moonslav59

I'm fine with overpaying for young controllable pitchers, but not for rentals (like Rodney was).

He's a good single A pitcher off to a fantastic start. Something like 40 Ks and 2 BBs and a 0.95 ERA, but it's single A.

Most catchers have horrible times catching knucklers. I can't see holding that against him. Now that Leon seems to have the ability to catch Wright, we wouldn't need Hanigan to catch him. Hanigan had good numbers catching other Sox starters last year, and not bad this year when compared head-to-head this year (other than Wright). I'm not trying to say hanigan is great or some sort of high value asset, but catchers get hurt all the time, and keeping catcher depth is a value, especially when you hold the view that Swihart will probably be traded. If Swihart is traded, then are you kay with Vaz-Leon then who? Butler? I'm just saying, it won't hurt to send Vaz down for a while until things shake out?

You didn't ruffle any panties, you just made a silly statement. There's a better than 50-50 chanc e the Yanks are sellers this July, so even as originally stated, I'm not sure I'd call it "silly". The teams I listed will probably all be "out of it" at the deadline. Maybe the Pirates and others will join them. Maybe the Sox will join them, and the whole idea of listing teams we can "buy" from will look silly when the deadline arrives. I get that. I should have said "probably" on my original post. I did think the teams I listed were highly likely to be sellers and still do, but in baseball, we all know things can change. Teams can get hot overnight. Maybe the Yanks turn thing around and make me look silly. As you pointed out, it wouldn't be the first time I've projected wrongly. I've been wrong on the Sox for several years. Even the 2013 season I got wrong. I think I've done a little better projecting the Yanks. I said they'd begin to decline due to age issues and the bloated salaries of their aging stars, but I thought it would start happening earlier than 2013. I never said they'd be at last place level, but three years in a row with 84 to 87 wins can certainly be viewed as a decline. They will start to drop some heavy salaries soon, so they will be making some big moves again soon. We'll see if they can beat the league rate on signing big name FAs that actually earn their keep. A strikingly small percent do. The Sox have ample evidence to prove that point. The Yanks have done better (than the Sox) recently with signings like Beltran & McCann, but the Ellsbury signing can be viewed as cancelling out the positives of other signings. Maybe my Yankee projection is based more on wishful thinking than factual evidence, as the Yanks do have some nice young talent, but they appear to have more holes than we do and don't have the 4 blue chip prospects we have.

True, but it rarely happens, in fact I can't think of a time any team has traded a player for prospects at the deadline, then traded prospects for a vet. Usually, the cost is higher to obtain a quality player under team control for several years at the deadline than in winter months. We don't need a rental. Trading good prospects for a rental would PISS me off.

I think several teams would give up something good for Uehara.

Most GMs don't judge a player over just his last 20-25 IP. I'm not saying a GM will give us a blue chipper, but any good prospect is better than nothing, assuming we are out of it (sellers) in July.

We shouldn't over-react to Hanigan's poor offense in a small sample size. He's never going to be a plus on offense, but he's normally better than what we've seen so far this year. Too many knee-jerk reactions can hurt a roster.

I think both would net us decent prospects.

For those out there who doubt the value of great SP'ers vs everyday players, here's an interesting factoid: LAD ERA ranks 5th in MLB. If you took away Kershaw's IP, they'd rank 14th! How many hitters can bring their team from 14th to 5th single-handedly?

As badly as we've been playing, we're still the a WC team right now. Toronto is the other. The Astros are trending upwards and are only 1/2 game behind. The Royals are also a 1/2 game behind, so any team behind those 4 teams has to beat 3 out of the four to make the WC. That's not impossible, but it's not easy either. The Yanks also have Detroit, Chicago and Seattle ahead of them. The Yanks also have to face Baltimore, Toronto and Boston much more often than Detroit has to face CLE & KCR or SEA has to face TEX & HOU. Is there any indication that the Yanks have the team on paper to mount a serious challenge for the WC? Their pitching has been very good, so I guess there's always a chance. They have the highest team pitching WAR in the AL right now, so I'm not writing them off, but certainly buy July 31st, they may be sellers. Some already view them as such right now as there is a lot of talk about trading Chapman and Miller.

If we don't sign him, don't we get an equal pick next year? Wouldn't that, in theory, give us another chance to draft a guy like Groome then? Who knows, the way we are playing riaght now, we may have two high picks in the next draft. Isn't next year's draft supposed to be better & deeper?

Great points. I also think that Devers is far enough away from the bigs, that Moncada will have an ample chance to establish himself as our 3bman before a choice needs to be made between him and Devers. By then, maybe Devers or Moncada might be considered as our next long term 1Bman or LF'er.,

The Sox are certainly possible buyers, but the deadline is still far away. Much can change by then, and losing two of 3 to the Rays since my post on available players has not helped anyone's belief that we should be buyers. Look, I'm sorry if I ruffled your panties by suggesting the Yanks will be sellers in July, but the Yankee trade talk is all over baseball media, MLBTRs and other sites. I don't see much chatter on Sox players being available, but that could change at any minute. It's not all about records and games behind. There have been sellers in MLB that some felt were not "out of it". There has also been buyers that many felt were all but out of it.It sucks being sellers at the deadline, and Sox fans know all about that, so maybe Yankeee fans don't. Get used to it. The Yanks will "PROBABLY" be sellers for a few more years.

Until this year, Hanigan was a pretty big plus on offense vs LHPs. With the amount of catchers going on the DL these days, even deep depth has value. I'm a huge Vaz fan, and don't care as much about offense from the catching position as most here do, but I see no harm in sending Vaz to AAA to work on his offense, and hten see how things shake out. Catchers are sometimes in high need at the deadline, so I'm all for trading one, if the price is right, but I'm no for getting rid of a catcher just to keep a sub .600 catcher on the 25 man roster. We need to keep as many catching options available for as long as possible. I still think Swihart will be our best choice blue chip trade piece this summer or winter, so having three catchers left over is just about right. What if Vaz takes another year to get his offense on track? Having Hanigan and Leon as our two catchers in 2017 may not look too sexy, but with Vaz at AAA in case one gets hurt, wouldn't be such a bad set up.

If we're out of it, we should sell Uehara and Tazawa, and if anyone wants Buch, Kelly or Hanigan, then sell them too. I'm not saying hand these guys away, and if we think we want Tazawa back next year, maybe trading him would hurt those chances, but there are several tazawa type RP'ers in the FA market every winter. We could get something pretty good for our two RP'ers. That's better than nothing. Even if we just get decent prospects, maybe we can flip those prospects this winter as part of a bigger package to land a quality pitcher. I'm not proclaiming us sellers just yet, but if we keep playing like this we might be.

And, by the way, 3.5 games at the deadline could be the difference between being "still in it" or "pretty much out of it". There's talk the Pirates are considering being sellers too. It's not always about your record. Sometimes it's about how many teams you have to leap frog, and how your team seems to be trending. Also, how much management still has faith in the current roster construction. You think the Yanks have faith in Tex, CC and ARod catching fire and leading the Yanks to the playoffs? Is there a better chance HanRam, Price and Porcello turns things around for the Sox? Maybe- maybe not. It's not really about what we think anyways, it's what upper management thinks to trigger the "sell" mode.

I meant to say "probably out of it" and merely listed the players that we might want or need on the losing-most teams in MLB at the time. I have stated a few times that I think the Sox may be sellers in July as well, so stop inventing positions I do not hold. Even if the Sox are out of it, I wouldn't mind us trying to acquire a decent pitcher under team control for 3+ seasons, but that is unlikely at deadline costs. It's very rare for a team to be a buyer and seller at the same deadline. The way things are going now, the Yanks and Sox may both be sellers at the deadline.

So, when management chose wisely, it was all luck then.

I've already mentioned the Sox may be sellers. Many reports are out on the Yanks being sellers this July. I'm not so sure you do "got it".

Yikes! I guess that would mean wait till next year.

I meant sell vets: free agents to be Uehara & Tazawa and last options Buchholz & Hanigan. Maybe Young or Kelly. I didn't mean sell the farm, unless we're talking Owens & Johnson. I'm done with those two, even though one could argue we're selling low.

We have 4 catchers right now, and if Swihart wasn't on the DL, we'd be talking what to do with him. I do not see catcher as being even close to our highest need area. Unless Milwaukee will take Hanigan (with a prospect) to help offset Lucroy's contract, I doubt we'd even consider trading for him. We need pitching first, pitching second, pitching third, then maybe LF... not catching. Plus, Lucroy will be very costly. Milwaukee will not want overpayed players in return (like Hanigan). I guess they may take Leon and prospects, but I still don't see the Sox looking at him for an offensive boost.

I'm not sure I agree that we rushed Betts. The kid was killing every level he moved up to from day one. Plus, we called him up in 2014 when we were already out of it, so what was the need "rush"? His .812 OPS in MLB those 2 months in 2014 is not evidence of being rushed. On Leon, I wouldn't be so quick to say his offense has "obviously gotten better" based on just a tiny sample size of 35 PAs. I'm not saying he can't be improving. Of course, he can be. It's natural for players to slowly improve over time, especially at, before and around the age that Leon currently is (27). Leon has been in professional baseball since age 18. That's 10 years! I'm sorry, but I'm not buying the idea that suddenly, 10 years into his career, he suddenly found the magic potion. Sure, I'm fine with slower growth, and there are cases where players have seemingly vastly improved almost overnight without apparent PED use, but more times than not, what we are seeing from Leon recently, turns out to be no more than a "flash in the pan". The odds are Leon will return to numbers much closer to his career norms (.580 MLB OPS in 270 PAs/.654 minor league OPS). One reason I am not a believer just yet, is that Leon had a .655 OPS at AAA this year in 115 PAs. This was nearly identical to his minor league career OPS, so one could argue he showed no signs of improvement prior to his call-up. However, I would argue he has shown improvement in recent years, but just not on the scale of these 35 PAs. Leon was first called up to AAA briefly in 2012 after a very lack-luster .614 OPS at the AA level in 510 PAs. Here are his AAA numbers since 2012: 2012 1.026 in 64 PAs (2013: he was returned to A- and AA ball with a .542 OPS at AA) 2014: .692 in 193 PAs/ .447 in MLB (70 PAs with the NATs) 2015: .676 in 111 PAs/.439 in 128 PAs with BOS 2016: .655 in 130 PAs at Pawtucket He's consistently been over his AA OPS every year at AAA, so I do see strong signs of improvement, but nothing massive. I think Leon projects at about .650-.675 in the bigs, and that may be generous. Can he do much better? Yes, of course he can, but I wouldn't bet on it.

What's the latest on signing our 1st round pick?