moonslav59

I'm pretty certain JBJ is our best defensive CF'er, but I agree Betts is better overall. Beni is largely unknown, especially with CF defense.

I was too, but $13.5M is a lot of money. In theory, since the trade deadline is 2/3 through the season, we could trade for two players making $18M annually each and the cost would be $12M total.

Agreed, but McCutchen looks to maybe be in serious decline. JBJ looks to be on the rise and is a better defensive CF'er. I'm not for trading JBJ, but I like him more than A. M right now. McCutchen's decline: OPS: .952> .889> .766 UZR/150: -13.7> -6.1> -23.2 WAR: 8.4> 6.8> 5.8> 0.7 JBJ: -0.3> 0.5> 2.4> 4.8

So, our high ceiling farm now looks like this: Age 17: Mata 18: Groome & Raudes 19: 20: Devers 21: Possibles: 17: 18: 19: Y Aybar 20: D Herndnaez, Tyler Hill 21: Dalbec, Chatham, Ockimey, Bautista, Nogosek, K Washington 22: Lakins, Cosart 23: Travis 24: Hernandez, Ysla 25: Martin 26: Johnson, R Scott Long shots: TBall 22, Chavis 21, Shepherd 24

From what I heard, we were just barely under the luxury tax limit before the trade, but any in-season call ups could change the number as minor-league salaries would be given a raise to ML levels. This trade gives is maybe $14-15M in flex space. If we trade Abad, we'd add another estimated $2M. He's out of options anyways, and I like Hembree more. I'm not sure Elias is any better than Abad, but he can start. That would put us at $16-17M in luxury tax limit space. Remember, although we lose $12M next winter with Young and Moreland's deals, we have to factor in arb raises and Kimbrel's luxury tax number going from $10.5M to $13M and sale's going from $6.5M to $12M. These will more than eat up that $12M and any left over from our surplus from 2017. Now, if we reset the luxury tax, like it looks like we will this year, then going over next year will not be as costly. Next year's FA class is much better, I might add.

As it stood, we were looking at possibly losing all our out-of-options RP'ers by opening day, or at least when C Smith returns. This allows one more to stay, so I don't see a great loss in pen depth. I do see a bigger loss in Sp'er depth. Here's how I see our pen shaping up as of now: Closer: Kimbrel RP2: Thornburg RP3: (C Smith) Kelly RP4: (Kelly) Pom or Wright RP5: (Pom or Wright) Barnes RP6: (Barnes) Ross RP7: (Ross) Abad, Hembree, Elias (all out of options) or Scott

I agree on the predictive nature of high K pitchers and xFIP, but there are exceptions to every model. Maddux only had 2 seasons with a K rate over 7.1 and none over 7.8. His decent FIP was fueled by leading the league in BB/9 nine times in his career (1.8 career) and his low H rate 8.5/9 and HR rate 0.6/9. These are very rare numbers for a lower K guy. His final career ERA was 3.16. His FIP was 3.26. (xFIP was not around for his peak seasons.) Wake had a long career. His ERA was 4.41, but he pitched in a hitters park and faced tougher opponents than the average pitcher. His career ERA- was 96. However, his FIP was 4.72! (108 FIP-). That's ridiculous. Even his 1995 season going 16-8 with a 2,95 ERA and 1.01 WHIP, he ended up with a 4.53 FIP. There is a serious flaw in that. RA Dickey's great season with a 2.73 ERA showed a 3.27 FIP. At least that was closer. ERA/FIP Jim Bouton 3.57/.3.83 RA Dickey 4.01/4.38 T Candiotti 3.73/.391 Joe Niekro 3.59/.379 Wilbur Wood 3.24/3.37 Hoyt Wilhelm 2..52/3.06 Charlie Hough 3.75/4.29 Phil Niekro 3.35/3.63 The best K pitchers (1000+ IP since 1956) Randy J 3.30/3.20 K Wood 3.69/.390 C Sale 3.04/3.06 Pedro 2.95/2.91 Scherzer 3.40/3.28 Kershaw 2.37/2.55 N Ryan 3.19/2,97 (despite his 4.67 BB/9 rate) Koufax 2.76/2.67 . To me, ERA- is a better way of determining who did better than FIP Best pitchers with 2000+ IP since 1956: ERA- 67 Pedro 70 Clemens 75 Koufax 75 W Ford 75 Johnson 76 Maddux 76 Halladay 78 Palmer 78 Gibson FIP 2.67 Koufax 2.89 Gibson 2.91 Pedro 2.96 Chance 2.97 Ryan (Come on!) 3.02 Drysdale 3.02 Matlack 3.30 Seaver 3.04 McDowell 3.04 Marichal According to FIP, the worst pitchers since 1956 are: 4.88 Jeff Suppan 4.82 Steve Trachel 4.77 Wakefield 4.70 Garland 4.65 W Williams 4.52 B Arroyo 4.48 J Moyer 4.48 K Rogers

I thought we could at least get a single A player with a little more promise than Tobias, who wasn't listed on the Phillies top 30 prospect list, but this trade does not surprise me at all. It may hurt to lose veteran starting pitcher depth, but with the salary flexibility added, we can trade for a Peavy or Bedard type mid season, or we can sign a few vets to minor league deals and cross our fingers. I can see why not many of us have much hope in Owens or Johnson, but there's still a chance one can be helpful, or we could try Elias or Kelly as spot starters, if needed..

Thanks, Hugh. As always, very informative stuff. I realize he's a far away prospect, and some posters put little value on them, but we do.

Yes, and with a strong farm still intact. That's the genius of Theo. That's what he did here early on, and he admitted it got away from him in his later Boston years. I think Ben tried to create a balance, but his FA signings flopped after 2013. Vic fell off a cliff, Dempster retired, Napoli declined and HanRam/Pablo were worse than horrible.

True enough, but even as Theo admitted, the Sox were not a great team when Ben took over. They had serious contract issues, and recent draft picks were not as good as beforehand. Yes, Ben messed up with the initial Lester offer and the Panda signing, but he was not handed the same team and farm that DD was. Had HanRam and Panda just hit like their previous 2-3 years, we wouldn't have finished last. What caused the collapse of 2011-2012? I guess Valantine could be a big part of the blame, and I'm not sure he was Ben's 1st pick. I still think the Dodger dump trade was one of the best trades ever made by the Sox. Without it, we don't win in 2013. I hated losing Lester, and that can be blamed on Ben, if blame has to be assigned, but once it was clear he was going to be a FA and the 2012 season was lost, the big purge took guts and was the right thing to do. We have Porcello, ERod, Kelly and Hembree to show for it. Once could argue we got C Smith as well (via Miley via de la Rosa & Webster). I'm pretty certain Ben was going to pull a prospect blockbuster and sign a big FA SP'er after 2015, but we'll never know. I'm glad we have Sale, Porcello and to a lesser extent Price. I'm glad Ben and DD held onto Betts, Bogey, Bradley & Beni. I'm glad DD held onto Devers as 3B/1B is our major concern going forward.

Yes, but he also was greatly aided by the strong farm he built first, and he kept many of them, including many good prospects still on the farm. When the 2017 rankings come out, let's compare the Cubs and Sox rankings.

I disagree. While I see the predictive value to FIP and xFIP, I don't think it is an accurate measure of how well a pitcher did in a season. There are plenty of examples of low K pitchers who had repeatable records of getting batters out at higher rates than high K pitchers. FIP penalizes those types of pitchers...like Wright. Knuckleballers are usually not high K pitchers, but some have had long productive careers.

The farm rebuilding has begun! LOL!!!!

A few thoughts... 1) I figured a trade like this would happen, but I expected the other team to be a contender. Maybe Philly will trade Buch at the deadline and get more than what they gave up for him. Maybe they have fooled themselves into thinking they can win in 2017. 2) Did any money change hands? 3) Who was the poster who claimed teams never take an option and then trade that player? 4) 700's point about EE would make total sense had we not signed Moreland. $13.5M buch + $5.5M Moreland is probably close to what EE will end up getting!

Great post.

What's strange about Pedey's career splits is that his best slot has been clean-up! Slots with 150+ career PAs 1st .777 (.354 OBP) 2nd .815 (.367) 3rd .802 (.368) 4th 1.054 (.424) 9th .800 (.377) As you can see, lead off has been Pedey's worst OBP slot. I'm not sure if a two month sample size is all that indicative of where Pedey hits best, and neither are career splits, granted. Again, I'm fine with at least starting Pedey lead off (or second), but if Beni is getting on base over 36% of the time, I think we'd have to consider moving him up to the 1 slot.

Fat slobs always hit best clean-up.

I actually think we do have a bit of a problem here. All of Betts, Bogaerts and Pedey are RHH. If we assume Betts bats third (and he definitely should bat third) then we can't have Bogey or Pedroia batting second. Second place hitter needs to be a LHH or a switch, so either Benintendi or Bardley, to avoid creating a matchup weakness that can be exploited in late innings. That means Pedroia is probably our leadoff hitter, followed by hopefully a Benintendi that isn't in the middle of a sophomore slump, and Bradley winds up down nearer the bottom of the order where he seems to be a lot more comfortable. I disagree. Pedey hits lefties and righties pretty evenly, actually better than most switch hitters and lefties do. His last three years? OBP vs RHPs .357 (.420 SLG) & vs LHPs .359 (.424 SLG) Who cares about lefty-righty with numbers like these? Sox team vs RHPs since 2014 OPS (OBP) .862 Betts (.360) .777 Pedey (.357) .766 Ram (.325) .766 Young (.319) .747 JBJ (.317) .733 Pablo (.314) .727 Swihart (.323) .722 Bogey (.324) .712 Holt (.331) .705 Leon (.328) .584 Vaz (.282) Sox Team vs LHPs since 2014 OPS (OBP) .999 Young (.410) .916 HanRam .353 .838 Bogey .380 .832 Betts .336 .782 Pedey .359 .759 Leon .333 .726 Holt .348 .709 JBJ .325 .673 Swihart .344 .667 Vazquez .333 .465 Pablo I think you try to avoid three in a row not two. I also think the 3 or 4 PAs early in the game usually make up for the one "mismatch" late in the game. Some players' numbers change dramatically, if you take away 2014: OPS vs RHPs/vs LHPs: JBJ .871/.748 Betts .870/.829 Pedey .812/.822 Ram .766/.916 Bogey .762/.883 I could see maybe batting Bogey 2nd vs LHPs only as an option.

Last years draft was all about Groome, the other high ceiling picks didn't sign. Dalbec had a nice start and I hope he turns into a diamond in the rough. This is a guy who struck out 32% of the time in college, he's got a TON of swing and miss in his swing and had a good year against lesser competition in Lowell. Word on the street was the Sox liked him better as a pitcher but he really wanted to play 3rd base. It's a lot easier to switch to pitching from hitting than the other way around so why not let him hit and see what he can do. I'm not trying to take anything away from him. And I'm hoping he proves people wrong but I'd take his first season with a huge grain of salt. Guys who hit for power but have a big hole in their swing in the lower minors have 100 times more ways to fail than to succeed on their way to the majors. The guys I really wanted after Groome were Nick Quintana, and Jeff Belge. After Groome, we probably have a future reliever or two and thats it. Chatham could develop but he's probably more likely a utility role. In hindsight, a lot of the high upside picks like Quintana were guys they had no chance in signing but would make a run at with some more money if Groome failed to sign. the 2015 draft is really a one man show. I trust your analysis of young prospects more than my own. I'm hopeful that one or two from Dalbec, Chatham, Shawaryn and Nogosek move up more than expected. What are your thoughts on 17 year old Bryan Mata (not a draft pick but still a recent international signing)?

I'd rather have a guy who has the same OBP but hits into less DPs up 1st or 2nd. I realize high DPs numbers are not in large part a result of being slow, but a DP is a DP and it matters. Certainly not as much as OBP and making contact, especially for a #2 guy, but it matters to a small degree when added to the other factors of base running.

I don't see JBJ as being fast in terms of comparing to other CF'ers or as a base stealer, but he's certainly not slow. He has quick reaction times and a great ability to read the proper path needed to track down fly balls. He's a smart base runner who uses his plus but not great speed to be a better base runner than some guys that are faster than him. Pedey is not the slowest runner in the league, but he has slowed down. Again, this was not about me looking at data and then making my opinion up; it was about my observations leading me to look at the data and seeing that it backed up my opinion. He doesn't take the extra base as much. He runs into outs more often than before. Here is some data from BR: Extra base taken when possible in 2016: 63% Bogey 59% Betts 53% Beni (small sample size) 51% JBJ (40% league average) 39% HanRam 35% Pedey 29% Shaw 16% Papi Running into outs on base: 11 HanRam 7 Pedey, Ortiz, Shaw, Bogey 5 Holt & JBJ 4 Beni (scary when considering his amount of time on base) Now, lets look at Pedey's MVP year in 2008: 95% SB% to 64% in 2016 Running into outs on base: 7 (same as 2016) Extra base taken 48% led the team (39% league average) SB%, outs run into, XBT% 2008: 95%, 7 and 48% 2009: 71%, 6 and 40% (39% league avg.) 2010: 90%, 2 and 39% (equal to league avg.) short season 2011: 76%, 4 and 36% 2012: 77%, 6 and 45% 2013: 77%, 10 and 40% 2014: 50%, 6 and 46% 2015: 50%, 8 and 32% 2016: 64%, 7 and 35% One can see a clear decline in SB%, more outs run into over the last 4 years, and a big dip in extra bases taken over the last two years. My observations were not deceiving. Bogey: 2014: 40%, 4 and 44% 2015: 83%, 9 and 69% 2016: 76%, 7 and 63%

I respectfully disagree that a player's last season is the best predictor of what comes next. And, this isn't about nit-picking Pedey. I was actually viewing it in the light of losing Papi's power and putting a better SLG% guy in the 4-5 hole instead of Bogey. I don't view Bogey's late season struggle as a sign of an upcoming worse season. I think his OBP will rise from being close to .020 lower than Pedey to being about the same. I was also basing the moves on the assumption that Beni has a comparable OBP as Pedey. (He was '017 being Pedey in a very small sample size this year.) I do admit that part of my position is based on my belief that Pedey's OBP might fall next year, but it's more about my belief that the younger players will keep improving, and the fact that they are better base runners. I'm not pretending that my predictive methodology is better than others, but I tend to eschew short sample sizes and look at longer 3-5 year trends and age curves. Here's Pedey's last 5 years of OBP (old to new): .347>.372>.337>.356>.376 Here's his SLG% over the same period: .449>.415>.376>.441>.449 (age 32) Bogey OBP: .320>.297>.355>.356 Bogey SLG: .364>.362>.421>.446 (age 23) I do agree that OBP is the most important goal of a lead off hitter, but it's also almost equally important for the number 2 hitter, so that is one reason I would be fine with Beni first and Pedey second, but I think the GDP factor and other base running factors tips my scales to favor Bogey 2nd for 2017. It's a close call, and I'm fine with Pedey 2nd or leading off to start the season, but if Beni is lighting it up, especially with an improved OBP, I think the call should be made. You're right about reaching for new things to talk about. Some of these other issues have been beaten to death several times over.

I respectfully disagree that a player's prior 2 months performance level is the best predictor of what comes next.

Agreed, but I could see Devers in AAA at the end of the season...not MLB. That is, if he doesn't struggle out of the gate like he did in AA.