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Sale to BOS for Moncada, Kopech, Basabe, Diaz
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 9, 2016 16:54:39 GMT -5
I get it that we all love prospects and that we now have advanced statistics that enable us to quantify impact. I know losing prospects hurt, but here is my take. Let me know what I am missing: 1. Dombrowski has not been shy to trade prospects throughout his career but he has been right way more frequently than he has been wrong. 2. He has spent quite a bit of time on the farm system and despite pressure, did not trade the four B's who are in Boston and the only true "can't miss" prospects everyone has been asking for. 3. As much as we pat ourselves on the back about our farm system -- it has only been great on one side of the ball. We wouldn't have to trade prospects if we had developed any big league caliber pitching talent over the past several years 4. Especially after losing Ortiz, unless we upgraded our team (and pitching specifically), we weren't going to win any World Series anytime soon 5. Chris Sale is a huge get -- is there another pitcher we could have landed who comes anywhere close to his value 6. As great as Moncada may be, last September showed (and AFL performance confirmed) he certainly isn't ready for the big leagues yet. Very different than Benintendi. And Kopech is still very raw. My question to all of you -- If you didn't want DD to make this deal, then what did you want him to do? And if the answer is nothing, how do we plan to win the World Series. Easy, you stay the course. Pass on Moreland and let Brentz start the year as DH. Unless you don't trade Shaw then that's your DH. The playoffs aren't important yet. The Sox make it? Great. Personally I was mad when Ben was fired because he was great at stocking the farm with amazing top end prospects and DD destroyed that in 1 calendar year. Never would have made the Kimbrel Pomeranz Thornburg or Sale trades. All DD was on the losing end. Wouldn't have minded seeing Price Hanley Porcello and Pablo start the season and then dealing them at the deadline for elite prospects. Or just someone to take on Pablo's deal. Honestly look at this core it's young and homegrown. You should be adding to it not subtracting. Moncada is a future MVP and Espinoza is a future ace. To trade these guys and future probable all stars like Margot is awful. Go look at Brentz' stats from the last two years and tell me you'd pencil him in at DH. I love prospects too, but you're on a whole other level of ridiculousness.
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Post by deepjohn on Dec 9, 2016 16:56:16 GMT -5
[...] Sale is more a publicity stunt for the advanced sale of tickets. Is this the most wrong anyone has ever been on this board? Or on the internet? This is one of the few times anyone has ever said this in public. The owners of many or perhaps all these teams, but especially the owners of the Red Sox, are nothing but greedy and cynical. These owners are only manipulating the Red Sox fans into buying advanced tickets with a splashy announcement of a big name player. It's a simple fact that many Papi fans are much less inclined to buy tickets with their scarce dollars, which these fans need for many things, and even for other forms of entertainment. The Red Sox are an incredibly lucrative publicity machine, whose end goal is to increase revenue and book value, which is in the billions and growing. Henry actually owns the Boston Globe. It is just an obvious conflict of interest for Henry to manipulate the media and the fans. As much as I love going to the games, and oh do I love it, in good conscience, I really cannot support these greedy, cynical robber barons. I feel I do need to say something.
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Post by lifesox on Dec 9, 2016 17:02:08 GMT -5
I get it that we all love prospects and that we now have advanced statistics that enable us to quantify impact. I know losing prospects hurt, but here is my take. Let me know what I am missing: 1. Dombrowski has not been shy to trade prospects throughout his career but he has been right way more frequently than he has been wrong. 2. He has spent quite a bit of time on the farm system and despite pressure, did not trade the four B's who are in Boston and the only true "can't miss" prospects everyone has been asking for. 3. As much as we pat ourselves on the back about our farm system -- it has only been great on one side of the ball. We wouldn't have to trade prospects if we had developed any big league caliber pitching talent over the past several years 4. Especially after losing Ortiz, unless we upgraded our team (and pitching specifically), we weren't going to win any World Series anytime soon 5. Chris Sale is a huge get -- is there another pitcher we could have landed who comes anywhere close to his value 6. As great as Moncada may be, last September showed (and AFL performance confirmed) he certainly isn't ready for the big leagues yet. Very different than Benintendi. And Kopech is still very raw. My question to all of you -- If you didn't want DD to make this deal, then what did you want him to do? And if the answer is nothing, how do we plan to win the World Series. Easy, you stay the course. Pass on Moreland and let Brentz start the year as DH. Unless you don't trade Shaw then that's your DH. The playoffs aren't important yet. The Sox make it? Great. Personally I was mad when Ben was fired because he was great at stocking the farm with amazing top end prospects and DD destroyed that in 1 calendar year. Never would have made the Kimbrel Pomeranz Thornburg or Sale trades. All DD was on the losing end. Wouldn't have minded seeing Price Hanley Porcello and Pablo start the season and then dealing them at the deadline for elite prospects. Or just someone to take on Pablo's deal. Honestly look at this core it's young and homegrown. You should be adding to it not subtracting. Moncada is a future MVP and Espinoza is a future ace. To trade these guys and future probable all stars like Margot is awful. I appreciate the perspective. My issue is part philosophical and part practical. First, there is risk associated both with trading and not trading. Prospects are no guarantee and it is the role of the front office to make decisions on who is bonafide and who is overrated. See high (how much better would we be if we had sold high on some of our misses)? And now the practical consideration, if you look at both the Cubs and Indians -- they would not have sniffed the World Series without making acquisitions at the trade deadline (Chapman and Miller) and as much as you may hate beginning of the season trades, the ones at the trading deadline with players under short contracts is much more painful (see Bagwell, Jeff). The truth is that it is difficult to get to the promised land if you don't make the deals -- and when you are close it is the time to step on the gas not lift your foot up. DD has made these deals almost entirely for pitching because he was left with a huge hole. Finally, the future isn't so clear for Moncada or Espinoza -- if it were, we wouldn't have made those deals.
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Post by deepjohn on Dec 9, 2016 17:10:30 GMT -5
31.1 bWAR and four top-five CYA finishes through age 27. Third on the career K/9 rankings. There's obviously a lot that can go wrong between there and Cooperstown but he is roughly on that track. There are four pitchers under 30 with a 20.0 bWAR or higher: Kershaw (52.7), Sale, Bumgarner (25.2), Quintana (20.5). Another 8 years or so of what he's doing and he's a shoe-in. .... and not if he repeats 2016. It's substantially worse than 2012 through 2015. Maybe it was the framing, but his curveballs outside the zone were being called for balls more often. It showed, and his results in xFIP and hard contact were significantly lower on the leaderboard, only top 15, as opposed to top 5. Rumors are that his arm is not as young as it used to be, and the White Sox traded high, very high.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Dec 9, 2016 17:21:37 GMT -5
Bryce Brentz as a DH? Lol.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2016 17:21:42 GMT -5
This may be my last post for a while.
What very few people seem to be considering is that this trade upgraded what was already a huge strength.
Sale projects to be a 4.6 bWAR pitcher, using a simple 3-2-1 weighting of his last 3 years. (That, plus an age adjustment, has done a terrific job of projecting free-agent SP contracts in the past.)
Clay Buchholz projects to be 0.7 using the same 3-2-1 method. That may well be conservative, and possibly hugely so.
Steven Wight last year had 24 starts instead of 30 because of a pinch-running injury. I think it's fair to pro-rate his bWAR up to 30 starts, which makes him a 2.6 WAR pitcher. That excludes the fact that he got hammered in his post-injury start attempts. It's conservative, too.
A 6th starter can make 20 starts in a typical year, but we can call that 16 and be close enough to get a ballpark figure. So in his three years here, Sale is upgrading:
1/2 year Wright + 1/2 year Buchholz (2017) 1/2 year Wright + 1/2 year Owens (2018). Assuming they don't extend Pomeranz ... 1/2 year Kopech (?) + 1/2 year Owens (2019)
One year of Sale instead of Wright is 2 wins.
What do you think Owens will be in 2018 / 2019? I think 1.6 wins per full season is reasonable and maybe conservative (he was that good in his 2015 cup of coffee). That's 3 wins of upgrade.
A half year of Sale instead of Buchholz is 2 wins, but it may well be 1.
It's hard to project who else will be in the SP mix by 2019, but given that Johnson, Groome, and Kopech were all candidates, it's hard to project the other starter besides Owens in 2019 (after a front four of Price, Porcello, E-Rod, and Wright) being much below 1.6 bWAR / season, which is MLB 4thh starter territory. So half a year of that is another 1.5 wins of upgrade.
That gives you 7.5 wins over 3 years. Call it 2 to 3 wins per year, but I think it's closer to 2 than 3.
However, by 2018 you were hoping that Yoan Moncada was going to upgrade 3B. By how many wins?
Michael Kopech looked like a guy who could be a serious upgrade in the bullpen starting in 2018 or earlier. How many wins is that?
When you factor in the hopes for Moncada and Kopech after the ASB this year, I think this is a 2 win upgrade for this year and a 0-1 win upgrade for 2018 and 2019.
1) Is 2 extra wins going to make or break us this year? Is 1 extra win going to do that for 2018 and 2019?
2) Would you give up years 3 through 6 of control of Moncada and Kopech to get that?
This would be a great, ballsy trade if we were looking at crap for the 5th and 6th starters. It would be a brilliant trade if we were also projecting to finish 2nd by 2 games.
But we had an All-Star as our 5th starter and a guy who was one of the two or three best pitchers in MLB in 2015 as the 6th starter. And we were already division favorites.
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Post by jimed14 on Dec 9, 2016 17:27:41 GMT -5
This may be my last post for a while. What very few people seem to be considering is that this trade upgraded what was already a huge strength. Sale projects to be a 4.6 bWAR pitcher, using a simple 3-2-1 weighting of his last 3 years. (That, plus an age adjustment, has done a terrific job of projecting free-agent SP contracts in the past.) Clay Buchholz projects to be 0.7 using the same 3-2-1 method. That may well be conservative, and possibly hugely so. Steven Wight last year had 24 starts instead of 30 because of a pinch-running injury. I think it's fair to pro-rate his bWAR up to 30 starts, which makes him a 2.6 WAR pitcher. That excludes the fact that he got hammered in his post-injury start attempts. It's conservative, too. A 6th starter can make 20 starts in a typical year, but we can call that 16 and be close enough to get a ballpark figure. So in his three years here, Sale is upgrading: 1/2 year Wright + 1/2 year Buchholz (2017) 1/2 year Wright + 1/2 year Owens (2018). Assuming they don't extend Pomeranz ... 1/2 year Kopech (?) + 1/2 year Owens (2019) One year of Sale instead of Wright is 2 wins. What do you think Owens will be in 2018 / 2019? I think 1.6 wins per full season is reasonable and maybe conservative (he was that good in his 2015 cup of coffee). That's 3 wins of upgrade. A half year of Sale instead of Buchholz is 2 wins, but it may well be 1. It's hard to project who else will be in the SP mix by 2019, but given that Johnson, Groome, and Kopech were all candidates, it's hard to project the other starter besides Owens in 2019 (after a front four of Price, Porcello, E-Rod, and Wright) being much below 1.6 bWAR / season, which is MLB 4thh starter territory. So half a year of that is another 1.5 wins of upgrade. That gives you 7.5 wins over 3 years. Call it 2 to 3 wins per year, but I think it's closer to 2 than 3. However, by 2018 you were hoping that Yoan Moncada was going to upgrade 3B. By how many wins? Michael Kopech looked like a guy who could be a serious upgrade in the bullpen starting in 2018 or earlier. How many wins is that? When you factor in the hopes for Moncada and Kopech after the ASB this year, I think this is a 2 win upgrade for this year and a 0-1 win upgrade for 2018 and 2019. 1) Is 2 extra wins going to make or break us this year? Is 1 extra win going to do that for 2018 and 2019? 2) Would you give up years 3 through 6 of control of Moncada and Kopech to get that? This would be a great, ballsy trade if we were looking at crap for the 5th and 6th starters. It would be a brilliant trade if we were also projecting to finish 2nd by 2 games. But we had an All-Star as our 5th starter and a guy who was one of the two or three best pitchers in MLB in 2015 as the 6th starter. And we were already division favorites. You can't fully evaluate the trade until a starter is traded, hopefully to replenish prospects. I'd even consider a sell-high Porcello blockbuster or a huge overpay for ERod.
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 9, 2016 17:28:51 GMT -5
Is this the most wrong anyone has ever been on this board? Or on the internet? This is one of the few times anyone has ever said this in public. The owners of many or perhaps all these teams, but especially the owners of the Red Sox, are nothing but greedy and cynical. These owners are only manipulating the Red Sox fans into buying advanced tickets with a splashy announcement of a big name player. It's a simple fact that many Papi fans are much less inclined to buy tickets with their scarce dollars, which these fans need for many things, and even for other forms of entertainment. The Red Sox are an incredibly lucrative publicity machine, whose end goal is to increase revenue and book value, which is in the billions and growing. Henry actually owns the Boston Globe. It is just an obvious conflict of interest for Henry to manipulate the media and the fans. As much as I love going to the games, and oh do I love it, in good conscience, I really cannot support these greedy, cynical robber barons. I feel I do need to say something. We all know your Kopech's #1 fan and you didn't like the trade, but your dead wrong on what your saying! If you dislike trade then throw DD under the bus. This trade is on him, I can almost guarantee you that ownership didn't order him to make a splash. This trade is all about winning a Championship, not selling more tickets. Surs it will help ticket sales, but with our great young team, coming off winning the division, ticket sales weren't going to be low. This isn't signing Sandoval and Ramirez coming off a last place finish to give the fans a reason to buy tickets. They could have just signed EE and called it a day if ticket sales were the driving force. Instead DD thought Sale gave us the best chance to win a Championship. Also you really need to appreciate our Owner, he's one of the better owners in Baseball. He spends money to make sure this teams wins. He pays guys like Castillo and Craig to get rich while giving the team no value. In no way would I say he's all about money and not what's in the best interest of the team! DD is the guy that did this, not Henry!
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Post by deepjohn on Dec 9, 2016 17:29:37 GMT -5
This may be my last post for a while. What very few people seem to be considering is that this trade upgraded what was already a huge strength. Sale projects to be a 4.6 bWAR pitcher, using a simple 3-2-1 weighting of his last 3 years. (That, plus an age adjustment, has done a terrific job of projecting free-agent SP contracts in the past.) Clay Buchholz projects to be 0.7 using the same 3-2-1 method. That may well be conservative, and possibly hugely so. Steven Wight last year had 24 starts instead of 30 because of a pinch-running injury. I think it's fair to pro-rate his bWAR up to 30 starts, which makes him a 2.6 WAR pitcher. That excludes the fact that he got hammered in his post-injury start attempts. It's conservative, too. A 6th starter can make 20 starts in a typical year, but we can call that 16 and be close enough to get a ballpark figure. So in his three years here, Sale is upgrading: 1/2 year Wright + 1/2 year Buchholz (2017) 1/2 year Wright + 1/2 year Owens (2018). Assuming they don't extend Pomeranz ... 1/2 year Kopech (?) + 1/2 year Owens (2019) One year of Sale instead of Wright is 2 wins. What do you think Owens will be in 2018 / 2019? I think 1.6 wins per full season is reasonable and maybe conservative (he was that good in his 2015 cup of coffee). That's 3 wins of upgrade. A half year of Sale instead of Buchholz is 2 wins, but it may well be 1. It's hard to project who else will be in the SP mix by 2019, but given that Johnson, Groome, and Kopech were all candidates, it's hard to project the other starter besides Owens in 2019 (after a front four of Price, Porcello, E-Rod, and Wright) being much below 1.6 bWAR / season, which is MLB 4thh starter territory. So half a year of that is another 1.5 wins of upgrade. That gives you 7.5 wins over 3 years. Call it 2 to 3 wins per year, but I think it's closer to 2 than 3. However, by 2018 you were hoping that Yoan Moncada was going to upgrade 3B. By how many wins? Michael Kopech looked like a guy who could be a serious upgrade in the bullpen starting in 2018 or earlier. How many wins is that? When you factor in the hopes for Moncada and Kopech after the ASB this year, I think this is a 2 win upgrade for this year and a 0-1 win upgrade for 2018 and 2019. 1) Is 2 extra wins going to make or break us this year? Is 1 extra win going to do that for 2018 and 2019? 2) Would you give up years 3 through 6 of control of Moncada and Kopech to get that? This would be a great, ballsy trade if we were looking at crap for the 5th and 6th starters. It would be a brilliant trade if we were also projecting to finish 2nd by 2 games. But we had an All-Star as our 5th starter and a guy who was one of the two or three best pitchers in MLB in 2015 as the 6th starter. And we were already division favorites. You can't fully evaluate the trade until a starter is traded, hopefully to replenish prospects. I'd even consider a sell-high Porcello blockbuster or a huge overpay for ERod. True, eric said that same thing in his other, first post in this thread. Noted.
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Post by pedrofanforever45 on Dec 9, 2016 17:39:11 GMT -5
The time to win is now imo-
-Mookie will never be as athletic and as fast as he is now. He'll lose a step in his late 20's and probably two steps in his 30's -Xander might not even be a major league capable short stop in 5 years due to his body and lack of range at that point -JBJ won't have the range in CF in 5 years like he does now. -Pedrioa's prime is coming to an end, so is Hanley's. -Most of the players in their primes right now on this team has 2-3 years left of control (Thornburg, Porcello, Pablo, Hanley, Kelly, Pomeranz, Xander, Price, Kimbrel, and Robbie Ross Jr.)
The time to win was now. None of these 5 year plans ever work out. You hang onto your prospects too long, you can get complacent and never really ever have the chance to "go for it." That and the fact that you risk having bust potential prospects introduced and you get nothing for a prospect where you could of gotten a lot for him at the time (see Henry Owens three years ago).
The simple truth is that the Sox may or may not have to tear down and rebuild in 4 years. They'll have some good pieces to trade at that time (Eduardo Rodriguez, Carson Smith, Andrew Benintendi, Blake Swihart, JBJ). This is the flow and the way baseball wants the game to be played anyways with all their "parity" rules set in place.
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Post by deepjohn on Dec 9, 2016 17:40:29 GMT -5
This is one of the few times anyone has ever said this in public. The owners of many or perhaps all these teams, but especially the owners of the Red Sox, are nothing but greedy and cynical. These owners are only manipulating the Red Sox fans into buying advanced tickets with a splashy announcement of a big name player. It's a simple fact that many Papi fans are much less inclined to buy tickets with their scarce dollars, which these fans need for many things, and even for other forms of entertainment. The Red Sox are an incredibly lucrative publicity machine, whose end goal is to increase revenue and book value, which is in the billions and growing. Henry actually owns the Boston Globe. It is just an obvious conflict of interest for Henry to manipulate the media and the fans. As much as I love going to the games, and oh do I love it, in good conscience, I really cannot support these greedy, cynical robber barons. I feel I do need to say something. We all know your Kopech's #1 fan and you didn't like the trade, but your dead wrong on what your saying! If you dislike trade then throw DD under the bus. This trade is on him, I can almost guarantee you that ownership didn't order him to make a splash. This trade is all about winning a Championship, not selling more tickets. Surs it will help ticket sales, but with our great young team, coming off winning the division, ticket sales weren't going to be low. This isn't signing Sandoval and Ramirez coming off a last place finish to give the fans a reason to buy tickets. They could have just signed EE and called it a day if ticket sales were the driving force. Instead DD thought Sale gave us the best chance to win a Championship. Also you really need to appreciate our Owner, he's one of the better owners in Baseball. He spends money to make sure this teams wins. He pays guys like Castillo and Craig to get rich while giving the team no value. In no way would I say he's all about money and not what's in the best interest of the team! DD is the guy that did this, not Henry! Well, I didn't know this until recently, but in Dombrowski's interview he said he was under direct orders not to spend money and get under the luxury tax cap. That means he could not sign EE. Sale is only 6.5 AAV this year, which gets them under the cap. [Emphasis mine.]
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Post by umassgrad2005 on Dec 9, 2016 18:02:26 GMT -5
We all know your Kopech's #1 fan and you didn't like the trade, but your dead wrong on what your saying! If you dislike trade then throw DD under the bus. This trade is on him, I can almost guarantee you that ownership didn't order him to make a splash. This trade is all about winning a Championship, not selling more tickets. Surs it will help ticket sales, but with our great young team, coming off winning the division, ticket sales weren't going to be low. This isn't signing Sandoval and Ramirez coming off a last place finish to give the fans a reason to buy tickets. They could have just signed EE and called it a day if ticket sales were the driving force. Instead DD thought Sale gave us the best chance to win a Championship. Also you really need to appreciate our Owner, he's one of the better owners in Baseball. He spends money to make sure this teams wins. He pays guys like Castillo and Craig to get rich while giving the team no value. In no way would I say he's all about money and not what's in the best interest of the team! DD is the guy that did this, not Henry! Well, I didn't know this until recently, but in Dombrowski's interview he said he was under direct orders not to spend money and get under the luxury tax cap. That means he could not sign EE. Sale is only 6.5 AAV this year, which gets them under the cap. [Emphasis mine.] So the owner wanted under the tax, it makes sense as going over now can cost multiple picks and international money if you sign a player while over the tax line. So that makes our Owner bad and greedy? The Yankees want to be under the luxury tax, that's very telling to me. So where's the report showing the Owner told DD to make a splash for ticket sales?? Like you have now said like 5 times.
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Post by jmei on Dec 9, 2016 18:27:09 GMT -5
When you factor in the hopes for Moncada and Kopech after the ASB this year, I think this is a 2 win upgrade for this year and a 0-1 win upgrade for 2018 and 2019. 1) Is 2 extra wins going to make or break us this year? Is 1 extra win going to do that for 2018 and 2019? 2) Would you give up years 3 through 6 of control of Moncada and Kopech to get that? This would be a great, ballsy trade if we were looking at crap for the 5th and 6th starters. It would be a brilliant trade if we were also projecting to finish 2nd by 2 games. But we had an All-Star as our 5th starter and a guy who was one of the two or three best pitchers in MLB in 2015 as the 6th starter. And we were already division favorites. Teams trade prospects for veterans to improve their median projection. But they also do so to reduce risk. Sale's projection is a lot less volatile than the guys he's replacing (Wright, Buchholz) and the guys they gave up to acquire him (Moncada, Kopech). That rightfully matters a lot to front offices but is not reflected in your analysis.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Dec 9, 2016 19:39:36 GMT -5
When you factor in the hopes for Moncada and Kopech after the ASB this year, I think this is a 2 win upgrade for this year and a 0-1 win upgrade for 2018 and 2019. 1) Is 2 extra wins going to make or break us this year? Is 1 extra win going to do that for 2018 and 2019? 2) Would you give up years 3 through 6 of control of Moncada and Kopech to get that? This would be a great, ballsy trade if we were looking at crap for the 5th and 6th starters. It would be a brilliant trade if we were also projecting to finish 2nd by 2 games. But we had an All-Star as our 5th starter and a guy who was one of the two or three best pitchers in MLB in 2015 as the 6th starter. And we were already division favorites. Teams trade prospects for veterans to improve their median projection. But they also do so to reduce risk. Sale's projection is a lot less volatile than the guys he's replacing (Wright, Buchholz) and the guys they gave up to acquire him (Moncada, Kopech). That rightfully matters a lot to front offices but is not reflected in your analysis. Good point about risk, and Buchholz is certainly a big one. I think that the volatility of Wright's projection is a complete mirage based on the pitch he throws; knuckleballers have had no more year-to-year variance than ordinary pitchers. Has he established himself as a very good MLB pitcher? I made that argument last winter. Re the possibility of trading Poemeranz or E-Rod or even Porcello for something that makes us all go "wow," that's indeed still on the table. But in this analysis I'm going with the consensus likeliest move.
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Post by jmei on Dec 9, 2016 19:52:02 GMT -5
Wright isn't volatile because his true talent level fluctuates. He's volatile because we're not confident what his true talent is. I know you're very confident in him, but most folks (including, most likely, the front office) aren't.
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jimoh
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Post by jimoh on Dec 9, 2016 20:02:38 GMT -5
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Post by Coreno on Dec 9, 2016 21:51:03 GMT -5
To be fair, half of those links are from white sox fan blogs. But I'm gonna plead the fifth on this one. I think I've underrated Sale for a while because he pitched in Chicago and sometimes I forget he exists.
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Post by rookie13 on Dec 9, 2016 22:09:16 GMT -5
It really feels like some people are just looking for a reason to hate this trade.
It's ridiculous that anyone would say Sale is only a publicity stunt to get more ticket sales. Are you kidding me? Put aside your biases here. Sale is unquestionably one of the top 5 pitchers in baseball since the start of 2012. What team would not want him pitching at the front of their rotation?
Obviously the cost was steep, there's no doubt about that. But instead of dwelling on what Moncada and Kopech could potentially become (I personally hope they still thrive in the majors and have great careers), we should focus on how stacked this team is for a world series run for the next several years.
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Post by deepjohn on Dec 9, 2016 22:22:41 GMT -5
Teams trade prospects for veterans to improve their median projection. But they also do so to reduce risk. Sale's projection is a lot less volatile than the guys he's replacing (Wright, Buchholz) and the guys they gave up to acquire him (Moncada, Kopech). That rightfully matters a lot to front offices but is not reflected in your analysis. Good point about risk, and Buchholz is certainly a big one. I think that the volatility of Wright's projection is a complete mirage based on the pitch he throws; knuckleballers have had no more year-to-year variance than ordinary pitchers. Has he established himself as a very good MLB pitcher? I made that argument last winter. Re the possibility of trading Poemeranz or E-Rod or even Porcello for something that makes us all go "wow," that's indeed still on the table. But in this analysis I'm going with the consensus likeliest move. As I said in the post a few above, no rational front office would claim they have a high confidence they've upgraded by 3 WAR. In fact, the opposite is true, there's a high confidence level in a range of expected WAR of 3-5 from pretty much all the starters, including Kopech when he's ready. In short, there's a high confidence that Sale is an upgrade of between 2 and 0 WAR. And that assumes Moncada is a bust. If there is any value in Sale, it's hoping that 2016 was an outlier and he returns to the true ace that he was in the previous years from 2013-2015. You'd like to get 6 WAR from him or a Kershaw-like 7 WAR. Now you have something. But that's a big risk. He got hit hard in 2016. It wasn't just poor defense or framing. If you're a rational front office, you want to avoid that risk, not pay out the safest assets you have, prospects very likely to net you $200 million each in excess value. No, this was an extremely risky trade and it was only done to try to get under the tax cap, with Sales' 6.5 AAV. The next move should be dumping the Buchholz salary, also to get under the tax cap. And it was also done (I surmise) to sell tickets.
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Post by telson13 on Dec 9, 2016 22:58:36 GMT -5
This may be my last post for a while. What very few people seem to be considering is that this trade upgraded what was already a huge strength. Sale projects to be a 4.6 bWAR pitcher, using a simple 3-2-1 weighting of his last 3 years. (That, plus an age adjustment, has done a terrific job of projecting free-agent SP contracts in the past.) Clay Buchholz projects to be 0.7 using the same 3-2-1 method. That may well be conservative, and possibly hugely so. Steven Wight last year had 24 starts instead of 30 because of a pinch-running injury. I think it's fair to pro-rate his bWAR up to 30 starts, which makes him a 2.6 WAR pitcher. That excludes the fact that he got hammered in his post-injury start attempts. It's conservative, too. A 6th starter can make 20 starts in a typical year, but we can call that 16 and be close enough to get a ballpark figure. So in his three years here, Sale is upgrading: 1/2 year Wright + 1/2 year Buchholz (2017) 1/2 year Wright + 1/2 year Owens (2018). Assuming they don't extend Pomeranz ... 1/2 year Kopech (?) + 1/2 year Owens (2019) One year of Sale instead of Wright is 2 wins. What do you think Owens will be in 2018 / 2019? I think 1.6 wins per full season is reasonable and maybe conservative (he was that good in his 2015 cup of coffee). That's 3 wins of upgrade. A half year of Sale instead of Buchholz is 2 wins, but it may well be 1. It's hard to project who else will be in the SP mix by 2019, but given that Johnson, Groome, and Kopech were all candidates, it's hard to project the other starter besides Owens in 2019 (after a front four of Price, Porcello, E-Rod, and Wright) being much below 1.6 bWAR / season, which is MLB 4thh starter territory. So half a year of that is another 1.5 wins of upgrade. That gives you 7.5 wins over 3 years. Call it 2 to 3 wins per year, but I think it's closer to 2 than 3. However, by 2018 you were hoping that Yoan Moncada was going to upgrade 3B. By how many wins? Michael Kopech looked like a guy who could be a serious upgrade in the bullpen starting in 2018 or earlier. How many wins is that? When you factor in the hopes for Moncada and Kopech after the ASB this year, I think this is a 2 win upgrade for this year and a 0-1 win upgrade for 2018 and 2019. 1) Is 2 extra wins going to make or break us this year? Is 1 extra win going to do that for 2018 and 2019? 2) Would you give up years 3 through 6 of control of Moncada and Kopech to get that? This would be a great, ballsy trade if we were looking at crap for the 5th and 6th starters. It would be a brilliant trade if we were also projecting to finish 2nd by 2 games. But we had an All-Star as our 5th starter and a guy who was one of the two or three best pitchers in MLB in 2015 as the 6th starter. And we were already division favorites. As tends to be the case, you and I have nearly identical perspective on the issue of "need" and "value," Eric. Well-put. This is almost exactly what I've been saying, and (obviously), I agree wholeheartedly.
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Post by telson13 on Dec 9, 2016 23:02:44 GMT -5
It really feels like some people are just looking for a reason to hate this trade. It's ridiculous that anyone would say Sale is only a publicity stunt to get more ticket sales. Are you kidding me? Put aside your biases here. Sale is unquestionably one of the top 5 pitchers in baseball since the start of 2012. What team would not want him pitching at the front of their rotation? Obviously the cost was steep, there's no doubt about that. But instead of dwelling on what Moncada and Kopech could potentially become (I personally hope they still thrive in the majors and have great careers), we should focus on how stacked this team is for a world series run for the next several years. It's not bias when looking at the objective cost-risk-benefit analysis. It just isn't. And the reasons why have been elucidated ad nauseum. Maybe deepjohn's post is hyperbolic, but that doesn't mean, stripping away the exaggeration, that it isn't true.
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Post by telson13 on Dec 9, 2016 23:13:35 GMT -5
Wright isn't volatile because his true talent level fluctuates. He's volatile because we're not confident what his true talent is. I know you're very confident in him, but most folks (including, most likely, the front office) aren't. This is a fair point. However, true volatility and perceived volatility (and the space between them) are what scouting and analysis is for. What you're describing is largely perception, and it could likewise be argued that Sale's (relatively) poor performance last year, wonky delivery, and White Sox's willingness to trade him all imply volatility in his projection unseen by the models, but visible in human terms: injury risk likelihood, velocity decline, explosive, irrational behavior. The FO obviously is inclined to ignore those red flags while raising their own about Wright. Frankly, given the Kimbrel trade (severe control issues) and Carson Smith trade (TJS), I'm inclined to be concerned about the current team's ability to rationally assess volatility in the terms you describe. I'm not convinced at all that they're not **heavily** over-rating past performance and ignoring clear red flags when assessing volatility/risk.
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Post by dcsoxfan on Dec 9, 2016 23:31:03 GMT -5
Over the last decade and a half, the average return on investment in veteran for prospect deals, when financial considerations are added in, is approximately 2.5 to 1 (i.e. On average teams acquiring prospects have received approximately 2.5 future wins for each present win traded). If one assumes that 8.5 seasons of Sale/Kimbrel/Pomeranz is worth 20 WAR, then one should assume the prospects traded by the Red Sox over the last calendar year have a probable value of 50 WAR.
If this number seems high, it isn't. It would really only require that two of the players traded become impact players, not even superstars. If even one of them were to become Moookie Betts, 50 WAR would be virtually a fait accompli.
Unless you believe the price paid by the Red Sox was significantly more or less than the average market value of the players acquired, this would seem to be the most probable future value of the players traded.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Dec 9, 2016 23:34:03 GMT -5
I think we've given ourselves a two year window to restock, three if you consider the 2018 free agents.
To put a black box around this trade and evaluate it in isolation, it's a loser. Whether or not this trade will turn out to be a good trade will be highly dependent on the sum of the other moves we make going forward, not the actual performances of any of the players involved. A World Series ring or three would set the wisdom of this trade in stone.
Trading Hanley and Anibal for Beckett and Lowell was clearly a major mathematical disaster. Your mileage may vary but I prefer the shiny bobbles on the Sox fingers to the math equations.
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Post by ryantoworkman on Dec 9, 2016 23:40:34 GMT -5
Looking forward, I can see a number of scenarios where the Sox could add as many as 7 prospects to the system by year end.
1) Buchholz for one good prospect, or two longer term high ceiling prospects (now) 2) Elias for a long tern, high ceiling kid (now) 3) Abad for one prospect (mid year) because Scott is ready 4) Hembree for one prospect (mid year) because Smith is ready 5) A Catcher for two prospects (mid year) because Swihart and Vazquez show ready. With all 3 having 5 years of control, a solid return should be gained.
I don't expect Moncada or Kopech level returns, but one or two a tier below, along with 3 or 4 high ceiling kids, and the prospect pool starts looking pretty deep again. Should they decide to move a more marquee pitcher, the prospect realignment could be quite exceptional, and be fitted more closely with future needs.
I like them as follows (vs RH) - (vs LH)
1 - Pedroia - Pedroia 2 - Benintendi - Benintendi 3 - Betts - Betts 4 - Moreland - Hanley 5 - Hanley - Sandoval 6 - Sandoval - Young 7 - Bogaerts - Bogaerts 8 - Leon - Bradley 9 - Bradley - Vazquez
Young, Holt, Rutledge, Catcher bench, with Travis, Hernandez, Marrero, and Swihart as first calls, when needed.
Sale, Porcello, Price, Pomeranz, ERod
Kimbrell, Thornburg, Kelly, Hembree, Wright, Abad, Ross
Barnes and Scott in AAA, Buchholz and Elias dealt, Smith on DL.
That is a very rosy picture if it plays out that way. Of course injury and performance have a way of negating forecasts, so it's good the number of options are many.
It should also be noted the expected ascention of Devers and Travis in 2018, could make, a value now restored, Sandoval a trade chip next year and provide yet another prospect, while shedding some of the salary needed to extend the kids. On a more remote note, decent years from Johnson and Owens could return some value also.
In closing, I'm quite pleased with the trade, and see the barren prospect depth as a temporary affliction. Looking forward to the talent DDo gains from other teams. Let's not forget this is the guy who obtained Scherzer in a deal.
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