moonslav59

Do you think Chavis and Brannen is enough, assuming we take the whole contract? I'm pretty sure Chavis & Mata would be enough.

31 Sox fans commited suicide during last place seasons of the Ben regime.

29 IP seems to be projecting future injury issues. While that could happen, Smith looked pretty good to end this season. I'm expecting much better, and my guess is most GMs would.

I may be misunderstanding your position, but you seem to want us to trade for Abreu, but we don't have enough to give for him. I've been assuming you think signing Santana is plan B, C or D.

Can you tell me why trading several good prospects for Abreu is a better choice than signing Santana? While I agree Abreu is marginally better than Santana, it is not by a whole lot. His power numbers are better, and that is what we need most, but Santana is clearly an upgrade over Moreland and will probably count less on the luxury tax budget. The QO penalty should be much less than the prospects needed to get Abreu. You are wishing we trade Kimbrel for prospects, because of the impending cliff, so why look to trade prospects for Abreu at the same time?

Good analogy. I do believe the probability of the cliff happening is high- certainly significantly higher than 50%, IMO, but we did just have a pretty decent two recent drafts and our last international signings look pretty good as well, despite the unfortunate loss of Flores. Our past farm gave us Betts, Bogey, JBJ, Vaz, Beni and Devers. Trading Vets brought us ERod, Kelly & Hembree. Trading prospects like Moncada, Kopech, Margot, Espinoza and others brought us Sale, Kimbrel, Pomeranz, Smith, Thornburg and others. The astounding value of all of these from-the-farm acquired talent far outweighs what we have in the system now. That is clearly undisputable and tangible (not speculative or conceptual). Whether or not the prospects we traded amount to anything or not does not change the fact that we got tangible value from them or for them (via trades). It's highly unlikely we see anything like this recent influx from our farm value in 2-4 years. Yes, there are other ways to build a team than from major contributions from the farm, but until I see our budget consistently going over $225M or so, I'm guessing we hit a significant rough patch 2-3 years from now. I also see no evidence that DD is a master of rebuilding farm systems with low draft picks and an easier international signing system of the past. Expecting him to do better under more difficult circumstances is not "probable".

Give me the pros to the choice of trading Groome, Brannen & Diaz for 2 years of Abreu at $17M+ each year vs just signing Santana at maybe $17M x 3 or $15M x 4 and incurring the QO penalties.

I'm assuming 2-3 of our top 8 prospetcs with at least one coming from Groome, Chavis or Mata. If the CWS are looking at a 3-4 year from now period, they may want farther away prospcts more than ML ready prospects: 19 y/o Groome 18 y/o Mata 19 y/o Brannen 19 y/o Scherff 19 y/o R Raudes 16 y/o D Diaz 17 y/o Antoni Flores

Well, Kimbrel escaped the jinx. Reed gave us 5+ IP.

I hope we don't trade JBJ, but if we sign JD or trade for Stanton, it does make some sense. (Trading Betts or Beni make even less sense.) Personally, I'd rather DH JD or GS and count on HRam to play 1B, thereby keeping JBJ. (Maybe add Duda to cover HRam.) I do like the idea of stocking the pen much more than I did a month or longer ago. Trading pen pieces for prospects might be one way we can build up our farm. How much trade value would Barnes + Hembree have? (or sub Workman, Scott or Maddox) This might be more realistic.

Of course we are all talking about "possibilities". Even notin's proclamation that the cliff "absolutely exists" is couched with following that up with "...there is plenty of time to take action and multiple options available." The debate is really about what level those possibilities are at right now. Some feel the possibility is very strong and seem to feel like we have a better chance at finding a way to avoid the cliff than reaching it. Obviously nothing exists in the future with 100% certainty- even ideas of something not existing.

I just don't see DD making a trade like the one you suggested with Kimbrel, unless we are out of the playoff hunt in July (highly unlikely). That's the part I think makes rebuilding the farm much harder than when ben was here and we were getting high draft picks, had more money to spend on international free agents and were out of it a few times which allowed Ben to trade players for prospects or team-controlled players like ERod, Kelly and Hembree. If we keep winning, rebuilding the farm gets harder and harder, especially under the new rules.

Thornburg may not come back until mid season, if ever.

2015 Carson Smith * Small sample size alert OPS Against .539 (.519 career) .572 Late & Close (.536 career) .408 2 outs RISP (.405 career) .625 High Leverage (.603 career) .505 vs RHBs (.516 career) .582 vs LHBs (.522 career) It should be noted that Smith's numbers outside of 2015 are actually better.

While I agree we have no big blue chip prospects to trade for someone like Verlander and JD martinez from this year's summer dealings, we did make these trades this year: Eduardo Nunez for Shaun Anderson and Gregory Santos Addison Reed for Gerson Bautista, Stephen Nogosek & Jamie Callahan Rajai Davis for Rafael Rincones We certainly can make deals like this next summer, if needed.

An equal or higher amount of posters have declared it does not exist, so...

...but Perez is just a single A crap shoot and Tucker just reached AA. Their value is purely speculative! (For the record, I'd do this. I've wanted Salazar for a long time and even suggested JBJ for him before.) I'm not sure we can do all this for less than $39M, but it could be close. We could DFA Holt and trade a player or two to get under the second penalty level, but we might also want to keep some salary space for a mid season trade.

Look what we gave up for Nunez, Davis & Reed. I think we can get players like them next summer, but nothing like a JD Martinez/Verlander type.

Hence the "LOL".

True enough, and all it takes is for one GM's "opinion" to be different to make the position not a fact. Strangely, however, if 30 "opinons" all concur, an opinion can become a fact.

Too much for a $17M 1Bman under team control for 2 years. Just sign Santana for about the same money and keep the prospects.

How's this? (LOL) Trade: JBJ (3 arbs w $6M est for this year), Sam Travis, Heath Hembree & Jalen Beeks For: Danny Duffy ($13M luxury tax for 4 more years) Trade: Michael Chavis & Cole Brannen For: Giancarlo Stanton ($25M luxury tax) & all of his contract Sign: Carlos Santana $15M x 4 years The major problem: adding $47M to the budget and bringing us over the second penalty phase by about $7-8M. Maybe we can sign Morrison or the like to play 1B instead of Santana and stay just varely under the second level.

,,and they got a pretty nice return for the last of their bonus money.

Agreed, but the part about some GMs confirning it adds some weight to the "opinion".

How condescending! LOL! We both love to win every year. That's a fact. Hope we're both still around in 3-4 years, and you can take me to the wood shed.