moonslav59

I could see Moncada in LF and Devers at 3B in 2-4 years, but we could also see Moncada or Devers at 1B. How well Benintendi does may force that hand.

Possible trade partners- teams that are out of it: ATL- Tehera (25) & RP Vizcaino (25) [1B- Freddie Freeman (26)] PHI- Nola (23), Eickoff (25), Velasquez (24), Hellickson (29), RP J Gomez (28) & H Neris TBR- Archer (27), Smyly (27), Odorizzi (26), Moore (27), Andriese (26) SDP- Pomeranz (27), T Ross (on DL), RP F Rodney (39) & R Buchter (29) [1B/OF W Myers (25), and salary dumps: M Kemp (31) & M Upton (31) OAK- S Gray (26), R Hill (36), RP R Dull (26), Doolittle (29) [OF Reddick (29)] AZ- RP B Ziegler (36), T Clippard (31), D Hudson (29), [1B Goldschmidt, 3B Jake Lamb (25), OF Y Tomas (25)] CIN- B Finnegan (23), D Straily (27) [J Votto (32), OF J Bruce (29), A Duvall (27)] MIL- Z Davies, J Guerra (31), RP T Thornburg (27), [OF R Braun (32)] NYY- Sabathia (35), RP Miller (31) & Chapman (28) [OF C Beltran (39)] COL- RP B Logan (31) [OF Carlos Gonzalez (30) & C Blackmon (29), 3B N Arendo (25) Then there's salary dump Verlander f the Tigers.

I know I may be dreaming, but I'd really want a pitcher who will be with the team for at least 2 more years after this season. And, I don't mean a 4/5 slot pitcher.

They can have Owens and Johnson. I'm done with both of them!

Young had an MRI on Monday that showed the injury was worse than first believed. Looks like he might not be back for a while longer.

I don't think Swihart's stock has fallen other than maybe a short-term injury concern. I'm jst about done hoping a Sox pitching prospect ever makes it big, and with Kopech's attitude issues, I have no issues trading him. I love Devers, but I see Moncada as taking the next available IF position that opens up, and then holding it for 18 years.

Young may be out longer than expected... MLBTR reports... ...outfielder Chris Young underwent an MRI in Boston on Monday, and the test revealed “a little bit more injury” than Young’s initial tests did...

It's hard to say with these DH first type guys who can pretend to play 1B well. To his credit, he has improved at 1B, and he's actually been plus over the past two years at 1B in UZR/150, but his career mark is -7.7 at 1B, -11.6 at 3B and -743. in LF. The guy has been a beast at the plate hitting over 34 HRs for the last 4 years in a row (21 so far this year). He's been over .890 in OPS for 5 straight years, counting 2016. I guess if we can trade for a cheap but top quality SP'er, we can afford to sign EE.

I'd love his bat on the Sox, but with limited financial resources next winter, I think the money would be better spent on a SP'er and 2-3 RP'ers. With Pablo returning, and Moncada, Benintendi & Travis knocking on the door, I think we'll go with what we got with non-pitchers. Here's how I see next year's depth chart position by position minus Papi: C: Vazquez, Hanigan (option), Swihart, Leon, Romanowski, Procyshen, Moore, Rei 1B: Ramirez, Shaw, Travis, Holt, Sandoval, (Moncada),Witte, Longhi, nOckimey 2B: Pedroia, Moncada, Holt, Hernandez, Rutledge, Marrero, Miller, Coyle, Rijo 3B: Shaw, Sandoval, (Moncada), Hernandez, Holt, Rutledge, Marrero, Devers, Chavis SS: Bogaerts, Hernandez, Marrero, Holt, Rutledge, Dubon LF: Young/Swihart, (Moncada), Benintendi, Holt, LaMarre, Castillo, Basabe CF: JBJ, Betts, Benintendi, Young, Holt, (Moncada), Castillo, Basabe RF: Betts, Young/Swihart, Benintendi, (Moncada), Holt DH: Ramirez/Sandoval/Swihart/Moncada, Pedroia (t rest some), Shaw, Young, Witte, Devers Here's the pitching staff: SP1) Price SP2) ________ SP3) Wright SP4) Porcello SP5) Erod/Kelly/Elias/Owens/Johnson/Kopech/(Barnes), Cuevas Closer) Kimbrel RP2) _________ RP3) Smith RP4) _________ RP5) Hembree RP6) Ross RP7) Kelly/Elias/Barnes/Layne/Owens/Johnson, Workman, N Ramirez, Light, Martin, Jerez

Hill would be a 2 month rental, so yes, you are talking in circles. I'm not sure I'd give up Devers for Hill, even if he agreed to a 2 year extension at $6M a year. He's old and too unreliable. We need a solid, durable top quality starter (maybe two).

He might be slow getting his timing down.

Sox OPS after tonight's game: 1.111 Ortiz (1st out of 77 AL players with 250+ PAs) .950 JBJ (6th) .889 Bogey (14th) .832 Betts (25th) .818 Pedroia (28th) .793 Shaw (46th) .761 Ramirez (49th) Under 250 PAs .846 Young (would rank 22nd) .664 Holt .554 Vazquez Low PAs 1.283 Leon .950 Brentz .733 Rutledge .720 Swihart .704 Hernandez .479 Hanigan If you lower the PAs to 140, the AL sample size grows to 143 (9 players x 15 teams =145.) 1) Ortiz (+.124 over 2nd place Altuve) 6) JBJ 16) Bogey 29) Young 34) Betts 40) Pedroia 52) Shaw 68) HanRam 139) Vazquez WOW! 8 players in the top half of the AL.

You can't judge a pitcher by just a third of a season.

Pretty amazing that Archer, Smyly and Moore all have ERAs over 4.70 this year.Archer ans Smyly still have high K rates (over 10/9IP), and I think they both could easily improve over the second half. Smyly's still got two more arb years left, so he's appealing. Archer would cost much more in prospects due to him having 5 more years of team control at a great rate. Archer's luxury tax hit would only be $4.25M until 2020 when his $9M option is available. Even his $11M 2021 option looks to be a steal. The one good thing about the Rays, is that they may value long away prospects more than "win now" teams. That means guys like Devers and Espinoza could have more appeal to them than other teams looking at 2017. Maybe we could offer Swihart (as a PTBNL until he's off the DL), Devers, Espinoza, Travis, Kopech, T Ball and Owens or Johnson for both Archer & Smyly. If they want Holt or Herandez, include them as well. That's probably wishful thinking, but we can probably get one from the Rays. I like Sonny Gray, but hesitate to pull the trigger on him. Even if his injury is not a long term concern, pitchers from the A's rarely continue their productivity after being traded. I've never been that high on Paxton, and the M's may not be sellers this July. His WHIP has been around 1.500 since the start of 2015, although the sample size is rather small (just 19 starts). His 3 arb years remaing is a plus. What are your thoughts on Eickoff and Nola from the Phillies? Also, Vincent Velasquez?

Who's on the "yes list" but is also realistically considered available? For example, even if the White Sox are 12 games out at the deadline, would they consider trading Sale or Quintana? Guys like Kershaw are pretty much untouchable.

Did you intentionally leave our Carrasco and Quintana, or were they part of the "et al"? Just curious.

There are several areas that have hurt the Sox this year. Depth of the position players, Starting pitching and relief pitching. Position player depth was setup to be a problem by a series of trades and acquisitions that others have highlighted. Craig, Sandoval, Castillo and to some extent Rameriz. These players have been expensive with only Hanley producing at a journeyman level. Meanwhile, like all teams, our players face a 162 game season in tough climates with lots of travel and a strenuous daily routine. They face scientific evaluation of their hitting shortcomings and are bound to feel mentally letdown when their pitching staff doesn't do the job, not to mention the typical stresses of family life. Injuries are a part of the game and often they play through minor ones. Of course players can and do get sidelined during the season and the team management needs to plan for replacements to give regular players rest and to fill in when the guys go on the disabled list. With Swihart, Holt, Hannigan and Young on the disabled list the replacements called up were on the weak side with the exception of catcher. If we have can't miss prospects in Benentendi and Moncada, why not let them fill in? It's hard for any team to plan beyond the depth we had to start the season. Pablo's struggles and injury brought Shaw to FT status. Remember, he was a sub on the winter roster. Young was viewed as a platoon option vs LHPs, so I think he was more or less viewed as a sub for Castillo/Holt in LF. Holt was our super sub- he's on the DL. Hanigan was our #2 catcher behind Swihart. Both are gone, and Vaz/Leon are now playing and have been playing since Swihart was replaced and later put on the DL and Hanigan's trip top the DL. All-in-all, I think our subs were great on paper and have done great when forced to play. Where would we be without Shaw, Young, Vaz, Leon, Holt (before the concussion) and Hernandez/Rutledge/Marrero? I can see how the subs of our subs might not look pretty on paper or in real life. I mean who really thought we'd be relying on Leon, Brentz, Miller and to some extent Rutledge & Marrero? These guys haven't done too badly either! Starting Pitching We have Wright, Porcello and Price generally performing as acceptable starting pitchers. I was not a fan of the Price deal due to the length of the contract, however, we would be even more lost in the starting pitching arena without him. ERod has talent but has not developed. Buchholz is not doing the job at all, Kelly seemed to fail as well as the two or three youngsters brought up. Are we not getting major league quality pitching prospects or are we not developing the ones we have? This is a serious question. Farrell was a pitching coach at a prior time. Is there something wrong with the coaching and development of red sox pitching? We got top quality at the top of the rotation at a hefty price, but the whole idea of quantity over quality the rest of the rotation is a failed philosophy to begin with. It never works. Even teams that strive to acquire 5 solid starters have difficulty winning consistently, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to get at least 4 solid, known quality SP'ers. The tragic part of this whole plan was that even with all the "quantity" at SP'er we had with our depth chart this winter, we still ended up using O'Sullivan! Even this part of the plan failed. Relief Pitching Some of the problems we have faced here stem from the failures of the starting pitching, which is putting high workloads on our bull pen. Kimbrel was a good acquisition. Koji might just be getting too old. Tazawa is still effective. Hembree is doing a decent job but in general the bull pen needs an infusion of talent. Perhaps Kelly will be moved back to that role but trade or free agency needs to be gone to for more talent. Alas, I think the Red Sox with retreat to a mediocre record this year and Dombroski will need to set sites on improving for next season. I suggested moving Kelly and maybe even Buch to the pen last winter, but that was based on the assumption that we would acquire at least 2 solid SP'ers and keep Miley around. The Carson Smith injury hurt. Barnes, Hembree and Ross (earlier) have done well, and you'd think that should have been all we needed. However, Uehara, tazawa and Kimbrel have had some issues beyond over-usage. Our pitching staff is inferior. It was on paper last winter as well. We had a bunch of hopes and prayers, and even with the Wright, Barnes and Hembree prayers being answered, our staff still sucks. It shouldn't really be a surprise.

SP'er lines in the last 5 ERod 2.2 IP 9 runs 12 BB+H Buch 5.1 IP 5 runs 12 BB+H Wright 4.2 IP 8 runs 9 BB + H Price 2.1 IP 6 runs 12 BB+H Porcello 5.1 IP 4 runs 9 BB+H Total: 20.1 IP 32 Runs 54 BB+H (Note: runs not earned runs)

I'm not saying I want to trade for this guy, but Justin Verlander is still owed $28M a year for 3 more years after this. We could probably get him without losing a top prospect, but our budget would be shot for a few years. Is there anyone else out there better than Verlander, cheaper than Verlander, but still maybe available for less than a top 4 prospect?

Yeah, but he's not playiung anymore as far as I know. Here's another way of looking at it. Here are our noteworthy pitching draft picks since 2003: 02 Lester (2nd rd)03 Papelbon (4th round)/Abe Alvarez (2nd rd) 04 Cla Meredith (6th rd) 05 Buchholz (#42 pick)/ C Hansen (#26)/ M Bowden (#47) 06 D Bard (#28)/Masterson (2nd Rd)/ K Johnson (#39)/C Clay (#43)/ D Richardson (5th rd) 07 Hagadone (#55)/ H Strickland (18th rd)/ D Britton (23rd rd) 08 C Kelly (#30)/ Bryan Price (#45)/Stephen Fife (#85)/ K Weiland (#108) 09 A Wilson (#77) 10 A Ranaudo (#39)/ Workman (#57) 11 M Barnes (#11)/ H Owens (#36)/ N Ramirez (#143) 12 B Johnson (#31)/ P Light (#37)/ J Callahan (#87) 13 T Ball (#7)/ Stankiewicz (#45)/ Kyle Martin (#263) 14 M Kopech (#33)/ Jake Cosart (#103) 15 T Lakins (#171) 16 K Groome (#12) International signings: 04 Doubront 06 Matsusaka/S Pimental 07 Roman Mendez 08 Tazawa/ W Cuevas 09 F Montas 10 J Aro 13 Hinojosa 14 Espinoza/ C Acosta

There's a reason he's been called a AAAA player for years.

We suck at drafting and developing pitchers, especially starters, and especially recently. Here's the best 12 I could come up with.... SP1) Jon Lester SP2) Anibal Sanchez SP3) Felix Doubront SP4) Clay Buchholz SP5) Justin Masterson, Frank Montas/ A Ranaudo/ C Kelly .....Owens/Johnson/W Cuevas Closer) J Papelbon RP2) J Tazawa RP3) Alex Wilson RP4) H Strickland RP5) M Barnes RP6) J Aro/ N Hagadone/ N Ramirez/ Workman RP7) R Betancourt/ P Light/ W Jerez

We never had a good rotation this year. We went with quantity over quality, and now we are paying the price.

There's a reason he's been called a AAAA player for years.

I'll be in Portland next week and plan on going to a game or two. I can't wait!