Hugh2

We've already spent a lot of resources, I'm done sending top prospects for relief pitchers and rentals. This team should go big or wait until the offseason. Sale or no sale.

I don't buy signing a 1B/DH as a must either. Assuming that we see no improvements from a more well seasoned and healthy Swihart/Vasquez/Shaw/Holt then the lineup maintains the status quo by adding a big bat. I think if you subtracted David Ortiz right now we still have one of the best lineups in baseball, but with or without Ortiz if you were to add a TOP of the rotation starter then we arguably become the WS favorites next year. Imagine our lineup without Ortiz, but a rotation of Sale/Price/Porcello/Pomeranz/Wright. I also wouldn't rule out Owens or Erod figuring things out. If JBJ was still a .220 hitter, and Bogaerts and Betts were 75% the hitters they are now but Price and EROD were both pitching like TOTRS I'd say the exact opposite. That we can go with our current staff and we should allocate our resources on hitting. If you have to trade prospects to bring in the pitcher (which is pretty much a given at this point) then I can reconcile also signing a guy like Encarnation. Which is fairly realistic if this team seriously wants to make a run at a guy like Sale in the offseason.

If I'm swinging a deal, I better be getting a TOTRS back. We've given up enough top prospects for #3's and relievers. I understand, and love this core going forward. I could live with Swihart in LF > Benintendi if Benitendi could headline a package for Sale. I'm ok with a Shaw/Hill platoon at 3B for 2 years until Devers is ready if Moncada could headline a Syndergaard (not saying he's for sale) deal. Things could look a lot more bright if Pom, and Price look really good down the stretch and Porcello and Wright continue to do what they've done all year. Things could look even better than that if Erod can pull it together. With the lack of my last point or the failure to land another TOTRS, this team just strikes me as an offensive juggernaut that is always good enough to get to the post season but doesn't have that extra ingredient to win the world series. This core is good enough to be relevant for the next 4-5 years with zero additions but we still have a hole in the rotation. All other holes on this team seem superficial to having a pitcher right now to me.

I'd rather spend the money on locking up some of our own guys so we can feel better about going out and trading for an ACE. Do you really trust giving the ball to Price, Pomeranz, or even Porcello game 1 of the world series??? I think that takes more priority than the 7th or 8th biggest concern with the offense. A Hill/Shaw combo at 3rd (assuming Panda is done) should be fine for .5-1 years, and Benintendi may be ready by next year and Swihart could still be in the fold for next season in LF. Those aren't sure fire answers but they are pretty darn good when you consider the first 6 hitters in your lineup are pretty darn good. We need pitching, this team has enough rotten assets on it so there is zero reason to go out and start given big bucks to 30 year old DH types.

I figured I missed someone in there. I kind of like this bullpen in 2017 though, Kimbrel and Smith should both be back and I'm optimistic with what Barnes can become. I think Light, Hembree, and Martin have potential as well. I would like to see them resign Ziegler as well.

Ok so you're talking about 10 games then. Since when does 10 games define an established MLB player? Sure he's been disappointing so far this year but if we are evaluating team needs I think we need to have a little bit more foresight than what's going to happen over a week or two of baseball. The biggest hole on this team is it's missing an ACE.

This team has zero luck with it's bullpen. Go figure the year we win the world series that Koji Uehera emerges but we have a long list of bringing guys in here with lousy results. Eric Gagne was a failure, Joel Hanaran was a failure, Andrew Bailey was a disaster, then there was Mark Melancon. Melancon was great before he came to Boston and Great when he left but sucked here....go figure. Kimbrel has been ok, but has managed to land himself on the D.L. Carson Smith is a promising young arm but has contributed nothing himself as he's landed himself on the D.L.

That and they have a lot of money coming off the books soon as well. We should enjoy the suck while it lasts.

Porcello has 100% turned it around. Effectively he had one half bad season adjusting to a new team. Over the past 365 days in 29 starts he's gone 18-6 with a 3.37 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP. If he keeps that up, he's going to look like an absolute steal for only 4 years 82 million in his prime years. Porcello is kinda a guy now, he might be a #1 on some teams but he strikes me as more of a #2 #3 on a WS caliber team. Definitely a guy to keep around in my opinion but we need to add to the staff, or hope that Price can turn it around which I think he will. Still, I'm not sure I want the ball in the hands of Price for a game 1.

I'm good with Lucroy, the price for admission this trade deadline is just absolutely 100% insane and the offense is great + we have good defensive catchers here now so it's really a luxury at this point.

Last time I checked Hill is batting .268 with a .745 OPS. Not great, but not bad either. He's also not a starter or a stud on this team he's a platoon player. I agree with southpaw the offense is fine and just in a rut. If you look at any team, even a world series champion you'll see stretches where they lose, even to horrible teams at times. If this team picks it back up and gets hot it will win....even if the competition is tough. The long term problem has been and remains pitching on this team. I don't buy your "we don't put the fear in a pitcher[er] that Toronto hitters do" Good.....I would love other teams to not respect this offense, they will probably continue to put up great numbers overall if they do.

I forget where I read this, but I saw a comparison to the average WAR for top 100 prospects, tiered 1-10 11-25 and so forth. The average of all our prospects easily beat the average, and every other teams as well. I'll try to find the article, but it suggests that if anything our prospects are undervalued.

If, I had to guess I'd say the Yankees are most definitely sellers and will remain so. Perhaps if they notched a few more wins the last couple weeks things would be different. But that also begs the question of what we would be if flip flopped spots with the Yankees???? They are only 3.5 games behind the spot we are in right now.

whose to say the Yankees are even sellers all the way at this point. Yankees are 3.5 out from a wildcard, and still have a deep pen after trading Chapman. Maybe the plan all along was to get good value for Chapman and see where they stand in a couple weeks because they could easily justify flipping Torres or even trading Mateo with Torres in the system. Does Severino/Judge/Mateo get them Sale????? that's a pretty strong package.

At the rate the pitching market is going up I wonder if we could flip POM, throw in a top prospect of ours + and go out to get a Sale type. Or, maybe you sell high on Wright for prospects and package them up with a Moncada/Kopech combo for some Chris Sale. Crazy I know, but with all the crazy s*** said in here I think I'm allowed one once in a while.

While I generally agree with the theme here, I think it's important to note that fans often pump prospects up higher than their ranking or value around baseball for various reasons. Some thought Henry Owens was a future ace, or #2 but he never had that potential pedigree as a prospect. WMB was highly regarded because he was our #1 prospect, but he was also a #1 in a system that was regarded as weak at the time and wasn't a top 50 guy like Bogaerts, Swihart, JBJ, Betts (was slated to be #9 before he graduated). Sure, there are also your Kalishs, and Websters, and Hansens, then there are other guys who developed elsewhere such as Reddick and Lowrie. Sometimes guys get hurt, I'll always wonder what could have been with Ryan Westmoreland. Still, if you look at the WAR of our top 100 prospects vs. the WAR of all other teams top 100 prospects over the last 10 years I think we've done as good as if not significantly better than any other team. Our guys pan out better, so I think we should put more stock into our own prospects.

Yes but 30 in fat guy years is like 38.

I agree, Benitendi is much younger than Brentz was at this age, about two years younger. That doesn't make Brentz slash line look all that better, actually I'd put much more weight into Andrews stats seeing how much more age advanced he is. Also, I think it's worth noting that Andrew Benintendis BB/K rate is 22/30 in Portland while Bryce's was 40/130. Andrew is showing much much much better plate discipline. Many consider BB/K rate one of the best predictors of MLB success. For that reason I don't think he's as likely to bomb as Brentz, because Brentz has already effectively bombed. He was a first round draft college bat who doesn't have the power, defense, or speed to even carry himself as a 4th outfielder right now. With Andrew Benintendi's speed/defense combo I think he has much more of a chance of at least sticking on a MLB roster as a 4th outfielder rather than the up/down guy Bryce has been.

Devers is absolutely destroying baseballs. In July he's .379/.433/.695 From what I've read his defense is pretty good too. Anyone get out to see a Salem game this year????

I have little issue with win now!!! but not at all costs. It's like betting big when you're at the casino, you can't play if you don't win buy losing some money isn't a big fear if you came with plenty to play. But if it's 2 A.M. and you've spent a lot of your chips, you may want to walk away instead of going over to the ATM and emptying the rest of your bank account. It's nice to have prospects to deal, but you can't completely empty your farm in todays game without real sever long term ramifications. I think we reap what we've sown at this point, and that might not be a bad thing. Pom looked great last night while Wright and Porcello still look strong and I still believe in Price and E-Rod to some extent helping us down the stretch. Despite last nights performance you know this team is going to win you some games with the offense alone, and they have some reinforcements coming off the D.L. as well. Kimbrel being one them.

After the return for a rental closer, and a guy with 1/2 a season track record pitching like an ACE I'am scared to see what it would cost to get Sale. I can reconcile overpaying to fill holes when you have the depth as I have with Kimbrell and Pomeranz but at some point you have to be very concerned with completely gutting the system to go for it. The future does matter.....I'd move on from Sale.

Moncada has done well at AA, although he does have a few yellow flags that suggest he should not be rushed anymore. He has not hit from the right side as well as he has from the left, and his K rate is up there. I doubt anyone will be penciling in Moncada this year, we can revisit this in 2017.

Well nobody has a crystal ball. A guy can give you every sign he's ready and then just NOT be ready and thus you're hurting the team and his development by keeping him there. In a perfect world you would never have to option a player, but you will never truly know what a guy is until he is in the majors doing it. And by no means is player development linear either. But as I said before, if Benintendi is close to the player we think he is, I highly doubt buring through an option year is going to matter at this point. If he can help the team in any way and the team thinks so as well bring him up.

It should also be worth mentioning that Moncada has been taking ground balls at 3B before games.

I don't think the gap from Swihart to Moncada is astronomically high but Swihart is one year removed from being a top 25 prospect in all of baseball and has shown some promise at the MLB level. That adds value, but Moncada has the ceiling of being an ELITE player and as valuable as Swihart is two of him don't make up for excluding a guy like Moncada from the deal. Now Swihart could go a very long way in value when packaged up with a guy like Moncada, Moncada and Swihart should get just about any team listening in a trade deal. But when you trade for elite talent you have to give up elite potential.