moonslav59

If history has anything to do with it, a lot more than you and I think he'd get. GMs have been known to pay a lot for pitchers with long history of injury or low recent WAR totals. For God's sake, DD just signed a guy to 4 years at $17M a year. Word was, that guy had high interest from other teams, including the well-respected management team of the Astros.

He deserves that prize, and one reason he won that price was that he didn't try to "have it both ways." He deliberately mortgaged the farm for those 3 playoff appearances. The run was great. It was fantastic. I'm thankful to DD for the ride. It's time, now, to pay the price, which I'm fine with. I won't sugar coat it. I won't deny it. I won't enjoy it. I hope it will be short-lived. DD is not the right GM for what comes next and for what needs to be done going forward. I'm thankful to Henry for recognizing that and not waiting too long to make the needed change at the top. I know I may come across like I have hard feelings towards DD, and that I am bashing him, but I honestly don't feel that way. I was fine with the trade-off he made when he did it. I may think he went a bit too far, but nobody agrees with everything anybody else does.

I agree with Nick's post for the most part, but it's not like DD didn't know about injury issues with the newly extended Sale, the recently signed Eovaldi, and the aging vet Price. I don't blame DD for 2019. I thought we'd win over 100 games. He brought us 3 straight division titles and a ring. That's A-okay in my book. The state of our farm and future is the only real criticism I have on DD. Theo got us rings and left the farm in pretty good shape. Ben got us a ring and left the farm in great shape. DD is the only one who didn't "have it both ways."

I know what the site is, but harmony used those numbers in response to my post about about how much money we might need to chip in when trying to trade Price or Eovaldi.

I was glad we extended Sale, despite the injury concerns. I also thought he would have gotten considerably more had he been a FA last winter. That, alone, is a good reason to make the deal. Hindsight is 20-20, and right now the deal looks bad or sketchy, but true hindsight judgment is yet to come. I still have faith in... Chris Freakin' Sale!

The way harmony was using it hinted that my projected money needed to include in a trade was way too low.

You crack me up.

You believe that? You think Eovaldi would get just a $8.3M/3 year offer, if he was a FA this winter? (My guess is he'd get at least that for 1 year.) Price would only get $26M/3? Really? (My guess is he'd get $45M/3 easily.) I know these guys have injury issues, but if Brett Anderson can get $15.8M/1 from the Dodgers with his long history of injury, my guess is some GM would value both of these guys way more than this. I could be off with my numbers but not by that much.

1B: Chavis, Dalbec (from 3B), Travis, Ockimey (vs RHPs only) or Devers moved from 3B (Dalbec or FA at 3B) 2B: Chavis, Marco, Lin, Chatham

I'm not sure what your "quite a bit" means, but Eovaldi was signed for $17M x 4 after several injury-ridden seasons. Big FA signings of injury prone pitchers are plenty. My guess is, we could dump either by paying 1/3 and get something back by paying 1/2 or thereabouts.

I'm fine with ending the second-guessing and blame game on all past GMs, but when talking about where we are right now, I'm not going to sugar coat the state of our farm and how difficult it will be to rebuild it to top 10 or top 5 status under the new rules as long as we keep spending big an never getting top 10 or 15 draft picks. It is what it is. We have to deal with what we have. What gets me the most, and I don't mean this as any specific criticism towards any one poster here is that there was a general position held by many that trading potential is fine, even trading almost all of it was fine, because you can't count on prospects for jack. Now, there seems to be a general position by some that we should put our faith in a 22nd ranked farm and in our mechanisms that will improve that farm back to top whatever status and that players like Chavis and Dalbec are somehow going to lead us to the promise land. When we talk about losing Moncada, Kopech, Allen, Dubon, Espi and others, we were told they haven't don't anything since we traded them, or that that's what prospects are for- trading. Now, I'm supposed to believe Chavis, Dalbec & D Hern are something different or more than all the highly ranked prospects we traded away 2-4 years ago? Am I missing something? We were wrong to have so much faith in our prospects back then, and told it was right to trade them almost all away, and now I'm expected to pretend our farm is better than it is, that our young talent recognition people are the smartest in the business, and that although the system is rigged against us, I am now supposed to believe our weak farm will save us. We don't need to trade anyone. We are the freaking Boston red Sox, and we should never have to have a down year or two. Everything will work out, and if it doesn't, it's because a greedy Henry won't spend more than the bottom 5 spending teams combined. I'm not drinking that Kool-Aid.

I looked at the Sale and Beckett-Lowell trades as great trades at the times and in hindsight, but I knew we were giving up something special and damaging another area of the team, namely the extended future. Again, I'm fine with these types of trades and have suggested hundreds and hundreds of them over the years. The sheer magnitude of the prospect trades made by DD in just a two year period justifies some harsh or hyperbolic language. Certainly going from #4 to #30 is a massive drop off in one area of the team structure. No matter what you call it, it was significant. Most of us that have been critical to varying degrees have said it was worth it, but to me, that doesn't change the fact that we must now pay the price for the 2018 ring and 3 division titles. I'm glad DD got us a ring. While I've benn critical of him pretty often, I view him as an overall plus.

Agreed, but we don't have to trade the whole contracts of Price or Eovaldi to be able to afford Betts. (I'm for keeping Sale.)

Good one, so decimated is a step up from that.

Not to the team or the 25 man roster, but to the farm? HELL, YES!

It's not far from 30 either. Those bottom 9-10 are not far apart. (Note: I loved the trade and have been accused of wanting to keep all our prospects.)

It became one and was in hindsight, but not really at the time of the trade. It wasn't bad, but it was near the FA cost, per year. At the time, I argued it was like we signed him at top dollar and gave up 4 prospect as well- 2 of which were blue chippers and the throw-in, Allen was very promising. Once the closer cost sky rocketed, that part of the deal became a plus. (Even still,many teams had non FA closer who were making way less.)

'Stros in 6.

Looks way better than Nats-Cards.

There's an NFL game?

Chatham might, especially if we look for a deeper rebuild in 2020. Duran may be called up in September. I agree on Mata. DHern, Chavis, Dalbec, Houck and my longshot, Ockimey could be up near the start of 2020.

It's a tough balancing act. If we want to be stronger for 2021 or 2022, it would likely help to trade away several or all players that are under team control for just 1-2 years. If we want tom compete for the next 1-2 years, we should keep several or all players that will help in the next 1-2 years. Playing it "in between" might be the worst choice of all. One plan could be to deal every player with 1-2 years of team control, which would get us way under the tax line and help stock the farm or roster with younger players with more years of team control, then, sign a bunch of mid level, short term FAs to help us stay semi-competitive for the next year or two. The only way this hurts the extended future is that it lowers the draft picks a few notches, but the fam ns might enjoy it more. We'd still have a pretty solid core or players like Bogey, Devers, Beni, some injury & aging SP'ers and a few prospects showing what they got. We could even make a strong run at Betts after 2020, or use the money to sign other higher level players to make a more serious run in 2021 or 2022 and beyond. FAs after 2020: Betts JBJ (if still here after this winter) Workman Wright Leon FAs after 2021: ERod Barnes Hembree Pedey

What word would you have chosen had DD also traded Beni, Devers, ERod, DHern and others?

Of course, that's a great plan, but to get there (for the Sox), we may need to have a year or two of mediocrity or worse, hence the whole idea of "the cliff."

Yes, and the crapshoot is one reason a GM might feel like he and actually does need to go "overboard" to increase the odds of a ring. I'm not defending going overboard or way overboard, but just saying why it likely happens.