moonslav59

Rodney is doing very well. Taking Upton's contract makes the return less. I think Shields is better than his numbers indicate, and he's much better than Kelly, Buch and others we've been throwing out there. It's not a great deal for us, but Rodney alone could put us over the top.

I realize Jamie Shields is overpaid and aging, but I have to think he'd be better than what we are sending to the mound 2 out of every 5 games. I hate the fact that his contract would restrict us going forward, and maybe the Padres would pay part of his deal, but then we'd have to just send better and/or more prospects to get the deal done. I'm thinking of the chance for a possible blockbuster with the Padres. To Boston: Jamie Shields (Owed about $14M more this year plus $44M/2 or $58M/3 after 2016, so $58M/3 or $73M/4. 2-7 4.28 / 1.426 WHIP Melvin Upton (Owed about $10M more this year plus $16.5M next year.) .251/.312/.395/.706 Fernando Rodney (Owens about 1.3M this year plus $2M next year with $400K buyout.) 0.00 ERA in 20 IP with a 0.850 WHIP. Total cost: $86M to 93MM To SDP: Rusney Castillo $53M/5 (To offset some of Shields and Upton's deal) Joe Kdelly $1.7MM Blake Swihart $600K Rafael Devers $500K Henry Owens & Brian Hohnson $700K) Cash: $5M 2016, $6.5M 2017 and $8M 2018 Total cost: $67M The Padres save about $16M and get many more years of control at reasonable costs.

I'd certainly try to lure Papi back for one more. Even if he declines by 33%, he'd still be going out on top.

We don't have as much spending money as it looks. We are way over the luxury limit now, and even though the limit is expected to go up significantly next year, we still have to replace Koji, Taz and Papi. If we go over the limit again, the tax rate goes way up.

Maybe when they slump, the pitchers will hit their stride.

An argument could be made to have the killer B's 1-2-3: 1) Betts 2) Bogey 3) Bradley 4) Ortiz

We currently have 6 guys on pace for about 20-45 HRs. HanRam's on pace for about 12, but one could imagine him reaching 20. As for teams that had 7? The 2003 Sox had 6 guys over 20 and Bill Mueller had 19.

When you consider his horrendous start, Young has come on very strong in May. Here are the Sox OPS leaders over the last 28 days (not counting today): 1.273 Ortiz 1.202 JBJ 1.046 Bogey 1.026 Young .889 Betts .843 Ramirez .843 Shaw .839 Pedey .836 Swihart Wow, that's 9 guys over .839 for 4 weeks!

While Miller also had 3 years of team control his years were all arb years ($4+M this year), Teheran's contract should change the return.

I'm not sure any Sox catcher can catch Wright's knuckleball, and I think Hanigan is just in a slump. Hanigan was one of our best hitters vs LHPs last year.

Well, there is a bit of history on my side, but hoping isn't far from the truth. He's had 3 really good seasons out of the 6 prior to this year, although 2 ere with only 16 and 18 GS'd. When he's on, he can be phenomenal. Since 1972, there have been 5305 instances of SP'ers having 100+ iP in a season. The best ERA- seasons in those 45 years are as follows: 35 Pedro (2000) 37 Maddux (1994) 39 Maddux (1995) 41 Rogers (1973) 42 Buchholz (2013) 42 Pedro (1999) ... 32) 54 Buchholz (2010) Even his 2015 ERA- of 77 ranks 635th out of 5305 which places that season in the top 12% of all samples in that 45 year span. 3 seasons in the top 12% in the last 6 seasons is nothing to ignore. His two greatest seasons place him in the top .6% or best 6 out of every 1,000 seasons. Yeah, I guess I'm hoping he can come close to those numbers this year, but it's not like one can argue 2 or 3 seasons are a fluke.

MLBTR has come out with a new series called "Top 10 Trade Candidates". There's a couple interesting names in terms of the Sox needs: 6) Arodys Vizcaino (25y/o) RP'er ATL- 2 arb years left after 2016 9) Julio Teheran (25 y/o SP'er ATL- after this year is owed $26.3M/3 or $37.3M/4. ($5.4M luxury tax cost- a big plus for the Sox but not the Braves) What would it take to get both of these guys? Would you offer 3 from Swihart, Devers, Basabe, Kopech or Lakins? If so, which 3? Or is there another offer they may prefer?

Buch has had many ups and downs over his career, so I'm thinking maybe he'll get it together before the year is over and hit a good stretch. It's a gut feeling not based on any numbers.

Updated Sox OPS leaders after 5/31/16 game: 1.132 Ortiz 1.010 Bradley .917 Bogey .866 Shaw .858 Pedroia .847 Betts .830 Rutledge .788 Young .771 Ramirez .712 Swihart .664 Holt .603 Vazquez .476 Hanigan

On the old BDC site, I did an analysis of all the biggest FA signings over the last several years. It wasn't pretty.

He might be 3rd place after tomorrow night!

Thanks, emp. Yes, my intention was to have a thread that focused on realistic comments about just the Sox. Not politics. Not trolling. Not personal attacks. Not let's trade Craig and Pablo for Sale.

More of a higher love for Basabe. I'm still high on Devers. I thought my Hernandez ranking was the most out of line.

He will end up with an OPS in the top 3 Sox. 4th at worst. I'll guess around .845.

It doesn't bother me at all that Buch was upset about being demoted. He has a lot of pride and has done very well as a SP'er over his career-when healthy. Sure, in theory, it would be nice for him to publicly fess up and admit he's been terrible, but I think deep down he knows it, and the team doesn't need him whimpering like a scarred puppy to preserve team chemistry. I still feel Buch will bounce back and be a major factor in our championship run this year. I would not waive him, unless we have a deal in place for a SP'er and we need budget space (unlikely).

Who is Buchholz better than in the pen? I can't think of a single RHRP who he deserves to take the place of. It's not as clear as you make it out to be. Using ERA to judge relief pitchers is flawed. Many come in for just 1-2 outs. Here's the May OPS against vs Sox pitchers: 1.000 Owens .944 Hembree .910 O'Sullivan .835 Uehara .819 Buchholz .777 Porcello .759 Kelly .722 Price .619 Layne .617 Taz .597 Wright .570 Barnes .543 Ross .473 Smith (gone) .451 Kimbrel Last 14 days (pen only): 1.000 Uehara .929 Hembree .901 Buch .742 Kimbrel .721 Layne .647 Taz .522 Ross .347 Barnes

Thanks for the reply. You kind of said what I felt all along- that there really is nobody I have a lot of faith in at this point. It goes along with my whole "too much quantity vs too little quality" position. It's also the reason I brought up Barnes as a possible starter down the road. Totally understand why you did. I think were gonna end up having to go the trade market though unless kelly and/or ERod step up. If one or both do that, then i think we should get another pen arm for the playoffs. We really need both a starter and a reliever, but right now we need a reliever. A starter can wait for the time being. Well, if we end up keeping Buch in the pen, and he does well, he might solve the pen issue. If we end up sending Kelly to the pen, the same might go for him. When I looked at the list of starters we had in the spring, and argued about the lack of quality and the abundance or mediocrity, I never expected to see O'Sullivan at all, and yet there he was. I think this was my ordered list of starters before opening day: 1) Price 2) Porcello 3) ERod (although he was hurt before opening day) 4) Buch 5) Kelly 6) Wright 7) Owens 8) Elias 9) Johnson 10) Escobar 11) Barnes 12) Cuevas I never even had O'Sullivan listed. Now, I can see how some might say, there's an example of why you need quantity, but I disagree. Had we picked up a durable, solid #2 or #3 starter, we'd never have used O'Sullivan. Yeah, even durable pitchers get hurt, but I'm, getting tired of watching guys like Owens, O'Sullivan and Johnson and praying they become the miracle we have hoped for. I always liked Wright, but it's frightening to think he's one of our big 3 now. I still think SP'ing is our biggest weakness.

Thanks for the reply. You kind of said what I felt all along- that there really is nobody I have a lot of faith in at this point. It goes along with my whole "too much quantity vs too little quality" position. It's also the reason I brought up Barnes as a possible starter down the road.

To me, WHIP is a better gauge of RP'er effectiveness than ERA. K/BB rate is also a good tool for measuring RP'er quality. Koji has had way more than one great season when measured by these numbers: Year WHIP K/BB 2010 0.955 11.0 2011 0.723 11.8 2012 0.639 11.5 2013 0.565 12.2 2014 0.917 11.2 2015 0.917 10.5 Fist of all, when viewing Koji's 3 seasons prior to 2013, his trend was indicating a great 2013 season. It doesn't really look like an outlier season. Secondly, Koji's 6 years in a row with a WHIP under 0.920 is fantastic and maybe even unprecedented. I'm not trying to say he was better than Mo, but looking over Mo's numbers, he only had one season with a WHIP below .833 (2008's 0.655). Mo never had more than 4 seasons in a row with a WHIP below 0.950, let alone 0.920. I bring this up only to show perspective- not to claim Koji was better than Mo. Thirdly, Mo had one season with a K/BB rate of 12.83 (2008), but every other season was below 7.50. All but three seasons were below 6.30. Now, with Mo it wasn't about K's, so I'm not trying to belittle Mo. He's clearly the best closer ever. The best RP'er ever. All I'm saying is that Koji's 6 seasons compare with anyone else's. He was not a one year wonder.