moonslav59

I think Vaz is going to be the back-up, unless Leon flops. Assuming Leon hits over .700 (no easy assumption, granted), I could see the Sox moving Vaz and Swihart up and down a couple time to get each of them the game action they both need.

They're not even very close on projecting vets.

There are only 4 possible scenarios for Swihart: Injured, traded, starting catcher in Boston, starting catcher in Pawtucket. That's it. Why not the same logic with Vaz? He needs serious work on his offense, and won't get it being Leon's back-up. If Sox management thinks Swihart adds significant value as a platoon or back-up player due to an injury or struggling player ahead of him, they'll call him up in a heartbeat. Right now, he's our 3rd catcher, our 5th OF'er and maybe our 3rd DH, so there's no reason for him to be on the 25 man roster. That can change quickly and likely will.

They also aren't going to "platoon Benintendi" with anyone, either. If he struggles early on, they'll send him to Pawtucket. You don't ever "platoon" top young prospects for a reason. As of right now, they could struggle to find enough at bats for Young & Holt as it is, and you want to throw Swihart in the outfield mix? Young really only needs to play vs LHPs. I see the DH position open for him as a platoon. He's fine vs RHPs, but it's not like we have to go out of our way to find him PAs vs righties. We don't need to try and find PAs for Holt either, even against righties. The guy is a .705 hitter. He's almost equal vs RHPs and LHPs over his career. You don't seek ways to get a .705 hitter in the game. You actually try to avoid it. Beni was more or less platooned this year in Boston. If he's killing righties but struggling ve lefties, they won't send him down to AAA. Being the RH'd platoon with the Sox means you start over 75% of the games and can PH or PR in the others. For a guy who has never played more than 97 games in a season, a RH'd platoon would give him about 125 starts, which is sort of like playing FT in AAA's 142 game schedule. I'm not advocating a Beni platoon, but it could happen. I doubt it, but it's possible. It's the RH'd platoon players than languish on the bench and are usually better off playing FT in AAA.

So, if Vaz or Leon get hurt, and the Sox don't feel Swihart will be the number one catcher, we won't call him up?

soxprospects.com has us with 38 players on the 40 man roster. Assuming we acquire 3 or more players, who do you think gets DFA'd (or traded)? We also may want to add a player or two from the Rule 5 list: Danny Bethea, Ty Buttrey, Jamie Callahan, Carlos Coste, Ryan Court, Allen Craig, Jacob Dahlstrand, Jake Drehoff, Jeff Driskel, Jeffry Fernandez, Pat Goetze, Reed Gragnani, Taylor Grover, Justin Haley, Juan Hernandez, Dedgar Jimenez, Raiwinson Lameda, Anyelo LeClerc, Tzu-Wei Lin, Deiner Lopez, Austin Maddox, Mike McCarthy, Daniel McGrath, Simon Mercedes, Mike Meyers, Mike Miller, Edgar Olmos, Yankory Pimentel, Tim Roberson, Javier Rodriguez, Jake Romanski, Dioscar Romero, Ramses Rosario, Jose Sermo, Teddy Stankiewicz, Aneury Tavarez, German Taveras, JT Watkins, Jordan Weems, Jantzen Witte I know it might depend on what position the players we acquire play, but based on value, who is the first to go? Player options remaining Brentz 0 Holaday 0 W Jerez 2 N Ramirez 1 D Marerro 1 Workman 0 (probably able to trade for a non-40 man roster player) Abad 0 (probably able to trade for a non-40 man roster player) Elias 0 (probably able to trade for a non-40 man roster player)

I'm not advocating for Swihart to be a platoon only player, although, if he gets called up as a catcher, he probably won't play more than 2 or 3 out of every 5 games which is less than being a RH'd hitting platoon player. Let me ask you this, let's say Swihart is hitting .875 in AAA and he gets called up as a catcher in May or June. What percentage of games will he likely play as a catcher assuming the other catcher is hitting over .650? More than 77%? Well, last year we faced a righty starter 77% of our games. If Swihart platooned in LF with Beni or DH presumably with Young, he'd maybe start 77% of the games. That maybe close to what he starts as a catcher at AAA. My point is that I see the chances of him getting serious PAs more from a combination of LF and DH than as a catcher with Boston in 2017. If he's hitting very well, he may become the FT DH and maybe Young platoons with Beni in LF. If an OF'er gets hurt, Swihart could play LF full time or LF vs RHPs and DH vs LHPs as Young plays LF those days.

This is one reason I loved the Porcello extension at the time it was signed. All of his control years are within prime years.

They certainly have a better chance than before the tax was started.

Well, KC won last year vs the Mets. There was a luxury tax for a few years up to last year. I think it started in 2003 and has only been breached by 6 teams. The Tigers, Angels & Giants only once. The Dodgers have gone over 3 times (last 3 years). The Red Sox have 7 times (04, 05, 06, 07, 10, 11 & 15. The Yankees all 13 years. The Sox paid over by $6M in 2007, but other than that time, no team except the Yanks and Dodgers have paid more than $4.2M in any given year. The Yanks have paid over $11M every year at $34M in 2005. The Dodgers paid over by $44M last year. I think their tax was 50%, so they went over by $88M!

And what do these teams have in common? 5 of the 8 qualified for the playoffs. One who didn't was the NYY which is an anomaly in itself! Well, in 2015 of 5 the top 8 spending team missed the playoffs. The 9th team (PHI) missed too...by a lot. The number 16 team (KCR) beat the number 21 team (NYM). The Guardians were the 24th highest spending team this year. In 2014, the 3 team (PHI), 4 team (BOS), 5 team (DET) and 8 team (TEX) all missed the playoffs. The 7th highest spending team (SFG) beat the 19th highest spending team (KCR). In 2013, the number 4 team (BOS) beat the number 10 team (STL), but the number 1 team (NYY) missed the playoffs. So did number 3 (PHI) and number 6 (SFG) and 8 (CWS) and 9 (TOR). 11, 12, 14 and 15 missed too. I'd say the Royals, Guardians and Mets have shown that parity is better than it was back in the day when the Yanks bought championship after championship.

I think penalizing teams going over the luxury tax with a lost draft pick will not affect as many big signings as the QO lost pick does. There's only 2-3 teams going over the luxury limit each year. They may choose to spend less, but once their over, signing another player doesn't add another lost pick, so I doubt it slows the Dodgers down. It might keep a team like the Sox from staying over the limit every year. Personally, I think they should give more compensation to poor teams losing good players than they do now. When a team like the Sox lose a good player, they should get less comp than a poorer team. That might help the lower teams stay competitive.

I'm not discounting the chances Swihart will eventually take the 1 or 2 catcher slot; I just see a greater chance of a need at LH'd hitting DH and LF and maybe a RH'd hitting LF'er, if Young DHs vs LHPs.

Certainly 1.6 is a safe number, but I think 2.0 to 3.0 will be where he ends up, barring injury.

Yeah, I confused it with sharing.

But, who are the poor teams close to the luxury limit? They can't be that poor, if they're spending over $150-160M on salaries. The issue of parity is a good issue to bring up, and the luxury tax and competitive balance tax were supposed to help poorer teams in 2 ways: 1) Penalize richer teams for spending too much. This does seem to affect richer teams spending, except for maybe the Dodgers- who haven't won a ring since the luxury tax was started. 2) Give funds to poorer teams that were meant for spending on payroll not as profits in the pockets of owners. I'm surprised baseball still works the way it does. The home team should give half of their gate receipts and TV money into a fund that is then divided by 30 and spread out evenly, or at least the visiting team should get half of the money earned for each game, after all, there'd be no game without two teams. Teams like the Yankees and Dodgers will always have a big advantage, unless they share some of their profits. Even if you took half of their money and split it 30 ways, they'd still have much more money than the lowest teams, but the gap would be lessened. Taking away draft picks for going over the limit would help a lot. Maybe something like this: 2nd round pick for first time over and by less than $10M over. 1st round pick if over $10M. 1st round pick if over $10M second year in a row. Add a third round pick if over $20M. I also think some poor teams should move, like TB to NC or Sacremento.

While repeating .835 might be difficult, the 113 PA sample size was pretty small, so I'm not sure 2016 should count as his "freshman year" to call 2017 as a "sophomore year". Plus, his 2016 PAs were spread out due to the injury. He had a 0.6 WAR in 34 games, so if you project that to 150 games, he'd have been around 2.8 or 2.9. Since 4 of those games were as a late inning replacement, maybe he'd project to 3.0.

Our OF is very strong but not deep, especially below the MLB level. My point was that Young is our DH vs LHPs. and maybe Swihart is better than Young vs RHPs, so in a sense Swihart or Holt are our 4th OF'er (almost certainly vs RHPs anyways). There's maybe a better chance one of 3 OF'ers gets hurt than one of two catchers, but I admit there's a much better chance one of Vaz or Leon struggles enough to lose his job than an OF'er does. With no DH in sight vs RHPs, except for maybe Pablo, Swihart might have a better chance winning that role than a number 1 or 2 catcher role. When you combine LF and DH, looking at our roster as is right now, I think the odds favor Swihart getting more PAs as a LF + DH than as a Catcher. That's not true for maybe a third of the other teams in MLB where he'd catch number 1 or as a number 2 for maybe half to two thirds of MLB teams..

There's also the Competitive Balance Tax that goes to the poorest teams.

It might hurt teams that are under but close to the limit, but so many teams are far away from the limit, so they are never close to going over the limit and afraid to sign anyone due to any threat of a draft penalty. As of right now, according to BR, only 3 teams are over $150M. I see maybe 6-7 teams that will be close to the luxury tax limit this year (LAD, BOS, DET, SFG, Cubs, NYY and maybe LAA or STL. This year, only 3 teams were within $15M of the luxury tax (or over it) on opening day. That means close to 27 teams had no restraints on signing a big cost player. Only 6 teams had an opening day payroll over $146M. If you count the player pension payment, that means 24 teams could have spent at least $34M without going over the limit.

Doesn't that scenario depend on Leon or Vaz struggling or Swihart judt doing so God-damned well, he squeezes Leon or Vaz out of a job? I still think his highest value is as a catcher, but his highest value on the Sox may be as a left-handed hitting LF'er or DH. This is one reason I include him in so many of my suggested trade offers- not because I don't value him as much as others, but because his value on another team may be higher than on ours. I do think waiting a few months is the best idea, because I do believe in Swihart, and I think he will do well enough to raise his stock or make Leo or Vaz expendable or AAA depth.

I'm totally on board with that thinking, but trading for a low cost ace like Quintana (or Sale) makes the payroll argument a little less forceful.

EbenezerBatflip 9:30 Expectations for Benintendi in 2017? Is he really the left handed Mookie? Paul Swydan 9:30 Left-handed Mookie might be a bit much, but I expect him to be a 3-4 WAR player If we could get a 4 from Beni in 2017, we'd be looking very good.

Dombrowski burns through the 45 or less prospects. I see him generally keeping the studs. They could trade Hernandez and probably get an OK bullpen arm. I think they could get a better arm for Holt. Now that our DH only DH is gone, I don't see Holt's flexibility as being as high a need as it was with Papi on the 25 man roster. Right now, I see Holt's depth chart slots as such: 2B: maybe second, but Moncada or Hernandez could probably do just as well. 3B: maybe third behind Shaw-Pablo, but again, Moncada/Hernandez could do just as well. SS: maybe third or fourth behind Hernandez and maybe Marrero/Dubon. 1B: maybe fourth or fifth behind Shaw, Pablo, Travis and Swihart? OF: maybe tied with Swihart as the fifth OF'er behind Young. Surely, Holt would start for some teams or be their second option at multiple positions. I'd hate to lose the flex he brings to a roster, but I see his value for another team as being higher than with us. That's usually a good reason for a trade to be made.

It could be a big factor to the Sox, if they issue draft pick penalties for going over the luxury limit. That might be one reason the Sox are avoiding any signings until after the agreement is made. I think they do away with the QO and lost picks for signing players. I think they should keep draft comp picks for teams losing top players. I'd like an international draft idea, but I realize it would hurt the Sox in the long run. Maybe they could just combine international with the amateur draft. (They won't.) I'm hoping they raise the luxury tax to $210M not $200 as reported. That might be a compromise for attaching draft pick penalties for going over.