moonslav59

I'm thinking that even DD would have taken back the Espi trade, if he knew he was going to get Sale. We'd be under the luxury limit and could keep Buch.

I am happy we are set up to win, but I don't deny our future will suffer for it. I don't see a contradiction. We have also made several other trades besides the Sale one. I was strongly against the Kimbrel trade, but have softened my stance a little once top RP'er contracts ballooned to extreme numbers. I still hate the Espi-Pom trade. I disliked the Hill trade from day one, but it wasn't a big deal. Overall, I like what we've done, but if I could undo some deals, I'd take back the three trades I mentioned or at least the Pom & Hill trades. Our extended future would look better, and we'd still be strong contenders for the next 3 years... a little more balance.

That was a while ago. The Sox wanted Luis Castillo. To get him, I assume we'd have to pay much of Buch's contract. I doubt this deal happens, but I do think we are actively listening to offers for Buch.

Yes, he might have traded for Q-iguana and Thornburg and signed Cueto and EE, but no Kimbrell or Espi.

Me too! For over 45 years I have suggested trades like this. My dream came true!

MLBTR... Sale’s former pitching coach with the White Sox, Don Cooper, told Nick Cafardo of the Boston Globe, “He knows himself really good. His delivery is solid.” Cooper added, “Chris Sale has three above-average major league pitches that he pours in and throws strikes. I don’t want to sound cocky, but I don’t think anyone saying stuff has a better idea about his delivery than me.” Cooper then lavished further praise on the 27-year-old Sale, who he thinks landed with the right club. “He’s put up Hall of Fame-credible numbers. And now he’s going to a team that is sparing no expense,” said Cooper. “Nothing stands in the way of them putting together the best team. He’s going to a team where he has a chance to put up even more wins. If he has 10 years like he’s had, he has a chance to have a Hall of Fame career.” Full article https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/redsox/2016/12/17/nick-cafardo-why-chris-sale-delivery-works-for-him/j5slTzAgR7miJUAsQoAgHM/story.html

There is no way of knowing, but I am as close to certain as can be that if Ben has stayed on, he would have made at least one blockbuster top prospect trade and would have signed a big named SP'er.

You can certainly improve your odds of being a competitive team 5 and 10 years down the road by acquiring and keeping near and far away top prospects. Theo and Ben did the acquiring part of the equation, which is the hard part. Keeping a balance was entrusted to DD, and he decided to go for broke at the expense of seriously weakening our extended outlook. We'll find out 4-10 years from now, and I don't want to hear any crap about how "we don't know if these ex-Sox players playing allstar baseball elsewhere would be doing that for us had we kept them." The same way we view the AGon trade differently years later as Rizzo has become a star, and Rizzo wasn't even projected to be as great as several guys we have traded in the last 13 months. The HanRam/Sanchez- Beckett/Lowell trade was different, as we all expected HanRam to become something special, but it was still "speculative" to some extent, and the fact that he and Anibal went on to have some very good to great seasons does make that trade look more questionable than it did at the time and after our 2007 ring. A ring in the next 3 years will certainly make viewing these recent trades in a much different light down the road, but if we fail to win a ring, DD will probably be gone and someone else will have to pick up the pieces.

Obviously you go somewhere in between. DD traded this: Mid-season Baseball America Rankings: #1 Moncada #15 Espinosa #39 Margot #87 Guerra (52 to start the season/right after the trade) #93 Kopech Highest soxprospects.com ranking: 1. Moncada 3. Espinoza 3. Margot 3. Cecchini 5. Kopech 6. Guerra 7. Basabe 10. Dubon 12. T Shaw (not a prospect when traded) 12. Wendell Rijo 13. Logan Allen 13. Pat Light 14. Edwin Escobar (claimed off waivers) 18. Basabe (the other one) 20. Carlos Asuaje 21. Victor Diaz 21. Jonathan Aro 27. Josh Pennington 30. Aaron Wilkerson 40. Jose Almonte And kept this: Devers Groome Travis I don't see that as somewhere in between. I suppose in theory it is, but it's way to one side of the spectrum. This isn't a keeper fantasy team. It's not the good old days before free agency, when players were locked into their team for life, unless traded or cut. If it was, we'd have an excellent present & future as nobody is older than 33 on our roster, and much of our best talent is still pre-prime or early prime. Unless Henry is going to open the wallet and let"money flow in", there is a strong possibility, not a certainty, but a very strong chance this team will be suffering for the choices made by DD this past 13 months once we get to year 4 to 8 or even 9 & 10, if Espi and other very young prospects dealt away do very well. Again, I'm fine with what was done (sans Espi), but I see what we did and know we will have to pay for our excesses at some point down the road. There are consequences to everything we do.

In 3 or 4 years, then what? This is the exact mentality that got your Yankees where they were last year and this.

You are right, and Theo also strategically made some big prospect trades here and there, when needed. The Schilling trade. The Beckett/Lowell trade. The Agon trade. But, if you notice, these weren't all done in a 13 month window. He spread them out to allow for a constant or near constant flow of prospects into the system while filling the holes with FAs and trades.

He has been "batting practiced" maybe only twice. Here's how one could cherry pick his playoff games on the assumption that, if he was yanked at the right time (in hindsight) how well or poorly has he done: His first 5 games were in relief: 6.2 IP 1 ER, 2 H, 4 BB, 8 K Had his teams never made the playoffs again, how would people predict his next playoff game? Here are his playoff starts in the most positive way to view them: IP ER 6.2 4 6.0 3 6.0 1 (3 runs allowed in 7th- 1 scored after he left) 7.0 7 vs BOS in 2013 8.0 2 6.1 4 (let up solo HR in 7th) in relief of Dickey: 1.2 IP 0 (ended up with 3 ER in 3 IP) 6.0 0 (let up 5 ER in 7th) 6.1 2 (ended up with 6.2 IP 3 ER as next pitcher allowed his runner to score) 2.1 0 this year vs CLE, then GB single between SS & 3B, weak GB single to SS, LD single and 3 run HR. Later Barnes let up an inherited runner and Price ended up with 3.1 IP and 5 ER 9 GS'd and 4 games where he was at 6 IP with 2 or less ERs. One with 3 ER. If you count his first 6.2 IP in relief with 1 ER, he looks better.

THe top is pretty close, but some major differences the lower you get (as expected). The first big difference is Dalbec #16 not#5. Others... Lakins at #8 to #17 TBall 10 not 15. Marrero still at 15, while soxprospects has him at 38. Jerex at 19 not 32 and Brakeman at 21 not 40.

This is an impossible discussion to be having until we can quantify "much". How many post-season innings does a pitcher have before their post-season stats mean "much"? Way more than anybody has ever had. I maintain that no pitcher will ever meet the normal qualifications for having an adequate sample size to make their stats mean "much". Correct. That means that statiscially every pitcher in every game is on nearly equal footing. No, not at all. You could start Fernando Abad against Max Scherzer and since neither of them have a large enough sample size to be significant one would have to say that based on statistics Abad vs. Scherzer is a nearly equal matchup. And that's ridiculous. Exactly. Would you really think a guy who went 20-4 with a 1.50 ERA but had no playoff experience would have an equal chance of winning over a guy who went 4-20 with a 6.25 ERA with no playoff experience? Now, that would be ridiculous! Regular season sample sizes still influence what you'd expect to happen in the playoffs. It doesn't always work that way, but baseball never works that way. A great regular season pitcher can always lose to a horrible starter at any given time. Once could find poor regular season sample sizes by great pitchers within their regular season careers. Look how Price sucked to start the year. That wasn't predictable based on his regular season history, but it happened. One could cherry pick some games here and there spread out over several seasons that make every pitcher look bad. It could just be coincidence that Prices so many bad games have fallen during playoff games. Maybe not. Maybe the pressure does get to him more than others. MLB is full of examples of players who sucked in their first 10-15 playoff games (like Papi) but then did great afterwards and vice versa. Players are streaky. It could be as simple as that. It could be more complicated. I don't think we'll ever know, bu I'll take Price in any playoff game over Abad or many other starters with similar playoff sample sizes with better results. I fail to understand why some posters are defending Price's post-season numbers. I'm not defending Price. The guy has sucked in just about every playoff start he's had. The odds are greatly against that as a random occurrence, but not impossible. I don't know why he has sucked so much. There could be other factors involved- small injuries, tough match-ups, poor fielding, facing starters who had freakishly good outings, as well as maybe just some games where the pressure did get to him or that he just plain had an off day. My guess would be that he's probably had some bad luck combined with him just not being at his best. The reason for that is speculative, but that doesn't take away from the fact that he has sucked. Is he a gag? A choke? Maybe? Probably? My position is we don't know, and even if we were able to determine that most of his poor performances were due to being a player that reacts poorly to higher pressure, it's still not a sure bet that it's a predictor of what will happen in the next pressure situation. Often times, players and teams that come up short for a few years, learn from their experiences and overcome the" jitters" or whatever it was that caused them to lose previously. Pressure does different things to different people. Since the only difference between the regular season and the post-season is that the post-season is...well.. post-season it's different. To say that an pitcher with an ERA of 3.21 in the regular season and an ERA >5.50 in the post-season is insignificant is sticking our heads in the sand. Certainly, I'd hesitate to bet on Price in his next playoff game, but with a gun pointed to my head, I'd bet on Price over Buch or Pom or Wright and many other SP'er. I'm not hating on the guy. I think he's a great regular season pitcher, but he is what his numbers say he is - a great regular season pitcher who pitches poorly in the post-season. I like having the guy on the team, but I don't think we should run him out there in a post season game and expect him to give up only 2 runs in 6 innings until he proves he can do it. Well, JBJ was what he was before he wasn't who he was, right? Or, he was who he always was, but just had a tough stretch, a slump, a learning curve, or whatever it was, but he ended up pretty close to what his minor league numbers showed and what scouts thought he'd be. Maybe Price will too; maybe not, but I'm not going to use a small sample size as the ONLY predictor of what is to come. .

New Rankings for the remaining Sox prospects on soxprospects.com: http://soxprospects.com/index.html 1 Benintendi- no surprise 2 Devers- on the rise 3 Groome- only 18 4 Travis- ML ready once re-habbed 5 Dalbec- leap frogged Johnson & Hernandez 6 Johnson 7 Hernandez 8 Chatham 9 Ockimey 10 Raudes- leap frogged Chavis & Longhi 11 Chavis, 12 Lomghi, 13 Shawaryn, 14 Ysla, 15 Martin, 16 TBall, 17 Lakins, 18 Cosart, 19 B Mata, 20 Shepherd, 21 Bautista Other fast risers: Stephen Nogosek 35>25 Robby Scott 50>29 Austin Glorius 45>34 Tyler Hill 47>35

Our starting pitchers and years of team control (assuming Price does not opt out): C. Sale X X X Porc'llo X X X D Price X X X X X X E Rodr. X X X X X Wright X X X X Pomrnz X X Bucholz X Best hopes for in house solutions: Age/Pitcher 18 Groome 26 Johnson 24 Owens 28 Workman (3 years of control) 28 Elias (no options/5 years of control) 22 TBall 22 Shawaryn 17 B Mata

Great article on Ziegler the freak... http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/brad-ziegler-is-a-freak/

I said it meant something. Just not much.

I agree that it does mean something...but it certainly doesn't mean much.

That's why I said "different teams" due to roster tightness for most teams.

I have to vigorously dispute that any analyst would say we were set very well for the next 10 years. Take a look at our roster now and see what it might be in 10 years. All our Killer B's will even be past their primes in 10 years. I wouldn't say "very well set", but with more top far away prospects than other teams certainly improves out odds. While Betts, Bogey and JBJ would be past prime in 10 years (or gone), players like Espi would likely still have been under team control for years 4 to 10. Moncada maybe 1-7 or 2-8. Kopech 2-8 or 3-9 Having others like Basabe, Pennington, Diaz, Basabe, Asuaje and others would improve our odds as well.

We should trade Buch, Abad and Elias (not to the same team) for the best we can get, even if it's not much.

Both Abad and Elias are +0.1 with steamer.

Not ignore, but also not read too much into it either. Remember, Papi went 10 for his first 50 post season ABs in 14 games (0 HRs, 4 DBLs and 2 BB) .231 OBP, .280 SLG, .511 OPS, yet he was one of baseball's best clutch players of all time--if not the best.

Putting who I believe is our best 4 slot starter, ERod, in AAA has some merit, but it saves us no money and still probably keeps a $13.5 M arm in the pen with Wright and Pom as the 4-5 starters.