moonslav59

Not many fans thought our staff was going to be as good, but they (not me) might have thought HanRam and Pablo would boost the offense enough to make it up.

Purging Lester and Lackey take the cake in recent years. When you add to this the horrible signings like Crawford, Pablo and Castillo (maybe Price too), you really put yourself in a hole. Had we used all this money to sign Scherzer, Andrew Miller, Cueto or JA Happ, and a better bat than Pablo, we might not be talking about Lester & Lackey very much.

If we did trade JBJ, I think we'd move Beni to CF and go with Young, Moncada, Holt and maybe Beltran in LF. I don't think Reddick is the left-handed hitter we want. The career .316 OBP is too frightening to me, though he has done better in his prime. I do like the idea of getting an ace. It would take some pressure off our pen and move Porcello to #2, Price to #3 and so on... It would also add 2 of these guys, instead or one, to the pen: Buchholz Pomeranz Wright With bigger hopes on Kelly, barnes, hembree, Scott and a returning Carson Smith, now our pen looks a lot better.

Both of these players fit a big need, bu what I don't like is the one year of control for Frazier and just two years for Robertsone, while Swihart alone has more years than the two combined. I like Basabe and Kopech. I like Swiharts too, but we will have to give to get no matter who we deal with. I doubt the CWS would take Basabe, Shaw, Owens and Johnson for the two or even Swi instead of Basabe.

Then, don't draft a "hard-to-sign player" in a later round.

Word is the Royals are taking phone calls on Wade Davis.

Would the CWS take Swihart, Basabe, Shaw, Owens and Johnson for Robertson and Frazier? If you said no, would subbing Kopech for Basabe tilt the balance?

I'm usually as optimistic about the next season as anyone. But I just think there are far too many weaknesses. And in some places we didn't expect. We are taking three LH hitters out of the lineup, not just one. The at bats of Leon and JBJ were not accidents, They have proven they can be pitched to. We almost have to get Encanarcion in order to have any chance at all. You do know EE bats RH'd, right? I agree that we can expect Leon to not be a great hitter next year, but nothing is "proven" about JBJ's inability to adjust to what pitchers were doing to him to end the season. How many times can you guys get tricked by small sample sizes? I'm not saying we don't have to make up for papi's loss soemwhere and then some, but giving 4-5 years for a DH only could hurt us in other ways down the road. So, this would be the line-up: 1) R Pedey 2) R Bogey 3) R Betts 4) R Encarnacion 5) R HanRam 6) L Bradley 7) R Young/L Beni 8) S Pablo/L Shaw 9) S Leon/ R Vaz/ S Swihart We only faced 37 LH'd starters this year, if we signed EE, teams may never throw a lefty at us.

Here's one way to look at next year. Let's look at what else we could to replace besides Papi's 626 PAs and 1.021 OPS: 184 PAs Vazquez .585 OPS 137 PAs A Hill .577 OPS 113 PAs Hanigan .468 OPS 64 PAs B Brentz .690 OPS 35 PAs Holaday .500 OPS 20 PAs Moncada .513 OPS 14 PAs Marrero .298 OPS 28 PAs Others under .400 OPS combined That's about 600 PAs of pretty god-awful hitting. If we can replace these PAs plus Papi's 626 (total of about 1200 PAs) with more or better PAs from Beni (118 to over 450) .835 Young (227 to over 400) .850 Swihart (74 PAs to over 400) .720 B Holt (324 PAs to maybe 400) .705 S Leon (283 to maybe 350) .845 Hernandez (56 to 200) .730 Moncada (20 to ???) ??? ...we may not be as bad as we thought we might be losing Papi. Let's look the same way at our pitching: We may lose: 50 IP Tazawa 4.17 47 IP Uehara 3.45 30 IP Ziegler 1.52 127 IP Total These guys should get less or no IP: 29 IP Layne 3.77 22 IP Owens 6.95 21 IP O'Sullivan 6.75 13 IP N Ramirez 6.23 13 IP F Abad 6.39 8 IP Elias 12.91 103 IP Total 230 Total IP may come from where? ERod 107 IP to ??? Pomernaz 69 IP to ??? Buchholz 139 IP to ??? Kelly, Kimbrel, Scott more???

Much harder! Only 4 teams had a team WAR above 2.0.

He should be at the top of everyone's list of players not wanting to trade. There should be long space between him and the next guy (Beni? Bogey? JBJ? ERod?)

I could see this in the not too distant future: C: Vazquez-Swihart 1B: Devers/Tavis 2B: Pedey (Moncada) SS: Dubon 3B: Bogey (Moncada) LF: Benintendi (Moncada) CF: Bradley RF: Betts DH: Moncada/Devers

I don't disagree, and I would never want to trade the 2017 face of the franchise. He's not going anywhere.

Don't hear many people talking about this, but how about Toronto's signing of JA Happ for $36M/3 last winter? The guy went 20-4 with a 3.18 ERA and 1.169 WHIP! Here's a look at the big named FA SP'er signings: Remember, most of these guys were expected to produce big time on the front end of their deals. Price $217M/7 w/opt out (17-9 3.99 in 230 IP) Greinke $206M/6 (13-7 4.37 in 174 IP) Cueto $130M/6 w/opt out (18-5 2.79 in 220 IP) Zimmerman $110M/5 (9-7 4.93 in 102 IP) Samardzjia $90M/5 (12-11 3.81 in 203 IP) Leake $80M/5 (9-12 4.69 in 177 IP) Wei-Chen $80M/5 w/opt out (5-5 4.96 in 123 IP) Kennedy$70M/5 w/opt out (11-11 3.68 in 196 IP) Kazmir $48M/3 w/opt out (10-6 4.56 in 136 IP) I'd say only Cueto looks like an unqualified success after one year.

I'll listen to anyone's offer for anyone. Give me greater return and I'll trade Betts, Bogey, and JBJ.

I'm still not sold that moving Swihart to left is a solution, but that's another argument. I'm not either. I feel his trade value as a catcher would be worth more than his value to us as a LF'er, 1Bman or DH. I think we may see Moncada in LF before all is said and done.

Would you trade JBJ, Moncada, Swihart, Shaw, Owens and Johnson for Quintana, Robertson & Frazier? We could then sign Beltran (1-2 years) to help out in LF and DH. Move Beni to CF. Maybe Devers will be ready after Frazier moves on after 2017. We'd also have 2 extra SP'ers to trade if needed: 1) Quintana 2) Porcello 3) Price 4) ERod 5) Wright 6) Buchholz 7) Pomeranz

Well, Price did improve as the season went on. At one point, I think he had the worst ERA in the league. Besides, I said, "Price should do better." I never said "will".

I doubt Price finishes in the top 6 or 7. My vote would go.... 1) Porcello 2) Kluber (close to tie with Porcello) 3) Verlander 4) Sale 5) Miller 6) Quintana 7) Tanaka 8) Happ 9) Britton 10) Price (maybe)

Good points...I fully expect Koji to be back next year and I don't think it's a given that Tazawa will definitely be gone. The only guy they can't re-sign is Ziegler, who will go to a team that has ST in Arizona. I wouldn't mind bringing Koji back, and he may take a little hometown discount out of loyalty and the desire to make the playoffs up to his retirement. As far as Janssen & Chapman go, why would two teams that are built to win now and for the foreseeable future, and have pretty much unlimited resources, let either of these guys walk? My guess is that it would have to be a crazy overpay, unless one or both of these guys "want" to leave. It's up to them, not their teams. Both are unrestricted FAs. Jansen could cost a comp pick though, so that might give the edge to LA. I agree on Melancon. Some guys just aren't cut out for Boston. He's supposedly one of them. I never bought into that theory. He did fine here. I don't think they'll spend big on middle relief, either. Certainly not anything close to the 4/32 that they offered Andrew Miller. I wish they had spent that on Miller back then. There are no "Millers" on the market this year. I agree that they will look at Beltran/Bautista if the EE numbers get past whatever value that they assign to him. My guess is that they will. I think they'll look sorter term (Beltran) or let Young, Pablo, Moncada, Shaw, Hernandez, Holt and others fight for the 3B/DH openings. I'm not betting that they move Swihart, but I have a feeling that they will make a pretty significant trade this offseason. I think there are only two players who they won't listen on (Betts/Pedroia). I'm not sure many GMs are calling about Pedey, but at his age, I'd listen.

Back before the trade and even a year before the Lackey trade, I suggested we extend Lackey and give him a signing bonus that would be paid out during his "minimum salary" year, so as to minimize the bad feelings. I think I suggested a 2 year extension worth $30M/2, but that would actually be paid out as $10M x 3 years. He ended up signing for $32M/2 with the Cubs 2 years later, so I think I was pretty close. I disliked the trade at the time as well. All I'm saying was that at the time, Lackey's 2 months of the 2014 season was useless to us, so we were essentially trading 1 year (2015- a year coming off a last place finish) for 4 years of Kelly and 4 years of Craig at a $62M luxury tax cost- a guy who had the 22nd best OPS from 2011 to 2013. At the time of the trade, one could see the reasoning behind the trade- like it or not. I did not like it, but it wasn't a horrible looking trade at the time. In hindsight, it is. The other factor to consider is that we could have signed Lester, lackey and Miller after we traded them.

I'm not for trading JBJ, but I'll listen to any offers. For all the reasons you mentioned, other GMs would give up a lot to get him. Trading JBJ for a better return is not a bad idea. Not many teams have 2 guys on the 25 man roster than can play CF very well and a guy like Young (Moncada/Swihart?) to move into LF.

I'm not trying to minimize the loss of Papi. The guy is a legend among legends. We do have some pretty darn good batters returning next year. Here's how they ranked out of the top 330 MLB players with 220+ PAs: 21) Betts .897 38) Ramirez .866 47) Young .850 (same as Trumbo, Beltran & Lucroy) 52) Leon .845 57) JBJ .835 (57- Beni would rank here is he had enough PAs .835) 69) Pedey .825 93) Bogey .802 That's 7 returning players (8 if you count Beni) with an OPS over .800! I can see having grave concerns about Leon, but we may see Swihart or Moncada come in over .800 next year.

That's assuming we replace Papi with a replacement level player. I would think some sort in-system combination of Young, Swihart, Pablo and Moncada could put up at least a 1.5 WAR from the DH slot.

I know this might be viewed as cherry-picking sample sizes, but with injuries to Wright and Pomeranz and a turn-around by Buchholz, I think these numbers show the upside potential of our 2017 rotation: 1st Half 2016 SP'er Rankings (50+ IP-143 pitchers) ERA- 6) Wright 61 8) Pomeranz 62 41) Porcello 83 67) Price 98 WHIP 14) Pomeranz 1.06 34) Porcello 1.17 38) Price 1.19 44) Wright 1.21 WAR 11) Price 2.6 15) Pomeranz 2.5 26) Wright 2.1 33) Porcello 1.9 2nd Half 2016 SP'er Rankings (40 IP- 135 pitchers) ERA- 6) Porcello 59 17) Buchholz 67 28) ERod 73 41) Price 81 88) Pomeranz 106 99) Wright 114 WHIP 1) Porcello 0.85 30) ERod 1.13 35) Buchholz 1.15 48) Price 1.22 83) Wright 1.34 96) Pomeranz 1.40 WAR 1) Porcello 3.4 15) Price 1.9 23) ERod 1.7 71) Buchholz 1.0 89) Wright 0.7 105) Pomeranz 0.4 If you average out their rankings over these 3 categories and assign the #1 starter label to all pitchers ranked 1-30, and #2 starter to 31-60 and so on, here's what you come up with: These starters pitched like a... #1 2nd half Porcello (3rd -avg ranking on 3 categories) #1 1st half Pomeranz (12th) #1 1st half Wright (25th) #1 1st half ERod (27th) #2 1st half Porcello (36th) #2 2nd half Price (35th) #2 1st half Price (39th) #2 2nd half Buchholz (41st) That's 4 different starters who pitched "like an ace" for half a season (Porcello, Wright, ERod and Pomeranz), one starter who pitched like a #2 for both halves (Price) and one starter who pitched like a #2 for one half (Buch). (Note: Porcello also pitched like a #2 for his other half season.) These numbers look very impressive and very promising as those who pitched like #2's were on the top end of the #2 spectrum. Price's 35th and 39th rankings would place him in the top 30 for the season overall (if you value WAR highly), here are those numbers: 137 SP'ers with 100+ IP: ERA- 13) Porcello 71 22) Wright 75 33) Pomeranz 79 51) Price 90 88) ERod 106 WHIP 6) Porcello 1.01 35) Pomeranz 1.19 40) Price 1.20 54) Wright 1.24 68 ERod 1.30 98) Buchholz 113 WAR 6) Porcello 5.2 13) Price 4.5 43) Pomeranz 2.9 48) Wright 2.8 97) ERod 1.2 130) Buchholz 0.3 Going by seasonal WAR, we have two #1's, two #2's, one #4 and one #5. 48) Wright 2.8 Going by ERA-, we have basically the same, but with Wright becomming a number 1 and Price dropping to a #2.