8/24-8/26 Red Sox @ Rays Series Thread

Kinsler pops everything up

Nice of Hembree passing that HR torch to Workman. It was a heavy burden.

this has been one of the worst games to watch all year

we lost the Thornburg trade

Sometimes it’s hard to believe the Red Sox are the highest scoring team in baseball.

to put it in more perspective, based on Shaw's projections the rest of the way, Brewers are going to get about 7 fWAR out of just his first two seasons there, and looks like over 30 homers both years.   We got an injured and now ineffective Thornburg stuck at 0 fWAR in contributions.   Oh yea, and we also threw other guys into that deal for some reason.    yikes DD

I agree. The team looks exhausted. If Mookie isn't hitting, it's an entirely different look. Moreland is a .250 hitter who is easy to roll-over and double up. If you want to play him, hit him 7th. Maybe Chavis can come on next year but Mookie & J.D. have skewered our team stats giving a false sense of team offensive prowess.

Because he's a little guy, I have greater concern for Mookie being rested.

The Yanks have knocked 3 games off our lead and odds are maybe 4 given tomorrow's matchups. Given the number of games left with them, the race could get pretty close near the wire.

In fairness, Thornburg had just had a sick year, and Shaw was a middling prospect who had surprised for half a season. I don’t think the trade looked terrible at the time.

Pack it in boys. What can we get for Sale on waivers?

Everything you're saying is correct, but you are leaving out one big thing.

Travis Shaw in 2016 was bad enough by September 2016 that they were auditioning Moncada for the 3b job and that by October 2016 Brock Holt was the Red Sox 3b in the playoffs. Shaw had stopped hitting altogether in the 2nd half.

Basically Dombrowski gave up on him.

Others around him believed Shaw would overcome his useless horrendous second half of 2016 and were proven right.

Maybe if Shaw was still here Devers wouldn't be. Maybe Dombrowski knew that Devers would be coming along pretty fast. Don't know. Those last two sentences are total speculation.

I don't know if the Sox discover that Devers in August of 2017 was major league ready if Shaw was here. Maybe they do anyways. Probably they don't.

Say Devers got that full developmental year last year and was knocking on the door. If Devers wasn't dealt, then perhaps 2018 has Shaw moving to 1b with Devers at 3b and Mitch Moreland is never re-signed.

They are a better team, but you'd be comparing Shaw to Moreland at this point. Moreland costs more (but not a ton) and is inferior to Shaw, but maybe Thornburg would make up for some of that Moreland/Shaw difference filling a role that the Sox definitely could use filling for.

A reliable reliever to go in tandem with Barnes in Kimbrel like Milwaukee Thornburg would be a huge asset to the 2018 Red Sox - especially in the playoffs. It's something they're missing but have managed to get around anyways, at least up through now anyways.

The problem is that Thornburg got hurt and you're not getting any value there (this year is a recovery type year for him), the kind Thornburg could generate as a dominant 8th inning reliever, and that was something the Sox didn't foresee.

Obviously it was still an awful deal, but that's if you knew that Shaw would bounce back instead of this 2015 half season and first half of 2016 being a flash in the pan and if you knew that Thornburg would be useless until at least 2019 if ever. A lot of people did know that so kudos to them.

When I was watching Moncada and then Holt man 3b instead of Shaw who couldn't buy a hit (and certainly didn't do it when the 2016 post-season was on the line as he made that last out down a run with runners on), I didn't know that.

There were a lot of people who were against the Shaw plus/Thornburg deal and they were proven correct so far and will probably ultimately be correct.

Some people complained about the quantity of what they gave up. I think Dubon will be a useful player eventually, but it's not a given he's more than a utility man. Don't know if Coco amounts to anything. Pennington has already retired.

So it is Shaw versus Thornburg.

And many people simply hated it because they hated giving up anything of value for a reliever. It was seen as the next Reddick for Bailey type of trade and people of that opinion have been proven correct unfortunately. And they'll balk just as loudly when the Sox make that next type of trade.

The school of thought is that you can find these relievers on the scrap heap easily enough.

I think the first part of that sentence is true and the second part isn't. Yes you can find a Brasier, but the Sox actually need more of him - as a functional bullpen relies of more than two or three guys. You can develop Barnes, but sometimes you still need to trade for a Kimbrel. A Koji doesn't always fall into your lap, so the Sox gambled that they found an under-control long-term relief asset for a guy that had lost his job due to being very ineffective for a prolonged stretch.

Dombrowski didn't agree or ignored his own scouts who believed that Shaw would make adjustments, so it was clearly a mistake, but the point I was originally trying to make is that the Shaw the Sox had was at his lowest point and not necessarily certain to bounce back. Others would simply say he sold low on Shaw and bought high on Thornburg and they look correct in saying so.

I think they should have given Mookie the day off and stuck with Martinez today. Am glad to see Benintendi get the day off. I'm guessing Mookie gets the first game off against Miami? He could use it.