2015 Red Sox Trade Deadline Strategy

That would be fantastic for us, by why would San Diego take an underachieving 3b on a bloated contract and terrible sp for shields when they could likely get great value for him?

I'm glad this isn't padresprospects.com and that I'm not reading a thread called "What can be done to fix the Padres?"  But if it were, I bet trading for Sandoval isn't mentioned in it.

What would you guys think of a Swihart+JBJ for a Schwarber+Willson Contreras? Then give Schwarber a 1B mit. Preseason, most rankings had Swihart over Schwarber due to defense - but I'm not sure if Schwarber's stock has gone up too high. Also - seems like a lot of people here are down on Swihart right now.

JBJ would let Fowler play some LF (I'm also higher on JBJ right now than many)

The Dodgers, Cubs, Rangers, and Red Sox are among the clubs still interested in Cole Hamels, reports Ken Rosenthal in his latest video for FOX Sports. Boston is expected to scout Hamels’ start tomorrow, and we can assume other clubs will have a heavy presence as well. Talks with the Rangers aren’t dead, but Texas does expect other teams to make a better offer.

MLBTR

I think our deadline strategy must be to sell while buying opportunistically for 2016 going forward. Quite simply, we should actively see what value there is out there for any player that is not part of the core going forward. Even if it's for the literal bag of baseballs, Napoli, Vicotrino, Breslow and DeAza all have to go. Part of this is performance based, the other part (DeAza) is to open up innings in RF to give Jackie Bradley Jr (presently with a .317/.393/.474/.867 line in AAA) an honest chance to win the RF job for the future.

We then have several players that I'd consider legitimate assets to another team. While I wouldn't give these guys away, I'd certainly see if we can get top prospects for them (these are Tazawa, Koji, Holt and Buccholz - though I think we missed the opportunity to get good value for Buchholz to be honest). If we can get more young players to be part of our future core going forward, I'd certainly do it. I'm obviously not saying to give them away, but if Pittsburgh offers something like Jameson Taillon (closest comp I can think of to Rodriguez last year, but the question is injury not performance) you make the move.

On the opportuistic buy side, I'd of course kick the tires on any players you think you might be able to acquire as part of a long term core. This would be something like calling Arizona and seeing if you can basically buy Archie Bradley or Aaron Blair for taking on the rest of Aaron Hill's salary this year and next like the deal they made with Atlanta earlier this year.

The other thing we should do is stop mucking around with the Steven Wright in the rotation experiment. While playoff contention is over (and realistically has been for some time) the season could still be a lot of fun to watch and very important to our future if we can consistently have Rodriguez, Johnson and Owens pitching in the big league rotation.

While I LOVE the idea of getting rid of Sandoval, I just don't see anyone out there who would take on his contract short of us including a piece to give value (in other words, we don't have an Adrian Gonzalez to make someone take this version of Carl Crawford). MAYBE you could get Seattle and Jack Z to take on Sandoval to play 1b if we included Ramirez to be their DH, but I don't even think they'd go for that.

Unfortunately, I believe we're stuck with Sandoval for the duration.

I don't know if it has been referenced here or elsewhere, but Dave Cameron at fangraphs.com has just completed an analysis of who he considers the top 50 players in the major leagues. He includes present and five-year future WAR calculations as well as contract status with each one. Betts is 11th. Bogaerts is 33rd. It's a good read.

www.fangraphs.com/blogs/2015-trade-value-the-top-10/

That's how I feel too. I can't remember the last time I had less excitement regarding the trade deadline. Normally, it would be - my team is in it - let's see what they can do to improve the team without mortgaging the future.

Or like last year, let's see what we can turn Lester, Lackey, and Miller into. Of course the excitement mostly wore off when the Sox strangely enough hit a home run on their third best trade chip but whiffed badly on their top two trade chips.

But this year, there's not much of consequence to trade that would likely result in receiving anything higher than marginal help for the future and the Sox would be stupid to go for it, so I find the intrigue level a lot lower than I normally would.

I agree that unless there's a good deal to be had, which is highly unlikely, that their best course of action is standing pat, riding out the rest of the season while giving guys like Bradley or Castillo and Johnson and some of those young relievers a chance, and working on rebuilding the club in the offseason.

I still have not forgiven them for this. Ugh.

I know this is an old refrain, but I truly believe that Price will be wearing pinstripes next year (and yes, coming from the idiot who was sure that Moncada was going to be a Yankee). They're almost out from other Sabathia's deal, and the Yankees, when they win, feature a dominating lefty in their rotation.

I'm sure you could go back before then, but think of Whitey Ford with those 50s and 60s Yankees, Guidry on those late 70s Yankees, Pettitte and Wells on those super Yankee teams of '96 - '01, and Sabathia at the top of his game in 2009. And we know the Yankees like to spend on proven talent. He fits their needs perfectly, while the Sox are already left-handed heavy in their future rotation with Miley, Rodriguez, Owens, and Johnson.

The Yanks have Tanaka and Pineida. I'd be surprised if they went after Cueto or even Greinke (if he could even stand being a Yankee) over Price.

I could be very wrong, but I think that Price will be a Yankee, Greinke will remain in LA, and I think the Sox will seriously look at Cueto (maybe they'll be listening to Pedro) and have a legit shot at him.

It's awesome to see that chart at the bottom with Betts 5 year WAR projections 8th highest in the league, between Posey and Stanton.

More upset with them for muffing the Lester contract talks so badly in the spring, because I'd rather have Lester on the $105-120 million dollar contract they could have gotten than Porcello on his current deal.