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Post by Oregon Norm on Dec 11, 2013 19:40:34 GMT -5
A point that needs to be made about Middlebrooks: it won't take all that much in the way of additional contact to put him at or over a slugging pct of .500. Even with the truly lousy sophomore season, his SLG after two years is still at .462. He's got some serious power with just as many home runs as doubles - 64 extra base hits in all. A simple assumption - that the proportion of XBHs stays the same as his average improves - has him at just about .500 if he can get to .274. Even with the poor walk rate, say with an isolated discipline of maybe .50, he's still in comfortable territory for a third baseman. If he can improve on that walk rate, so much the better. He does have value given the clout. The current marketplace attests to that.
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Post by mainesox on Dec 11, 2013 20:30:55 GMT -5
Well, other than all the reports, and quotes from the FO and Farrell explicitly saying that they want him back. Which they say about every free agent like Salty and Ellsbury. There's a difference between saying you'd love to have a guy back on the right deal, and Farrell saying flat out that "[general manager Ben Cherington] is doing the best he can with the two remaining guys, with [Napoli] and [Drew]. We’re going to do anything we can to bring both guys back."
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Post by jmei on Dec 11, 2013 21:03:09 GMT -5
Let's not have the Drew thread bleed over to this one. Please direct all Drew discussion back to that one. Thanks.
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Post by goldenmonkey34 on Dec 11, 2013 22:49:41 GMT -5
Wow, thank god none of you guys are the GM. Matt kemp, seriously? hes been injured like for the past to seasons and will just dig us into the hole we got oursleves in with the spending spree we had two years ago. Middlebrooks is a POWER HITTER. hes not going to have a very high OBP or even average for the most part. Personally he has a lot of potential, hes young, homegrown, super cheap, and is a average-to-above-average fielder. i dont care how he played in the playoffs, theres a reason why GM's barley look at that (unless its a trend over a long period of time) when evaluating players to sign. If he gets his head straights and works with himnself over the winter, he could easily be a 260.-280./300.-335./400.-500. with 25-35+ homeruns. lets actually give the guy a chance before we jump ship on him, because its only been one season that he was still recovery from a wrist injury. Give him until july and if we dont see improvement thats when we should start looking to trade him.
For the future if he pans out, he could either move to 1b or DH once Napoli or ortiz leave (if ortiz retires after this year we could possible move napoli to DH and middlebrooks to 1B) and then have Cechini at 3b since he will probably be ready by then. Leave the nava/gomes platoon alone, since its been working out greatly for us
Sign vets for short terms deals, slowly replace them with inhouse talent. thats what we should be doing
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Post by rjp313jr on Dec 11, 2013 22:54:38 GMT -5
I'd trade WMB for Kemp straight up if they could get Kemp down to 10m a year. At that price it's worth the huge gamble it is, but that's the amount of money LA would have to throw favorite to get anything of value. And I'd only do that because as much as I try I can't figure out how 5% bb and 25%K rates produce a good hitter.
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Post by redsox04071318champs on Dec 11, 2013 23:10:49 GMT -5
I'd trade WMB for Kemp straight up if they could get Kemp down to 10m a year. At that price it's worth the huge gamble it is, but that's the amount of money LA would have to throw favorite to get anything of value. And I'd only do that because as much as I try I can't figure out how 5% bb and 25%K rates produce a good hitter. But really it would be more than a $10 million/year gamble. You lose WMB and have to pay about $10 million/year to sign Drew, so now the gamble would be about $20 million in 2014. I'd pass, take my chances with a Nava/Gomes platoon, and find somebody else in July if that's not working, and I'd take a chance on a 25 year old player who should have his best baseball ahead of him. Perhaps next year WMB's BB% goes up to 7 or 8% and his K% goes down to 20%. It's not out of the realm of probability. I wouldn't give away WMB for an injury riddled player who's most likely never going to be what he once was. Before he blossomed in 2011 Kemp was not a very patient player at the plate either, and at this point if we're looking at power I'd take WMB over an injured Kemp going forward.
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