moonslav59

I guess if we count Beni, we do stack up pretty well with anyone else's top 2 or 3. Three in the top 31 is nice. I'm not sure how many other teams have such a steep drop off after top 31 players. We have Travis and then another huge gap to the next guy. I'd like to see someone rank every team's 24 and under players. It's like team with great prospects that fly up the ladder and graduate early are penalized in the rankings. Of course, we'd be near the top before all these trades, but we still would look good when compared to other teams' top 6 young players. 24 Betts 24 Bogaerts 24 ERod 22 Beni 20 Devers 18 Groome Also: 24: Hernandez, Owens 23: Travis 21: Dalbec, Chatham, Ockimey 18: Raudes

Part of why I am saying it's not logical to think we can just keep rebuilding as we did under Theo and Ben. Even those two would have a harder time going forward.

Thanks for the links. I have a better understanding of the predictive part of WAR, but I disagree with its usage. There are some pitchers that never have been high K pitchers, or they let up a lot of solo HRs (like knuckleballers), but they are penalized because there numbers predict worse results than they continually get.

it concerns me and it concerns moon and I'm sure others are as well. But as I said earlier, I doubt we are losing any sleep over it and I'm sure I'll be rocking a Sale jersey at some point next year. Well said. We all want the Sox to win now and until our last breath.

We have a perfect balance right now of young controlled players, established and productive vets and a pitching staff from top to bottom that I would put up against any team in MLB. And with 100m coming off payroll after 2019 and a LT north of 200m, I really dont think years 4-7 will be bad at all... Little balance in terms of far away prospects. We went from Espi, Kopech, Basabe, Groome and others to just Groome. Less balance with near ready ML prospects with just Devers and Travis looking like ML players ready in the next year or two. Certainly a much better balanced ML roster for the here and now. Yes.

Just by DD keeping a core in tact and refusing to add certain player to trades shows me that hes concerned about the here and now as well as the future. Keeping the Core will help the here and now a lot, but it's going to be hard to see how they will help us years 4-7, unless we trade them the summer before their free agency or get comp picks when the bolt. If we keep all or most of them, it's going to cost our budget a pretty penny and keep us from filling other slots NOT BEING FILLED by up and coming top prospects, because we traded them away.

Draft pool money goes way down for lower pick teams. It's also my understanding that international pool money goes down the higher spender you are and the larger market you are.

I like WAR, even with the problems it has, but there are always cases that come up that just make me shake my head. I get that IP matters a lot, but look at the first half WARs of Price (2.6) and Wright (2.1). Should ten extra innings make that much of a difference? Price 124 Wright 114 ERA- Wright 61 (3rd in MLB) Price 98 (53rd in MLB) (Note: ERA- is an adjusted stat) WHIP Price 1.19 Wright 1.21 To me, WAR over-emphasizes Ks (FIP).

Xander, Mookie, JBJ, Benintendi, Vazquez...thats pretty damn good. Bogey was an international signing, and I hope we can continue doing well in that area, but supposedly it is going to be more difficult to acquire so much top talent as we have in recent years (Moncada, Bogey, Espi, Margot & Devers to name a few) through international signings. Mookie is the only low round draft pick turned mega star in 9 years (since Rizzo in 2007). JBJ was a comp pick- not getting any of those for a while. Beni is a top 10 pick- not getting any of those for a while. Vaz is our back-up catcher. Every position is filled for the next three years barring injury. We have corner IF prospects at the higher levels and a large group of very talented kids in the lower levels. Some of which should break out over the next couple years. Not likely trades of prospects for quality ML talent. If it's trading top ML talent for prospects, then what are we talking about? A fire sale? We have the $$$ off the books over the next the years to pay them when its time. Most of the money coming off the books will be eaten up by significant arb raises, until we lose Porcello, HanRam, Bogey in others after 2019. Try to replace those three in kind with what comes off the books that year. We can make more trades and draft to replenish the system. I hope so, but there will be no top picks to get us Beni & Groome for a while, and our record after pick number 16 is not good over the last 9-12 years. Three years is a very long time in MLB...way too much can hapoen to be so down regarding the future. Ive heard DD mention building the system back up again on more than one occasion... With what? A magic hat or a jeanie in a bottle? Im not too worried about that getting done. As long as the Sox have this ownership, im confident that they will put together a playoff/WS calibur team.... Moon keeps talking about past drafts and not doing well...different GM and different personel. This past draft looks like we got a couple possible gems if their development goes good, so im not overly concerned. I don't see DD as a farm builder upgrade over Ben. Sorry. I don't know about the new scouts and personnel guys added, and I guess there's hope there, but it's not easy for any system to draft well beyond the 24th pick every year.

Their TV contract.

But, would Leon have seen it before Pedey?

I still dislike the Kimbrel deal too, but with closer prices going through the roof, part of my position (giving prospects and paying near FA money) has been lessened in strength. He's making significantly less ($10.5M on the luxury tax budget) than a top FA closer would make today. I don't think DD would have made the Pom deal had he known he was going to get Sale. I don't blame him for that, but I still really dislike the deal. I do not think DD had to do all of these moves to make us the AL favorite. Maybe a better balance of the "now" and the "then" would have made me happier, but I'm very happy now. I'm willing to go through some tough years later on in hopes of winning a ring or two in the next 4 years. I do think times will be tough. You have great faith in Sox management, and so do I, but the times have changed. It's not the same system anymore. That doesn't mean we can't change with the times and figure out a way to acquire good young talent or just decide to become the Dodgers East and spend heavily in taxes and lost revenue sharing to stay competitive. My point is that, if we continue to draft like we have from the 20th slot down, or if you look how DD has drafted from the 20th slot down, it is not encouraging, in fact it is frightening. Sorry for not being optimistic, but what have we done to improve our scouting of lower level draft picks? I don't see DD as being better than Theo or Ben in this area, so where is the optimism coming from? If this is what we get with our non comp draft picks over the next 3-5 years, I'm not feeling any optimism at all: (Non comp picks) 16-35: 26 Chavis. 33 Kopech 14 24 Marrero, 31 Johnson 12 28 R Fuentes 09 30 C Kelly 08 27 J Place 06 Comp Picks: 16-35: 19 Barnes, Swihart 11 20 Vitek 10 28 D Bard 06 Even if you include the comp picks, it's not pretty. Maybe we'll find another Betts in the later rounds, but even he was a one in nine drafts gem (Rizzo was taken in 2007 and was the last major draft find before Betts). Again, my only optimism is with the international signings or maybe Henry deciding to pay mega taxes starting in 2-4 years. That's one reason I think Henry wants us to reset the tax this season (or next), so if he does have to go way over 3-4 years from now, the tax won't be at 50%. The international signing system has changed too. I'm not sure of the specifics, but from what I've read the new system in place makes it more difficult for high spending and big market areas to sign top prospects. If that's true, that could have a major effect on our best pipeline to great prospects.... Moncada, Bogey, Margot, Espi, Devers.... I've never said we are going to suck from 4-7 years from now. I think we can find a way to be pretty competitive in year 4, but I see no reason to think we'll be highly competitive in years 4-7 and maybe beyond. It's easy to say any team spending $200M on salaries should always be highly competitive, but that has been proven wrong time and again. We need only to look at our history from 2012 to 2015. Not enough meaningful input from youth. Poor FA choices, which is the norm for most high-priced signings. We nailed it good in 2013, but I don't think anyone wants us to construct rosters like 2012-2015 again. The main reason we did so well last year was that we did not trade Betts, JBJ, Bogey and others for the "here and now". Many we screaming to trade some for Hamels, because they felt we were just a Hamels away from being a top contender. Sound familiar with Sale? I'm highly optimistic about years 1-3. I'm not about 4-7. I really don't see any compelling argument that convinces me the odds are we will remain HIGHLY competitive after all these stars contracts expire (some of them at very low salaries comp[aritively).

And, he hits right-handed, so if he ever is needed, he could platoon at 3B with Pablo, Holt or Hernandez. He's really insurance to the other RH'd 3Bman- Rutledge.

From MLBTR... The Red Sox have added third baseman Matt Dominguez on a minor-league deal, 1500ESPN’s Darren Wolfson reports on Twitter. Dominguez receives an invitation to MLB camp next spring. Still just 27, Dominguez had a short return to the majors last year with the Blue Jays but hasn’t seen substantial time at the game’s highest level since a disappointing 2014 campaign with the Astros. He posted a .269/.315/.421 batting line with 18 long balls at Triple-A last year with the Toronto organization. Free agent slugger Jose Bautista “wanted to work something out” with the Red Sox but president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski told Bautista’s agent that the Sox were out of payroll space. Boston has over $178.3MM committed to just 10 players on the 2017 roster, plus Rusney Castillo and Allen Craig. Adding Bautista on a notable salary would again put the Sox over the luxury tax threshold, putting the team in line for a sizeable penalty.

It's like I wrote this myself.

We might see Vaz be Wright's caddy...maybe catch ERod half the time.

The scout said it was the best session he'd ever seen by a pitching prospect.

The numbers are similar to Porcello's: With Leon: 2.52 in 94 IP (11 HRs) With Vaz 3.64 in 107 IP (10 HRs) and Buch: Leon 3.84 in 61 IP (6 HRs) Vaz 5.60 in 53 IP (11 HRs) Some different results here though: Wright Vaz 2.72 in 36 IP Han 2.90 in 90 IP Leon 6.46 in 24 IP ERod Vaz 4.50 in 22 IP Leon 4.90 in 79 IP

Keeping Devers & Groome shows DD isn't 100% about the next 2 years (3 if we can replace Kimbrel & Price doesn't opt out). Those two can help us at a low cost, but it's hard to construct a winning roster with just 2-3 top class, low cost players. It's not impossible to draft a player or two who will be ready in years 4-5, but we can't wait to year 3 to do it. It almost has to be next draft. My hope remains linked to international signings. Even with restrictions, we could find some more gems. I'm not without hope. I just know losing all these kids is going to hurt some day. I'm not "worrying" or fretting or crying. I'm not losing sleep over it. I'll deal with some low times if and when they come, but I'm not going to sugar coat our losses to defend my position that these deals were great. There's a downside to most trades, and our was the extended future. I can live with it, because I love what we have now... a lot!

They'll be leading the dump DD brigade pretending they said all along DD "overpaid" back in the day.

Devers should replace Pablo, Moreland or HanRam. Travis could replace Moreland or HanRam. Groome may someday replace Pom or Porcello. We're not doomed. My point is losing Moncada, Espi, Margot, Kopech and a ton of others who combined will probably produce another 2 significant ML talents was what was going to infuse cheap talent into roster for the next 2-8 of 9 years. It's going to make a hell of a difference especially once the years of service from the guys we got are up. I'm sure Henry will make sure we stay competitive, but without ready youth at his disposal, we run the risk of having a few poor finishes bunched up together.... like we did under Ben recently before his farm got a chance to mature. If we are going to rely on free agency to carry us from years 4 to 7, good luck with that.

I've always said 4-7 years. I think we will be competitive in 4 years- maybe 5, but not highly compeitive, unless we do things we haven't done in 11 years- like draft someone great in the 15-35 slot area or find a couple of the next Betts or Rizzos with 2 in 11 odds. I'm not predicting it will happen, and I doubt it does, but if we finish in last place in 3 out of 4 years like we did with Ben, I'll bet a million dollars 90% of this board will be roasting DD for not having a long term vision. (The same way they roasted Ben for having a f***ed up short term vision.)

It baffles me that you guys think we can trade away so much incredibly highly ranked youth and think it's not going to affect the future or will by just a little bit. It's not hypocritical to love the deals we made, but recognize them for what they are: we sacrificed a big chunk of the future for a bigger chance at winning in the next 3 years. I'm fine with it, but that doesn't mean I have to deny the downside of the plan. I never said we're going to be in last place in 5 years, but these trades are going to matter someday. I'm hoping we win 2 rings, would be happy with one. It's worth it to me. It's not a complicated position to hold. I loved the trade. I've spent 40 years suggesting trades just like this one from dorm rooms to water coolers to sports blogs.

These trades are going to make a difference down the road. To what extent may be up for debate, but a price will be paid. I'm not sitting here crying over the long term future, but I did like the idea of winning for a whole decade.

So, now almost making the playoffs is okay? Let's see how they do the next 2-3 years.