moonslav59

The Tampa Rays have been praised for their farm and player development, but to me, they seem to do best getting the most out of journeymen players time and time again, and by knowing precisely the right time to trade their high performing players. On their drafts, many feel they draft well, because they suck so often, they get higher picks than us, but this hasn't really been true since 2008. They have not picked lower than 13th but once since then. Some history: From 1999-2008, they drafted first 4 times (Josh Hamilton, Delmon Young, David Price & Tim Beckham), 2nd once (BJ Upton) and 3rd twice (Longoria & Brazelton). Since then, here are their first picks: 09 Levon Washington (30th) 10 Josh Sale (17) Justin O'Conner (31) Drew Vettleson (42) 11 Mikie Mahtook (31) Taylor Guerrieri (24) (Blake Snell 52nd) 12 Richie Shaffer (25) 13 Ryne Stanek (29), Nick Ciuffo (21) 14 Casey Gillaspie (20) 15 Garrett Whitley (13) 16 Josh Lowe (13) 17 Brendan McKay (4) Some more history, we all know how well the Sox gamed the system to gain comp picks back in the day, but the Rays were pros. They broke a record back in 2011 by having 12 picks in the top 89 (10 in the top 60!). They had 10 comp picks! They used to trade for vets late in the season, so they could get a comp pick when they departed via free agency. The problem is, they did not really take advantage of all those picks. True, they got Blake Snell with their 7th pick that draft (#52), but look at the other 11: 24th Taylor Guerrieri (from Boston for Crawford signing) 31 M Mahtook (from Yankees for Soriano signing) 32 Jake Hager 38 Brandon Martin (comp for Soriano) 41 Tyler Goeddel (comp for Crawford) 42 Jeff Adams (comp for Balfour 52 Blake Snell comp for Brad Hawpe 56 Kes Carter (comp for Benoit) 59 Grayson Garvin (comp for Choate) 60 James Harris (comp for Qualls) 75 Granden Goetzman (from A's for Balfour signing) 89 Lenny Linsky

With all the injuries, this is truly an amazing feat. You got some guys back, but winning a ring will be even harder.

Betts, Dalbec, Travis & JD for Moncada, Jimenez & Kopech

These numbers do not support your position- rather the opposite.

130+ PAs 4.8 Bogey 4.4 Betts 4.2 Devers 2.3 JBJ 2.2 JD 1.9 Vaz 1.7 Holt 1.3 Beni 0.0 Moreland -0.1 Leon -0.2 Chavis -0.2 Marco -0.5 Travis 19+IP 3.6 Sale 3.4 ERod 2.3 Price 2.0 Workman 1.5 Porcello 1.0 Barnes 1.0 Taylor 1.0 Walden 0.6 DHern 0.4 Weber 0.3 Brasier 0.2 Lakins 0.2 Velazquez 0.0 Hembree 0.0 Johnson -0.1 Brewer -0.1 Shawary -0.1 Thornburg -0.2 Eovaldi -0.2 Smith

WAR for First Year Sox Players: (First Year with Significant Playing Time) +1.0 Walden (76 IP) +1.0 Taylor (46 IP) +0.7 Chavis (382 PAs) +0.6 DHern (30 IP) +0.4 Weber (36 IP) +0.2 Lakins (20 IP) -0.1 Shawaryn (19 IP) -0.2 Marco (133 PAs) -0.5 Travis (140 PAs)

No love for Chavis?

How about the Brewers: 15 games over .500 with 3 less runs scored than allowed. Must be the great pen they have,right jacko? (They are 4 slots below the Sox pen in WAR and have a 4.31 ERA & 1.30 WHIP.)

Pretty amazing to win a ring in 2013, bring up all these guys and flop.

Lot's of crappy calls. Lots of dumb penalties by ND. Bad play calling by ND. We shoulda won.

How many of these pen games have we had this year? This is ridiculous.

If only we had Kimbrel, err... (He let up 2 Hrs in the 9th vs the Cards, tonight.)

Look at the year 2014. It was the year all these players had their first season with 200+ PAs or 75+ IP: Betts Bogey JBJ Vaz Workman We won't be seeing that again under this system and with this current farm.

I thought you gave up on him.

One could argue Henry is greedier than Mookie.

They haven't had a real high draft in a while. Like I said, they seem to do best with getting average Joes having career years with them. The Astros are also good at finding a way to get players to do better when on their team.

Nick, your point wasn't about the trades being good or bad. You asked about what players we traded would be wanted now, and it seemed like you were implying none.

Let's assume it's 3 impact players- maybe not all stars but also not 0 to 0.5 WAR guys either. Let's say they stay for their full team control years, including their arbs, which may become expensive but won't reach FA value, unless you're JBJ. Let's say that's 5 years. That means those 3 are "cycled out every 5 years with the new 3 coming in. That's just 15 players at any given time giving meaningful value to the 25 and soon to be 26 man roster. The rest would have to be free agents. 3 is actually too low a number. 4 would mean we'd have around 20, at all times, and would only need 5-6 free agents- maybe some at a low cost. While Chavis, DHern, Taylor, Shawaryn, Kelley & Lakins might total 6, but let's not kid ourselves. How many of these guys from this years "crop" will become meaningful players over the 5 years fo their team control? Maybe 2? That might be generous.

3 that make a significant impact is- for us. Also, I took the 3 number as the minimum significant players needed per year to sustain competitiveness.

I doubt it was Cora, but do you think he stopped throwing it earlier, on his own?

LOL. Fire the guy who convinced him to not throw it.

Their best area seems to be two-fold: 1) They trade away very good talent just before they decline. 2) They pick up journeymen, scrubs or decent players via trade or free agency who then go on to have a career year or two. They don't seem to draft all that well, but do find pitchers way better than we do. My question was more about who are the people behind this or what is their system that we can copy or hire?

To me, the Astros & Dodgers are better, on paper.

I'm not saying I'd like to reverse all these deals, but here's my take: I'd love to have Kopech and Logan Allen for next year and beyond. We could trade JBJ and have Margot in CF. Moncada could be our 2Bman or DH(1B?). Dubon could play 2B or utility. If we go farther back beyond DD, we could have Montas, Rizzo, Shaw (DD) & others.

Their back-up to their back-ups blew us away.