moonslav59

Criswell vs another Lefty (Blach.) Time for a turnaround.

MLBTR reported... “It will be a while” before Triston Casas is ready for a minor league rehab assignment, Red Sox manager Alex Cora told the Boston Globe’s Julian McWilliams and other reporters on Friday. Casas hasn’t played since April 20 due to a rib fracture and torn rib cartilage, and he is already well beyond even the broad 3-to-9 week timeframe Casas initially floated three months ago, though the first baseman noted that the nature of the injury led to a lot of fluidity. In yesterday’s update, Cora said Casas was taking soft toss swings and is hitting off a tee, but is still dealing with some nagging discomfort in his side. Until that discomfort entirely subsides, Casas and the Sox can’t really move forward with any kind of concrete plan for even a steadier ramp-up, let alone any minor league rehab work. Cora did say that Casas would play again in 2024, but “we don’t know yet” when a return was feasible.

MLBTR on Sox interest in Rengifo... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/07/red-sox-interested-in-luis-rengifo.html

MLBTR... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2024/07/red-sox-trade-rumors-dodgers-james-paxton.html

Mata has further elbow inflammation and will not be activated any time soon. I Campbell returns to the IL.

The Workman & Hembree for Pivetta deal worked out well, but nobody minded us being sellers in 2020. The Beni nondeadline trade for Franchy and Gambrell did not look all that great, but then Wink did pretty well, and Beni has largely sucked and been overpaid. The other nondeadline trade of Renfroe for JBJ, looks a little better now that DHam is doing pretty well. The Betts nondeadline trade has always sucked, and when Jeter Downs s*** the bed, it looked even worse. Now that Wong is doing well, it still sucks, but at least we got something out of that trade (Verdugo, too, and now what we got for Dugo: Fitts & Weissert.) Grading trades early is natural, but no grade is complete until all teh terms of control are finished.

At the time, I looked at the Vaz for Abreu and Valdez, plus the Diekman dump for McGuire, together, as a big plus and still do. McGuire was supposed to be very good on D and with the staff. He did very well at the end of 2022, but has not lived up to my hopes.

Many viewed it as a sign of giving up and sending the wrong message to the team, going forward.

It's easy find "what ifs" on FA signings, but we could have gotten Flaherty, instead of Gio and saved $10M over two years, which might have helped JH accept keeping Sale's contract. For $7M more, we could have had Sale & Flaherty over Gio. For no extra money, we could have had Sale and Fedde over Gio.

LOL, my timeline was a tad off on Devers. LOL.

Certainly, neglecting the rotation, especially after we knew Gio was toast, was the big blunder. (The Sale trade, to me, is only a blunder in hindsight, but let's not go there, again.) We knew guys like Houck, Whitlock, Crawford and Bello could not be counted on for 175+ IP, and only Pivetta offered some hope for that total. Criswell and Anderson? LOL! It would have been way cheaper signing a 4/5 SP'ers than trying to trade for one, now, and it would have lessened the strain on the current rotation and pen by having someone eat 80-110 IP, up to now. Somewhat amazingly many SP signings, even ten or more low to mid range ones, have produced, so far this season. Upper-Mid Range: $25M x 3 Sonny Gray (2.7 fWAR, 15th in MLB and better than Crawford) Mid Level $13M x 4 Imanaga (2.5 fWAR (19th in MLB $15M x 3 Seth Lugo (3.2 fWAR is 9th) $18M x 2 Stroman (0.0 fWAR but 110 more IP than Gio) $16M x 2 Wacha (2.0 fWAR, 33rd in MLB- ahead of Crawford) $14M x 2 Manaea (1.3 fWAR, 67th and just below Pivetta) $14M x 1 Flaherty (2.3 fWAR, 23rd in MLB- ahead of Crawford) $13M x 1 Severino (1.2 fWAR $13M x 1 Gibson (1.2 fWAR) $11M x 1 L Lynn (0.9 fWAR- same as Criswell) Low/Mid Level: $8M x 2 Fedde (2.6 fWAR, 17th and tied with Burnes) $7M x 1 Paxton (0.3 and 89 IP) $4.5 x 1 Lorenzen (1.7 fWAR and 97 IP)

The thing about Bogey at 3B, and I think maybe 2B was best for him, was that he was only given 10 games at 3B in the minors, before his call-up. SS and 3B are not similar positions to play, and more time is needed to adjust from SS to 3B. No doubt, Bogey struggled at 3B, and I think it also affected his batting, out of the gate, which was a big thing to do to a rookie being called up during a high pressure situational promotion. An eventual Bogey 3B, Iggy SS, Pedey 2B and Devers 1B idea looked pretty good, on paper, to me, back in those days. The Drew rental was a pretty good idea, too, and the results of that 2013 deadline move worked out well. (Note: no other deadline trades were made by the Sox in 2013.) The Jacobs for Thornton deal in mid July did not work out, too well, but it was a good try.

Even Houck and Crawford slipped, badly. We need a stopper, and quickly.

I think there was something about Iggy that rubbed the Sox brass the wrong way, although the next regime did bring him back (for nothing in return, I might add.) I was very high on Iggy, but I felt Peavy was a good return. He was not a rental, either. He has another year of control, and eventually we traded him for Hembree and Escobar. (Later, Hembree was traded with Workman for Pivetta.) Perhaps, the worst part of that trade was us also giving up Montas.

I do think the sheer amount of buyers and tire-kickers will be as high as ever, this deadline, and that should drive the cost of return higher and higher, but I do think we can still get some meaningful pieces without giving up not only any top 3 prospects, but maybe not top 4-6 either. Keeping Perales, Fitts and Sandlin could be possible, too, but if we get some decent pitching in return, we will likely have to part with some of our own pitching prospects. We could trade the LHB Abreu, who really struggles vs LHPs. We have O'Neill, Ref and Rafaela (Yorke, Lugo & Campbell on the farm as possible LF'ers) as RHBs and Duran and Yoshida (DH first/LF option) with Anthony knocking at the door as LHB OF'ers. I think we could get some decent returns for these guys, but maybe I'm just a pink hat homer: Abreu Meidroth Lugo Valdez DHam (if we get a RHB SS) Maybe decent returns for: Mata or Wikelman Murphy or Walter Paulino or Castro Hickey or Brannon Jordan or Coffey Romero or Anderson Not sure we want to part with Zanetello, the Garcia brothers, E R-C or Dobbins, but if we go all in, we probably will have to. I think it can be done, but do we really want to nearly gut our entire farm depth for a longshot chance at 2024 glory? I know some fans are all about the here and now, and I get their points, but I doubt we scrap the 5 year rebuild plan based on the hopes the 2024 team has given us up until 4 days ago.

I kind of expected Campbell to be higher, but his approach does leave a lot of questions and concerns on how he translates to higher level play. Still: not bad having 4 in the top 63, 5 in the top 100 and guys like Perales, Cespedes and maybe Bleis poised to make jumps in the EOY rankings or by mid-season 2025. Of course, we won't know how these higher ranked prospects do in MLB for at least a year or so, but it's encouraging to see some high hopes on the horizon.

Love seeing these promotions, and look forward to seeing their results.

I wasn't doubting your reporting. I guess the uniqueness of the Casas injury might preclude him from even starting to swing a bat with full force, until he reaches exactly 100%, hence no rehab games.

Our biggest need after April, seemed to be middle IF and a RHB. Strangely, the Rafaela, DHam, Romy and even some mini hot streaks by Valdez and Westbrook, seemed to stabilize the MI, or at worst turn if from being horrific on O and D, to being halfway decent. O'Neill and Ref have done okay vs LHPs, but not really consistently. However, our rankings since May 1st supports the idea that we should still be above a .500 team: fWAR Still 3rd in pitching at 12.3, but just 0.4 from being 7th. 14th in O+D at 9.4 (0.8 from #10 and 2.3 from #20- much closer to top 10 than bottom 10, though.) 12th in runs scored (3 runs from #10) 6th in OPS & 9th in wRC+ 24th in OAA Simply put, since May 1st, we have been about a ... Top 7 team in pitching (maybe top 4 due to poor D hurting the numbers) Top 12 in batting Bottom 7 on defense

That's been the case, 4 times. BTW, has the "momentum" shifted? LOL

I didn't know he said that. Last I heard, Casas was hitting the ball of a tee, and wasn't close to playing a rehab game. CBS has him listed at a Sept 1st ETA.

While I don't disagree, how many meaningful trades have gone down in June and July, so far? Teams are waiting for desperation to set in, and some teams are have not been sure they are sellers, yet. It's not easy getting significant talent once the season starts until a few days before the deadline.

If he picks the lane to be a buyer, and has JH's okay to add some salary, along the way, what would "decisive" look like? To me, to get us to a legitimate contender, we'd need... 1 & 2. A solid #2 SP'er and a #5 or two #3/4's. 3. A solid set-up RP'er like Martin was in '23 and Slaten was until going on the IL, this year. 4. A solid middle RP'er 5. A meaningful RHB at SS (Rafaela to CF) or 1B. (Maybe both) This is bare minimum needs. We might need more than the 5 additions I just listed. How does Brez pull this off without selling low on Bleis or Cespedes and/or parting with Fitts or Sandlin? It's hard to imagine him getting a solid #2 SP'er without giving up a top 5-9 prospect or two, even if he's a rental.

With Casas out maybe all year, and Slaten & Martin, as well, there does appear to be too many holes to fill without taking a big chunk out of the farm & future. If all we needed was a 4th starter, a couple decent RP'ers and a RHB at SS or 1B, we could probably fill those needs by trading some prospects in the 10-30 range, plus MAYBE Abreu. Now, the list is so long, that probably can't be done, and I'm not so sure we'd want to take a massive chunk out of our farm depth, anyway. I'm torn, right now. I did not expect this feeling to come, so suddenly. No 4 game stretch should ever do this, but it seems to have done so. The next 6 games could change that, but even if we go 5-1 or 4-2, it does look like making the playoffs might be at less than 50-50, and doing anything special in the playoffs at very long odds. I'm not giving up, but this really sucks. What a gut punch!

Yup. Take ‘em one at a time.