moonslav59

What a bunch of hypocrites.. You can disagree with my points, but I've been against all massive signings by the Sox and I have shown how the vast majority of mega signings have not only been bad on the back end, but also on the front end. Where have I been hypocritical?

Where did I say it turned out "great"? The signing was horrible in hindsight. If you want to count the Kinslaer trade as part of the equation (I wouldn't, if we're talking only about big signings), it's still not great. Kinsler is paid a lot ($62M/4- no great bargain). The Tigers also had to pay $30M of Fielder's contrat after they traded him, so Kinsler essentially cot them $92M/4. His OPS dipped from .804 in TEX to .775 in DET. but at least he has been healthy. Not a good signing, even if you count the follow-up trade.

I'm not sure if "praised" is the right word, but I guess that depends on how much you value the "back end" and whether the "front end" led to championships and/or very competitive teams. The Tigers have been fun to watch. Their glaring weakness in the pen seemed to always be their downfall. Let's look closer at DD's biggest signings with the Tigers: Miggy $248M/8 (starting 2016) signed 3/28/14 --2016 .316/.393/.563/.956 Very well worth the money, so far and he turns 34 in April. 7 years to go. Fielder $214M/9 (12-20) signed 1/25/12 --2012: .940 OPS in 162 games --2013: .819 OPS in 162 games Trade for Kinsler Clearly, the signing looks awful now with his injury and .760 OPS with Texas in 289 games over 3 seasons, but if you count the Kinsler trade as part of the equation, it doesn't look as badly. Still, a bad signing. Verlander $180M/7 (13-19) signed 3/29/13 --2013 13-12 3.46 ERA/ 1.315 WHIP --2014 15-12 4.54/1.398 --2015 5-8 3.38/1.088 (just 20 starts) --2016 16-9 3.04/ 1.001 (led league) While Verlander finsihed 11th in WAR and outpaced his salary according to fangraph's WAR page ($122.6M), his ERA- (90 ranks 68th out of 216) and WHIP (1.21 ranks 69/216) were way lower than his previous few years before the signing. He clearly declined after the contract began. A Sanchez $80M/5 (13-17) signed 12/14/12 --2013 14-8 2.57 (led league)/1.154 --2014 8-5 3.43/1.095 (only 21 starts) --2015 10-10 4.99/1.280 (25 GS) --2016 5.87 7-13/1.461 (26 GS) fangraphs value: $82.7M, but clearly AS has been a huge disappointment. VMart $68M/4 (15-18) signed 11/12/14 --.667 OPS in 485 PAs --.826 OPS in 610 PAs Certainly worth the money, but not fantastic with a .756 OPS over the first 2 years. He turns 38 in December and has 2 years to go.

He's the closest one for me. $28M x 3 is a lot for a pitcher who will be 34 on opening day. His last two years have been great as he has re-invented himself. His 2013-2014 seasons were way below his normal peripherals. I'd probably take him over Price.

As I have shown many times, the front ends of these types of deals are not good either in more than half the times. Just look at all the mega deals handed to SP'ers last winter: only Cueto's was an unqualified success.

I never said Drew had a bad year in 2013. He was steady on defense. He made just about all the plays hit to him within his range. His .777 OPS in 2013 is very good by any definition for a SS. His .253 BA is pretty close to the worst Iggy has hit since 2013. The reason people did not want Drew in 2014 was not because of their poor valuation of Drew, but more because they wanted Bogey at SS. My point was about how people are fine with having a low hit-good glove Drew at 5 times the coast of the low hit great glove Iggy. The main argument against the trade at the time was almost all about this. The hindsight argument has mostly morphed into durability and attitude. Drew had somewhat of an outlier offensive year in 2013, and his defense had been sketchy over his career- many ups and downs. He was in a massive slump to end the year, but still received high praise from most Sox fans due to his glove. Oh, and by the way, if you want to just look at 2013, Iggy had a .735 OPS and a much better UZR/150 at 1/5th the cost. I'll modify my statement, but it still riungs true: the fact is, people were fine with a no hit-good glove Drew at $10M for 2013, but many of the same people poo-poo'd the same idea with Iggy ay $2M a year. The argument was not about Bogey vs Iggy. It was about Iggy vs Middy, then Drew and then later Holt, PAblo & Co (with Bogey at 3B).

Maybe I'm missing something here, but am I the only one thinking it's a little bit funny that so many posters are very happy with Stephen Drew's performance with Boston, but disliked the idea of having a no hit-plus glove Iggy as our SS? Stephen Drew got paid about $20M by the Sox over two seasons to hit... .236/.316/.417/.733 and rank 11th in UZT/150 (+7.3) Counting after he was traded: .219/.297/.388/.685 At the same time, Iggy's UZR/150 was ranked 9th at +8.3. His batting from the year of his trade to the end of his contract (2015) was... .302/.348/.377/.715 I believe he was being paid $2M a year. I'm sorry, but I can't stop chuckling. The same argument you are using to justify paying Drew $20M is the one us Iggy fans are using to justify keeping and paying Iggy $2M a year.

Shaw and Pablo for Miggy.

Yes, many have been good, but would you take any of these contracts now for no player in return?

Al Avila, Detroit GM, says “changes are coming”. Lots of big contracts to choose from... Verlander: 17:$28M, 18:$28M, 19:$28M, 20:$22M vesting option Miggy: 17:$28M, 18-21:$30M annually, 22-23:$32M annually, 24:$30M club option ($8M buyout), 25:$30M club option Justin Upton: 17-21:$22.125M annually J Zimmerman: 17:$18M, 18:$24M, 19:$25M, 20:$25M VMart: 17:$18M, 18:$18M A Sanchez: 17:$16M, 18:$16M club option ($5M buyout) WOW! Imagine if we had a GM that signed most of these guys to these deals!

They're looking to cut costs. Someone has to go- why not the one with the most risk?

I think his injury should lessen the return cost, but if they want a ton, then we just say no.

Better yet, let's talk about the next trade... The Royals are apparently looking to cut salary. They have a lot of players coming off the books after 2017, including Hosmer (1B) and Moustakas (3B), so I'm starting with giving them Shaw (1B/3B). How about we trade Shaw, Holt, and three from: Chavis, Barnes, Ockimey, Owens and Johnson. for Kendrys Morales --$11M mutual option ($1.5M buyout), Wade Davis--$10M club option ($2.5M buyout) and Joakim Soria--2017:$8M, 2018:$9M, 2019:$10M mutual option ($1M buyout)- sort of a salary dump. Probably way short of what is needed (add Devers or Basabe?), but at least I'm trying to change the conversation.

Yes, all the ones he got to.

I can see us not keeping all these guys, and certainly JBJ could end up as the odd man out.

And, I respect your opinion here too. I think Iggy is better than an "above average fielder", but I could be wrong.

Moon mentions that "Bogaerts took a step back this year, while Iglesias has hit .275 in Detroit." Wow. Iglesias hit 45 points lower this year (.255) than he did last year (.300), but that's not a "step back?!?!" Come on. At least argue apples to apples. Even .255 is higher than most expected Iggy to hit. How about them apples? I said from the start, I'd take Iggy as my FT SS hitting .225, I'd be thrilled with .255 and 60-80 stolen hits from the opps every year.

I think Sox management views JBJ very highly (i do too and always have), after all, he was the guy most GMs wanted when calling about trades. That was before he had a nice full season in 2016 ending with a very respectable OPS.

One of the things that rankles me is half of a story.... As I've said, I can willingly live with Mistake #1 - not having Iggy in their plans, but they NEVER should have traded him and gotten such poor value for him. I actually have the opposite view. I have more of a beef with their valuation of Iggy that with what they got back for him. The cost of a pitcher like Peavy at a trade deadline is usually enormous. Although he clearly was not a "Mercedes" anymore, he had 1.3 years of team control and we were looking to compete in 2014 as well. One could argue they valued Iggy highly, since they got something like Peavy back for him, but we also gave up Montas. If peavy had pitched better for us, then the trade might not look as bad, but I think he actually underperformed expectations. That's a hindsight aspect to viewing the trade though, just as talking about Iggy's injuries and better than expected hitting is. To me, the bigger mistake was not wanting Iggy to be our FT SS into the future. He was arb eligible until 2016 or 2017, so (3-4 more years not counting the remainder of 2013. I think his lost season has made him arb eligible to 2018. I can see why the liked Bogey as their SS of the future, but then the whole Stephen Drew fiasco kind of showed they, themselves, felt Bogey wasn't "the man" yet. Keeping Iggy at least until the end of 2014 would have saved us the Drew issue. I'm okay with the decision they made. Whether it was attitude issues, projected low offense or both, Sox management did not view Iggy as their FT SS. The fact that they played Iggy at 3B for 37 games in 2013 (which shocked the s*** out of me) told the whole story. To move a great defender at SS to 3B so Drew or Bogey could play SS was absurd, IMO. It showed how they viewed Iggy as a utility IF'er and not the extreme plus defender at SS that was his calling card and highest portion of his value. Detroit moved Perralta, when he came back- not Iggy, and Perralta was a better fielder than Drew/Bogey, so to me it was obvious there was a valuation difference between the Sox and Detroit.

I know all about the "attitude" issues with Iggy. I'm not "all about stats", because most stats show Iggy is not an overall plus at SS, so I think you're wrong on that aspect. I know Bogey said he didn't want to play 3B. I also know he's not getting better on defense at SS since the Iggy trade was made. Not by stats and metrics, which do support my position, but from my observations based on watching just about every single pitch in every single Sox game in every single season since the 1980's. Bogey's not a plus defender at SS. I admit I have an obsession with great SS fielding that has never been based on stats. It's based on me playing the game for many years and seeing tremendous SS defense, particularly with superior range, have enormous value on a team's psyche and run differential. I'm fine with people arguing about Iggy's injuries and attitude. There's some good points made, and to me, this isn't a clear right vs wrong debate. There's too many nuances involved for anything to be clear about what side is right here. I get your side. I have even said many times that given the fact that Sox management likely never viewed Iggy as the FT SS, then the trade made perfect sense. In their eyes, they traded a uttility IF'er for 1.3 years of a solid SP'er. Makes total sense to me. What I'm arguing is that I did view Iggy as our FT SS of the future (at a low cost, I might add). At the time of the trade and before, many scouts were saying or hinting at the fact that Bogey might not be cut out to play SS as he matured. The fact that he has not improved seems to back up that aspect of my position that he should have been groomed to play 3B or both 3B and SS earlier in his career. I mean fo God's saake, they threw him into a new position right smack in the middle of a pennant race and post season after playing just 10 games at 3B in AAA. I don't blame the guy for saying, "I'd rather play SS." Plus, most SSs love the feeling of playing the most important defensive position on the diamond (next to maybe catcher). Not many enjoy giving it up, but countless SSs have. MLB is littered with former SSs doing very well at different positions. I thought I saw a little improvement last year on defense with Bogey. I easily admitted that maybe I was wrong all along about his defensive abilities at SS. On another site, I even said that if he keeps improving, I'll admit I was wrong on the Iggy/Montas-Peavy trade. That hasn't happened. Bogey took a step backwards while Iggy has his .275 with the Tigers. I'm not sure why this trade seems to be debated more than the AGon-Rizzo trade, more than the Dodger salary dump trade, and more than the great Sox Purge of 2014, because I don't think anything that major changed. I don't think we won in 2013 because of Peavy, but I also don't think we'd be all that much better without making the trade. Better, yes, but not by a lot. Now, if we can argue we don't sign Pablo, if we have Iggy, then things look different, but there are "what ifs" on both sides, so I'm willing to just leave it at me feeling the trade was bad, but understandable. The trade was not so bad as to make a huge impact on our team since the WS win in 2013. I know S5Dewey may think differently, and I respect him for that, but I'm kinds feeling like this dead horse has been beaten enough.

Maybe just don't start him vs RHPs.

Holt's WAR is not based on playing SS, although his UZR/150 in just 212 innings there is freakishly good. He has a -3 DRS in 212 innings, which is freakishly horrible.

His loss of playing time is a huge factor in his WAR. I'm not downplaying the importance of being able to play.The fact that he hasn't played more than 137 games in the two years after his missed season shows there may be issues beyond one "freak" injury. I totally get that. However, when you look at his numbers when he plays, he's clearly better than average and probably places top 10 of 30 overall. In my opinion, he's still a better option (when healthy) than what we have at 3B now, assuming the move of Bogey to 3B. I do think the comparison to Leon as a shooting star was kind of a "spin", since Iggy's .274 Detroit BA has been much higher than most expected... certainly not .330, but clearly not as low as projected.

Iggy has a .274 BA with the Tigers in over 3 times the PAs as he had with Boston (where he had a .280 BA). Let's be truthful here, 90% of Sox fans would have been screaming for Iggy to be our long term SS had I guaranteed he'd hit .275. I get that his OPS is just .678, but only 16 MLB SSs have more PAs and a better OPS as a SS than Iggy, so one could argue, he's been about average on offense for a SS (maybe slightly below) and top 5-6 on defense. That's a plus all around no matter how you spin it, except for one thing: durability and health.

4th out of the 17th that "qualify", so that is not the same as saying 4th out of 30 teams starters. If you lower the innings to 500 in order to get a sample size of 30, then JBJ finishes 10th out of 30 individually. DRS is a stat greatly influenced by innings played, if we had a DRS/150, JBJ would sink in the rankings. For example, he has 11 runs saaved in 1375 innings, while these guys would surely pass him in DRS/150: Broxton 9/511 Marisnik 9/570 Cain 8/615' This would place JBJ 8th. These rankings don't seem to jive with the eye test. Maybe the way JBJ makes hard plays look easy influences some of the scoring, but UZR/150 is not supposed to work that way. The 2014-2016 numbers place JBJ at 7th in UZR/150 (+11.3). IN DRS, he ranks 8th, but he'd move up one, if he had the same innings and down 2 as welll, so he's be ninth. Those numbers still seem a little low. He was 3rd in UZR/150 from 2014 to 2015, so obviously something changed this year. (He would have ranked 5th in DRS/150.) I didn't see it with my eyes.