Jack Flap

I can't really disagree with any of this. As you say, we needed a starter, and there really weren't many options. I get where Moon is coming from (the long-term view is important as well), but what's done is done, and I definitely have hope for better things from Pomeranz.

Were those two amazing wild card games, or what? Goddamn.

My main issue with the trade all along was that I don't think trading a top 20 prospect for a middle-of-the-rotation starter is good practice, but beyond that it's still far too early to make much of a judgement about the trade. So far from Pom we have a great August, bad September (possibly attributable to fatigue), and not being able to start in October (though he could still be a factor out of the pen). What we get from him in 2017-18 will make all the difference.

No, it doesn't. I think getting Espinoza back and sending them someone like Henry Owens in place of Pomeranz would be fair, though I can also see why that wouldn't happen; if not, I'd settle for a draft pick of some sort. I just don't buy that the league could take away already-signed prospects from the Red Sox in the international affair earlier this year, but couldn't find any way to compensate them in this case. The Padres screwed several teams and still got out of this very, very easily.

Reports at the time of Pomeranz being pulled from the rotation were that the case with the Padres was still a closed issue, so I wouldn't expect this to be revisited in the offseason. It's kind of stunning to me for the league to basically admit that a reversal of the trade would have been justified and was on the table, but not to make any real effort to make it right. Giving the Red Sox the magnanimous option of losing a starter during a playoff race, with no way to replace him given that the deadline was already passed, is a joke for reasons already stated and almost makes me angrier than if no compensation had been offered to begin with.

I had and still have misgivings about the original trade, but it should be no surprise to anyone that the Red Sox didn't choose to send their big trade deadline acquisition (you know, the one they went and got because they desperately needed a starter) back and face the prospect of someone like Henry Owens pitching meaningful games down the stretch. If it was a choice of rescinding the trade with the deadline already passed vs. no compensation at all, then that's asinine and the league might has well not have bothered offering.

Kmibrel has had a solid season. I think many of us expected more after the premium price we paid for him and his residual uber-closer reputation from his days with the Braves. He's not really that guy any more, but he'll be fine. Other than the O's (who may not make it out of the WC game), I don't really see an AL playoff team with a dramatically better closer.

Wasn't really looking to rekindle the debate over whether we should have traded Espinoza, though it still seems like a high price to pay for a guy who had never been a starter for a full season...having to "handle him with care" down the stretch due to his having thrown more innings than ever before was an entirely predictable outcome, and we're lucky Buchholz seems to have found himself again (for now) or we'd be short a SP once again heading into October. That's before we even get into whatever underlying issue was in his medical reports that Preller withheld (it doesn't seem to have been anything severe, but we know there was something). Hopefully this is just normal fatigue and nothing more.

This may have been posted in another thread, but Pomeranz will not start again this season and his postseason status is in doubt due to forearm soreness: http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/17655380/drew-pomeranz-boston-red-sox-start-thursday-going-forward-due-sore-arm Ominous. With it looking more and more like the Padres sold us damaged goods, at what point do the Red Sox have to revisit the idea of reworking this trade or seeking compensation somehow?

I feel sick.

Probably, but now I'm questioning my own sanity because I'm not sure I'd even trade Bradley for Sale straight-up. At this point we're talking about a stellar defensive CF who's pushing 30 HR and 100 RBI with an .860 OPS and 4 years of control remaining (compared to Sale's 3)...that's an insanely valuable player.

I wouldn't mind Beltran as much as some of the others because he won't be able to get a QO and, at his age, should only be able to demand one or two years at the most.

What a beast... that is all.

Lol at suspending the GM. Hopefully that's not the only punishment, though...if the Red Sox (fairly, IMO) had prospects taken away for skirting the international signing rules, one would think the Padres deserve some sort of more tangible penalty (like loss of draft pick) for intentionally deceiving other clubs in trade talks.

Just think, if we'd traded Hanley this past winter and he was having this kind of season somewhere else, he'd probably be getting hit with the "Too soft to play in Boston" label by all the armchair psychoanalysts out there.

Agreed.

This got really weird.

I mean, sure, if the right deal comes along (as always), but I don't see why we'd be any more likely to trade him than we were 2 weeks ago. More likely we send him back to Pawtucket, let him hopefully mash there for a few months, and call him up sometime later in 2017.

Strange for the team to call him up and virtually gift him the 3B job, then yank it back after a really bad small-sample look. Regardless, nothing that's happened in his 7 games and 19 plate appearances ought to sway anyone's opinion one way or the other. He is still raw and needs more time in the minors - opinions which were widespread at the time of his call-up.

I was just thinking there's not been much Price controversy lately. His ERA is 3.11 since May 12th, 2.82 since the beginning of July, 3.87 overall.

This is the hell of the Clay Buchholz experience... just when you're ready to give up and kick him to the curb, he gives you just enough hope to justify keeping him around, even though you know very well that hope is going to be crushed all over again in due time. Best-case scenario from here: he finishes the season on a high note, gets the option picked up, and has an ace-like first half of 2017 (which his career pattern would suggest he's due for), and then we trade him at next year's deadline for a top prospect or two from some poor sap of a GM.

Good call giving Yoan a breather tonight. What was surprising to me was not so much that he was called up (though I wouldn't have complained if we didn't see him until next summer), but that he was virtually handed the third base job right out of the box in the midst of a playoff race. Bogaerts in 2013 (the comparison Farrell keeps using) actually played sparingly down the stretch and didn't crack the regular lineup until the ALCS; even Benintendi mostly rode the bench in his first week or so, and that's when the mighty Bryce Brentz was our other LF. For all of the talk early in the season about playing time having to be earned on this club, it's almost like Farrell and Dombrowski got a little star-struck with this kid and his great tools and jumped ahead of themselves...I don't think just because Shaw has sucked for the last 2-3 months you have to just hand the starting job to a 21 year-old who hasn't proven anything yet above Double-A (and whose K rate was a warning sign even at that level). I think Moncada is going to be a big-time player for this team in the pretty near future, but right this moment it's time to pump the brakes just a little.

Color me skeptical that, even with a strong September, anyone would want him bad enough at $13.5 million to give up anything of much significance. It's not like other teams are unaware of his history, and pcking up his option and only to have to eat some of it or trade him for pennies on the dollar would kind of defeat the whole purpose.

Here's Soxprospects' new scouting writeup of 4th round pick Bobby Dalbec, who hit .386/.427/.674 with 7 HR in 34 games in Lowell... questionable hit tool, but huge power ceiling by all accounts. http://news.soxprospects.com/2016/09/scouting-scratch-bobby-dalbec.html

Can't say I really believe in this team going all the way at this point. They have all the raw materials to be great, but they've shown a penchant for failing to get the job done when it matters most and having things go wrong at the most inopportune time, keeping them from going on any kind of extended run or maintaining any real momentum for very long. You have to think they should be comfortably in first right now when you look at all the games the bullpen has pissed away, or games like the last two where they couldn't get a big hit to save their lives (against really s***** teams, no less). That 2013-type fire, where you felt like they were never really out of any game, just isn't there right now. (Sorry for the negativity...watching the Sox offense make Edwin f'ing Jackson look like an ace just puts me in a bad mood.)