trade. Overall, it was still a net plus, as we have McGuire for several more years and only had to pay 1/3 of Diekman's 2 year deal.

Rich Hill had one of MLB's best records vs 3rd PA in a game in 2021 with a .586 OPS Against in 101 PAs. It was .485 in 2020. Still, they seemed to view him as the guy they needed to yank early on. He had thrown just 50 pitches in the O's game, and the next game they yanked him after 68 pitches with a 1 hitter going through 5 IP. (They ended up losing that game.) After May, they started letting him go longer.

Ex cept the one time I wish they did ignore it: the trade deadline!

That crying did not lead to any changes, unless you think Cora buckled to the river of tears on June 10th.

I doubt he's traded, too, but if they really want to stay below the tax line they are right up against, they will need to dump some salary somewhere. Could they dump Hicks off on someone by adding a nice prospect or two with him, a la Ottavino & German for cash?

What are the chances Mata turns into something very useful? I'm not expecting anything great in 2023, although something could happen, but he seems like he could a plus, very soon.

Saying expectations were too high does not absolve Bloom of the many mistakes he made, and most were his trades. If you want to discount the McGuire trade, because he had mistakenly signed Diekman, then you should discount the JBJ trade, because that never happens, if Bloom didn't sign renfroe in the first place. It's hard for me to hold the Betts trade against Bloom, because it seems a trade was forced, and from all reports, there wasn't really anything significantly better out there to get back- maybe marginally better. The Beni trade was weird. I think they had issues with him going off on his own with conditioning and looked to save about $3M by dealing him and deepening the farm. One could argue we used the $3M savings to fill his OF slot with Renfroe, but one could also say we filled it with marwin. The JBJ-Renfroe trade was horrific. There is no sugar coating it. It was bad on so many levels, including its affect on going over the lux tax line. I don't think these three trades not happening would have led to us winning a ring, though. On the flip side, the Pivetta and McGuire trades were good. The Schwarber, Robles, Iggy, TShaw and Pham trades helped for short periods and gave up next to nothing. The Ottavino trade looks decent, even if German does not do well. The worst part about all these trades is that just about all of them involved us getting prospects in return, but no great ones. Most were marginal. A few still have some hopes, but many are already out of our system or showing no more hope than the day we got them. Some remaining hope: German Wong EValdez & WAbreu Winckowski Hamilton Ferguson & Rosier Luis de la Rosa Very little hope: Binelas Koss RHern Gambrell Gone: Seabold Downs Rosario, Potts and many others Bloom has done much better with Rule 5, waivers and minor league FAs: Whitlock Schreiber Refsnyder Kelly Arroyo Ort

It seemed like Cora resisted even the notion that we have someone defined as the traditional closer. We were losing so many games due to blown saves in traditional closer game situations. It seemed like a no-brainer to just make a choice and ride with it. If Houck or Whitlock failed, then try the other one. It sucked we needed Houck to start early in the season, and then tried Whitlock for a while in the rotation, but there were ample opportunities to try one as the closer. June 10th was when Houck became the traditional closer. WTF!

The worst part about that was that Hill had proven he was one of the best pitchers we had facing batters for the third time, yet they ley other go 3 deep but not Hill.