moonslav59

Good point. The Lester fiasco was right up there with the worst of the worst I, personally, thought the Dempster signing was poor, since it attempted to rebuild the rotation from the bottom or middle not the top. I was also against the Peavy trade for similar reasons, plus my love of spectacular SS defense Hanrahan, Bailey amd others did not work out, but injuries are hard to pin on the GM. Ultimately, right or wrong, GMs are judged in hindsight. They are supposed to be able to know who s about to be injured or begin a steep decline. He did make a few good moves (Uehara was best) and choices (saying no to Salty and others), but he sure did build up our farm, and we will be grateful for that for many years to come.

Point well taken. I liked Miley and hated to see him go. He was, essentially, our best wire to wire starter last year. However, he's pitching in a pitcher's park now, so let's look at ERA-, WHIP and xFIP- to see, if he really has been much better.... .......ERA- WHIP xFIP- Miley 130 1.40 107 ERod 191 1.74 134 Kelly 188 2.24 114 Buch 140 1.51 128 O'Sul 143 1.70 125 Owens 113 2.11 173 Yup, he's been much better! You're right. I know out 4-5 starter slot has an ERA over 7.00, but I'd like to see where our pitching staff ranks only counting your top 3 SP'ers and bullpen. All top three SP'ers have WHIP below 1.23. Their ERA- are Wright 60, Porcello 85 and Price 103. xFIP: Price 75, Porcello 93 and Wright 103.

Here are his most recent minor league splits: ........vs RHP...vs LHP 2015 .703 .610 AAA (194/95 ABs) 2014 .850 .508 AAA (223/90 ABs) 1.093 .782 AA (96/81 ABs) This is a total of 266 ABs vs LHPs ...so maybe close to 280-290 PAs. Still not a huge sample size, but the differential was so great, certainly there should be concern he may end up being best used in a platoon situation.

I think he'll be too costly.

I'm Mr. anti-small sample size judgments, so I hear you. (Note: I argued JBJ's 500+ first PAs sample size was too small to judge definitively.)

True enough. His biggest weak area was FA signings. Even the ones that "worked" ended up having issues: Vic, Naps, Dempster...But, if you look at how many FA signings fail, maybe it should be viewed a little more in context.

I'm very high on Hernandez, but he's a LHB, so he's apparently not a good platoon match with Shaw. By the way, I believe Shaw had bad slits vs LHPs in the minors, so the concern is real. It shouldn't be a surprise that if he begins to struggle, it might start vs lefties.

Well said. I do think Beni & Moncada will be called up in September.

Fair enough. My eyesight is failing, and I thought you wroye "minimal AA and AAA experience". Your example was fine and useful.

Good read on Benintendi.... http://news.soxprospects.com/2016/07/the-write-up-andrew-benintendi.html

WOW! Thanks, Ben!

I'm not sure taking one example is fair. I'm not even sure you can judge whether some one was "called up too early" or "damaged" as a result of it. Players go into slumps at certain points in their career. It may have had nothing to do with the call up. Many players also have extreme difficulty adjusting to MLB to start their career, even if they spent 10 years in the minors, so how can we tell if JBJ's struggles were related to not being given enough "experience" in the minors? We can't. Besides, JBJ played college ball and became a professional at age 21. In 2012, he got 575 PAs at the A and AA level at age 22 after getting 40 in 2011. In 2013, he got 374 PAs at AAA. In total, he played 218 minor league games with 989 PAs before being called up to the bigs to play 37 games. We all know he stunk at the plate that year and the next, before busting out in August of 2015. I'm not saying he wasn't rushed, but we'll never know, if he might have needed a long adjustment period, even after more time in the minors. He was 23 when he started playing MLB. BTW, here are some other "rushed" Sox players: Betts: started MLB at age 21 after 298 minor league games and 1311 PAs (just 211 at AAA and 253 at AA (both less than JBJ). No college ball. Bogaerts: started MLB at age 20 trust into a playoff role playing an off position after just 10 games of playing 3B at AAA. He played 378 games in the minors (no college ball). He played in 79 AA games (356 PAs) and just 60 games in AAA (256 PAs)- both less than JBJ. I'm just curious why you call JBJ "the last time we called up a highly rated prospect with minimal AA and no AAA experience, and you ignored the two that worked.

Some answers and responses... Brentz looks worse than HanRam on defense in LF, hence my DH comment. Holt is not a 3Bman. He's the reason we signed Pablo. Reason enough? To me, Hernandez is our back-up 3Bman with Marrero/Rutledge (on DL) further depth. I would not use Holt at 3B very often. I would not rush Benintendi or Moncada, but personally, I think they are both ready offensively. Benintendi is supposed to be good on D, so I don't see a long wait until he is "ready" to be called up. Moncada still needs to lean how to play 3B, 1B or LF before he gets called up. We may see him in September as a PH option and to give Pedey a spell at 2B.

I'm not a de la Rosa fan, and I hate the idea of improving our staff by looking for a better 5th starter than we have. I prefer to (re)build at the top. I'm just thinking of cheap alternatives to giving away our best prospects.

I'm convinced his only chance to stick around is if he hits well enough to be a DH.

The first Miggy extension made the deal work out. The Willis addition didn't work out like our Lowell addition, did it?

de la Rosa has done pretty well his last few starts. None of our bottom rotation starters have ever looked good

Benintendi is now batting .289 with a .348 on-base percentage, .512 slugging percentage, .860 OPS, six homers, three triples, 13 doubles and 28 RBIs in 44 games for Portland. Reminder: Betts was batting 355/443/551 while in AA. Benintendi's OPS is still well behind where Betts' was. Benintendi is now hitting .330/.395/.626 in his last 31 games. Now that's like Betts! Yoan Moncada has now reached base in 10 of his first 21 July plate appearances. These guys are as close to ML ready as can be. I don't want to open the same can of worms again, but I think it's got to be close to time to start giving Moncada some reps at 3B.

Yeah, but we need a 4th starter now.

One more very good one would have been nice. It was obvious to me we'd be needing at least one by the break right from day one of the season.

Hasn't Brentz finally proven he's DFA worthy? I'm fine with a DFA or Coyle instead. I guess maybe Noe Ramirez is a choice as well.

Hasn't Brentz finally proven he's DFA worthy? I'm fine with a DFA or Coyle instead. I guess maybe Noe Ramirez is a choice as well.

Too bad Shaw, Holt and Hernandez all bat lefty. Marrero and Rutledge are our RHBs, but Josh is on the DL.

Well, the way Leon is hitting, I suppose Lucroy will do better going forward, but who knows? Swihart is pretty darn good offensively when healthy too.

I would, and I'd pay the salary difference.