Jack Flap

Yep. It seems like a lot of people's praise for the trade is based on the fact that we got a guy who is contributing in the major leagues for another guy who has not and may never do so...but while Espinoza (like any other young pitching prospect) may never become a great MLB pitcher or even throw a pitch there, that doesn't mean we'd have made a good trade if we traded him for a utility infielder or a 6th inning reliever. Teams value prospects with ceilings like Espinoza's so highly for a reason. I'll grant that the jury is still out on the trade (mainly because Pomeranz is so inconsistent and injury-prone that it's tough to really know what we have in him), but short of Pom turning into a legitimate TOTR starter for us, I'll never be a fan of the deal. You don't trade elite prospects for #4 pitchers.

You certainly won't get him for nothing, but if the price isn't too exorbitant (keeping in mind he'd just be a rental), I'd consider pulling the trigger. If he or some other option doesn't work out, then you move on to Devers. Moustakas is a free agent after this season, so Devers would still be free to take over third base sometime next year, if not Opening Day. True.

I see it the other way around...why not throw some s*** against the wall for the next few weeks and see if anything sticks, see whether a Moustakas or Frazier can be had closer to the deadline at a reasonable price, and if all else fails, call up Devers (who ideally will have gotten some Triple-A experience in the meantime) sometime in late July/early August the way Benintendi was last year? Expecting a 20-year-old with half a season of experience above A-ball to come straight up to the majors and hold down the third base position competently for the rest of the year strikes me as wildly optimistic and a step to be taken after all other options have been explored, not before. I'm as hopeful about Devers' future as the next guy, but this is the first season that his production has really started to match his raw talent, and I'm pretty sure no one would simply be taking it for granted that he's major league ready if we had a halfway decent third baseman right now.

Is this a reference to the Moncada thing? Because Flores, well-regarded though he seems to be, isn't generating anything close to that kind of extreme hype and won't get the same kind of extreme bonus, either. (Not that we could give it to him anyway, if my understanding of the new system is correct...under the new CBA we have a bonus pool of $4.75 million and are subject to a hard cap, so there's no more ignoring the limit and simply paying a penalty. I'm sure what we did with Moncada probably had something to do with that.) Because we're talking about 16-year-old kids here, the odds are obviously that most of them won't amount to much, but we've done a pretty fair job of finding talent on the international amateur market in recent years, with the likes of Xander Bogaerts, Jose Iglesias, Manuel Margot, Rafael Devers, Anderson Espinoza, and so on.

This one's for you, MVP: Chris Hatfield‏ @SPChrisHatfield So day games like today's are spots where Sox will rest guys, but that said... Rafael Devers not in Portland lineup today. #promotionwatch EDIT: Chris Hatfield‏ @SPChrisHatfield Awwwww, @seadogsradio says Devers has the day off on the broadcast. Nothing to see here.

Not sure why we can't take a flyer on someone like Peralta or Plouffe who probably sucks but just might get hot at the right time and be better than Rutledge/Marrero -- particularly now that it's pretty clear that Pablo has lost the team's trust and isn't getting his job back. I'd prefer to see Devers perform in Triple-A for a little while before being called to Boston, but I think that's going to require some kind of move to buy some time.

Last update I've seen is that he is supposed to throw to live hitters sometime this week and hopefully head out on rehab assignment after that... https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2017/06/d-backs-pollock-quad-strain-joe-smith-jays-dl-eduardo-rodriguez-rehab-villar-hughes.html

This just in: Buck Showalter wants to make sure you know many Orioles are also playing with ear infections, they just don't whine about it like the Red Sox do.

For the record, it really wasn't criticism of Pedroia I had an issue with (he's okay in my book, but sticks his foot in his mouth sometimes and obviously isn't what he once was on the field), it was placing the useless Pablo above him in the pecking order.

Looks like a convenient way to bring back Marrero, who wouldn't be eligible to be recalled yet unless replacing a player going on the DL.

The thread simply asked what players we "support" or "hate"...one might reasonably expect their performance and value to the team to play some role here. But again, to each their own.

So one is a Red Sox lifer and two-time WS champ who is pretty much constantly playing through one injury or another, but can be kind of a dick sometimes, whereas the other continues to provide negative value in year 3 of his contract but at least hasn't publicly complained about losing playing time for being a bad baseball player? Do I have that about right? To each their own, I guess.

Panda>Pedroia? I'm confused, lol.

Castillo played some third base in Cuba, did he not? I don't know if that's an idea the team would entertain, but it might be the only way he ever gets a real shot to play in Boston.

If Brentz had been healthy and hitting like he is now 2-3 seasons ago when we had all the outfield injuries, he might have actually gotten a decent shot with the major league club...I don't know if he fits on our team at this point, but it's nice to see him doing well and maybe he can build up a little bit of trade value.

Maybe I'm misreading your point here, but the list of successful players who flopped in their first exposure to the major leagues is a long one. Our own Dustin Pedroia and Jackie Bradley obviously fit that description...some guy named Mike Trout comes to mind as well. I see no reason why Moncada should be defined by his first handful of plate appearances in MLB, and the same would go for Devers (who at 20 is already age-advanced for AA ball, let alone the majors) when he eventually joins us.

Okay, I see what your point was now. Nvm.

Well I don't think we should trade for a guy named Mistakes...that just sounds like a bad idea.

I agree the purge was the right way to go...I should have been clearer, but what I was getting at was that I wished we'd gone for younger players/prospects in return for those guys rather than taking the approach that we did.

I don't see why we'd need to extend him...Devers should take over third base no later than sometime next season. And no, I wouldn't overpay, either...we probably can't afford to after recent trades. It's probably more likely that we see some more modest moves (taking a flyer on someone like Peralta or Plouffe) until Devers is ready.

Why not? He's posting strong numbers in High-A at age 20...he's no Espinoza or Kopech in terms of ceiling, but I'd call him a not insignificant loss for a system very thin on potential starting pitchers.

Despite being under .500, the Royals are by no means out of the AL Central race, but there seems to be an assumption out there that they will be sellers when all is said and done, so I wonder what it would take to land Moustakas. As he'll be a free agent after the season, the price would hopefully not be exorbitant, and adding a power bat at third would give our lineup a completely different look (and allow Devers to spend the rest of the year in Pawtucket rather than being rushed up to Boston and expected to save the season).

As someone who was very frustrated by what the Red Sox did with the Lackey and (to a lesser extent) Lester deals, I have to agree. Much as I hate to admit it as a Sox fan, it looks like the Yanks played their cards just about perfectly last summer. Dropping Tolkien references in a baseball context = permanent Top PosterTM status.

A couple of thoughts... 1. RE: "This not some 21 year old kid we/re talking about here. Jackie has been around for 4 years. He's 27 His current turnaround was totally unexpeced (by me, anyway)." And of the years he's been around, he was a bad hitter in 2013 (relatively small sample size of 107 PA's) and 2014, arguably because he was rushed to the majors before he should have been; since then, he has not showed anything close to the sort of protracted, hopeless futility he went through in 2014. Looking at what he did in the minors as a prospect coming up, and what he's done since the beginning of 2015, there is far more evidence that he is a good hitter than not. I would argue the turnaround should have been anything but unexpected. 2. If you look at his game logs for this season, the period when he was really lost can be isolated to the 12 games (47 PA) that followed his activation from the DL. By comparison, Benintendi went through an 87 PA stretch from mid-May to early June where he hit .123/.221/.137 and his OPS dropped over 200 points, yet I did not hear anything approaching the same gloom and doom. Some people greatly overreacted to a rather unremarkable SSS slump by JBJ (one that probably would have been overlooked had it come later in the season), plain and simple. The guy is a valuable contributor with the bat as well as the glove, and if anyone hasn't grasped that yet, I'd say it's time to get on board.

Then there's Pomeranz who, while he hasn't needed surgery, did have underlying medical issues that became almost immediately apparent after the trade. (Yes, in this case it was concealed from us by the Padres, but the Red Sox also missed it...)