moonslav59

DD boxed himself into this corner by signing Moreland. HRAM could have played 1B with JD at DH. IF HRam got hurt or sucked, we could have traded for a 1Bman easily. It's the simplest trade in MLB.

He's the best defensive CF'er I've ever seen in a Sox uniform. Fred Lynn is a close second before he crashed into the wall.

JBJ is also one of the best baserunners on the team.

9th 794 times 6th 368 8th 302 7th 289 5th 165 7-9th 71% of his career. He has not been our 6th hitter very much (19%). He hit 7-9th 83% of the time in 2017.

BTW... I am very consistent with my criteria for judgement. I may cherry pick at times, but my history shows I do not value recent season as much as others and I like to use the previous 3 year sample size and then lower the PAs to the point where the sample size is 30 players, since there are 30 teams. (At times, I will go back 4 years, if one season was greatly affected by an injury.) Saying someone is 8th best out of 14 says very little, when there are 30 CF'ers in MLB. Is the 14th out of 14 CF'er the worst in MLB? I seriously doubt it. He was good enough to play more than at least 16 other CF'ers. A sample size of 1000 PAs is large enough to flesh things out and rank players by the true factor: 30. Yes, JBJ is streaky. If someone wants to say he's only as good as 2017 or 2014, fine, but one could say that is cherry-picking, too. I guarantee no GM looks at just a player's recent 1 season sample size. Every GM would love to have JBJ on his roster, especially at his low cost. I never said he was "great". I claimed he was close to top 3rd and had value. There's a huge difference. Change the sample size to 2014-2017 and all that "qualify. JBJ ranks... 20th out of 42 in CF OPS (.732) 4th out of 13 in UZR/150 (+9.8) and 39 DRS (9th out 38, if you go by 1500+ innings) So, basically, he's an average hitting CF'er and a top 3rd defender at a very key position in baseball. To say that has little or no value is illogical.

No. I don't actually agree with the defensive numbers on JBJ. I think he's top 5 on defense. I posted the numbers to show he has value. I think he's worth more than the numbers indicate.

I said "at least 50%", but you are right, It's much more than 50 to Theo. I will say, we don't win without the Dodger dump deal AND Uehara (the best closer numbers we've ever had), Vic (.801) and Naps (.842- better than Moreland/HRam) plus to a lesser extent Drew(.777 better than the 2017 Bogey), Gomes (.771), Carp (.885 OPS), Peavy and converting Andrew Miller from a failed SP'er to an awesome RP'er.

Yes, and since JBJ's projected salary is just $6M, if we can save about that much by trading HRam, it's a clear no-brainer-- trade HRam NOT JBJ. In fact, I'd prefer to just give HRam away and play $21M or his $22M plus cover the same on the pending vesting option than trade 3 years of JBJ away. The one drawback is that if we sign JD, give HRam away and keep JBJ we likely will have nothing left to add to our pitching staff. Trading JBJ for a SP'er of equal salary would help in that area.

Let's see how all the Yankee kids handle being the favorites. The Sox saw reductions from just about everyone last year. Maybe the same happens to NYY next season.

Agree. With Vaz and Leon, I think most of our pitchers would quickly grow accustomed to the other guys and be very close to the same as before. The problem arises with the learning curve and how much we can afford to tinker with the established set-ups, assuming our goal is to get Vaz more starts. If we push for him to get 4 out of 5 starters, either Sale or Porcello has to switch, unless you want to mix and match withe those two.

Kind of. The foundation for our two division wins were largely based on Ben's foundation with a significant input from Theo's players. The 2013 ring was at least 50% on Theo, but if you agree, then certainly Ben & Theo get the lion share of our recent two division wins..

Or, we'll just decide to keep Kimbrel, Pom and extend one of our young stars.

When using OPS and UZR/150, the number of games is not a factor. The threshold is still high enough to weed out players who hardly played at all. 11th in OPS and 11th in UZR/150 makes him pretty close to top third in my book. If you want to knock him down some for his most recent "off year", fine. He's still top 15 to me, no matter how you slice and dice. That has significant vale.

Exactly, that's why I lower the PA threshold until it reaches 30. If you take out Betts and Cespedes, the "qualifying player list from 2015-2017 is 32. JBJ placed.... 11th in WAR out of 32. 11th in OPS 8th out of 30 in DRS 11th in UZR That looks pretty much like he is close to top 3rd tier. Even if you call him average, that has a lot of value.

If someone thinks the #10 offensive CF'er (15th at worst) and top 5 defensive CF'er is hardly valuable at all, they need glasses.

Not true about not being "very good offensively," unless you look at just 2017 numbers. Out of 34 CF'ers with 1,000 + PAs from 2015-2017, JBJ places,,, (They have Betts and Cespedes listed as CF'er) 13th in OPS at .793 (certainly very good) 6th in ISO at .201 10th in HRs at 53 9th in RBIs at 193

I'm talking about the physical the other team would give HRam assuming we trade him this winter.

According to MLBTR's list of top FAs, the top 12 have yet to sign. The winter is not over.

...and a ring before that and the foundation directly responsible for 2 straight divisional champions.

Bob Nightengale of USA Today reported "several" teams have had discussions with the Red Sox regarding Bradley. Rob Bradford of WEEI added the Kansas City Royals have interest, but there does not appear to be an obvious fit. The Guardians have reportedly asked about JBJ for years.

I'd play HRam more than Moreland despite the defensive loss at 1B. GMs do not look at just the one previous season. (I'm assuming he passes a physical, otherwise, his value is negative.)

According to fangraphs, Bogey, but JBJ was 3rd. 5.3 Betts 3.2 Bogey 2.3 JBJ 2.2 Beni 1.9 Pedey 1.6 Vaz 1.2 Nunez 0.9 Moreland 0.9 Devers WAR per game: 0.0346 Betts 0.0315 Nunez 0.0216 Bogey 0.0181 Pedey 0.0173 JBJ 0.0162 Vaz 0.0155 Devers 0.0146 Beni 0.0060 Moreland 0.0035 Leon

I wonder if some of these "preferences" are a result of being paired with one particular catcher from day one and the comfort grew from there, or if there really is a genuine, pitcher-handling difference between Leon & Vaz. For example, had Sale started the year with Vaz, we might now be saying Vaz should remain Sale's personal caddy.

It's not "money saved." We're over the luxury limit already.

He has enough potential to carry more than $2M. Look, someone took Buchholz last winter! If that doesn't show potential value = dollars, what does? HRam is 1 year removed from a $2.7 WAR year and 3 years removed from a 3.4 WAR. 4 years ago he put up a 5.1 WAR in a half season at age 29. Yes, he turns 34 in a couple days, but he's worth more than $2M. My guess is, if he was a FA, he'd sign for at least $6-8M/1. If we offered to pay $15M of his $22M plus some sort of cash for the vest, if it happens, we'd find a taker.