moonslav59

Yeah, I didn't take it that way. Personally, I loved watching Wake pitch. He did well more than he did poorly. I think he had a 52% QS rate and was over 70% a couple years in a row for the Sox. Towards the end, he was still a capable 5th starter type. Not having a capable catcher hurt. He only had over 10 WPs once up until his last few years- then it was like 4 out of his last 6 years with over 10.

Not everyone. I've never suggested trading Betts, Porcello and I think ERod and Wright. Like I said, I'm not pretending to be an expert on trade ideas. I do remember several posters called me crazy for even mentioning any trade ideas for Sale or Quintana.

1995-2011 HR/9 Sox 0.9 Wake 1.2 WHIP Sox 1.36 Wake 1.35 ERA- Sox 93 Wake 96 From 2002 to 2011, fangraphs placed his value at $83.5M while his actual salary was $28M over that period. They did not compute value before 2002.

Makes sense. I meant to say trade them (one year signings), if you are out of it. I think the Yanks could surprise this year.

For many many years.

I get your point. Once we had Pom (and still had Buch), the need for Sale was not as great, but my position is that guys like Sale don't come along very often- low cost, still young, multiple years of control and top ace history. You gotta pounce as long as the return is not wildly too much. Here's how I rank DD's moves from the bottom up: 1) Pomeranz 2) Kimbrel 3) Price (This doesn't mean if any one of these deals did not happen, some other one or ones would not have been called for and done.) From the top: 1) Sale 2) Thornburg 3) Ziegler Others (somewhere in the middle): Carson Smith, Young signing, Mitch Moreland signing, Aaron Hill, F Abad, Buch's option & trade,

Middy was the perfect example for exposing how getting overly giddy or down on a player based on 300 PAs (or significantly more) is bound to be the wrong thing to do often enough to persuade people to stop doing it. Unfortunately, that never seems to happen. I caught some grief for suggesting about 2 dozen trades involving Middy after his 2012 half season and into the 2013 season where he had hit 33 HRs over a 615 AB stretch over those two "half" seasons. I'm not saying I didn't fall into the trap of wishful thinking or hype a little bit, as some players do outperform their minor league numbers once in the bigs, but I always felt like it was more "flash in the pan" than something we could count on. Beni gives no such clues, and his minor league record shows he has been quick to adjust to every new level and challenge thrown his way. Middy had a .766 AAA OPS in 896 PAs- a way bigger sample size than the 286 PAs in 2012 (.776 over all levels of the minors combined). He also K'd 198 times in 833 ABs in AAA and 96 in 375 ABs at AA. There were obvious signs he had "holes" in his swing. Sure, player adjust and re-adjust, and we didn't know how little he wanted to work at it, but his minor league numbers should have raised a big red flag to all of us. It didn't. I'm not trying to claim to be some sort of expert on minor to major league projections. I was high on Cecchini and Hassan, so I've been wrong enough to know I'm no genius on this stuff, but I do think using caution on small sample sizes is almost always the right thing to do. Beni's sample sizes are small. He's only got 775 PAs in 2 years of professional baseball, but he's show no indication of struggling. He has more BBs (74) than Ks (63). He's got less than 1 K per 10 PAs. That's a good sign, but let's give the kid some more time and allow him some stretches for adjustments and learning. I think he's got a super high ceiling, and that's one reason he's ranked number 1, but I'm more convinced his floor is pretty damn high.

I'm not very confident either, and hopefully we don't need 30+ starts out of our 8 to whatever starters. I've all but given up on Owens and Johnson with Elias not far behind. Kyle Kendrick and Shawn Haviland are not going to win us a ring either, but I'm not sure our 8-12 starts are much worse than most teams, so unless we have more injuries than others, we shouldn't lose too much ground. We have to hope no more than one starter is out at the same time.

One could argue those players that played 4 years of college are less prospects than a raw kid out of high school. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and we as fans, can make adjustments on our own based on age, and amount of organized and professional ball.

Yes, but I don't hate Pom.

Of course I hated the trade, because I believe Espi will be better than Pom (or the same but for double the years at a lower cost). I know I can be wrong on this. I also know it's not always fair to judge a trade or a GM by how trades ended up working out. We needed a starter, and trading for a 2 month rental would have been costly too. I'm glad we got 2.5 years not 0.33. I'm bummed Pom's injury is lingering, but I hated the deal before I found out about the pre-existing condition- now it looks worse.

My beef was not with Pom. I liked and still like him. As you feel, I'm more and more feeling worse about his end of the deal. I didn't expect Pom to reach the full potential of Espi, nor did I expect him to repeat his numbers in SD 2016. I did expect him to do better than a 1.4 WHIP. The injury issue is probably the reason he was that bad, but injuries count when evaluating a trade post-trade. Everyone knows I hated the trade day one, and right from the start I said it wasn't about Pom. I se it like this: we traded 5-6 years of team control with Espi for 2.5 years of Pom. I get why we did it. We needed a starter and he came with 2 more years after 2016. I get that he was/is more of a proven commodity, and Espi is speculative value only. To me, it was more about double the control years, and my belief that in 3-4 years, we will not be able to keep all our stars. Having a low cost pitcher to take over for Porcello or C Sale could solve more than one problem. If Espi can replace one of those two without a big drop off in production, we could use the money saved to keep one more of our stars. I'm not afraid to look that far ahead. I realize Espi might amount to no more than Owens or Barnes. I get that, but his upside is enormous. I'd have been fine with trading Moncada, Espi or Kopech, Basabe and Diaz for Sale last summer. We'd still have Kopech or Espi AND Sale. I know that sounds like I'm contradicting myself, since that sounds like it was about Pom not Espi, but 3.5 years of Sale vs 2.5 of Pom is night and day..

Certainly he could. I wasn't thrilled by what he gave us "already". He finished 6th in IP and 10th in team pitching WAR. 4.59 ERS/1.369 WHIP I think Sox management expected much better than that. I'm not trying to bash Pom. As much as I hated the deal, I like Pom. I expected him to do better last year, and I'm expecting him to do well, if healthy for the next two year. I just think Espi is going to be something very very special.

We have 2 days off in April (the 7th and 14th) and then the next on May 2nd. We can do with out a 5th starter for one rotation. We will need a 5th starter for our 7th game of the season. The way I figure it, our 5th starter will get 4 starts in April as the others get 5 each.

That's assuming our medical staff knows what they are doing.

1) He doesn't need to be HOF to end up producing way more than even what a good Pom may give us in 2 years. 2) Pom may not give us much- making what Espi needs to give barely allstar material to be a big gain. 3) Espi has a significant chance at being a very very good player.

I've been super high on Espi since the start. People still talk about the Bagwell trade, so I think there is a chance we'll be talking about this trade for many years to come.

I'm okay with the criteria. There has to be a cut-off somewhere.

If you were referring to Wake. Wake was an iron man.

This is the deal I have the biggest beef with. I realize Espi is just potential value, but his upside is so damn high, I shudder at the thought of what we might have lost.

Like I said, I'll take quality over quantity. According to this: http://theprocessreport.net/the-top-...0s-are-coming/ Beni has a 83% chance of a WAR>3.0 Devers has a 74% chance. Groome has a 59% chance.

Travis did not make the list. Former prospects inclded Moncada, Kopech, and Margot. I only looked quickly but didn't see Guerra, Dubon, or Basabe. You missed Espi at #21.

"What's Wrom with Pom?"

Well said. Our priorities are messed up. Some countries have laws where the top person in a company can't make more than 20 times the lowest guy. That makes some sense to me. You have to keep the incentive to make more for doing more or being smarter, but how much is just too damn much? It's sick how worker productivity has risen, while their pay has fallen, and those who just "invest" or "speculate" make millions and billions.

There's a difference if they view the team as a business or a hobby. The billionaires spend what they want for enjoyment, so it might seem obvious they'd want to spend whatever it takes to enjoy their shiny toy and watch it win championships. Plus, there's some fame involved with owning champions. Most really rich people got to where they are not by spending big to look good or be happy, but by keeping expenses low and looking for more and more ways to make more and more money. Just because profits are extremely high, doesn't mean one is obliged to spend more.