moonslav59

I never meant to imply I want to see Swihart as our long term LF solution. I just said I liked him better than Holt. Ultimately, I think Swihart will be traded, because his value to another team as a catcher iw way higher than his value to us.

I never meant to imply I want to see Swihart as our long term LF solution. I just said I liked him better than Holt. Ultimately, I think Swihart will be traded, because his value to another team as a catcher iw way higher than his value to us.

I think they knew Vaz would be ready before too long. It wouldn't have hurt giving Swihart reps in LF here and there.

That was a "false choice" management made to not givemore Swihart reps in LF.

Wow. As badly as he's done, I'm still shocked. Maybe they are thinking they can keep him around like Allen Craig and not have him on the 40 man roster and more importantly not count vs the luxury tax.

Edwin is a beast! I'd love to have him on the Sox roster, and I'm assuming you mean via free agency this winter. I'm not sure how we can afford to sign him and get a solid SP'er and RP'er without paying a huge luxury tax, unless we trade a few top prospects for a couple inexpensive but solid arms.

I'm not a big Braun fan either, and I suggested an offer like the one I did to generate discussion and ideas for similar type trades. Braun is available, but as I have said all along, our biggest need is pitching. That's why I added Davies and Thornburg, but looking at the suggested trade deeper, I don't like it either. Giving up Swihart and Devers without getting a better SP;er than Davies is not worth it.

Agreed. I think Vaz deserves to be cut some slack. He had a very serious injury, missed a year, and (I'm guessing) probably spent most of his rehab tyime working on hise defense, building arm/should strength and throwing- not so much hitting, until recently.

I never wanted Holt to be a FT'er anywhere. I had called for Swihart to get some reps in LF and/or 1B/3B long ago. I also liked Young more than Holt, but maybe not against righties. A Swihart/Young platoon projected to be way better than Holt FT. I though Castillo should have at least gotten a longer look this year, but I can understand why he didn't. To me, it was a toss-up between Holt and Castillo.

Enigmas wrapped inside paradoxical flops

The idea was to try and get a decent SP'er and very good relief pitcher for cheaper than usual by taking on salary. The swapping of Castillo's salary for Braun's lessens the hit, but I can certainly see why this deal does not really get us what we need most: a top young SP'er. Davies is not likely to be the answer, so I think I agree; giving up Swihart and Devers and not getting at least a solid #2 is not a good idea.

I'm thinking Braun would be the DH next year, but I certainly understand wanting an much better pitcher than Davies and Thornburg for two top prospects.

It's essentially $34M for 4.6 years of Braun as we'd be dumping Castillo's contract. We also get a very good RP'er and promising starter who is off to a good start. Would you do the deal without Devers?

Would you be onboard with this trade offer to Milwaukee? Trade: Joe Kelly ($1.6M and 2 more arbs) Rusney Castillo ($52M/4.6 years) Blake Swihart (Pre-arb) Rafael Devers (Pre-arb) Brian Johnson (Pre-arb) or Henry Owens (Pre-arb) Teddy Stankiewicz (Pre-arb) Total contracts: $54M (not counting arbs) to MIL for: Ryan Braun ($88M/4.6M or $99M/5.6 yrs) Zach Davies (Pre-arb) Tyler Thornburg (3 arbs left) Total cost: $88M The Brewers save $34M and can then trade Lucroy -saving another $3M) for something very special and put Swihart behind the plate.

Talking about "pace" does not necessarily mean that's what you think the player will end up with, but it does have value as it can be used as a tool to conceptualize how well a player is doing at a given point in a season. For example, if I told you a player has 15 HRs at some point in a season, if might not mean much, but people do know that hitting 45 HRs over a full season is pretty darn good, so if a player has 15 HRs after a third of a season, the "on pace for 45" just shows the pro-rated value of 45. If a player had 15 HRs after 75% of the season, he'd be on pace for 20. It's all relative, and so I do think using the "on pace for" phrase does have value. It's not absolutely worthless. We all know a guy who hits 3 Hrs in the first two games of a season might be "on pace" to hit 400HRs, so in the limited sense like this, the statement is useless, but once you get closet o half a season, it does have conceptual value, but not necessarily projecting value.

Yeah, you're probably right, although acquiring RP'ers are usually much easier and less costly at the deadline than serviceable starters.

Porcello has quietly got off to his best ERA+ and WHIP season in his 8 year career. I know it's early, but the hopes that he might improve as he entered his middle prime may be coming true.

Quality Starts numbers: MLB Average is 48% 85% Wright 71% Price 62% Porcello Team record in starts: 8-5 Wright 8-5 Porcello 8-6 Price 24-16 Total 13-13 The rest. (I would have thought our 4-5 slot starters would have been worse than .500.) Some props to Porcello for having his best ERA+ and WHIP season of his whole career (8th year).

We're just pass the 40% point of the season and our top 3 starters are 22-8 with an ERA of 3.52 and a WHIP of 1.11. Our line-up consists of 4 guys with an OPS over .900: Ortiz 1.147 JBJ .951 Bogey .908 Young .900 3 more guys over .795: Betts .851 Pedey .830 Shaw .795 And then HanRam at .725 and Vazquez at .547 (.603 catching OPS).

If ERod's injury is causing him to pitch differently or change his mechanics, I'd shut him down until he's all the way back. Don't mess up this kid!

I'm wonder if it's worth stretching our Barnes and giving him a shot at the 5 slot before we make a deal.

Another reason I thought we should have gone all out this past winter. I realize getting the best starter and best closer was pretty spectacular, but we're in an awful bind now.

Posted earlier on other threads... Here are the current worst teams by record in MLB and their best pitchers: MN- No SP'ers with an ERA under 5.00, except Pat Dean who has a WHIP over 1.41. The only 2 RP'ers having decent years are 30 year old Fernando Abad and 31 year old Brandon Kintzler. ATL- 25 year old Julio Teheran as been discussed (2.93/0.989), but there's also 23 y/o Matt Wisler (4.23/1.181) and 25 y/o closer Arodys Vizcaino (2.22/1.235 but with a 13 K/9 rate). There's also lefty RP'er (26 y/o) Hunter Cervenka (3.10/1.180 and 12.0 k/9) SP- Tyson Ross is hurt, but there is lefty 27 y/o Drew Pomeranz (2.88/1.173 and 10.7 K/9) and 39 y/o closer Fernando Rodney who has yet to allow an earned run in 23.1 IP (0.857 WHIP/ 8.1 k/9). 29 y/o lefty Ryan Buchter is off to a nice start (1.86 CIN- Dan Straily (27) 3.66/1.195, Brandon Finnegan (23 lefty) 3.61/1.312 OAK- Sonny Gray has been hurt and not pitching well, 36 y/o Rich Hill is on the DL, but they have quite a few RP'ers doing well so far this year. BB has a history of trading RP'ers often: Ryan Dull (26) 2.31/0.800, Sean Doolittle (29 lefty) 2.67/0.926, Fernando Rodriquez (32) 2.65/0.971 AZ- I doubt Greinke is even up for discussion, so all that's left are 4 RP'ers: Tyler Clippard (31) 3.65/1.378 and 10.2 K/9, Daniel Hudson (29) 1.73/0.846, Jake Barrett (24) 2.16/1.040 & Brad Ziegler (36) 2.93/1.446. LAA- I don't see anyone worthwhile that is healthy and doing well, except RP'er Cam Bedrosian (24) 1.61/1.299 and 9.7 K/9. PHI- 23 y/o Aaron Nola 3.51/1.134/9.9 K/9 and Jerad Eickhoff (25) 3.40/1.172 are doing very well. Vincent Velasquez (24) is on the DL 3.65/1.265 and maybe a couple RPers Hector Neris 11 K/9 and David Hernandez 11.5 K/9. MIL- Zach Davies (23) 3.88/1.181, Junior Guerra (31)3.81/1.178 & Jimmy Nelson (27) 3.92/1.353 plus RP'er Tyler Thornburg (27) 2.60/0.759 and 12.7 K/9 rate. I haven't even heard of some of these guys, and I'm no expert on other teams' players, but maybe someone from this group can become available and eventually help us. ______________________________________________________ Swihart would be the headliner on a package, in theory, to get a solid pitcher. I have contended that Blake's value as a starting catcher on another team is more than his value as a platoon LF'er/3rd string catcher for the Sox. Please do not take this to mean I value Swihart less than any of you do. I still think he is a great young talent with high value. My second major piece would be Devers. I realize that Shaw is still not a sure bet at 3B, and with HanRam possibly being our DH next year, trading Devers could be viewed as risky. However, I think Moncada's ultimate landing spot might be 3B, 1B or DH (with LF as another choice). We also have Sam Travis and Pablo Sandoval in the mix at 3B/1B next year, if Shaw falters. I think these facts essentially mean Devers is all but blocked. Again, this does not mean I devalue Devers. I just see his value as being greater for another team, and that is a foundation for making a trade offer. So, my choice for making a serious offer for a solid #2 type SP'er would start with Swihart and Devers. To improve our chances at getting the best (non rental) SP'er out there for this portion of a package, we could do one or more of the following: 1) Take on a high salary pitcher or add another high salary player as a salary dump (like Mike Lowell was in the Beckett deal). 2) Offer someone like Castillo or Pablo with just about all their salary paid, assuming the other team wants one. 3) Widen the package with a vet or two, if the team is looking to seriously compete next year (such as Holt or Kelly/Buchholz/Barnes/Elias/Layne) 4) Widen the package with mid-level prospects such as... Kopech, Owens, Johnson, Lakins, Light, TBall, Stanki/ K Martin/C Acosta Marrero, Hernandez, Dubon, Chavis, Longhi, Ockimey or maybe even Travis Basabe or Yoan Aybar 5) Offer cash I'd try hard to do any of the above, before I part with Moncada, Benintendi or Espinoza. Note: just because a guy like Sam Travis is ranked 5th in our system, doesn't mean his value is equal to other teams' #5 prospect. Not many teams have 4 top prospects like ours.

Erod is dealing with injury, so I'm holding out hope he gets healthy and then finds his groove. It might be a better chance than Buch finding himself.

I disagree on trading Benintendi over Swihart for various reasons. I feel... 1) Benintendi is better than Swihart. 2) Vazquez is better at Catcher than Swihart. 3) Vazquez is better at Catcher than Young/Swihart are in LF, so LF is a higher need area 2 years out than C. 4) Swihart should bring more in return than Benintendi,