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Post by incandenza on Aug 21, 2023 9:50:25 GMT -5
Agree with the idea that Bloom takes some questionable risks with roster construction. WeâÂÂve seen it this year and last. I was just posting something in another thread about how a couple middle-class IF investments (easier said than done, IâÂÂm sure, especially given the tax threshold situation), might have us firmly in a wild card spot right now. I do disagree with the idea that Bloom is all about the art of the deal and clipping coupons, though, at least in terms of free agency. He was fairly aggressive with Yoshida (a contract that was universally panned for how expensive it was, outside these boards), Jansen, and Martin. Jansen was not seen as a bargain either. I think the idea that he sits on his hands until the last minute and goes to Market Basket instead of Whole Foods is a philosophy incorrectly extrapolated from the Trevor Story situation, which IâÂÂd agree was an example of him waiting out the market and striking a deal at good value when it made sense. And I think that since itâÂÂs a significant contract and was signed soon after the strike elapsed, it drew a lot of attention and over-analysis since many people here and elsewhere were hungry for some. And so it became BloomâÂÂs âÂÂsignature moveâ thus far. I don't disagree with that logic. However, did anyone really predict Kiké Hernandez being the worst player in the league this year for us? But you aren't wrong. If Bloom signed someone like Brandon Drury (1.8 fWAR) to a similar contract (2 year, $17M) to the one he got. The team would literally be in a very good spot right now vs trotting out Christian Arroyo & Kiké Hernandez to the tune of -1.8 fWAR this season. We can always look at last year's FA class and regret not signing the guy who turned out to be the biggest overperformer. But I don't recall many people clamoring for Drury at the time; what a lot of people wanted Bloom to do was sign Andrus, and he has a 76 wRC+ and 0.9 WAR - better than Kiké/Arroyo, to be fair, but not actually good, and not better than Reyes. He has also not been better than Duvall. (What I wanted to do was sign Segura and he's been pretty much as bad as Kiké.)
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Post by incandenza on Aug 21, 2023 9:59:09 GMT -5
Padres offer Trea Turner $342 million - get turned down. Padres offer Aaron Judge $400+ million - he says no. They pivot to Xander to offer $280 million. I'd love to know what was going on behind closed doors with their front office/ownership. Was someone high up pushing for a big splash and they just felt like they had to spend 300 million on somebody? Do they plan on opening the checkbook again for resigning Soto or a possible Ohtani pursuit? If you don't care about the prospect of lighting millions of dollars on fire for the backend of Xander's contract if it goes sideways, by all means shoot your shot. But if they had a couple hundred million dollars in their team piggy bank and blew it all away in one offseason, my God what a colossal mistake. It's so maddening. Not only did they wildly overpay Bogaerts in a fit of madness, he is a terrible fit for their roster - they displaced a better player at SS who is now playing at a near-MVP level to put Bogaerts there, while meanwhile rolling into the season with Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter pencilled into key roles. Never mind the long-term cost, even in the short-term they could have made a bigger WAR upgrade by signing some mid-tier 1B/DH type for 2/20 or something.
The upshot is that it's a bad contract for the Padres and their fans are probably going to spend most of Xander's time in San Diego resenting him, which is a bummer.
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Post by scottysmalls on Aug 21, 2023 10:00:08 GMT -5
I don't disagree with that logic. However, did anyone really predict Kiké Hernandez being the worst player in the league this year for us? But you aren't wrong. If Bloom signed someone like Brandon Drury (1.8 fWAR) to a similar contract (2 year, $17M) to the one he got. The team would literally be in a very good spot right now vs trotting out Christian Arroyo & Kiké Hernandez to the tune of -1.8 fWAR this season. We can always look at last year's FA class and regret not signing the guy who turned out to be the biggest overperformer. But I don't recall many people clamoring for Drury at the time; what a lot of people wanted Bloom to do was sign Andrus, and he has a 76 wRC+ and 0.9 WAR - better than Kiké/Arroyo, to be fair, but not actually good, and not better than Reyes. He has also not been better than Duvall. (What I wanted to do was sign Segura and he's been pretty much as bad as Kiké.) I don't want to keep steering this thread OT, but at the price Andrus ended up getting it's a fair nitpick (given how obvious a fit he seemed at the time). I suspect the issue was he was only going to take a full starting role, and the Red Sox had already committed starting roles to Kiké and Duvall. Also, had they signed Andrus, we may not have gotten Duran once Duvall got hurt, they probably would just have moved Kiké to center full time, so butterfly wings and all that. Re; Bogaerts - the contract isn't off to a good start, and there's a concerning wOBA/xwOBA trend, but given his makeup I'm not ready to write him off yet. I will say though, that by WPA he's been worse than WAR suggests (and has been for a couple years now). He's much less valuable if his hits come in low leverage moments (he has a 14 wRC+ in high leverage), something to monitor.
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Post by manfred on Aug 21, 2023 10:10:44 GMT -5
Obviously it is a crazy contract, and I don’t think *anyone* on this board didn’t react with a kind of horror.
But… they will likely get their money this season, at least. X is at 2.7 fWAR for $25 million. That is pretty close. It is brutal big picture since you hope for surplus up front, but it isn’t *that* bad. (I mean for this year in isolation).
Story is 2.4 fWAR in his first two years ($40 million). That is an even rougher start. Of course, there are only $100 million more for him, so hr has a far better chance of catching up.
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Post by incandenza on Aug 21, 2023 10:23:45 GMT -5
Obviously it is a crazy contract, and I don’t think *anyone* on this board didn’t react with a kind of horror. But… they will likely get their money this season, at least. X is at 2.7 fWAR for $25 million. That is pretty close. It is brutal big picture since you hope for surplus up front, but it isn’t *that* bad. (I mean for this year in isolation). Story is 2.4 fWAR in his first two years ($40 million). That is an even rougher start. Of course, there are only $100 million more for him, so hr has a far better chance of catching up. To be fair to the Padres, their original plan of giving $342 million to Trea Turner would be looking even worse right now.
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Post by kevfc89 on Aug 21, 2023 11:10:03 GMT -5
I remember many thought Xander's wOBA way outperforming his poor xwOBA last year was some specific skill that Xander had. From my observation he was not impacting the ball very often and a lot of weak stuff was fortunately falling in play.
Last year: .323 xwOBA --- .363 wOBA This year: .325 xwOBA --- .323 wOBA
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Post by incandenza on Aug 21, 2023 11:17:16 GMT -5
I remember many thought Xander's wOBA way outperforming his poor xwOBA last year was some specific skill that Xander had. From my observation he was not impacting the ball very often and a lot of weak stuff was fortunately falling in play. Last year: .323 xwOBA --- .363 wOBA This year: .325 xwOBA --- .323 wOBA The thing is, it wasn't just last year; he outperformed his xwOBA every single year, by an average of like 28 points.
The question I have is how much that had to do with Fenway. If it was largely a Fenway effect I'd expect that "skill" to have evaporated for the rest of his career; if not then I'd expect him to go back to overperforming his xwOBA.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 21, 2023 14:53:22 GMT -5
Obviously it is a crazy contract, and I don’t think *anyone* on this board didn’t react with a kind of horror. But… they will likely get their money this season, at least. X is at 2.7 fWAR for $25 million. That is pretty close. It is brutal big picture since you hope for surplus up front, but it isn’t *that* bad. (I mean for this year in isolation). Story is 2.4 fWAR in his first two years ($40 million). That is an even rougher start. Of course, there are only $100 million more for him, so hr has a far better chance of catching up. No they won't. Not remotely. Situational hitting is a real thing. It may not be predictive, but it happened. A player's worth is based on what actually happened.
Here's the list of Red Sox players (present and past), minimum 260 PA (which gives you 271 players), sorted by Win Probability Added per 600 PA. Name Team WPA PA Rate Rank Mookie Betts LAD 4.82 538 5.37 4 Justin Turner BOS 2.95 483 3.67 16 Jarren Duran BOS 2.15 362 3.57 17 Rafael Devers BOS 1.84 499 2.21 53 J.D. Martinez LAD 1.18 390 1.82 69 Joey Meneses WSN 1.44 508 1.70 75 Tommy Pham - 0.88 328 1.62 78 And. Benintendi CHW 1.15 485 1.43 85 Kyle Schwarber PHI 1.31 551 1.42 87 Masa Yoshida BOS 0.47 463 0.61 121 Alex Verdugo BOS 0.43 477 0.54 125 Mauricio Dubón HOU -0.16 404 -0.24 167 Manuel Margot TBR -0.12 280 -0.25 168 Triston Casas BOS -0.21 405 -0.31 173 Anthony Rizzo NYY -0.60 421 -0.86 199 Enri. Hernández - -0.84 400 -1.27 220 Hunter Renfroe LAA -1.04 472 -1.32 223 Xander Bogaerts SDP -1.26 508 -1.48 234 Connor Wong BOS -1.40 309 -2.72 259 Christ. Vázquez MIN -1.39 274 -3.04 262
In terms of actual impact on winning, Xander has performed like a bad #8 hitter.
This is the fourth straight year that he's been a bad situational hitter.
Casas, BTW, had a -1.73 rate through July 4 and is 2.77 since. That's going from 239th ranked to 37th.
EDIT: Duval is 2.56.
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nomar
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Post by nomar on Aug 21, 2023 17:55:43 GMT -5
Obviously it is a crazy contract, and I don’t think *anyone* on this board didn’t react with a kind of horror. But… they will likely get their money this season, at least. X is at 2.7 fWAR for $25 million. That is pretty close. It is brutal big picture since you hope for surplus up front, but it isn’t *that* bad. (I mean for this year in isolation). Story is 2.4 fWAR in his first two years ($40 million). That is an even rougher start. Of course, there are only $100 million more for him, so hr has a far better chance of catching up. No they won't. Not remotely. Situational hitting is a real thing. It may not be predictive, but it happened. A player's worth is based on what actually happened.
Here's the list of Red Sox players (present and past), minimum 260 PA (which gives you 271 players), sorted by Win Probability Added per 600 PA. Name Team WPA PA Rate Rank Mookie Betts LAD 4.82 538 5.37 4 Justin Turner BOS 2.95 483 3.67 16 Jarren Duran BOS 2.15 362 3.57 17 Rafael Devers BOS 1.84 499 2.21 53 J.D. Martinez LAD 1.18 390 1.82 69 Joey Meneses WSN 1.44 508 1.70 75 Tommy Pham - 0.88 328 1.62 78 And. Benintendi CHW 1.15 485 1.43 85 Kyle Schwarber PHI 1.31 551 1.42 87 Masa Yoshida BOS 0.47 463 0.61 121 Alex Verdugo BOS 0.43 477 0.54 125 Mauricio Dubón HOU -0.16 404 -0.24 167 Manuel Margot TBR -0.12 280 -0.25 168 Triston Casas BOS -0.21 405 -0.31 173 Anthony Rizzo NYY -0.60 421 -0.86 199 Enri. Hernández - -0.84 400 -1.27 220 Hunter Renfroe LAA -1.04 472 -1.32 223 Xander Bogaerts SDP -1.26 508 -1.48 234 Connor Wong BOS -1.40 309 -2.72 259 Christ. Vázquez MIN -1.39 274 -3.04 262
In terms of actual impact on winning, Xander has performed like a bad #8 hitter. This is the fourth straight year that he's been a bad situational hitter. Casas, BTW, had a -1.73 rate through July 4 and is 2.77 since. That's going from 239th ranked to 37th. EDIT: Duval is 2.56.
This is an interesting perspective, but to play devils advocate the Padres are also otherworldly bad in crucial situations. They have a +52 run differential and are one of the worst teams in baseball still. They can’t win close games. So I think as a team they collectively must be in their own heads when it comes to situational hitting. Regardless, Bogaerts hasn’t hit in the clutch, continues to impact the ball less hard, and nobody in SD will care if he was worth his contract this year considering his bleak long term outlook and this being a lost year for that franchise.
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Post by chr31ter on Aug 21, 2023 20:53:29 GMT -5
Padres offer Trea Turner $342 million - get turned down. Padres offer Aaron Judge $400+ million - he says no. They pivot to Xander to offer $280 million. I'd love to know what was going on behind closed doors with their front office/ownership. Was someone high up pushing for a big splash and they just felt like they had to spend 300 million on somebody? Do they plan on opening the checkbook again for resigning Soto or a possible Ohtani pursuit? If you don't care about the prospect of lighting millions of dollars on fire for the backend of Xander's contract if it goes sideways, by all means shoot your shot. But if they had a couple hundred million dollars in their team piggy bank and blew it all away in one offseason, my God what a colossal mistake. It's so maddening. Not only did they wildly overpay Bogaerts in a fit of madness, he is a terrible fit for their roster - they displaced a better player at SS who is now playing at a near-MVP level to put Bogaerts there, while meanwhile rolling into the season with Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter pencilled into key roles. Never mind the long-term cost, even in the short-term they could have made a bigger WAR upgrade by signing some mid-tier 1B/DH type for 2/20 or something.
The upshot is that it's a bad contract for the Padres and their fans are probably going to spend most of Xander's time in San Diego resenting him, which is a bummer.
I just read a report that there's an element in the Padres' front office that want to move Bogaerts to first base.
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Aug 21, 2023 21:19:28 GMT -5
It's so maddening. Not only did they wildly overpay Bogaerts in a fit of madness, he is a terrible fit for their roster - they displaced a better player at SS who is now playing at a near-MVP level to put Bogaerts there, while meanwhile rolling into the season with Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter pencilled into key roles. Never mind the long-term cost, even in the short-term they could have made a bigger WAR upgrade by signing some mid-tier 1B/DH type for 2/20 or something.
The upshot is that it's a bad contract for the Padres and their fans are probably going to spend most of Xander's time in San Diego resenting him, which is a bummer.
I just read a report that there's an element in the Padres' front office that want to move Bogaerts to first base. He finally becomes a legitimately good defender at SS and they want to move him to 1B, classic padres
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Aug 21, 2023 21:33:52 GMT -5
It's so maddening. Not only did they wildly overpay Bogaerts in a fit of madness, he is a terrible fit for their roster - they displaced a better player at SS who is now playing at a near-MVP level to put Bogaerts there, while meanwhile rolling into the season with Nelson Cruz and Matt Carpenter pencilled into key roles. Never mind the long-term cost, even in the short-term they could have made a bigger WAR upgrade by signing some mid-tier 1B/DH type for 2/20 or something.
The upshot is that it's a bad contract for the Padres and their fans are probably going to spend most of Xander's time in San Diego resenting him, which is a bummer.
I just read a report that there's an element in the Padres' front office that want to move Bogaerts to first base. It's in the context of Jackson Merrill. theathletic.com/4786574/2023/08/18/padres-considering-jackson-merrill-call-up/
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Post by alexcorahomevideo on Aug 22, 2023 18:19:06 GMT -5
If Soto bounces I could honestly see the Yankees trading Stanton and others for Xander and cash in the offseason. Xander then rebounds and is a massive villain in Boston for the next decade. Yankees move him to 3rd or 2nd and Stanton plays in Cali for the rest of his career.
Makes a lot of sense.
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Post by grandsalami on Aug 22, 2023 18:20:40 GMT -5
If Soto bounces I could honestly see the Yankees trading Stanton and others for Xander and cash in the offseason. Xander then rebounds and is a massive villain in Boston for the next decade. Yankees move him to 3rd or 2nd and Stanton plays in Cali for the rest of his career. Makes a lot of sense. that makes absolutely no sense, lol That would be blocked by any fantasy commissioner
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cdj
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Post by cdj on Aug 22, 2023 22:25:30 GMT -5
They’re not putting that stiff Giancarlo out in Petco’s OF
If the Yankees want to trade for that X contract by all means
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Post by alexcorahomevideo on Aug 23, 2023 6:17:19 GMT -5
If Soto bounces I could honestly see the Yankees trading Stanton and others for Xander and cash in the offseason. Xander then rebounds and is a massive villain in Boston for the next decade. Yankees move him to 3rd or 2nd and Stanton plays in Cali for the rest of his career. Makes a lot of sense. that makes absolutely no sense, lol That would be blocked by any fantasy commissioner When dealing with the Padres you can't look at logic. You're talking about an organization who decides to take their franchise player with a terrible shoulder and throws him in Right Field. They don't care about defense, at all. This would be a pure dump to get out of the Boegarts deal. No one is taking that deal without giving back another crappy deal. But laying it out like this does make sense. Stanton even at his regressed age is probably better suited for the OF than Tatis. Merrill plays at 1st and no one knows where Cronenworth plays but that contract is pretty bad too.
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Post by bg23 on Aug 23, 2023 6:44:45 GMT -5
that makes absolutely no sense, lol That would be blocked by any fantasy commissioner When dealing with the Padres you can't look at logic. You're talking about an organization who decides to take their franchise player with a terrible shoulder and throws him in Right Field. They don't care about defense, at all. This would be a pure dump to get out of the Boegarts deal. No one is taking that deal without giving back another crappy deal. But laying it out like this does make sense. Stanton even at his regressed age is probably better suited for the OF than Tatis. Merrill plays at 1st and no one knows where Cronenworth plays but that contract is pretty bad too. Tatis has been a borderline elite outfielder this year. Bogaerts is still a useful player albeit on a terrible contract. Stanton is straight up a useless DH at this point, and also on a horrendous contract. Don’t see how those values line up.
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Post by alexcorahomevideo on Aug 23, 2023 6:50:31 GMT -5
When dealing with the Padres you can't look at logic. You're talking about an organization who decides to take their franchise player with a terrible shoulder and throws him in Right Field. They don't care about defense, at all. This would be a pure dump to get out of the Boegarts deal. No one is taking that deal without giving back another crappy deal. But laying it out like this does make sense. Stanton even at his regressed age is probably better suited for the OF than Tatis. Merrill plays at 1st and no one knows where Cronenworth plays but that contract is pretty bad too. Tatis has been a borderline elite outfielder this year. Bogaerts is still a useful player albeit on a terrible contract. Stanton is straight up a useless DH at this point, and also on a horrendous contract. Don’t see how those values line up. Values don't have to line up when dealing with contracts and term. I'm looking at this as the Padres are trading a square peg and getting out of what will be known as the worst contract in the league in a couple years. One has 130 mil left on it and the other has about 250 million. You aren't getting anything for either of these guys and while Boegarts is the much better player he also has double the amount of money left on his deal.
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Post by bg23 on Aug 23, 2023 7:05:29 GMT -5
Tatis has been a borderline elite outfielder this year. Bogaerts is still a useful player albeit on a terrible contract. Stanton is straight up a useless DH at this point, and also on a horrendous contract. Don’t see how those values line up. Values don't have to line up when dealing with contracts and term. I'm looking at this as the Padres are trading a square peg and getting out of what will be known as the worst contract in the league in a couple years. One has 130 mil left on it and the other has about 250 million. You aren't getting anything for either of these guys and while Boegarts is the much better player he also has double the amount of money left on his deal. The point I am trying to make is that while the Bogaerts deal is really bad, the Stanton deal is worst contract in baseball type of bad, even given the lesser money and shorter term. He is that useless as a baseball player. Even if the Padres do throw in the towel (likely not happening while Preller is still GM), they would need additional prospects to even begin to see the deal as good value.
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ericmvan
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Post by ericmvan on Aug 24, 2023 13:27:38 GMT -5
No they won't. Not remotely. Situational hitting is a real thing. It may not be predictive, but it happened. A player's worth is based on what actually happened.
Here's the list of Red Sox players (present and past), minimum 260 PA (which gives you 271 players), sorted by Win Probability Added per 600 PA. ... In terms of actual impact on winning, Xander has performed like a bad #8 hitter. This is the fourth straight year that he's been a bad situational hitter. Casas, BTW, had a -1.73 rate through July 4 and is 2.77 since. That's going from 239th ranked to 37th. EDIT: Duval is 2.56.
This is an interesting perspective, but to play devils advocate the Padres are also otherworldly bad in crucial situations. They have a +52 run differential and are one of the worst teams in baseball still. They can’t win close games. So I think as a team they collectively must be in their own heads when it comes to situational hitting. Regardless, Bogaerts hasn’t hit in the clutch, continues to impact the ball less hard, and nobody in SD will care if he was worth his contract this year considering his bleak long term outlook and this being a lost year for that franchise. This is a great point. I have data from c. 2005-2008 that shows that expected team runs in a game (based on all PA results) versus actual runs tends to go in streaks. This year I did the same thing for the Sox, hitting with the bases empty versus with runners on ... teams have streaks, good and bad. Collective relaxation vs. collective pressing.
This is a case where being conscientious actually backfires. Xander, already a guy who puts pressure on himself to hit well when the team offense is faltering, seems to be surrounded by guys doing the same thing. That just makes it worse for everyone.
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