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Post by tonyc on Sept 30, 2014 9:33:48 GMT -5
I echo all these thoughts, good to hear more people not wanting to trade Mookie- I had hoped he'd do well enough in the majors this year to make that a less likely outcome. Teams are holding onto prospects, it was stunning to me that the Lester trade did not result in any, but that is the market now. Welcome here Bookie, I too read here for many years before posting this year, this forum does seem more civilized than most- I read the Globe Bruins one but don't post- and commend the staff here.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 28, 2014 11:43:34 GMT -5
I'm pretty much in line with Eric, Ram, Sarasoxer in terms of best starting candidates. I've always felt some people here have been too impatient with Webster, I really like Wright, and Eric like you said, I think long relief and spot start may work well given his versatility, and control and he may do so well it could force a spot in the rotation? Also agree Ranaudo appears a cut below the others, but lets see if there's an uptick with rest. Definitely want Barnes to have more opportunity as a starter before converting him.
Guidas, I agree with your cynicism about Lester- players years later have admitted "it's always about the money"- they are greedy mercenaries- now Cespedes won't commit- and as much as I love baseball I now look forward to hockey because as Brick puts it, that is the ultimate team sport, and even though contracts are getting bigger,staying with the same group is still important to them.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 27, 2014 15:32:14 GMT -5
Love what's going on daily- kids looking good, yet losing enough for a good pick, lately employing the '60 Yankees W.S. strategy- winning huge, then losing close, good for the kids and pitchers stats!
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Post by tonyc on Sept 25, 2014 12:50:23 GMT -5
I understand the ambivalence, nightly I root for the young guys and young starters, then want a vet or vet reliever to blow the lead- best of both worlds. Wonder how likely the draft picture changes between then and now re: differential of several picks/quality in general?
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Post by tonyc on Sept 24, 2014 23:29:58 GMT -5
Sorry you somewhat misunderstood me James. A "speed based" player with power and excellent hit tool, with dominant defense as I worded it is NOT reducing him to speed alone. It merely differentiates his greatest tool- and it was, Morgan stole nearly 700 bases. I can remember that as his dominant tool for years on Houston- a speedy base-stealing, walking, good fielding player, before he shocked the baseball world by adding power in a 6 year prime with the Reds. He continued his speed even at age 39, still going 18-2 in steals.
In terms of Mookie's upside, again please look carefully at my qualifiers' in the statements "he reminds me of a potential etc... but on the downside caution is urged."
I wanted to point out his potential upside, which given his meteoric upside is yet unestablished- aside from his quickness, speed, coordination, athleticism, he can bench press 275lbs- he is short, plays the same position and has unusual power for his size- granted it's WAY early, but these are some unusual physical similarities to Joe. Perhaps I wanted to silence some of the trade chatter, thanks.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 24, 2014 17:53:23 GMT -5
The above post combining Mookie's potential WAR and low salary is how I see things could play out, granted it's early..I'm not trading him for anybody, possibly. He reminds me of a potential Joe Morgan in his prime, one of the most dominating all around speed based players I've ever seen- short, but with so much power and great hit tool the careful pitching elicited walks, after which he stole bases at will, and dominated defensively. Remember, on the downside caution is urged, but his upside is still unestablished and rapidly exploding upward.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 22, 2014 11:40:41 GMT -5
I hope you're right Chris. I don't have the same knowledge that you do for Ramos' likelyhood of being snatched. Eric seems to feel it may be a possibility. Based upon his youth, athleticism, still unestablished ceiling, versus the more cemented limitions of Hassan and Brentz I'd far rather have them be high risk Rule 5 losses than him become a lower risk (say 33% loss). Even if it took losing one of Wilson, Hembree, Kurtz, I'd look into it given the lack of high ceiling outfielders we have- I almost consider him on a par with Coyle.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 21, 2014 12:17:53 GMT -5
Right on Norm. The last paragraph is quite poetic (I write songs and quite appreciate that)!
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Post by tonyc on Sept 21, 2014 11:23:47 GMT -5
I'd keep Ramos ahead of any or perhaps all of the "possible trims" category- love his upside, particularly head to head against Hassan or even Brentz
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Post by tonyc on Sept 21, 2014 10:56:31 GMT -5
Eric,
I've had a theory that teams with a strong bullpen will outperform their projected pythagorean run relationship (2013 Yankees i.e.) as they will capture the wins within reach a higher percent of the time. Have you or anyone else run numbers on that?
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Post by tonyc on Sept 20, 2014 14:45:58 GMT -5
With you Guidas, very excited about him. In fact could there be a sense of irony here: In hindsight many have perceived a mistake of not signing Lester more reasonably earlier (and I've added my own support to the forum staff citing tailing stats at the time- plus the necessity of checking out our young pitching), yet within hours of trading Lester in comes Rodriguez, representing another lefthander not totally unlike him in terms of age progression, velocity, and multiple pitch stuff (mistake corrected?)
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Post by tonyc on Sept 20, 2014 14:18:10 GMT -5
Good thread. You alluded to variability, and that would be my answer, depending on circumstances. Obviously on this site we all would like the high potential young pitchers, and it's great fun to follow the progress of this roster, which has nothing to lose and can throw more of them out there than I can remember in Sox history. However, I recall a much different situation where a very "un-sexy" choice was the correct one made by Dan Duquette in 1999, fitting your "creaky old veteran option." I quite liked his intelligence and, in general his choices, one of which was to correct flaws made in the previous years roster. Given budget limitations, he picked up and tried a large number of fringy players, and as a result had some great value hits- i.e. Troy Oleary, Tim Wakefield, Brian Daubach. One downside, however, was in 1998 a group of these pitchers filling out the bottom of his roster compiled a huge era. Next year he corrected this by acquiring a boring veteran in his last year, Mark Portugal, who ended up with an ERA of about 5.51 and was dumped before the season was over. To the casual fan this represented failure, however, he was a stabilizer from an ERA of nearly double that for some of those back enders, and played his part in a playoff bound team.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 17, 2014 11:36:19 GMT -5
Hilarious Godot,
Reminds me of an evaluators description of early Fernando Valenzuela- "this guy trains on tacos and looks between thirty and sixty but has great movement."
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Post by tonyc on Sept 17, 2014 11:28:52 GMT -5
Regarding Lester, sure in hindsight it looks mistaken. However, in addition to the declining metrics he had, I again refer to an article early in the season where several GMS felt Ben needed to hold off on a long term signing as he had to asess the quality of his multiple pitching prospects. So he deliberately made a lowball offer so that there would not be a response to buy time.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 17, 2014 0:18:21 GMT -5
I still like the other young pitchers better, but actually liked Renaudo's stuff better than some previous games which had better results. Anyone else see it that way? He seemed to throw more curves, and get good movement on them, with some down in the zone, mixed in some changeups, even to righties.. Still threw straight fastballs up in the zone at 91-2 which look very hittable, but I did seem to see more 2 seam movement on some pitches. If he could get an uptick in velocity to first half 2013, there might be something here, but then again there are too many talents that may be better.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 11, 2014 18:13:50 GMT -5
I'm in line with the above posts..Barnes is everything Ranaudo is not- very impressed with his stuff and ceiling. (I like Joe Kelly's stuff and Delarosa and Webster's too, if he ever commands). I've been very underwhelmed by Ranaudo in all his starts, perhaps earlier next year there is a bit more in the tank. Eric, wonderful work as always- you have statistically quantified what I've always observed- it's fun, almost artistry to observe a pitchers individual curve shape. I don't know how far you go back, but I would have been curious to know what Burt Blylevens (one of the best) curveball charted like. Mark Clear a reliever on the Redsox had a very hard looking curve, and even Goose Gossage threw a rare curveball (in between his 100 mph fastball) that looked really hard with nice shape.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 3, 2014 15:27:44 GMT -5
Sarasoxer,
Good to hear someone else who remembers Mike Nagy. As you said, the cats are skinned by multiple factors, so the way I'm viewing it is that a pitcher such as Pedro, or Ruby- whom I like a good deal- will have to have even better stuff than otherwise to compensate for the lack of plane tilt that a taller pitcher has. Too bad the multiple factors involving stuff and command can't be quantified together, otherwise we could commission Eric to do a study on those visa-vis height to prove the point one way or the other.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 3, 2014 13:23:57 GMT -5
I must be overly mesmirized by "the stuff" of a pitcher- because I liked Joe Kelly last night, and I keep holding out hope someday for Allan Webster and was thorougly unimpressed by Anthony Renaudo in terms of fastball velocity, movement, and command of his curveball and changeup. And yet he got the job done. Is there a trend here- note that Renaudo, Owens and (in his minor league career and two starts before arm injury Juan Pena years ago) all seem to outperform their stuff- and are 6'7", 6'7" and 6'5". Meanwhile Kelly is 6'1"- and for that matter Rubby Delarosa is about 6'0 and in the game before the last had a number of pitches at 99 mph- and yet had no strikeouts. Therefore is the height of the pitcher a bigger factor than we credit in terms of two aspects: 1. creating tilt and therfore a smaller hitting plane and 2. Longer limbs and deception.
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Post by tonyc on Sept 1, 2014 13:38:20 GMT -5
Great post, as always Eric (hopefully our gain isn't your health loss, if you check the correlation in studies of sleep to health). As stated earlier, I'd hate to lose Ramos given his high ceiling athleticism and inexperience (remember he was almost as hot as Mookie). Hell, I'd even consider protecting him.
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Post by tonyc on Aug 27, 2014 13:20:30 GMT -5
Soxchamps and Lavarnway,
I have shared your concerns about trading Mookie, particularly within the context of that wonderful Grantland article- I really like Betts, and even when he pops up you can see the batspeed. I would hope they keep him and Castillo both (and Castillo is a great mystery). If they do trade Mookie, ( Ben has shown to be quite shrewd overall) they hopefully get a good return- perhaps not a full return for his huge potential, but one well placed for their needs.
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Post by tonyc on Aug 22, 2014 19:55:35 GMT -5
Thank you Oregon! Granted there are lots of unknowns with both Castillo and Betts currently, but it's quite possible Betts' ceiling may exceed the Cubans and for sure trading him now as was often suggested here would be selling low on a blue chip prospect- something that was not done at the trade deadline for either Lester or Price. Unless blown away, I'd hang onto him, trade others (and for that matter on the rule 5 thread would try to hang onto high ceiling types like Coyle, and even Ramos if possible).
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Post by tonyc on Aug 16, 2014 13:59:39 GMT -5
Good point Amfox,
But an interesting question in the larger scheme of things is whether other factors have increased Baseball competition: Due to population increase, global scouting- Asian Players, excepting Murakami, hadn't played here, and now it's expanded to include Korea, Asia, and Europe more. Has the concentration of Latin players/scouting increased- they were a presence, especially on the Pirates, but I believe it has. Lastly, with the salary explosion since then have the number of overall baseball players globally increased. An essay written probably in the '70's cited some of these factors as part of a rationale to put an asterisk on Babe Ruth's lifetime records as opposed to Hank Aaron playing at a time of greater population and diversity..have things continued to expand since?
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Post by tonyc on Aug 16, 2014 12:59:17 GMT -5
Danr,
I agree this is the strongest minor league system in a long time, but not close to ever, for those who were following the minors around 73- 74- Fred Lynn, Jim Rice, Cecile Cooper, Butch Hobson, Rick Burleson, Ben Oglivie, Juan Beniquez (all but the latter became all-stars, and one HOF) and on the pitching side Lynn Mglothen, John Curtis, Dick Pole, Roger Moret
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Post by tonyc on Aug 14, 2014 17:16:01 GMT -5
Eric,
I agree with your analysis on Henry Ramos, but boy I'll be sweating it if he gets drafted. Despite the lack of walks at this point, really like his tools and ceiling, and power could come down the line.
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Post by tonyc on Aug 13, 2014 12:37:53 GMT -5
Mookie,
If I were to postulate, the deadline is a frenetic and moving target with multiple teams bidding players and the market changes by the moment, hence they probably assessed the most beneficial overall deal and went with it. This is why for instance, they may not have gotten quite the package one would have expected initially for Lester, once Masterson was traded taking out St. Louis, and Price entered the market. Also, they factored in the number of prospects and 40 man picture as well, figuring there was already a wealth of potential in the system as is, and knew they added with the Peavy trade, and perhaps knew the Andrew Miller trade would add more, so the balanced approach they took in the trades as a whole did add prospects, as well as players to help with 2015 and address the power issues- so nice to have Cherington at the helm at this complex time (not Lou Gorman).
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