notin

While I reuse to write the Yankees out of the Lindor sweepstakes, I could see them simply keeping Torres at shortstop and focusing on other priorities...

My bad. I was thinking of Hunter Harvey. Cincy is still an obvious destination. My only gripe is their 3 best prospects (Lodolo, India, and Greene) that they might deal (and I don't think Bogaerts gets you all three) are all A ball players.

Lindor would be great, but expect the competition to be fierce. The Dodgers will have an opening at SS, and the Yankees might as well. The Astros might move Correa before next year and go with Toro/Bregman on the left side, so whoever takes Correa will have an opening at SS. Luckily there will be plenty of other options. Don't overlook the vastly underrated Andrelton Simmons, who hits the market this offseason as well. To me the big question is, wht teams will be interested in Bogaerts? The Reds would be an obvious choice, as their window closes significantly after 2020 and they have Freddy Glavis at SS. But they're also 9-11 and 5 games out, so they might not be so "all in." The Cubs are another option, as their window slams shut after 2021 so they need to be all in. But their only decent SP prospect is in A ball. (The Reds have MLB-ready Hunter Greene, who is the one "must get" in any deal with them.)

If you overspend, you can’t keep your young core. And with Benintendi out for who knows how long (and struggling mightily anyway), Bogaerts is probably the Sox best trade chip. The only real problem is that it’s one year too early, as next season Lindor, Seager, Story, and Correa all reach free agency and a whole slew of teams might be interested in Bogaerts. (But on the bright side for Boston, one of them will be available to replace him.)

Well of course you see no chance to compete in 2021 now. But maybe once some moves are made and people are healthy and we know what the team looks like. I imagine people were making similar statements in 2012...

If the Sox reset, will they care about being under?

He should have, but the Dodgers were reluctant to deal any of their pitching prospects. In the original deal, a third team had to be brought in to get a pitching prospect. On the bright side, you mind be the only person in the world who thinks Jeter Downs is worthless, and since you’re not a GM, maybe he can be dealt...

But... but.... but.... the cliff isn’t real!!!

He might not do it alone, but no one ever said he had to...

Sure he can. He’s a legitimate prospect. BA top 100 and MLB.com top 50 this year. Not sure what pitcher he gets, but he certainly can be flipped...

When Dombrowski was running the Tigers, he had a rotation that included the last three Cy Young winners (Scherzer,, Price and Verlander) at the time. And they started 3 straight postseason games against the Orioles and lost all three. Funny how those things turn out...

His nickname was Cam because of his last name. His real name was Malcolm Cameron...

That was the big mistake with the Betts trade. Even a relief pitching prospect is needed on this team. I disagree on Downs, although his future also might be nothing given how far away he is. Hopefully as he was clearly Plan B he can and will be dealt for a usuable arm...

Per rotoworld, it is entirely possible his IL trip is more related to quarantining for clearing COVID protocols. Either way, he is a former top prospect who has disappointed and is probably best suited for a utility infielder role, much like all of the Sox middle infielders not named Bogaerts...

This team needs relievers, too...

This long dead thread needed to be revived with the Tigers calling up a prospect with the best name for a pitcher in MLB history - Tarik Skrubal

That would be nice. If there aren't any again, one has to wonder how sustainable MLB is going forward. While this frustrating (to be kind) rotation looks easy to improve upon, not really sure what else could have been done. The Sox lost Sale and ERod before the season began, and if they had them, the Sale-Rodriguez-Eovaldi-Perez front 4 is certainly not intimidating, but it's better than this Long Island Ducks rotation the team is rolling out now, and by a lot. Losing Darwinzon Hernandez has not helped atall, either. But the Sox had no money to spend given their insanely high payroll, which was well over $200mill before the Betts trade. They had no young pitchers coming up. Their best pitching prospect above A ball whose not out with COVID-19 is probably Bryan Mata, who had 53 unimpressive innings in AA. Their best pitching prospect besides him is probably Jay Groome, who has all of 66 IP in 4 years. No help from within. They don't even have many good prospects to deal for a pitcher. Casas and Downs (who was not part of the system) headline the list. The two have combined for 12 games above A ball. They are still tradable, although not sure for what. Maybe the Sox could have dealt Benintendi for a pitcher, and in hindsight, they probably should have. And maybe they still will. But is a pitcher obtained for Benintendi really going to save this team?

No one is at the ballpark to watch the scrubs this year...

If the Sox can reset and spend a little, they could fill some gaps through free agency. Some names that appeal to me SP: Trevor Bauer is the obvious target. He'll cost and have some sort of evil long term contract, but the Sox need arms. Fallback options include Marcus Stroman and Robbie Ray. Beyond that, some depth signings with some intrigue include Mike Minor and Jake Odirizzi. Outside of Bauer, none of these are real game changers. Garrett Richards is a mega talent who would probably be better off moving to closer. RP. Weak year for RP, but Kirby Yates, Ken Giles, Keone Kela, Trevor May and Liam Hendriks. Chris Devenski is a reasonably good non-closer who is available. 2B: Assuming the Sox do not try to solve this in-house from the Utility Infielder Crowd, Cesar Hernandez is a very underrated player. Jonathan Schoop will be available again this year, like he is every year, and is apparently a very good friend of Xander Bogaerts. Jonathan Villar has become a useful player as well, which no one saw coming. CF: Springer is the headliner and only real game changer, but maybe that money is better spent on pitching. Beyond him, the best options are the players Boston is losing, in Bradley and Pillar. Sox are probably better off avoiding Springer, as he is likely to be one of the two biggest draws in this class (along with Bauer). OF: Now the Sox could move on a corner OF and switch Benintendi to CF, which is not anyone's wish on this forum. But if that happens, Marcell Ozuna and Nick Castellanos (if he opts out) become the bigger names. Joc Pederson would also be available, but unless someone gives him a chance to learn to hit LHP, the interest should be limited. I suppose either Ozuna or Pederson are as capable in CF as Benintendi...

They could also extend ERod, assuming he is ever healthy enough to pitch again...

While their values are equal on baseballtradevalues.com, I think it would be smarter to deal Dalbec over Chavis. Chavis is etablishing himself nicely into the weak side platoon at 1B, and is probably not an everyday player. Dalbec, on the other hand, probably has some more appeal around the league as a potential starting 3B, and, unlike Chavis, has yet to disprove he can handle the role. Why hand that role over to Dalbec when Chavis is actually handling it nicely and has somehow come close to being an actual bright spot on this abysmal team? Maybe he can get a decent arm for Dalbec, even if it is a pen arm. Or a CF. (Dalbec to St. Louis for Harrison Bader? Dalbec to Tampa for Randy Arozarena?) The wildest of wild cards might be to move Dalbec to the OF, but I don't consider that to be all that likely...

The clearcut strength of the 2021 Red Sox will be the utility infielder position. With Peraza, Lin, Arroyo, Yairo Munoz, Arausz, and CJ Chatham all in the mix for that one spot. It might be nice if one of them can step up and take over 2B...

It’s very possible the Sox had no chance of extending Betts. But if that’s the case, then trading him was absolutely the right move, and hindsight only drills this point in even deeper, as the Sox have since lost Sale and ERod. Dombrowski did a great job acquiring Cabrera, but his extension of him already ranks among the worst contracts in MLB history, and it’s far from over. His contract with Verlander looked that way, too, but Verlander somehow jumped back atop his game after a couple years where it looked like he was declining into mediocrity and is back among the best starters in MLB. Maybe the mistake there was unloading him, but I can totally understand why he did it. He did have a weird knack for not only ignoring closers in Detroit, but the bullpen in general. He appeared to switch this philosophy in Boston not only with Kimbrel but also in his early deals to acquire Tyler Thornburg and Carson Smith, both of whom flopped for reasons unrelated to Dombrowski (unless he ignored medicals?). The Sale extension was the most perplexing. I think everyone in the Milky Way figures Sale to be in line for a much bigger deal, and it was such a bargain, one could only wonder - were the medicals being ignored? Or did Dombrowski figure even if Sale missed some time, the overall contract would still be worth it. The Eovaldi contract was f***ing stupid. If the rest of MLB was that hot for him, DD should have let him walk. World Series hero or not...

The team was 84-78 when he took over, a drop of 24 wins from the previous season. They were at their budget limit, and had no prospects in the BA Top 100 prior to the season with their best one being a first baseman in A ball. WHat did people expect this year to be like, given they had absolutely zero methods of improving that thy could use? No money to sign. No prospects to trade. And all Bloom could do was cruise the waiver wire hoping to find some gold in the garbage dump...

Not really. They had their scandal, and the sheer volume of hitters who struggled with other teams only to turn into flat out offensive monsters with the Yankees is well beyond suspicious...