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Red Sox reportedly re-sign Craig Breslow for $2m
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Post by jmei on Jan 6, 2015 21:35:38 GMT -5
I'll note that the guy who reported it is one of these guys who has claimed to break stories and gotten them wrong before. See here (claimed the Red Sox were going to make a trade to open a 40-man spot for Sandoval; instead, they DFAed Lavarnway) or here (claimed Hamels was close to getting traded to the Dodgers back on December 3), for instance. And if you look at his timeline, you see that a lot of the news he claims to be breaking was first reported elsewhere by more credible sources, but he doesn't credit them and implies that he has his own sources (Gorzelanny's salary, for instance; he's basically reproduced MLBTR but without attributing anything). He's an incredible shady source, but even broken clocks are right twice per day, so we'll see I guess.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 6, 2015 21:51:51 GMT -5
Cubs and A's would seem like good landing spots for Butler. I'd really find it difficult to believe that the Sox would just get nothing in return here. In general, good defensive taxi catchers with options are a pretty valuable commodity.
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Post by James Dunne on Jan 6, 2015 22:02:33 GMT -5
I'll note that the guy who reported it is one of these guys who has claimed to break stories and gotten them wrong before. See here (claimed the Red Sox were going to make a trade to open a 40-man spot for Sandoval; instead, they DFAed Lavarnway) or here (claimed Hamels was close to getting traded to the Dodgers back on December 3), for instance. And if you look at his timeline, you see that a lot of the news he claims to be breaking was first reported elsewhere by more credible sources, but he doesn't credit them and implies that he has his own sources (Gorzelanny's salary, for instance; he's basically reproduced MLBTR but without attributing anything). He's an incredible shady source, but even broken clocks are right twice per day, so we'll see I guess. Good to know. Given that I'll guess he's just throwing the Butler DFA against the wall in case it happens in order to be able to claim that he had it first.
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Post by wcsoxfan on Jan 6, 2015 22:06:28 GMT -5
I'll note that the guy who reported it is one of these guys who has claimed to break stories and gotten them wrong before. See here (claimed the Red Sox were going to make a trade to open a 40-man spot for Sandoval; instead, they DFAed Lavarnway) or here (claimed Hamels was close to getting traded to the Dodgers back on December 3), for instance. And if you look at his timeline, you see that a lot of the news he claims to be breaking was first reported elsewhere by more credible sources, but he doesn't credit them and implies that he has his own sources (Gorzelanny's salary, for instance; he's basically reproduced MLBTR but without attributing anything). He's an incredible shady source, but even broken clocks are right twice per day, so we'll see I guess. Puzzles me as to what kind of person would do this to claim they were the first to report 'Dan Butler was DFA'....Not exactly the type of news to receive praise about. Guess I just don't get the 'it was me first!' reporting going on.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 6, 2015 23:20:43 GMT -5
Red Sox Stats ?@redsoxstats 2m2 minutes ago The Red Sox have DFA Dan Butler to make room for Craig Breslow.
Not sure where Red Sox Stats got his info. No MLB confirmation.
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Post by soxfanatic on Jan 7, 2015 0:11:15 GMT -5
Red Sox Stats ?@redsoxstats 2m2 minutes ago The Red Sox have DFA Dan Butler to make room for Craig Breslow. Not sure where Red Sox Stats got his info. No MLB confirmation. It's officially listed on the Red Sox transaction page now.
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Post by grandsalami on Jan 7, 2015 0:48:11 GMT -5
Red Sox Stats ?@redsoxstats 2m2 minutes ago The Red Sox have DFA Dan Butler to make room for Craig Breslow. Not sure where Red Sox Stats got his info. No MLB confirmation. hmmm... thats a shock
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 7, 2015 1:42:42 GMT -5
Red Sox Stats ?@redsoxstats 2m2 minutes ago The Red Sox have DFA Dan Butler to make room for Craig Breslow. Not sure where Red Sox Stats got his info. No MLB confirmation. hmmm... thats a shock He's posted the confirmation since... Red Sox Stats ?@redsoxstats 1h1 hour ago fwiw mlb has now posted the breslow / butler transactions mlb.mlb.com/mlb/transactions/#month=1&year=2015 … For what it's worth, this twitter stuff is really powerful. I made a reference to Freud in a twitter comment and now one of my 10 followers is Sigmund Freud.
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Post by grandsalami on Jan 7, 2015 1:45:48 GMT -5
No, I know its confirmed... I said its a shock they dfa'd him
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 7, 2015 1:55:52 GMT -5
Ah OK, misinterpreted your intent. Yes I was rather surprised myself, it's somewhat of a super-two gamble on Swihart or an in-season overpay trade. With Blair gone, we're all org. guys from Swihart to Salem and at Salem the catching prospects have only been there half a year. Unless something changes, it will be an ongoing concern.
I'll be really shocked if we don't come out of this with a reasonable lottery ticket.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Jan 7, 2015 7:03:34 GMT -5
Don't think it's all that surprising ... Butler's really only useful for a couple of months until Swihart's ready, and he has essentially zero long-term future with the club, so it's not that big of a deal to cut him loose. As we've demonstrated over pages and pages, there's a case to be made for both Layne and Britton. But signing a reasonable AAA guy to cover the possibility of a pre-ASB emergency injury would probably be a good idea.
I'm surprised they couldn't trade Butler for a useful quasi-prospect to fill out some A or AA roster, but maybe that's coming. Or maybe it's just not worth it.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 7, 2015 7:15:59 GMT -5
Don't think it's all that surprising ... Butler's really only useful for a couple of months until Swihart's ready, and he has essentially zero long-term future with the club, so it's not that big of a deal to cut him loose. As we've demonstrated over pages and pages, there's a case to be made for both Layne and Britton. But signing a reasonable AAA guy to cover the possibility of a pre-ASB emergency injury would probably be a good idea. I'm surprised they couldn't trade Butler for a useful quasi-prospect to fill out some A or AA roster, but maybe that's coming. Or maybe it's just not worth it. Agreed in general but the problem is that signing an AAA catcher wouldn't put him on the 40 man. If there was a small emergency, the Sox would have to cut someone off their 40 man to get him into Boston. That makes Swihart the likely emergency player and starts his clock ticking.
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Post by wskeleton76 on Jan 7, 2015 8:02:00 GMT -5
I expected this coming.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 7, 2015 8:06:32 GMT -5
If Vazquez and Hanigan stay healthy through the all star break and we get a fair trade, it's actually pretty much perfect but, those are big ifs.
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Post by jmei on Jan 7, 2015 8:32:42 GMT -5
Don't think it's all that surprising ... Butler's really only useful for a couple of months until Swihart's ready, and he has essentially zero long-term future with the club, so it's not that big of a deal to cut him loose. As we've demonstrated over pages and pages, there's a case to be made for both Layne and Britton. But signing a reasonable AAA guy to cover the possibility of a pre-ASB emergency injury would probably be a good idea. I'm surprised they couldn't trade Butler for a useful quasi-prospect to fill out some A or AA roster, but maybe that's coming. Or maybe it's just not worth it. Agreed in general but the problem is that signing an AAA catcher wouldn't put him on the 40 man. If there was a small emergency, the Sox would have to cut someone off their 40 man to get him into Boston. That makes Swihart the likely emergency player and starts his clock ticking. I'm less worried about service time, since unless the catcher injury is a season-ending one, they could just option Swihart back down to AAA when the injury is healed. You only need to spend a couple weeks in the minors to get an extra year of free agency, and though the Super 2 cutoff is longer (between 2-3 months of minor league time, IIRC), that's both still avoidable if the injury is a short-term one and also not that big of a deal for a big-market team like the Red Sox. My concern is instead with development time-- if, say, Hanigan gets concussed and needs to miss 10 days, it can't be good for Swihart's development to call him up to the majors and have him sit on the bench 4 out of 5 games. That's why they need another MLB-ready catcher in AAA to guard against the above scenario for at least the first half of the year. Maybe Montz is that guy, or they go outside the organization and add someone on a minor league deal. Here's a list of all the unsigned minor league free agent catchers, if anyone wants to take a look and throw out some names.
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Post by iakovos11 on Jan 7, 2015 8:38:17 GMT -5
Don't think it's all that surprising ... Butler's really only useful for a couple of months until Swihart's ready, and he has essentially zero long-term future with the club, so it's not that big of a deal to cut him loose. As we've demonstrated over pages and pages, there's a case to be made for both Layne and Britton. But signing a reasonable AAA guy to cover the possibility of a pre-ASB emergency injury would probably be a good idea. I'm surprised they couldn't trade Butler for a useful quasi-prospect to fill out some A or AA roster, but maybe that's coming. Or maybe it's just not worth it. You're assuming Swihart is ready in a couple of months. He has some definite work to do, especially with his plate discipline. Maybe something clicks from day 1 this year, but I think that's less likely. He'd most likely be better off - and so would the Sox - if he's refining his skills in Pawtucket until September.
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Post by dirtywater on Jan 7, 2015 9:21:36 GMT -5
Mike Napoli is our emergency catcher in this case! Right ahead of Pablo Sandoval in a pinch.
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Post by mgoetze on Jan 7, 2015 9:31:48 GMT -5
Mike NapoliBrock Holt is our emergency catcher in this case! Right ahead of Pablo Sandoval in a pinch. FYP.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 7, 2015 9:36:45 GMT -5
Don't think it's all that surprising ... Butler's really only useful for a couple of months until Swihart's ready, and he has essentially zero long-term future with the club, so it's not that big of a deal to cut him loose. As we've demonstrated over pages and pages, there's a case to be made for both Layne and Britton. But signing a reasonable AAA guy to cover the possibility of a pre-ASB emergency injury would probably be a good idea. I'm surprised they couldn't trade Butler for a useful quasi-prospect to fill out some A or AA roster, but maybe that's coming. Or maybe it's just not worth it. Agreed in general but the problem is that signing an AAA catcher wouldn't put him on the 40 man. If there was a small emergency, the Sox would have to cut someone off their 40 man to get him into Boston. That makes Swihart the likely emergency player and starts his clock ticking. It's likely that by then that someone is on the 60-day and/or someone has been removed from the roster for other reasons (remember, quite likely that another outfielder gets moved, or Britton or Breslow may not make the team, or something along those lines).
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 7, 2015 9:54:53 GMT -5
Agreed in general but the problem is that signing an AAA catcher wouldn't put him on the 40 man. If there was a small emergency, the Sox would have to cut someone off their 40 man to get him into Boston. That makes Swihart the likely emergency player and starts his clock ticking. I'm less worried about service time, since unless the catcher injury is a season-ending one, they could just option Swihart back down to AAA when the injury is healed. You only need to spend a couple weeks in the minors to get an extra year of free agency, and though the Super 2 cutoff is longer (between 2-3 months of minor league time, IIRC), that's both still avoidable if the injury is a short-term one and also not that big of a deal for a big-market team like the Red Sox. My concern is instead with development time-- if, say, Hanigan gets concussed and needs to miss 10 days, it can't be good for Swihart's development to call him up to the majors and have him sit on the bench 4 out of 5 games. That's why they need another MLB-ready catcher in AAA to guard against the above scenario for at least the first half of the year. Maybe Montz is that guy, or they go outside the organization and add someone on a minor league deal. Here's a list of all the unsigned minor league free agent catchers, if anyone wants to take a look and throw out some names. Actually, depending on when the minor injury happens could have a big impact on when you can recall Swihart because if you send him down and recall him within 30 days, all the time becomes major league service time, even the time at AAA if I'm interpreting the rules correctly. I also think you are understating the impact of super two. It's not just the extra dollars, it's the fact that a two year player has all the financial security of a three year player and therefore, if you are going to extrend him, you need to do that a year earlier. That in turn costs you a year of service because if you are willing to go six total commitment, for example, it's six after two not six after three. That also doesn't include a potential killer, one that GM's try to avoid ever since Ryan Howard's contract extention. How a player looks after two seasons can be drastically different than how a player looks after three seasons, therefore, the six year commitment example becomes a commitment with less information at the team's disposal. Agreed about being able to defer Swihart's super-two but there's a potential small issue there too. The Sox have three catchers that are likely starter quality going into 2016. That means the Sox will likely have to make a decision a year from now which boils down to three options. Are they better off with Swihart and Vazquez plus what they can get for Hanigan or are they better off with Swihart and Hanigan and whatever they can get for Vazquez or else are they better off with Vazquez and Hanigan and whatever they can get for Swihart. Keeping all three isn't likely in the cards. It would be nice if the Sox got a chance to play around with the second hald DL to get a little better look at Swihart to be in a better position to make that decision. JUst my opinion but I see no reason to believe Swihart won't be ready for the majors after super-two day in mid July. He has no glaring weaknesses. That doesn't mean I think he's ready now though. ADD: Also agree with Chris' point that those things seem to have a way of workings themselves out but, I'm not sure that it's wise to go into a season counting on it. Worst case though is that Breslow ends up costing us Butler AND a Britton/Layne. ADD2: Also agree with dirtywater that Napoli is our emergency catcher but only on a one game basis for actually playing. However, if the catcher injury ws short enough that we could get by with one catcher, he makes that somewhat doable. I'm assuming the Holt fix was meant to be humorous.
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Post by Chris Hatfield on Jan 7, 2015 10:07:39 GMT -5
I'm less worried about service time, since unless the catcher injury is a season-ending one, they could just option Swihart back down to AAA when the injury is healed. You only need to spend a couple weeks in the minors to get an extra year of free agency, and though the Super 2 cutoff is longer (between 2-3 months of minor league time, IIRC), that's both still avoidable if the injury is a short-term one and also not that big of a deal for a big-market team like the Red Sox. My concern is instead with development time-- if, say, Hanigan gets concussed and needs to miss 10 days, it can't be good for Swihart's development to call him up to the majors and have him sit on the bench 4 out of 5 games. That's why they need another MLB-ready catcher in AAA to guard against the above scenario for at least the first half of the year. Maybe Montz is that guy, or they go outside the organization and add someone on a minor league deal. Here's a list of all the unsigned minor league free agent catchers, if anyone wants to take a look and throw out some names. Actually, depending on when the minor injury happens could have a big impact on when you can recall Swihart because if you send him down and recall him within 30 days, all the time becomes major league service time, even the time at AAA if I'm interpreting the rules correctly. I also think you are understating the impact of super two. It's not just the extra dollars, it's the fact that a two year player has all the financial security of a three year player and therefore, if you are going to extrend him, you need to do that a year earlier. That in turn costs you a year of service because if you are willing to go six total commitment, for example, it's six after two not six after three. That also doesn't include a potential killer, one that GM's try to avoid ever since Ryan Howard's contract extention. How a player looks after two seasons can be drastically different than how a player looks after three seasons, therefore, the six year commitment example becomes a commitment with less information at the team's disposal. Agreed about being able to defer Swihart's super-two but there's a potential small issue there too. The Sox have three catchers that are likely starter quality going into 2016. That means the Sox will likely have to make a decision a year from now which boils down to three options. Are they better off with Swihart and Vazquez plus what they can get for Hanigan or are they better off with Swihart and Hanigan and whatever they can get for Vazquez or else are they better off with Vazquez and Hanigan and whatever they can get for Swihart. Keeping all three isn't likely in the cards. It would be nice if the Sox got a chance to play around with the second hald DL to get a little better look at Swihart to be in a better position to make that decision. JUst my opinion but I see no reason to believe Swihart won't be ready for the majors after super-two day in mid July. He has no glaring weaknesses. That doesn't mean I think he's ready now though. 1) Not sure where you're getting the 30-day thing. I think you may be misinterpreting the rule that says if a player spends less than 20 days in the minors total for the year, he gets credited with a full year of service time? I could be missing something though. 2) You don't trade Swihart because you didn't get a good look at him in the majors the prior season, and you don't trade Swihart because of the fact that you have Ryan Hanigan. I'm not really sure what your point is there. 3) You're really overestimating how ready Swihart is for the majors, imo. We all know how notoriously slow catcher development is, nevermind one who has to work on his swing from two sides of the plate. I think in an ideal world, Swihart wouldn't see the majors before September.
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Post by brianthetaoist on Jan 7, 2015 10:39:37 GMT -5
The beauty of Hanigan's contract is that he's eminently tradeable ... you really don't need to worry about him long-term. If Swihart's ready, he's ready and Hanigan's traded for whatever. Or either of the other two are traded in a big deal ... anyway, Hanigan's just not a limiting factor going forward.
I think the main downside is that the AAA replacement for Butler as emergency catcher (ie Luke Montz) is very unlikely to have options. So if one (or both) of the catchers gets a few minor injuries requiring 15-day DL stints, it's going to be complicated to bring him up and down if needed. I personally don't think a single call-up will harm Swihart's development (may even help a little bit to get his feet wet at the majors and work with ML-quality coaching), but you definitely don't want to yo-yo him around.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 7, 2015 12:15:11 GMT -5
Reply to Chris:
1. I believe that there's a rule that says if you yo-yo a player and there's less than thirty days between when you sent him down and when you recall him that the time spent down goes towards ML time. I could be wrong though, technicalities are better left for people that know far more than me. Even so, at minimum, whatever time he spends in the first half in Boston will have to be accounted for when they call him up in the second half.
2. Agree but we will have to make a decision and it would be the best case if we had maximum knowledge. In the best case, where both Vazquez and Swihart are everything that we hope that they can be, there's a higher likelihood that we will trade one or the other rather than having them both be part timers. If that's the case, I personally think we'll end up with Swihart and Hanigan but that's just speculation. We're not going to end up with all three and keeping Hanigan as the backup would yield a higher trade return and allow Swihart or Vazquez full time duty. I'm not someone that thinks Swihart will become a part time third baseman part time catcher.
3. I don't think so, his defense is pretty darn good now and even if his bat was a little delayed, he'll be ready enough by July. Of course, if he spent one or two more years in Pawtucket, he'd be better but there's a break even point and I think that's not all that far off. I don't think though that the Sox will exceed the super-two cutoff days no matter when he's ready. In an ideal world, the Sox will be in a position to get a look see in the second half, even if it's just 2-3 weeks plus the September callup. His readiness state is of course debatable and I don't find the logic that says it'll take a year at Paw. to be without merit either.
ADD: Regarding pitch framing which is an important consideration here. The general public can't know anything about minor league catchers pitch framing capabilities. On the other hand, I'd be willing to bet that the Red Sox have proprietary data on their upper level minor league catchers that exceeds what is available to the general public for major league catchers. We don't know, but the Sox do.
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Post by The Town Sports Cards on Jan 7, 2015 14:02:46 GMT -5
I just don't really get DFA'ing Butler unless you either plan on signing someone later on after trading/releasing someone off the 40 man (Victorino/Craig for trades, Britton for releasing), or are fairly certain no one claims Butler (likely, but not impossible that someone wants him as their #3 catcher). My biggest concern is it's mid-April and Hanigan just hit the 15 day DL, who is your backup catcher? You're going to call up Swihart to sit on the bench for 10-12 games? Napoli/Holt/Some other non-catcher becomes your backup and you play Vazquez 15 days straight with no rest? Or you DFA someone to add Montz, Butler or whoever is in AAA? It's not an unlikely scenario and you do need a contingency for something like that. What if Swihart struggles this year a la Cecchini in 2014? Now you're gonna call up a struggling rookie catcher Mid-Year because you have no other options?
I guess my hope is the Sox are fairly certain no one will claim Butler, he goes to AAA, and either he, Montz, or some other Quad-A catcher gets added to the 40 man in the Spring after a 60 day-DL injury or a trade/release.
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Post by philsbosoxfan on Jan 7, 2015 14:43:26 GMT -5
It's fantasy but from BP (coincidentally posted): Baseball Prospectus ?@baseballpro 1h1 hour ago Getting to Know: Catcher Prospects - @cdgoldstein on Blake Swihart, Andrew Susac, Austin Hedges, and others www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=25302 … Blake Swihart, Red Sox He won’t start the year in the big leagues, but Swihart is the most worthy of “best fantasy catching prospect for 2015.” He’s close enough to the majors that a strong start from him coupled with non-production or injury to Christian Vazquez could result in playing time, and he’s talented enough not to relinquish a huge portion of that playing time. A switch-hitter, Swihart hasn’t hit below .290 since 2012, and packs enough pop to project double-digit home runs over the course of a full season. Vazquez is more than a stopgap to overcome during 2015, but Swihart is the future behind the plate in Boston. That future won’t make an appearance ‘til the second half, if the Sox can help it, though.Interesting last sentence which returns us to the Butler decision.
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