moonslav59

I thought about Mazza, then forgot to list him. I agree on Valdez, but I like him more than anyone on my list. (Bloom may not.)

Well, we know he wouldn't sign a bunch of high-priced FAs. If he tried to "win now" he'd have to trade somebody without opening new holes on the ML roster, so maybe not Casas or Downs, but some prospects would likely be gone. Yes, speculation and up for debate.

I mostly give him a pass, because he did what Henry signed him to do, but getting almost all pitching was also commendable. A side note: he did trade a lot of pitchers, too: Kopech (Sale), Espinoza (Pompom), Allen (Kimbrell), Beeks (Eovaldi), Buttrey (Kinsler), Bautista, Nogosek & Callahan (Reed), Anderson & Santos (Nunes). The only mostly non pitchers given up deals were the Sale (Moncada & Basaabe) , Kimbrel (Margot, Guerra & Asuaje) and Thornburg (Dubon & T Shaw).

I think Rosario & Potts could be the real sleepers. Jimenez could jump once we get a larger sample size of viewings. I agree on all your "high" and "low" comments. (I like these rankings more than soxprospects.com.)

I think Brice will be nontendered. It's not just rule 5 draftees, but any FA signing will necessitate a DFA or trade. Brice may end up at AAA, if he cares to stay here. I doubt anyone claims him. Most other teams have more pressing 40 man roster issues than us. My order or let go's: (Recently- claimed Joel Payamps has no remaining options. I'm not sure we keep him on the 40 man all winter.) 1. Brice 2. Springs 3. Aybar or Wilson 4. Walden 5. Chatham or Arauz 6. Bazardo 7. Grullon

According to many here, we were never going to sign Betts. (I still think we could have, but the risk of keeping him, in hopes of signing him were too great. The whole "He's going to become a FA thingy turned out to be false, so it's hard to know anything about this.)

Like we'd have had a parade keeping Betts?

The difference between keeping him and trading him is $16M per. Had we kept him, we'd have $16M less to spend, in theory.

Good stuff, MVP. Thanks.

DD would have already traded Casas and Downs plus more. With a small spending budget, he'd be lost.

It seems like DD had that mentality from day 1. I still think Ben would have begun to trade some prospects- not on the scale of DD, but he was not given another year or two to find out. It seems like Ben was the only recent Sox GM who left the farm better off than when he became GM. (I'm not complaining. I was and still am happy with all our last 5 GMs.)

I guess it's natural to move towards a more "win now," or "we just need one more player" strategy. At least, it seems that way.

No, and that should be part of the equation when judging Ben's whole body of work those 4 years. Also, Theo spoke about moving away from their success model in his later years with the Sox.

Fantastically great return, yes! Price is not worth $16M/yr. (Morton just signed for $15M/1. That's just one guy.) 4 years of Verdugo. 5 years of Downs & Wong.

One might call Eovaldi's "bad," too. 2 more @ $17M If Sale can't regain.... I shudder to even think about it.

Those farms certainly had some low points, but under Theo and Ben, there were some rock solid ones, too. The year you speak of, 2010, was not the worst. #1 Kelly was highly regarded and was part of that AGon trade with #3 Rizzo. Kalish was #3, Iggy #4, Doubront #5, Reddick 8, Workman 19 and Westmoreland- a very sad case. After that trade, our farm hit one of its lowest point in the last 2 decades, but soon Bogey and others beefed it back up. Here's a sampling of a few select years top prospects (soxprospects.com): 2003: (farm left to Theo) HRam, Youk, Lester, Freddy Sanchez, J de la Rosa, Shoppach, David Murphy, Delcarmen 2004: Lester, HRam, Youk, Papelbon, A Sanchez, Moss, Shoppach, Delcarmen 2007: Ellsbury, Buchholz, Pedey, Masterson, Lowrie, Moss, Reddick, Gabbard, Doubroint, Bard 2012: (farm left by Theo for Ben): Bogey, Barnes, Iggy, Alex Wilson, Middy, Kalish, Ranuado, Swihart, Brentz, Lava 2013: Betts, Bogey, JBJ, Barnes, Vazquez, Iggy, Workman, A Wilson, Margot 2015: (the farm left by Ben for DD) Moncada, Devers, ERod, Margot, Espinoza, Beni, Kopech, Allen, Chavis, T Shaw, Dubon, J Guerra, B Johnson 2018: Dalbec, Groome, Mata, DHern, Casas, Beeks, Chavis 2019: (the farm DD left Bloom): Casas, Mata, Groome, Jimenez, Dalbec, Duran, Houck, Song, Chatham, Ward

That's why I left Casas and Downs off the list. I included Duran, because I don't share the same optimism on him as many here. Maybe Bloom disagrees with me, and I trust he knows more about him than I do. These are just my opinions. For all we know, Chavis, Chatham and Duran could end up being better than Dalbec, Downs and Casas.

Agreed, but if Bloom really likes Downs and sees him as part of the future "foundation," he may be near "off-limits." That's why I listed him separately. Keeping your best 2-3 prospects is usually, but not always, part of a plan to rebuild for long term success.

Dalbec can play 1B or 3B. By the time Casas is ready, Devers will be a FA.

We can, but the odds are low, and to me, it makes more sense to look to improving in 2021 while focusing on 2022 and beyond. A few one year deals for 2021, but any longer term deal should be for players that look to improve 2-4 years out from now. I also don't think the foundation we have, now, is as good as the one we had after 2012 or 2015, especially in terms of young talent and the amount of tradeable prospects and/or budget space we had those winters. Unless Henry decides we can go up to or over the second luxury btax line, this winter (doubtful), we don't have a big budget to work with, and our farm is not promising much help for the 2021 season. Apples and oranges.

...and if we spend the $16M wisely, it could look good for both teams or just us, if Price struggles. The way I see it, even if Price does well, he's very unlikely to do $32M/yr well and probably not even $16M/yr well.

I'm not doubting we got a great haul, including dumping half Price's salary. I was responding to your opinion that it was "shocking." The fact that the Dodgers got Betts and won a long-awaited ring is NOT irrelevant. It was the reason we got back what we got. NOT SHOCKING! We gave up greatness and got a great return.

Were you shocked that Betts put the Dodgers over the top? You gotta give to get.

I'd rather trade Groome + Ward than Mata, but my thoughts are that Pittsburgh will want some top talent for those two decent starter- both in their prime, and both with 2 years of team control remaining. I agree on trying to keep the core of Devers, Casas, Mata & Verdugo with DHern & Dalbec as two I'd only let go for worthwhile returns. Looking at the values assigned to our trading chips by the Trade Values site, I'd say these are the most tradable players on our roster: 21.0 Vaz 12.1 Duran 8.5 Jimenez 7.5 Chavis 5.5 Beni 4.9 Chatham Maybe Downs at 26.4

Duran, Mata, Chavis, Beni & Chatham for Taillon, Musgrove & Polanco