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Is it? If he is earmarked for the bull;pen, leave him out there and let him pitch as needed. I just don't like the idea making him a reliever until needed as a starter. If he is a relief pitcher, put him in the bullpen. If he is a starter, but him in either rotation - Boston or Worcester - to start the season until he is needed in Boston. and if he goes to Worcester, that is a good thing because it means the Sox have 5 healthy starters for the start of the season. Service time need not be an issue with older rookies. This is not a guy who is going to be commanding $30-35 mill when he hits the open market...

By beating us up while wearing another uniform?

While possible, as long as those players are out there, no one wants Benintendi. Although Benintendi seems like an odd fallback for a team that misses out on JBJ...

The Sox are positioned right now that could make some sort of "make or break" move to improve the 2021 season and try for post-season contention. And if they are out of it at the deadline, they have enough short term deals that can still do a mini fire sale and get some prospects/young major leaguers and be poised for 2022. Right now, they have the following players in their final year aka deadline trade bait: Rodriguez, Barnes, Ottavino, and Richards And then they have the additional year for Benintendi, Andriese, Eovaldi and Plawecki. Even in the biggest deadline fire sales, how many deals an one team make? If they only move the one year players, that's four trades at one deadline, which is an awful lot for any team to make in that time frame anyway.

Either way. At that point, you're getting to the downside of his career. His age 25 season is likely to be just as good. That is all assuming he even has a full 6 year career, which is well above league average...

And certainly a better chance than even a "good prospect" turning into what Beni used to be. The Sox explored dealing Benintendi, but it turned out to be nothing more than due diligence. The league was not interested. and now it's Benintendi's job to make them all look silly for it...

Why could you possibly find that puzzling? (Hint: It has to do with pinstripes.) If the Sox had been the team to acquire Taillon, he would be making long medically-based posts about how much of a risk it was...

Margot is a good one. Forgot about him. but OF depth is not a strongsuit of the Sox farm. We have Jarren Duran, who struggled in AA but does seem to impress in these MiLB-equivalent short seasons like the AFL and the one in Puerto Rico. And beyond him, the next two best OF prospects are two guys who play the the same position (CF). And then we have Nick Decker, who seems like he has been in A ball forever. But I guess he is still only 21. After that, probably nothing more than a bunch of longshots..

I'm talking about grabbing them NOW.

Why bother with his service time? He's almost 25. Is the goal here to maintain control of Houck for his age 32 season?

Oh I am not so sure they feel that way about our OF prospects. Has the Sox farm graduated any OF from the farm since Benintendi? On any team in MLB?

It's on the table for all the short timers. But that can wait until the Sox are actually out of it. I'd rather grab a couple more good players and try to get back in it.

I wouldn't demote Houck due to service time concerns. This is not some 21yo who we want to keep from reaching free agency at age 27. 2021 will be his age 25 season. But if his role in the future of the Sox is as a starter, then make him a starter and don't half-ass it. If his role is the bullpen, that is different. Keep him over Brice or Valdez...

I'd actually rather have him help the Sox play meaningful games in September/October. The Sox farm system lacks any high upside "future All Star" players. But we do have a lot of guys who might be actual MLB players, either supplementary starters of bench players. Ottavino would bring back more of the latter and none of the former...

If anything of actual value was available for Benintendi, he would have been dealt for it. There is a reason there is no buzz about this anymore when, a week a go, a deal was reportedly "imminent"...

I wanted Taillon in Boston, but pretending he is healthy does not make it so. Part of his availability was due to the significant health risk, which is why Cherington traded him NOW instead of waiting until July or until next season. His salary for 2021 is only $2.25 mill, so it's not like this is some sort of huge savings. Get real. Colin Moran makes more money than Taillon! Colin Freakin' Moran!!!!! And when the dust settles, Steve Brault and Chad Kuhl likely as well. But those guys are all good bets to make it throguh a season so the impetus to deal immediately them is lessened. And THAT is why the Yankees got him so quickly and so cheaply, and probably also why a lot of other teams did not even get involved in the bidding, including the Red Sox. Do you honestly think those borderline Yankee prospects represented a better offer than any other team could have made for a healthy starting pticher who was a former #2 overall pick and makes less than $3mill and has 2 full seasons of control? Your post above actually makes it sound like you do. Those multi-TJ pitchers do not have long shelf lives. Taillon is good, and he is a worthwhile gamble. But there is the reason he was available now and came so cheaply, and also why a lot of teams backed off...

Maybe?

I think we all wanted him in then. I was pretty disappointed he went to the Yankees of all teams. Of course, I have also launched mini-campaigns for all those other relievers except Treinen. Never liked Treinen. He knows why...

Well, you did say the Sox were not a playoff team in 2018...

You can make this argument all you want about "rattled" Ottavino. But his FIP was right there with his 2019 numbers, and he had a higher K/9 and lower BB/9 than in 2019. It's not about "ignoring" that one outing that resulted in a loss as it is keeping it in context. He threw in 22 games, and in 20 of them allowed 1 ER or less. He actually has a good shortened season that looks a lot worse because of one bad outing that might have come on a day when maybe he did not feel well, or was distracted, or just was a little sore. That stuff happens. And when you pitch in 60-70 games, a day or two like that gets more easily absorbed into the rest of the season. Now if you want the downside of the 2020 Ottavino as compared to the 2019 version, his FBv was down almost 1 mph. (This might not mean a thing, as a lot of pitchers around the league had similar issues, likely due to on/off ST). His Contact % was up. His Swinging Strikes were down. And in both years, his FIP was in he 3.40-3.55 range, while his ERA's were 1.90 and 5.89. Still, he is not some "rattled pitcher" who needed to be dumped. He is a good pitcher who will probably settle into the mean of those two seasons, and that means he will largely pitch effectively. He was a good add for the Red Sox and right now represents a loss for the Yankees, although they are more prepared to absorb it, and presumably did so with other moves in mind. But if you think someone like Loasigia is going to merely step in and fill his void, you best hope it is not a very big void...

By the time ERod and/or Sale return, Eovaldi and/or Richards will be injured. If ERod is not on the team by opening day, then Houck is probably in the rotation. If not, I agree with soxprospects.com that he should spend a few weeks in Worcester pitching the "lighter" innings and waiting for his inevitable return to the rotation...

Technically, that they are called "earned runs" because the offense earned them. So while I get your point, even if the pitcher made the error, the offense did not "earn" them...

Ok, but who would be a good opener? The idea of the opener is to use one of the better , if not the best bullpen arm to take out the opponents' best hitters one time through the lineup...

His moves are not bad, but he is in a tough spot. The team has too high of a payroll to simply take steps backwards. (Re: losing money). But not enough room left to add significant pieces without going over while still potentially missing the postseason. If Sale had gotten his surgery immediately after the 2019 season and was ready to return a lot sooner, this team would be in a much, much easier spot to determine what path to follow...

That' has been a Very Rays Model for the past several seasons. But our current bullpen cannot compete with what they have had out there...