moonslav59

Well said. I do think Beni & Moncada will be called up in September.

Fair enough. My eyesight is failing, and I thought you wroye "minimal AA and AAA experience". Your example was fine and useful.

Good read on Benintendi.... http://news.soxprospects.com/2016/07/the-write-up-andrew-benintendi.html

WOW! Thanks, Ben!

I'm not sure taking one example is fair. I'm not even sure you can judge whether some one was "called up too early" or "damaged" as a result of it. Players go into slumps at certain points in their career. It may have had nothing to do with the call up. Many players also have extreme difficulty adjusting to MLB to start their career, even if they spent 10 years in the minors, so how can we tell if JBJ's struggles were related to not being given enough "experience" in the minors? We can't. Besides, JBJ played college ball and became a professional at age 21. In 2012, he got 575 PAs at the A and AA level at age 22 after getting 40 in 2011. In 2013, he got 374 PAs at AAA. In total, he played 218 minor league games with 989 PAs before being called up to the bigs to play 37 games. We all know he stunk at the plate that year and the next, before busting out in August of 2015. I'm not saying he wasn't rushed, but we'll never know, if he might have needed a long adjustment period, even after more time in the minors. He was 23 when he started playing MLB. BTW, here are some other "rushed" Sox players: Betts: started MLB at age 21 after 298 minor league games and 1311 PAs (just 211 at AAA and 253 at AA (both less than JBJ). No college ball. Bogaerts: started MLB at age 20 trust into a playoff role playing an off position after just 10 games of playing 3B at AAA. He played 378 games in the minors (no college ball). He played in 79 AA games (356 PAs) and just 60 games in AAA (256 PAs)- both less than JBJ. I'm just curious why you call JBJ "the last time we called up a highly rated prospect with minimal AA and no AAA experience, and you ignored the two that worked.

Some answers and responses... Brentz looks worse than HanRam on defense in LF, hence my DH comment. Holt is not a 3Bman. He's the reason we signed Pablo. Reason enough? To me, Hernandez is our back-up 3Bman with Marrero/Rutledge (on DL) further depth. I would not use Holt at 3B very often. I would not rush Benintendi or Moncada, but personally, I think they are both ready offensively. Benintendi is supposed to be good on D, so I don't see a long wait until he is "ready" to be called up. Moncada still needs to lean how to play 3B, 1B or LF before he gets called up. We may see him in September as a PH option and to give Pedey a spell at 2B.

I'm not a de la Rosa fan, and I hate the idea of improving our staff by looking for a better 5th starter than we have. I prefer to (re)build at the top. I'm just thinking of cheap alternatives to giving away our best prospects.

I'm convinced his only chance to stick around is if he hits well enough to be a DH.

The first Miggy extension made the deal work out. The Willis addition didn't work out like our Lowell addition, did it?

de la Rosa has done pretty well his last few starts. None of our bottom rotation starters have ever looked good

Benintendi is now batting .289 with a .348 on-base percentage, .512 slugging percentage, .860 OPS, six homers, three triples, 13 doubles and 28 RBIs in 44 games for Portland. Reminder: Betts was batting 355/443/551 while in AA. Benintendi's OPS is still well behind where Betts' was. Benintendi is now hitting .330/.395/.626 in his last 31 games. Now that's like Betts! Yoan Moncada has now reached base in 10 of his first 21 July plate appearances. These guys are as close to ML ready as can be. I don't want to open the same can of worms again, but I think it's got to be close to time to start giving Moncada some reps at 3B.

Yeah, but we need a 4th starter now.

One more very good one would have been nice. It was obvious to me we'd be needing at least one by the break right from day one of the season.

Hasn't Brentz finally proven he's DFA worthy? I'm fine with a DFA or Coyle instead. I guess maybe Noe Ramirez is a choice as well.

Hasn't Brentz finally proven he's DFA worthy? I'm fine with a DFA or Coyle instead. I guess maybe Noe Ramirez is a choice as well.

Too bad Shaw, Holt and Hernandez all bat lefty. Marrero and Rutledge are our RHBs, but Josh is on the DL.

Well, the way Leon is hitting, I suppose Lucroy will do better going forward, but who knows? Swihart is pretty darn good offensively when healthy too.

I would, and I'd pay the salary difference.

Stop presenting only part of my argument, and then incorrectly. 1) I never said the package we sent for Kimbrel would have gotten us a top quality starter. Those prospects sent for Kimbrel would have been the "rest of the package" attached to Swihart and/or Devers. 2) The idea was to avoid parting with 1 of our top 3 prospects (Moncada, Benintendi & Espinoza) by giving up just about all of the rest of our quality prospects. 3) Another major factor was that Kimbrel is a closer. I know closers are important, but they are so fickle from year to yea,r AND they only pitch 55-65 IP a season. That's about 1/3 the IP of a solid SP'er. 4) Kimbrel's contract was near FA market value. I'm never onboard with paying top prospects to basically sign a FA. Look, I'm done with this argument. We have Kimbrel now. I'm over it, but if you want to keep bringing up my past rants, at least get them correct. BTW, how's Kimbrel doing for us so far? I'd say good but not great.

I'm all about building from the top (1-2 slots) not the bottom (4-5 slots), but we may need 2 SP'ers. I'd love to get one top pitcher under team control for 3.3+ years (2.3 at least), but then adding some one like de la Rosa for our 5 slot might not be a bad idea, if the cost is low (Owens or Johnson maybe?)

I don't think Swihart's value has declined, except to teams than need him healthy right now. I think Swihart will be traded, if not at the deadline, then next winter as part of a package to land us a solid SP'er. The state of catching at the big league level is so poor right now-offensively and defensively that many teams will pay through the nose for his services. We should not hand him away. He has great value today. The median team catcher OPS is .687, but 7 teams are below .611, including several contenders like LAD, NYM, TOR & CLE.

We already have 4 decent to good and/or promising catchers. It will cost too much to get Lucroy for just an immediate supposed upgrade on offense from the catcher position.

Thanks. Just looking for pitchers who won't require top prospects in return.

But if you added international players into the draft, that's a lot of talent entering the pool. A few more rounds might be needed.

...wouldn't you think if the moves was what f***ed him up, we'd have seen the worst of it after he was thrust into action at 3B in crunch time after just 10 games in the minors at 3B. I thought he did very well at 3B at the end of 2013, so much so that I thought it was going to be his final landing spot.