S5Dewey

Yes. Which is why I don't want to weaken that defense by trading any of those players away.

I'm in with this in spite of the caveats that come with Felix. I'm of the belief that his best years are behind him and that his numbers this year are somewhat inflated by playing those two California teams + the Astros 19 times. The AL West isn't exactly the AL East. But I'd take that chance.

Pitching and defense wins championships. Sox aren't quite there yet.

I just hope these things haven't set a precedent that becomes the norm. I believe that when a player retires it's appropriate for the Home Team to make a big deal of it, but parading him around the country in a "victory tour" is both embarrassing and distracting. Of course, I'm a believe that usually Less is More.

C & P from another thread: Nope. What I said was there's been a discussion about it, and there has been, both about picking up Chapman and what Kimbrel's reaction might be.

Did I say that? Where?? What I've noticed is that every time a trade for Sale or Quintana comes up JBJ's name is the only "quality player" mentioned. If I were DD everyone in that OF (including probably Beni) would be untouchable. I'm not sure people understand how good/valuable that OF is. Assuming Beni is as advertised, we now have corner OF'ers with the skills to be CF's and the power to be corner OF'ers and a GG caliber CF with an OPS >.800. And they all play virtually every day. Our resident Yankee fan has suggested that we should do what we have to do to win now because we have a window of opportunity to do it, and I agree with that. We need a 3B, a couple of relievers, and ideally a SP. I'd 'do what we have to do' in terms of trading as many prospects as we have to in order to get the players we have to get but our core of younger players - the 4 B's would be untouchable.

THIS^^ and here's why: Outstanding pitchers can make good hitters look bad - and often do, especially in the playoffs. Outstanding hitters can make good pitchers look bad, but most teams only have 2-3 outstanding hitters. But the hitters have no control over the defense. The defense is what it is and if it's outstanding today it'll be outstanding tomorrow and the day after that too.

Lots of people, apparently. People who are almost salivating at the prospect of picking up Quintana or Sale to pitch every 5th day even if it means giving up a GG caliber CF who plays every day and has an OPS >.800.

You know the answer to that as well as I do. The team had finished last for two consecutive years. The Sox FO wanted to keep those Season Ticket Holders signed up so they decided to do something, even if it wasn't right. They could see in their mind's eye all those concession stands selling the Panda Hats and Panda this and Panda that. The guy would be an adequate 3B and the money machine would keep on rolling. In fairness to them, it didn't seem like it was going to be THIS BAD though.

LOL I often find that if I think of things in extremes it helps me to see things clearly. My point was that I'd rather have the situation I spoke of than a team made up of average pitching and defense but with nine mashers. I believe in defense and pitching over offense.

This is SO TRUE.

I'll venture a guess that if I could have a pitching staff made up of four Clayton Kershaws and position players with the defensive and offensive prowess of JBJ we'd win the WS.

And that doesn't negate my point that when a player signs the contract the team 'owns' that player and they should be able to put the player wherever they want and expect the player to continue to perform at their top level.

Nope. What I said was there's been a discussion about it, and there has been, both about picking up Chapman and what Kimbrel's reaction might be.

This is nice and from a fan's POV I agree with it. However, JH may look at it differently. As I've said before here, these owners are businessmen. If they can't make money doing something they don't want to do it. They didn't get rich by losing money. I'm confident that the bean counters in Boston and New York (and probably anyplace else) know just about how much money they will make by playing in the ALDS and how much more they will make by advancing to the ALCS and then to the WS. It's all about Return on Investment. If that luxury tax pushes them to the point where the team can't get the ROI that they expect they're not going to do it.

Well.. based on the thinking that his being moved from SS to 3B is some kind of a "demotion" - which you've already agreed to - this has left me shaking my head. Is it a demotion of someone is moved to another position because management thinkis that move is in the best interest of the team? This is in the same vein as the discussion about Kimbrel asking for a trade if the Sox pick up Chapman in the off season. Baseball is a team sport and it's not "all about ME". Maybe I'm 'old school'. I think that when a player signs that contract they're agreeing to play whenever and wherever management wants them to play, and do it to the very best of their ability.

I agree with this. If Holt is as valuable as some think he is then someone else would be willing to give up someone valuable for him. If he's not as valuable as some think he is then the Sox should hold onto him because he IS valuable to this team.

Did you...er... happen to watch the 2016 season?

You're right about this. I've been posting for a long time, both here and on the old BDC, and I'm usually not one to rail on about how "right" I think I was on any topic. I'll usually leave that to someone else. However, I'm making an exception on this tpoic because it was SO OBVIOUS to me that Iggy was part of a core of young, cost-controlled, outstanding players in the system that would be the core of this team for the future. I could see Iggy, XBo, JBJ, and Vazquez with Mookie in the wings, all of them cheap and leaving lots of money to buy the necessary pitching. Swihart and now Benintendi only sweetened the pot. And the FO blew it. I simply don't understand how anyone can defend the trade without implying that since they won the WS that hear it must have been the right thing to have done. I see that as a poor assumption. Ironically, and just so you know that I see both sides of this coin, I also believe that had that trade NOT been made the Sox wouldn't even have been in the WS. It was Iggy's crucial error in the ALCS that opened the door for the Sox to win the series. However, THAT is hindsight - which I don't think is fair to use in an argument. That trade was still a stupid move at the time.

Of course it was a panic move! And the panic was brought on by the looming trade deadline. The FO felt they had to do Something and do it quickly so they didn't get fair value for what they were trading away.

Well, yes. It's easy to have an opinion when one has hindsight to help them but I was opposed to this trade right from Day 1. Not so much that I had a "man-crush" on Iggy but because I could see the value of having both of those cost-controlled outstanding players on the left side of the IF going into the future. I had no objection to their picking up a pitcher (although I still don't think a. that we needed one, and b. that his contribution was that significant) but they gave up too much to get that pitcher. It was a panic move that looks better in the context of the WS Championship.

Yep. I still blame the New York newspaper strike in 1978 for the Sox not winning the pennant that year. That was the year the Sox blew the big lead in September and the Yankees caught fire that same month to win the division by one game. I've always thought that the lack of controversy newspapers created in NY allowed the more talented (?) Yankees to focus on the game and overtake the Sox. And BTW, in a related topic, I watched the "Snowden" movie last night and I highly recommend it. It asks some very interesting questions about our right to privacy vs. national security.

I didn't like the trade from the first moment I heard about it, but at least my reasons for not liking it have changed now. Moon has convinced me that whether it was right or wrong, the FO had decided that XBo was the SS of the future for the Sox, making Iggy expendable. My position now is that if their intent was to trade Iggy they didn't get nearly enough for him. They gave up a GG-calber SS, runner up ROY batting ~.300 for an aging pitcher in the twilight of his career. It was a bad trade. IMO the FO should have gotten more for him, and if they wanted a pitcher they could have gotten one for less than Jose Iglesias. We got hoodwinked on that one. I will give you that XBo is a better overall SS, due to the fact that Iggy will never approach what XBo does at the plate, but defensively I'll take Iggy every time. (BTW, he's cut his errors this year from 11 in 2015 to five this year and has a better than average fielding &-age while making successful plays that other SS don't make). At the end of the day I still maintain that the team would be better with cost-controlled Iggy & XBo on the left side of the IF - you can put them wherever you want - and having spent Pandamoney on pitching. It was clearly a mistake, both short term and long term.

My post was a response to those who justified the Iggy trade after he (Iggy) got into that televised pushy-pushy with his catcher and then said that his "bad attitude" was the reason for his being traded. That's so much hogwash and we know it. I don't want to buy into the theory that Bogaerts bat isn't that special if he's playing 3B. That would be admitting that his psyche IS so fragile that he thinks he has to be a SS and I don't think that's the case. Whether or not the team would be improved by moving XBo to 3B and bringing in another shortstop would depend on who that SS is.

Ya know, it's a funny thing about bad attitudes. They seem to matter more when someone is looking for an excuse for a player's being traded. Look at Josh Donaldson, for example. This guy got run out of California for getting into a dispute with the GM and then came to Toronto and got in a dispute with the FO there, but it seems there is a cadre of people here who think we should have gotten him.... "bad attitude" and all. Why? Because he's a good player.