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Post by mandelbro on Aug 27, 2015 9:32:43 GMT -5
What kind of contract will Ben Zobrist command this offseason? He might be a good fit to help cure this teams inflexibility. I'm in the Hanley to 1B, JBJ, Castillo, Betts in the outfield, Shaw as a bench player, all problems solved camp, but just solutioning our position players in house leaves us exposed. Hanley could be as bad at 1B as he is at LF, which causes a bigger problem than it fixes, along with performance risk in the outfield with Bradley and Castillo and at 3B with Sandoval, plus very bad performance against LHP from Sandoval and (until recently) Ortiz, and a lack of depth in the outfield. Zobrist can address all these concerns in a single move. His bat plays at 1B if Hanley cannot adapt, gives the outfield depth, is a great bat against LHP, and can cover 3B for Sandoval (I was surprised to see his lack of track record at 3B, but given his time at SS I'll choose to ignore this fact :/ ). If Hanley can't handle 1B, and Zobrist is needed at another position, Shaw is a good third 1B option who can spell 3B and LF also. It gives the team options in case players under perform, and the flexibility to find spots for players that over perform (Shaw being a candidate). Zobrist may seem like an overpriced Brock Holt, but he has a much better bat. I'm not convince Brock Holt's reverse split this season is legit, and that's the driver of his above average hitting line. Another part of this is that it frees us up to trade Brock Holt. I'd focus on getting relief help, someone like AJ Ramos (something like Holt + Cecchinni for Ramos) I'm not sold on this, just thinking out loud. I think it's worth a discussion, but it relies heavily on what kind of contract a 35 year old Zobrist could get. Is the NYY signing Carlos Beltran the best recent comp? Good post. Sandoval's wRC+ versus righties is 116 on the season, 27 versus lefties. Red Sox 3B overall are an 88 wRC+ group. Shaw and Holt can both both play some 3B but they are lefties themselves. The lowest hanging fruit to improve our offense... is to improve our 3B production. Zobrist is a lefty masher. He can also back up 1B. He can also play the OF. Zobrist would be a fantastic pickup for this roster. C Swihart/Vazquez 1B Ramirez/Shaw/Zobrist 2B Pedroia/Holt/Zobrist SS Bogaerts/Holt/Zobrist 3B Sandoval/Zobrist/Shaw LF Betts/Holt/Zobrist CF Bradley/Holt/Zobrist RF Castillo/Holt/Zobrist A Zobrist/Holt/Shaw bench can make the two disaster signings better by platooning them, and will raise the floor on our production at every single position - we can have two guys hurt and avoid having scrubs there. I don't think it means you trade Holt either. If we want to compete he can play a lot when people get hurt. It comes down to his cost I guess.
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 26, 2015 16:08:34 GMT -5
The only other defensible pick was probably Meadows, who they should have taken. But we also might note how there are very few good pitchers in our system, and lots of position players. I said the same thing and got crucified on this board for it... At the time of the Ball pick, Sox had plenty of young arms. As we know its not a science. I would have taken the hitter that year over the pitcher at #7... In hindsight, they signed Longhi who just might be better than Meadows or Frazier. Imagine if they signed Sheffield and Boldt? Longhi might be better, but right now there's not much reason to think so. Meadows is 3 months older, already in high-A, plays higher up the defensive spectrum, and is hitting 25% better relative to his level by wRC+. If Ball continues to struggle, might he get a look as a hitter, ala Casey Kelly?
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 26, 2015 12:49:37 GMT -5
Sorry if I'm late to the game but why is the Mookie in CF and Bradley in RF tired? In RF you need the arm and, in Fenway, you need the range of a CF. Doesn't that just sound like JBJ? I'm not saying it's absolutely the right answer but, when you need 2 CFers in Fenway (as many suggest) then I don't think it's ludicrous. Its not that the idea is "tired", its the discussion. We are debating over, IF Jackie Bradley turns out to be a stud, and IF Mookie Betts turns out to be a stud, and IF Rusney Castillo turns out to be a stud, and IF none of them are traded, which CF are we going to put in RF and which CF are we going to put in CF. Its like discussing what color your Ferrari is going to be in. These things solve themselves.
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 26, 2015 11:01:45 GMT -5
I'll take that as gospel but 2015 included the before swing so I would be more interested in the after swing change stats. Since he came back up in late July, the whiff rate versus fastballs is 8.59% and the whiff per swing versus fastballs is 19.32%. So an improvement, but still not a huge one (it's a sample size of 198, so it basically means he has two fewer swings and misses than he would have had last year). The question though - does JBJ swinging and missing less necessarily accompany him becoming a better offensive player? Or can he still swing and miss, but make more authoritative contact when he does not miss? It looks like the latter to me. He still whiffs, and likely always will... but he's getting the bat around quicker and catching up to pitches that he would have fouled off last year, or not squared up. This is where the scouting angle comes into play. Is there reason to think that he has mechanically improved the quality of his contact at the plate, rather than the amount of it?
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 25, 2015 10:09:24 GMT -5
Castillo's career MLB numbers are outstanding. .311/.351/.468 slash line over 203 PA. That kind of production sustained, plus the CF-caliber defensive range and a hose that plays in right... that is a fringe All Star.
On the other hand, his career peripherals are a bit bizarre. 20% HR/FB and a .359 BABIP. Extremely high ground ball rate at 67.5%.
The BABIP can at least be partially attributed to his GB%. But what about the power? Is he really this good, or are we going to see a fierce regression to his baseline in terms of both power and average?
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 23, 2015 20:59:45 GMT -5
The idea of trading Pedroia isn't without merit, but I don't think continually calling people who don't want to trade him "fanboys" adds anything to what could otherwise be a good discussion. That said, I also don't think that referring to people who want to have a legitimate discussion of what he could be worth in a trade as "souless" is productive. When you have nothing else to add to your post beyond insulting another poster, then you've run out of (or didn't have) good discussion points.
My personal stance on Pedroia is that I wouldn't shop him nor give him away like I would others, BUT if someone asks about him in a deal, or another team (lets just call them the Cubs) offers you two or three blue chip prospects for him, you certainly explore the parameters of that deal and what other moves you could make. One other thing is that no matter what we (realistically) do this off-season, we're going into next year with a lot of question marks, both in the rotation and in the line up. They will either be questions on if older players that underperformed this year are done (Sandoval, Hanley, Porcello), if those young players will be able to expand upon what they've shown to this point in the season (Rodriguez, Owens, Swihart, Shaw, Castillo, Bradley Jr etc), and how guys are going to come back from injury (Pedroia). That's what happens when you have a last place team. Personally, my bet is that Porcello and Ramirez will be better than they have been this year, and that it's more likely the young players improve than that Sandoval revereses 5 years of downward trends offensively and defensively and improves or that Buchholz puts together his first healthy and good season since in five seasons. Hence my suggestions of line ups and rotations that I'd like to see us put together. Exactly. I was the one who got the Pedroia trade talk going in this thread. Ericmvan raised some good rebuttal points. Pedroia has been a superlative player and is still a very good one, my interest in exploring a Pedey trade is simply the fact that 2 out of the 5 most valuable position-player pieces the Red Sox control at the MLB level are 2nd basemen. Thus, if you're looking to trade for fair value you need to have value to offer in return - and if you're looking for someone with more value to another team than us, one of the two 2B is a natural conclusion. I agree with the rest of your post as well. This is how a team finishes in last. Painful as they are, barring issues we don't know about there's little point in throwing money at Ramirez/Sandoval to go away now. That option will always be there and they could very well rebound. Off topic but regardless of what the plan is for him position-wise, I'd like to see Hanley get nudged into the custody of some actual athletic trainers this offseason. The whole GET-YOKED-and-subsequently-move-around-like-a-dinosaur-from-a-50s-film offseason training plan is obviously not working and hasn't stopped him from getting hurt either. He needs to cut some of that weight and focus on functional athleticism.
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 22, 2015 10:36:47 GMT -5
The reason a Pedroia trade won't happen is because the Red Sox won't be able to do it (no-trade clause). But its exactly the type of bold move the team ought to be making right now.
Betts is a 2B who is arguably the best hitter (besides Ortiz) on the team at 22. He isn't hitting free agency for a long time. And we're playing him out of position, AND playing Bradley out of position... to accommodate a 32 year old, good albeit oft-injured second baseman who is owed $84M still.
If you could trade Pedroia for fair value, you get better at 2B (half a decade of pre-FA top 5 play at the position). You get more value out of Bradley (in his actual position). You are set up the middle for a long time, with players who are improving and not predictably missing games.
If Pedroia is going nowhere, then you have to consider trading Betts. Because if you won't clear a path for him to play his position, someone else might, and would offer you a package that reflects that.
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 13, 2015 10:52:56 GMT -5
The best thing about which will be that it will create a glimmer of hope that Papi could retire this offseason and thereby solve the Hanley Ramirez problem. I want no part of the best (still) Red Sox offensive player retiring. I'd rather see Hanley retire before I see Ortiz retire. David Ortiz isn't the problem even though he winds up with blame he shouldn't be getting. Amen. Losing our best hitter doesn't solve problems, it creates them. This is a mediocre offense WITH Ortiz.
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 10, 2015 9:31:37 GMT -5
FiveThirtyEight, ESPN's Nate Silver Blog has a worthwhile read entitled "Is 2015 the Year Baseball's Projections Failed? ("http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-2015-the-year-baseballs-projections-failed/) Here is the section that caught my particular attention: "Then again, maybe it’s all just luck — we mean literally. By definition, the compression of team records across MLB means that random variance is playing a larger role in the standings than it used to. How much larger? Computing the spread of true talent in a season using the standard deviation of team winning percentages, it turns out that a whopping 64 percent of the observed variation among teams so far this season can be explained by binomial luck — by far the highest single-season proportion of the past two decades." This analysis would seem to refute those who think the Sox are screwed for the next few years until they can rebuild. Luck has more to do with success in baseball than ever before, which is partially a function of parity, the influx of young players who are difficult to project, (the points made by the FiveThirtyEight authors), and partly the function of high risk/high reward free agents. Acquire the wrong guys, or the right guys at the wrong time, and the product on the field can look bad enough to kill all hope for a rebound in subsequent seasons (at least without divine intervention/Punto trade type miracles). But that is not necessarily the case because of high variance outcomes. In other words, some semblance of rebound from Porcello, Panda, and Hanley and the team in general is not an unreasonable hope. I don't bring this up to defend the front office or pretend that all is well on Yawkey Way. Clearly, something beyond bad luck is plaguing the Sox, but that doesn't mean bad luck is a non factor. The problem is that Yawkey way have thought that they can get away with going to the free agent well often. Talent worth bidding high on doesn't hit the market anymore, and the players we've gotten on the open market have predictably turned out to be damaged goods with almost no exceptions (Koji, Cody Ross, and to a lesser extent Gomes being the exceptions, pretty much every other signing being the rule). Part one of fixing the Sox is figuring out what the problem is. Per FanGraphs: 2B: 3.4 WAR (5th) SS: 2.7 WAR (4th!) CF: 2.3 WAR (16th) DH: 1.2 WAR (8th out of 17, two NL teams have qualified) C: 0.7 WAR (19th) 1B: 0.7 WAR (19th) RF: 0.3 WAR (25th) LF:-0.3 WAR (26th) 3B:-1.1 WAR (30th) The areas where the team has been weakest are in the corners. Both IF and OF. These are also the spots where the team has a lot of money invested: Ramirez: 4 more years, $88M remaining (3 years if vesting option is avoided) Sandoval: 4 more years, $70M remaining plus $5M to buy out option year Castillo: 5 more years, $56.5M remaining When you are one of the worst teams in baseball, it is for a reason, despite what a lot of fans seem to think. It amuses me how people can look at a team with a run differential like the Bosox and then say bad luck is the problem. But ultimately, the club does not have much flexibility to change the roster. 3B, RF, LF, 1B, top of the rotation, the 'pen - some of this improvement needs to come from within. Castillo, Sandoval, Ramirez, Porcello. These guys need to get their act together. And at some point, the surplus of up-the-middle talent the Sox have accumulated for academic reasons needs to be used to address the remaining holes. I agree with everything in this post.
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Post by mandelbro on Aug 7, 2015 12:25:58 GMT -5
Lots of talk about what to do with Miley and the other lefty back of the rotation candidates. I don't that is a pressing situation at all. Miley is signed to a reasonable contract for what he does. The young guys have more to prove. If they make their case we can always move Miley a year from now.
The big question mark here is Buchholz. To recap: you have a reliable 4th/5th starter in Miley. You have an inconsistent 4th starter in Porcello whose pay dictates a spot in the rotation. You have a talented guy in Rodriguez who can be a 3rd starter for the time being and more down the road. You have Buchholz, whose peaks and valleys probably average out to being a 3rd guy on the staff, like he was in 2013. Then you have Johnson and Owens whose outcomes range from AAA material to being worthy of back of the rotation slots. Then there's Wright and Kelly.
In summary, you have eight candidates for the 3-4-5 slots in a successful Sox rotation. Meanwhile, other than Rodriguez taking the next step or Buchholz staying healthy (two plausible outcomes, but that you simply cannot bank on) you have no candidates for the 1-2 slots if you plan on being a contender next year.
So if you put Rodriguez, Porcello, Miley in the rotation, Kelly and Wright in the pen, Owens and Johnson in AAA... where does that leave Buchholz? He is the key. Do you 1) acquire one new starter and roll with Buchholz or 2) accept that you're going to have to make some rash long term decisions to shore up the staff, pick up Clay's option, trade him, and acquire two new starters?
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Post by mandelbro on Jul 24, 2015 21:05:42 GMT -5
Yeah, I thought all the hype for Kemp and the disdain for Grandal were a bit misplaced. Also, Kemp is a lot nearer to the end of his career and Grandal a lot nearer to the beginning. Petco, like it's mirror AL image up the Pacific Coast at Safeco, really distorts offensive performance, to the point that it can be hard to tell what you're looking at. Beltre fell into a black hole in Seattle, only to supernova again when he emerged from under that maritime layer. He had me fooled. Makes me wonder who else on those teams might be hiding in plain sight. And on the flip side, you wonder which of the successful pitchers out there is really a mirage. Every time someone mentions Tyson Ross as a trade target (which happens often) I shudder.
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Post by mandelbro on Jul 24, 2015 10:22:30 GMT -5
The problem is what needs to be done, and what flies in this market, are not one and the same.
Dumping Sandoval/Ramirez is going to get cheaper and cheaper as they get deeper into their contracts and there is less salary to eat. And they might improve from being the worst players at their positions to average, or at least better at different positions. So as bad as it looks now, you've got to lie in the bed you made and bear them out.
In the immediate... trade Koji to a contender for some organizational depth. I like Taz but we've rode the guy hard over the past two years, if someone is hard after him then that would be a trigger worth pulling. Vic and Napoli, shake their hands and cut them loose so they can go sit on the back of bench for a WS contender. Those guys are A+ and I think the goodwill is more valuable than some 24 year old in A ball.
I like Miley. You know he's going show up every start and he's going to be consistently mediocre. He's gonna pitch quickly and act like an angry hick and stay in the game when he's getting shelled. But we have a lot of LHP, so if we could find someone who has a lot of something we really need and needs a reliable back end guy then that trade would be worth exploring.
I would explore trading Javier Guerra before he gets eaten up by more advanced pitching, and Margot if the return is strong enough to dictate it (a cost-controlled front end pitcher in the right age range like Julio Teheran). Devers and Espinoza should not be touched.
I think the organization needs to rethink their total aversion to low value positions. The general thought process that first basemen/low defensive spectrum players and relief pitchers aren't worth developing and should be stiffs off the street is taken too far to the extreme. Sam Travis is the only credible 1B in the system, Pat Light the only reliever.
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Post by mandelbro on Jun 15, 2015 10:50:01 GMT -5
Can anyone give us any scouting info on this young man. 6'4" 204 lbs. and 17 yrs. old. He has pitched 7 innings with 3 hits, 2 BB, 1 R and 13ks. He was scheduled to pitch on Friday and that game was canceled or something. Thank you. Yes! Two totally anonymous guys in the DSL really standing out so far Victor Garcia (RHP ) June 15 1997 6'4", 204 lbs 7.0 IP, 0 ER, 1 R, 13 K, 3 H, 2 BB 0.71 WHIP, 16.71 K/9, 2.57 BB/9 Denyi Reyes (RHP ) Nov 2 1996 6'4" 210 lbs 14.0 IP, 2 ER, 5 R, 14 K, 10 H, 0 BB , 1 HBP 0.71 WHIP, 9.0 K/9, 0.64 BB/9 Been wondering if the SoxProspects intelligentsia knows something we don't
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