moonslav59

More notes: 1) Maybe by the next ranking period, one Basabe will pass the other. 2) Looks like Chavis is making a move to be part of the elite prospect short list. 3) Benintendi's jump from 4 to 2 may be more about the fall of Devers. 4) Marrero's tumble from top 10 to outside the top 20 seems a bit rash to me. 5) Washington's huge rise to the top 30 may be a sign he's on his way into the top 20. I'm not trying to end the discussion on the IFA penatly, but it seems like it's been beaten to death a couple times already.

That's what I said a few pages back, and I wonder if that is why the book has been thrown against just the Sox.

New topic: soxprospects.com has come out with their summer rankings. Top 20 prospects only Here are the biggest gainers (in ranking number): +20 Ockimey (37>17) +16 Luis Aj. Basabe (34>18) +13 R Raudes (33>20) +3 Chavis (11>8) +2 Benintendi (4>2) +2 Hernandez (12>10) +2 K Martin (21>19) +1 S Travis (7>6) +1 Lakins (10>9) +1 Dubon (13>12) +1 Light (15>14) +1 T Ball (16>15) Here are the biggest decliners: -22 C Acosta (18>40) -21 Jerez (17>38) -13 Marrero (9>22) -4 L Ysla (19>23) -4 Y Pimental (20>24) -3 Luis Ax. Basabe (8>11) -2 Devers (2>4) -2 Longhi (14>16) -1 Johnson (6>7) Non top 20 big swings: -27 W Rijo (22>49) -15 N Ramirez (28>43) -14 A Rei (25>39) -11 Stankiewicz (26>37) -10 J Rivera (40>50) +9 C Shepherd (30>21) +13 Jake Cosart (44>31) +14 Romanski (59>45) +23 T Matheny (57>34) +27 K Washington (55>28)

There's still plenty of time for Price to turn things around and lead us to the promise land. It's nice to see Wright pitching like an ace, and Porcello having his best career season.

Funny!

Supposedly, we were the only team that did a common practice to avoid paying a penalty. I'm thinking we have a case with an arbiter.

Another remote choice might be to trade for RP'ers (easier to acquire than SP'ers) and stretch out Barnes to become our 5th starter.

Sox players by age- not prospect status: 18: Espinoza, R Rniel 19: Devers, L Ax Basabe, L Aj Basabe, Y Aybar 20: Kopech, Chavis, Ockimey, Longhi 21: Moncada, Benintendi, Dubon, Chatham, K Washington 22: Travis, T Ball, Lakins, Pimental, Beeks, J Cosart 23: Bogaerts, Betts, ERod, Hernandez, Owens, Shepherd 24: Swihart, Ysla, H ramos 25: Vazquez, Marrero, Light, Marrero, Johnnson, Cuevas, K Martin 26: JBJ, Shaw, C Smith, Barnes, N Ramirez, M Miller 27: Porcello, Hembree, Ross, Leon, Rutledge, Elias, Brentz, LaMarre 28: Kimbrel, Holt, Kelly, Castillo, O'Sullivan, A Wilkerson 29: Sandoval 30: Price, Tazawa 31: Wright, Buchholz, layne 32: Pedroia, H Ramirez, C Young 35: Hanigan 40: Ortiz 41: Uehara We may lose the oldest three players on this list next winter, and if we replace them with under 30 players, we will greatly lower our average team age.

We just traded away excellent mid level prospects Margot, Guerra, Allen and Asuaje. We still have Kopech, Travis, Dubon, Chavis, Hernandez, Light, TBall & Ockimey. Other teams have these type of prospects as their 2-3-4-5 prospects. Are their 6-7-8-9-10 prospects really much better than the ones I listed above?

Well said, and I might add that many of our recent prospect graduates were rushed to the bigs. Had Vazquez never gotten hurt, Swihart might still be counted as a prospect. Had Pablo not sucked or got hurt, Shaw might still be in the minors and not even viewed as "helping" the farm be viewed as strong. I trust the experts, when they say our farm system is very strong, and when you add the list of recent graduates, it is clear that acquiring and developing prospects has been maybe the only bright spot on this team recently other than the 2013 championship. Our issues developing solid starting pitchers is a major concern, but overall, our farm has been and still is very strong. Remember, we also got Kimbrel by trading away some pretty darn good prospects. Margot is still ranked very highly. Guerra might have slipped a little, but Logan Allen and Acosta are still "alive" as prospects. A bit farther back, we traded Rizzo to get Gonzo. I think the evidence clearly shows our farm is very strong. Our biggest problem has either been identifying the right big named free agents to sign or choosing to sign so many big named free agents in the first place. Our record on keeping and letting go our best talent when they near free agency took a big hit with the handling of the Lester extension, but overall, I think we've judged correctly more often than not. We've had a few big misses, but I feel more often than not, we've chosen wisely. Now that DD is in charge all of this might change over time. Let's hope for the good.

I defended Porcello as well, and although the extension looked like an overpay, signing a 26 year old pitcher to 4 years almost always trumps signing 31 or 32 year olds. I did a study on how well the top 3-4 FA signings (by dollar amount) have fared over the last few years. The numbers are shockingly bad. It was a big risk signing Price, but as much as I knew that risk was, if ever there was a "sure bet" signing, one could view Price as "that guy". We needed a top pitcher. Greinke was just as risky. Cueto's mechanics are scary. Zimmerman was a risk. I get the argument that we have failed miserably with out bigf free agent signings going back to Crawford. Clearly we have not done well, but within the context that the vast majority of big signings fail or do not turn out very well, the blame game might be better focused not on correctly choosing FAs, but rather on how the team keeps being constructed in a way that keeps ending up with huge holes. Building a strong farm is one key. Developing good pitchers is another. Filling holes with strategic short term FAs (like Young Cody Ross, etc...) or trade acquisitions (like Uehara) might be a better choice. Price does not look like the stopper we had hoped for, but it's just been 3 months. Remember how long it took Beckett to adjust. Josh had a 5.01 ERA and 1.295 WHIP in 2006 before becoming a major factor in our 2007 championship[. Beckett went 4-0 in the post season (30 IP, 4 ER, 19 H, 2 BB, 35 K/B0). Let's hope Price turns things around. I'm as frustrated as anyone here about his performance so far. I keep waiting for him to have a defining moment, like a shut out in a 1-0 win vs Baltimore, but as soon as it looks like he's turning the corner, he allows the sucky Rays to score 4 runs against him.

Thanks for the info. I hope we can sign this guy.

Take a look at other teams and their issues. We certainly have a few holes to fill, but so does just about every other team in the AL.

One reason I much prefer acquiring pitching in the winter over July is that it's actually a 2 month rental (1/3 season) rather than a full season, but I guess the post season adds to that, and maybe you know more about a guy in July than in January.

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

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?