moonslav59

Guilty

The Lackey trade came after the Iggy trade, so the Iggy trade is older ancient history.

Not many pitchers rise to his ranking at his age. While that value is highly speculative, it is value nonetheless. The fact that it was far away value, makes it easier for some to just shake it off, but every great pitcher was once "far away value". To answer you question, I'd put his odds somewhere close to this: 10% Cy Young competitive for 5+ years. 23% Top of rotation quality [33% chance of being TOR] 33% chance of being a solid 2 or 3 slot pitcher for 5+ yrs of control (which is Pom's ceiling for 2.3 yrs of control). 23% chance of being a 4-5 slot starter. 10% chance of not making an impact at all. I wouldn't argue against this... 20% TOR for 5+ yrs 30% 2-3 starter for 5+ yrs 35% 4-5 starter for 5+ yrs 15% not much impact, if any ____________________________________ I put Pom's chances as such (for 2.3 years of team control: 5% being an ace 40% being a 2-3 45% being a 4-5 10% getting hurt or being minimal impact

Plus the fact I think that Dombrowski actually knows something about the importance of pitching. Espi is a pitcher.

The small sample size of success was tempting.I actually like Pom, but to me, it was all about Espi, and not so much that I want to never trade him or other prospects, but he might have saved us from having to give up ERod or Kopech to get Sale or Quintana. If you're going to trade a guy like Espi, we should be looking at an ace or high impact player, not a guy with a 3 slot ceiling. I guess I've come full circle and am being critical of Pom.

Are we down to just the two of us? I'm also happy never to bring it up again. I may bring up Bogey's failure to improve on defense again, however.

But the solution they keep leaping back to was never going to happen. Whether or not Iglesias' defense is superior to Bogaerts is immaterial in that he clearly was never going to supplant him. Ever. Once I realized Sox management felt this way, although I disagreed with that assessment, I understood the trade for Peavy and actually thought Peavy's 1.3 years of control was a good return for what amounted to a utility IF'er on the Sox. And that doesn't mean anyone is ignoring defense. It does mean they prefer the better overall player. Again, it wasn't, IMO, Iggy vs Bogey; it was Iggy & Bogey vs Bogey & Middy/Cecchini.

It's rivisionist history at its finest, at the time we thought we had no problems at 3B, Middlebrooks was still considered a good prospect and we had Cecchini behind him and if those failed there was always the free market. So 2 prospects and money behind them were our depth at third base in midseason 2013 when the trade was made, why again are we moving our best SS talent in a generation over to another position exactly? You got the timing wrong. We had Iggy playing 3B when we traded him. Middy was already toast.

I'm not for moving Bogey to 3B with our roster as it is now, but if he fails to improve at SS, I'd keep it as an option depending on who we might pick up or how Dubon progresses. It was more about the past.

I'm fine with trading Leon over Swihart. If we assume Vaz will be one of the two catchers on the ML roster, Swihart hits RHPs better than Leon, so he may match up better, assuming he can become a decent defender. Id to think a catcher will be traded by the deadline. Probably one of Moncada or Devers might be traded as well.

He doesn't have to be as good as Machado- just better than Shaw, Holt, Pablo & Co.

If they insist on JBJ, then they'd probably want ERod over Groome and others, but they might be looking further down the road.

It wasn't my idea to sign Rasmus. Even if we needed an OF'er, he wouldn't be near the top of my list. I do like Moss as a platoon DH with Young. His splits vs RHPs are good: 2016: .828 (25 HRs and 50 XBHs in just 301 ABs!) CAreer: .791 projected to 650 PAs: vs RHPs: .240 31 89 (.319 OBP/.472 SLG) vs LHPs: .243 18 82 (.317/.395) _____________________________________ Mitch Moreland may also be an option, although he had flipped splits in 2016. Career: vs RHPs: .778 Pro-rated to 650: vs RHPs: .258 28 85 (.321/.457) vs LHPs: .240 17 77 (.295/.378) _______________________________________ How about Matt Joyce as a cheaper option? vs RHPs: 2016: .884 (pro-rated to 650: .244 31 95) CAreer: .803 vs RHPs (.574 vs LHPs) @650 PAs: .252 23 77 (.353 OBP/.449 SLG)

I'll never put much value into the MVP award as long as some voters never vote for a pitcher. Look at this year: Zach Britton finished as the highest AL pitcher on the MVP balloting (11th with 11 points). Verlander and kluber are the only other pitchers to get votes (2 and one points)! None of them even won the Cy Young. Something is messed up. I'm not saying any pitcher deserved the MVP this year, but there were plenty that we better than Miggy (56 points) or Kyle Seager 10, Brian Dozier (9).... Scherzer finished 10th in the NL with 39 points- and he was behind Justin Turner! Brandon Crawford is more valuable to the Giants than Bumgarner? Would anybody trade Bum for Bran? Hell NO!

Betts and JBJ might need 3-5 days of rest. Beni is a good fielder too. I just don't see the need to "rotate" those guys. Having Rasmus DH is wasting his highest value skill- defense. Beltran's value is offense. That's what we need at DH. Playing Beltran in LF at NL parks is not a big minus. Young could play LF vs LHPs and give the other OF'ers plenty of rest. We already have a fine OF "rotation" with the 4 we have. Holt gives us added depth.

Toronto apparently offered EE $80M/4 before signing Morales. Gotta think he'll get more than that. Wait to see what Jason Castro gets for a contract. Reportedly, he has multiple 3 year deals on the table. I hear a lot about how Vaz can't hit. How Leon had a lucky streak and can't hit either. How Swihart may be able to hit, but he can't field well. Well, let's look at Castro's numbers over the last three years, and when he signs, you'll see what I mean about how catchers are in very high demand these days, even if their value may be speculative more than proven. Out of 31 catchers with 800+ PAs since 2014, Castro places 28th in OPS at .660. That's worse than AJ Pierzynski, Suzuki and Salty! He's beenne ar the wrost starting catcher on offense for 3 years. Fangraphs does have him rated 12th in defense (out of 35 with 1500 innings in the last 3 years combined). He ranks 20th in DRS (zero), He's 9th out 13 with 2500+ innings. At best, he's near average on defense. Just watch what he gets. Don't think Swihart's value is so low.

Our strongest area is the OF. Young needs to play vs LHPs. I suppose he could DH. If we really want to add a player that is not a DH, I suggest a 3Bman. That's the weakest 2017 position.

Nomar's defense was way over rated. His decline was steep and rapid. Theo unloaded him just in time.

I heard that about Cabrera in 2004 but not about Gonzo in 2006.

UZR/150 since 2013 (24 players with 2500+ innings): CF JBJ 8th at 9.7 SS Bogey 13th at -1.0 Since 2015 (1500+ innings): SS Bogey 14th out of 22 at -0.9 CF JBJ 9th out of 20 at +4.8 OPS SS Bogey 3rd out of 27 at .789 CF JBJ 5th out of 28 at .837 (Betts is 4th but is in RF now) WAR SS Bogey 3rd out of 27 at 9.0 CF JBJ 10th out of 28 at 7.3

CF, like SS, is a very important defensive position. To me, JBJ is the best FT defensive CF'er I've seen with the Sox since Freddy Lynn. JBJ is clearly one of baseball's best CF'ers right now. Its' not even close. Looking at the 68 OF'ers with 850+ PAs since 2015, here's how JBJ places. OF'ers not just CF'ers! OPS .991 Trout .964 Harper .925 Cruz .900 Bryant .892 JD Martinez .879 Braun .876 Cespedes .871 Bautista .863 Blackmon .861 Betts .859 CarGo .834 JBJ .830 CBeltran He's 21st in xRC+ at 119. 12th and 21st out of 68 are clearly "above average" on offense alone. Even if you go back to include his rough start to his career, he still places 68th out of 120 OF'ers with 1000+ PAs. When you add in his defense and excellent base running, he's been above average overall. Fangraphs' value page has JBJ as the 12th best defensive OF'er since 2013. Since 2015, he places 9th out of 68 on defense, 30th out of 68 in base running and 26th in batting. In all areas hes' above average or better.

Add the other $6.5M a year to our last Lester offer, and we could have had Lester and Miller with Iggy at SS and Bogey at 3B.

You're more than welcome. You and I have always been the defense first SS guys, and it's no coincidence that the years we won rings, we had great to decent fielding SSs. The one year I think really hurt was 2006. I loved having Gonzo at SS, but I think the disappointing season soured Sox management on the idea that great defense at SS wins more than having a better hitting SS than the SS norm. The funny thing was, right after Gonzo left us, he had a stretch of new found offense. He had a .793 OPS in 2007 with 16 HRs. That was his career high OPS. He later had 23 HRs in 2010 and repeated his .793 OPS. I cried when we traded Burleson. That was sick!

I mentioned that as my biggest issue with Iggy.

Add Swihart and Hembree or Barnes and I think they might give us Quintana, Robertson & Frazier. By giving up JBJ, I might want to try to sub Devers for Moncada, so maybe Moncada can play LF after Young's year is up (assuming Beni moves to CF). But, in one year we'll have a hole at 3B again as Frazier's deal is up. The other thing this trade does is give us 7 starting pitchers. That gives us enormous further trading stock.