moonslav59

You were responding to my post about Robbie Ross.

We've discussed that already. It has not been ignored. The "silly venture" would be taking Wright and his 6.5IP per start out of the rotation. The silly venture is thinking only Thornburg and the promise of a returning, effective Smith at some point is enough to replace Uehara, Ziegler and Tazawa. I'm not saying our pen weakness is going to cripple us, I have even mentioned how our hands seem to be tied, since adding significant salary via RP'er free agency or trading top prospects for a cost-controlled RP'er both look like untenable solutions. I realize our best option appears to be to try and fill in depth with minor league signings and let the cards sort themselves out. Hopefully, we won't need to fill a major role until well into the season, where contracts taken on are pro-rated, and salary dumps are more available than now.

I like Ross too, but like I said, we have to pin our hopes on someone improving over 2016's numbers (except Kelly's small sample size of greatness) to do better than Taz did. Ross is probably our best hope in replacing Taz. One of the greatest mysteries to me last year was why Ross, who was pitching better than in 2015, saw less IP'd in 2016. It's like Farrell avoided him, even when he was doing well, especially when it "counted". IP 2015 60.2 2016 55.1 IP Late & Close and High Leverage 2015: 65 (.739 OPS against) and 51 (.655 OPS against) 2016 64 (.553 OPS against) and 40 (.364 OPS against)

If we ever are able to get out from under Pablo's contract before it expires, I think the saved money will need to be used for rising arb costs and/or an extension to one of our star kids.

Maybe a wild scenario, but say Castillo is killing AAA ball this summer and one of our OF'ers goes down for a month. Adding Castillo to the 40 man for a month, then DFA'ing him again (nobody would take him) and we reset the same situation as we have now. We only owe 1/6 of Castillo's contract towards the luxury tax. That's only about $2M, and it's doable. Probably better just find the next de Aza, Podsednik or DMac type.

Yes, but are we sure it's related to starting vs relieving or early season vs late season? 2015: 1st half 5.67 2nd half 3.77 (including August 2.68 and Sept 3.86) All as a starter with both sample size larger than 2016's.. 2016: 1st half: 8.46 2nd half: 1.02

If a key player gets hurt in July, and we only have to pay 1/3 of an incoming player's salary, then the $9M flex space buys $27M in annual salary. That could be 2-3 quality players. If we have to trade for a player in April, we'll probably have to use all the wiggle room we have, unless we decide to trade a top prospect or young player like Swihart for a cost controlled player.

He could probably play ML ball on some team, but he'll never get the chance until his contract ends.

Having $8-9M to "play with" should be able to cover any one "major injury" but two or three might be tough. The longer we can wait, the less pro-rated money goes against the luxury budget. To not have to trade good prospects to get good talent, usually some sort of salary dump occurs, so the more we have, the better was can do, in theory.

Swihart's salary is minimum. Any player replacing him will be making equal or more than he is. I don't really see us trading any larger salary. Nobody wants Pablo, even if we pay $10 of his $19M a year. The only other remotely possible salary dump might be Abad ~$2M arb. Maybe during the year, we may try to dump Young $6.5M or Moreland $5.5M, but it looks like both have key roles right now.

2014-2016 Ranking Staring Pitchers (250+ IP: sample size 138) WAR 22.7 Kershaw 18.0 Kluber 17.3 Scherzer 17.0 D Price 16.6 C Sale 16.1 Arrieta 14.9 Lester 14.6 Quintana 14.2 Cueto 14.1 Bumgarner #24 Porcello 9.8 #88 Pomeranz 4.1 ERA- #9 Sale 74 #19 Price 80 #28 Pomeranz 84 #37 Porcello 90 WHIP #4 Sale 1.03 #18 Price 1.12 #30 Porcello 1.18 #37 Pomeranz 1.20

soxprospects.com notes on winter ball highlights: Roenis Elias started one game, striking out seven and walking four over five innings of one-run ball. Fernando Abad did not give up a run in his two appearances, recording four outs while allowing two hits. Hanley Ramirez started every game this week, going 7 for 21 with all of the hits being singles. Marco Hernandez went 0 for 9 in his three games. Sandy Leon, who made his debut on Monday for Aragua as he warms up for the World Baseball Classic,was not effective after his long layoff, going 1 for 14 with a double and two walks as Aragua was swept by Zulia in four games. Christian Vazquez has been a key contributor in the series, starting all four games and going 5 for 15 with a double and a walk. Rusney Castillo after four games he is at 4 for 19.

I think people are okay if someone doesn't believe an activity is a sport, so long that belief doesn't carry with it the belief that the participants of that activity are somehow lesser 'athletes'. I'm not saying that you or anyone here is doing that, but I get the feeling that this is what the defenders of a certain activity/sport take issue with. True, and I suppose the way I introduced the car racing thing was rather trollish. I did not mean to offend.

Sure, ideally we'd pick up another 8th inning guy. Realistically, that's not going to happen, especially with the way the price of back end relievers has gone out of control. We have our 8th and 9th inning guys. We have a couple of other guys who could step into the 8th inning role if needed. I would still like to pick up another reliever or 2, but I think our pen will be okay. That's the problem. We've seriously drained the farm to get where we are now- a top contender. Two forces are at work though... We really don't want to have to trade the last vestiges of prospects for yet another quality RP'er. We really don't want to go over the luxury tax limit. Keeping at least some flex space for the deadline seems essential. My guess is the most realistic options to wait until the deadline. Contract prices will only be a third of their season value, and we may be able to find values like Ziegler again, or take some hefty contract off some out-of-contention team's hands for scraps. Of course, I'd love to have an 8th inning RP'er added to start the season, but I'm not willing to use all the luxury tax space or trade more of our best prospects away, so I realize this is probably pretty close to what we'll have to start the season... maybe a few minor league depth pieces added, cross our fingers and hope Smith comes to the rescue at least until the deadline.

It's hard to define without someone finding an activity that fits the definition but just doesn't pass the smell test. I guess my definition is that a "sport" is what I think a sport is. This might be how each of us define it. I don't know, maybe... No machines involved. Physical activity. Physical skill involved. An opponent(s) is needed. I'm not sure if a ball or puck is needed, but just about all the activities I call sports do. I really have no beef with people who call driving a car in circles a sport, but I don't see it as one.

I have never denied the incredible amount of stresses and physical demands a race car driver has. Not many sports put you so close to death, if you screw up. It is a feat of athleticism to compete in a race. I just don't see it as a sport. My opinion is narrow. I think we are just arguing semantics.

He's a big hope; I agree. But the emphasis is on "hope". He fooled us at the end of 2015 as well.

I disagree. Taz was better last year than most of the guys we are asking to replace him. They have to get better to be an improvement over Taz. Our pen had a WHIP of 1.284 and Taz was at 1.228. That might seem pretty close to average, but the guys we are asking to replace him were below or well below the team average. Also, I has earlier mentioned how we may be remembering how our pen was to end the season and projecting continued glory. Taz ended the season with 7 straight scoreless outings (7.1 IP 5H 1 BB 7K). RP'er WHIP 0.96 Uehara 1.02 Kelly 1.09 Kimbrel 1.10 Buch 1.23 Taz 1.25 Ross 1.25 Zieg 1.33 Hemb 1.33 Scott 1.40 Barnes 1.66 Abad Only Kelly is returning, and how much can we expect him to be better than 1.23? Thornburg can hopefully replace Uehara, and maybe Smith can replace Ziegler's half season with us, but if Kelly does well replacing Taz, who replaces 2016's Kelly? Then, there's Buch's innings in relief to replace.... IP 49.2 Taz 47.0 Ueh 29.2 Taz 28.2 Layne (1.43) 22.2 Buch Total: 178 IP Thornburg maybe 60 C Smith maybe 35 Kelly maybe 33 more We're still 50 short... Hembree 51>??? Barnes 67>??? Ross 55> ??? Scott 6 > ???

Barring injury, I agree, but I'd still like to replace Uehara, Ziegler and Taz with more than Thornburg and hopes of a healthy productive Smith returning sooner rather than later.

It was amazing how price and Porcello stayed back-to-back virtually all season long. Makes me wonder if starting one of them the 4th game of the year might make sense. Avoid back-to-back games with our 4-5 starters. Note: Wright's 6.5 IP per start was nearly a full inning above the league average, but the rest were horrible. 6.8 Porcello 6.6 Price 6.5 Wright 5.7 LEAGUE AVG 5.6 Buch 5.4 ERod 5.2 Pom with BOS 5.1 O'Sull 4.4 Owens 3.7 Kelly

Ideally, picking up an 8th inning guy to pair with Thornburg would be nice, but with luxury tax issues looming and a strong need to keep some flex budget space, I can see why it hasn't happened. We already traded more youth to get Thornburgh. We traded 4 prospects for Kimbrel the previous winter. As much as I feel a strong need to acquire a top quality RP'er, I doubt we can pull it off right now. Maybe we can find another Ziegler this summer. We also found Uehara for pretty cheap years ago. It's the Andrew Bailey and Hanrahan type deals that have failed us. One could argue the Kimbrel deal may follow suit.

Agreed, but last year our starters finished 5th in IP, so I don't think we can lay blame on them for how our pen was average and below for a big stretch of 2016.

Ross has never been viewed as the "go to lefty vs lefties", so I think this article was mistaken there. Another thing they missed is that Thornburg has a .201 reverse split. Although he's a RHP'er, he is much better vs LHBs. I agree that Pom is better suited for the pen than Wright, but not because he's a lefty. After earlier assurances that ERod was going to be in the rotation, it seems there's a mixed message now.

I expected two quality pen arms added to take the place of the 3 we lost. That was counting on Smith being ready by opening day. That doesn't seem likely now, so I'm still waiting for the 40th man to be added to our 39 man roster to be a decent RP'er.

Okay, call me "pollito".