moonslav59

He's okay for a platoon vs RHPs. He's a great defensive 1Bman. DH'ing HanRam vs RHPs may extend his career and give him more PAs this year. Young can DH vs LHPs. Hopefully, Devers will be ready next year, and we can move Pablo to 1B or use HanRam at 1B more.

Yes, Young has been one of MLB's best hitters vs lefties over the last two seasons. He may have to spell the OF'er some days, and it's probably best to rest Beni and JBJ vs lefties. Young can play vs RHPs, but it shouldn't be too often...maybe only when Betts needs a rest.

Can we cancel the Pom-Espi trade now?

What Buch has that hardly any MLB pitcher has, is the proven ability to have extended (but not too long) streaks of near best of the best numbers. Injury issues and Inconsistency when healthy makes him a wildcard gamble, but he has already proven his upside, unlike many others. Out of 5210 season samples sizes of MLB starters with over 100 IP in a given season since 1974, here's how two of Buchs' seasons rank in ERA-: 1 Pedro 35 -2000 2 Maddux 37 -1994 3 Maddux 39 -1995 4 Buchholz 42 -2013 5 Pedro 42 -1999 15 Clemens 45 -1997 18 Pedro 48 -2003 20 Pedro 50 -2002 28 Pedro 53 -2001 34 Buchholz 53 -2010 (22nd out of 3051 pitchers with 170+ IP) Only Kershaw and Buch has been in the top 35 twice since Pedro.

Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets that the Nats are close to getting Adam Eaton from the White Sox. Top outfield prospect Victor Robles is not in the deal, he adds. Best defensive RF'er in MLB and a .361-.362 OBP for 3 straight seasons!

I told you guys the CWS would have a fire sale or fire Sale: Ken Rosenthal of FOX Sports tweets that the Nats are close to getting Adam Eaton from the White Sox. Top outfield prospect Victor Robles is not in the deal, he adds. If they trade Quintana, I'll always wonder, "what if...?"

1. Sale 2. Porcello 3. Price 4. ERod 5. Wright 6. Pomeranz 7. Buchholz 8. Johnson 9. Owens 10. Elias, if he's still here.

I trust DD's assessment more than Farrell's: --Dave Dombrowski says Sandoval is in "tremendous shape" I trust my eyes on a DEC 5 foto: I don't trust Pablo to stay this way for long or to be very productive, but we may just need him to get us to the trade deadline..

Yes, and I still think you secretly think Buch would do great with the M's this year. You just don't want to pay (in trade) dearly for him.

I've always viewed building the rotation from the top in this way. Sale now makes a Cy Young winner our #2! Sale now makes our $31M man our #3. Sale now makes ERod our #4. Sale now makes Wright our #5. Sale now adds Pomeranz to our pen and SP'er depth. Sale now moves Buch down one notch on the rotation depth chart, and a more likely striong contributor to the pen, which needs help replacing the innings given by Ziegler, Uehara, Tazawa and others..

Thank you for the great response. These two rankings lists may be two of the best in recent MLB history: 2015-2016 (assuming no trades) 1) Moncada 2) Beni 3) Margot 4) Espinoza 5) ERod (not first acquired by Sox) 6) Devers 7) Kopech 8) Guerra 9) Basabe 10) Hernandez-T Shaw (This, after graduating a few players earlier than maybe they could have been: Bogey, Betts, JBJ, Swihart, Vaz 2005-2006 (assuming no trades) 1. Lester 2. HanRam 3. Pedroia 4. Papelbon 5. Ellsbury 6. Buchholz 7. A Sanchez 8. Shoppach 9. B Moss 10. D Murphy, J Lowrie, Delcarmen, Masterson (This after just graduating Youkilis, Freddie Sanchez & Jorge de la Rosa!)

There's a simpler way to do it. Take all the Sox homegrown players in MLB and form a team. Would that team be better than average or not? I say it would be way better than average, before you look at the pitching, and still better overall counting the pitching. Hell, just our homegrown ex-players would be pretty competitive: C Federowicz, Lavarnway 1B Rizzo 2B Moncada, Lowrie SS Iggy, Dubon, Guerra 3B Shaw/Middy LF Margot, Nava CF Ellsbury, Fuentes RF Reddick DH B Moss SP Lester, Doubront, A Sanchez, Kopech, Montas, Masterson, Kelly, Espinoza RP Papelbon, Wilson, Aro, Light, Strickland, Ranaudo Combine that with this homegrown team: C: Vazquez/Swihart 1B: HanRam, Travis, Longhi 2B: Pedroia 3B: Devers, Dalbec, Chavis SS: Bogaerts, Marrero, Chatham LF: Benintendi CF: Bradley RF: Betts DH: Castillo/Witte SP: Owens, Johnson, Groome, Raudes, TBall RP: Barnes, N Ramirez, Workman, Ysla, Martin, Jerez and you get this: C: Vaz-Swihart 1B: Rizzo 2B: Pedey, Moncada 3B: Bogey, Shaw, Devers SS: Iggy, Lowrie, Dubon LF: Beni, Reddick CF: JBJ, Ellsbury RF: Betts, Margot DH: HanRam, B Moss SP: Lester, A Sanchez, Doubront, Masterson, Montas, Espinoza, Kopech, Groome RP: Papelbon, A Wilson, Strickland, Barnes, Ranaudo, Aro, Light, N Ramirez

I realize the had a surplus, and I know how GMs try to exploit that surplus out of a surety that they almost have to trade him, but I got to think they could have done better. I realize I may be over-valuing Soler and/or under-valuing Davis, but I think the deal was a steal. I get why the Cubs made the deal, just like I get why the Sox traded for Kimbrel.

I totally agree, and I trust that DD hasn't based his trade of Shaw on looking at one foto.

Look at 2012, since that was far enough away to gauge success a little bit. Yes, many failed, but how many teams come up with guys like Bogey, JBJ, Iggy, Swihart, Wilson and Barnes out of their top 10? Sure, some have done better, but in my opinion, I think we've done better than most, and 2012 wasn't even close to our best prospect list since Henry came to town. Then, when you factor in our lower picks than most, we're clearly doing better than the norm, even counting the lack of pitching.

Please, take a look at other teams' past top 10 prospect lists. Ours has had plus success when compared to the norm. Plus, we've had lower picks than most teams. Many of our best prospects have done well for other teams, but they were products of our system. The only area we lack in has been pitching.

If we had an opening at 2B, I think Moncada would have started the season in the bigs opening day. He probably will for the CWS. Kopech may see ML action late next year, but mid to late 2018 is probably the realistic timeline.

Just because you have an abundance of youth, does not mean you have to make deals like this one. I'm probably over-valuing Soler or something, but this deal seams wacked out to me.

I saw the picture posted recently, but I have accepted nothing as far as what I expect from him.

Mine looked backward.

It's doubtful. We can wait until the deadline, if we have to, and the amount saved (~$4.5M) by trading him then for no return salary would be just barely enough to get us under the luxury limit. If we trade him this winter, we may save up to $13.5M off the luxury limit- gicing us about an $8M cushion, but we lose the "cushion" of having a possible quality 6/7 starter on the roster.

While I agree those trades won't happen, listing the reduction in projected WAR due to fewer innings does not take away from his projected value to the M's.

I suspect the package of Yoan Moncada, Michael Kopech, Luis Alexander Basabe and Victor Diaz includes the equivalent of one Anthony Rizzo, one Casey Kelly and one Reymond Fuentes. While Kelly was soxprospects #1 for a little over a year, Rizzo never got higher than #3 (with Kalish or Anderson ahead of him). Fuentes never got higher than #13. in BA's 2010 rankings, they had Westmoreland 21, Kelly 24, Reddick 75, Anderson 87 and Rizzo not even ranked. Not only was Kelly never close to Moncada in ranking, he wasn't even our highest ranked prospect. Kelly made it to 31st to start the 2011 season. Fuentes and Rizzo were unranked. Conversely, Moncada was #1 in all MLB. Kopech was #5 all season on soxprospects, Basabe made it as high as #7 and Diaz to #21.

So is DD, but 4 years of a guy who has some MLB success and is projected to take off for 1 year of a RP'er coming off an injury seems very risky.

I totally disagree, except for maybe the pitching part. Not only have we acquired more top level prospects than most teams, especially drafting as low as we have for the last few years, I feel our top prospects have succeeded at a much higher rate than the average. We've had a few duds like everyone else, but we've had a lot of players who have done well. I can go back to 2003-2005 where 17 or more guys from the Sox top 20 lists all made it to MLB and at least had some limited success: HanRan, Lester, Pedroia, Ellsbury, Youkilis, Pabelbon, Buchholz, Lowrie, Freddie Sanchez, Jorge de la Rosa, Anibal Sanchez, Doubront, Shoppach, David Murphy, Brandon Moss, Delcarmen, Meredith Yes, the 2009-2011 era had some misses, but many were never highly rated nationally. Westmoreland's case was unfortunate. Kelly and Lars were big misses, and Kalish, Middy, Ranaudo and others were disappointments, but Rizzo has done great and Reddick, Iggy, Bard and Wilson had some moments. Plus, we added Bogey, barnes and Swihart to the fall rankings in 2011. Fall 2012: 1) Bogey 2) Barnes 3) JBJ 4) Webster (got us Miley, who got us C Smith) 5) Brentz-bust 6) Cecchini - bust 7) Swihart 8) Owens 9) Iggy 10) D Britton 14) A Wilson 2013: 1 Bogey 2 JBJ 3 Cecchini 4 Owens 5 Barnes 6 Ranaudo (got us R Ross) 7 Webster 8 Swihart 9 T Ball 10 Betts 13 Vaz 14 Margot 2014 1 Betts 2 Swihart 3 Margot 4 Devers 5 ERod 6 Barnes 7 Owens 8 Johnson 9 Vazquez 10 Chavis 14 Kopech 17 T Shaw 2015 1 Moncada 2 Beni 3 Espi 4 Devers 5 Kopech 6 Guerra 7 Travis 7 Owens 8 Johnson 9 Chavis 10 Marrero 12 Basabe 13 L Allen 17 Hernandez 18 Dubon