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Report: Red Sox have agreement for Wade Miley
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Post by bigbatter on Dec 10, 2014 23:56:08 GMT -5
I despise this deal. Ruby is a better pitcher today than Mikey is with more controllability. All he needed was a chance to show it. It doubt the sox will have success developing any of their young talent as most will struggle at some point. barnes Owens and Johnson better be near perfect fron the start or this team will give up on them as well. That is not even close to being true. Again, are the Red Sox trying to win games, or are they trying to develop marginal talent? They can't have it both ways. Rubby is a marginal talent? He hasn't even hit his ceiling yet. Who knows if he turns out to be a better pitcher than Miley in the LT but as of right now this is at best a slight upgrade. We traded for durability and overpaid for it.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 10, 2014 23:56:45 GMT -5
I guess I'm alright with the deal? Unenthused, but I get it. I like RDL and he has a shot at being a #2/#3 type pitcher if everything breaks right, but he also and maybe more likely winds up a closer/8th inning guy if it doesn't.
I know he struggled at the end of the year but he's not used to pitching that many innings. He has never pitched 200 innings at any level.
Miley can do 200 innings consistent, didn't cost them any of Owens, Rodriguez, or Barnes (the next wave), and doesn't cost them much financially so they still have money to get two pitchers (I'll guess Porcello and Masterson, which really doesn't thrill me)
Webster seemed to be pitching better in Sept, but I'm not sold on him long-term. If RDL develops to most of his capabilities then it's not really a good deal for the Sox. If RDL winds up in the pen, then the Sox did alright.
I would hope Miley's numbers improve by getting out of Arizona's ballpark. He has given up a lot of homers the past two seasons and that will need to be cut down. I guess he's a ground ball pitcher. Don't know if he'll be helped defensively by the left side of the Sox infield.
Obviously they still have the Cespedes and bench surplus card to play for another pitcher and I would guess Detroit because if Seattle gets Cabrera and Cincy can't take on salary, then I'm not sure how many other options there are for Cespedes with a team willing to deal a starter.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 10, 2014 23:57:08 GMT -5
Do people really just not grok how bad Webster and RDLR have been when given chances at the MLB level? Last year Miley had a rWAR of .8 WAR in 33 starts, Ruby had a .4 WAR in 18 starts. So I think Ruby did just fine!
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Post by charliezink16 on Dec 10, 2014 23:57:13 GMT -5
Guesses for potential third players: Witte, Asuaje, Lin, Keury De La Cruz, Mercedes, Gunkel, Taveras, Aro, Dahlstrand Somebody like that? Jason Garcia.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 10, 2014 23:57:54 GMT -5
Miley walked 75 batters last season, this is the best we could do? ? Ben has had a horrible year. but he's going to provide us with 200 invaluable innings of 4+ERA and give up a hit/walk to almost 3 batters every 2 innings. Maybe changing his home ballpark would help a little? Certainly did wonders for Brandon McCarthy.
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Post by redsox4242 on Dec 11, 2014 0:04:29 GMT -5
We gave up 3 prospects for this stiff? wow. I am especially pissed we gave up Rubby. 4 years in the bigs: 38-35 3.79 FIP: 3.79 K/9, BB/9: 7.0, 2.9 In a hitters park. But yeah, what a "stiff" Thanks for proving my point, so what would those stats be you just provided in the AL EAST? Hellooooo
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Post by Steve Henley on Dec 11, 2014 0:05:10 GMT -5
Miley walked 75 batters last season, this is the best we could do? ? Ben has had a horrible year. Yes, he walked 75 batters. He also pitched 201.1 innings. RDLR walked 35 batters in 101.2 innings. I'll let you do the math.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2014 0:06:12 GMT -5
So we indirectly got Wade Miley for Anthony Rizzo. Sweet! That "indirection" included a quarter billion in salary relief. Even in these jaded times, that does carry some weight. Given the new CBA which had yet to go into effect, that was no small thing.
Add #1: Careful what you wish for guys. We didn't want to pay Lester and now not even a full 24hrs after he signed with the Cubs we're trading away valuable players with potential we have not realized yet. This is what I feared would happen if we missed on Lester. Ugh. How about a reality check. The Sox have (had) De La Rosa, Webster, Workman, Ranaudo, Barnes, Johnson, Owens and Rodriguez... did I forget anyone? Oh yeah, Wright (everyone seems to forget him except for Eric). They are all either on the ML roster, or on their way this year. Two reasons for having prospects: for your own benefit or to trade. Letting them rot away in the minors seems like a bit of a waste. The Sox, with the addition of Castillo and the signing of Sandoval and Ramirez, are in win now mode I'd say. That means filling out the pitching staff. They have to be willing to give up future value for what this year might bring. To be contrary, once again, I think Webster has more potential than De La Rosa. He has three average to plus offerings including a power sinker and a killer changeup, to go with a decent slider. De La Rosa has yet to show a consistent third pitch and there are times when his fastball loses its depth. Webster has his own problems, of course. But check out their September numbers. Webster came on strong, and De La Rosa fell apart. Either way, the team has a ton of pitching assets, they don't have room for all of them, and this one move to help build a possible contender for this year.
Add #2: ...Clay is coming off a 4.01 FIP, 72 ERA-plus, -1.6 WAR year; Kelly was 4.37 FIP, 91 ERA-plus, .2 WAR; and Miley had a FIP of 3.98, ERA-plus of 86 and WAR of .8. ... The next person who posts this stuff without checking on the home/away splits for the guy is going to get a stats dump all over their quote. I'm going to keep saying it till I'm blue in the face. The elevation and dry air really distort the hitting environment in the Southwest US. Arizona is in the Southwest US. The slugging is .483 versus .342 home/away over his career, all with the Diamondbacks. And nothing you can do will convince me that Boston - at sea level - is the same as Phoenix.
Add #3: ...I'm assuming Fenway projects to be more pitcher-friendly for Miley as opposed to his old home in Arizona? See above. Please, pick you poison - FanGraphs or Baseball Reference, I'm agnostic myself - but look at the splits home and away. This has been mentioned a number of times already. We need pitching period, obviously, but this is a lateral move Lateral to what? To De La Rosa? The guy got blasted in the last month. Miley would have to dig himself a hole to the center of the earth to stay "lateral" to that performance. As for Webster, it was like he was walking on eggshells till he came around at the end of the year. ...Please spare me the cap room argument. This is the MLB not the NFL, NBA, or NHL. You need to read up on the luxury tax in the current CBA. There's plenty of incentive to keep from back-loading large amounts of salary. If a team builds themselves that sort of straight-jacket going forward, the money they shell out keeps growing. As flush as we may all want to think the team is with cash, not factoring that in to your planning is a lousy way to run a business.
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ianrs
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Post by ianrs on Dec 11, 2014 0:08:15 GMT -5
Thanks for proving my point, so what would those stats be you just provided in the AL EAST? Hellooooo Please refer to Steve Henley's post on page 6. The AL East and the NL West are approximately equivalent in offense using wOBA. This isn't the early 2000's. I don't get where people get the idea that the AL East is some invincible offensive powerhouse.
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Post by sdiaz1 on Dec 11, 2014 0:09:10 GMT -5
That is not even close to being true. Again, are the Red Sox trying to win games, or are they trying to develop marginal talent? They can't have it both ways. I don't think Ruby is a marginal talent. Has a high ceiling (#3 starter) and showed flashes last year that he can be a good pitcher. I think this is problem that many of the posters here have. There is a major separation between "Ceiling" and "Reasonable Projection". De la Rosa has great stuff, but in what is now a fairly large sample, he has struggled to miss bats to the level that he needs to in order to get away with his high amount of walks. Next year he is projected by Streamer to have a k% of 17% and a BB rate of 10%. That is simply put not very good. Last season in Miley's worst season he posted a k rate over 21% and BB rate of 8.7%. While that is with the benefit of facing the pitcher's spot the difference is a robust 5% and is too large to be ignored as league dependent. Everyone ought to stop dreaming, wake up and smell the coffee. Rubby will most likely not become a front end of the rotation starter. One can project fourth or fifth starter with limited durability or possible impact reliever. But to still lean on what we hoped two years ago is silly. After all there is a reason why the Dodgers included him in the deal that saw them pick up over 200 million in contract commitments.
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Post by greatscottcooper on Dec 11, 2014 0:15:36 GMT -5
The whole argument about players coming over to the A.L. east and facing superior competition is just wrong. Maybe that was the case several years ago but the rest of the league has closed the gap. Also, if you are angry about this trade ask yourself this, If this trade didn't happen the day after losing out on Lester and the Sox had gone out and signed Scherzer and traded for Zimmermann and THEN picked up Miley would you be as upset then?
I understand that this move isn't the big fix to the front of the rotation that we've all been waiting for but who says that HAS to be the next domino to fall?
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Post by blizzards39 on Dec 11, 2014 0:18:45 GMT -5
I highly doubt that the sox start the year with 2 top end pitchers. Are we happy if we can turn cespedes and pieces for one of the one year rentals and bring in a masterson type?
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Dec 11, 2014 0:21:04 GMT -5
What I hear in my head when I read this forum right now:
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 11, 2014 0:26:40 GMT -5
I highly doubt that the sox start the year with 2 top end pitchers. Are we happy if we can turn cespedes and pieces for one of the one year rentals and bring in a masterson type? Miley, Masterson and a one year rental, sounds good if it Cueto or Zimmerman
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Post by taftreign on Dec 11, 2014 0:33:06 GMT -5
As a prospect sight we have a tendency to overrate prospects' ceilings and undervalue the known commodity. That is undoubtedly what is occurring here. I'm a De La Rosa fan but this deal decreases the risk entering 2015 and increases the likelihood of getting to the playoffs. Your trading the small probability Rubby is anything more than a #4 starter for a guaranteed #4 or #3 starter. That's worth something. In this case Webster and an unnamed minor leaguer.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Dec 11, 2014 0:40:25 GMT -5
We've emotionally invest in both Webster and De La Rosa, and they have solid ceilings. But nobody can deny that they both need improvements in leaps and bounds to make it as starters.
Miley makes us a better team in the now and his floor is higher than Webster and RDLR. The deal is fine, especially when you look at the players without their names.
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Post by thelavarnwayguy on Dec 11, 2014 0:42:13 GMT -5
I think jmei pretty much nailed it 3-4 pages ago. This was about a proven commodity and the Sox wanting to win in 2015. Both RDLR and Webster could potentially be top starters someday but they were given ample opportunities and they didn't seize the brass ring. It's possible that someday one of them becomes a stud and we regret this trade but the Sox are not in that mode any more. The Redsox have a lot of other pitching prospects and they can't give all of them 10 starts at the mlb level and watch most of them implode only to have 1 or 2 pan out. They probably prefer a dependable # 4 or 5 right now and will hope some of the existing prospects emerge over time but they are not going with 3 rookie types in the rotation in 2014. They are the Redsox, with a lot riding on how the team does every year. We aren't the marlins.
I would add that this new offense and with Vasquez getting low pitch calls it seems that adding a staff of ground ball pitchers might proven advantageous. A dependable # 4 is probably going to get quite a few wins with this offense. And they want that level of certainty.
One way to look at it is just that they might like Rodriguez, Owens, Johnson, Barnes more and want to focus the available mlb development time they have to them going forward.
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Post by fenwaythehardway on Dec 11, 2014 0:48:35 GMT -5
I think jmei pretty much nailed it 3-4 pages ago. This was about a proven commodity and the Sox wanting to win in 2015. Both RDLR and Webster could potentially be top starters someday but they were given ample opportunities and they didn't seize the brass ring. It's possible that someday one of them becomes a stud and we regret this trade but the Sox are not in that mode any more. The Redsox have a lot of other pitching prospects and they can't give all of them 10 starts at the mlb level and watch most of them implode only to have 1 or 2 pan out. They probably prefer a dependable # 4 or 5 right now and will hope some of the existing prospects emerge over time but they are not going with 3 rookie types in the rotation in 2014. They are the Redsox, with a lot riding on how the team does every year. We aren't the marlins. I would add that this new offense and with Vasquez getting low pitch calls it seems that adding a staff of ground ball pitchers might proven advantageous. A dependable # 4 is probably going to get quite a few wins with this offense. And they want that level of certainty. One way to look at it is just that they might like Rodriguez, Owens, Johnson, Barnes more and want to focus the available mlb development time they have to them going forward. It's not even a matter of wanting to win, they can't do that logistically. You can only have so many AAA/MLB arms. Consolidating two guys who you hope might turn into a Wade Miley type into Wade Miley is really a pretty sensible thing to do under the circumstances. And to be honest, Webster is done as a starter. He might be a bullpen arm but I really think that's about the limit. You can only lean on the "he didn't pitch much in high school" stuff for so long. He's had all the time in the world to figure out where the ball is going and the progress just hasn't been there.
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Post by grandsalami on Dec 11, 2014 0:52:43 GMT -5
So this trade is still not official right?
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Post by sammo420 on Dec 11, 2014 1:22:31 GMT -5
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Post by jerrygarciaparra on Dec 11, 2014 1:25:04 GMT -5
Guys, this is ridiculous. Miley is not a top of the rotation starter. You don't think that, I don't think that, and the Red Sox front office doesn't think that. These moves are completely orthogonal to one another. The Red Sox are going to pick up another, higher-caliber pitcher to take the place that Lester would have taken. I'm not saying this is lesters replacement because it is not. But I think this does have to do with Lester. If we sign lester we are not trading for Miley. Our 3 best pitching prospects are all left handed. Maybe we don't keep all 3 guys but if they did and we had Lester locked up for the next 6 years are we going to have a 5 man rotation of lefties? oF course it is fallout from Lester. But you'll never get an inch from people around here that will now project that it has nothing to do with that..because they don't like their Lester narrative challenged in any form!!! This was part of the discussions that the FO office was having while Lester negotiations were going on...and once that was completed...they move quickly on this. Your totally right.
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Post by plantierforever on Dec 11, 2014 1:30:25 GMT -5
The Red Sox need better starting pitching. This deal clearly addresses that need. I think the Sox's thinking went something like this: Odds that Rubby in 2015 pitches like a number ___ starter: 1 (assign #1 starter 100 points): 0% chance of this occurring=0 points for Rubby 2 (assign #2 starter 80 points): 2% chance=1.6 points 3 (assign #3 starter 60 points): 10% chance=6.0 points 4 (assign #4 starter 40 points): 10% chance =4.0 points 5 (assign #5 starter 30 points): 20% chance =6.0 points So give Rubby a 42% chance of pitching at #5 starter level or better in 2015. Rubby is then worth a maximum of 17.6 starter points in 2015. (If a pitcher is worse than a #5, then he is just a guy in Pawtucket, on the DL, or filling a spot in the bullpen. Zero points for that, since we have so many of guys like this hanging around already.)
Webster: 1: 0%=0 2: 0%=0 3: 5% (of possible 60 points)=3.0 4: 10% (of possible 40 points)=4.0 5: 15% (of possible 30 points)=4.5 I give Webster a 30% chance of performing at #5 starter level or better in 2015. Maybe too pessimistic? But going with the 30%, Webster is worth 11.5 starter points in 2015.
Wade Miley: 1: 1%=1.0 2: 5%=4.0 3: 20%=12.0 4: 40%=16.0 5: 10%=3.0 Note that I am being very conservative here: I leave a 24% chance that Miley will be hurt or suck worse than being a #5 starter in 2015. Even still, using this rough methodology, he grades out with 36 starter points, more than Rubby and Webster combined (17.6 + 11.5 = 29.1).
Further notes: 1) I am pulling numbers out of the air. Your mileage may vary. But are my numbers way far off? 2) To do this properly, you'd have to add in a bunch of variables (like estimated playing time, odds that RDLR and Webster would perform better in spring training than other guys like Wright or Workman to even get the #4 or #5 spot, etc.) You'd also want to rerun your equation in 2016, 2017, etc--at which point your error bars get really wide. But would those future years really alter the outcome much? 3) The above only partially represents my own feelings about these players. I am also in part trying to reverse engineer what the Sox thought in making this trade, and the fact is that, in their math, 1 of Wade Miley was worth 2 of Webster and RDLR. I see the logic here. 4) This deal also opens a spot on the 40 man for us. For a team that is hoarding as many decent prospects as we do, this has some non-zero positive value that also factors into the equation.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2014 1:44:15 GMT -5
... And to be honest, Webster is done as a starter. He might be a bullpen arm but I really think that's about the limit. You can only lean on the "he didn't pitch much in high school" stuff for so long. He's had all the time in the world to figure out where the ball is going and the progress just hasn't been there. Here are his September numbers: 24 IP, 24 H, 7 ER, W/L 2/0, 15 K, 5 BB, 2.63 ERA, .661 OPS against, .293 babip I suppose we can call this treading water. Honestly, the K rate for a guy with a heavy sinker is somewhat irrelevant, and the ground balls do require a decent infield so that they don't become hits. I do think there's some value in a guy who can come on strong after having already pitched 157 innings in the minors and majors in 2014. I know he pissed a lot of people off with the crazy movement on his pitches. I still think he has more upside than De La Rosa. The Diamondbacks get their chance try to surface that now.
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Post by blizzards39 on Dec 11, 2014 1:53:40 GMT -5
Another way to look at this to compare Miley with Branden McCarthy and his new 4/48. Both of these pitchers have similar track records and project to have similar seasons next year. But Miley is 3 years younger and has the potential to better over the course of the next 3-4 years and will more than likely cost a fair bit less money over those years. It's basically about buying wins. There are many ways to do it. In this case the sox used prospects to acquire these wins. If Miley pitches the next 3 years at a similar pace to his last 3 (or 3X his 2015 steamer) he will be worth 8 wins. Those wins will come at a much cheaper rate than McCarthys.
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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2014 2:17:00 GMT -5
Miley walked 75 batters last season, this is the best we could do? ? Ben has had a horrible year. but he's going to provide us with 200 invaluable innings of 4+ERA and give up a hit/walk to almost 3 batters every 2 innings. He gave up 18 HR at home, and 5 on the road, despite pitching 20 more innings. Does that strike you as strange in any way? Since you're enamoured of ERA, let's use that. It was 3.17 when not in Arizona. I know all the wet-eyes find it hard to understand, but it really is different in Tuscon, Albuquerque, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Reno, Colorado Springs, Phoenix... Oh, and Rubby's ERA was over 7 in September. I don't think he was quite ready for the playoffs.
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