moonslav59

The more likely deal might come from a bad team looking to dump salary or to look towards a longer view into the future...Here are the worst teams right now: Fill in the names of anyone you want from these teams. MN: ATL: CIN: MIL: HOU: SDP: OAK:

I had hoped we made more deals like the ERod one than than the Cespedes one during the great purge that summer.

How about the team that had Butch Hobson batting 9th? The 1977 Sox had Rice with 39 HRs, Scott with 33, Hobson with 30, Yaz with 28, Fisk with 26, Lynn with 18, Carbo with 15 and Evans with 14. 4 guys had 96+ RBIs, 4 guys had OBPs above .370, and 6 guys with a SLG% over .489! The 2003 Sox scored way more runs than even those late 70's teams. All 9 starters has over 12 HRs and 65 RBIs. 7 guys had 19 or more HRs and 8 had 85+ RBIs. 6 guys had a SLG% above .510 and 3 over .575! Most of all, they were an OBP machine. All top 9 PA guys had an OBP above .333, 8 were over .345 and 3 were over .396.[/b]

Whatever we pay the other team counts against our luxury tax. If we keep him on our team, in the minors, not on the 40-man roster, nothing counts towards the luxury tax.

Several great pitchers today were obtained via trade, and many of them were not thought of as aces at the time of their trades. That's why I look at guys that are close to being called an ace to look for- like Salazar & Quintana, who now are pitching like aces. I'm not saying it's easy to get one of these guys, especially since they were on teams not looking to rebuild, but I don't think it's impossible. Jake Arrieta was traded, but he had an ERA over 5.00 after 3 1/2 seasons and over 350 innings. How do we find guys like him? I think Baltimore got Scott Feldman for him!

Just because we had 3-5 players that would be number ones on most teams, doesn't mean we have to give all of them up. If we only had Swihart and a bunch of Guerra types, would giving our top 4 or 5 guys get an ace? Sometimes I wonder if some GMs think that way: I want 2-3 of your top 4 prospects or bust, and it matters little if your 2-3 are 5 times greater than other teams.

soxprospects.com has an interesting page on projected rosters years from now: http://soxprospects.com/future.htm Here's the 2018 version: C Vazquez/ Swihart 1B Ramirez/ S Travis 2B Pedroia 3B T Shaw/ Sandoval SS Bogaerts/ Hernandez LF Benintendi/Holt CF Bradley RF Betts DH Moncada (I know, it's 14 guys, so I'm not sure they can count to 25.) Pitchers: Price, Porcello, ERod, Kelly, Owens Kimbrel, Smith, Kopech, Barnes, Johnson, Workman, Light, Jerez (no Wright)

I think the Cubs once traded 5 guys for Matt Garza, and most of them became ML players. Garza wasn't really an ace, but it does happen. One of those players was Chris Archer, and I think some others were Sam Fuld and Brandon Guyer. I can't think of the other two, but one was a catcher. I'm sure somewhere at sometime there was a 6 for one deal or 6 or 7 for two.

So, Todd Frazier, Swihart, Devers and Margot aren't 4 "top players/prospects"? Throwing in Holt, Owens and Guerra doesn't help? It;s not like these guys are slouches. I've also mentioned the idea of taking on a second (unwanted) player, making it a 6 for 2 trade or involving another team to make it less than 6 for 1. The theory goes like this: trade 3 very good prospects for 1 very good player (like Frazier), then maybe trade another 3 for 1 and then flip those two plus another prospect or two for one awesome player. Maybe I am too "pie in the sky" by hoping we could have gotten a player like Salazar, Carrasco or Quintana through this method, but it's not like I was asking for a Mets starter or Sale. I also suggested offering Kelly over Owens/Johnson, so that might change the dynamic to Frazier, Kelly, Swihart. and Margot . There's 4 for 1, but I still think any team wouldn't have turned down Devers and Guerra or Holt just because 6 for 1 deals are rare.

Some interesting career numbers by JBJ: 657 PAs vs RHPs .696 OPS 296 PAs vs LHPs .736 OPS 448 PAs Home .808 505 PAs away .619 241 PAs RISP .872 OPS 419 PAs Men on .840 OPS 100 PAs First pitch .806 1-0 1.461 2-0 1.000 3-0 (20 PAs- 20 BBs!) 2-1 .769 3-1 1.417

Luckily, we don't many super long term deals like CC anymore. Price has 3 or 7 years left. Pedey 6 Castillo 5 Porcello 4 Sandoval 4 (with 5th year option) HanRam 3 (4th vesting option) Kimbrel 2 (3rd option) Young 2 Ortiz 1 Uehara 1 Tazawa 1 Buch 1 option As you can see, when we will need to start paying these kids, we'll be losing some big money, especially Porcello, Sandy and HanRam. We'll also have some cheap young talent on the 25 man roster to balance out the mega deals: Moncada, Espinoza, Benintendi, Devers and others.

My point was about how Bogey was view when he was still a prospect. That has changed, in terms of his projected position. He's a SS now and probably will be until he gets much older. Back then, most saw him as a 3Bman.

I totally agree and said so before last season began. I recently projected Betts to again finish in the top 3 in Sox OPS this year. That was when he was over 150 points behind Shaw and 7th on the team in OPS. The fact that Bogey has stuck at SS, and his defense has improved significantly has changed my view of his value. Betts has shown a lot of growth on defense as well, especially when you consider he just started playing OF last year, but the SS position is king. It's a close call between Betts and Bogey, but I see Betts' offense as becoming much greater than Bogey's- enough to pass Bogey in overall value as Red Sox players. How Benintendi rates compared to B & B is yet to be determined, but I can't fault anyone for seeing greatness in him. I think our killer B's are going to blow away Bagwell and Biggio, because we'll have 4! Betts Bradley Bogey Benintendi Yes, quite a tribute to our farm system!

I disagree. If his projected ML position was going to be 3B, then some value would be taken away. We have no idea how most GMs viewed Bogey's eventual position, but it seemed like most scouting reports at least mentioned an eventual move to 3B.

You say I'm "all over the place", but didn't you first say no team is going to give us an ace for that package? Now, you say my package is "way too much". Which one is it?

I recall reading several posters saying something similar to this, "We know for sure that JBJ will never be able to hit ML pitching." I never understand the use of such definitive statements after sample sizes of just 100-500 PAs or even more. I kind of feel the same way about Shaw, but in reverse. I'm not saying I am certain he will come back down to earth, but to me, he has yet to prove he is an .800+ hitter. Minor league numbers are not 100% accurate projection tools, but it is rare than a player deviates wildly from his AA and AAA combined numbers.

Sox OPS leaders over the last 365 days: .990 Ortiz .937 JBJ .863 Shaw .860 Betts .819 Bogey .818 Pedey .770 Rutledge .750 Swihart .733 Ramirez .700 Holt .658 Castillo .626 Vazquez .608 Sandoval .607 Hanigan

The term "ace" is subjective. I called Quintana, Salazar and Carrasco "aces" because they are all top 30 starters. Salazar and Quintana clearly look like aces now. I think Carrasco got hurt. The CWS ended up getting Frazier, so maybe some 3 way deal could have been made with them, but they'd probably have wanted Kelly instead of Owens/Johnson. I'd have done that, even though I love Kelly's future.

Lets look at the Guardians position last winter. The sorely needed a ML ready bat and would have really loved to build their farm blue chip or near blue chip prospects. Anyone calling Swihart, Margot, Devers, Margot and Guerra "B prospects" just because we also had Moncada, Espinoza and Benintendi may not understand prospect terminology. To me, B level prospects might be guys like Owens, Kopech, Marrero, or TBall. Maybe the Guardians wouldn't want Swihart for LF, but the Reds would have loved to get Swihart. They ended up trading Frazer (a 35 HR guy last year) for Brandon Dixon, Jose Peraza and Scott Schebler. Swihart alone probably had more trade value than these 3. Plus, he plays a position of great need in MLB. The Guardians ended up settling on Uribe, who now has an OPS below .600. I think the Guardians have one guy over .750 and are battling to stay above .500 due to a very weak offense. So, we offer Swihart, Asuage and Logan to Cincy. Frazier goes to Cleveland. We then send Cleveland Holt, Margot, Devers, Guerra, and two from Owens, Johnson and Kopech for, hopefully, 26 year old Danny Salazar and his 5 years of team control, but more likely Cleveland might have insisted we take 29 year old Carrasco and his 4 years of team control at a reasonable cost. I think I heard some talk that the Guardians preferred trading Salazar to Carrasco, but I couldn't find any mention of that when I googled it. Maybe Holt could have played OF until Margot was ready and saved the Guardians the $5.3M they ended up paying Raj Davis. With that $5M, the Guardians could have plugged another hole somewhere. Their farm would have improved enormously and they's have Frazier, Holt, Owens and maybe Johnson on thier ML roster this year. Margot, Devers and Guerra in the wings. I think it's tremendous deal for the Guardians... maybe even too much!

Actually, many scouts had Bogey's likely landing place at 3B.

Swihart, Devers, Margot and Guerra were not mid level prospects last winter. Adding Holt plus 2 from Owens, Johnson and Kopech is a powerful package. Explain why you "overpay" when the supply is higher than the demand for RP'ers?

Put the leading OPs guy 9th? Now, I've heard everything. Lord, take me now!

I didn't want Cole for that reason and his steep contract, so I don't think I'm ignoring anything. My pint was that if we could have gotten Hammels for Devers, Kopech, Chavis and Light, certainly we could have gotten someone very very good for 6 of the 8 guys I mentioned. I also pointed out that we could have made it a 6 for 2 deal by taking on a big contract. I didn't really consider Tyson Ross and ace, but I think he could have been picked up, if we took on M Upton's deal or maybe even Kemp (and not signed Young). I'm glad we didn't get him. I didn't consider Shields an ace, but he'd have been a nice pick-up. I guess that's going off topic here. I do think Swihart and Devers had very high stock numbers this past winter. Catchers are rare these days. I heard rumors that Cleveland wanted JBJ and more, and I'm glad we didn't trade Jackie. I do agree that Cleveland and the White Sox were not in rebuild mode, so trading 6 prospects was not enticing to them. Sonny Gray will eventually be dealt, but last winter was probably not the time to convince Billy to take 6 kids. Maybe involving a third team would be needed to take all or some of the prospects and give up a major league piece to the Guardians or White Sox or Mets. I had suggested soem deals involving Cincy and their third baseman going to Cleveland with prospects going to Boston and Salazar coming here, but those deals are hard to make.