moonslav59

2 bags of used balls is the floor. Pat Light types might be the ceiling... far away prospects not needing 40 man roster status. DFA if nobody bites.

Good point, but we also have to look at this: Carrasco and Salazar started 50 games last year, and both were under a 3.90 ERA. Both returning is not going to significantly affect their seasonal record. If we are talking playoffs and their absence from it, the guys who replaced them did damn well, so how much of an upgrade can they give the Guardians when comparing 2016 to the hypothetical 2017 playoffs? Tomlin, Bauer and Merrit went 3-0 in the AL playoffs. They did struggle in the WS (1-2), but we're talking best of the AL here.

Our fifth starter spot was horrific last year. Depends how you look at who our 5th starter was. I think we started the season like this: 1 Price 2 Porcello 3 ERod 4 Buchholz 5 Kelly When injuries and struggles happened, one could argue Wright became our 5th starter and did great. I do agree with your point though, Sale is a huge upgrade over whoever our 5th starter was going to be this year (Buch or Pom in my opinion).

We should keep Ross. He's been very consistent over recent years. I'd trade Abad & Elias. I'd try to squeeze Hembree onto the 25 man roster (creative with the DL- which is now 10 days long). I've been saying all along, trading Buch solves a lot of financial problems that should outweigh the loss of starter depth, as we will have close to $13M of flex money to spend over the season. For example, if we can get to the deadline, we could trade for a starter making $30M and only be hit with a $10M charge.

$10.5M is the luxury tax number- the average salary of his contract. Cot's has this... 4 years/$42M (2014-17), plus 2018 club option signed extension with Atlanta 2/16/14 (avoided arbitration, $9M-$6.55M) $1M signing bonus 14:$7M, 15:9M, 16:$11M, 17:$13M, 18:$13M club option ($1M buyout) may earn additional $3.5M in performance bonuses award bonuses, including $50,000 for All-Star selection

It seems so long ago.

Did DD not see this coming when he signed Moreland, or is this a shock or was he never really interested at even a low cost? Of course, he may still sign for $60M/3.

Word is they are out on EE, but maybe Bautista.

The Red Sox have avoided arbitration with Brandon Workman, per a club announcement (h/t Tim Britton of the Providence Journal, via Twitter). Terms of the deal remain unreported at this time. Workman, 28, was eligible for the first time despite the fact that he hasn’t pitched in the majors since 2014. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2015, and never quite made it back to the big leagues last season — though did throw twenty minor-league rehab frames. While there may still be some risk in the health of Workman’s right arm, Boston isn’t staking much on its bet. MLBTR projected him to earn just $600K this year, most of which won’t even be guaranteed until camp is about to break next spring. Mostly, it’s a matter of occupying a 40-man spot, which the Sox are evidently willing to do to get another look at the former second-round pick. --Jeff Todd

I'm not sure I'd say the Guardians were better than the Sox this year based on a 3 game series. They also have to fill Naps shoes, if he bolts. They certainly stack up well with us on paper.

Agreed. Moreland would be the back-up 1Bman not a platoon. I seriously doubt it happens, but if he falls below the value DD put on him, one never knows.

I think we got Rutledge and Dominguez to fill the gap between AA and MLB 3B starter. Hernandez & Holt are also short term options with a chance at surprising us.

We've drafted and two in the last 11 years and kept one. That's great! The problem is that's about all the real good (non MVP type) talent we've drafted, except for comp picks.

That's one way to look at it, and I'm all in on the window approach, but the other approach would be to realize that it is going to be very hard to acquire top young prospects for the next few years, so why not keep all our top prospects, especially the ones a long way away, so we'll be ahead of the curve for next 7-8 years. I'm not saying I'm for this alternative plan, but we could have traded JBJ when Beni was ready or when Margot was ready. Trade Pedey when Moncada was ready. Trade Leon when Swihart is ready. Trade Pom when Kopech is ready. Trade Porcello or Wright when Espi or Groome are ready. Keep stocking the farm by trading vets for prospects when the next prospect is ready. Of course, we wouldn't make all these trades, but you get the idea of keeping the farm well-stocked by circulating prospects for vets before they bolt or get too costly. A balance might have been better, but not at the expense of the Sale of Thornburg deals. Again, I'm not upset. I'm thrilled with where we're at right now, but I happen to think out extended future will suffer deeply at some point.

If he hadn't signed Moreland, and he can find someone to take Buch and his whole contract, that would be $19M right there. If EE ends up signing for $19M x 2 or 3 years, will you be toasting DD?

I've been saying all along- a decent prospect even if in single A. The salary relief would allow us to fill in where needed at the deadline.

Steamer Projected WAR Pitchers Sox 4.7 Sale 4.5 Price 3.7 Porcello 2.2 Pomeranz (24 GS) 1.6 ERod (23 GS) 0.5 Buch (6 GS) 0.4 Wright (6 GS) serious short-changed here 1.0 Kimbrel 0.8 Kelly 0.4 Ross 0.3 Thornburg (Hmmm) 0.4 Smith (giving him more IP, 40, than Wright!?!?) 0.2 Barnes 0.1 Hembre0.1 Abad CLE 4.8 Kluber 4.4 Carrasco 3.3 Salazar 1.6 Bauer 1.4 Timlin 0.8 Clevinger 0.5 Cooney 0.3 Merritt 1.8 Miller 0.8 Allen 0.5 Otero 0.5 McAllister 0.4 Shaw o.3 C Anderson Position Players Sox 5.4 Betts 3.8 Bogey 3.6 Pedey 3.0 JBJ 1.7 HanRam 1.3 Beni 1.1 Leon 0.9 Pablo 0.8 Vaz 0.7 Holt 0.6 Moreland 0.4 Young 0.1 Swihart Guardians 4.8 Lindor 3.3 Ramirez 2.8 Kipnis 2.6 Santana 1.4 Naquin 1.2 Brantley 1.1 Y Gomes 1.o R Perez 0.9 Guyer 0.8 Chisenhall 0.6 A Almonte'0.1 E Gonzalez

Wow, Ziegler is looking for a 3rd year guaranteed! Rumor has it he has multiple offers on the table at around $17M/2. Makes that "other" Basabe and Almonte trade look even better now. Wish we could have found a way to keep him, but at that cost, we'd pay that and a high tax.

Maybe we'd make it easier for Porcello to win by having him line-up with other teams' 3rd starter over the first 2-3 weeks of the season.

That's the thing I think some posters are missing. We built our farm to top 2 or 3 status using a system that allowed us to take advantage of our high spending and accumulation of comp picks- often rewards for signing big free agents or trading for high-priced players and then letting them walk, only to replace them with new high-priced free agents or players from trades. The great 2011 draft was all comp picks. That's not likely to happen again. The system is way different, and we should be winning over the next few years, so all of this is going to make rebuilding near impossible "the old way". It's easy to sit back and say, "these guys are smart, they'll find a way to rebuild the farm" or "Henry has more money than God, so we can just go wsay over the luxury tax, if we need to." Over the next 3-4 years, we can expect this: 1) No more top 20 picks like 7 Beni & 12 Groome. 2) More picks like these: 26 Chavis, 24 Marrero, 20 Vitek, 28 Fuentes, C Kelly, 27 Jason Place, 28 D Bard 3) No more comp picks like Kopech for Ellsbury, Johnson & Light for Papelbon, Barnes & Owens for VMart and JBJ & Swihart for Beltre, Ranaudo for Wagner, Bard for Damon, Ellsbury & Lowrie for OCab and Buchholz for Pedro. 4) Much less ability to sign international players like: Moncada $31.5M (C Sale) plus $31.5M tax, Espinoza $1.8M (Pomeranz), Devers $1.5M, J Diaz $600K (Sale), Margot $800K (Kimbrel), J Aro (C. Smith), Bogey $510K, Iggy $6.25M (Peavy > Hembree), F Montas (Peavy>Hembree), Tazawa $1.8M, Dice-K, Okajima, Doubront, A Sanchez, HanRam, Jorge de la Rosa (Schilling) Look where we'd be without a lot of the players listed above. That easily could be where we might be in 4-8 years.

...and I will say that Tito at one time said he liked having Wake in the rotation because it disrupted the timing of the opposing hitters, often times for more than one game... I wish I had saved my data, but I once did a 5 year study on games started after a Wake start and compared the ERA of that starter to his season ERA. There was a significant improvement in ERAs after a Wake start. Take my word for it. It's true.

I'm not sure 10 years is necessary. Our 2013 draft sucked. Maybe TBall (7th pick)will surprise us, but I seriously doub it. Stankiewicz (pick 45) is now ranked below 40 on soxprospects.com. Jon Denny is out of baseball (81st pick). Probably only Kyle Martin and Jake Romanski have ML hopes at this point. (Longhi? Witte?) 2012 may be harder to judge, but Marrero, Johnson and Light were all top 40 picks. Yuck! I dount Callahan or any of the 3 amount to anything special. 2011 is still hard to judge fully, and with 4 first round picks, expectations should be high, but I'll go out on a limb and say it was a very good to great draft: 19 Barnes 26 Swihart 36 Owens 40 Bradley 143 N Ramirez 172 Mookie Betts 292 Travis Shaw WOW! 2010 can be fully judge right now: it SUCKED!!!! 20 K Vitek- out of baseball 36 Brentz- my first DFA choice 39 Ranaudo - at least we got Robbie Ross for him 57 Workman 110 S Coyle Cechini 2009: BUST! 28 Reymond Fuentes 77 Alex Wilson 107 David Renroe Hazelbaker/Hassan 2008: Can be judged as a bust or close to it 30 Kelly (Agon) 45 B Price 77 D Gibson 85 S Fife 108 Weiland Vazquez/Westmoreland/Lava 2007: we drafted Rizzo in the 6th round- our last great pick outside of Betts. Still... 55 hagadone 62 R Dent 84 H Morris Middy This was the draft 10 years ago.

It was a joke aimed at exposing our future inability to make impact trades with no top prospects. Devers will be at 3B (Pablo at 1B or DH in 1-2 years). Groome will be needed to replace Porcello (or Pom & Buch). Travis will replace Moreland and then HanRam/Pablo. Who is left to trade for a top player?

...and is still significantly younger than most players at the level he has been at.

If CLE loses Napoli and doesn't replace him in kind, that will hurt. That CLE rotation and depth looks tough: Kluber, Salazar, Carrasco, Bauer, Tomlin, Merrit & McAllister (RP?)