drewski6

How sure are you that he wasnt actually hurt?

I honestly see such a contrast between people being like we need 11 great starters, did you see how many starters we used last year!!! What , this guy isnt one of our projected 9 starting position players? Ship him out. Hitters get hurt too, not just pitchers.

Im with you here. I dont deal Masa to make the roster more neat. If I can park him in AAA, I dont jettison him at all. If I cant park him in AAA, we may need the spot on the 26man but not at this time and I pospone the decision if I can. So maybe I want Eaton on team, but i put him in minors just because I can (if he has options) because Im trying to hoard talent because depth is important. People like Eaton, KC, Ward may eventually push Masa off

Durbin , Casas, Monasterio, Romy, Campbell, , Masa, JD. Ranked in order of best hitter from best to worst 1. Duran (HUGE DROP OFF) 2. Romy 3. Campbell (impressing me this spring) 4. Durbin 5. Masa 6. Casas 7. Monasterio (TBD for me)

Ill give you casas and monasterio is a tbd. But no way on Romy, Campbell , JD. Dubin is close

And Im trying to figure out if/why Masa would accept a AAA assignment. So my question is if he is outright released. Now hes a FA, can he sign a 1 yr/3m deal. Im not asking if we can trade him in a hicks like deal. I have no interest in that. But if the answer is no, he cant sign anything more than a min contract if he is outright waived, then he is more likely to take a minor league assignment because a 1yr/3m deal is off the table.

Forget it, I dont care to rehvae the same conversations a fifteenth time. I see no reason for him to take a minor league deal. Doesnt mean he wouldnt. But if Im him, im like no, release me. Then I can sign even a 1 yr deal even at 2m. Or he cant my question is can he? And no way would we be on the hook for any amount of this new deal.....Obvs we are on the hook for the 18m minus the min portion. Im not trying to flip Masa for a positional player or include a prospect for salary relief. Im trying to park him in AAA so we Eaton can make the roster.

This isnt the problem Im trying to solve.

But what if hes outright released and 2 teams want him and one goes up to 2m....Why are we assuming he'd only get minimum?

A 100 OPS+ from a corner outfielder isnt a ringing endorsement.

So when its Verdugo a season is 644 at-bats, but when its casas theres no minimum at-bats? This isnt made in good faith. In one season (plus a little change), split between three years he was 126 OPS+ Can we fall back to that? For consistency

Could he sign a 1 yr / 4m deal. Is there a rule that if you are outright waived , you can only sign a min contract? If we outright waive him, a team that has a decent pitching staff and lacking offense might think hes worth 1 yr/3m for them....Like Cincy for exmple. He could even hit behind Elly in that lineup.

I loved the trade of him to NYY because I thought he would ruin their season. And he did strike out to end the WS, but thats not really fair becuase he did have some good postseason moments for the yankees. But he had a bad post-all star break regular season for them and fell out of the lineup mostly. I think he came back in due to injury.

Verdugo was a singles hitting, mediocre defense (good arm, bad range), slow on the basepaths player with a bad attitude who bought himself too many years with a good initial showing in MLB. But in hindsight, when you look at his lack of athleticism/speed/power, its obvious (but only with hindsight) that he had high bust potential. I dont blame anyone being fooled in 2020 when we first got him. He had almost everyone fooled , including the knuckleheads who ranked him so highly on the prospects charts. I do believe the LAD was quick to include him (red-flag), I think they knew he was overrated (but not as bad as he turned out to be). And I grew to really hate him in 2023 because he had a bad attitude and a lot of my friends still liked him because he was initially good for us and first impressions last.

The best thing Verdugo ever did was stink up the joint that one year for NYY. I remember saying to my buddy (fellow Red Sox fan) , I love this Verdugo trade (to the yanks). We just trojan horsed the yanks, this dude is a cancer. And he is btw, a clubhouse cancer. That not legging out , lack of work ethic, that stuff is contagious.

Yup. And sometimes when a player has a decent year, it ends up hurting you because then you roll over mediocre production the next 4 years. And 20 HR/644 at-bats proves nothing. Its actually a low power output considering his slow feet and lack of athleticism. One of the worst players to ever come through here. Because if he hit .000 in his first 665 at-bats, he would have been shipped out and we would have been better off. Like I said, the stat line for those first 640 games wasnt bad on the surface, but it bought Verdugo too many years of stinky play and I just dont like the complacency of rolling over someone who isnt fast or strong. To be honest, Im contradicting myself a bit here - so let me clarify. I agree with you that the 665 initial at-bats made Verdugo look like a serviceable player at the time. At the time, I thought hey, we may have something here. But he was overrated even after those first 665 at-bats becoming a fan favorite for really no good reason. I grew to hate the guy because I didnt like his loner demeanor and he stuck around entirely too long, way past his welcome. In hindsight , the return for Betts was horrible. But I do think that regardless of stats over 644 at-bats, the fact that he was slow and not strong and not athletic were clues that he wasnt going to pan out. You shouldnt be surprised he failed in 2026. But I understand thinking at the time of trade, he would be a solid get. Kind of like watching a movie a second time and seeing clues you missed the first time. (not you personally) For me personally, I got so sick of all my friends loving Verdugo and Im like this guy is soooooo mediocre (this was well after his first 644 seasons) Imagine playing a rookie QB who does well. Then stinks for 2 seasons. Going into that fourth season all your pals are like "hes good, look at that rookie season." then the team gave him that fourth year because in this example, that good rookie season wound up being a curse in disguise becasue you kept the player around too long hoping he can find it again. When that first season could have been luck and yes you can luck into 20 homeruns in 644 at-bats. Well not all 20, but if its a 15 homer season + 5 lucky homeruns due to conditions (wind blowing out, hitters parks...)

Is Andruw Jones the manager? Or dadager, I guess

Well, he could prob get more than minimum, right? Even if its 1 yr/ 4m , its possible that if he declines AAA, sox outright waive him, he could sign 4m....Then the other team pays 4m+min and sox pay 18m - minimum? I dont really care on getting the financials right (in this post) other than to illustrate my belief that he has negative incentive to take the AAA so thats prob out. Sounds like he has nothing to gain from that but could get a couple mil extra if he hits open market so I dont see him accepting it.

I dont want him standing on first base clogging up the basepaths.

Sending Nate Eaton down can be undone (assuming he has options) shipping out masa cant be undone.

That would be the direct benefit, yes. And I wouldnt sneeze at that, either. But lets get everybody back healthy from WBC before we worry about how we get Nate Eaton on this roster. Lets also make sure Nate Eaton doesnt go ice cold between now and then. Also, Im not sure the nuances of the rules if Yoshida declines a AAA demotion, for example....are we still on the hook for the money? Are we sure he would decline? Also, its possible that an infielder gets dinged up or that Eaton makes it over Monasterio.

Fair but its not a problem right now. Lets make sure we get everyone back healthy from WBC before we cut into our depth (my opinion). I everyone comes back healthy and we need to open a spot on the 26 man or 40 man for a player who we need more and Masa is in the way of that, okay, then move him out. Right now, we have nowhere to put Masa isnt a problem to me.

Im with Notin, we moved out from password. A couple injuries and we could find ourselves wishing we had a Yoshida. Im not sure how it will all shake out. Who will get hurt, how many players will get hurt , if other depth options will prove that they are ready....I have seen some good springs out of position players, enough to be encouraged. Even guys like KC are having good at-bats. But still we dont know what the twists and turns of the season will be and I dont need the roster to be clear with defined roles on March 3rd. Because there will be twists / turns , guys will get hurt, guys will get moved around, guys will fade, guys will come from nowhere. Im not in a rush to shed options and depth just because the roster will look more clean with everybody having a set role. To me, theres very little value in that because even if after we trade Yoshida and its like okay, now the roster looks clean/neat Duran is a DH everyone has a set role....Then injuries , slumps, and breakouts will punch your perfect / neat roster in the mouth. I say, stay versatile. Positions are suggestions.

There was plenty of reason to think he didnt have skills. He wasnt fast, big, strong, or athletic. He could hit singles and throw. LAD sold out for a reason. I understand that you can piece together partial seasons to make him look serviceable, and that was the problem. They should have cut bait after 2022 but they were able to convince themselves that he was fine value/good enough and he was never big, strong, fast, athletic. This is the stuff I fear. The rolling the mediocre players over every year because complacency. And Casas is in the same boat.

The deal stunk and the return stunk. Thinking Verdublow is/was a dude is too much looking at one or two years of WAR dividing it by salary and thinking great value. But the truth is, you roll forward enough players like that, year over year and you are a C+/B- team. Verdugo was the worst of all worlds, bad enough to hurt you, but just good enough to justify rolling over a 1 tool player at min wage. He wasnt strong or fast. He didnt have a great work ethic, and he wasnt really a clubhouse guy either. In fact, he was a slow singles hitting loner who gave you just enough D to justify carrying him for min wage. This is obvious proof that WAR/$ is not the way, and this trade set the franchise back 10 years. And it was obvious a mile away.