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So you think Price made no difference, despite his being 34 years old and owed $96 million? If you're arguing they took him at half price for nothing, that is possible...

And that is a legitimate fear, not like the one where we all feared Middlebrooks would be the next Mark Reynolds. I'm not sure why people thought that was such a bad thing....

I think he could have. But how much more is pure speculation...

If Houck is the #6 guy, wouldn't he start in the minors waiting to be one of the top 5?

He has not pitched since college. The minors are loaded with position players who were good pitchers in college, and pitchers who were excellent college hitters. Until recently, no one pursued both paths even in the minors. But we are seeing an occasional player now who does, such as Tampa's Brendan McKay. But even in that case, McKay has not played any 1B since A ball. A few have done so in MLB recently, such as Cincinnati's Michael Lorenzen now plays the outfield on occasion. And Milwaukee had am outfielder in 2003-04 named Brooks Kieschnick who also pitched 96 IP in those years. But I think I'd be surprised if Dalbec ever took the mound in anything beyond a mop up capacity...

THe only real problem I have with Eovaldi, and I think I have been hs biggest critic on this board, is his complete lack of durability. From a talent perspective, he is a marvel. Not many people can throw 99mph as frequently as he does. And the ones who do are usually complete freaks, like Randy Johnson. I mean, if your attic was infested with birds and you made some calls to recitfy this problem, and Nathan Eovaldi showed up at your house, you probably wouldn't think "Why is Nathan Eovaldi here to get rid of those birds?" At best, you might think "Hey, my exterminator looks an awful lot like Nathan Eovaldi. But I suppose that's true for a lot of handymen." Now if the 6'11" spectacularly ugly Randy Johnson showed up at your house in the same context, you would easily recognize him right away, and then legitimately fear that he was going to rid your attic of birds with a steady stream of 95mph sliders that caused the individual avian interlopers to explode in a maelstrom of feathers and pigeon innards, leaving a mess far, far worse than the birds themselves. But with Nathan, you might only know it was him if, after removing all the birds from your attic, he managed to injure his elbow and was unable to remove any more birds for the rest of the year. Which, of course, would probably also be the case with Anthony Reyes, except that he removes those birds a lot more cheaply. Somewhere in there is an actual point. Oh yeah, Eovaldi is a mega-talented pitcher who simply cannot stay healthy. And that can be a big problem for the pitching-depleted Sox that is very likely to continue into next season. Also, do not hire Randy Johnson for household tasks...

Actually, we don't even know if he would run this like a small market team. Right now, you can't say that he is because, despite how awful this team is, we still have one of the largest payrolls in MLB. What he is doing now is not "small market" baseball; it's necessary maintenance after a period of overspending...

True, in that it's not just Yankee fans with the Evaluations of Future Glory. Remember when Tony Blanco was the the Next Vlad Guerrero? Turns out he wasn't even the Next Mario Guerrero...

So you put bait out there for the purpose of getting angry at people who take it? Nice. Of course, you did receive multiple responses. not sure why mine was singled out so much except that I suggested you ignored history. It certainly can't be because I said something detrimental about Dombrowski; I didn't mention him at all, and didn't even discuss anything he did. But if you think Henry is just going to spend without limits, history has shown that to clearly be not true. And it happened before this season as well. Cherington took over a team in 2012 and was not allowed to spend to the point that he had to deal Marco Scutaro in order to add Cody Ross. Neither of those players had big money contracts. And he dialed back spending again prior to the 2017 season, when the Red Sox reset the tax burden a year prior to the Yankees and Dodgers, leaving the Sox as the sole big money bidders for the biggest name on the market in JD Martinez. When it comes to spending, as far as I can tell, Henry just doesn't want to keep repeatedly paying luxury tax payments, and wants to occasionally dial back and get under the limit for a single season so as to reduce his non-value added payments. Now in between those resets, his budget can be very accommodating...

Maybe he should have been. Maeda could have been controlled for 4 years at $12.5mill total. That's a crazy good bargain...

I think you're just trying to save John Henry some money

To get Betts. They also clearly liked Graterol and revised the deal to keep him once Boston bowed out on that iteration. (Wait!! Is this a trade where the Dodgers dealt a pitcher and not for prospects or a salary dump?!)

As much as I think the Sox were right to trade Betts, I live in a world where that became a foregone conclusion with DD's reckless spending on starting pitching. Betts was on my very short list of players I wanted signed to a mega-extension...

Kenta Maeda? The guy who was on he short list of free agent pitchers I said were better options than Price? That Kenta Maeda?

And how many of those pitchers are established upgrades over Eovaldi? Some of them have the same durability issues he has, like Reyes and Canning. And Syndergaard can probably be had for less, given that he is likely to miss half of next season and then he reaches free agency a year from now...

But there are plenty of them with his career .308 OBP that prevents him from hitting there...

Even then, I think you're minimizing a return for Vazquez in order to dump Eovaldi, which is the exact opposite of the strategy we've seen Bloom try to employ...

And any time he got there, there was already another man on second How much lower can I take this?

I assumed that when the Twins and Graterol got involved at all, it spoke volumes about exactly how available some of the Dodger pitching prospects like Dustin May and Josiah Gray were...

The premise that the Sox could add Chavis and Vazquez to Eovaldi to upgrade over Eovaldi seems like a longshot to me. Teams would have to be very desperate to get hold of Chavis and Vazquez. Now Vazquez might have some appeal, but I don't think a one-dimensional role player like Chavis is enough of a difference maker to convince another team to downgrade their pitching. Detroit And Cleveland are the best bets here, as both have serious pitching depth and not really much in the way of offenive players in the pipeline. But I do not think either is all that excited by Vazquez and Chavis to the point where the Sox get an upgrade over Eovaldi. Although if the upgrade is in durability only, maybe it can happen. But I don't see with whom. The best option on these teams might be Carrasco, who is better than Eovaldi, but really not any more durable...

For the record, no one is ok with Billy Hamilton. Except maybe Mrs Hamilton. And even she had complaints about something being too fast...

Lin Manuel Miranda arguably had more hits, and very likely has more going forward...

I think Eovaldi is ours. Any trade of him is not likely to bring back a useful piece, just an expensive one. And then the Sox have to replace Eovaldi. I say move him to the bullpen and make him a high leverage reliever. Maybe the reduced workload will work out better for his durability. And let's face it, if the Sox have one area that needs more attention than starting rotation, it's the bullpen...

Sure. The Sox can get Billy Hamilton for a lot less. But should they?

He's a good prospect and off to a nice start, but any comparison to just about any MLB pitcher is probably based on nothing but hope. We've seen Yankee prospects come up with more hype, like when Manny Banuelos was the next Johan Santana and Jesus Motero was the next Miguel Cabrera. Perhaps those fans were thinking of some other Johan Santana and Miguel Cabrera? Like not the ones who were immensely successful baseball players?