S5Dewey

I certainly agree with that! However, moving XBo to 3B makes 3B A LOT stronger on both sides of the ball and could make the defense better at SS. XBo's bat remains in the lineup and we're stronger defensively at both 3B & SS, while giving up prowess only at the offensive side of SS. That's a net gain.

Here's an idea that will probably get dumped on roundly, but WTH! LOL Isn't this just what this team needs now to solidify the infield? To me Bogarts looks more like a 3B, with solid defense and a good OPS. I'm not lobbying for Lin to be promoted, but wouldn't a Lin-like player improve this team if XBo were moved to 3B? Especially if it could be done cheaply?

Price didn't do a bad job. He didn't do a $31M job - more like a $15M job - but it wasn't bad. I agree that XBo didn't help him any. I'm still trying to figure out whether this team has had the bad luck of running into too many mediocre pitchers who had outstanding stuff that day or they simply can't hit mediocre pitching.

I agree with this. Injuries, etc. have kept this team from being as good as they could be (or we have hoped) but they're doing better than "just hanging around". They're in first place, and even if they don't win today (horrors!) they'll be withing striking distance of 1st place tomorrow. Life could be a lot worse.

A couple of things... I'm not sure the Player's Assn. would allow him to sign off or restructure. I remember when ARod wanted to come to the Sox and the MLBPA prevented him from restructuring his contract even though both ARod and the Sox wanted him to. Also... I'm trying to figure out why either the PA or the owners would go along with something like this. Other than the guaranteed money, it doesn't seem to be in the best interest of either party. I worked in a labor union all my life and I usually come firmly down on the side of labor but I think the MLBPA has entirely too much power.

LOL. Your memory is better than mine!

I think I saw Lin in ST. I remember that because I said, "WHO??"

How does this happen? How can a team that played as well against the Sox as Baltimore hit the skids and can't win a game? And the same with the Yankees. I just refuse to believe that the Sox played so badly that they made these two teams look like world beaters.

The thing is, salaries for solid - and better - players are escalating at a scary pace. Today's overpay can be tomorrow's bargain. That's why I don't gripe (too much) when we pay the going price for a player. I figure that within a couple of years that salary we agreed to could be cheap. Performance aside (which is hard to type in this situation) Price's salary may never be a "bargain" @ $31M but it a couple of years it could be in line - for an ace. Kershaw's getting $35.5M and Verlander is getting $28M so in next year's market..... who knows?

I've often suspected that the writers sometimes come to places like this for ideas for columns. Also, O'B said something recently that made me wonder if he'd been reading TalkSox. And BTW, feel free to use that phrase as if it were yours. I don't have a copyright on it.

I think we could have gotten a Quintana/Carrasco/Salazar type a year ago for Espinoza, Margot, Allen, Asuaje & Guerra. If I'm wrong, I'd have thrown in another good but not great prospect, if needed. And if we'd done that we'd be agonizing over the fact that we don't have a closer who can get the job done. We've now got arguably one of the top two closers and one of the top two SP's in the game. Yeah, we've still got some issues, both in pitching and otherwise, but this is a good start on a WS Championship team. Are we really going to quibble about what we might have been able to do?

Damn... and I thought that line was original, too.

Excellent point. I remember Jim Leyland in the playoffs continually replacing pitchers who were doing the job until he found one who couldn't.

I'd have prefer a SP'er making less than $13M a year. Ya. I would have preferred that too, but I doubt that SP making less than $13M/yr going to replace what Kimbrel is bringing to the team. And had we done that we'd still need a closer. Another of those things I keep harping on (because I see it as being obvious) is that often times playoff berths are decided by a win or two. IMO what Kimbrel is doing is going to net more wins than a $13M SP. Only the Fenway Bean Counters know the financial difference between making the PO's and not making them but the FO must believe it's worth Kimbrel's salary to have him doing what he's doing.

It looks like Peralta has a $10M contract which won't count against the LT as long as he's in Pawtucket. Once he gets called up he'll be getting ~$61,700/game. If he plays in 50 games that's just over $3M toward the LT. IIRC that's almost half of our buffer between the current salary and the LT limit.

Good points, VOT! And welcome to the forum.

We're getting by AND we're in 1st place. This is why we shouldn't be panicking to get a 3B. I don't like the guys we're running out at 3B day after day either, but the good news is that they only come up to bat every 9th time and (theoretically) only every 8th ball put in play is hit to them. So we stumble by with what we've got until we either have the right answer or we start to fall in the standings.

It's difficult to immediately tell if a team has overpaid since when prospects are involved it may take years to determine their value. IMO there are two trades that right now are not overpays because of where we'd be without them: Chris Sale - We gave up Moncada, Kopech, Basabe, and Diaz. I could be wrong but I don't see any one of those being the impact player that Sale is. Maybe two of them will equal one Sale, but at the same time.... you don't pass on Chris Sale. Craig Kimbrel - We gave up Margot, Guerra, Asuage, Allen. How much is the best closer in baseball worth? The upside of these multi-player deals is that most likely not more than one of them will be franchise-type players and there's an even chance that no more than two of them will be regular players. Sale and Kimbrel are the players that a team with the record like Boston has had since 2013 has to acquire if they want to win in the near future. The cost may be high but it fills a need. Wade Miley and Aro for Carson Smith. I guess you'd have to say right now that this was an overpay but since Miley and Aro aren't the type of player to fuel a championship team and Smith could be one of those guys. I'm not unhappy with the trade. Getting Thornburg for Travis Shaw, Dubron and Pennington is the one that looks the worst right now. It's looking more like Thorn is going to be out all season and Shaw could fill our need at 3B. While the Travis Shaw the Sox traded isn't the same Travis Shaw who's currently playing for the Brewers, at the same time Thornburg is giving us nothing while Shaw now looks like a serviceable 3B-man. It looks like we got the worst of this one. We got Pomeranz for Espinoza. At this moment I'd have to say that we got the best end of that trade, but IMO this is the one that has the best chance to turn around and bite us too. I'm not as concerned about "the cliff" as some are because that cliff is 4-5 years down the road. Had I been thinking about the 2017 team back in 2012 or 2013 I wouldn't have surmised that most of our current players would be on the team. Players develop, trades are made. I'll start my hand-wringing in 2020 or 2021 if it looks like we're going to be cellar dwellers again in by 2013.

This goes back to what I've always said, that I'll trade prospects for established players nearly every time. The exception is guys like Mookie & Bogaerts who stick out like a sore thumb even in the minors. They're the keepers. This is one of the benefits of being a large-market team with a big budget. The Sox don't have to take the risk of having a prospect be a flop. They can take the established player and pass the risk on to the team they traded with. Ya, I'll get my ass kicked once in a while but I'll be right more times than I'll be wrong.

^^ THIS^^ Kimbrel should have come in to get the outs in the 8th and then let Kelly takes his chances with the 7-8-9 hitters in the 9th.

Maddon blundered his way through the World Series, got outmanaged at every turn, and still managed to pull victory from the grasp of stupidity.

All very rational, but how do you reconcile this post with what you posted above in post 586 of this thread? My concern about calling Devers up now is the possibility that he's not ready and gets send back and forth. I can see a scenario where we get caught up in a numbers crunch in a couple of years when we may want to send him back down for more work but he's out of options because we rushed him to the bigs.

Sweet lovin' God... I can tolerate a relief pitcher giving up hits. At least he's giving the defense a chance to make plays. But I CANNOT tolerate walking man after man while the defense stands helplessly by. Hey Barnes.... The bus for the airport leaves in an hour Be under it!. Grrrrr

2B by JBJ to lead off the inning. Dare we hope the hitters will bail out the pen today?

I'm not usually one to criticize the manager but why in Hell didn't Farrell have someone warming up when he brought Scott in? But.. then again.... managers don't make much difference in a game. :-(